A Death in Valencia (16 page)

Cámara braced himself against the heat and set off, heading deeper into El Cabanyal. He glanced at the clock on his mobile phone: there was just enough time for him to check out something else.

The public sports club was a ten-minute walk away, but in the glare of the sun it felt as though the pavement was sticking to his feet, clawing at him to stay and melt into the earth. Ignoring it as best he could, he zigzagged his way through the side streets, on to the main road.

Eventually he found the large, deep-red brick building and crossed over to the gated entrance, passing a couple of open-air basketball courts before he found the shelter of the porch. The door was open and he stepped inside.

A girl at the front desk pointed him in the direction of the
trinquete
–the
pelota
court–past the changing rooms and towards the back, taking up one whole side of the building.

Cámara poked his head through the open door and looked out on to a white rectangular chamber about ten metres wide and fifty metres long. A net, drooping in the middle, was slung at around head height, like some kind of afterthought. The steps along one side of the court indicated where the spectators sat, forming part of the actual playing area; if the ball fell among them they simply allowed it to bounce down through their feet back to where the players were standing and the game carried on.

Cámara had seen
pelota
on local television often enough, the players dressed in white trousers, smacking the ball with ungloved hands from one end to the other. Usually there were two players on either side, but it could be played as a singles game as well; you often saw them with bandages wrapped around their hardened, swollen fingers. And it was mostly played in courts like this, although occasionally games took place in the street, the traditional location for
pelota
.

He remembered chancing on a match one Sunday afternoon in a side street just around the corner from the flat. It was around midday, a couple of hours or so before lunch, and he was taking a stroll. Where had he been going? He couldn't recall. It was as if all memories of his life there were seeping from his mind and getting lost.

He stared out at the long empty court, an awareness of his homelessness striking him like a blow to the backs of the knees. He shut his eyes. It wasn't that he forgot about it: the experience was burnt into him like the branding on an animal's rump. But he distracted himself from it–with the investigation, a visit to the brothel, a chance dinner with Alicia. He'd thrown himself into that, he realised now, not just because of the emotion of seeing her again, but because it gave him another opportunity to block out the pressing issue of where he should live. Another night sorted, a hotel bed, perhaps with Alicia by his side.

Except that it hadn't turned out that way. Was she still in the city, or had she gone back to Madrid already? He imagined her somewhere in the centre of town, arranging to interview people, sitting in her flat with a laptop computer, writing out her notes. She might still be here, close by, close to him. Perhaps he could call her. A call he knew he would never make, but which briefly took form in his mind. Her voice on the other end of the line. Yes, I'd been thinking about you as well. I really enjoyed…

He sat down on the steps at the side of the court. His fingers were already searching in his pocket for the plastic-wrapped ball of dope nestling in the heat of his groin. Absent-mindedly, he found a cigarette, pulled it to his mouth, licked it along the edge and then started to pull it apart, making sure the tobacco fell into the well in the palm of his hand. Then he unwrapped the skunk and placed a large pinch of it into the tobacco and started mixing them together with his fingertips, forming the dried leaves into a sausage shape. He placed a cigarette paper on top, flipped it over like a pancake, then rolled it into a joint, slipping in a piece of rolled cardboard torn from the cigarette packet to act as a makeshift filter.

Pulling out a lighter, he flared the joint into life and inhaled deeply, glancing up with a frown to check for any smoke detectors. There were none, and with a nod of approval he noticed that large windows at the top of the court were open; no one would be able to tell someone had been smoking in here, he told himself.

The skunk worked its way from his lungs into his blood. First a welcome chill as his blood pressure dropped, a slight sense of nausea which he did his best to ignore, and then the dizzying rush as he closed his eyes and the weight seemed to fall away from his body.

It was enough.

He stubbed the joint out on the back of the step while it was still only half-smoked. The damage was done, but there was still time to limit it.

He got up and stepped back into the corridor. It was black in comparison to the brightness of the court, and he stumbled and swayed for a couple of seconds.

Faces smiled and grimaced out at him from the walls. He stopped and looked. Photographs from previous
pelota
teams that had played here over the years. 1997. No, not that one. He shook his head, calling up wakefulness from somewhere as the reason for his coming here began to rise up and take hold, only to slip from his grasp.

No. Further back. Other years.

1983.

He focused on a group of boys in their late teens, wearing the long-sleeved outfit of the
pelota
player, hair flowing down almost to their shoulders. The Socialists of Felipe González had already been in power for a year by then.

But no. Further back.

1979. The faces glared at him. No.

1978. No.

1977.

