A Death in Valencia (7 page)

Cámara pulled out his packet of Ducados and gave one to Vicent.

‘Put your name on it as well,' Vicent said.

‘Thanks.'

Instinctively, Cámara reached into his pocket to feel for some money.

‘No, come on,' Vicent said, putting his hand on his arm to stop him. ‘You've got enough to be thinking about.'

They turned away from the destroyed block of flats and started strolling down towards the bar. Some of the neighbours walking past greeted Cámara with sad, sympathetic smiles.

‘There's a meeting this evening at ten o'clock,' Vicent said. ‘Local residents–to talk about the situation. There's a couple of lawyers involved. Trying to nail down who's responsible for all this, and what they're going to do about the other buildings here. I mean, if it can happen to one, it could happen to some of the others. Probably even more likely now–structural damage. Not just from the metro work, but from the collapse of your place. Must have weakened the buildings next door.'

Cámara nodded silently as they walked along, stepping to one side every now and again to let people pass along the narrow, uneven pavement.

‘And then there's the problem with the sewerage–not connecting the street up properly,' Vicent went on. ‘The paper says the construction company got paid for the job years back, but never actually did it. So we've all been floating on our own shit for years. That's got to have something to do with it. Places rotting from the bottom up. Someone's got to take the blame for that. They've stopped the metro work for the time being, but they'll be wanting to start again as soon as possible. Working through the night again. All those vibrations can't be good. We won't know what's keeping us from sleeping–the noise from the machinery or wondering if we'll wake up with a ton of masonry on our heads.'

They stopped at the corner, hovering around the door to the bar. A television crew had arrived, with a handful of men in light summer suits. At the centre of the group stood a woman with a heavily made-up leathery face, her hair shaped into a black bouffant, and oversized shoulder pads in her lime green jacket. Emilia Delgado, the mayoress herself, had come to inspect.

‘Looks like the cavalry's arrived,' Vicent said. ‘Oh, and they've announced the Pope is swinging round when he's here–to bless the rubble.'

‘Thoughtful of him.'

Cámara scanned the faces, looking for Javier Flores, Emilia's right-hand man. He was usually easy to spot, with his clashing dress sense, but he seemed to be absent. Cámara gave a sigh of relief; he could do without Flores's sneering grin on a day like this.

‘That's the new one,' Vicent said, nodding at the group of journalists and politicians.

Cámara saw that the TV crew was focusing on a second politician hovering next to Emilia as the group looked for the best place to do a piece to camera. The man's dress style was clearly one up from Flores; he'd opted for a well-cut grey suit with a black tie. He was tall and well built, and although he was a few years older than Cámara, perhaps close to fifty, his face was smooth and shiny, as though he'd just shaved. He was looking down at Emilia over a crooked nose with slightly dreamy, glassy eyes. Emilia appeared to be briefing him for the interview he was about to give the local TV station, Canal 9.

‘New one?' Cámara asked.

‘New councillor in charge of building projects,' Vicent explained. ‘Mezquita. Only been in the job for a couple of months. And now he's got to wriggle his way out of this mess. But there's something non-stick about him. Can't see it making him sweat too much.'

‘What happened to his predecessor?'

‘You really don't follow the news, do you?' Vicent said, rubbing the grey stubble on his cheek. ‘García Ramos. Big scandal. The guy was fucking the wife of the Valencia goalkeeper. I tell you–they can steal as much as they like, this lot, and no one bats an eyelid. But start messing with the wife of a football player and you're finished. No matter how powerful your friends are.'

Mezquita had started the interview by this point, and they could hear him talking in a slow but assured fashion about all the measures they were taking to ensure nothing like this ever happened again, and that every effort was being made to rehouse those who had lost their homes.

‘Will there be any legal action taken over what has happened?' the interviewer asked tamely.

‘An inquest will be held in due course and in the proper way,' Mezquita purred.

Cámara's eyes wandered back to Emilia: she rarely gave interviews herself, preferring her team of men to do them for her. It was all part of an image she liked to project of herself as a sort of high priestess overseeing the affairs of the city–an icon or a goddess. All the more reason why the former cabaret singer had never got married.

Emilia caught sight of the two of them watching her from the other side of the street, and gave them a professional smile. Then she did a double take: there was something familiar about one of them. Yes, it was Cámara, the policeman who had caused them so much trouble with the Blanco case.

The smile dropped as she turned away. Cámara shrugged and ducked into the bar. Vicent followed after him, walked over to the beer tap and started pouring them a couple of
cañas
.

‘
Salud
,' he said as he raised his glass.

‘Cheers.'

