The Anarchist Detective (Max Cámara) (23 page)

Past the last group of houses. A quick check to see if anyone was around, and then he stepped out across the street towards the warehouse.

Check the obvious first: the main door. You never know.

But it was locked.

He looked at the padlock – not the easiest kind to pick; it would take a few minutes.

The wind almost pushed him along as he walked around to the side. The sound of the rushing air would at least help to disguise any noise he might inadvertently make, he thought, although he found it harder to concentrate, some primitive part of him keen to get out of the cold and into some kind of shelter.

He checked for other possible means of entry: side doors, windows. But they were all as securely closed as the main entrance. Coming round to the front once again he was reaching for his lock-picking tools when he caught sight of a pile of ladders left under a shelter leaning against one of the houses on the other side of the road. He jogged over to have a look: they were wooden, proper old ladders with a wide base to give more stability. He looked round at the warehouse: one window above a door had been closed, but he felt sure he could get it open. Then he might be able to reach down and unlock the door from the inside.

He lifted the top ladder up as carefully as he could, trying not to make a sound. He might not have bothered with a modern, narrow ladder in this wind, but with this one he was more confident.

In a few strides he was back at the warehouse, where he leaned the ladder against the wall. He tested the first step – it was secure. Then he lifted himself up another three steps until he was level with the small window. It opened outwards, and as he suspected, it wasn’t locked. Wedging his screwdriver underneath it, he was able to loosen it enough until he could get his fingers into the gap, then he pulled it open.

It made a creaking, cracking sound. Cámara stopped. The wind, he hoped, had muffled the noise. But going unnoticed by the sleeping villagers was one thing; being undetected by the dogs many of them would keep was another. So far, he’d been lucky getting here without disturbing any. But he had to be very careful.

He listened for a moment: no barking.

Pushing himself through the window up to his waist, he leaned down and felt around in the dark for the latch. It was a slide-bolt. Grabbing it with his fingers he gave it a jerk and it slid to the side. The door almost opened on its own thanks to the wind. He pulled himself out of the window, climbed back down, lay the ladder on the ground in case anyone saw it, and then stepped inside.

His torch was little bigger than a cigarette lighter, but it cast a bright white light over what looked like a room adjacent to the main area of the warehouse. The room Faro Oscuro hadn’t shown them.

He turned back to the door and closed it, trying to block out the noise of the wind outside. The bolt moved, but was now jammed for some reason and wouldn’t go all the way back in. It was enough to keep the door closed, but a harsh gust might blow it open again.

In a slow, smooth motion, he shone the torch over the room to get a better look, and then stopped still. The wind was rushing outside, but set against it, punctuating the whooshing sound, was the staccato barking of a dog. It was hard to say how far away it was – perhaps two or three streets.

He cursed: he would have to be very quick. With luck the dog would be ignored, but if someone saw the light from his torch . . .

Glancing from side to side, he saw work tables set against two walls, while a third wall was covered almost to the top with hundreds of cardboard packing cases with ‘
La Mancha Saffron
’ written on them.

Opening one, Cámara saw that it was filled with fifty or sixty small plastic containers, only slightly bigger than a large coin, with no more than two, perhaps three, pinches of saffron in each one.

He took a couple and shoved them into his pockets.

Then he walked over to one of the work tables. Empty plastic containers, like the ones in the boxes, were piled up at the side. Next to them was an open box of latex gloves – a used pair, with yellow-stained fingers, had been tossed to the side, one still on the table, the other having fallen to the floor.

Three cardboard boxes were placed near the centre of the table – two much larger than the third. Next to them was a white plastic bowl. He opened each box. Inside each one was a mixture of what looked, to him, like saffron. He took a pinch from each and lifted it to smell – the first two made him curl up his nose and turn away. Only the third, of which there was a small amount, had a pleasant odour. He took a sample of each and placed them in the little bag he’d brought, wrapping each one in tissue paper first to keep it separate.

A piece of paper next to the plastic bowl caught his eye – he lifted it up to read. It was a table, showing figures and percentages. And there was writing near the top, written in a script he didn’t immediately recognise. Was it Arabic? Persian? He placed it in his jacket.

