A Small Death in lisbon (57 page)

'Can you be more specific,
Senhor
Rodrigues? You should know that
Senhor
Jorge Raposo the manager of the
Pensão
is cooperating with the
Polícia Judiciária?

'I can't be certain. It could have been as many as twelve times.'

'And always in the Pensão Nuno?'

'And always engaged in sexual acts with other men, although last Friday was the first time I'd seen her with two men at the same time.'

'After any of these occasions did you make any attempt to follow her?'

He leaned over to his lawyer again.

'Two weeks ago on Friday I followed her from the Pensão Nuno to the school she was attending, on Avenida Duque de Ávila.'

'That's not quite correct,
Senhor
Rodrigues.'

'I'm sorry, no. She went to a café near the school first.'

'Did you go in there?'

'Yes.'

'Do you remember its name?'

'No.'

'How did you know she was attending the Liceu D. Dinis?'

'I followed her out of the café and saw her go into the building.'

'So when you were observing her in the Pensão Nuno last Friday you already knew she was a schoolgirl.'

'Yes.'

'The sexual act you were watching last Friday, can you describe it please?'

'The girl was kneeling between two young men, one of the men had his penis in her mouth, the other was sodomizing her.'

'Sodomizing her?' I asked, beginning to see his strategy now.

'Yes.'

'How did you know that he was sodomizing her?'

'I could see from where I was sitting.'

'How was that possible?'

'They had moved the bed in front of the mirror and I could see very clearly what was happening.'

'Would you say that she was enjoying what she was doing?'

'There was nothing in her face to indicate to me that she was not:.'

'Did you follow her on that occasion?'

'No.'

'But you were in a car waiting for her outside the school later that Friday afternoon, at around four-thirty.'

'Yes.'

'Can you describe the car you were in?'

'It was a black Mercedes C200, petrol, registration 18 43 NT.'

'Is that
your
car?'

'The car is in my wife's name.'

'So you were waiting for the girl?'

'Yes.'

'What were your intentions?'

'To talk to her.'

'Talk to her? About what?'

'The possibility of having sex with her.'

'And what happened?'

'She came out of the school. She was talking to someone, an older man, perhaps one of her teachers. I don't know. They were talking or rather they were arguing, because at one point he hit her, slapped her face. She walked away from him up the street in the direction of Avenida 5° de Outubro. When I saw that, I pulled away from the kerb, stopped at the traffic light next to her, asked her if she was all right and whether I could give her a lift anywhere.'

'What did she say?'

'She got in the car.'

'She didn't say anything?'

'Not that I recall.'

'We have witnesses who say you talked for nearly a minute, until the lights changed.'

'That's correct. I remember now. I asked her the way somewhere. She started to explain and then said it was easier to show me.'

'What did you discuss in the car?'

'Music. We talked about music.'

'Is that it?'

'Yes.'

'Where did you go?'

'I wanted to go back to Cascais. I decided to cut through the Monsanto park to get to the motorway.'

'I thought you wanted to have sex with her.'

'Yes.'

'When was that discussed?'

'When we were in the Monsanto park.'

'Was she surprised?'

'How do you mean?'

'Originally you'd asked her the way somewhere. Where exactly?'

'I don't recall.'

'She seemed to think it was complicated.'

'Monsanto. I asked her the way to Monsanto. It
is
complicated to get to Monsanto from there,' he said, the flustering just starting.

'But having guided you to Monsanto I wouldn't think she'd want to be dropped there in the middle of nowhere.'

'As we began talking she told me that she was going back to Cascais and I said I'd give her a lift there. I was...'

'But you weren't. You were only going as far as Paço de Arcos that evening,' I said, using a recognized tactic for confusing a scripted story—concentrate on a small detail and tease out the half-lies.

'Look, Inspector,' he said, frustrated now, 'I asked her the way somewhere. She said she was going to Cascais by train. I said I was going there by car. She seemed happy to get a lift. She got in the car. I did not force her to come with me. She got in there voluntarily. If your witnesses are saying I dragged her in...'

