At Close Quarters (16 page)

‘Come in.’

She let him in and then gestured towards Samuel, who seemed as surprised as she was. The inspector accepted a chair, but before speaking he cast a glance towards Samuel. Marina told him who he was.

‘This morning someone paid us a visit at the station,’ he explained, using a plural that somehow seemed to refer only to himself. ‘Something to do with your father.’

‘What?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Don’t worry. It’s nothing that might affect what the judge wrote down in the file. The owner of a jewellery shop came to show us his commissions, and to give us a wedding ring.’

The inspector took a small velvet-covered case out of his jacket.

‘Here,’ he said, opening it with great care, as if fearing that he might drop its contents on the floor.

The ring was sitting in a groove in the box; it was gold, simple, perfect, with no adornment or stone to distort the purity of the metal. It reflected the light from the lamp and shone disturbingly.

‘Your father bought it. We’ve checked his signature. He paid cash. We thought we should bring it to you as soon as possible.’

‘But why was it still at the jeweller’s?’

‘Your father bought it the day of his death, in the early afternoon. When you purchase a ring of this sort, you have the option of having something engraved on the inside at no extra cost. We’ve spoken to the employee who served him, and she remembers that
when she suggested it, your father hesitated, not knowing what to answer just then. He asked her to wait till the following day, when he’d phone with a decision. The employee put the ring aside, but the call was never made. And then the owner, going through his books, recognised your father’s name. He didn’t know who to contact and called us to tell us what had happened. And to give us the ring.’

The policeman left the case on the table and pushed it towards Marina before brusquely sitting back in his chair, which seemed to imply that his business with her was concluded.

Marina picked up the case, took out the ring and studied it carefully, as if she might guess from its weight, style and material, the intensity of her father’s feelings. She thought of the finger it was destined for.

‘So my father had doubts about engraving her name,’ she said, still unable to identify what that might mean.

‘But that doesn’t change anything,’ the inspector said. ‘Of course, we consulted with the judge before coming here. It doesn’t either eliminate or confirm any theories,’ he added tactfully, avoiding any words that might suggest a form of death. He took out of the pocket of his jacket a pen and a receipt for the jewel and slid them towards Marina.

‘Please, if you could sign here.’

With her left hand, almost without looking, she drew a quick flourish at the bottom of the piece of paper.

When the inspector left, both remained silent, looking at the ring she’d put back in its case, on the table.

‘You should tell Gabriela,’ he suggested.

‘Gabriela?’ she asked, lost in thought. Then she looked at the chair where the policeman had sat.

‘Who else?’ he replied kindly, trying to take things easy. ‘You know how much he loved her. He must have bought this as a gift to make their relationship official. And maybe he wanted to know whether she agreed with him before having her name engraved on it. Gabriela can be so hesitant, so complicated.’

‘So, if she didn’t …’

‘You mean if she didn’t agree? If her “no” pushed him to a decision? That might explain what we don’t understand,’ he dared suggest.

‘I don’t know, Samuel, I don’t know what to think.’ She shook her head, and pressed her eyes with the tips of her index and ring fingers. ‘If my father had asked her formally and she had refused, she would have told me straight away. But then, if she didn’t, and now thinks her refusal may have influenced him …’

‘She wouldn’t say it. Maybe she wouldn’t say it,’ qualified Samuel.

‘I don’t know, I really don’t,’ she repeated. ‘I’m so confused, so tired of all this. I just want it to end. A few days ago I wanted above all, to find out the truth, what happened there in my father’s study. But not anymore. I’m not strong enough to deal with all this anxiety. And if it means that in order to live in peace, without cops knocking on my door, without suspecting that people I care about may be keeping things from me, without anonymous, nasty notes in my letter box, that I have to do without finding out the truth, then I’ll accept that.’

She had started crying quietly, without sobbing. Two slow, fat, difficult tears ran from her eyes to her chin before she took out a handkerchief to wipe them away. Samuel had never seen her cry and felt strangely moved. He could never tell why, but he’d come across women whose crying irritated him with its ease, its slight credibility, and others whose tears moved him to the point that he would do anything to prevent them. It was the same result, but some tears seem born of sorrow and others of some kind of slyness.

‘What’s that about anonymous notes? Did you get one?’

