The Hermit (20 page)

He peers in the shed. Empty.

Then he remembers the chain. He inspects the ground and the floor inside the house, searching for it, but it’s nowhere to be found. Maybe she succeeded in breaking it and getting loose? But how far might she have gotten? And where is the rest of the chain? Cautiously he walks around the corner of the house and looks up at the metal ring the chain is fastened to. The ring is still there, but the chain’s not dangling down the wall as he would have expected if she’d pried it off her foot. Instead it runs in a taut line straight up the house before disappearing on the roof.

Erhard turns towards the hill. Half-expecting to see her walking barefooted across the rocks. But she’s not up there. Just wind and dust.

She must be on the roof. Erhard keeps the ladder around back, but now it’s lying at a ten-degree angle away from the house. She must have brought it over here. When she got up on the roof, she’d either pushed the ladder or accidentally knocked it over.

He positions the ladder against the house and begins to climb.

If she’s hiding up there, he should have seen her as he drove in. But maybe she’s lying down, fatigued by the blazing sun. Maybe napping, ready to attack him as soon as he peeks over the edge.

The rooftop is a hotchpotch of various materials: plastic, corrugated cardboard, a tarpaulin drawn over a sheet of plywood, and chunks of rocks in the 1.5- to 2-stone range that are supposed to hold it all together against the wind. He peers over the roof’s edge.

It’s empty.

His gaze follows the taut chain running from the metal ring to the opposite side of the house, where it plunges over the roof between two large rocks.

She’s thrown the chain over the house, he thinks. To confuse him. So she’ll have time to get away. That confirms what he’d suspected – also when he visited her flat. She’s smart. Maybe smarter than Erhard. He doesn’t feel like crawling across the roof. He’s not even sure it can support his weight. On his way down the ladder, he curses to himself. Then he hustles around the house to verify the broken chain.

He scans the countryside, hoping to see her trotting away. But he sees nothing. Not even the goats. The bleached sun is three-fifths of the way across the horizon. The rocks are scorching hot. Any living thing in direct sunlight would be fried.

What he sees when he turns the corner of the house makes him gag, because the girl’s face has gone. The chain is just short enough that she’s hanging with her foot against the wall, her hip and femur torn from their sockets, and yet long enough that her head and arms touch the ground, resting in a red pool of blood. When he nudges her with his foot, the corpse swings to one side and reveals her face. A swarm of irritating flies buzz away. Alina’s face is in fact gone, her round cheeks replaced by something that resembles grilled cheese. He raises his hand to his mouth and turns away in disgust.

Maybe she was planning to attack Erhard, but stumbled over the rocks and fell to her death. Maybe she leaped off the roof on her own – to put an end to her misery or to break the chain. He can hardly stomach the thought. He’d not intended for this to happen. Not at all. Hell, he’d almost begun to like her.

She couldn’t have been hanging there long. The blood’s not even dry. Erhard recalls the wild dogs that helped themselves to Bill Haji.

The police won’t care for the true version of events. He knows what Bernal will think. He won’t believe Erhard’s story; he’ll think that Erhart kidnapped the whore, blackmailed her, and threw her off the roof. Witnesses have seen Erhard in her flat, and his fingerprints are all over that place.

He needs to reconsider. He needs to think and think hard.

He puts on a pair of work gloves and pulls out the tarpaulin, spreading it beneath Alina before cutting the chain with the bolt clippers. She tumbles onto the tarpaulin. A couple teeth, or what look like teeth, dislodge from her mouth along with a fresh gout of blood. He wraps her up and drags her into the shed. He shovels the dark-red soil into a bucket and spreads it across the stones five hundred metres from the house. With the backside of the shovel, he scrapes gravel over the pool of blood, then pours a few litres of water on the spot, so the gravel appears less arranged. Inside the house, he scrubs every surface Alina has touched, first with a wet rag and then a dry. The time is 2.20 p.m. He has forty minutes until the doctor shows up at Raúl’s place.

As if he’s been flying in an airplane, he feels nauseated, and he pours cognac in a coffee mug, then drinks it standing in front of the house and staring down the trail. There are no sirens, no blinking police cars. Nothing. If he’d just let the girl go when she’d begged him. Now he’s got a dead woman whose body he somehow has to dispose of, an unconscious woman he has to hide, and a friend who has gone missing. At some point, people will start looking for all three. He doesn’t know how long he can keep things under wraps. If he’s caught, he’ll have a hard time explaining himself. No matter how he spins his story, it looks bad.

