The Good Suicides (37 page)

“She tried to dissuade me, and I knew she was just like the rest. And I told her so.” The fury in her eyes became rage. “I blurted it all out, I insulted her. I reminded her that any moment what she feared so much could happen again.”

“Sara Mahler had been the victim of sexual assault, hadn’t she?” Given what he knew of Sara it was a reasonable possibility.

“Years ago,” she said scornfully. “Sara was frigid and men terrified her. She couldn’t even take a taxi; anything not to be alone with a man.”

“What did you do to her?” said Héctor quietly.

“I didn’t do anything to her. I just told her my fiancé and his friends would take care of her. I’d decided: if Sara didn’t respond to the easy way, we’d do it the hard way.”

Héctor shook his head, tried to piece it all together.

“I don’t know how you arranged it—while she was in the bathroom, I suppose—but you took her cell phone and deleted all the data to avoid, at least for that night, her being able to call anyone when you pursued her. And then it was also very convenient that we wouldn’t find any trace of your friendship.” Héctor’s tone changed. “You called Iván, your fiancé. To wait for Sara in the station. Sara left upset and went to the metro. She felt awful: she’d betrayed her colleagues and you had disappointed her. What’s more, she was terrified by your threats.”

Héctor had the projection ready.

“Neither of you anticipated that Sara would die. It was enough to frighten her. But things got out of hand,” he said, thinking of Fort’s explanation, which had turned out half true. “This morning the images recorded on the other platform arrived. I think you’ll find your Iván in them. Your great hope was anonymity, that no one would link you to this. That they’d suspect each other. That we wouldn’t know who to look for.”

Mar looked away from the screen and fixed her eyes on the inspector.

“No,” said Héctor. “I want you to see how Sara died. You deserve to see it.”

He started the recording: the gray platform appeared before them. And Sara, anxious, looking behind her, with her cell phone in her hand.

“Seeing her phone blank she must have realized you were plotting something,” Héctor continued. “That your threats weren’t a joke. Look at her!” he ordered. “Have the decency to see what you did.”

Mar Ródenas obeyed. Then she really did become upset.

“Then you sent her the photo, from an Internet café near the restaurant. It could have arrived later, but she received it on the platform. She became more afraid. And Iván, who’d seen her descend, only had to come out for a moment: call her, or show her a knife. And Sara was so desperate that she did the only thing she could think of to get away.”

The metro was arriving in the station. The Dominicans took up the foreground, but Héctor could almost see what the images didn’t show: poor Sara leaping onto the tracks to avoid something that in her mind was worse than death.

“You have no proof of this, Inspector,” Mar challenged him.

“Well, I’m sure your fiancé will confess when we put the other possibility to him: that he deliberately pushed her. I don’t think he did, to be honest. Too risky, and also you need a real motive to kill someone in cold blood … No, Iván wanted to frighten her.”

Mar Ródenas hung her head. By then there was palpable fear in her expression.

“So once the rough patch was over you decided to go ahead with your plan and send the photo to everyone. They began to get nervous. Sara always had her computer on, so on a visit to her house you had obtained the email addresses. Not knowing all the details of the story didn’t matter: there was no longer any way of finding them out and you weren’t planning on giving up what you considered yours. What’s more, you guessed Sara’s death would have unsettled them all. But Sílvia didn’t prove easy: she refused. You were so furious, I’m sure. Your threats weren’t being taken seriously.”

Héctor saw the tears brimming in Mar’s eyes. Of self-pity, rage or simply fear. He didn’t care; he pressed on without a break, raising his voice, accusing this girl of the crime she had to have committed.

“By this point nothing mattered anymore: Sara’s death had made you both unwilling killers, so the next step wasn’t so difficult. And Amanda was the perfect victim. Sara, scandalized by such practices, had told you about their games, and also told you where Amanda left the key
every Sunday evening. Finding her half-asleep suited you: I don’t know if you’d have been capable of killing her in any other circumstance.”

