The Night Watchman (6 page)

While David pressed on an ache in his lower back, I introduced him to Luci. Squinting, he focused a beam of masculine delight on her face. Even in his debilitated state, his libido was dancing a samba.

To come to her rescue again, I reached into my shirt pocket for Moura’s foil. ‘This may have a trace of cyanide on it,’ I told him. ‘How about disposing of it for me?’

He grabbed it in a tissue and tucked it in the pocket of his smock. ‘Where’d you get cyanide, son?’ he asked.

‘From a suspect who killed himself this morning. It’s been one hell of a day.’

‘Sorry to hear it,’ he said, patting my arm.

Turning to Luci, I said, ‘Time for us to interview the housekeeper.’

Senhora Grimault was an elderly, sparrowish woman with her hair clasped in a tight grey bun and the big knobby hands of a peasant. Her earrings were golden hearts, and she smelled pleasantly of lavender perfume. When we stepped inside, she was pouring steaming milk into her coffee cup. She looked up at us with an eager, curious, intelligent face. I trusted her right away.

After we’d finished the introductions, I asked if she was French, and she told me she was from Braga, but that her husband was from Rouen. With hopeful eyes, she asked us to sample her homemade sponge cake, but my gut wasn’t up to the challenge. Luci thanked her but also said no, citing her need to keep fit, but I insisted that she eat half a slice so as not to disappoint our host.

The kitchen was all stainless steel and white marble, except for the wall beneath the cupboards, which was ornamented with centuries-old Portuguese tiles forming blue and yellow geometric patterns. A village church had obviously been plundered.

Senhora Grimault asked me to fetch a plate for Luci from a high shelf, and for a few seconds I was fifteen again, and happy to be needed by Aunt Olivia around the house.

When we were all comfortably seated, I asked, ‘So how long have you worked for the Coutinho family, senhora?’

‘Nearly four years. Just after Dr Coutinho moved back to Portugal, he hired me.’ She explained that he’d wanted a housekeeper who could speak French, then, tearing up, volunteered that Senhora Coutinho was sure to take her husband’s death very hard. As for the daughter, she predicted a long period of silent suffering. When I asked why, she told me that Sandra and her father both tended to hide their emotions. She added that they were also both workaholics, reinforcing her point by telling me that Coutinho returned to Lisbon once or twice a week over the summer to supervise building sites. For the moment, I chose not to mention that infidelity might have been the real reason he came to the city so often.

Unfortunately, she had no idea who the visitor was who had smoked two Gauloise Blondes. ‘Inspector,’ she said, giving me a weighty look, ‘you think the murderer was here last night and talked for a while with Dr Coutinho, don’t you?’

‘It’s possible, senhora, but between you and me, I doubt it. Anyone as careful as the killer we’re dealing with had to know the butts could be used as evidence. More likely they were left by a friend – and very possibly the last person to see your employer alive.’

Senhora Grimault told me she’d arrived at precisely four minutes past ten in the morning and let herself in with her key. She’d neither seen nor heard anything odd. She explained that during the family’s summer vacation in the Algarve she came to the house twice a week to air it out, dust a bit and water the house plants. The garden itself had an automatic watering system. She’d brought along a sponge cake because she’d been told a few days earlier by Susana – in a phone call – that Dr Coutinho would be back in Lisbon for a couple of days. He had a sweet tooth and she prided herself on her baking.

I’d been thinking that the front-door key might have been copied by the murderer, and though Senhora Grimault swore to me she’d never lent it out, she could not promise the same for the family.

‘The kitchen looks spotless,’ I pointed out. ‘Did you find it that way?’

‘Yes, when I arrived, there were no plates to wash – not even from breakfast. Dr Coutinho must have eaten out last night and not yet had his morning cereal.’

I found one Adagio strawberry yogurt in the refrigerator, along with some cheese and milk, and two lemons.

‘Dr Coutinho could live on cheese and sweets,’ Senhora Grimault volunteered.

‘When did you first spot him this morning?’ I asked.

‘The moment I stepped into the living room.’ She closed her eyes and reached out a hand – slowly, straining with the effort, as though approaching a flame. ‘I touched his shoulder,’ she whispered. ‘I thought that he might still be alive, but . . .’ She lowered her arm to the table with a morose finality. ‘And then I called 112.’

‘Did you leave the house at any time after coming in?’

‘No. I sat in the foyer.’

‘But there’s no chair in the foyer,’ I pointed out.

