The Summer of Dead Toys (26 page)

Sitting on a plastic chair in a corridor near the ICU, Héctor watched the comings and goings of the staff and visitors. At first, he looked at them, but as time passed he half-closed his eyes and focused on their footsteps: fast, slow, firm, anxious. And little by little even that faded from his consciousness, immersed in the memories of what had happened to him over the last five days. The flight, the lost suitcase, the meeting with Savall and the visit to Omar’s clinic were mixed up with the statements of the suspects in the Marc Castells case, the image of Gina bleeding to death in the bath and that macabre vision of the drowned girl in the pool in a film as surreal as it was shocking. He didn’t make the least attempt to put the sequences in order: he let them flow freely in his mind, battle each other to impose themselves on the screen of his memory for a few seconds. Little by little, like the noise surrounding him, these stills began to fade. The chattering calmed, and his brain focused on one particular blurry and poor-quality image, starring him, a violent and brutal Héctor Salgado, beating a defenseless guy with rage. An off-camera voice was added to the image, that of the psychologist, the kid who deep down reminded him of his son. “Think of other moments when you’ve been carried away by rage.” Something he’d refused to do, not just in the past few days but always. But now, waiting for the doctor to give him news of Carmen, that woman who’d treated him almost as a son, he was able to break down the barriers and think of the other moment in his life when rage possessed him: that other day in which everything turned black and all that remained was a bitter taste like bile. His last memory of the first part of his life, the violent end of a phase. Nineteen years putting up with routine beatings at the hands of a “model” father, outwardly a perfect gentleman, every inch an asshole who never hesitated to impose discipline. Why he was normally the target of his rages and not his brother was something the young Héctor had asked himself many times in those nineteen years. That didn’t mean his brother escaped, or anything like it, but as he grew up Héctor noticed a deeper cruelty in the beatings that fell to him. Maybe because his father knew by then that he hated him with all his heart. What he never suspected, not even in the bitterest moments of his childhood, was that there was another victim of these blows, someone who received them behind closed doors, in the intimacy of a bedroom conveniently situated at the other end of a long corridor. How his mother had managed to hide the bruises all those years could be explained only in the context of a home where secrets were the rule and the best thing to do was say little and keep quiet a lot.

He discovered it by accident, one Friday afternoon when he returned early from hockey training because he’d twisted his ankle. He thought no one would be home, since his brother also had training that day, and his mother had said she and his father would be visiting one of his aunts, who was old and unwell. Because of that, he arrived at what he thought was an empty flat, ready to enjoy the solitude that all teenagers long for. He made no noise—that was one of his father’s rules—and that let him hear, with absolute clarity, the rhythmic blows followed by muffled screams. And then something exploded in his brain. Everything around him disappeared except the door in front of him, which he pushed decisively, and his father’s face, going from surprise to panic when his younger son without a second’s hesitation swung the stick into his chest and kept hitting him on the back, again and again, until his mother’s screams brought him back to himself. The following day, still recovering from the beating, his father arranged for this outcast son to continue his schooling in Barcelona, a city in which he had relatives. Héctor understood that this was the best solution: starting again, not looking back. The only thing that he regretted was abandoning his mother, but she convinced him that there was no danger, that what had happened that day was in no way a regular occurrence. He left and forced himself to forget; but this afternoon, sitting on a plastic chair while the memory unfolded clearly in his mind, the anguish vanished to be replaced by a strange feeling of peace, bittersweet but true, that he hadn’t felt since then. And he told himself, calmly, that if injustice and helplessness were the only things that had triggered his rage, in his youth just the same as a few months ago, he didn’t give a damn about the consequences. Let the world say what it will.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but he noticed a hand jogging his shoulder. Opening his eyes, he saw a figure in white who told him, with an expression designed for giving bad news, that Carmen Reyes González was out of danger, although they were keeping her under observation for at least another twenty-four hours and, of course, it would take a while for her to recover completely. He added, in a routine voice that sounded to Héctor like malicious admonition, that while there didn’t seem to be serious lesions apart from the contusion, they couldn’t rule out complications in the next few hours, due to the patient’s age. He could go in to see her, but only for a moment. And before allowing him in, the doctor with the undertaker’s face commented, in an admiring tone that was hardly professional, that the tenacity with which the older generation clung to life never ceased to amaze him. “They’re cut from a different cloth,” he said, shaking his head as if, in view of what the world was, this was incomprehensible

