The Anarchist Detective (Max Cámara) (27 page)

‘The pills,’ Cámara said. ‘Said he was losing weight very quickly.’

‘It was clever of you to find that. Can’t think how it got missed.’

She threw a glance at Jiménez, who ignored her. The
Policía Científica
was another department. He might be temporarily in charge of the investigative police, but he wasn’t taking the fall for cock-ups by the crime scene lot.

‘Years of experience,’ Cámara said. And he thought he might get away with it. Just. OK, so it was Hilario’s experience he was really thinking about, but they didn’t need to know that.
En boca cerrada no entran moscas
. Flies can’t enter a closed mouth.

Silvestre threw him a quizzical glance, as though he might be making fun of her, then continued.

‘DNA testing can confirm the rest. We’re scouring Yago’s home, office, car. Then there’s the semen traces found on Mirella’s body. If it matches . . .’

‘All we need is a hair or something from Mirella and we’ve got him,’ Jiménez said, almost spitting out the words.

‘His wife?’

Silvestre looked at Jiménez, as though expecting him to answer.

‘With relatives,’ she said when Jiménez refused to speak.

‘I’ve spoken to her once,’ Jiménez burst out. ‘We’ll be getting her down to the Jefatura again in the next few days, mark my words.’

‘I don’t think there’s any—’

‘No. But there’ll be something. Some detail that will help bring that cunt down. A dinner date he was late for, a late call-out he then couldn’t explain properly. I don’t fucking know. But there’ll be something.’

They sat in awkward silence for a moment. Jiménez was right to be angry, but for some reason Cámara couldn’t share his feelings. It was too close to him. Mirella – Concha – Maximiliano. There was a chain of death in his life, one that seemed to wrap itself around him and weigh him down, like a heavy, wet, rotting blanket. And yet now, for the first time in his life, he felt capable of casting it off, discarding it and leaving it here in Albacete for good.

It was a time for cleaning, patching up the rips and tears as he always tried to do. But not for rage. Not any more. That had passed.

Concha. He could barely remember her any more. Except, perhaps, for a smell he associated with her – something woody, like pine, and a sweet waxy scent that perhaps came from some perfume or a candle. He wasn’t sure. It was the smell of her room. He always caught it when he walked past, in the weeks and months after her disappearance. Someone had spoken of clearing her things out. But no one had ever got round to it. And then other things had started to happen – his mother’s breakdown, the pills, the drink, the loneliness. And Hilario, picking him up and taking him with him. At that moment he’d hated him, of course. But then he was the only one it made sense to hate – back then, at least.

Hate. It felt like such a distant emotion now, as though he were seeing it through an inverted telescope – reduced in size and importance.

He wondered about ordering another brandy, but the barman was looking in the opposite direction, catching the highlights from a recent football match on the TV news.

‘They’ll be dragging the psychologists into it,’ Jiménez said, flicking his head in Silvestre’s direction.

‘It’s inevitable,’ she said. ‘Jiménez has already made his feelings clear on this—’

‘Waste of fucking time,’ Jiménez mumbled.

‘—but there’s no loose ends with this case. We’ve got to tick all the boxes.’

Cámara breathed deeply, stifling the groan that jargon like this always provoked in him.

‘A team will be coming down from Madrid later this afternoon,’ Silvestre said. ‘They will be wanting to talk to you.’

Cámara shrugged. Did he have a choice?

‘Your . . . your shared history. It will be vital for providing a complete profile.’

‘I’m not the one being investigated, right?’

Silvestre looked shocked.

‘N-no. Of course not.’

Jiménez grinned cheekily.

‘It’s all right,’ Cámara said, smiling. ‘Sure, whatever they need.’

‘There may be a link.’

‘Course there’s a fucking link,’ Jiménez said.

‘Mirella’s murder – and perhaps the others, if they can be proved – stem from some trauma Yago suffered as a boy. I understand he was with you when you found the body of Concha? Your sister?’

‘That’s right.’

‘She was found on the same patch of ground.’

‘Thirty-two years ago,’ Cámara said. ‘They haven’t built on it.’

‘Yes, well, that will all be covered in your interviews with the psychologists, no doubt.’

