A Death in Valencia (6 page)

Tuesday 7th July

The room was familiar, but in a distant, oblique sort of way, as though he'd slept so deeply he'd forgotten where he was. Yet he was certain he hadn't slept here the previous night. Nor for many nights before that.

The sound of a pneumatic drill down in the street buzzed through the open windows as a breeze blew in and played with the hairs on his exposed skin. Light reflected off the pale yellow walls, while the white cotton sheet felt soft and comforting. His fingers stretched out to find the edge, and he lifted it up to his eyes; the same thick yellow bordering as always. To match the walls.

Raising his head slightly from the pillow, he saw a bunch of white chrysanthemums in a vase on the bedside table. The sunlight was shining on them, casting a grey, hazy shadow on the parquet floor.

Yes, he thought as his head flopped down again, this room was all too familiar. As clean, neat, carefully arranged…and dead as it always had been.

But even then, comprehension was slow in coming. It was not until he heard a sound outside, a voice, that he fully realised not only where he was, but how he'd got there. And more importantly–why. He glanced quickly at the other side of the bed as the door opened. Someone else had slept there with him.

Almudena looked at him with a forced smile of concern as she placed the breakfast tray down by his knees. He hadn't seen her for over a year. There was something harder about her face than he remembered. Was that the time that had passed? Or the fact that now he could barely recall what it had felt like to be in love with her.

‘I've put your phone on silent. It's been ringing all morning, but I thought you'd want to sleep. After last night.'

Cámara placed a hand on the bed beside him where the shape of her body was still imprinted on the sheet and pillow.

‘We didn't…Did we?'

She smiled.

‘Come on, Max. Have some coffee.'

She leaned over to the breakfast tray and poured him a thick, black
café solo
. His eyes strayed over the skin of her waist, exposed from under her T-shirt as she stretched out across his legs.

‘You pretty much collapsed when you got inside,' she said, handing him the cup. ‘I was hardly going to put you on the sofa. But I wasn't going to sleep there myself, either.'

Cámara took a sip–it was bitter and burnt, as it always had been.

‘So, er, where's what's-his-name?'

‘Esteban? Oh, he's away. On business. In Paris.'

‘Are you two still…'

‘Business partners? Yes, that's all going fine, thanks.'

‘And what about bed partners?'

She looked him hard in the eye.

‘I think your toast will be getting cold.'

He tried eating, but nothing would go down.

 

Torres was pouring brandy into a plastic cup for him almost before his backside hit the seat.

‘I know you're not into that Yankee I-love-my-job crap, but even I'm amazed to see you here.'

Cámara drank it down in one, closed his eyes, then placed the cup back down on the desk, with a nod for Torres to pour some more.

‘I'm as good here as anywhere else.'

‘You want to go out for a smoke? You should take it easy.'

‘I've done little more than smoke since yesterday. My lungs need a break.'

‘As you wish. You know, if you need somewhere to stay we can always put you up at our place.'

Cámara had seen Torres's home once–a cramped, low-ceilinged flat in the Mislata district, just off the Madrid road heading out of the city. One of the blocks that had been put up in the seventies, with sliding aluminium windows and no balcony. There was barely room there for him, his wife and their little boy, let alone a guest.

‘I'm fine. Thanks. Appreciate it.'

Torres sat down opposite him, rubbing his hand through his beard.

‘The Town Hall should probably be fixing something up for you.'

‘They put people up in the school last night. But that can't last long.'

‘The landlady?'

Torres had heard plenty of Cámara's stories about his landlady, about how the tight old widow refused ever to carry out any improvements on the building, about how her husband had won the block of flats years back in a game of poker and added it to his property portfolio. The chances were, Cámara thought, that some of her other flats were empty, and she could put him and the other neighbours up somewhere–probably even for free, if they pressed her hard enough. But the thought of having to deal with her, just the grubbiness of having to ask her for charity, no matter what her responsibility was in the collapse of the building, made him queasy. He'd lost a large part of himself the previous day.