“This is no more than supposition, Inspector.”

“Come on, Mar! Don’t try to fool me: you set up the blackmail, you threatened Sílvia with someone else dying if she didn’t deliver the money. Amanda died to make your threats credible. Don’t expect anyone to believe it was chance.” Héctor smiled. “Right now one of my men is charging Iván, and however much he loves you he won’t take the blame for this. You know it.”

Héctor lowered his voice and looked intently at Mar Ródenas.

“Just answer me one thing: why do you hate them so much?”

Mar held his gaze unblinkingly. Then she said, “You paint me as a monster, Inspector, and you speak of poor Sara as if she were a saint. But they were the monsters. They’d killed two people and went on with their lives, with their money, with their jobs, with their partners. Even after my brother. I just wanted the same as them: work, a house, a future. Don’t tell me I don’t have a right to that. You know how all this will end? I’ll go to prison and they’ll still be free. Because no one will bother looking for the bodies of the wretches they killed. The poor men who don’t matter to anyone.

“Read the note Gaspar left, Inspector. I carry it with me always. Read it and don’t tell me those bastards don’t deserve to die. Read it in front of me and I’ll confess everything in writing.”

And Héctor read it to her.

Alba is crying. I can’t make her stop. I had written a full confession, but I don’t have the time or energy to repeat it now … what does it matter, anyway? This world doesn’t let you do things properly. I told Susana everything, I said the only decent thing I could do was confess. I can’t live with those deaths in my head. With the image of those dead dogs, the sound of that spade. With a promotion that is payment for the crime. A crime we hid among ourselves: Sílvia, Brais, Octavi, Sara,
César, Manel and Amanda. I told Susana, I explained it to her, but she didn’t understand.

Fuck, she won’t stop crying … I told Susana and she didn’t understand, she told me it was fine, I wasn’t any more to blame than the others, she wouldn’t let me throw it all away. It was like talking to Sílvia or Octavi …

I wrote my confession anyway. Tonight. While they were sleeping. I put everything in, without forgetting a single detail. And when I’d finally finished I felt like a new person. Calm, for the first time in months. I went into Alba’s room … Her bedroom smells so good, of clean dreams, of sleeping baby. I gave her a kiss and left.

Susana was in the bathroom. She’d torn my confession into pieces, she was throwing it down the toilet. I heard the water flushing away the truth, as if it were shit.

Alba won’t stop. When she gets like this, Susana is the only one who can comfort her. I can’t … I can’t leave her crying now her mother’s no longer here.

It was almost nine o’clock on Friday night and Héctor was still in his office, alone. The confession, which Mar had finally signed, was on his desk. He added it to the file, lacking the definitive report that fell to Agent Fort to write up, not able to get rid of the uncomfortable, uneasy feeling that usually overcame him at the end of cases as complex as this one, although never with such force.

You’re getting old, Salgado, he said to himself. He wasn’t sure it was just age. He was sure he’d done a good job. Mar Ródenas had killed Amanda Bonet and prompted the suicide of Sara Mahler. But she was right about one thing: the two dead boys in Garrigàs deserved justice. And he wouldn’t rest until he’d achieved it.

He attached the note to the rest of the papers, not knowing whether it was rage, helplessness or grief, pure and simple, that was clouding his vision. The pain given off by that desperate letter was more than anyone should bear and he knew that in his hours of insomnia Gaspar Ródenas would haunt him. He needed something to restore the little faith in humanity he had left or nothing would be worth it anymore.

He wondered how those four seemingly normal people had been able to live with it. He tried to think about how they would be feeling at that moment, but he couldn’t put himself in their place.

