At Close Quarters (14 page)

‘Yes, of course. You’ve saved me from having to send for you. The detective, Ricardo Cupido, would like to have a word with you … and with Ucha, if he’s around. This is Captain Bramante,’ he said.

‘How do you do?’ the man said, shaking Cupido’s hand with the same brief energy with which he would have saluted. ‘I thought it was you. The colonel told us he’d invited you,’ he said in a dry, monotonous voice, as if he had some difficulty putting sentences together.

‘Yes,’ said Cupido. It didn’t escape his notice that Bramante had come to talk to him before being summoned by the colonel, as if he were boasting he had nothing to hide.

Castroviejo called his orderly, said something in a low voice and presently another officer, who was introduced as Ucha, joined them.

‘The detective would like to talk to you, if you don’t mind.’

‘Now?’ asked Ucha.

‘Yes,’ jumped in Bramante, ‘it’s as good a moment as any.’

The colonel left them alone, and went back to join the general, who was surrounded by several women. All three remained silent, standing a little to one side by the wall, waiting for the waiter carrying a tray to move along. Ucha exchanged his empty glass for a full one of white wine. Bramante chose mineral water.

As far as Cupido knew, both officers had been dead against Olmedo’s project. But how different they were! Whereas Bramante seemed to show off his strength, energy and health in every gesture, Ucha was his exact opposite. His back had immediately sought out the wall to lean against it, as if the mere fact of standing tired him. His facial features appeared weighed down by gravity, dripping towards the lower half of his face. His forehead was broad, and tilted slightly backwards, as if his eyebrows had descended from
their normal place and pushed his eyes down. His cheeks pulled the cheekbones downwards too, so that his nose, mouth and chin were concentrated in a small space, which gave him a strangely frail, gluttonous and lecherous appearance, but also made him look incapable of satisfying those appetites.

‘I find it curious that the colonel should ask us to help in a private investigation when he hasn’t ordered a military inquiry. He has no doubts about what happened,’ he said.

‘And what about yourselves? Do you think Olmedo committed suicide?’

‘I haven’t formed an opinion on the matter,’ said Bramante, avoiding a compromising answer.

‘No,’ said Ucha.

‘Except for the colonel, no one thinks that Olmedo shot himself, and yet no one does anything about it.’

‘Right now we have enough problems at the base as it is, mostly as a result of that report that Olmedo wrote, so we don’t need further speculation,’ said Ucha. ‘And we are officers, not detectives. We’re not as curious about the particulars as you might be.’

‘Were you not surprised by his death?’ insisted Cupido, ignoring the scorn in his tone.

‘I was, yes,’ said Ucha. ‘The untimely or violent death of people I know is always a surprise. After a few days, though, when you think about it, you begin to see that there’s a certain logic to it, either because the dead person did not take care of his health, or was reckless, or attracted too much hatred. And yet, I still find Olmedo’s death surprising, even after two weeks. I would’ve said he’d be the last person to die from a shot that … in any case, doesn’t look like it was an accident.’

‘What did you think of him?’

‘As an officer?’ asked Bramante.

‘As an officer and a person.’

‘I’m not sure you can separate them. I’m not sure a bad person can be a good officer,’ said Ucha.

The names of a few strategists who had applied their skills
to infamous causes popped into the detective’s mind, but he didn’t contradict him, limiting himself to ask, in the direction of Bramante:

‘Was he a good officer?’

‘He was in Bosnia and Afghanistan. But he stopped being one when he devoted himself to administrative work and
recommended
closing down San Marcial. He shouldn’t have collaborated with the politicians who make such decisions,’ he explained with some difficulty. ‘He was not one of us. It’s as if he’d gone over to the enemy.’

‘Do you mean that …?’

‘That it seems inevitable that in any army there will be a traitor,’ interrupted Ucha. He looked around, fearing that someone might have overheard his comment, which wasn’t exactly appropriate when two hours earlier several hundred soldiers had solemnly pledged their allegiance to the army.

But the party went on around them, and the guests continued talking and laughing as they consumed drinks and canapés. On the tables were empty bottles and glasses, some with lipstick traces, crumpled napkins, little plates with leftover food.

