Or the Bull Kills You (27 page)

Alicia had stopped and was looking at him with an expression of concern.

‘Max,' she said. ‘Are you all right?'

‘That day,' he said. ‘The day Blanco was killed. He called you.'

In the gloom of the narrow alleyway where they stood, she looked into his eyes as though trying to understand what was going on in his mind.

‘Still thinking about the case,' she said. ‘Maybe I remind you too much of it.' She tried a smile, but Cámara didn't seem to notice.

A crowd of revellers had burst into the alleyway from the top end and was beginning to make its way down towards them. Soon it would be too noisy to talk.

He grabbed her arms and shook her.

‘What did he say? What did Blanco say?'

The smile was quickly wiped from her mouth.

‘I told you,' she said. ‘He just said he wanted to talk. I assumed it was for an interview.'

She tried to wriggle free.

‘Steady on.'

‘There was more,' Cámara raised his voice. ‘There was more.'

‘No, really,' she said, ‘I swear.' But he couldn't hear her.

‘He told you about being Ramírez's son, didn't he? He was going to give you the whole story – about wanting a stake in the farm, about wanting to inherit.'

‘What are you talking about?' she said.

‘He was going to blow the whistle on what they're up to at the Ramírez farm,' Cámara went on. Bangs and crashes grew louder, reverberating in the narrow space off the stone walls of the houses nearby, as the crowd grew nearer.

‘That was the threat he held against them. Give me my share of the farm as a son of Ramírez, or I'll tell the whole world what's going on. Doctoring the bulls, making them tamer for bullfights.'

Alicia's eyes widened in shock.

‘Ramírez?' she stuttered.

‘That's what the phone call was about.' Cámara was shouting now, blood rushing to his head. ‘Ramírez said no. So Blanco was going to carry out his threat. And you were going to tell the world for him.'

‘But I didn't—'

‘You mentioned it to your husband,' Cámara said. ‘You told me you'd said something to him at the newspaper.'

‘What?' Alicia held her hand up to her face, as though hiding her eyes. ‘What are you saying? That Javier is somehow linked to Blanco's—?

‘Not Javier. But who did he tell? Who did he pass it on to? Haven't you always said he was best friends with Flores?'

‘I don't…really.' Alicia's voice was inaudible as the crowd suddenly surged past them. A body jerked sharply towards them and Alicia was pushed forwards with a jolt. Instinctively, Cámara reached out his hands and caught her, pulling her up close towards him. She looked into his eyes, fear and disbelief on her face. And with a surging, aching need, he leaned down to kiss her. Her mouth received him coldly, but as his hands tightened around her waist he felt the warmth in her begin to flow.

The crackling-patter sound of a dozen high-pitched blasts in quick succession brought his concentration back to the street around them. With his mouth still pressed to hers, he opened his eyes momentarily at the street party that had been brought to their own still, dark corner. A group of five young men were laughing and staggering next to them, pointing at the one who had clearly just let off the explosions at the feet of the kissing couple. At least a dozen other people – both men and women – were standing around, perhaps part of the same group. The smoke from the firecrackers caught in the pale pink street light, clouding them partially from sight.

A pair of eyes was staring at him, eyes that he had looked into so many thousands of times. They had pleaded with him, laughed with him, cried with him, chastised him, loved him. And now, glassy and bloodshot, they reached out to him once more.

I want to see you
, the text had read.

He pulled his mouth away from Alicia's, breathing in sharply.

‘What is it?'

The hand wrapped around Almudena's waist, the same one he had seen in her office window, was still there, still making a claim on her flesh. Cámara didn't look – didn't care – who it belonged to. He took a step, Alicia's arms drawing away from him.

There was a smash, the sound of breaking glass. In an instant the dim light in the alleyway was extinguished. A roar of laughter accompanied the darkness, then a cheer. Whoever it was had hit his mark. There was a scream, a screeching sound, like dogs. Cámara felt for the wall behind him to steady himself. The crowd surged past in the narrow space. Bodies pulled and pressed, a hand reached and grabbed his arm, then was released and slipped away. He felt a tugging, like waves trying to pull him out to sea. He gripped the pavement with his feet, his fingers digging into the cracks and creases of the stonework at his back.

