Or the Bull Kills You (30 page)

BANG.

He grabbed one of the policemen accompanying him and nodded down at his radio. The man shook his head. No news.

‘Call up and find out if the medical team have reached the bullring,' he said.

He waited as the officer put the call in, his eyes rapidly glancing around him, looking for anything, any unusual movement, a commotion of some sort, anything at all. Perhaps even a pair of eyes looking back at him. Would he be doing that? Moreno? The normal thing would be to get away as far as possible. But he hadn't done anything normal since the beginning. He'd even had the nerve to show up that very night at the Bar Los Toros. Fresh from murdering Blanco. Right under Cámara's nose. How could he have not seen it before? How else would the
anti-toro
demonstration have wound up for the day immediately afterwards ‘out of respect for Blanco' when the rest of the world still didn't know he was dead? Why hadn't he spotted it sooner? Just as he had done now, that night Moreno had managed to climb out of the bullring over the iron spikes and down the drainpipe, dumped Blanco's
traje de luces
and slipped back into the crowd, back among his fellow demonstrators. Had anyone in the march that night even noticed he had been gone for a while? Perhaps Marta Díaz. They'd have to find her later.

Right now he needed to find Moreno; he was armed and ruthless. One shot had already been fired from his gun that night. How many more people was he prepared to take down with him?

He turned to the policeman, who was finishing his conversation on the radio.

‘Anything?'

‘The medics are there, sir,' the policeman said.

Cámara nodded.

Roberto Ramírez, providing the dope for the very bullfights he purported to have nothing to do with. All his
anti-toro
talk, giving money to Mayoress Delgado's campaign. Discovery of his visit to the Ramírez farm had cast a different light on that. At first he'd assumed that Blanco's mother had confused him with Paco: now he realised there had been no confusion at all. Was it all a complete lie? Had he ever really been against bullfighting? Perhaps it had started that way: the younger son breaking away from the family tradition to form his own life. But later, as he got older? Perhaps it was useful for the Ramírez family to have one of their own in the enemy camp. Tomorrow, perhaps, once he was sorted, they could talk it through with him. Tomorrow the police would check his phone records, his bank statements, his movements back here in Spain, his DNA. Tomorrow they would get him. He'd known Blanco was about to go public. Flores had told him after he got it from Gallego. ‘
Our financiers
.' Would there be evidence there of a call made to Moreno? Perhaps, if he hadn't been careful enough. What would it have been? A code word? A green light from New York? Or just a simple order? Do it. Go ahead and do it. Kill Blanco. Kill my half-brother. Moreno wanted money, and Roberto wanted Blanco dead, just as Paco did. But he had even more at stake – his true involvement in the world of bullfighting when he professed to hate it, drugs from one of his own companies being used to dull the famously aggressive and
bravo
Ramírez bulls: information he couldn't allow to get out, not for himself, not for the family. Blanco would have to die. Hadn't they all said how stubborn he was? Once he got an idea into his head there was no letting go.

Except that killing Blanco hadn't been enough. Blanco must have talked, or let something out. Enough for Ruiz Pastor to suspect that the Ramírez family were in some way responsible for his death. And so with an eye for a pay day, he'd tried to blackmail them. What had he done? He'd talked to Roberto at the funeral. Alicia had mentioned it. Perhaps he thought he was dealing with an intermediary, someone who could negotiate with the family. But he'd ended up talking to the person who was behind Blanco's murder in the first place. And so he'd brought death upon himself, agreeing to a meeting in the Albufera. What had he expected? A handover of money and a promise to keep his mouth shut. He'd certainly been silenced. Roberto had seen to that, trying to make it look as though Blanco's killer had committed the same murder. Except that he hadn't. The very act of trying to copy Moreno's M.O. had made that clear. Eventually, at least. Those scratches still disfiguring Roberto's neck and lower face: Ruiz Pastor was a big man; he would have put up a fight.