‘I guess we shouldn’t speak badly of him now he’s dead,’ put in Ucha. ‘But I’m sure the colonel hasn’t invited you just to hear us sing Olmedo’s praises, but also so we can tell how much unease his report had generated. Isn’t that what you expect of us?’

‘Yes.’

‘No one liked him much. And anyone who says anything to the contrary is lying,’ he affirmed. ‘Olmedo was the kind of person you make friends with not because he’s like you, or because you admire his intelligence, humour or wit, but because you’re afraid that otherwise he might become your enemy. When he returned from Afghanistan, we all knew he had kudos, influence and prestige in Madrid and with the colonel, and so it was convenient to be on good terms with him. But there’s a difference between that and liking him.’

‘No one really liked him,’ confirmed Bramante.

‘But I don’t think, either, that one of us killed him,’ insisted Ucha. ‘I really don’t. Shooting an equal is a serious thing, but if you were part of the army you’d realise that it is really unthinkable to shoot someone of a higher rank. To respect and obey a superior is the first rule one learns when putting on a uniform. You’ve just heard it in the general’s speech.’

‘Yes.’

‘And it is so engraved in our minds that even in, say, mortal danger we wouldn’t dare break that rule. You don’t think, do you, that because we’re familiar with guns we go around shooting those who get in our way or threaten our interests.’

‘But you yourselves think someone shot him. You don’t believe he committed suicide,’ he insisted.

‘Shooting is easy,’ replied Bramante. ‘You don’t have to be a soldier to know how to do it.’

‘That evening there was an informal meeting here, held to consider the consequences of the likely closure. Everyone attended, except the colonel and the two of you.’

‘That sounds like suspicion,’ said Ucha.

‘Which anyone who could prove they were far from Olmedo’s house would be above.’

‘In that case, you can rest assured about me. I was at the Vigour and Beauty Gym. The owner, and perhaps some member, can confirm it,’ said Bramante.

‘I think I’d find it easier to say where I wasn’t than where I was,’ said Ucha before the detective had addressed him.

‘Where?’

‘I was driving along the old road inland. But, of course, I couldn’t say exactly where I was at a given hour.’

‘Were you alone?’ asked Cupido.

‘Yes. It’s an old habit. A way to relax when I’m worried or have to make an important decision. I really like driving. I get in the car, fill up the tank at the first station, and drive off without a schedule or a planned route. And that evening I particularly felt like it, after the meeting with Olmedo. The closure of the base will change
everyone’s professional situation here. I’d be able to think better about all this while driving alone and in silence than at a meeting where we’d talk a lot and nothing would be solved. I know what those meetings are like. And so I drove, but as I didn’t get a fine, or have an accident, or stop anywhere to buy something with my card, I don’t think there would be anyone who can confirm they saw me driving along small roads.’

He broke off brusquely, as if he considered that with that he had already obeyed the colonel’s orders to answer the detective’s
questions
. Then he looked around impatiently.

‘I think that should be enough,’ said Ucha.

The officers started walking away, but Bramante stopped and retraced his steps.

‘If someone shot Olmedo, if there’s a culprit, you won’t find him in the army,’ he said tersely and dryly.

Cupido thought for a moment, trying to make sense of his words.

‘Do you mean to say that, if that were a possibility, people would cover for him?’

‘Cover? No, I mean we don’t admit that possibility,’ he concluded.

‘Who was that?’ asked Carmen getting in the car, once the general had left the cocktail party – by then drinks with English names had appeared – thus giving everyone implicit permission to do the same.

‘Who?’ he asked in turn, although he knew who she meant.

‘The tall guy, the one talking to you and Ucha,’ she said, feigning indifference as she lowered her sun shade to check her make-up in the little mirror and stop him seeing the interest in her eyes, the curiosity with which she was awaiting an answer.

Of course she meant him, thought Bramante, recalling a distant incident, trying to remember the first time she had lied to him. Of course she would have noticed a civilian like him, with his hair longer than anyone wearing a uniform could ever wear it, the only one dressed in casual clothes, without a suit or a tie, who scorned
the solemnity of the ceremony. One of those attractive guys who know there will always be a woman who remembers them at the end of a party. A guy oblivious to the military euphoria of that day, but who had listened intently, with suspicious concentration, to what he and Ucha had told him, as if they could only be the bearers of bad news.