‘Something will come up,' he said.

Last night it already had. He'd left Almudena's without clearing up on what basis exactly he'd spent the night there with her. Or if she was expecting him again that night.

‘And I'm really sorry about your neighbour,' Torres said, looking down. ‘The woman and her little baby. They, er, mentioned it on the TV.'

‘Yeah,' Cámara said. ‘So am I.'

He finished off his second cup of brandy, and reached forward for the hip flask they kept in their shared office as an emergency supply. It had been Cámara's turn to refill it, though, and there was barely a drop left.

‘I can go out and get some more,' Torres said. ‘You look like you need it.'

‘I'm all right,' Cámara said, raising a hand. ‘Thanks. I'll pick something up myself later on.'

He crinkled the plastic cup in between his fingers, his gaze unfocused.

‘They'll be wrangling over the responsibility now,' he said, gritting his teeth. ‘The Town Hall trying to claim it was nothing to do with them. The landlady saying it was all their fault. She's well connected–it won't be easy to lay it on her.'

He threw his head back and sighed.

‘What I'm wondering is if there's a case for manslaughter here.'

Torres gave a low whistle.

‘The building was falling apart. I saw some cracks in the wall myself, but…'

He covered his face with his hands.

‘You couldn't have done anything,' Torres said. ‘You couldn't have saved her. The building could have come down at any time. Just because you didn't mention some cracks in the wall? How long do you think it would have taken the Town Hall to send the inspectors round?'

‘They're building the bloody new metro line right outside. They must have been on the alert.'

Torres pursed his lips.

‘Come on. You know they don't work like that. That's far too proactive for this lot. Wait for the disaster to happen and then blame it on someone else–that's how they operate. You know that. Trying to fix things before they occur takes up far too much time. And money.'

‘A young woman and her baby died.'

‘I know. It's the kind of thing we deal with every week.'

Cámara shot him a look.

‘I'm not trying to say it's not horrible, that it's not awful and disgusting,' Torres said. ‘But who's your manslaughterer here? Your landlady? She'll just say the Town Hall failed in their responsibility to inspect all buildings over fifty years old. And then they're building the metro line–well, that's not her fault, either.

‘Then who? The Town Hall? They'll say that they did carry out inspections, that their technicians did all they had to do, but it's not their fault if the cracks were invisible, or in flats they couldn't get inside because no one was at home when they called. They'll have records of all their visits, and everything they saw. And it will prove that they did the minimum, and that they can't be held responsible either.'

Cámara tapped his fingertips together as Torres continued.

‘So where do you go from there? The original builders? That place went up, when? In the fifties?'

‘About that.'

‘Right, well, you try and find the architect now. Might be difficult to press charges. Know what I mean?'

Cámara was shaking his head.

‘What I'm trying to say is that this is a political case. Yes, a woman and her little son have died. That's the human side of it. But we both know that that will soon be drowned out by the sound of politicos and civil servants scrabbling to save themselves while they're busy putting the boot into their opponents. The opposition are already using this to make waves. Emilia's even appeared to make a statement about how everyone's homes are safe, and there's nothing to worry about.'

Silently, Cámara wondered if Mayoress Emilia Delgado, or her ill-dressed sidekick Javier Flores, knew that he lived at the now collapsed block of flats. The three of them had a history from the Blanco case the previous year, when the murder of Spain's leading matador in the Valencia bullring coincided with a Town Hall plan to outlaw
los toros
within the city limits. The bulls and bullfighters were still there, and Emilia and Flores were still in power, but that was largely in spite of Cámara's successful conclusion of the investigation, not because of it. If Emilia and Flores had a list of their favourite policemen, Cámara wasn't on it.