Leire looked at her watch and couldn’t help an irritated gesture. Why did all men disappear when you needed them? I’m starting to talk like María, she thought. But what was certain was that, despite Tomás’s hardly dignified exit, he wasn’t the target of her criticizms at that moment. The inspector had said he would call her mid-afternoon to finalize details. Well, fine; even though “mid-afternoon” wasn’t a precise term, she thought that at least he might have bothered to show signs of life. She resisted calling him; after all, Salgado was her superior and the last thing she wanted to do was fall out with a boss.

In any case, she had done her duties that afternoon, she told herself, satisfied. In order, she’d cleared the table and thrown out the croquettes; cried for a while—something she put down to this state of sensitive foolishness and not to anything else; and then, after showering and dressing informally, as she had agreed with the inspector, she’d gone to the station to carry out the first part of her orders. Task number one was done in a moment: one Inés Alonso Valls was flying from Dublin to Barcelona the following day on a flight that was arriving at 09.25 a.m., local time. She’d run her details without finding anything that seemed important. The girl was twenty-one, she had spent a year studying in Ireland and was the daughter of Matías Alonso and Isabel Valls. Her father had died eighteen years previously, when Inés was very small, but her mother was still alive. Leire had noted the address, just as Salgado had said. As for task number two . . . Leire looked at her watch again, as if her eyes could speed it up. She wanted to make this call, but it was early.

There was little movement in the station that Saturday, so she didn’t have anything to distract her and it left her time free to think. Inevitably her mind went back to Tomás and the conversation with him that afternoon, but also, and for the first time, she realized he wasn’t the only person to whom she should communicate the news: there were her parents, of course, and, all going well, sooner or later her bosses too. After the summer, she said to herself. First she had to get used to the idea herself and she didn’t feel like listening to reproaches or advice. Also, she’d heard thousands of times that it was best to wait until after three months had passed before announcing it. And for the first time she began to think of that being, who up until now had just brought on morning sickness, as someone who in less than a year would be lying beside her in a hospital bed. She saw herself alone with a crying baby and the image, although fleeting, was more terrifying than comforting. She didn’t want to keep going over it, so, in view of the fact that the inspector still hadn’t called, she picked up the landline and dialled her friend María’s number. Right now Santi and the villagers of Africa seemed a fascinating topic of conversation.
By one of life’s coincidences, Leire wasn’t the only one thinking of Africa that afternoon. And not just because the heat besieging Barcelona that day was closer to that continent than to moderate Europe, even in its south.

The sun was still punishing when the taxi left Martina Andreu at the door of the block of flats where Héctor Salgado lived. A pair of agents were guarding the door on the first floor, anxious to leave: there was nothing else to do there and they were happy to go. When they emerged, one of them commented that the stairwell smelled awful, and she merely nodded. She’d noticed it before, although perhaps not so strongly, but she didn’t want to keep them, nor did they want to stay. The sergeant wanted to be alone, without witnesses in uniform, to explore on her own. Something told her the assault on Carmen wasn’t a random incident. Héctor was right: too many things were happening around him, none of them good. On the other hand, the statements of the witnesses—Rosa and the butcher—were still fresh in her mind. Héctor could ask blind faith of her and she gave it, as a friend. But the part of her that was a cop demanded proof. Tangible proof that might counter the effect of these testimonies, which in all honesty she had no reason to doubt.