In a moment they had all gone. He hung his head. The carnival, the party, had swept past and cavorted towards the far end of the alley. Turning the corner into a main street it was nothing more than an echo.

Cámara stood where he was, exhausted, weeping. Alone.

Sunday 19th March

He was woken by the silence. The backdrop of
Fallas
had reverberated through his morning dreams, but in an unexpected hiatus the thick bass of the disco speakers outside in the street below his flat were turned off, and not even a single exploding firecracker filled the void. The emptiness came as a shock, and he sat bolt upright in bed, confused, wondering what was wrong. Had he slept through the entire day and into Monday? Had the fiesta come to an end without him realising? He took a deep breath, then reached for his mobile phone by the bed to check the time. It showed ten past two. Lunchtime. The
falleros
below were simply turning down the music while they tucked into another plate of paella. A string of
petardos
going off in a parallel street told him he was right. Still Sunday, still
Fallas
.

He climbed out of bed and headed to the bathroom, pushing his hair off his face. His brain felt stuffed, clouded, as though the usual grey matter had been surgically removed during the night and replaced with dirty cotton wool.

He looked down at his cock as he pissed, limp and lifeless in his fingers. It seemed like an age had passed since that night with Alicia. Pulling on the chain, he let the lid down and walked out into his small living room. Apart from the heaviness, the fuzziness in his brain, there was a different feeling about that morning. He'd slept deeply, it felt. Perhaps for the first time in months. But now, battered and stripped down, he felt like the survivor of a shipwreck. Or at least what he imagined a survivor of a shipwreck would feel like. Actually, perhaps that was a silly analogy, he thought. Here he was in his flat, placing the coffee pot on the hob, four walls and a roof over his head, food of some description in the fridge – a loose description, admittedly. It wasn't as though he'd been cast on some desert island, hungry, lost, destitute. But still, he understood: much of what he had, of what he thought he was, had gone, had been taken away from him. He felt lonely, destroyed. Free.

The coffee bubbled up in its little metal pot, and he poured it into the nearest cup he could find – a chipped, handle-less mug that still had some grinds in it from a few mornings before. God knew how long it had been there, but no matter.
Lo que no mata, engorda
, as the proverb went. That which doesn't kill you makes you fat. It wasn't quite Nietzsche, but it got the message across.

He flopped on to the sofa with a soft, reassuring thud. Reaching towards the table, he pulled out his box and his fingers automatically began fiddling to make the first joint of the day. A stream of sunlight cut through the motes in the air above him and shone strongly on to his face. A new ricocheting echo of firecrackers was belting out from somewhere. There was a party going on right outside his door and he was hiding from it, trying to pretend it didn't exist.

His fingers stopped their work. The sound of
Fallas
still filtered through the walls and windows of his flat, but it was as if a pause button had been pressed inside him. There he was, Max Cámara, a dope-smoking,
Fallas
-hating, proverb-quoting, flamenco-loving, Valencia-based murder detective with the
Policía Nacional
, with a complicated, shattered love life, no social life to speak of, and a career lying in tatters. But in that instant he felt removed from all of that, from the person he normally was. For the first time in his life he felt he could see himself with total clarity, as though observing someone quite other than himself.

He pinched the skin on his arm. Was this one of those out-of-body experiences people talked about? Perhaps he was having a heart attack or something. What came next? A long tunnel with a light at the end? But the pain in his skin felt strong enough; he was where he thought he was. The experience was neither ecstatic nor depressing; there was no sense of madness or craziness. In fact he felt saner than he could ever remember. Clear thought, and with it possibility, seemed to have become a part of him.