There.

A flash of red hair caught his drifting eye. He looked down at the name. Yes. Pep Roures was younger back then, but the future creator of so many well-appreciated paellas was recognisable, his features slimmer, his body longer, it seemed. Lucía had been telling the truth about that: he had played
pelota
here.

He tried to look into the boy's face. Was there some part of Roures back then that knew how he would die, as though his destiny had been programmed at birth? Would he, Cámara, be able to see it in his eyes through the lens of this thirty-year-old photograph?

He saw nothing. Just the serious, self-conscious expression of a red-haired teenager, with thoughts of little more than girls and
pelota
.

He turned away, but as he did so he knew at once he had to look again at the photo; there was something else there he needed to see.

Roures was in a group of three other boys: two at the front and Roures with another boy at the back. He checked their faces but didn't recognise any of them.

He shook his head again. The dope was swelling inside him like the body of a rotting fish and he was struggling to register what his eyes were seeing.

He glanced down at the names of the four boys typed on a white card underneath the photo. There was Roures's name again, jumping out at him and blocking out the others. But he forced himself to read, first one, then another, then…

Clarity hovered around him like a fly. He read the fourth name once, twice, then a third time before looking up at the face to whom it belonged.

It had changed over the years, but yes, yes, he could see it now.

It was the last person he expected to find.

The traffic had been cut off along Avenida Reino de Valencia and crowds were pressed tight in around the top of his street. Cámara nudged his way through as best he could. A fleet of police vans was parked up on the far side of the pavement, while members of the
Policía Nacional
had taken up positions at the front of the throng, holding people back from what might otherwise turn into a stampede. Over five thousand officers had been drafted in for the papal visit, many bussed over from other cities to make up the numbers. High over their heads two police helicopters flew in wide, slow circles, cameras trained on the heaving mass below.

Yellow-and-white flags fluttered everywhere, clutched in little girls' hands, used as a pin for one woman's hair bun, waved high in the air by a group of smartly dressed teenagers, climbing a lamp post in their enthusiasm as they tried to catch a better glimpse.

Across the street a
Policía Local
was angrily pulling porn magazines down from the display of a newsagent who'd defied the temporary ban on public images of naked people during the Pope's stay in the city. The newsagent shouted back at the policeman, waving his own red, yellow and purple Republican flag in his face. A small act of defiance which would only serve to increase his chances of getting a fine.

Cámara pushed his way through till he got to the corner of Vicent's bar. Showing his badge, he was let through the cordon and into the inner group of dignitaries, security men and residents of the street who were allowed to be this much closer.

The block of flats had fallen down so soon before his arrival that the Pope, or someone in his team, had decided it would be a good idea for him to make time in his schedule to come and visit the scene of the city's recent tragedy. Not to have done so, Cámara pondered, would have looked bad, uncaring. So the Pope was about to show up, to say a few prayers and throw some drops of magic water on a pile of rubble that had once been his home. And home to Susana and Tomás.

This was the latent anarchist in him, he thought, years of being brought up by an active member of the once-banned CNT union. Hilario would be proud of him standing there, stoned and silently swearing at the Pope, so close to where the Bishop of Rome was about to appear. This was nothing more than public relations. So far nothing had been done in the wake of the building's collapse four days earlier, no responsibility admitted, no charges brought for criminal negligence. Emilia posed for the photos but you didn't see her actually talking to any of people affected by this, not even to Susana and Tomás's relatives. The Pope's hosts–the smiling officials forgetting for the moment while the television cameras were switched off that this was supposed to be a solemn occasion, and that frowns and tears were more appropriate–were happy to use the pageantry of his visit to cover up for the fact that no one was going down for what had happened.

At the far end a sudden buzz of excitement was gripping the crowds; they were looking to the side, along the length of an adjacent street, cheering and stretching their necks to see. The Pope was pulling up in his Popemobile, complete with sixteen-vehicle entourage, and would soon be stepping out and walking towards them.

A smaller group of people was standing next to the pile of rubble. Emilia Delgado was there, wearing a dark blue summer suit with large shoulder pads and gold nugget-like earrings. In her hand swung her patent leather handbag, brushing backwards and forwards over her knee as she stood waiting for the Pope to arrive and to welcome him to the site of the accident. She wasn't happy doing this, he could tell. Far better to use the Pope's visit to showcase all the recent advances in the city: the new museums, the America's Cup port. Training the world's cameras on this scene of destruction and ineptitude had not been part of the grand scheme. But there was no avoiding it.

