At Close Quarters (27 page)

‘No!’ he said decisively, because he knew what he couldn’t do.

He rose from the bed, picked up the torn piece of paper and stuck it together with tape. He wasn’t proud of what he was doing. On the contrary, it was with resigned exasperation, as he was aware of the burdens of his character, that he understood he wouldn’t be able to live with Marina if this shadow got between them. However, neither did he know how to tell her or confront Gabriela with the notice and ask her why she had lied, where she had been when Olmedo died, what she had done during that hour she was supposed to have spent with him.

The only solution was to go to the detective. He was a quiet guy for his trade, and he had barely questioned him enough to confirm what Marina had said about him. But Samuel remembered him well, a tall calm person who waited patiently for his answers. Neither had Samuel forgotten his questions or the way he’d phrased them. Because he did not put you on the spot like a priest or a lawyer, but asked things in the manner of a doctor who won’t give a diagnosis before he has all the information and cannot but sympathise with the patient. Perhaps the detective knew how to solve the conflict in such a way that not everything would be lost. Samuel must have his number somewhere.

It didn’t take long to find it. He identified himself and asked if they could meet to have a word.

The detective received him in a flat that seemed to be both his house and his office. Samuel had crossed his assistant downstairs.

‘Why are you coming to talk to me, when a few days ago you fired me?’ the detective asked when they sat down. But he didn’t sound anxious or hurt, and neither did he seem to be bracing himself for a lie; he simply showed the same curiosity Samuel had noticed the first time.

‘Oh, it’s not Marina who … She doesn’t know I’m here.’

‘And you?’ he asked, but without curiosity, as if he knew what was coming, ‘Why?’

‘For the same reason she hired you.’

‘You mean you don’t believe it was suicide either. And you want me to find out who shot him.’

‘Not exactly,’ he replied. Then he thought for a few seconds before adding: ‘To find out if one person in particular …’

‘Gabriela, right?’

‘How do you know?’

‘Someone saw her go into Olmedo’s flat that evening. At the time she’d said she was with you.’

‘It was a lie.’

‘But you backed her up.’

‘It was a lie,’ he repeated. ‘Gabriela asked me to say that just in case the police wanted to know about her relationship with Camilo. She told me that, when someone commits suicide, everyone takes a good look around wondering who might have pushed him over the edge. She was alone at home and that might cause trouble. She told me she didn’t have the strength to answer any questions, to explain. Because it wasn’t only Camilo who had just died; her son had died a few months ago.’

‘And you believed her.’

‘Why not? There was no reason not to.’

‘Of course not,’ said Cupido. ‘Until someone claimed they had seen her going into his place that evening.’

Samuel listened attentively, but no longer in surprise, as if his capacity for astonishment had been depleted when he’d discovered the notice.

‘Then, there is no doubt, is there?’

‘No. If she lied about her whereabouts, it’s because she had good reason to lie.’

‘You mean that even if I don’t implicate her someone else might.’

‘That person won’t do it, unless they feel threatened or accused. But you … You haven’t told me why you’ve changed your mind. Or what exactly you expect me to do.’

‘Before I came here I didn’t really know.’

‘And now?’

‘I have no doubts now. I’d like you to talk to her. I myself can’t.’

He showed Cupido the delivery notice torn in half and stuck back together with tape and told him in detail everything that had happened: the computer, and before that the file with the photographs of the pit bull, and before that Marina bringing her child to the bus stop, and before that a lonely man who, from the darkness, watches a woman.

‘I see. You don’t know what to do. And you want her to know,’ Cupido said, and didn’t need to add: Because if you tell a judge, you will be doing the right thing, but that might mean losing Marina. On the other hand, if you remain silent, you’ll have to live with a secret that won’t let you breathe, and in that case you won’t be able to live with her either. It’s that, isn’t it? That’s what it is. ‘And now you want me to …’

‘I can’t do it.’

‘… to talk to her and let her decide, let her choose what’s to be done.’

‘Yes, it’s her decision to make.’

Cupido looked at him with the slight surprise he always felt in the presence of people who were capable of such love that they wouldn’t allow anything false or evil to tarnish their relationship with others. He realised Samuel belonged to that small, nearly extinct, group of men who would rather lose a woman than compromise her or harm her; who would rather leave for the end of the world and be called a coward than do something loathsome. The detective wished he could be like them.

‘Leave the notice with me,’ he said a bit brusquely.

‘I’ll pay you,’ he said handing over the piece of paper.

‘We’ll talk about that later.’

‘I’ll pay you,’ he insisted, ‘whatever Marina had promised you if you finished the job.’