‘This morning.’

She went to the bedroom and came back with a letter which she placed on the table, near the case containing the ring. Samuel leaned over it, not daring to touch it.

‘Open it, don’t worry, I’ve touched it a dozen times. If it had any fingerprints, they’re probably useless by now, ruined by mine. But then whoever wrote it, whoever was miserable enough to write
and send such a letter, must have thought of a way of doing it without leaving any traces.’

Samuel picked up the white envelope with two fingers and looked at it carefully before opening it and reading the message:

‘When I collected the mail, I found that envelope among the other letters, no sender’s name, nothing but the address and Olmedo in capitals. I opened it first; I don’t know why I thought it might be important. Inside there was only that page, in those big letters, as if to make sure that no one missed the point. I had to lean on the wall for support and I dropped the other letters. I gathered them together and came up, sat down and put the letter in front of me, trying to think. If I tear it into a thousand pieces, I thought, maybe I’ll be able to forget it. ‘“How does it feal now you son of a bitch? Who are you giving orders to? Who are you going to arrest in hell?”’ She repeated the lines in a voice that didn’t sound like her own, rather a hoarse sound that filled the room with the hatred of someone else’s words. ‘But I didn’t dare. The envelope or the page, I thought, might have a print or give us a clue as to who could have sent it and from where. I don’t know why, but when I thought about all that, I didn’t think of turning it over to the police but to the detective, Cupido, as if he’d be able to reach better conclusions, although I’m sure he doesn’t have the equipment or a lab for that kind of thing. Maybe because I thought that what mattered was not the fingerprints but the intention, and that he’d get it at once and would guess the identity of the author. Because whoever planned this, whoever chose and wrote the words, wanted to hurt
me
, not my dead father. Me! That’s why there wasn’t a name on the envelope, but just a surname, Olmedo, and although the questions are addressed to him, I’m the one that’s supposed to be reading them. They want to hurt me with this letter.’

‘It doesn’t matter. An anonymous note!’ said Samuel. ‘There’s plenty of people who have nothing better to do! This …’ He leaned forward to read the unfolded page, but didn’t touch it. ‘The third question suggests it may have been a recruit, or in any case a subordinate your father must have arrested at some point. Someone who thinks that he’s getting his revenge by writing this. Really, don’t worry about it,’ he insisted, calm and musingly, searching for more convincing words. Then, as if he’d suddenly found them, he added: ‘Someone who doesn’t regard the pain of a violent death as punishment enough. You can’t let someone like that influence your acts or your decisions.’

‘That’s why I didn’t show the note to the policeman a few minutes ago. He would only have asked me lots of questions only to reach a similar conclusion.’

‘And the detective? Are you going to show it to him?’

‘Not him, either.’

‘You sure?’

‘No, I’m not,’ she said after a few seconds. ‘I only want this to end. Besides, I find him quite puzzling.’

‘Cupido?’

‘Yes. Whenever I’m talking to him, when he’s in front of me, I feel I can trust him. And yet, today I’ve been having doubts.’

‘Why?’

‘His job. What kind of person do you have to be to become a private detective? What happened to him that he chose such a profession?’

‘I don’t know. It used to be said they were all ex cops … fired from their jobs because of drinking problems.’

‘I can’t imagine him drinking. His assistant, perhaps. But I can’t imagine him making a spectacle of himself, as drunk men do. On the contrary, I’d say he hides things from others, doesn’t want to be known.’

Marina got another tissue and blew her nose. Samuel went to sit next to her and hold her. He closed his eyes when Marina nestled her head on his chest, calmer now, and said in a low voice:

‘I don’t want to go on with all this, Samuel. I know I am beholden to the memory of my father, and, if I were one of those tragic
heroines
, I would not rest until I settled this. But I’m not that strong and I need to rest. Because I have other obligations too: towards my children’s happiness, towards myself, towards you,’ she added after a brief pause.

Samuel listened in silence, but held her a little tighter. It was the first time she’d included him among her priorities. Not only did she accept him as someone kind, good and uncomplicated, she also valued him enough to be able to make an effort for him, even sacrifices if it came to that.