Instinctively he switched the torch off. A noise had come from inside the warehouse.

He backed away, moving as silently as he could towards the door through which he’d come in. His right hand had already curled itself around the knife in his pocket and was pushing the blade out.

With his left hand he reached behind, fumbling for the bolt, but couldn’t find it.

The lights had been switched on inside the warehouse – a white-yellow glow was seeping through the gaps around the door leading into the side room where he was standing. Again he tried to feel for the metal bolt, not daring to turn his back on the intruder. He heard footsteps, a hand on the door, the clicking of a safety catch on a gun . . .

He dived forwards in the dark just as a hand reached for the light switch. Curling himself tight, he rolled on one shoulder before the momentum brought him back on to the balls of his feet and he lunged up and straight, his fist pushing hard into the man’s groin. A high-pitched wail of clouded pain burst from the intruder’s mouth as he doubled up, strength leaving his body, and he fell to the floor. There was a clatter; an AK-
47
semi-automatic rifle hit the ground, still gripped hard in his hand.

Cámara threw himself down on the man, pinning him to the floor with his weight, trying to press his knee on the arm holding the weapon. But the man wriggled and fought back, just loosening Cámara free enough to swing the butt against his head and knock him to the side.

Dazed, Cámara swung out a kicking leg as he fell; once the rifle was trained on him the fight would be over. There was no time to pause, to gauge then strike.

His shin caught something and again there came a cry of pain. Cámara looked up and saw that he’d managed to snap the gun up into the man’s face, catching his nose, which was now beginning to bleed.

The knife had been loose in his pocket; now he gripped it and lunged forwards, kicking the rifle away across the floor and pressing the blade against the man’s neck.

‘Hello, Reza.’

Reza’s black eyes stared back at him.

‘Chief Inspector,’ he said.

There was a second’s pause as both men understood: each one knew exactly who the other really was.

Reza’s body relaxed slightly as a half-smile formed. He licked his upper lip, catching the blood and drawing it into his mouth.

‘Were you looking for something?’

Before Cámara could react, Reza spat the blood up into his face. In the second Cámara’s eyes closed Reza pushed him off and to the side. Cámara swiped with his knife, catching Reza’s lower leg as he made to run off.

He called out in pain, but it was a superficial cut only; Reza was hurt, but not disabled. And he was making his way across the warehouse to where Cámara had kicked his gun.

Cámara looked up: Reza had come in through the main entrance, and the door had now swung open in the wind and was banging against the wall. Between Reza and the rifle there was only a large container filled with saffron stigmas, plucked and ready to be packaged.

With just a knife, though, he could do little. Once Reza picked the gun up again . . .

The wind was picking up outside, blowing stronger and stronger.

BANG, BANG, BANG went the door.

A couple of saffron strands lifted into the air from the box at his side, swirling as the currents caught them. The side room, from where he’d come, was just a few metres away on his left.

A shot rang out as he stood up and ran. The bullet ricocheted off the metal saffron container before burying itself in the wall.

Cámara was in the side room, unhurt, Reza following close behind.

The bolt came easily to his fingers this time. Easing it across, he felt the wind pushing hard against the door, trying eagerly to get in.

There was a cracking sound as the door whipped open. Reza appeared in the doorway, lifting the AK-
47
to take aim.

Cámara just smiled.

The wind sailed past him, through Reza and deep into the warehouse. In less than a second it had caught up the dry, feather-light saffron and was lifting it high into the air. More air currents began to scatter it about, but the wind was travelling mainly in one direction, and now carrying its hostage away with it, it began to blow out through the main door.

The gun lowered in Reza’s hand as he understood. Then with a shriek he turned and ran back into the warehouse, dropping the rifle, his hands outstretched as he tried to catch a million swarming strands of saffron disappearing into the night sky.

‘No, no, no!’

Cámara put away his knife and gripped his own saffron samples in his pocket.

It was time to disappear.

