Death on a Galician Shore (18 page)

‘Do you have any idea who might have done it?’

‘No.’

‘And you haven’t seen anything similar in your own surroundings?’

‘My surroundings?’

‘Your house, your car, your office.’

‘Of course not.’

‘And no one’s reminded you of that night recently?’

‘No one apart from you.’

‘Have you felt threatened yourself?’

‘In my line of work I have to be firm, Inspector. As you do in yours. I can’t be popular with everyone.’

‘That’s not what I mean,’ said Caldas. ‘I expect you know that people claim to have seen Captain Sousa.’

Valverde smiled bitterly and exhaled through clenched teeth.

‘Well, you can tell them I’ve seen him too, Inspector. Gripping the helm and shouting for us to hold on as the boat broke apart in the storm. I don’t know who’d want to stir up such memories.’

‘Is it possible that Justo Castelo thought otherwise?’

‘El Rubio saw him go down with the boat just as Arias did. And just as I did,’ said Valverde. He fell silent and looked down at his feet.

‘Yet Castelo had a number of lucky charms on him, the kind used to protect oneself from …’ said Caldas, leaving the sentence hanging.

‘Protect oneself from what?’ asked Valverde.

Caldas shrugged.

‘Anyone’s entitled to feel scared, Inspector.’

‘You don’t?’

‘I’ve been very scared. So scared I haven’t gone near the sea again. It’s over twelve years since I even dipped a toe in. Is that scared enough for you?’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘You think I should be scared of something else?’

‘I suppose not.’

Valverde saw them out, along the gravel path that ran round the house. Caldas paused to run his hand over the verbena plant and breathe in the scent. Just as they were taking their leave, the wooden gate slid aside. The red car they’d seen on their last visit drove in and pulled up.

‘Have you told the inspector that you know his father?’ asked Valverde’s wife as she got out of the car. She was wearing the same blouse as before, the one that showed off her cleavage. And again, her smile reminded Caldas of Alba.

‘My father?’ Caldas asked, trying not to stare.

‘We’ve bumped into each other a couple of times. I’ve just started making wine,’ said Valverde shyly. ‘But I’m sure your father has no idea who I am.’

Eyes closed, Inspector Caldas inhaled the fragrance of the eucalyptus trees carried in on a shaft of cold air through the window.

‘Still thinking of Mrs Valverde?’ asked Estevez as he took the road back into the village.

‘No,’ replied Caldas, without opening his eyes. ‘I was thinking about her husband. He’s more scared than he realises.’

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the priest and parishioners of Panxón decided to demolish their old church, which was too small, and build a larger one. Catching wind of this, the architect Antonio Palacios travelled to the village and convinced the locals to preserve the Visigothic arch that was contained within the old building. In return, Palacios undertook to draw up plans for a new church dedicated to seafarers.

It was built on the crest of a hill close to the arch, to serve as a landmark to fishermen, with walls of rough stone topped with an octagonal cupola. Abutting a square, crenellated belfry, Palacios designed a circular tower enclosing a staircase leading to the top of the belfry.

Around the upper, conical section of this tower, painted red and white like a lighthouse, he placed four human figures, holding hands, each looking out at a compass point.

Estevez parked at the foot of the hill and Caldas got out of the car. He told his assistant to wait there and set off up the steep path to the Templo Votivo del Mar. The paving was decorated with a pattern of black and white stones. On reaching the entrance, Caldas walked round the church and looked out over the deserted village. It appeared lifeless beneath the grey sky. Even the eight plane trees on the slope, their branches now bare, seemed to be waiting for spring, when they would once again provide shade.

Caldas went up to the back door of the building that adjoined the church and rang the bell. He called out that he was there to see Don Fernando and a voice told him to wait inside the church.

*

The interior, as deserted as the rest of the village, reminded him of the upturned hull of a ship.

He sat waiting for the priest in a pew up by the altar, admiring the mosaics on the vaults and upper chancel. There were images of saints appearing before shipwrecked sailors, and other religious and seafaring scenes. The only one Caldas recognised was the arrival of the caravel
Pinta
in Baiona with news of the discovery of America.