She looked at her watch a couple of times, double-checking on some detail of security with a man with sunglasses and a wire in his ear who was standing close by. Cámara didn't recognise him; doubtless the Town Hall was mixing its own men in with those of the
Policía Nacional
. They'd be lucky if the two security bodies didn't start shooting at each other.

Behind Emilia and her entourage he caught sight of Esperanza, his neighbour. She may have been made homeless, but the old
beata
wasn't going to give up a chance like this to meet Christ's representative on Earth in the flesh.

Doubtless Esperanza would be promised a beautiful home in the next life in exchange for the cramped, rotting one she'd had to put up with in this. That would make her happy, probably speed her up a bit in her sad shuffle towards death.

The hullabaloo at the other end was reaching a crescendo. Cámara found a corner from which he had a relatively clear view of the street and the ceremony that was about to take place in front of his old home. So much had happened in the past few days that he struggled to remember his former life in the space up there that had once been his. Not that he could ever have imagined that one day some old man with a stiff walk, wearing a white frock and bright red shoes, would come strolling down here and pray in front of it while millions watched from around the globe.

He took a deep breath and looked up into the cloudless sky. The humming inside his skull hadn't abated, although the coffee he'd swallowed hot and whole on his way over was helping to bring back a certain sharpness. He still felt dislocated from himself in some way.

A flash from the other side of the street caught his eye and he looked up. Someone was opening a window from Vicent's bar, and it had reflected the sun on him for a second. But a breeze blew the window wider open than intended and it swung out until it rested almost flat against the outside wall of the building. The reflection of a group of people came into focus: a middle-aged woman with a cloth hat and sunglasses staring down the street with open mouth in anticipation of the Pope's imminent arrival; a tall thin young man wearing a white-and-yellow T-shirt over sunburnt skin speaking into a phone, watching the television cameras closely to see if he could appear in one; a man in his forties, the only one not concentrating on events further down the street, with a knotted, angry look in his eye. The glass in the window wasn't entirely flat, so the image was distorted slightly, but it seemed as if the man were staring back at him with a cynical sneer, his shoulders rounded with self-imposed stress, a shadow around his chin where he hadn't shaved that morning, grey-brown bags under his eyes. He looked as though he were there under duress; not a believer, but someone who had come simply to leer arrogantly, as though searching for confirmation of his superiority by watching others forget themselves in the emotion of some meaningless ritual.

The Pope arrived, and all attention was directed on to him. Emilia, at the head of the welcoming committee, took a step towards him and curtseyed, kissing the holy hand, then backed away, beckoning the Pope to come forward and see for himself the scene of the collapsed block of flats. They exchanged a few words, a few other councillors bowed and kissed before him, and then the man in white was introduced to Esperanza. Even from where he was standing, thirty or forty metres away, Cámara could see the tears forming in her eyes. This made it worth it, this made losing her home and neighbours worth every moment. She would have eaten her own tit just to be here.

Neither the Pope nor the Town Hall people were keen for this to go on for too long. A few words were said in the direction of the rubble, the Pope held up his hands as though in supplication, a couple of priests on either side of him waved some incense burners, and that was pretty much it. With a smile the Pope turned around to face the thousands of people crammed into the street to see him. The ritual cleansing was over: no more tears; they could get back to the job of adoring his person now.

Cheers went up and Cámara was jostled as a middle-aged woman on one side and a young boy with a T-shirt in the Vatican colours on the other jumped up and down for joy, crashing into him as they lost their balance. They were so happy.

From the corner of his eye, Cámara could see that the cynic reflected in the window opposite was also being buffeted by the crowds around him.

Gradually, however, as the initial excitement abated, and the bodies stopped jostling so much, he began to see. And the sense of dislocation within him simultaneously both intensified and faded.

How could he not have recognised his own reflection?

He stood stock still, staring in disbelief at the form he had been so dismissive of only moments before. Everything he had seen was true. That was who he had become: a snarling, judgemental, unforgiving shape, so wrapped up in his own distress that it had cut him off both from people around him and from himself–his truer self. For this wasn't him, this wasn't the person he knew he could be. It was a monster that had taken control.

He looked down at the ground, gathering himself, breathing slowly and calmly, feeling the air inside him as though for the first time, and then looked up again at the window. Someone had moved it, and now, instead of seeing himself, he saw a man further down the street. A tall man wearing a light grey suit, gazing out with a devoted stare at the Pope as the pontiff moved away from the empty space where Cámara's home had once been, and started to walk over to greet members of the crowd.

The man in the suit smiled.

Cámara smiled.

It was time he spoke to Rafael Mezquita.