Sílvia was lying on the sofa of her house, in the dark, listlessly watching the weather forecast announcing the possibility of heavy snowfall in Barcelona that night. She’d put her phone on silent so as not to hear César’s calls, nor his messages pleading for forgiveness. If he’d really mattered to her, she’d still have been unable to forgive him. There was no pardon for César Calvo because it simply wasn’t worth conceding it to him. Just as there would be none for any of them if the whole truth were discovered. She was ready to accept it. Live with it. Last thing that evening, her brother had told her that now the case seemed resolved, the sale of the company would go ahead, although he took the opportunity to hint that he couldn’t promise her that the new owners would want to continue relying on her. Sílvia hadn’t bothered to respond; she was too busy looking for a boarding school for Emma, not abroad, as they’d once discussed, but in Ávila: a religious school for children of good families, which her daughter would detest with all her heart. She’d even called the school to ask if they would admit her mid-term, as a special favor. Fortunately, money still opened doors and Emma would begin a new life, away from her, at the beginning of February. She had communicated this to her a while before, in a tone that brooked no argument.

At least that problem is solved, she thought, unable to face all the others. She leaned her head on the armrest and lay down fully, eyes fixed on the screen, where images of past snowfalls appeared, and closed her eyes out of weariness. The next thing she knew was a hand grabbing her hair and a rough voice, different from the one she knew as her daughter’s, whispering in her ear: “If you think I’m going to that convent you’re crazy, you bitch.” Sílvia smothered a moan of pain and saw Emma, smiling, leaving as silently as she had come.

She remained still, curled up on the sofa trembling, more from fear than rage. Had it not been for the pain, she’d have thought what had happened was a nightmare. But no, it was real. As real as the music coming from Emma’s room at a deafening volume. Not knowing what to do, Sílvia looked for César’s number in her cell phone contacts and called him: there was no one else to turn to. César was strong, he could
protect her … After waiting awhile she had to give in to the evidence that no one was going to answer and, still shaking, she switched off the television and shut herself in her room.

The music kept playing like a declaration of war. That night Sílvia decided to surrender without a fight and pretend not to hear it.

César would happily have answered if he’d received the call an hour before, while he was still at home, contemplating the fucking stained carpet that seemed to sum up his present and a large part of his future. Sílvia forgiving him seemed as impossible as forgetting the taste of Emma. So, when he’d smoked an entire packet of cigarettes waiting for an answer that didn’t come, he decided to go out to do something he’d put aside for a long time. He didn’t take his phone.

The girly bar on Muntaner embraced him with the kind of servile affection he was seeking. He was sure that for the price of a drink, even if it was absurdly high, this place of dark corners would offer him what he needed to calm his nerves. He realized he hadn’t showered since the morning, but he didn’t care. No one there was going to throw it back in his face. At the bar, glass in hand, he scrutinized the faces of the girls working in the place, looking for someone who would awaken enough desire for him to open his wallet. After a while he found them all old, faded, so different from what he had in mind that he didn’t feel able to fuck them. Then, after draining the whiskey in a gulp, he asked for another and took the opportunity to ask the waiter, in a very low voice: “Listen, know where I can find a young girl? You know what I mean: young—really young.”

Octavi Pujades’ wife died at dusk, when the snow was still only a threat. She simply fell asleep mid-afternoon and never woke up. Going in to see her before dinner, he realized her heart wasn’t beating.

He closed her eyes and sat down on the bed beside her. He knew he
should call his children and give them the news, start to prepare everything, but he needed to be alone with her for a while. He stroked her forehead and said a prayer in a low voice because it was the only thing that seemed appropriate. He’d already said good-bye on many nights when he’d believed it was all over, so now, the moment having come, he didn’t have too much to say to her. Eugènia had died too many times for the definitive end really to affect him.

He went to the door of the house in an attempt to fill his lungs with air that didn’t smell of death and, unable to help it, he thought not of his wife but of Gaspar, Sara, Amanda and the two dead boys. He told himself that he was the oldest of all, the one who logically should have gone first. And yet, there he was. Alive, smoking a cigarette that refused to kill him and with a relatively well-insured future before him. If everyone kept quiet, of course. He had to trust in that.