‘The tall guy,’ he repeated, as if he didn’t remember him well, ‘was a private detective.’

‘How interesting!’ she exclaimed. She finished applying lipstick quickly and deftly, careful not to smudge the edges. ‘I would never have guessed. It was about Olmedo, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. Marina’s hired him. She doesn’t think her father …’

‘Does anyone?’

He furiously sounded his horn at a driver who cut in at a roundabout without giving right of way. He saw his face, a young man with long hair tied in a ponytail, and through the window he uttered his favourite insult, wishing the lad would see him, stop the car and give him the chance to confront him, burst a soft part of his body, feel the blood running on his face. He thought of turning the wheel and making as if to ram his car into the other’s, to wipe off the scornful expression that appeared on the lad’s face on seeing his uniform.

‘No, no one does. And yet no one does anything to prove it’s not true,’ he said, surprised to be repeating the detective’s words.

‘It’s better that way, isn’t it?’

‘Better?’

He turned his head and saw she was looking directly at him, with a faint expression of defiance on her painted mouth, a hint of mockery that did not match the seriousness of the suggestion.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘If that detective goes around asking everyone questions …’ she trailed off.

‘Things can get a bit sticky for Ucha,’ he replied after a few seconds. ‘He told him he spent several hours driving down small roads that evening, but that he doesn’t think anyone can confirm it.’

‘That ridiculous habit of his. One day he’ll get into trouble for it. And you?’

‘I have nothing to worry about. I told him I’d been at the gym, as you know,’ he said, trying to eliminate from his words any trace of defensiveness or even concern.

‘I never know where you are when you’re not home,’ replied Carmen. Her sarcasm had turned into a hint of reproach.

Bramante saw her head turn towards the window. Her blonde hair hid her face. What was she really thinking, he wondered. What was she suspicious of? Impatiently, almost anxiously, he searched for the right reply, but the words that would have made her look at him did not materialise, or they fled before he could catch them. Why did he find it so difficult to talk, to persuade someone who disagreed with him, to make himself understood, even in front of the soldiers, when he gave them the simplest orders? There were so many people who used language deftly! He’d always been astonished and disgusted by people’s ability to fight him verbally. Words in their mouths were like quick, invisible weapons which left him defeated and dumb. And he always ended up feeling a violent desire to shout, to address a subordinate only to utter an order or a punishment, nothing in between. He ended up feeling a desire to cut off the tongues of those smart-arsed civilians who would quiver if he but unclasped his holster.

They parked the car in the garage and went up to their flat in silence. He hung his jacket in the wardrobe and looked at the clock on his night table. Five, a stupid, hot hour, still too early to sit in front of the TV and too late to start any task, what with the mixture of excitement and exhaustion after the ceremony. He sat at the foot of the bed and untied his smart shoes, which he’d never broken in.

‘Have you noticed?’ he heard Carmen say in the bathroom, over the noise of running water. ‘I put on a new blouse and Loreto spilled wine all over it! She’s terrible! She took a whole bottle from the waiter. She drank half of it and the other half she splashed all around her. You wouldn’t believe what she dared say to the general.’

‘What?’

‘That his voice sounded so interesting that she wouldn’t mind staying up all night listening to him. You should’ve seen him run!’

He moved along the bed to see her in the bathroom, excited at the ability of feminine flesh to embody mystery and arouse desire and make men run after it like a hungry dog, mouth watering, whimpering to be allowed a few minutes inside it. She had her skirt on, but had taken off the stained blouse and was washing it by hand, leaning over the basin. The delicate cloth of her bra contained her breasts, which swung gently in their cups, big and round.

He saw her almost whole now, half naked, only concerned about her wine-stained garment, oblivious to him and his gaze, to the way her breasts awakened in him a painful ardour. He left his shoes at the foot of the bed, stood up and, without saying a word, held her by the waist from behind as he looked at her in the mirror.