Blood Wedding (6 page)

‘Her watch had stopped at five exactly, could be a trick to deceive us,’ said León. ‘But if Forensics say about five, then we can assume that’s probably the time of her death.’

‘Thanks, León. As I was saying . . . cause of death, broken neck. No sign of sexual assault. Nothing else suspicious. Healthy normal girl about twenty-three. Not a virgin though. Bruising consistent with having fallen down the ravine. Any footprints or whatever washed away by rain. No mobile on or near the body. Suicide or accident most likely. Any ideas?’

‘What’s the evidence for suicide?’ asked Guevarra.

‘Not likely,’ chipped in León. ‘Nobody in their right mind would want to top themselves at that ravine. You might mess it up, and then you’re stuck at the bottom with flies and ants. Dead dogs too.’

‘Could have been an accident though,’ insisted González.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Guevarra. ‘She wasn’t dressed for hiking, and there’s no evidence of intoxication. Sober adults just don’t go around falling off a road into a ravine.’

‘I had a cousin once who did just that,’ said León.

‘Okay. Thank you, León. But maybe she had an accident up on the Capa road, and the body got swept down in the storm?’ said González.

‘No, there’s the gorge between the Capa road and the Jola bridge. A body would probably get stuck in the narrows there,’ commented Max.

‘I don’t know how us poor peasants could manage without you, Max.’

Max coughed. ‘It’s likely to be murder, isn’t it? Her body was found under the road bridge, covered with oleander branches. There were still flowers on the oleander, and they didn’t look to me as if they’d been swept downstream. So someone must have attempted to cover the body.’

‘Teniente,’ smiled León, ‘I would like to suggest then that it is not feasible that she accidentally fell down the ravine, broke her neck, crawled under the bridge, and then covered herself with branches.’

‘I was just about to point that out,’ snarled González.

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘Right. Where did we get to before some fool interrupted? Murder. Murderer unknown. Reason for murder? Unknown. Murder weapon, probably hands, but unknown. In fact we know almost bloody nothing about her, except she is a fucking Muslim. Why a pretty girl would want to be a Muslim I don’t know.’

‘Muslim girls can be quite pretty, you know,’ said Max.

‘Fancy them, do you? I’ve always thought there was some reason for your job.’

The scientific, operational inquiry was clearly going nowhere. Best retreat.

‘Her father will be here shortly. He’ll fill us in on the background,’ said Max.

‘Coffee then. Remember the father’s a suspect until we know otherwise. You never know what goes on in some of these odd sects.’

‘Sufis are not an odd sect. They’re an old and well-established group within Islam .’

‘Fuck off!’ shouted González. ‘I need a coffee.’

‘Best keep quiet,’ whispered León as they walked along the corridor. ‘The boss has a short fuse. And he can’t stand liberal wankers.’

‘You’d better do the interview,’ muttered González. ‘You might as well do something useful for that fat salary of yours. If I had my way you wouldn’t be here.’

Ahmed arrived precisely at eleven. He was still pale, but his shoulders were straight. Max greeted him warmly.

‘How are you?’

‘Bearing up.’

The interview was in the operations room. The flip chart had been removed.

‘Make yourself comfortable.’

González switched on the tape recorder. Max began the interview.

‘We know very little about your daughter. So we would be grateful if you would fill us in on her background. At this stage we have no clues as to why it happened. We are definitely treating it as murder. So if you could just begin by giving us as much information on her as possible.’

‘Her name is Leila Mahfouz. My own parents were Egyptian. Came to Britain when Nasser took over. I was ten, I think, at the time. Leila’s mother was Scottish . . . from Edinburgh. We met at university, and married when I finished my PhD. I taught History of Art at various universities. Leila was born on 18
^th
August 1980 in York. I was working on Islamic art and architecture in Spain, so we used to come to Spain most holidays. Leila was our only child. Her mother died when she was sixteen.’

Ahmed’s voice faltered. Sobs began, but he paused, took a deep breath, and continued.

‘Shortly after, I rediscovered my faith. When Leila left for college, I moved permanently to Spain to help set up a Sufi community, first in Granada and then some two years ago here in Diva. Leila went on to do graduate work in History at Edinburgh. She chose to do her thesis on Diva during the Civil War, and was over here doing her fieldwork.’

