The Summer of Dead Toys (31 page)

But nothing happened. Well, the priest told me I should relax, that he would take care of everything, to forget these things. Don’t tell anyone else, he said. They’ll think you’re making it up. Leave it to me.

That was three days ago. The private classes have ended and when I meet him in the corridor he won’t even look at me. He is angry with me, I know. I know I broke the rules of good dolls. The second-last group of kids has gone. He’s gone too, but he’ll be back in a few days. I don’t want to be here to see him. I want to escape. Go where no one can find me and sleep forever.

The doorbell startled them all. Joana got up to answer it, while Leire embraced Inés. She had left the pages on the table and couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

Leire continued holding Inés. The young woman was sobbing almost silently, as if she were ashamed of it. When Fèlix came in, all eyes were on him. But it was Joana who said in a clear, loud voice:

“You felt relieved when she told you he hadn’t penetrated her? Truly, Fèlix?”
He looked at her without answering.
“You did nothing?” she went on, accusing him in fury. “Nothing? This child told you what this bastard was doing to her and you thought since he hadn’t raped her, none of it mattered? You didn’t report him, even when this little girl drowned herself in the pool?”
Héctor grabbed the pages Inés had left on the table.
“You should read them, Father. And if indeed God does exist, I hope he forgives you.”
Fèlix hung his head. He seemed incapable of defending himself, of saying a single word in his own defense. He didn’t sit down. He remained on foot in front of this improvised tribunal.
“Don’t put all the blame on him,” murmured Inés. She moved softly away from Leire and looked at the priest. “What he did wasn’t right, but he didn’t do it just for himself. He was also protecting me.”
“Inés—”
“No. I’ve spent years with all this. Feeling I was to blame. Thinking myself in debt to Iris, keeping her alive even if only in a symbolic way . . . Until last Christmas, when I found these pages and learned the whole story. I showed them to Marc in Dublin and he reacted in the same way you are now. Appalled, enraged, anxious to know the truth. But there’s a part of that truth I didn’t dare tell him. I let him hate his uncle, initiate a plan of revenge against him, to make him confess what he wanted to know.” She took a breath before going on. “When the truth is that, very early that morning, I heard footsteps in the house. I couldn’t sleep in Mama’s bed; she kept moving. I went out to the corridor without making a sound and didn’t see anyone, but I was sure someone had gone downstairs. One of my dolls was on the floor. I picked it up and went down to the garden.”

Iris is sitting at the edge of the pool in a nightdress. Her eyes see only the dolls. She hasn’t slept all night, staring at them intently. They belong to Inés and at this moment she hates them with all her heart. She’s pulled the heads and arms off some of them before tossing them in the water; others she’s submerged as if she could drown them. There’s only one left in her hand, her sister’s favorite, and before throwing it in with the others she contemplates her work, satisfied. The pool has become a pond full of little plastic bodies floating adrift. She doesn’t notice Inés’s presence until she hears her voice.

She laughs like one possessed. Inés bends down and begins taking out the ones floating closest to the edge. The water is freezing, but they are her dolls. She loves them.

Iris tries to stop her. She grabs her with all her strength and wrestles her to the ground, but although Inés is smaller, Iris is very weak. Inés tries to free herself from her sister’s arms and they struggle at the edge of the pool, they roll around fighting until they fall into the water. Inés notices how the pressure eases, how the cold penetrates her entire body. She barely manages to come to the surface and paddles like a puppy to the steps. Then she looks back. Iris is emerging from the bottom, like a big dead doll.

“That’s how it was,” Inés finished. “I ran away and hid. Mama found me a little later, with my hair still wet. She hugged me and told me not to worry. That Father Fèlix would take care of everything.” Silence overwhelmed the room. Father Castells had sat down, although he kept his head lowered.