‘I sat on the ground. I was feeling dizzy, and my first thought was to get outside for some air, but I didn’t get that far.’

She was close to tears again, and I pressed her to take a few sips of coffee. When she was ready to talk again, I asked, ‘When did you decide to water the plant in the foyer?’

She showed me an astonished look.

‘You left your watering can there,’ I explained.

‘My goodness, I completely forgot!’ In a slow, deliberate voice – reviewing her morning as it appeared in her memory – she said, ‘After I called 112, I thought that if I went through my usual routine I might calm myself down. I mean, if I could pretend that nothing had happened for a few minutes. But after I got the watering can, I broke down again.’ She let out a frustrated sigh. ‘Inspector, this seems like a dream . . . like something absolutely impossible.’

‘Given what happened, that might be a good thing,’ I observed, but she shook her head as though she would have preferred to be stronger. To my next question, she told me that Coutinho bought nearly all his neckties at the Hermès shop on the Avenue George V in Paris. She told me he would never have shopped at Zara.

‘Now I’m going to ask you something indelicate,’ I warned her. ‘Were you aware of any extramarital affairs that he may have been having?’

She drew in her head, hen-like, and said tautly, ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that.’

‘Other lives may be at risk,’ I emphasized. At the time, I didn’t believe that, but I wanted to apply a bit of pressure.

When I nodded insistently, Senhora Grimault confessed in a reticent voice that on maybe a dozen occasions she’d noticed creases on Susana’s side of the bed when Dr Coutinho was supposed to be on his own. Once, she’d also discovered a towel stained with an unfamiliar shade of lipstick. ‘And no, I don’t have any idea who the woman was,’ she rushed to add. Continuing to sense the direction of my thoughts, she told me, ‘Dr Coutinho and Susana are good people – respectful to each other. I can’t believe someone would want to hurt him. He was kind and generous. And so good at nearly everything he did – so talented.’

‘Talented?’ I asked.

‘Take a look at the watercolours in his library. And the one in Sandi’s room.’

‘The ones of the little girl?’

The pleasure of astonishing me lit her eyes. ‘They were done when Sandi was little,’ Senhora Grimault continued, ‘but he still took out his brushes on occasion.’ She executed two quick strokes in the air and gave a little laugh. ‘He painted like Zorro!’

‘He seemed to have been particularly interested in Asian cultures.’

‘More than interested, Inspector. Just after he got his engineering degree, he worked in Tokyo for two years. He could speak Japanese!’ The old lady’s eyes opened wide, as if to take in the grand dimension of all the adventures he must have had. Undone by her delight, she began to tear up badly. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

Luci spoke for the first time. ‘You’re doing great,’ she said, and she gave the senhora’s hand a firm squeeze.

After some more kind words from Luci, Senhora Grimault went on to tell us that Coutinho had had two cell phones. I tried both numbers but automatic messages indicated they weren’t in use. I asked Luci to find out if any calls had been made from them over the last twenty-four hours. ‘And while you’re at it, get me a list of all the calls the victim made and received over the last two weeks,’ I added.

I’d saved the most important detail for last: ‘This morning, senhora, did you have to turn the key several times in the lock or did it just click open?’

She considered that. ‘I had to turn it several times. I remember, because twisting it around gave me the idea that no one was at home. Now I realize that Dr Coutinho must have locked himself in for some reason.’

‘No, the killer re-locked the door on leaving,’ I told her. ‘Which was a mistake.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because now we can be certain he had the key.’

‘Not necessarily, sir,’ Luci rushed to say. ‘He could have taken it off Dr Coutinho.’

I reached into my pocket to retrieve the Alfa Romeo keychain. I shook it in the air. ‘He could have, but didn’t. These were still in Coutinho’s trousers.’

After seeing Senhora Grimault to the door and warning her not to discuss the case with anyone, I studied the paintings in the living room. Coutinho had bought only figurative work. My favourite was a Carlos Botelho drawing of pastel houses – in pink, yellow and blue – tumbling towards the Tagus River.

When I returned to the kitchen, Luci was rinsing her cake plate at the sink. She told me she’d just learned that no calls had been made from either of the victim’s cell phones since the time of his murder.

‘By now, the killer has probably destroyed their SIM cards,’ I said.

‘To prevent us from following his trail?’

‘Yes. But I also have the feeling he called Coutinho at some point and didn’t want us to find out about it.’

‘You think the victim knew his killer?’

‘Luci, there’s too much hatred here for it to be a botched burglary or random attack. And that Japanese message he probably made Coutinho write . . . It’s possible that some trouble he got into all those years ago in Japan has caught up with him.’