The offices of the department of
Urbanismo
were about to close for lunch by the time he arrived, wondering about finding someone who could fill him in on rehousing possibilities, and whether he could make a claim for compensation. Eventually, after queuing twice for the wrong desk, he was hurriedly told that they were aware of the problem and were working on a solution for the remaining residents of his former block of flats. They took his name and mobile phone number, and promised to call when they had news. But in the meantime, if he had friends or family who could put him up…

Back outside the heat was sticky and intense. He'd have to get some new clothes; all he had was what he was standing in, and his shirt was feeling stale and limp.

His phone rang: it was Almudena.

‘Have you eaten yet?'

‘No.'

‘Good. I'm taking you out. And then we'll go shopping. You're going to need a whole new wardrobe.'

They met outside the post office, and she took him to a salad buffet bar, filled with office workers trying to eat themselves into better health by piling their plates high with lettuce leaves and rocket doused in creamy dressings. Cámara fancied a hamburger, something heavy and greasy to soak up the brandy and create a sense of weight in him as a counter to the light-headedness he had felt since that morning. But they didn't have anything like that, so he settled for chicken pasta and some wholegrain rice, washed down with peach juice.

It felt odd being with her like this, having slept in her bed, and acting as though nothing had happened over the previous year, as though they had still been lovers all this while. Yet the last time he had seen her before this she had been gripped tightly in the arms of a killer pressing a gun to her head and threatening to shoot. Had she ever got over that? Was the shock still coursing through her in some hidden, more secret parts? He wanted to ask, but his own current state barely allowed room to discuss another's anguish.

So much had remained unsaid between them. The relationship had ended in part because she was having problems conceiving. At the time she had hinted the fault was his, yet he had discovered subsequently with another woman that he wasn't infertile at all. He shuddered at the thought of telling her now; she wasn't part of his life. Or at least hadn't been until she'd scooped him up from the pavement. And what about the new guy? Was she trying to have a baby with him?

‘We can start at El Corte Inglés,' she said. ‘It's just round the corner.'

Of course, being told by a woman you felt on the brink of falling in love with that she'd aborted your child wasn't the best way to discover you were, in fact, capable of having children. He still felt a smoking anger about it even now, a year later. But that had been between him and Alicia, nothing to do with Almudena.

For the time being he should remain silent, and do what he did best: watch and see what happened.

On Almudena's advice, at the department store he bought a sponge bag with essentials, two triple packs of stripy boxer shorts, some thin summer socks, spare shoes, leather sandals and flip-flops. A couple of short-sleeved white shirts were on special offer. At Zara, he picked up some light cotton trousers–one pair blue, the other grey. He would have bought linen ones, but he was thinking more about work clothes than anything else, and tempting though it was in the summer heat to buy only shorts and T-shirts, part of him knew that he had to put some effort into appearing like a chief inspector. At least for now.

Here he was, he thought to himself, a man whose house had fallen down, taking most of his possessions with it, his neighbour and her little son–a boy he had felt closer to than he had cared to admit–dead. And yet he sensed a curious, if slightly unreal, calm. No shaking, no panic, no short, shallow breathing. Yes, he felt tired, and would happily have given up the mundane task of finding new clothes to wear in favour of sitting down somewhere, lying back, perhaps helping himself to another brandy. But the crash, the stress, the sense of loss and lack of direction had come before the disaster of his house falling down. Now that he was facing a real crisis, he might possibly start to get on with things again.

He grabbed another couple of shirts from the rack without trying them on, and went to the cash register to pay. He checked the time from the watch on the checkout man's wrist: there were probably still a few minutes before Susana and Tomás's funeral, and he could make it if he rushed. But the weight of Almudena's presence, combined with a growing leaden sensation in his body, was temporarily depriving him of the energy and decisiveness needed to get there. At that moment he felt like a dead leaf being blown about by a cold, cutting wind, a man no longer in charge of his own movements. Almudena stepped outside to wait for him in the dying evening light.

‘You can stay at my place again tonight,' she said when he emerged on to the street. ‘Don't tell me you've already arranged to go somewhere else. I know you too well.'

‘Are you sure that won't be a problem?'

She ignored the question, and pushed her hand down into her handbag, before bringing out a package for him.

‘Here,' she said. ‘A present.'

He unwrapped the paper to find an iPod underneath.

‘For your new flamenco collection,' she said. ‘To start again. You'll need a computer for it as well, to download songs. But we can use my one at home for now.'

Cámara smiled.

‘You'll have to show me how it works,' he said.

‘You're not an old man yet,' she said. ‘No matter how much you tell yourself you are.'

Back at her flat, he had a long, cold shower, taking advantage of the momentary coolness to try on some of the new clothes before the humidity stuck them to his skin. She walked in as he was pulling on a pair of trousers.

‘They suit you,' she said. ‘The boxers, I mean. Colourful. More fun. Make you look younger.'

He stopped.

‘Look, Almudena.'