They were alone in the flat, without the children or anyone that might stop them from giving and receiving consolation and oblivion, and escaping from all that hurts. They kissed and caressed in silence, and a little later went into the bedroom. They didn’t turn the lights on, instead they opened the blinds to let the spring air in along with the gleam of the city and the Saturday-night enthusiasm of some adolescent voices who trusted their wishes would be fulfilled. But the walls protected their intimacy, their nakedness, in the warm semi-darkness of the room. Samuel thought that right then they were like two pearls inside one shell, sheltered inside a wet, sweet darkness. They didn’t need anyone else. He only feared that the greedy, callused hand of a fisherman, armed with a knife, might come and disturb their well-being.

They made love tenderly. Later, Samuel went on tracing his fingers along her back, still surprised that desire and its satisfaction had fitted so perfectly. Marina stirred a bit and then she lay on her side, with her back turned to him, while he caressed her buttocks, one fuller than the other because of her position, with a feeling of plenitude.

Cupido arrived at the house at eleven in the morning, as arranged with Marina on the phone the previous day. She’d said she had something important to discuss, and the detective imagined she was referring to delicate news of the kind that shouldn’t be divulged on the phone. He had not expected to hear what she was now saying:

‘I don’t want you to go on with the investigation.’

‘May I ask why?’

‘It’s not you. I’ve no complaints about your work, and I don’t think anyone else could have done it any better. It’s not that. I’ll pay you for your time and expenses so far. I’m sorry if you had to turn down other cases to take this one. If I have to compensate you, I’ll do that too.’

She talked with stubborn firmness, and Cupido knew that nothing he said would alter her decision. He wouldn’t insist. People hired him to find things out – although once he had been hired to not find out something – because that was what he had to offer: his efficiency, perhaps his talent, to solve mysteries. If someone changed their mind, well, all he could do was go back the way he’d come.

‘Why do you want me to stop, then?’ he asked, neither insistently nor impatiently, just out of curiosity.

Marina hesitated and then picked up an envelope from the table and handed it over, unopened.

‘Read it.’

The detective studied the lines written in capitals, no return address, a sheet of paper like a million others, the typeface an Arial 20 font that any printer could turn out, the ink injected on the paper like poison in a vein, and those three hatred-filled phrases with a spelling mistake.

‘An anonymous letter,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s very
important
. It’s so easy to send something like that!’

Marina started telling him the reasons for her decision. It wasn’t just the letter, but also the visit of the policeman who’d given her the ring which her father had bought and on which he had not had time to engrave Gabriela’s name. She would pass it on to her, as that was what her father would have wanted, but she wouldn’t ask her any questions as to whether he’d proposed and she’d rejected him; or whether anything had happened between them that might have pushed her father to kill himself. Gabriela had been through enough with the death of her son not to have to suffer further with that of Camilo.

Marina talked with downcast eyes. She would glance at him every few seconds, but her gaze returned to the table, the letter and the case containing the ring; it appeared as if she had nowhere else to put them in the flat and they had to remain there until someone came along to take them away or destroy them.

‘And Jaime!’ she added unexpectedly. ‘He came to see me. He wants part of my father’s money, from the fund I told you about.’

She raised her eyes and looked directly at Cupido, breathing with difficulty, as if the words she’d uttered were nails sunk in a piece of wood and she’d had to extract them one by one to form sentences. Then, speaking slowly, she said:

‘It’s all too much. I rushed to believe what no one believed. But my father does not need to be avenged by a doubtful, tormented orphan, because, no matter what I thought at first, he wasn’t poisoned in his sleep. It just can’t be that everyone is wrong when they advise me to forget and I’m the only one who’s right. I give up,’ she said.

Cupido understood her reasons, her weakness, her mistake in
underestimating the pressure she’d be exposing herself to by hiring him. But when he said goodbye he still wondered whether something else might have happened which Marina hadn’t mentioned. There might be new information behind such a sudden change of heart, or a suspicion that pushed her to lie and call weariness what was in fact fear.

Disconcerted by the sudden cessation of the intense physical and mental activity that any investigation demanded, he went back to his flat, ate something, put on sports clothes and walked over to Olmedo’s place. He hadn’t returned the bunch of keys to Marina yet, and he was able to access the garage using the remote control. He was no longer employed, but he told himself that surely Marina wouldn’t mind if he used her father’s bike just once. He took it down from the hook and adjusted the seat to his height. The tyres had the right pressure, and everything was in perfect working order. It was a sober, efficient model, just like its owner had been, without fancy handlebars or any of the latest features.