HILARIO APPEARED TO
have taken a turn for the worse, mumbling to himself over breakfast, occasionally throwing out a badly enunciated, irrelevant question and then not always waiting for the answer.

‘This policeman friend of yours.’

‘What about—?’

‘Is he married?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wears a ring, does he?’

Hilario lifted up his hand and wiggled his fingers.

‘Likes to wear a ring?’

Cámara had to think for a moment.

‘No. I haven’t seen him with—’

‘But he does wear one, normally, right?’

Hilario slurped his coffee, dark brown droplets catching on his grey stubble as the cup wobbled on his lips.

‘Probably,’ Cámara said. ‘The skin is lighter where the ring ought to be. Some policemen take it off – it’s safer than—’

‘Getting one yourself?’

‘A wedding ring?’

‘You and Alicia? Wedding bells? The Church does a nice service, I’ve heard.’

‘Have you been on the home-grown?’

‘Oh, I like that. You’re the one staggering around like a blind man and I’m the one who’s stoned out of his skull.’

Cámara was sitting perfectly still at the table. He looked like a model of tranquillity.

Did this happen before another attack, he wondered? Was Hilario minutes away from another blood clot lodging in his brain? What was left of it seemed to be pretty jumbled that morning.

‘Are you taking your pills?’ he asked.

‘Don’t talk to me like I was senile. Course I’m fucking taking them. It’s you needs your head examining. Have you called Alicia?’

Cámara shrugged.

‘You should, you know, after what you’ve been through together. Getting shot at.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘She told me. Alicia told me. She rang me up, said what a nice time she’d had. Not getting shot at, obviously. I mean coming here, meeting me.’

Cámara was silent.

‘You’re going to let that one slip away,’ Hilario said, ‘and you’ll never catch another like her. Not at your age. You’re turning into an old fart, you know. Bit of a gut developing down there.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Read your notes about the murders as well. Might use them for that novel I told you about.’

‘What novel?’

There was a click down the corridor as the front door opened. Neither of them reacted, knowing full well that it would be Pilar arriving for work. Cámara glanced at the pile of dirty dishes from the night before, leaning in a tower by the sink.

‘Have some guests round last night?’ he asked as Pilar’s footsteps grew closer.

Perhaps Hilario was merely hungover.

‘Where were you? Out prowling again? And what’s that motorbike doing in the front hall? That’s a Montesa Impala, that is. Collector’s item. What did you do? Steal it? I knew there’s hope for you yet.’

‘A friend lent it to me. Gerardo.’

‘Oh.’

Hilario looked disappointed.

Pilar had been standing in the doorway for a few moments now, expecting them to greet her. Eventually, without turning, Cámara said hello.

‘
Hola
.’

There was no reply.

‘She’ll have lost her voice again,’ Hilario said. ‘It’s these strong winds.’

Then in a dramatic whisper he added, ‘Her health’s not what it used to be.’

‘I came by,’ Pilar chirped in her high voice, ‘to say I won’t be coming any more.’

Hilario fell silent. Cámara turned in his chair to look at her properly. And almost fell over when he caught sight of her.

Pilar had been an integral part of the life in this flat since he’d arrived as a boy. Then still a relatively young woman, she’d always appeared older than she was, not least because she’d adopted traditional mourning black for her recently deceased husband – a railway worker who’d suffered a freak heart attack in his late twenties. And so Cámara had grown up with this woman always among them, a heavy, leaden presence making their lives easier by cleaning and cooking for them, but also bringing a weight to their lives. Not that it was always unwelcome – both he and Hilario could be overly mercurial at times. But while, as a teenager, he had often wished she would disappear – or at least not burst in on him at the most inopportune moments – the truth was he couldn’t envisage this world – Albacete, Hilario, his home – without her.

Yet now what struck him most – almost like a physical force – was seeing what she was wearing. For the first time in his life – and in hers, it felt like – the uniform of black had gone, and instead she was wearing a bright floral-patterned dress of thick cotton with a woollen fuchsia cardigan thrown over her shoulders. What’s more, her thin, wrinkled lips had been painted scarlet, while black eyeliner framed her sunken, narrow-set eyes.