‘What they need to work out is how a fucking psycho like him got into the police force in the first place,’ Jiménez said. ‘It’s all very well doing the profiling now, coming up with a “narrative” after he’s been on his killing spree. What about before? I ask you.’

He threw his hands up.

‘We’re all upset,’ Silvestre said. ‘I know that. And if you want some time off—’

‘No fucking chance. Time off now? When I’ve got the biggest case of my career on my hands? No way. I’m seeing this all the way through. And I’ll be there when they fucking throw away the key as well.’

But I won’t, Cámara thought to himself.

HE’D CALL ALICIA.
Soon. They still hadn’t spoken. Was he avoiding her? Perhaps. Avoiding her, the situation, everything. It was what he tended to do. But no more. Things had changed. Something in him . . .

It would be good to hear her voice again.

Besides, there was something he had to tell her.

‘Is there anything else I need to know about you?’

Hilario’s face was grey, his lips thin and dry. A drip dangled from his arm, which looked thinner and weaker than Cámara remembered.

‘There’s always something else to know about people.’

Of course, Cámara thought with a smile. He could have answered the question for himself.

He pulled up a chair and sat down at his grandfather’s side, holding his hand. A nurse came in and checked the amount of fluid left in the drip bag.

‘Come and get me when it drops below this line,’ he said to Cámara. ‘Then we’ll change it.’

He left the door open behind him, and the sounds of a hospital ward filtered through. A bunch of flowers had been left on the floor, a gaudy collection of yellows, oranges and pinks.

‘Got an admirer?’

‘They’re from Pilar,’ Hilario said.

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘It’s true. Check the card if you like.’

‘Did she—?’

‘No, they were sent. She wasn’t going to show her face round here after what happened. No, the beautiful Pilar has left our lives for good, I fear. I asked around – the story about her getting married is true.’

Pilar had been such an integral part of life at the flat that Cámara wondered what things would be like without her, whether he would actually miss her, in fact.

Hilario, he felt certain, hadn’t even gone so far as that. Once Pilar had walked out the door life had instantly moved on. It always did for him. No looking back, no wondering what if. Pilar leaving barely registered as a hiccough.

Although there was the question of how he would look after himself. Would he be all right on his own? Some solution had to be found.

‘Gerardo was here,’ Hilario said.

‘My mechanic friend?’

‘His dad’s a mate of mine. Taught him a few things years back. They’ve always been a generous lot.’

‘Yeah . . .’

‘Well, until you filled his prize BMW with bullet holes, that is.’

‘He told you that, did he? Couldn’t be helped.’

‘He’s all right. Got over it. Must have, or else why would he have come round?’

‘What did he say?’

‘If I needed a helping hand, that kind of thing. Everyone seems to have heard about Pilar leaving.’

‘We could always find someone to replace her.’

Hilario shrugged.

‘Something will come up.’

He grinned.

‘You’ll be pleased to know,’ Cámara said, changing the subject, ‘that your name will not be appearing in any police reports.’

‘Thank Christ for that.’

Cámara laughed.

‘You’re the anarchist detective,’ he said. ‘Invisible to the authorities, silently solving the crimes that have them tied up in knots.’

‘It’s got a ring to it.’

‘So I was the one who found the wedding band, not you.’

‘Right. So why didn’t you hand it in as evidence?’

‘Because of the doubts Yago sewed in my mind about the corruption in the Jefatura. I didn’t know who I could trust.’

‘OK. But why didn’t you realise earlier that it was his wedding ring?’

‘Because my attention was being distracted by this saffron scam thing.’

Hilario pursed his lips.

‘Maybe. Or you’re just fucking stupid.’

‘Well, there’s that as well.’

‘You know your problem?’

‘Here we go.’

‘You never suspected Yago because he’s a policeman. But that’s precisely why I had my doubts about him from the start.’

He tapped his finger on his temple.

‘You’ve got to be smart, see? Got to see the prejudices and assumptions that stand in the way of you seeing what’s really going on.’

‘Hang on, you’re just as prejudiced as I am. You’re prejudiced against the police.’

‘And I was right.’

Cámara groaned.

‘You going to start giving me lessons on how to be a detective now?’

‘This is just the beginning.’