In an aisle, in the dim light coming through the windows, he made out the Virgin of El Carmen with the baby Jesus in her arms, rising above a raging sea. The figure was on a bier, as if to be carried in a procession. At the feet of the Virgin, among the crests of the waves, three sailors clung to the wreckage of a ship.

Caldas went to look more closely at the anguished faces of the three fishermen beseeching the Virgin to intercede. He was struck by their waterproofs, which were just like those of the fishermen in the harbour, and he pictured Arias, Valverde and Castelo battling the storm. He couldn’t help looking for Captain Sousa, but there was no fourth man in the waves.

Caldas thought of the medallion of the Virgin of El Carmen around El Rubio’s neck. He wondered if he’d had it with him the night the
Xurelo
sank, or if he’d only started wearing it later, in gratitude for a favour like the one sought by the three carved wooden figures.

He had just sat down in the pew again when the elderly priest entered through the vestry door, walking with a cane.

Caldas rose.

‘Please, no need to get up,’ said the priest, motioning with his left hand. ‘I’m not going to say Mass.’

This made the policeman smile, but he remained on his feet as the old priest approached, black cassock trailing on the ground.

‘Are you Don Fernando?’ asked the inspector.

‘What’s left of him,’ replied the priest, looking through thick lenses that made his eyes appear huge. ‘And you are?’

‘Inspector Caldas,’ he said. ‘From Vigo Police Headquarters.’

‘Please, sit,’ insisted the priest, sinking into a pew himself. ‘Do you know the church?’

‘Only from the outside,’ admitted Caldas.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it? But the years have passed and it’s in need of
repair. See that?’ he said, pointing his cane at the plastic buckets placed beneath one of the windows. ‘A few joints leak when it rains, and some of the mosaics have fallen off. But you can’t get just anyone to repair pieces like these. You need experts and money. Sometimes faith alone is not enough.’

‘No, of course not.’

‘What brings you here, Inspector?’

‘I’ve heard that you used to be keen on photographing the fishermen in the harbour.’

‘I still am,’ said the priest. ‘I’m not quite dead yet.’

Caldas smiled. The priest got up, leaning on his cane with both hands, and beckoned Caldas to follow him to the door through which he’d just come.

‘It’s been a long time since anyone took an interest in my photographs,’ said the priest over his shoulder as he headed along the corridor, his cassock sweeping the floor.

He stopped in front of a door, opened it and stood aside to allow the inspector to enter first. Caldas found himself in a room with a coffered ceiling. Through the window opposite, the sea was visible beyond the rooftops of the village.

The bookcases, in the same dark wood as the ceiling, were crammed with books and papers. There was a large desk and a studded, leather-backed chair.

‘Most of the photographs are in those binders over there,’ said the priest, indicating thick leather binders lined up on shelves. ‘Which ones are you interested in?’

Caldas cleared his throat: ‘Have you any of Captain Sousa?’ Behind the strong lenses, Don Fernando fixed his huge eyes on the inspector.

‘A few,’ he said, sitting down in the chair. ‘Would you mind handing me that binder down there?’

Caldas did so, and the priest opened it out on the desk and began slowly turning the self-adhesive pages covered in neat rows of black-and-white photos. Now and then, a larger picture occupied almost an entire page.

‘You’re not convinced that El Rubio’s death was suicide, are you?’ asked the priest.

‘You aren’t either?’

‘I have absolutely no idea, Inspector. But unfortunately I know how far a desperate man can go,’ said the old man. ‘I went to see the family this morning. His sister believes that someone threw him into the sea.’

‘I know,’ said Caldas.

‘So the police are after the late Captain Sousa,’ murmured Don Fernando, still turning pages, leaning so close he might almost have been trying to identify them by smell.

‘Well, as I’m sure you know, some people are claiming to have seen him around.’

‘We have to believe in something. God willed it so,’ mumbled the priest. Then, placing a finger on one of the photos, he said: ‘This is Sousa here.’

Caldas leaned over the priest’s shoulder. The picture must have been taken around the same time as the one Trabazo had shown him. Sousa was too far away and the
macana
was a blurry line hanging from his belt.

‘Are there any more?’ asked Caldas.