'They're not. I just want to know exactly how it was,
Senhor
Rodrigues. In order to get her in the car you'd told her you were going back to Cascais.'

He wasn't happy but he needed to get away from it.

'She got in the car. I drove. We started talking,' he said, firmly.

'About music and going to Cascais ... so how did sex come up?'

It wasn't hot in the interrogation room, but
Senhor
Rodrigues was finding it uncomfortable. His collar was tight around his neck and sweat was beginning to pimple on his forehead. He changed position in his chair several times and wrapped an arm around the back of his lawyer's.

'I told her I'd seen her in the
Pensão.'

'That must have surprised her.'

'Why?'

'She thinks that she's got into a car at random. She thinks she's showing somebody the way to Monsanto. She thinks she's being given a lift to Cascais. You're talking about music ... what sort of music were you talking about, by the way?'

'She said she liked the Smashing Pumpkins.'

That chilled me down to my liver.

'So you're talking about the Smashing Pumpkins, driving through Monsanto and then ... you change it. Suddenly you're a punter, suddenly you're the one who's been watching her through a two-way mirror in the
Pensão.
Suddenly,
Senhor
Rodrigues, you are not a nice guy giving a girl a lift. You're another creep.'

'You don't have to use that kind of abusive language to my client,' said the lawyer.

We both looked at him.

'Senhor
Rodrigues?' I said.

'What was the question. I'm not sure...'

'What was her reaction when you told her that you'd seen her before, performing sex acts in the Pensão Nuno?'

'She was a prostitute, for God's sake.'

'She did not get into your car as a prostitute. She got into your car as a schoolgirl, who'd had a spat with a man, and who was going to show you the way to Monsanto so that you could take her on to Cascais. Think about it again,
Senhor
Rodrigues, and tell me how you changed it and what her reaction was.'

'Changed it? I haven't changed anything. Changed what?'

'How you changed the situation,
Senhor
Rodrigues.'

Silence. The lawyer looked at his client, unclear as to what the
problem was, and already noticing that the truth was not coming out in a continuous milky flow.

'Did you perhaps make an assumption,
Senhor
Rodrigues?'

'An assumption? I don't follow you.'

'Did you assume that if you touched her in a sexual way that she would understand ... or maybe, because you were being a nice guy, she would just like you. And when she didn't understand, you had to tell her that you'd seen her, and how you'd seen her, and that you knew that really she was a prostitute. If that was the case I don't think she would have liked it,
Senhor
Rodrigues.'

'Why not? That's what she was.'

'Because it was all going so well,
Senhor
Rodrigues, you were being a nice guy and then in one small sentence, perhaps one small action you've shown yourself as something else. A creep.'

'Inspector, please,' said the lawyer, exasperated by my disrespect.

'Did she put up a fight,
Senhor
Rodrigues? Did she lash out? Give you a little kick perhaps ... so that you had to be firm?'

'No, no, and no,' he said, seeing his story off the leash and galloping away from him.

'We're stuck here,
Senhor
Rodrigues. You have to help this interview along.'

'I pulled over into the pine trees in the Monsanto park. I asked her if she was willing to have sex with me. She was, you're right, Inspector, she was a little surprised. I told her I'd seen her in the
Pensão
but I didn't tell her that I'd seen her performing sex acts. I just offered her ten thousand escudos.'

'For what?'

'To have sex with me,' he said, annoyed.

'This isn't your first time with a prostitute is it,
Senhor
Rodrigues?'

'No, it isn't.'

'I understand it's common practice to state exacdy what you want for the price.'

'I offered her ten thousand escudos to have straight sex with me.'

'And how did this straight sex take place?'

He took a deep breath.

'She knelt on the seat and pulled down her underwear.'

'Did she completely remove her underwear?'

'No, I don't think so.'

'And what did you do,
Senhor
Rodrigues?'

'I undid my trousers and knelt on the seat. She knelt with her legs across the handbrake.'

'Was that on or off?'

'Off.'

'You were on flat ground?'

'Yes.'

'Carry on.'

'I knelt behind her and...'