She reached over and placed her hand on his cheek, then let it fall slowly, drawing her fingers over his exposed neck, till it rested on his chest, circling her thumb in the hairs around his nipple.

‘I've been making some margaritas while you were in the shower. Come into the living room. We can drink them there.'

Wednesday 8th July

He woke up on the sofa. It was already hot, and he felt the blood pulsing in his thighs, a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. He placed his hand down between his legs and felt the frustrated stiffness of his erection. No, this time he had to allow his head and heart to make the decisions. He had done the right thing.

It was curiously quiet outside. In the absence of traffic he could even hear birdsong coming from the acacia trees. Should he get up now? Perhaps he could wash and dress before she'd even woken up. He checked the time on his phone, and sighed. Past eight o'clock. Her regular morning routine would have already kicked off. At least, though, he'd got somewhere to sleep for another night. Even if he'd refused to pay the price that she'd been asking. The margaritas had slipped down easily enough. Things had only got more complicated after she started kissing him. Or at least five or ten minutes after she'd started kissing him, when she'd moved on to taking off their clothes.

The door opened and Almudena stood there with her hair in a towel, wearing a thin white cotton dressing gown through which the shadow of her sex was partially visible. The hardness in her eyes, with which he had once been so familiar, had returned, as if to reproach him for what he had turned down the night before. This could have been yours again, they said.

‘The shower's free,' she said out loud. ‘There's still some hot water. I've got to leave in five minutes.'

He waited for her to go before getting up. There was no point displaying the weakness in his resolve.

She was already standing by the door with the key in her hand, as if about to walk out, when he emerged, drying his hair with the hand towel she'd left for him by the sink.

‘Esteban's coming back today,' she said.

He nodded.

‘He called. Catching a different flight. Says he doesn't want to miss the Pope's visit.'

Cámara tried, but failed, to stifle a laugh.

‘You mean he's…'

‘You'll have to go,' she said.

Trying to stop just made it worse.

‘Did you hear me?' she yelled over his guffaws.

‘Yes, yes.' Cámara wiped away the tears from his eyes. ‘Of course. Didn't realise he was a believer.'

She swung the door open out on to the stairwell.

‘Fuck you.'

The laughing stopped.

‘Yes,' he said, more seriously. ‘Fuck me.'

 

Now he was a homeless policeman investigating the murder of a man who had been in danger of losing his own home. There was a curious symmetry to it, one that he wasn't sure he appreciated.

He placed his bags down in a corner of the office and stared out of the window at the brick facades of the tower blocks opposite. That was all he had: a few shopping bags with a couple of changes of clothes, and some dirty washing. He'd forgotten to buy a new charger for his phone the previous day, and the battery had gone dead. Perhaps he'd pop out before lunch to get a new one. With that, his wallet and his police badge, he'd be pretty complete. At least to survive for the next few days.

He wondered about digging out an old camp bed he'd used to sleep here a couple of times, when they'd had to work through the night, catching a couple of hours before dawn. It had made his back ache, he remembered. But it might do for a few days. A week if necessary. He'd have to ask Torres if he knew where they'd put it.

But Torres wasn't there. Nor was anyone by the looks of it. Other offices along the corridor were empty.

Cámara pottered around for a few minutes, pouring himself some bitter, frothy coffee from the new machine that had finally been installed, reading notices on the walls. There'd been a shoot-out at an immigrants' house on the Avenida Burjasot. Two black Africans had been killed and another had died of his injuries after jumping out of the fourth-floor window. Survivors of the attack talked of white men bursting through the door, shouting at them in what might have been Russian accents. But they weren't sure.

Then there was a new wife-murder. A former soldier this time, who had managed to hang on to his service weapon, and then used it on his wife and their two children before making a dash for it. For some reason he hadn't used the pistol on himself afterwards–which was the more common pattern, especially when military men were involved. Eventually the soldier had been located at the house of his brother, who had also been armed. The two of them held out for over five hours before handing themselves in. Not that they would have had a chance if they'd insisted on fighting it out, Cámara thought to himself, especially when he saw that his old mate Enric Beltrán, a sharpshooter now back in the GEO special forces, was part of the emergency team that surrounded the flat. In tight circumstances you could rely on Beltrán's sharp eye and steady trigger finger, as he'd learned himself.

So this was his life. Sorting out the mess, trying to pick a line, to find a meaning–a coherence–in the chaos. Other people's chaos.

It was time to find Ramón the fisherman.

There was a shout–a gruff, familiar, if unexpected voice.

‘We've been calling you all fucking morning.'

He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Pardo without a suit.

‘The battery's dead,' he said. ‘I still haven't—'

‘Get into the conference room, like all the others,' Pardo barked. ‘Now. The whole of
Homicidios
has been ordered to report. Emergency meeting.'

‘What's it about?'

‘You'll find out soon enough.'