The sobs could no longer be contained, and Ahmed’s head collapsed into his hands. Anita Guevarra left the room, and returned with a glass of water. She placed it beside Ahmed, and put an arm around his shoulders. Ahmed sipped the water, straightened his shoulders, and wiped his eyes.

González glared at Guevarra. Max continued with the interview.

‘We’ll get all the documentation later, if we may. Have you any idea who might want to kill her?’

‘None whatsoever. The thesis was going well. She seemed happy and contented. She spent some time in Granada, and was interviewing people there and here in Diva.’

‘Did she have any particular friends in Granada and Diva?’

‘She’d made a lot of friends locally – and there was a graduate student at Granada University with whom she would sometimes stay overnight. She knew nearly everyone in our small community. I can give you their names and phone numbers if you want.’

‘That would be useful. Any boyfriends?’

‘She was invited out to parties and such things. But nothing serious, I think. There’s a boyfriend back in Scotland, but I had the impression that had cooled off.’

‘Is there anything else you can think of that might be useful?’

‘Not really. A young man in our community was fond of her. They’d gone for a walk last Thursday. And apparently quarrelled after prayers on Friday.’

‘Do you know his name?’

‘Hassan Khan. He’s a British Muslim. He works at the Ibn Rush’d Centre.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s an adventure training centre up in the mountains. But where exactly it is I don’t know. Leila and I were going to visit soon.’ Ahmed’s voice broke, but he managed to hold back the tears.

‘Ah! A Muslim kid?’ interjected González. He tried to make the ‘Ah!’ seem significant. ‘We should interview this lad. When did you last see your daughter?’

‘Friday at prayers. There was a message on the answer-phone to say she was going to a party. Must have stayed over with friends – she didn’t come back that night. And then she called me on my mobile on Saturday afternoon to say she was home.’

‘Do you know where the party was?’

‘No.’

‘Isn’t it unusual for a Muslim girl to stay out by herself overnight?’ asked Max.

‘Unusual? In some families, yes. But Leila’s twenty-three. She’d spent all her life in Britain. My faith doesn’t make me an authoritarian patriarch. My girl and I can work things out. Oh Allah be merciful. It’s all lost now.’

‘I think that will be all for now. We’ll obviously want to talk to you again. Could León go back with you and look around Leila’s room, collect anything that might be useful?’ asked González.

‘Yes, of course. But I’d prefer it if a woman touched Leila’s things.’

‘Okay. Guevarra then.’

‘Ahmed, could you manage one more question?’ asked Max. ‘I have to ask . . . where were you between say four and six on Saturday afternoon?’

‘I was having lunch with the new family over from Britain. They wanted to talk about the present difficult situation.’

‘Difficult situation?’

‘Yes. The war. The problems in Palestine. The problems here in Spain.’

‘You have witnesses?’

‘Yes. Of course. Would you like their names? Then I came home before five for the meeting with you, Max.’

Ahmed turned to Guevarra. ‘We were expecting Leila, but she didn’t turn up.’

‘Could she have returned to the house while you were out?’ Max asked.

‘Yes, she did. There was a load of laundry on. And she must have had a sandwich. Am I a suspect?’

‘No, of course not,’ said Max.

González glared at Max, and then asked, ‘How long were you in the house alone?’

‘Oh, about twenty minutes.’

‘So you could have gone out?’

‘I could have, but I didn’t.’

‘Okay. We’ll check up on the family.’

‘Did Leila have a mobile?’ asked Max.

‘Yes, of course. She always had it with her. She called me on it on Friday and Saturday.’

‘We haven’t found it.’

‘Maybe it’s in her room. I don’t know . . .’

Guevarra and Ahmed left the room together.

‘It’s that bloody British Muslim kid. I feel it in my bones,’ said González.

‘We’ve no evidence. It’s not illegal to go for a walk in the hills,’ said Max.

‘Yes, but what’s a bloody British Muslim doing up the mountains here? Doesn’t sound right to me. Let’s go and pick the bastard up.’

‘We’ll certainly want to question him. But don’t jump to conclusions. Innocent until proven guilty, remember.’

‘Fuck that. If you feel someone is guilty, you’re usually right.’

‘Do you want me to come?’ asked Max.

‘Sure. You’re the expert. And you’ve been assigned. I don’t want to be accused of bloody bias. Bite to eat first?’

