A Shortcut to Paradise (15 page)

They all went silent, not knowing what to say next. As Deputy-Inspector Alsina-Graells couldn't ask Amadeu Cabestany's wife to her face whether her husband was in the habit of keeping human organs in their refrigerator or had any favourite cut for a
Sapiens sapiens
steak, she was at a loss about how to proceed. She was livid, and to a point it was justified. It was absurd what she had been asked to do! Her superiors had sent her to Vic to investigate whether there was any truth in the rumour relating to the suspect in the Marina Dolç case and cannibalistic practices, but what the hell did they expect her to do? The Deputy-Inspector knew there was someone behind that order who simply wanted to cover their backs in case they came under fire in the future. Someone who could put on record that he'd sent a couple of
mossos
to Vic to investigate and spare himself any responsibility if the shit hit the fan.

“We'll leave you in peace now.” The Deputy-Inspector began to head for the door. “By the way, how old are your daughters?” she asked, looking tenderly at the photo of the two girls in the entrance hall.

“Eulàlia will be eight next month and Lara five in October,” Clara said, bursting into tears again. “I do hope this turns out to be one big mistake. Just imagine, having to live in this place, with their father on murder charges…”

Deputy-Inspector Maria del Mar, who was from Cardedeu, preferred not to imagine what that would be like. She knew from experience how quickly towns and small cities could become hellish. If she'd not been in uniform, she'd have advised her to change city, to go to Barcelona, as she had, or to any city where no one knew her and where people had better things to do than interfere in other people's lives. But she didn't say a word. Vic was a small city, a wealthy, conservative city, and the honest locals wouldn't forget a homicidal neighbour overnight. What's more, if the rumours about Amadeu Cabestany's cannibalistic tendencies were confirmed, those girls and their distraught mother they had just questioned would soon need good psychological support and a place where they could start afresh. The Deputy-Inspector sympathized mentally with Clara Cabestany, while she
wondered, wracked by doubt, if bringing children into the world was really worthwhile: a world packed with violent murderers, pederasts, rapists and now even… cannibals. Not to mention drugs and prostitutes. What was the statistical probability her son or daughter, if she finally did manage to procreate, would bump into one such felon before his or her eighth birthday. One in a thousand? In two thousand? In a hundred thousand? Deputy-Inspector Maria del Mar decided she'd consult the statistics as soon as she was back at the station.

 

 

“Where are we heading now?” asked Serra when they were back in the car.

“To the suspect's school. They're expecting us at twelve thirty,” she said, looking at her watch and seeing they only had fifteen minutes.

They were there in five. They were met by a tall, thin, fair-haired man with a beard, who introduced himself as the Director of Studies. Joan Tamariu was forty-two and a maths teacher. He was wearing old jeans, a faded sky-blue T-shirt imprinted with an image from a comic and red Old Star shoes. From behind his spectacles, his deep blue eyes made the Deputy-Inspector flip. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at her like that and she felt weak at the knees.

By that stage in June, classes and exams were over and hardly anyone was at the school. The headmaster was on a training course in Barcelona and there were only two porters about. Not a single pupil was to be seen. The Director of Studies explained he was getting next year's timetables ready, took them to his office and asked them to sit down.

“Reconciling timetables is a sight more difficult than solving a murder case, I can tell you…” he smiled as he moved aside the rocky piles of paper heaped on his desk.

“You're the Director of Studies, so I assume you must be well acquainted with Amadeu Cabestany?” began the Deputy-Inspector.

“The fact is that I'm in Social Sciences and don't really have much contact with Cabestany,” he said, still staring deep into her eyes. “I'm really sorry, but I've not been able to track down a single one of his colleagues from the literature department now classes have finished…”

“I'm fucked if I'm going to the school on Tuesday to talk to the police about that shit Cabestany” and “I don't care a fuck about that stuck-up sod Cabestany and besides I've got an appointment with my depilator tomorrow” had more or less been the responses he'd got from teachers in the department when he rang to ask them to drop by the school on Tuesday.