He dropped the half-rolled joint back into the little pile of marihuana and closed the box. Still savouring the new state of mind, he walked back into the bedroom and got dressed, leaving his service weapon very deliberately in a drawer with his socks and underwear. He wouldn't be needing it: outside, the vast street party that had been going on all around him for the past ten days was moving into its final, most exciting phase. It was, he decided with a smile, time he joined the fun.

The same boys who had been outside his front door most of the past week were at their usual spot. Black stains on the pavement bore witness to the hundreds of mini, deafening explosions they had let off there each day. As always they gave no sign of registering Cámara's presence as he stepped out into the street, tiptoeing his way around them while they crouched over their box of
petardos
, a hot cigarette-lighter being passed from grubby hand to grubby hand.

‘Hello,' he said as he managed to get past them.

No reply. But it didn't matter; it was time he went for a stroll around the neighbourhood, to see what he could see.

‘
¿Señor?
'

He turned around. One of the young boys had stood up and was looking at him.

‘Our
mechero
won't work any more.'

Cámara held out his hand and the boy placed a pink plastic lighter into it. When he flicked it, it gave off a spark but it was clear it had run out of gas.

‘It's finished,' he said.

He put his hand into his pocket and felt for his own lighter, tucked away inside his packet of Ducados, then handed it to the boy.

‘Take mine,' he said.

The boy grinned.

‘
Gracias
,' he said, and he crouched down to join the others.

‘
¡Ostias! ¡Qué guay!
Cool! A new one.'

He headed over towards the main avenue. On the other side the local school had been turned into a polling station for the elections, and a big notice to the effect had been placed beside the door. Few people appeared to be entering or leaving, however.

Usually when he reached this crossroads he bore left, heading into the centre of the city, or else went straight towards the river bed when he had time for a stroll among the pine trees and eucalyptus down there. For some reason he almost never turned right, heading south. Not unless he was driving, that was, and was going to the beach. Today, as part of his experiment at being someone else, or at least not being the person he usually was, he decided to break his habit.

As soon as he turned the corner he wondered why he hadn't done so before. This was all part of his neighbourhood, and he must have walked around here a few times before, or at least passed by in the car searching for an elusive parking space, but now, as he looked into unfamiliar bars and shop windows, it was as if he were in a new and exciting city. There was a place selling Japanese food he couldn't remember seeing before, a French creperie on the corner, an old-fashioned-looking place with heavy green-painted shutters that sold picture frames. Nothing was particularly extraordinary, but the novelty of it seemed to have an invigorating effect on him. All this had been right outside his door. All he needed to do was face the other way and walk.

What else would he try out? He remembered Cano's invitation to go to the bullfight as his guest. There was no reason for Cámara the policeman to go now. He was out of all that. Besides, the old Cámara didn't like bullfighting. He hated it. But the new Cámara? He wondered. Perhaps he should give it a try.

A large, colourful
falla
statue, six or seven metres high, dominated the next crossroads. Towering over the minor
ninots
was a grotesque caricature of Mayoress Delgado, a glass of whisky in one hand and a cigarette in the other. At her feet were three
fallera
beauty queens with broad grins. In front of this group was a smaller figure of a fat man wearing a bright green suit and pink shirt. Cámara looked more closely and smiled. It was Flores. In the figure's hand was a small flattened bull with a look of horror on its face and a large ‘X' marked on its side, as though it were a voting slip. The Flores statue was in the act of placing the bull into a large ballot box in front of him.

He began to chuckle. The satire, the fun-poking, had always been one of the characteristics he most loved about Valencians. For all their other faults, they could always be relied on to find someone's weak spot and work on it doggedly. Especially when it came to their leaders.

Next to the
falla
, a bar had been set up in the middle of what was normally the main avenue. A crowd of people was already there, drinking and swaying to the Caribbean music blaring from the speakers of the disco behind. Cámara ambled over. He'd only had a coffee since he'd got up, and he couldn't remember the last time something solid had passed his lips. He thought about having a beer, or a brandy perhaps. But then checked himself. Those were old Cámara drinks. He'd have something he didn't usually order.