'You'd given her the money by now?'

He faltered.

'Yes.'

'So she must have been very angry.'

'Angry? Why?'

'When you sodomized her,
Senhor
Rodrigues. That wasn't in the deal.'

'I did
not
sodomize her, Inspector,' he said quietly. 'That was one of the boys in the
Pensão.'

'He says he didn't.'

'He's lying.'

'In this situation,
Senhor
Rodrigues, I have an advantage over you because I've read the pathologist's report a hundred times over and I've listened very carefully to what you've been saying. So...'

'I did not sodomize her,' he said quietly, placing his hand flat on the table as if there was a bible there.

'I've just warned you that it's not a question of your word against the boy's in the
Pensão, Senhor
Rodrigues. I'm giving you an opportunity to tell the truth.'

He checked me over thoroughly. He thought I was bluffing. His eyes sneered at me.

'I did not sodomize her, Inspector.'

'The medical examination conducted by Dr Fernanda Ramalho indicates that Catarina Oliveira had been sodomized. A condom was used and a water-based lubricant. Dr Ramalho's examination of the victim's sphincteral muscle shows that it was torn indicating that the victim was not accustomed to this kind of sexual activity. What do you think that means,
Senhor
Rodrigues?'

'I don't ... I did not...'

'It means that it would be extremely painful,
Senhor
Rodrigues. Did she shout out?'

'
I
did not sodomize her.'

'I'm sorry, my mistake,
Senhor
Rodrigues, she didn't shout out because, and I quote, "There was nothing in her face to indicate that she was not" ...enjoying what she was doing. Catarina Oliveira did not shout out in the Pensão Nuno that Friday lunchtime did she
Senhor
Rodrigues?'

Silence.

'Did she,
Senhor
Rodrigues?'

'My client has nothing further to add,' said the lawyer.

'We'd like to search
Senhor
Rodrigues' two houses and his wife's car. Will you agree to that?'

'With a search warrant,' said the lawyer.

The rest of the interview was a series of denials.
Senhor
Rodrigues admitted that he had sex with the girl. He said that afterwards she'd left the car and that he'd driven at a leisurely pace to arrive in Paço de Arcos to present his cheque to the mayor at the
festa.
He denied hitting her on the back of the head, he denied stripping her, he denied putting her in the boot of his car and he denied dumping her naked body on the beach in Paço de Arcos later that night. I terminated the interview and took a team of men down to the house in Lapa.

Senhor
Rodrigues and his lawyer met us in Lapa. The lawyer inspected the search warrant and then sat with his client in the living room. The lawyer was already avoiding looking at his client, in the way that humans do when they've been let down by someone they've trusted. I gave the house a quick inspection and announced to the team that I personally wanted to search the suspect's wardrobe and study. I left four men to work the rest of the house, the double garage and the garden. Carlos and I started on the Mercedes.

It had been valeted, seriously valeted. It was like a new car inside, with that new car smell. I told Carlos to get the name of the valet company and to go down there and talk, not to the manager, but to the actual cleaners of the car. I started with the front seats. Tucked under the front passenger seat was a pair of white knickers, neatly folded. The brand name was Sloggi. I bagged them. As Carlos came out of the house I told him to bring the person who'd found the knickers back here. I found nothing else of interest in the car.

I took
Senhor
Rodrigues up to his wardrobe and asked him to pick out the clothes he had been wearing on the afternoon of Friday 12 th
June. He pointed to a blazer, a pair of grey slacks and the tie Olivia had made for him. The blazer and the slacks had been dry-cleaned. The tie hadn't. There was a small red brown stain on the back of it. I bagged that and had it sent down to the lab.

In the study, behind an old eighteenth-century chest, we found a cupboard recessed into the wall. There were fifteen video tapes in there, two wine boxes containing pornographic magazines and, at the back neatly folded, a white T-shirt and a light blue with yellow check mini-skirt which were lying on top of a pair of clumpy shoes studded with rhinestones. The clothes and shoes were bagged. The contents of the cupboard were taken down to the
Polícia, Judiciária.