“God,” said Joana. “And Marc?”
“Marc didn’t know anything, Joana,” answered Fèlix. “I took care of that. You can say I did wrong, but I swear that I tried to do the right thing.”
“Oh really?” asked Héctor. “I doubt hiding the abuse of a minor was doing the right thing, Father. You knew the truth. You knew Iris was beside herself and you knew why.”
“And what good would it have done?” shouted Fèlix. He stood up suddenly and his flushed face showed the torment escaping him. “Iris was dead, and this girl wasn’t to blame!” He swallowed and continued, in a quieter but no less tense voice. “I doubted what Iris said. Perhaps I didn’t realize the significance of it. I thought part of it was true and part the fruit of a problematic child’s imagination. But then, when she died, I told myself that bringing all that filth to light would only serve to make this poor little girl face so much. Her mother begged me to protect her. And I opted for the living, Inspector. I confessed the truth to the inspector who took on the case,” he said, not mentioning his name. “I asked him to stop investigating for this little girl’s sake. And he agreed.”
“But you didn’t tell him you were letting a paedophile go free, did you? You just told him about a fight between sisters, an unfortunate accident. And what happened to the monitor?”
“I spoke to him as well.” He knew it didn’t matter, that by this point his excuses were falling on deaf ears, but he continued anyway. “He assured me he’d never do it again, that he would reform, it was just that one time, because—”
“Because Iris was looking for it, right?” Leire intervened.
Fèlix shook his head.
“He was a good boy from a good family. He believed in God and he promised it would never happen again. The Church preaches forgiveness.”
“Justice, Father, preaches something else,” interrupted Héctor. “But you all think you’re above it, isn’t that right?”
“No . . . I don’t know.” Fèlix lowered his eyes again. “I said the same thing to Marc when he came to see me after returning from Dublin. He wanted to know that boy’s name. He barely remembered who the camp monitors were, he was only six. And I refused to tell him. I told him to forget the whole matter.”
“But Marc didn’t forget,” continued Héctor. “He said so in his blog: he spoke of means and ends, revenge and justice, truth.”
“I don’t know what he was planning. I didn’t discuss the subject with him again.” He looked at Inés, as if she might have the answer.
“He didn’t give me the details, but it was some plot against you. He didn’t want to tell me what it was.”
Héctor stood in front of Father Castells.
“Well, now the time has come to give this name, don’t you think? The name of the monitor who abused this little girl and is, morally at least, responsible for her death? The name Marc was trying to discover?”
He nodded.
“I hadn’t seen him for a while, but I met him yesterday at the Martís’ house. His name is Eduard. Eduard Rovira.”

“Pigs,” said Leire as she drove toward the Rovira home. “They’re all pigs. I’m sure that the friendship with the Roviras mattered more than what had happened to the cook’s daughter. A good Christian boy from a good family who has made a mistake . . .”

Héctor looked at her and couldn’t deny it.
“There was an element of that, I’m sure. And also hurt pride or fear. How could you justify all this happening under your nose without your seeing it? With Iris dead, the most “practical” thing is to bury the matter.”
Leire accelerated.
“I want to catch this fucker.”
They caught him at home. The elder Roviras weren’t there, so it was a surprised Aleix who opened the door to them, thinking they were looking for him.
“I thought it was tomorrow—”
Héctor grabbed him by the collar.
“We’re going to talk then for a little while, you and I. But first we want to chat to your dear brother. Is he in his room?”
“Upstairs. But you have no right to—”
Héctor slapped him across the face. A red mark spread over the boy’s cheek.
“Hey, this is police brutality!” he protested, seeking Leire’s help with his eyes.
“What?” she asked. “You mean what’s come up on your face? You’ve been bitten by a mosquito. There’re lots in summer. Even in this neighborhood.”
The uproar had brought Edu out of his room. Héctor released Aleix and focused all his attention on his brother. He forced himself to forget what Inés had read them barely half an hour before, to stifle the superhuman rage which threatened to cloud his vision once again. He remained tense for a few seconds, fists clenched. His face must have been frightening because Edu drew back.
“You know why we’re here, don’t you?” asked Leire, placing herself between the inspector and Eduard Rovira. “We’ll all go to the station, and there we can talk more calmly.”

Leire observed Aleix, who was sitting on the other side of the table in the interrogation room, not daring to look up. The red stain had almost disappeared from his cheek, but a slight scratch was still visible.

“We have to talk about Edu, Aleix.” Her voice was cold, impartial. “You know your brother is sick.”
He shrugged.
“All right. How long have you known? Did he abuse you too?”
“No! He doesn’t—”
“He doesn’t like boys. Just a detail! So he prefers girls. When did you find out?”
“I’m not going to say anything.”
“Yes. Yes you’re going to say. Because it could be that your brother killed Marc and Gina to hide all this. And maybe Marc mightn’t matter to you, but you loved Gina . . .”
“Edu hasn’t killed anybody! He didn’t even know about this until yesterday.”
Leire was treading carefully. Any error could be fatal.
“If that’s true, talk to me, Aleix. Convince me. When did you realize Edu liked little girls?”
He looked her in the eyes; she knew he was calculating all the possibilities and mentally crossed her fingers until he finally answered.
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Yes you do . . . You like knowing things about others, Aleix. And you’re nobody’s fool.”
Aleix smiled at her.
“Well, let’s say a couple of years ago, one summer that he came home, I found some things on his computer. I’m good at passwords. But you can’t prove it because you won’t find anything on it now.” He kept smiling. “Not a trace.”
Thanks to you, motherfucker, thought Leire. Aleix was bragging; he wanted to show that he was the cleverest. I’m going to get you for being cocky, asshole.
“And when Marc came back from Dublin determined to find the boy who had abused Iris, you ended up putting two and two together and thought it could be Edu, didn’t you? You remembered he’d been a camp monitor with Fèlix, and it’s obvious your family and the Castells got on well. Marc didn’t even remember Edu, or know you when all this happened. And Edu’s been away for years . . . In places where he does humanitarian work. And plays with little girls.”
He held her gaze insolently.
“You said that, not me.”
Leire paused. They were getting to the most important point in this whole matter, the point at which she stopped knowing and had to ask, the point at which she needed to be more adept than this conceited brat. She took a few seconds before forming the next question.

