The Anarchist Detective (Max Cámara) (18 page)

He knelt and touched both the plaques, his father on his right, his mother on his left. This was who he was – a combination of the two, and the actions they had taken, with all the repercussions rippling over the years.

It was time to move on.

He checked his phone again and stood up.

He had to go; Yago would be waiting.

YAGO LOOKED EVEN
thinner than he had a couple of days before.

‘Take any more of those pills and you’ll start falling through the cracks in the pavement.’

‘Come on, let’s walk.’

He looked down at Cámara’s leg.

‘You got a limp, or something?’

They strolled along the lanes of the dead, birds chirping overhead as they flapped from tree to tree. Yago was wearing a pale-coloured suit that hung loosely from his body, with a strong, spicy smell from his cologne.

A white tent had been erected in one of the squares that made up the cemetery, covering a piece of ground that was normally left barren.

‘That’s where they’re digging up the remains of people shot after the Civil War,’ Yago said. ‘Perhaps you heard about it.’

Cámara said nothing, but looked over to see if Eduardo García, the historian, was there. The area was deserted: perhaps they’d gone for coffee.

Was that where Maximiliano lay?

‘It’s all very well,’ Yago said, ‘to let people mourn their dead. After all these years, I mean. To be able to do it properly. But are we ready for this? The country? It just throws up old wounds. We got past all that. Now you see these kids wandering around with Republican flags.’

He shook his head.

‘We should move on –
pasar página
. With the amount of people there are out of work you’d think there were better things they could do with public money.’

Cámara pulled out his cigarettes, half-heartedly offering one to Yago out of politeness, knowing somehow that this time he’d refuse. Smoke streamed away from him in a quickly vanishing cloud as it got caught up in the wind and blown up and out beyond the cemetery walls.

‘Pozoblanco,’ Cámara said at last.

‘Yes. You went, then?’

‘Yeah. I went. Interesting place.’

Yago snorted.

‘Say that again. I like the fact that places like that can exist – the anomaly of it all: a little communist enclave in the middle of a capitalist state. I mean, who’d have thought? But I’m not sure I’d want to live there.’

‘Faro Oscuro’s quite a character.’

‘Oh, so you met him, then? Rules the place like it was his own.’

‘I got that impression. There’s something a bit . . .’

‘Sectarian?’

‘Yeah, that’s it. He’s the boss, everyone loves him – or so it seems. And together they’ve built this amazing utopia.’

‘No, I don’t buy it either. So what did you find?’

‘Lots of saffron.’

‘It’s the season.’

‘But not really enough fields to produce the amount we saw being processed.’

‘What did he say they have?’

‘Five hundred hectares.’

‘Doesn’t figure.’

‘No, not for that quantity. Not even by the figures he gave us.’

‘How did he explain it?’

‘Said they got saffron from other villages around. Not just Pozoblanco.’

‘I can check that. But it sounds like a bluff. Production around here is way down on what it was even ten years ago. People moving to the city. Masses of bulb stocks got sold off. But if the saffron isn’t from here, where’s it coming from? Or is it really saffron at all? That’s the question.’

An elderly man tapping a walking stick on the paving stones passed them as they crossed the main avenue from one half of the cemetery to the other. He nodded to them as they drew close, a melancholy smile on his thin, cracked lips. Cámara nodded in return; Yago kept his eyes looking ahead.

There was a bench a little further on, protected from the wind by a high wall of niches behind. They sat down on it, Yago crossing his legs, Cámara stretching both arms out along the back. He breathed in deeply, then blew the air out, as though expelling some unwanted thought from his body.

‘Anything else?’ Yago asked.

‘There was another man there. Faro Oscuro referred to him as Ahmed the Moroccan.’

‘We came across him as well. Our checks threw nothing up, though. It may be a false name.’

‘Head of security, Faro Oscuro said.’

‘OK.’

‘I think he may have tried to kill me.’

Yago turned towards him and looked him hard in the eye.

‘You’re serious.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘What happened?’

‘Driving away from the village. Bullet smashed the back window. Another went into the bodywork of the car.’

Yago glanced down at Cámara’s leg.

‘The limp?’

‘The last shot was closer than I would have liked.’

‘But you got away?’

‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

Yago stood up, thrusting his hands into his pockets, pacing backwards and forwards in front of the bench.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I asked too much of you.’

He kicked at a loose piece of paving stone, sending it scuttling into a patch of dead grass.

‘
Me cago en la puta!
’ For fuck’s sake!

‘It’s all right,’ Cámara said, not moving from the bench.

Yago looked down at him, lines of incomprehension on his brow.

‘You weren’t to know. It’s not your fault. The question is why? Why try and kill me? I was there as a journalist, just doing a report. What made them so worried that they thought they had to take me out all of a sudden?’

‘Where did it happen?’

‘On the road out of Pozoblanco. I said.’

‘I can check that.’

‘Nothing of this makes sense, though. First of all, why try to kill me? And secondly, why botch it up like that? It was hardly professional. It’s as though Ahmed, or whoever it was, was making it up as he went along. There was something almost casual about it.’

‘
Me cago en la puta
. Where’s the car now?’

‘I borrowed it from a friend.’

Cámara put his hands up.

‘I’ve given him enough problems. Don’t make him hand it over to your lot.’

‘We might need it.’

Cámara sniffed.

‘Look, before we do that, we need to check out what’s really going on in Pozoblanco. You don’t take pot shots at journalists for no reason. Or did they know I’m police? Who else knew I was going?’

‘No one. Just me, you idiot. You don’t think I was going to tell anyone with the kind of problems I’ve got at the Jefatura.’

‘Jiménez? Did he know you were meeting me the other day?’

‘No.’

‘Someone might have seen us, and told him.’

Yago stopped pacing.

‘Possible. But unlikely. It was dark. Unless . . .’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. You can get paranoid in situations like this. Not knowing who you can trust. It’s why I got you to go in the first place.’

‘And I want to go back.’

Yago shook his head.

‘Out of the question.’

‘I’m not working for you, remember. You asked me a favour.’

‘All right. And I’m asking you, as a friend, not to go. You really want to get killed? Give that Ahmed or whatever his name is another shot? I can’t do that, Max. I can’t let that happen. You’re on my watch, however you want to look at it.’

Cámara stroked his chin; he hadn’t shaved that morning and nascent stubble dragged against his fingertips.

‘You pulled me back in,’ he said. ‘I was fine, getting along, getting a taste of what it’s like outside, not doing this. And then you came and threw me back into it.’

Yago turned on his heel and stared at him.

‘It was you, remember. You were the one snooping around a murder scene, getting yourself locked up for the night. Don’t give me that.’

Cámara grinned.

‘All right. But it was worth a try.’

He got up and punched Yago on the arm.

‘Come on. You’re taking this too seriously. Stop thinking about it too much. It’s driving you mad, I can see. You’ll end up getting paranoid, then it’ll be me coming round to see you locked up in the loony bin.’

Yago shook him off.

‘You’re a bastard. You should be dead.’

‘Well, I’m not. So get over it.’

They started heading towards the exit, away from the pregnant, stagnant calm of the cemetery and towards the noise and movement of the streets outside.

‘I need to think this through.’

‘It’s what you always did. Not sure if it gets you anywhere, though. You’re worried about a leak, about some bent cop on your team? Listen to your guts, your instinct. It might be the last person your thinking would ever consider.’

Yago looked at him and sighed: he was hopeless.

‘And please don’t go back to Pozoblanco.’

‘I want you to do something for me,’ Cámara said. ‘Something I want to check out.’

‘What?’

‘That suspect from Concha’s case, years back. Juan Manuel Heredia.’

‘What about him?’

‘Where is he?’

‘Torrecica,’ Yago said, nodding his head in the direction of the city prison. ‘He got done for murder a while back. Some thing between Gypsy families. It caught my eye when I got back here. I’ve been watching him. You want to go over all that again?’

‘Loose ends. I want to go and see him.’

They stepped out into the street. A bus blew its horn loudly at a car blocking the road as it waited for a parking space to become available.

‘I can sort that out for you,’ Yago said.

They shook hands.

‘Be careful, though, Max. Just be careful.’