And now…BANG. Moreno had come after him. He should never have stolen Moreno's ideas: the
estoque
, the
banderillas
, the mutilation. He may have been just a hired killer in Roberto's mind, a useful tool, a young man set to destroy the bullfighting world. But Moreno didn't like that. He was an artist proud of his work, and would brook no imitators. Not even Marta with her anti-bullfighting leaflets. And once he held a grudge against you…Moreno's former maestro at the bullfighting school had discovered that.

Cámara turned to the two policemen.

‘Stay in this area and keep looking,' he said. ‘I'm going to scout around.'

He walked slowly up the elongated square towards the top end where it joined with Calle San Vicente, finding gaps in the crowd and squeezing himself through as best he could, neither rushing nor forcing his way past.

By now his eyes seemed to do the looking for him while other parts of him, other senses, scoured his environment. And still he walked forwards. Eventually, when he reached the top of the square, he stopped. Keep going? Which way? Left down to the market? Or straight on towards the cathedral? The crowd seemed to make the decision for him and in an instant he was being swept along as a surge of people caught him up and he was carried along for a few yards, suddenly and unwittingly part of a large group enjoying its own mini fiesta within the fiesta.

Before long he was approaching the Abbey of San Martín. A group of
fallera
beauty queens was standing on the steps absorbing the admiring stares from the crowd. One of them, one of the older ones, caught his eye. There was something about her that reminded him of Alicia. Something about her nose, perhaps. He couldn't say exactly. But he found himself gazing at her for a few moments. Alicia. Where had she been today?

A movement to his left. Something different, a different rhythm, a different kind of motion. And he knew at once that Moreno had seen him. His head spun to look across the street. A figure, barely visible, was darting down an alleyway on the other side. Short blond hair, a black top. With a start he launched himself after him, crashing into the crowd.

‘Police!' he shouted. ‘Police!'

The beginnings of a pathway were opened up for him. Crossing the street he managed to break his way through to the top of the alleyway and looked down. The figure had disappeared. He pressed on, squeezing along a tiny gap between the people and the buildings down one side and into the Plaza Redonda. A group of teenagers was splashing water from the marble fountain at the centre, laughing. Cámara lifted his foot on to an iron bollard near the edge of the square and stood up to get a better look.

There it was again. The same figure, the same, different movement, like a flash, passing through one of the arches around the square and out into the Carmen district on the other side. And its labyrinth of alleys.

Cámara jumped off the bollard. Moreno was playing with him, flirting with him, almost like a matador with a bull. And still Cámara kept charging. He had no means with which to call for backup. There was just him and Moreno. And what felt like the whole world standing in between them.

He heaved his way through the archway in pursuit and out behind the Santa Catalina church. Reaching a crossroads he glanced right, then left, just in time to see his prey vanish behind a corner.

A group of seven-year-olds in
fallero
costumes was tripping up the alleyway towards him, throwing the last of their firecrackers to the ground, their crashing sound splitting the air and amplifying as it bounced off the buildings on either side of the narrow space. Cámara did his best to run through and round them, but he mistimed his step and fell over as he pulled himself away to avoid crashing into a little girl.

The others giggled as he picked himself up, but the little girl looked frightened.

‘Are you all right?' Cámara asked. She stared at him with open eyes, not responding for a moment, before finally nodding.

He surged forwards, heart beating faster now, cold adrenalin speeding through his veins. Ahead, the Plaza Collado was the sight of another
falla
statue and the crowd was pouring in from all the alleyways and streets that fed into it to watch the ceremony for setting it alight. Just a few minutes to go. The press of people was getting tighter and tighter and there was hardly anywhere to move. He had to find a gap somewhere, a place to catch sight of his prey once again, otherwise he would get trapped.

There was a small newspaper kiosk to one side of the square. Hooking a toe on to a narrow ledge, he hauled himself up, out of the crowd, to get a better view. The kids he had crashed into in the alleyway moments before saw what he was doing and decided to copy him, clambering up with him, and over him, before eventually settling on the roof. If any more came up, Cámara thought, the cheap metal structure might collapse.

He waved his badge at them; they crowded round to hear him.