In the adjoining room, a silent and terrified Eduard was facing Inspector Salgado’s harsh, tense voice. He’d told him, point by point, detail after detail, everything contained within Iris’s diary.

“And what’s more, you’ve been unlucky,” he finished. “Because for some legal reason I can never understand, these cases of abuse expire after fifteen years. And that summer was only fourteen years ago. Have you heard what they do to paedophiles in prison?”

Edu paled, and gave the impression of cowering in his seat. Yes, everyone had heard of that.
“Well, in your case it will be worse, since I’ll make sure the guards tell the reliable prisoners. And in passing let slip that you’re a good boy who evaded justice for years because of Daddy’s contacts.” He laughed inwardly, seeing the face this worm was making. “If there are two things prisoners hate it’s paedophiles and rich kids. I really wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when three or four of them corral you in one of the rooms while the guards look the other way.”
He seemed on the verge of breaking down. Good, that’s how I like it, thought Salgado.
“Of course if you cooperate a little, maybe I’ll do the opposite. Ask the screws to protect you, tell them you’re a good boy who’s made a few mistakes.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What did your brother tell you?”
Leire was about to form the next question when a serious Héctor Salgado appeared in the room and, moving slowly toward Aleix, said to him very quietly:
“Edu’s been explaining a few things to me. The idea of going to jail has made him very communicative.”
Salgado sat on the edge of the table, very close to Aleix.
“And by the end I’d formed an opinion of you. Want to know what it is?”
The boy shrugged.
“Answer me when I speak to you.”
“You’re going to tell me anyway, aren’t you?” replied Aleix.
“Yes. You’re a clever guy. Very clever. At least in school. First in class, leader of the pack. A good-looking boy with a rich family behind him. But deep down you know there’s lots of shit hidden in this family. The rest don’t matter, but Edu is special. You’ve done a lot of things for Edu . . .”
Aleix looked up.
“Edu helped me a lot years ago.”
“Yeah. Because of that you couldn’t let Marc’s plan proceed. It was a somewhat crazy plan, but it could have come off and your precious Edu would have had to face a very disagreeable time. You killed Marc for that? So it wouldn’t go ahead?”
“No! I’ve told you a hundred times. I didn’t kill Marc. Not me, not Edu—”
“Well, right now it’s on you. It all adds up.”
Aleix looked at Salgado, then at Leire. He didn’t find even a hint of understanding. Finally he threw his head back, closed his eyes and inhaled. When he opened them again, he started speaking slowly, almost relieved.
“Marc got really angry with his uncle when he refused to tell him who that monitor was. And then that stupid idea occurred to him.” He paused. “You know everything already, don’t you? I suppose you found the USB at Gina’s house.”
Leire didn’t know what he was talking about but nodded. “I was lucky. I grabbed it when you left.”
“Well, then you’ve seen it. The photos of Natàlia, ready to be downloaded on to his uncle’s computer. In a way it would have been funny: seeing enormous Father Castells’ face when he turned on the computer and found photos of a naked little girl on it, along with some others Marc had downloaded from the internet. Also, Marc worked on the photos. He took lots of the little one one night while she was asleep. Did you know that little Chinese girls are very popular with paedophiles?”
Leire tried not to let the emotion and disgust she felt show in her appearance. She was mentally putting two and two together, trying to anticipate and not put her foot in it. But then Salgado intervened.
“It would have been difficult for him to explain those photos if someone had seen them.”
“Of course. And for once the cassock wouldn’t protect him from the rumors. Rather the contrary.”
“Rumors like the ones you spread in school about that teacher,” said Héctor, remembering it at that moment.
Aleix smiled slightly.
“Yes. Stupid bitch. I found a profile of hers on the internet, all very decent, I swear. I stole the photos, played around with Photoshop to enhance certain charms, added other text and then sent the thing to her whole list of contacts. And not just private ones; I even included the principal of the school. It was brilliant!”
“And Marc thought to do the same with Father Castells’ email account and the photos of Natàlia,” added Héctor.