It almost makes him laugh. But it’s not funny. If they find Bill Haji’s finger on the shelf, too, then it’ll look even worse. The Hermit. That twisted old geezer out near Majanicho.

Majorero
. The word hangs in the air, then fades. He stares at the girl’s ruined face, mouth, nose, and lips like a red slab.

He goes inside and brings out the finger. It looks like a liquorice stick, the kind he used to eat as a child. The ring is still stuck tight, but it would come off if he broke the finger. No longer can he wear it as if it were a new finger. Which annoys him. Because it was a real treat for him to prop it in the empty slot on his hand, no matter how out-of-place and miscoloured it appeared to be. He recalls the afternoon that he drove several people, who all gave it no more than a passing glance, because it appeared to be nothing more than a sprained finger. They didn’t figure the taxi driver was riding around with a dead man’s digit, so they’d probably guessed he’d had an accident. Even though the finger looked different than the others, thinner and darker; some might have even thought it resembled a ring finger where the pinky should be. But no one stared at it or grew suspicious. They accepted the most logical explanation and overlooked any indications pointing to the opposite.

What if? he thinks, returning the finger to its container and hiding it behind the books once again. When she was alive, he’d tried to hide Alina just like he had Bill Haji’s finger. But he doesn’t dare bury her out here. The dogs would smell her at a distance. Besides, the ground is solid, and a really strong man would have to dig for at least a day. Maybe he could rent a Bobcat or an excavator, or bribe a sexton to throw her into some other person’s grave. He could also drive her to the coast. There’s a vast ocean to heave her into.

The doctor will arrive in thirty minutes. He considers postponing the appointment, but he doesn’t want to put Beatriz’s life in greater jeopardy. She should have already had medical attention. On the other hand, he doesn’t want Alina lying here in the shed if he needs to go anywhere with the doctor or do something else. His only alternative, no matter how foolish it might sound, is to put Alina in the car and figure out what to do with her later. After the doctor has gone. It’s a bigger risk, but he doesn’t dare do anything else.

He doesn’t have any more time to consider alternatives.

He puts on a pair of gardening gloves and carefully places Alina’s body in the boot. He wraps the tarpaulin up in an elastic cord, keeping her snug. Then he drives back downtown. There’s the usual Saturday traffic. He gives Muñoz and some colleagues parked at the giant HiperDino supermarket a quick wave. He continues down Calle del Muelle.

By the time he noses down the ramp to the private car park under the building, only eight minutes remain until the doctor arrives. Although a construction crew is in the process of removing columns and laying more parking spaces, no one is currently working; the basement is empty and dark. A plastic sheet covers much of the small basement. Wheelbarrows, buckets with congealed cement, shovels, and a few strange orange machines that look like steam locomotives are scattered about. He parks next to the lift and cuts the engine, then glances around. It wouldn’t surprise him to find security cameras down here. He gets out of his car. Wind whips down the ramp and around the corners. He locates the camera on the ceiling, just to the left of the lift, but the plastic sheet is blocking it, so Erhard remains out sight. He presses the red
UP
button.

He realizes that he still has Raúl’s keys in his pocket. The silver-grey Mercedes 500 SL is parked a short distance away. He backs his own car beside the Mercedes, arranging the boots of the two vehicles against one another. He checks for cameras, and doesn’t see one on this side of the lift. They might be located behind some large boards that are leaning against the wall, but this side of the basement is not under surveillance. He unlocks Raúl’s car and quickly transfers Alina’s body to Raúl’s boot, which appears to have never been used.

Afterward, he parks his own car crosswise in a handicapped spot, then hustles to the stairwell that leads up to the sixth floor.

When he reaches the flat, the doctor’s already at the door. Irritated at having to wait.

–
Buenas
, Erhard says.

– Someone let me in the front door, the doctor says.

– I’m sorry. I had to run an errand.

The doctor gives Erhard a concerned look. – You should probably sit down for a bit.

Erhard shakes his head as he unlocks the door. – I just need some water.

The doctor goes directly inside and glances around. – I’ve been here before.

– This way, Erhard says.

– Where did you find her? The office?

– Yes.