‘There'll be an official inquiry, the Valencian High Tribunal will get involved, it will drag on for years, and meanwhile memories will begin to fade, until finally there'll be a decision absolving everyone except a couple of minor officials who'd already been blacklisted for some misdemeanour, and the whole thing will be forgotten.'

Cámara stretched out his hands, as though trying to grab Torres by the neck.

‘I can't just give in like that.'

‘It's not about giving in. It's about staying alive. You know what I'm saying is true. You'd just get yourself in a mess, with no justice for your neighbour or anyone in the end.'

‘Susana,' Cámara said. ‘Susana and Tomás.'

‘You'd never get the case in the first place,' Torres said. ‘You're compromised by the whole thing–you lived there. Just forget it. Forget it.'

‘
Si buscas la venganza, prepara dos tumbas–una de ellas será tuya
.'

Cámara nodded. If you seek revenge, prepare two graves–one of them will be yours.

He let his head drop.

‘Come on,' Torres said. ‘Let's go out. It's nearly lunchtime. You need some food inside you, a glass of wine. It'll do you good.'

‘What have you been working on?' Cámara asked as they headed out into the corridor.

‘Roures,' Torres said. ‘Got the breakdown of calls on his mobile.'

‘And?'

‘Mostly to his suppliers. A couple to the office of
El Cabanyal, Sí
. One to the department of
Urbanismo
at the Town Hall. Probably to complain about something to do with the development plan.'

‘Anything else?'

‘Haven't had a chance to find Ramón the fisherman yet, but the tests from the break-in at the other bar came in. No link.'

The doors at the end of the corridor flew open before they could reach them.

‘I've just heard something utterly fucking stupid!'

Commissioner Pardo's tie was pulled to one side, and sweat-patch stains were visible under his arms–a side effect of the underwhelming air conditioning inside the Jefatura building.

‘Some idiot just told me that Chief Inspector Cámara was here. That he'd reported for work. “Fuck off,” I said. “The bastard's house just fell down. He's not going to come in on a day like this. Hasn't even got anywhere to fucking sleep.” “Oh, no,” my informant insisted. “He's here all right.” So I thought I'd better come and have a look for myself. And you know what? It looks as though the cunt was right. 'Cause here you are standing right in fucking front of me.'

‘Morning, Commissioner,' Cámara said.

‘Fuck off!' Pardo shouted. ‘Now. That's a fucking order. You can't be here. Go where you have to go, sort your life out, get shagged, do whatever you have to do. But don't come in here. You're on compassionate fucking leave.'

He pushed his way back through the swinging doors.

‘You've got twenty-four hours.'

 

They'd opened up the street again to traffic, and a stream of cars was rolling past, pausing so the occupants could glance up at the sight of the ‘tragedy' that filled the news. A row of skips lined the pavement, filled with rubble and personal effects. An effort was being made, at least, to salvage something, but peering in he saw nothing but smashed household items, bits of broken wood from chairs and table legs, smashed crockery, clothes covered so thickly in brick dust you could hardly see what colour they were. It was all of the past now, all gone, finished. Yet still he'd found himself walking here to take another look, as though part of him was still struggling to absorb what had happened, that his body no longer slept, ate, shat or washed in the parcel of space that had once been his, there, about seven or eight metres up from where he was now standing. Now it was just a gap, emptiness. Was there any memory there of his emotions and experiences? If he were to float up and occupy the space that had been his home, would he feel anything, any echo?

A horn blew, loud and long. He turned to see a truck inching its way down the street, annoyed at the cars setting off too slowly from the traffic light ahead. From the shape of it, and the name of the company on the side, he could see it was coming to pick up one of the skips and take it away. Already the lives of those who had lived here had become rubbish to be dumped in some hole in the ground.

From the other direction he heard a voice calling his name. It was Vicent, from the bar. They shook hands and stood in silence for a moment, staring at the rubble.

‘They'll be burying Susana and Tomás in a few hours' time,' Vicent said at last. ‘We had a whip-round at the bar, sending some flowers.'