“More or less. Really Marc wanted to use it as a threat. Thanks to a few things I’d taught him, he’d deciphered his uncle’s account password. His plan was simple. On one hand, upload the file with the photos on to Father Castells’ computer, then after the San Juan long weekend call and corner him: either he gave him the name he wanted or those disgusting photos that Fèlix, horrified, was seeing for the first time would be revealed to all his contacts. Knowing his password and having the USB with the photos, Marc could do it from home. Enric, Glòria, the priest’s colleagues, the clerical associations—can you imagine their faces if suddenly an email arrived from Castells containing photos of his naked niece?”
“It’s sick,” Leire pointed out. “He was going to do that to a man who raised him, who’d almost been a father to him?”
Aleix shrugged.
“Marc’s theory was that Fèlix would have talked. In the moment of desperation he’d reveal the name he wanted. And then he wouldn’t have to carry out his threat. Anyway, he didn’t feel too bad about giving him a fright: at the end of the day he was an accessory.”
“And you thought he’d get his way?”
The boy nodded.
“The plan could have failed spectacularly and Fèlix could have refused, but . . . It’s a bad time for priests regarding this subject. He wouldn’t have risked his reputation to protect Edu . . . I tried to dissuade Marc, point out the risks. I insisted that this wasn’t a school joke any more, it was a much more serious thing. If the truth came out he and Gina could have had a bad time of it. I managed to convince him to postpone the whole thing for a few days, at least. I told him we should think about it so as not to put our foot in it and I persuaded him to leave it until after the exams. He didn’t bring up the subject again, but through Gina I knew he’d gone ahead with the plan behind my back.”
“And you couldn’t allow that . . . So you convinced Gina to keep the USB,” Héctor continued interrogating him. “It was easy. She was hugely jealous of the girl from Dublin and she was really frightened. Also, Gina was a sensitive girl.” He smiled. “Too sensitive. Seeing those photos horrified her. Marc saved them on the USB to delete them from his computer. At my request, Gina convinced him that it was better that she kept it in her house until he had the opportunity to access Fèlix’s computer.”
“And the opportunity arose over San Juan weekend,” said Leire, recalling that Fèlix was staying with the rest of his family in Collbató. “But Gina didn’t bring the USB to the party and Marc got angry,” she continued, sure of herself thanks to Rubén’s story. “He got angry with you and with her and ended up flushing the drugs you had to sell. The drugs you still had to pay for, incidentally. You tried to stop him and you hit him. The T-shirt he was wearing got stained with blood. Because of that, he then took it off and put on another.”
“More or less . . .”
“You said you left, and your brother confirmed it, but your mutual alibi isn’t very satisfactory now, would you say?”
He leaned toward the table.
“It’s true! I went home. Edu was there. I didn’t tell him any of this. God, I only told him last night because I need money to pay these guys. If not, I’d never have told him anything. He’s . . . my brother.”
Leire looked at Héctor. The boy seemed to be telling the truth. Salgado pretended to ignore his colleague and sat down at a corner of the table.
“Aleix, what I can’t understand is how a boy as clever as you could make such a crude mistake. How did you let Gina keep the USB? You were in control of everything. And you knew you couldn’t trust her—”
“I didn’t!” he protested. “I asked her for it the same day you came to question her. But she got mixed up and gave me the wrong one. You know something? I am cleverer than you. Do you have the transcription of the suicide note that Gina wrote to hand? Do you remember it? Gina would never have written that! She was incapable of leaving off an accent or using abbreviations. Her father, the writer, hates them.”
Héctor watched Aleix, not saying anything. But it was Agent Castro who caught his attention then, as, in a voice trying to be firm, she asked: “What was on the USB Gina gave you, Aleix?”
“Her Art History notes. What does that matter?”
Leire leaned on the back of the chair. Far away she could hear Héctor continuing to interrogate the witness, although she knew it was pointless. Aleix hadn’t killed Marc, and of course Gina hadn’t either. He was an idiot and he deserved to have his face smashed in by the dealers, but he wasn’t a killer. Neither was his brother, the pious paedophile.
Without saying anything, she left the room and made a call. She didn’t need anything else: just to confirm something with Regina Ballester, Gina Martí’s mother.