HE STEPPED DOWN
on to the platform and joined the stream of passengers making their way towards the exit to the cicada-like accompaniment of a hundred wheeled suitcases being dragged along the ground. Passing under arches decorated with mosaics of orange trees and fertile fields, he stepped out into the square: bullring to his right, Plaza del Ayuntamiento straight ahead.

Valencia, again. Familiar territory.

It was raining and all the taxis were taken, so he ran to the metro station and dived for cover underground. The green line would take him almost all the way to the port, then he could catch a tram for the last section.

Almost four months had passed since he’d last been here. At the time, when he left, he thought he might never return. His former home was a pile of rubble, his career was sinking . . . Valencia already felt like the past by the time he’d boarded the train to Madrid and a new life with Alicia. Yet here he was again.

It was the kind of city which was small enough to make bumping into acquaintances a normal occurrence, and part of his attention was on the lookout for a former colleague or friend to come swimming up, as though from nowhere, asking questions about how he was, what he was doing, what he was going to do.

The first question rarely needed answering with any honesty – thankfully. The second he wasn’t prepared to say, and the third – well, that was still undecided.

But the need didn’t arise. Surrounded mostly by university students and immigrants, he could let his thoughts drift as they hummed and jolted down the black tunnel of the metro line.

After meeting Yago back in Albacete he’d spent the rest of the day at home with Hilario. His grandfather had got up late, and appeared to be fresher, lighter than he had over the previous few days. Neither had talked much over lunch or clearing up. Hilario’s story of the night before, about his experiences in Russia, was there with them, like a third person in the flat, but ignored. Enough had been said. If there was any more to add, then Hilario would do so.

Cámara had questions, but timing, for Hilario, was important: things had to be said, or done, at the right time. And he was usually the arbiter of when that time was. To try to get him to talk about something important outside of that timing was futile: he simply sealed up, not saying anything. Chat was one thing – that could take place at any time and anywhere. Talking – and doing, real action – were different.

So they carried on as normal, two men quietly sharing this living space as they had done for so many years in the past, slotting back into a rhythm they knew well. Pilar came for a while, but left after an hour. There was nothing that needed doing, she said. The real reason was that she could sense the atmosphere in the flat, one that told her she was on the outside – not exactly unwanted, but temporarily surplus to requirements, as an internal police communiqué would have put it. And so she went.

In the afternoon Cámara made a couple of phone calls, while Hilario lay on the sofa reading Goethe. Then over a quiet dinner of
jamón serrano
with bread, cheese and a salad, Cámara told Hilario he would be going away the next day.

‘Back to Valencia,’ Hilario said.

Cámara nodded: perhaps Hilario had heard his phone conversations, but more likely he was – as so often – already one step ahead of him.

‘Figures.’

‘There are some things I want to check out.’

‘I suppose you wouldn’t be going otherwise.’

‘This saffron business.’

And Hilario had munched on his lettuce, not looking up.

The metro reached the terminal and Cámara got out and jumped on to a tram for the final part of the journey.

Something buzzed in his pocket: Alicia had tried to call him while he’d been out of range underground. He stared at her name on the little screen, then put the phone back, burying it under his keys.

The rain had turned into a light drizzle by the time he got to his stop. The port customs office was only a short distance away, and he was able to skip along the pavement without getting too wet.

‘Not here. We need to go somewhere else.’

Teniente
Antonio Maragall was an old
Guardia Civil
contact from Cámara’s days in the drugs squad. While Cámara had moved on to
Homicidios
, Maragall had stayed in the port customs office. There was, he said, more chance of reducing the amount of dope on the streets by stopping it as it came in than by chasing it once it had got out. Cámara had nodded at the time, but it sounded unrealistic to him – another policeman trying to convince himself that his work, his job, really made a difference. There were small victories, even the appearance of sizeable victories at times, but it was a doubt that existed in all their minds – that in the end they were merely managing, never preventing or eradicating, crime. For some it wasn’t a problem – the more pragmatic ones, often, the ones who were happy to blur distinctions between police and criminals. There had been plenty of them in the drugs squad – particularly the drugs squad, it seemed. Every few years a colleague or two would get busted for something – either working directly with the narcos, or ignoring certain deals in favour of a cut. There were even police and
Guardias
who started dealing themselves – the stupid ones, the ones you wondered why they had ever become police in the first place. It never took very long to spot them, then weed them out.