Erhard opens the bedroom door. Beatriz is lying in the same position as when he’d left. The doctor has brought an ordinary shoulder bag, the kind used for laptop computers. He quickly fits his stethoscope to his ears and listens. With a small penlight he illuminates her dark eyes. He runs his knuckles across her cervical vertebrae, right below her gold necklace and its amethyst eye, which stares into the air. He pinches her cheek too. For a moment Erhard thinks she’d dead. He holds his breath.

The doctor continues to examine Beatriz. – How did she strike her head?

Erhard describes how he found her.

– Water, the doctor says suddenly. – Lukewarm water.

Erhard fetches a bowl and a dry towel in the kitchen.

The terrible-looking gash that progresses from her hairline and up underneath her hair is messy and red. The doctor dabs her with the towel, then inspects her throat, shoulders, ribs, belly, and thighs. Erhard feels as though he should turn away, but he can’t help but follow the doctor’s brown fingers gliding across Beatriz’s body.

The doctor turns to Erhard. – I need to ask. May I be honest?

– Of course.

– The Palabrases aren’t exactly your average family.

– What are you trying to say?

The doctor nods at Beatriz. – Someone did this to her.

– Did what?

– A contusion. Someone pushed her and gave her a blow to the top of her head. A very powerful one at that. It’s a miracle she’s still alive.

– Can she talk? I thought I heard her speak earlier.

– Not likely. This appears to be acute swelling with possible brain damage. Moderate to severe head trauma. She’s comatose.

– What does that mean?

– That she’s suffered a brain injury. She’s lucky that she was operated on a few years ago. Someone bored into her cranium. He lifts her hair to show him something, but Erhard turns away. – See these holes. They’re bleeding, but they’ve reduced the pressure from the blow. Anyone else would be dead right now after being struck with such brute force.

– What if she was pushed or something fell on her head, an accident?

– It’s possible. If she ran into a barbell weighing four stone.

Erhard doesn’t recall having seen any barbells on the floor next to the collapsed wardrobe. Or anything heavy for that matter. It was stuffed mostly with folders, cardboard boxes filled with photographs, and wooden shelves.

The doctor lets go of Beatriz’s hair, and it falls across the darkened punctures, concealing them again. – Someone hit her with a blunt object, possibly a baseball bat, that doesn’t leave any evidence. This appears to be an assault committed in rage.

– So you think it’s… You mean to say it’s…

He can’t bring himself to utter the words. Even though he’d come to the same conclusion, he just can’t believe it.

– Who else could’ve done it? I’ve known the Palabrases for many years. Raúl’s quite the party. I don’t think he’s mean-spirited, but he’s known for his benders and his outbursts.

– No, it’s not possible. I can’t believe that. He loves her.

The doctor makes an involuntary cluck with his throat. – I’m sorry, but love has many faces, and they’re not always of your Romeo-and-Juliet variety.

Erhard tries to recall what Raúl said last night about their relationship.

– What’s going to happen to her now? Why won’t she wake up?

– She has swelling in her skull. And the pressure has increased so much that the blood-flow to her brain has ceased. She needs to be taken to the neurological centre in Puerto and put on a respirator as quickly as possible.

– Will she wake up then? Will she be normal? Erhard asks the first questions that come to mind.

– Maybe. Maybe in a few hours. Or days from now, weeks. But she needs to be on a respirator now. That’s the important thing.

– Are there any painkillers for her or medicine?

– She needs time.

– What about… you know?

– He will have to face his punishment.

The doctor gathers his things and leaves. But before he goes, he pauses in the doorway. – Take her to the hospital. Now. Call if there’s anything I can do. By the grace of God.

That last is a salutation Erhard can’t stand, but it’s meant kindly enough. Yet it sounds definitive and gloomy.

Erhard heads straight to the cupboard and pours himself whatever he can find. A white rum. He gulps it and returns to the bedroom, sitting down beside Beatriz. Cautiously, as if each movement could cause the blood vessels in her head to burst like soap bubbles, he peels back one of her eyelids with his thumb. Her pupil is nearly as wide as her eyeball, but it’s still a pretty eye. Like a glass ball with neat patterns. He releases her eyelid and it glides shut. The gravity of the body is enough to make you cry. Her mind. Knocked out of her with one blow. If Raúl’s responsible, it is unforgivable. He knows Raúl did it, but the implications are too much for him now. Right now he can only focus on saving the body before him.