Cupido wanted to check one more thing before talking to Gabriela. He got in the car and drove to the delivery company. An employee looked with suspicion at the notice torn in half and taped back together, but she agreed to check her records. Indeed, the notice had been dropped at that time.

‘It’s been over fifteen days. The parcel must have been sent back,’ she said, typing the reference number on her computer. ‘In any case, it’s not under your name. It’s addressed to a woman.’

‘Yes.’

‘Without written authorisation, I can only give it to the addressee.’

‘Of course,’ conceded Cupido, without insisting, as he already had the information he wanted.

He went back to the city and parked in front of Gabriela’s house. He rang the intercom several times but there was no answer. The blinds were still down, as when he’d visited her, and he considered the possibility that she might be in and refused to come to the door.

From his mobile he rang the phone number Samuel had given him, but the line was busy. Perhaps she was talking to somebody or perhaps she had simply disconnected the phone.

In any case, he had to contact her. If she was in, sooner or later she’d have to come out, or come back if she was out. So Cupido went back to his car and waited, patiently, while he thought of how Alkalino might help him reach the woman who probably was
upstairs, in the darkness, locked up with her son’s ashes, as lonely as he was.

Suddenly he recognised the gentle yet bitter touch of pity. He thought of Gabriela’s sorrow and thought about himself. Something reminded him of Gloria, a painter he’d never met, who had been brutally murdered at Paternoster nature reserve. There came a point, while he was investigating her death, when he knew so much about her – he had read her diary, seen pictures of her, had plunged into other people’s memories of her – that he felt as though he was falling in love with a dead woman. Now he realised the boy torn apart by the dog could have been the son he had sometimes wanted, and he wondered what he might have felt in the face of such a loss.

It was true that there was no romanticism in crime: a thief steals for his own benefit, not to give to the poor, and a murderer kills out of revenge or hatred, not to free the world of a tyrant. But he’d also come across cases when it hadn’t been evil that triggered tragedy. And in such cases he felt a sort of silent, strong, individual compassion, which had nothing to do with the resonant
sentimentality
that infects the media and the public and is so easily forgotten. He hoped he never lost that capacity to feel compassion for any kind of victim.

Although he had no one to make a promise to, as he watched Gabriela’s windows from his car he told himself that, if he ever felt indifferent to other people’s pain, he would instantly stop being a detective. He would never resign himself to being a simple problem-solver.

Dear Marina,

Forgive me.

These were the first words in the note that your father started to write to me, and they are also my first words. Forgive me for all that I’m about to tell you. I want you to know only the
essentials
, so I won’t dwell on superfluous details. I have no time. The detective you hired because you couldn’t believe that Camilo
committed
suicide – how right you were! – is downstairs, in his car, waiting for me to come out. He’s rung the bell and phoned a few times, but I haven’t answered, because I need this time to tell you everything. Through the blinds I have seen him look up, as if he has guessed I’m in and don’t want to talk to anyone. I suppose I never fooled him, but this time I will. Tell him, though, that he’s a good detective, that he was always tactful and, in the end, he discovered the truth.

They’ve just rung me from a delivery company to tell me that they have located the parcel that a man – a tall, attractive man – went to claim on my behalf. They delivered it on the evening Camilo died, while I was out, and slipped a notice under the door. But I never saw it, because it was possibly blown behind the plant by the door. In the laundry room I’ve found Samuel’s tin of pesticide, which he left behind when he came to treat the plants. And I’ve read a note he left me. From that and the telephone call I can only reach one conclusion: the truth is finally out, I have nothing to hide. But don’t
think I’m scared by this. On the contrary, right now I feel a kind of calm I don’t remember feeling for a long, long time.

By the time the detective gets impatient and finds a way to get into my house, I will no longer be here. The first thing he’ll see will be this letter. I’m sure he’ll give it to you, and he’ll tell you anything you don’t understand or that I haven’t managed to explain. That’s what you hired him for. Even if you later dismissed him, he went on investigating on his own. Some people need to know the truth.

But before he talks to you, I’d like to tell you my version. I’m the only person who saw your father die. I killed him. There is no better witness, really.

Do you remember that morning when Samuel invited us to his house to pick up some plants and cuttings he had put aside for us, because he said our flats looked sad and needed the light, colour and perfume of a few flowers? Do you remember? He was at work and you suggested we stay there a while. What woman could resist looking around the house of the man she’s seeing when he’s away? A few things needed tidying. Not because the place was a mess, he’s a very organised man, but because of those details they always miss. I thought it was then that you said, while laughing, that men are animals who are always happy with the way their lair looks. In the bedroom you opened his wardrobe and arranged a couple of shirts and trousers on their hangers, so that they wouldn’t get all creased. I don’t know if you remember that, on finding a few old clothes, you threatened to throw about half of them into the bin. Joking, you said it wouldn’t be such a loss, because Samuel claimed, almost boasting, that he bought all his clothes in supermarkets, as if that were a good thing. You took down the clothes on the line and, since we were not in a hurry, you said you were going to iron them, because otherwise he would not only wear them all crumpled, but he wouldn’t even notice.