Once alone, she closed the door of Carmen’s flat and took a quick look around. She’d found her in the short passage separating the hall from the kitchen. The attack had been faceon, so it stood to reason that the poor woman had opened the door to a stranger who had attacked her after entering. But for what? They hadn’t searched the house—nothing seemed to be missing; there were no drawers on the floor or open cupboards. Maybe the guy had got scared after the assault and opted to get out of there? No, she didn’t like that explanation at all. Carmen had been hit twice with a metallic object. There was no trace of the weapon in the flat. Fuck, there was no trace of anything in this flat, cursed the sergeant. She looked toward the cupboard that hid the electricity meter. If she wasn’t mistaken, there were the keys to Héctor Salgado’s flat. Someone else might have felt a pang of conscience, but not her. It was what she had to do.

Keys in hand, she went up the stairs. The foul smell became more intense for a moment, then faded. Martina was in a hurry to search the inspector’s flat before he decided to return. The qualms hit her when chance awarded her first prize and the key chosen turned in the lock, but she rejected them without banishing them completely, as if putting them in a recycling bin. Once inside, however, she considered what she was doing there and what she hoped to find. The blinds were lowered and she switched on the light. She scanned the flat. Nothing seemed out of place. She went to the kitchen and opened the fridge, where she just saw some beers and a jug of what looked like gazpacho. She couldn’t imagine Héctor making it, in all honesty, and it seemed homemade. From the kitchen she returned to the dining room and from there she walked to the bedroom. Unmade bed, suitcase open in a corner . . . The typical state of a single man’s room. Or a separated one.

She was about to leave, feeling like a hypocritical intruder, but, crossing the dining room again she made out a flicker on the television. Héctor had left it on. No—it wasn’t the television. It was the DVD screensaver that was moving. If Salgado hadn’t mentioned the recordings to her, it would never have occurred to her to press the play button.

When the first few images hit the screen, she was overcome by an instinctive, visceral repulsion and a suspicion that now there was no going back. Despite herself, she had to watch the recording twice more to take it all in. Luckily it wasn’t very long, lasting only a few minutes, but within that time one could clearly see the bruised face of an old black man bleeding profusely, on the verge of slipping into unconsciousness. His parched lips could barely emit a slight moan and his eyes didn’t succeed in focusing on whoever was being forced to record his agony. On the blurry screen, Dr. Omar tried to open his eyes for the last time, but the effort was too much for his battered body. Martina Andreu heard his last breath clearly and witnessed death overcoming his face. The recording ended there, giving way to a dark gray cloud. And then, with the coldness that comes with years of service, the sergeant knew what the next step was. The separate pieces came together to form an unpleasant but logical whole. The witness statements, Omar’s disappearance, that horrendous film—and yes, the stench on the stairwell—fell magically into place and showed her the road to follow.

Taking the next step, however, wasn’t easy. She had to call it in, but first she wanted to be sure. It took her an eternity to leave Héctor’s flat. She descended a flight of stairs to the second floor, walking with the rigidity of an automaton. Carmen’s keyring had all the keys and she had to try a couple before finding the right one. The stench hit her full-blast on simply pushing the door open. She felt her way forward, as the flat wasn’t connected to the electricity mains. She followed her nose until she came to a small room in which she thought she could make out a little window. When she raised the blind, light invaded the space. Although she knew what she’d come looking for, the sight of Omar’s body made her jump backward. And she ran, ran to the front door, went through it and leaned against the door frame, eyes squeezed shut, blocking the space as if someone were pursuing her. As if the soul of that dead body could abandon its casing of flesh and seek to possess her. Seconds, maybe minutes had to pass before she was calm, before she was sure he was inside and couldn’t hurt her. Finally she managed to open her eyes, and she suppressed a scream of surprise and fear on seeing before her, with a serious expression, the friend she now feared with all her heart.

There’s nothing less bearable than waiting for a phone call with nothing to do. Agent Castro had many virtues, but patience wasn’t one of them. So, after forty minutes of chatting to María, during which she never stopped checking her mobile, she reluctantly decided to take the initiative and contact Inspector Salgado. The only response was his voicemail, offering as usual the opportunity to leave a message after the tone. She hesitated before doing so, but finally opted to cover her back and inform him of her plans.