Out in the street, he pedalled towards the city centre. Ten minutes later, after crossing a bridge over some rail tracks that fanned out in the direction of the station, he took the old small road that led out of town towards the west: the same one Ucha had been driving along on the evening of Olmedo’s death.

He shifted to the highest gear and, ready for a workout, stood on the pedals and picked up pace. It was a splendid day – clear, windless. Up in the blue sky hung some shreds of harmless, clean clouds, and a few birds flew by slowly and peacefully. The narrow road wound its way parallel to a brook on whose banks a group of poplars watched over the narrow stream. Beyond extended fields of orange and lemon trees, small orchards, and a few hillsides planted with cereal where poppies grew taller than ears of wheat. And then, twelve or thirteen kilometres further down, rose the steep sierras that did so little for the good of the region,
preventing
the humidity of the sea from reaching inland and so creating a hot, dry, harsh interior, where fire was prone to break out. He knew that without the adequate training he wouldn’t be able to
climb any hard incline. He’d barely cycled in the last few months and felt heavy, fat, with toneless muscles – characteristic of the amateur cyclist he’d once been. He looked at the sunflowers and thought of the times when he was so used to pedalling uphill that no mountain looked difficult enough, provided he had a few hours to tackle it at the right pace. Back then, he cycled three thousand kilometres every year, and his legs felt as hard as his bike. And when he’d pedalled on level ground using the large chainring and the small cog he felt as wild horses must feel when galloping on the prairies.

He hadn’t heard a thing when, all of a sudden, he saw a slim silent form appear beside him, to his left. He swerved towards the hard shoulder, almost off the asphalt, in surprise. Another cyclist apologised for having startled him and overtook him with strength and ease. The man was soon two hundred metres ahead, and Cupido decided to try and keep up with him from a distance.

He held on for fifteen or twenty minutes, using the big
chainring
, but slowed down as the road became steeper, for fear of finding himself exhausted, in the middle of nowhere. Now and again cars and large lorries drove by, taking the bends on the outer side of the road, their engines reverberating, but he wasn’t scared. He was enjoying the swish of the warm tyres and wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere.

Then, pedalling slowly, he grew oblivious to the physical effort and went over the information he had gathered so far. ‘In fact,’ he told himself, ‘I know nothing of what happened that evening, I haven’t been able to offer Marina any piece of information or clue that might encourage her not to give up.’ From what he’d learned about Olmedo’s character, he too refused to believe he’d committed suicide. Gabriela’s hypothetical rejection didn’t seem reason enough. Olmedo was one of those men who see difficulties as challenges. But what about that note in his own hand with so clear a message?
Forgive me
. It was confusing, inexplicable. If, for whatever reason, he had been shot in his own house after he’d let someone in, it had to be someone he knew.

He went over the names and placed their faces next to Olmedo’s, hoping that from that visual contrast an image might come to light that words and conversations had missed, an indication of a lie, a revelation that was so obvious that he had initially overlooked it. He discarded Samuel, who’d been with Gabriela on that evening. But there were others who’d had the chance to approach the house and had said they’d been either alone or with someone that would back up their lies.

He thought of Lesmes Beltrán, of his tired eyes on coming back from the operating theatre, his smell of tobacco and anaesthetics, the unconcealed, untempered hatred he had for Olmedo, the satisfaction he’d derived from his death. He thought of Jaime and his disdain for his ex-wife’s father, whom he blamed for the failure of his marriage, the airs of winged horse he gave himself, as if Olmedo had tried to tie him to an earthly yoke. He thought of Castroviejo, and wondered whether scorn decreases with the passage of time, as do strength, health, memory, ambition and the intensity of love, or whether the old colonel held Olmedo in such contempt as to shoot him when he had the chance, because he had written that pernicious report that brought down what he had striven to build. He thought of Ucha, driving alone along the same narrow, silent road on which he was now pedalling, and he was not free of
suspicion
either: on the contrary, Cupido found it easy to picture him pointing a gun at the major’s chest, with a dark desire to get even over an offence that seemed to go beyond his professional life. He thought of Bramante, picturing him strong and solid, full of muscles, sweating, panting after some athletic exercise or perhaps a tough march, sitting on a barricade with a Cetme between his legs while he waited for the others to catch up, hiding under his vigour and boastful bravery an ambiguous insecurity. Or perhaps you shouldn’t call it bravery. Looking back, Cupido noticed how much his idea of courageous acts had changed: it used to mean a violent adolescent fight against someone stronger than yourself, or participation in political demonstrations during the transition to democracy against a brutal police. Now, however, actions that
he would have previously considered pusillanimous seemed to him unquestionably courageous.