The priest turned another page and slid the open album towards the inspector. A large photograph filled the entire page. It showed a seaman of advanced years wearing a woollen hat and rubber boots. He was smiling, sitting on the jetty on a bollard to which a thick rope was tied. His legs were crossed so his belt was not visible.

‘Is this the captain?’

Don Fernando nodded. ‘And this is him, too,’ he said, pointing at the page opposite.

Caldas held his breath when he saw the two pictures on that page. They were much more recent. Antonio Sousa’s face was deeply lined beneath the familiar woollen hat. He was on the deck of a fishing boat, staring straight at the camera. On the bridge, beneath the window, the name
Xurelo
was painted in dark letters.

In both photos the
macana
on the captain’s belt was so clearly visible that Caldas felt he could have reached in for it. It was just as Trabazo had described it: a thick wooden club with a rounded end.

‘Could I borrow one of these photos? I’ll bring it back tomorrow.’

‘If you think it might help …’ said the priest.

‘Many of your neighbours believe that Sousa has something to do with Castelo’s death.’

‘Blaming a ghost is reassuring. It gives a name to uncertainty. That’s what faith is. It’s preferable to thinking that someone has chosen to kill himself rather than go on living, or that we have a murderer in our midst, don’t you think?’

Caldas concurred, not taking his eyes off the wooden club in the photograph.

‘Do you remember the sinking of the
Xurelo
?’ he asked.

‘As if it were yesterday.’

‘Did you see the captain’s body?’

Don Fernando shook his head. ‘The coffin was closed when it was sent from Vigo. Why would I want to see my friend’s body?’

Caldas didn’t know what to say.

‘Poor Gerardo, Sousa’s son, saw it,’ said the priest. ‘That was his last memory of his father. Isn’t that a shame?’

‘Yes,’ said the inspector. ‘I suppose it is.’

‘The
Xurelo
isn’t the only boat from the village to have foundered, Inspector. You can’t fight against the rocks, the wind and the waves,’ said Don Fernando, looking out of the window. ‘Out there, sandbanks lie in wait for sailors. Like a snake stalking a rabbit, they lurk, quite still, waiting for a moment’s inattention. We have to live with it.’

The priest tapped some blue folders on one of the top shelves with the tip of his cane.

‘One of them is marked
Xurelo
. Would you mind getting it down for me?’ he asked the inspector.

When the folder was on the desk before him, Don Fernando removed the rubber bands securing it. Inside were several folded yellowed newspaper cuttings.

‘This is what was reported about the sinking of the
Xurelo
from the time it went down to the day the captain’s body was found,’ he said.

He slid the photo of Sousa inside the folder and handed it to the inspector.

‘As long as you don’t lose it, you can take this, too.’

They chatted in the study for a few more minutes. Don Fernando recounted tales of other men drowned in the bay in such detail that it seemed he himself had been at the mercy of the waves.

‘Do you go out fishing yourself?’ asked Caldas.

The old man’s eyes widened behind his thick lenses.

‘We priests don’t go out in boats, Inspector,’ he said, with a wink like the flutter of a bird’s wings. Then he added: ‘It brings bad luck.’

Caldas returned to the car at the foot of the hill. Estevez had reclined the seat and was dozing with his hands behind his head.

Caldas got in and closed the door gently but woke up his assistant nonetheless.

‘How did it go, boss?’ asked Estevez, setting the seat upright.

‘Well, I think,’ replied Caldas, opening the folder and glancing at the photo of the captain again.

‘There’s still an hour till Castelo’s funeral,’ remarked Estevez. ‘Where shall we go in the meantime?’

Caldas didn’t want to wait. ‘Back to Vigo,’ he said, lowering the window slightly, just enough to let in some fresh air.

He wanted to show Barrio the picture of the
macana
, to see if it could be the object with which Castelo had been struck before he was thrown into the water. He took his cigarettes from his pocket and placed one between his lips but didn’t light it, playing instead with the lighter.

‘What’s in the folder?’ asked Estevez as they drove off.

‘Cuttings about the sinking of the
Xurelo
and a photo of Antonio Sousa taken a few days before he drowned,’ replied Caldas, removing the elastic bands and showing him the photograph. ‘Look at the club he’s got on his belt. Incredible, isn’t it?’