Hilario grinned, then coughed. There were droplets of blood on the palm of his hand where he covered his mouth.

‘We still don’t know who killed Concha.’

Hilario looked him in the eye.

‘You’ve come a long way,’ he said. ‘You’re slow, but you’ve made some progress these last days. I’ve seen it.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘It’s loosening its grip on you, bit by bit.’

‘What is?’

‘The fear, the anger. All this rushing about, wanting and wanting.’

‘It’s all very well saying, don’t be angry. But you never told me how.’

‘I’ve never shown you anything but.’

Hilario turned away.

‘Many years ago I made a deliberate decision about how I was going to live my life. When they shot Maximiliano I told myself that nothing was going to crush me or push me off the course that I decided to be on. And I’ve stayed there. And you know the shit there’s been. But you keep on, you just keep on. God knows I’ve been trying to tell you this for years. And there are times when you’ve almost got it, but you slipped back, got caught up in your own self-pity.’

He sat up in bed, leaning in towards Cámara and squeezing his hand.

‘That’s what’s changing in you. It’s there, in your eyes. They’re quicker these days. Perhaps it’s Alicia, or maybe it’s been coming back here, this case. I don’t know. It’s probably not important. The point is, you’re close to becoming who you really are.’

Cámara smiled.

‘Another anarchist, like you?’

‘Call it what you like. There are a thousand tyrannies, and the majority of them exist inside ourselves. Free yourself of them and you can call yourself any name you want.’

‘Even a detective.’

‘Even a detective. But one who solves crimes not for the State, but for a greater good. One who isn’t afraid to break the law, even, if it helps him get where he needs to go.’

‘Oh, I don’t think I have much of a problem with that.’

‘See? Some things have managed to rub off, then.’

He closed his eyes and lay back on the bed.

‘You should read Ernst Jünger and his ideas about the anarch, a sovereign individual.’

His grip around Cámara’s hand relaxed.

‘Why did you confront Yago like that? Why didn’t you—?

‘Get you to do it?’

Hilario’s eyes were still closed.

‘For example.’

Hilario shrugged.

‘Seemed like a good idea at the time.’

‘That Luger is ancient. You didn’t even know if it would fire.’

‘I took my chances. German engineering – the best in the world, they say.’

‘You could have been killed.’

‘Life, death. What’s the difference?’

‘I think I know.’

‘What? The difference between life and death? Dead people don’t move very much, it must be said. And they smell pretty bad.’

‘No. I mean why you went off to meet Yago like that.’

‘Go on.’

‘He tried to have me killed.’

‘So?’

‘So you were taking revenge, or trying to protect me, or something like that.’

‘Is that the best you can do?’

‘What I’m trying to say is that for all your talk you really are a sentimental old man who wants to take care of his own.’

His eyes still closed, Hilario took a deep breath, and sighed.

‘Might be,’ he said at last.

‘Thanks.’

‘Bugger off.’

The drip bag was almost empty, so Cámara got up to call for the nurse. After a few minutes he appeared with a fresh supply and attached it to Hilario’s arm.

‘Has he fallen asleep?’ he asked Cámara.

‘Just dozing, I think.’

‘He looks paler. Has he said anything?’

‘Said anything?’

‘Complained about pains or anything?’

‘No. Not to me.’

‘I’m going to call the doctor.’

And he rushed out.

Cámara sat down again in the chair, reaching out for Hilario’s hand.

‘Are you awake?’

He shook his hand slightly.

‘Grandpa?’

There was no response. Cámara squeezed harder, standing up to look Hilario in the face.

‘Hey!’ he called.

Hilario’s eyes flickered. After a pause, he opened them; they looked bloodshot, with a creamy film covering them.

‘Are you all right? The doctor’s coming.’

‘I was having a vision,’ Hilario said quietly. Cámara raised an eyebrow.

‘It’s time to leave Albacete. I’ve been here far too long.’

Cámara tightened his grip around his grandfather’s hand, looking pleadingly into his eyes.

‘Somewhere new, a different place. I can see water.’

‘Water?’

‘The sea.’

From the corridor Cámara could hear hurried footsteps; the doctor was on his way.

‘Time for new horizons.’