As I had nothing in particular to do, I went upstairs to take a look at the bedrooms, that beautiful study he’s got, with so much light. I was looking at the few photographs placed around it when I realised the computer was on; it gave off that faint smell of heated
cables that sometimes emanates from appliances that have been on for a long time. The monitor was off but the processor was still buzzing. No doubt Samuel had forgotten to switch it off when he’d left for work.

I’ve always been scared of leaving electronics on when there’s no one around to keep an eye on them, so I moved the mouse with the intention of turning it off if there was no programme running, and then the screen lit up. I guess you’ve seen the picture he has set as his screensaver. Your face, Marina, your face is the first thing Samuel sees when he turns the computer on, a close up of you smiling as if you were saying hello. Your calm, luminous,
beautiful
face, which in so many ways reminds me of your father’s face.

Of course, it’s very common to set the face of the person one loves as a screensaver, but I found it surprising and I liked it – I hadn’t imagined Samuel would do a thing like that. You were still downstairs busy with the clothes, and I almost called you over to show you, in case you hadn’t seen it, but then I thought you might accuse me of being nosy, because I had no reason to touch the computer. I then clicked to turn if off, but curiosity got the better of me, because that picture of you was one in a series he’d taken on a day I’d been with you, and he’d taken some of me that he’d never shown me. So I opened the “Pictures” folder and the subfolders embedded in it, “Marina”, “Garden”, “Company”, “Various”… I felt I was prying too much and I was about to close everything down when I chanced on a folder simply called “Dog”.

I wouldn’t be able to explain why I clicked on it, what aftertaste of pain pushed me to open it. I didn’t know what was in it, behind that word, and all of a sudden I saw my son there, first smiling with his two friends, kicking the ball around, no doubt all noisy and cocky, calling attention to themselves, because the last thing a teenager wants to be is invisible. I don’t know if your children, when they grow up, will behave like this. He was a bit of a rebel, he couldn’t help it, perhaps because he never had a father to banter with – a father who would counteract a teenager’s inherent rebelliousness.

Sometimes I’ve thought that ours is an unlucky generation: as
children we suffered the tyranny of our parents, their old-
fashioned
ideas about education, hierarchy and familial discipline, and now we suffer the tyranny of our children, who are excessively mollycoddled and at the same time very demanding. I don’t know. Perhaps I was too lenient with him. In any case, I do know Manuel was often impulsive and pigheaded. He wasn’t an easy child. I tried to play the double role of mother and father as best I could. Do you want to know what the worst part is? Motherly love is not enough to make your child happy. In fact, I sometimes got the impression that that was the least of his concerns, as if at his age what all kids wanted was to be loved by the world, by their peers, by this or that girl, in fact by anyone but their family. And I often asked myself: how else can I make my son happy? And I ended up admitting that I couldn’t or didn’t know how to do any different.

So it was logical that Manuel should provoke that dog the way he did. Since then I’ve thought about this so many times! When you’re a teenager you believe life is long and you’re the centre of the world; that you’re essential to the world and must answer all the voices that talk to you and rise to all the challenges they set you. To grow up, on the other hand, means discovering that the world is indifferent to you, that no one hears you or listens to you, that you will die and nothing will stop because of that. That life flies by and everything ends before it’s even started.

You, Marina, have not seen those pictures, but you can imagine them: the children fooling around, getting scared, laughing,
taunting
the dog; the dog barking and then jumping over the fence. I saw it all like a nightmare, it was so vivid that I could almost hear the barks, the cries of pain, the screams coming out of the screen. Only later, when I went over them in my mind, did I come to the conclusion that the images must have been taken when Samuel wasn’t there, he must have programmed the camera, because each take had a time on it, and there was one for every minute, and the framing and the angle were exactly the same in each of them.

I barely had time to close the file when I heard you come up the stairs. You were carrying the clothes basket and you saw me
so pale that you asked if I was feeling okay. Do you remember, Marina? I told you I was fine and went to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. I could hardly breathe and barely managed to look you in the face, because in one of the pictures I had recognised your father. Yes, Camilo.

He doesn’t appear in the foreground, and at first I was so
astonished
that I had to enlarge the picture to make sure it was him. Samuel couldn’t have known who Camilo was back then; if he had realised I don’t think he would have kept the picture. But when the photographs were taken he didn’t even know you and, of course, didn’t know Camilo. I remember the day you introduced him to your father and me.