The meter registered thirty-six kilometres and eighty minutes when he turned around and started on his return. He’d missed one person, Gabriela, and he realised he knew next to nothing about her: he hadn’t talked to her, didn’t even know what she looked like. From the start he had considered her a collateral victim of the death, someone close to Marina and impervious to suspicion because of Samuel’s alibi. No one questioned that Olmedo had bought the ring for her, even if he hadn’t decided to engrave it with her name when he bought it. What did he need to confirm? What doubts did he have? He definitely had to talk to her and fill in that blank he’d left unexamined. Perhaps Olmedo had revealed things to her, projects or feelings of the kind one might discuss with a partner but not necessarily with a daughter.

The death of Olmedo was still a mystery, and the detective was by nature allergic to unsolved mysteries. They haunted him. He decided that, even if no longer officially on that case, he’d do one last thing: talk to Gabriela. If after that he didn’t see more clearly, he would abandon the investigation for good, even if new leads – the ring, Jaime’s claim on the money, the anonymous letter – had turned up that morning.

It was often like that. An investigation stopped at a dead end; he didn’t see a way to proceed and then, all of a sudden, he encountered a barrage of information he needed to analyse. Too bad it had arrived so late, when Marina had decided not to go on.

He entered the city but didn’t return to the garage straight away. He drank some water from a spring in a park and washed his hands and face. Then he got back on the bike and pedalled very slowly to Marina and Samuel’s neighbourhood. He studied the broad, silent streets, with large trees on the pavements, a few blocks dotted with three-storey buildings, then mostly detached houses. It was half past six and the few passers-by he saw didn’t look hurried, were not running errands or rushing to the shops before they closed. Not even the vehicles sped by as in the crowded
main roads of the centre, as there were no traffic lights here, and thus none of the anxiety they engendered. A few speed bumps did all the work. It was a pleasant neighbourhood – although the same could not be said of all of its inhabitants – with large, silent, detached houses, which cost a lot to acquire and to maintain; they had several lamps on the external walls, signs stating they were protected by private alarm companies, and motion sensors which triggered lights when anyone walked by. Behind the iron fences set up on top of low walls were hedges and saplings, and behind those it wasn’t difficult to imagine someone looking at him – he who was openly prying around as he pedalled slowly – entrenched between four walls, protected by alarms or dogs like the one that had killed Gabriela’s son.

Cupido pictured the kind of people living there: a slightly
pretentious
middle class, so used to comfort, security and consumerism that they would get anxious if, of a morning, they didn’t find at least three menu options in their capacious fridges. An urban middle class, well adapted to their times, who regarded the past century as deep in the past, who had barely any recollections of the countryside, the fields which seemed to them an exotic place one could never return to. A satisfied middle class, not necessarily conservative, for whom luxury did not consist of jewels, dresses, aristocratic circles, owning land, founding big companies, or
consolidating
lineages of prestigious surnames whose scions achieved more than the parents, but a sceptical, well-meaning middle class who often had children rather late in life and did not expect them to be heroes or landowners or millionaires or geniuses, but were concerned only with their well-being, people who were happy for their children to have a professional future like their own present, untouched by uncertainty, conflicts and global instability.

Soon afterwards he cycled off to Olmedo’s house. He stopped at the garage gate and, as he fumbled in his pocket for the remote, he saw a man looking at him intently and with suspicion. He was wearing grey and green overalls with the logo of a cleaning company and was leaning on a wide brush which he used to sweep
the dirt off the pavement before scooping it up into a small bin on wheels. Judging from his attitude, he seemed to have recognised Olmedo’s bike and must be wondering who it was that was using it after his death.