‘A rum and Coke,' he heard himself say to the barman when he caught his eye. Perhaps it was the Merengue rhythm filling the air that gave him the idea. ‘
Ron añejo
,' he added. ‘Got any of that seven-year-old stuff?'

His hips began to rock in time to the beat as he looked around at the growing crowd. He'd never been to Salsa classes or anything of that sort. Never had time. Or perhaps not the inclination. But it was good, happy music, this, he thought. Upbeat, life-affirming. There was more to life than flamenco.

He felt a warmth, a body pressing close, and looked round to see a face gazing up at him with a broad smile. He tried to make way to allow the young woman to get closer to the bar, but there was little room.

‘I've seen you round here sometimes,' the girl said, still smiling. From her accent he guessed she was Argentinian, black straight hair cascading over her shoulders and down into her cleavage.

‘Don't you think
Fallas
is just wonderful?'

 

A few hours later, after showering and changing, and with a plate of pasta inside him to help soak up some of the drink, he grabbed his jacket and walked out of the flat once more, this time heading towards the city centre. A few other small groups of people were walking in the same direction, pushing past the
Fallas
crowds where necessary; all of them, he could sense, going to the bullfight as well, as though they were connected in some subtle way through shared intention.

And he was vaguely aware of a presence shadowing him as he walked along; a
Policía Local
,
the Policía Local
. Was it really him again? He chose to assume that it wasn't. It was over for him, finished. There was no point following a man like today's Cámara.

Outside the bullring the usual pre-fight bustle had taken over the small square. Men dressed in fine clothes, women with fur coats clinging to their arms. A
buñuelos
van parked in the road nearby was doing a brisk trade as people filled themselves with something hot and sweet to keep them going for the next couple of hours.

He wove his way through the crowd. An elderly man with long, yellowing teeth was telling his friends – and anyone else who wanted to listen – that today's might well be the very last bullfight ever to take place at the city bullring.

‘
Hombre
, if Emilia wins the election today, that's it,' he said in a loud voice and waving his hands in the air. ‘Finished.'

A few bystanders muttered.

‘This is an infamous day,' the man continued. ‘A dark day for bullfighting, and for Spain.'

‘
Inaceptable
,' came a comment from one of the others.

‘I didn't vote for her,' came a reply.

‘They should leave our national fiesta alone.'

‘And what's more,' the man with the teeth went on, warming to his theme as he sensed a small crowd gathering around him, ‘as soon as this corrida is over they're going to take the bullring over for a victory party.'

There was a collective groan.

‘Yes, my friends,' cried the man. ‘Not only do they have to destroy our culture, but they want to rub salt in the wounds as well. And their arrogance is such that they will stop at nothing to humiliate us! As if we hadn't suffered enough from the recent death of our beloved Jorge Blanco.'

Again, Cámara sensed the hand of Flores: what better place to celebrate their election victory than in the very building that had come to symbolise their campaign?

As he stepped away from the fledgling orator, he could hear others start to assert themselves in the debate: bullfighting was an integral part of Spain, someone was insisting. It could never die…

Cano had told him to meet at the main gate. It wasn't hard to spot him: the flashes of the photographers' cameras gave him a good enough clue. This time, however, there was no girl on his arm. He greeted Cámara like an old friend, embracing him as soon as he caught sight of him and making a public show of inviting him into the bullring himself.

‘
¡Hombre!
Chief Inspector,' he cried. ‘Finally they let you have a day off.'

Cámara smiled, and remained silent. Best to ride it through.

He felt a hand squeezing him tenderly on the shoulder as they passed through and into the outer corridor of the bullring. The photographers clicked away. Cámara felt like telling them not to waste their batteries, but it was too late. Not that his picture was newsworthy enough to appear in any paper.

The scrum that had seemed to surround Cano outside stayed with them once they were under the shade of the bullring arches. Men and women headed for the famous torero to salute and congratulate him for one thing and another. Cano handled it all very well, Cámara could see. Being the focus of a lot of people's attention was clearly a skill, and he had had a lot of practice.