We found David Zydowicz seated on a chair he’d pulled up next to the body, shining his flashlight on Coutinho’s fingernails.

‘Signs of only a very brief struggle,’ he told me. ‘Our man here was shot, then kicked above the ribs while on his hands and knees, and finally tied up.’ Switching off his light, he told Luci, ‘Get out your notepad, young lady, and I’ll tell you your bedtime story.’

David observed Luci’s swift gestures with affectionate eyes, as if she were a little kid performing a card trick for her granddad. And as if there were only two kingdoms: the old and the young. When she was ready, he removed his glasses as though to summon forth a deeper part of himself and began to speak in the voice of authority that first won me to him. ‘The victim was hit with just one bullet in his gut, but I don’t believe it punctured his stomach lining or any other major organ, though I’ll only know for sure when I do the autopsy. In any case, he’d have taken at least half an hour to bleed out. Though as you know, Henrique, he didn’t.’

‘No, for better or for worse, he didn’t get that chance.’ To Luci’s puzzled glance, I added, ‘His lips have a bluish tint – not enough oxygen.’

David took off one of his gloves and grabbed a candy from his pocket. While he undid the yellow wrapper, I told him, ‘Whoever did this enjoyed seeing his victim suffer.’

‘I can’t speak to his emotions, Henrique – that’s more your field. But it’s true that Coutinho would have been in a lot of pain.’

It felt like my chest and head were being crushed.
That’s how my brother – at the age of six – had described what being suffocated felt like.

‘And he’s been dead eighteen to twenty-four hours?’ I asked.

‘Closer to twenty-four.’ David put his glasses back on.

‘Okay, here’s how I see it,’ I began. ‘After his shower, Coutinho came downstairs to investigate noises he’d heard.’ I stepped over to the wall of paintings and formed a gun with my hand. ‘The killer surprised him from here.’ I pointed towards the bottom of the staircase and squeezed off a shot. ‘Our victim fell to his knees and started crawling. The killer kicked him and stepped on his back in order to subdue him, and to compel him to extend his arms behind his back and put his wrists together. He tied them, then jammed an old sock in his mouth and gagged him.’

As David nodded his agreement, Fonseca came down the staircase with a cheeky smile on his face. ‘Madame X was a brunette,’ he announced happily. ‘And she had long hair.’

‘How long?’ I asked.

He held his hands about two feet apart.

‘Good to know,’ I said, ‘but I bet she’ll cut most of it off as soon as she finds out Coutinho is dead. And maybe dye it too.’

‘Why’s that?’ Luci asked.

‘Women who have affairs with married men generally prefer keeping their identity a secret. And the last thing she’ll want is to have her name associated with a murder.’

‘But if she was hiding here when Coutinho was killed,’ David said, ‘she might feel compelled to come forward and say what she saw and heard.’

‘Except that if she was here, then she’s scared to death right now.’

Fonseca scoffed. ‘You guys are so fucking naive! With a rich old guy like this, she was probably in on his murder! And if she was, you can forget about finding her in Lisbon. She’s gone, gone, gone!’

I got out my phone and called Senhora Grimault, who confirmed that Susana Coutinho was a natural blonde – and that Sandra was as well. To try to locate the homemade silencer and the victim’s discarded cell phones, I had Luci fetch a plastic garbage bag from the kitchen into which she could empty all the trash receptacles in the neighbourhood. A few seconds later, she came back into the room with Bruno Vaz, our lab tech with the Communist tape loop in his head. A determined and powerful sixty-year-old, with a shaved head, goldfish-big brown eyes and the swirling hand gestures of a charismatic orchestra director, Vaz had a unique style that made you expect marvels and maybe even a little sorcery now and again. And he was indeed great at his work. Unfortunately, all my efforts to win his friendship had been in vain; to go along with his visceral contempt for all things American, he seemed to hold me personally responsible for everything from the right-wing coup in Chile to the use of English as the world’s lingua franca. It didn’t help our relationship any that he’d been arrested by Portugal’s secret police in 1970 for his Communist Party affiliation and tortured at Caxias Prison. Before the great wash of his feelings about me solidified into stern dislike, he’d confessed to me – his eyes lighting up with recaptured meaning – that his imprisonment made the whole rest of his life seem insignificant. It had clearly been his Golden Age. Life in Portugal in 2012 – with its failed banks, deserted shopping malls and idiotic TV soap operas – must have seemed pathetic by comparison.