But, without a doubt, it was your father who walked by at that moment. And if he never told you, it was because he couldn’t have felt proud of his, I was about to write cowardice, but I don’t think that’s the right word, because he wasn’t a coward. Let’s say the right word is ambition. No doubt pride played a part too. I’ll explain.

Your father appears in profile, with his back slightly turned, walking away from the dog that’s already biting my son’s arm. He doesn’t look like he’s escaping yet: it’s the moment before. His right hand is inside his jacket, as when someone checks he hasn’t lost his wallet. But it wasn’t that which he was touching, but his gun.

You know as well as I do that he always carried a gun, that he never went out without one since his name had appeared on the list of a terrorist organisation. He used to say he felt naked without a gun. But those pictures were taken in mid October last year, a little after that accident during a shooting practice, when his regulation gun was taken from him. So he was carrying the illegal gun he kept at home. I asked him about this on that last evening, of course I did. He told me that his first impulse was to shoot the dog, but that, used as he was to making decisions in a split second, he realised that to use a gun when he’d been given express orders not to
constituted
a serious infringement of military law. So he simply walked away, thinking it wouldn’t come to more than a couple of bites.

Camilo was your father, so I don’t need to tell you how this
decision came to torment him, once he knew how brutally it had all ended. I’ll say more, I think that when we met, we started seeing each other not because he was attracted to me, but to comfort me for a tragedy he felt partly responsible for. I mean, there are men who smile cannily when they trick a creditor or postpone a payment, and others who cannot bear having debts; their honesty and sense of fairness make them feel they have received more than they have given back, and they are not at peace until they find a way to repay what they owe. So at first it was all about remorse and trying to alleviate my grief. Love, if I can say so, came later. But that’s a private matter between him and me, which no one will ever have access to, to which there won’t be any witnesses by the time you read this letter, when I am gone.

As I was saying, you father fled the scene, and I’ll add that he shouldn’t have. He should have known that a dog like that, a pit bull, doesn’t let go once it bites. He should have shot it, even if that meant a stain on his immaculate service record or being removed from the decision-making process at such an important time, when his name was being considered in Madrid to study the viability of the San Marcial base. That’s what I meant by ambition and pride.

‘Fine,’ you’ll tell me, ‘but the fact that he walked away doesn’t make him a monster. Do you know anyone who is not ashamed of anything he either did or failed to do?’ Is there anyone who doesn’t conceal things that they’d rather not remember and who blushes when they are evoked? Of course not! I too understand why Camilo did what he did, but I don’t condone it.

Like a good soldier, Camilo was farsighted and the following day he must have weighed up the risks of what had happened. It was impossible that anyone should implicate him if he kept silent. What he couldn’t imagine was the evidence in the hands of a man who programmes a camera to photograph a woman. Who could imagine a thing like that?

I’ve never spoken about this to you, but the first few weeks after Manuel’s death were unbearable. It took me a long time to believe
that I’d be able to live in peace with my sorrow, as it couldn’t have been greater, and that I wouldn’t always be one of those women who, when they speak about their children, have to be told, ‘don’t cry, please don’t cry’. How short-lived that belief turned out to be! Because that morning at Samuel’s I realised that the man who was trying to console me for my loss was also the one who could have prevented it. Camilo, however, didn’t know what I had discovered. I didn’t answer the phone when he twice rang me that afternoon. The hours between the discovery of the pictures and his death were horrible, a hallucinatory maelstrom of hatred and confusion. I locked myself in at home with the blinds down, but I saw everything in searing white, as if my pupils had dilated to take in all the light and heat in the world. Almost suffocating, I went out for a walk and noticed I was sweating. I remember I saw a noticeboard indicating the temperature and it wasn’t high, but I felt as if a
terrible
heat descended from the sky. I went back home soon afterwards, barely conscious of where I’d been, carrying that turbulent, fresh, free-floating pain. I think I went slightly crazy in those hours, sorrow took me to that mental state in which one kills another to relieve tension. Time and again I asked myself a question for which I had no answer. What to do about someone who has done
something
terrible to you and whom you love all the same?

I went to his flat to see if he could help me answer it. He
confirmed
everything I already knew. He didn’t deny anything. He’d been carrying a gun, and he’d never thought the attack would end in tragedy. He thought the owner of the house would come out soon and stop it, and that it would all end in a couple of bites. He didn’t even try to hold me as he told me this. He just looked at me with a calm, sad acceptance, as if he’d always known that his escape would eventually come out into the open. He asked me to forgive him, although he must have known I never would. In fact, forgiving no longer mattered, it was all over and the lights would go off soon.