Max did not fancy eating with González. The fat bastard probably had disgusting personal habits. ‘I have to go to the bank and post office. So see you back here at four?’

‘Agreed. Right – León, get a fix on this bloody Muslim adventure centre. Never heard such crap in my life.’

Max slipped away quickly. He could eat in el Paraíso. Alone.

‘Terrible news about that British girl,’ said the waiter as he took Max’s order for garlic soup, the fish and half a bottle of the Márquez de Abaxurra. ‘To think I served her and that young man on Thursday.’

‘You did? What time?’

‘Late afternoon. They sat outside there, quite friendly like, until a car came up. The young man left, and the girl set off on her own afterwards.’

‘You don’t know who was in the car?’

‘I’ve seen him around. Foreign, very dark, grey hair. Runs some centre or other in the mountains.’

‘That’s interesting.’

‘Any suspicions, Max?’

‘Can’t comment.’

Max had picked up the European edition of the
Guardian
on the way over.
El País
was good, but he still liked to read a British paper now and again. He glanced at the headlines: ‘US Government Warns Terrorist Attack Likely’. Not again. They’d been saying that for over a year. Still no attack. Some balls-up about to hit the press. You always get terrorist warnings just before. Max turned to the inside pages: ‘Intense International Pressure on Palestine to Sign Peace Deal’. He quickly skipped to the sports pages. Celtic beat Rangers. Great. He walked slowly back to the police station. The shops were all shut: siesta sacred.

González was waiting when he arrived.

‘It’s four twenty,’ he announced ‘León has a fix on that Centre – five kilometres north of Capa, off the old Sierra Nevada road.’

Max told him what he had learnt from his waiter.

‘Could be two bastards involved,’ grunted González.

The three of them got into the car, León in the back seat, González’ face shiny with expectation. The road out of Diva wound its way up the mountain. They could soon see Capa, its white houses climbing on top of each other up the hillside.

‘So, León, what do you know about this centre then?’

‘It’s an old farm – used to be called Los Moros, but they’ve changed the name.’

They passed another dirt track turn-off, and then entered Pampa. Max knew there was a good mountaineering centre in the office of the Parque National de la Sierra Nevada, but González refused to stop to ask for directions. Next was Buba, busy with tourists, the local rugs outside the craft shops. Ten minutes later they entered Capa.

‘Best ask the route,’ said Max.

‘No. Just keep going. There can’t be many roads north of here,’ said González.

But ten minutes beyond Capa, there were no roads, just dirt tracks to farms. The Centre could be along any of them. Something had upset González’ stomach. A loud fart filled the car. Max and León hastily opened the windows. González pretended nothing had happened. He grumbled all the way back to Capa.

‘What fucking bastards would want to live in such a remote place. They must be up to no good.’

‘Adventure training centres usually are in remote places,’ Max reminded him.

‘Sure. But have you ever heard of a Muslim adventure centre?’

Max admitted he never had. They stopped at the Sierra Nevada bar. Max remembered a memorable tapa of aubergines in honey. He was with some girl at the time, but damned if he could remember who. The manager was helpful. Left, third left, and keep going. But which was third left? The track was bumpy, and tempers were beginning to fray.

Max noticed that León had picked up his trait of correcting González’ more absurd pronouncements, making Gonzo more and more angry. Although he had lived all his life surrounded by mountains, González did not like them. ‘Tracks all over the fucking place,’ he kept repeating. And then shouted, ‘Where the fuck is this bloody Centre?’

‘I think it was the other track we passed,’ said León.

González muttered all the way to the farmhouse. ‘Any fucker living out here must be pretty dodgy.’

It was a two-storey farmhouse with low wings on each side. New buildings completed the square, with a small domed building a little way off. González tooted his horn angrily. Nobody came out.

‘Let’s have a look around. If necessary, kick the doors in,’ said González.

‘We don’t have a warrant.’

‘Fuck that. This is a murder case. We can do what we like.’

They approached the farmhouse. A man appeared.

‘Bet they’ve hidden everything,’ muttered González.

The man, tall, athletic, silver grey hair, dressed in a crisp shirt and pressed chinos, walked up to them. He bowed formally and greeted them in Arabic. ‘Can I help you? This is the Ibn Rush’d Centre.’