‘I'm looking for a man in his early twenties,' he said. And he gave them a description of Moreno.

The boys on the roof looked down at him and frowned.

‘Dunno,' said one.

‘Haven't seen him,' said another.

‘Just look around, will you,' Cámara said. ‘See if you can see him from where you are up there.'

A young voice chirped up from the other side – the girl he had almost knocked over.

‘There's a bloke over there trying to get out of the square,' she said.

‘What's that?' said Cámara.

‘Is it blond hair, you said?' one of the other boys asked, looking down at Cámara.

‘Yes.'

‘Short?'

‘Yes, yes.'

‘Well, there's someone like that just left. Pushing past everyone to get out of the square.'

‘Where?'

Cámara jumped down from the ledge and back on the ground. The boy pointed over his back.

‘Just charged up towards Caballeros,' he said.

Again the crowds in his way, once again having to push and force his way past. It was getting worse now, thicker, denser, tighter.

‘Police!' he shouted. ‘Police!'

The crowds just seemed to move in closer.

Fighting his way through to the edge of the square he looked up the alleyway where the kids said they had seen Moreno leaving, and saw a tide of bodies moving against him. He'll be slowed up as well, he thought to himself. He'll be being held back as well.

Then he saw: Moreno's head, clearly and deliberately turning to look for him as he broke away from the mass of people and paused, before darting to the left down a side street. He'd seen him, seen that he was still being chased, and he was drawing his pursuer on and on.

Cámara waded forwards, his head spinning now from having to jump from side to side as he sought the gaps in the crowd and edged his way closer. If he could just get to the alleyway there might be an opening there, a chance. He reached into the back of his trousers and pulled out the
Municipal
's revolver, quickly checking it was loaded.

He broke through. But no sign of Moreno. It was calmer here, fewer people, but there was no end of side streets and other alleyways where Moreno could have disappeared. He looked up: some of these buildings had been abandoned. It wouldn't take much for someone like Moreno to reach up and climb into them through the first-floor balconies.

He stopped: there was an infinity of possibilities. Should he turn right? Left? Or just clamber into one of these old buildings himself and have a look around? Ahead of him the way was clear.

He sprinted forwards, appearing in a small pasageway in time to hear footsteps breaking out at the far end: the sound of someone running away. He was closing in.

The passageway brought him to the edge of the larger Plaza del Tossal, where a crowd was waiting for the burning of the
falla
statue. A couple near the edge were breaking away, the man with his arm over the girl's shoulder, looking down at her with concern. The girl was holding her foot as she hopped, before leaning against the wall of a nearby building.

‘
Hijo de puta
,' she swore. ‘Bastard's probably broken my toe.'

The man glanced up in anger, as though looking for someone.

Cámara took a step forwards and identified himself.

‘What happened?' he said.

‘Some prick just pushed right through to get in,' the man said. ‘Fucking lunatic, pushing people away. Trod on my girlfriend's foot.'

‘Stamped on it, more like,' the girl said, looking up at them.

‘Young guy? Short blond hair?' Cámara asked.

‘Think so,' the man said.

‘Which way did he go?'

‘Just pushed straight through. Here, are you going to arrest him?'

Cámara was already breaking through the crowd.

Policía, Policía.

This time people seemed to know instinctively what he was about, and edged out of his way as best they could. He was there to get the arsehole who had just pushed past them all so aggressively. At last, a policeman doing his job.

He didn't see her, but one of the pair of eyes now resting on him from a few feet away belonged to Almudena. She pursed her lips as she recognised him, hesitated, and then pushed forwards to try and converge with him as he made his way through the throng. There were still some things that needed to be said.

A splitting, cracking sound roared out as the first fireworks for the
falla
were let off: a handful of colourful explosions in the air above them at the start of an elaborate chain of firecrackers and more fireworks which in a few seconds would culminate in the
falla
statue itself being set alight. As the bright lights lit up the faces staring up, Cámara caught sight of one head bobbing up and down ahead of him, not bothering to watch the spectacle.