“What we'd really like to know is what kind of person Amadeu Cabestany is,” said the Deputy-Inspector, taking the initiative. “If he's liked by his colleagues, if he's peculiar in any way…”

“Well, he's quite withdrawn. We call him ‘The Marquis' in private.”

“Marquis de Sade… sadism,” reflected the Deputy-Inspector. “I suppose,” added the Director of Studies, shrugging his shoulders, “that he thinks he's a literary genius, condemned to earn his bread teaching a collection of ignoramuses. But I wouldn't say he's any more peculiar than the others. This school has its fair share of eccentrics.”

“What do you mean exactly?”

“Well, the philosophy teacher talks to himself in the corridors… The Latin master washes his hands in the lavatories at least thirty times a day… The English teacher sometimes turns up dressed as a drag queen…”

“In other words, you're the only normal guy around here?” commented the Deputy-Inspector, ironically returning his look.

“I teach maths. That automatically makes me a baddie,” he smiled. Serra got the impression the Director of Studies liked Deputy-Inspector Maria del Mar a lot.

“What about Amadeu Cabestany? Does he do strange things too?” continued the Deputy-Inspector.

“Well, Amadeu avoids his pupils like the plague and locks his office door as soon as he can. But he's a man who doesn't want any problems. He always passes everyone, even those who don't turn up for the exam. When the boys in his class are playing up, he lets them get on with it and simply starts reading. Reading his own stuff, I mean. We've had to warn him a couple of times on that count.”

“Has he ever had problems with young pupils? I'm just asking, you know. I'm not suggesting anything,” added the Deputy-Inspector.

“Well” – the Director of Studies shrugged his shoulders – “I don't know if he has ever had that kind of problem, but I can tell you if Amadeu had ever tried it on with a girl student, he'd have stopped after getting a good slap in the face. I mean, I can't imagine any of our students has ever felt the least attraction for someone like Amadeu, and, on the other hand, Amadeu is no Adonis physically speaking. Besides, I think the snide jokes (to put it politely) the students would crack in such a situation would soon come to the attention of the teachers. I have no memory of any complaints of this nature.”

“Thank you very much. That's all we needed to know.”

“I'll give you my telephone number, Deputy-Inspector, in case you want to meet and continue this conversation,” said the Director of Studies, giving her a card. “Or if you ever come here as a tourist and want a dining partner.”

“Thank you, but I'm married.” The Deputy-Inspector blushed a deep red.

“So am I, don't worry. Monogamy is so boring…”

The Deputy-Inspector made it clear she was angry, but deep down she felt gratified. That maths teacher wasn't to be sniffed at. There was something interesting about him, and he was handsome into the bargain. She knew she'd never see him again, but she hoped his less than subtle insinuations came to the attention of her very busy husband. Her Jaume was always much more passionate when he had a reason to be jealous.

“Heavens, Maria del Mar, that guy wanted to date you…” said Serra as they went to get into the car.

“You men are a bunch of rogues…” she smiled back at him. “Come on, Serra, time for lunch.”

 

 

They went to a restaurant with a set menu. While they waited for their lunch to be served, the Deputy-Inspector told her colleague the Vic police had reported that an old man diagnosed with Alzheimer's had disappeared five months ago and was still missing. A nineteen-year-old girl who lived at home and wanted to be a model had also disappeared, but she'd taken a couple of suitcases and made off with her parents' savings, a couple of
conservative reactionaries who reckoned the Liberal Democrats were on the extreme left and tried to avoid contact with immigrants lest they be de-Catalanized. The Deputy-Inspector was whispering, because she was aware the other diners were staring at her with their antennae on full alert.

“I don't think there can be any connection between these two disappearances and our suspect,” she added, “but you never know. Maybe he turned them into sushi…”

Their first course was boiled cauliflower, followed by
butifarra
and beans. As they were on duty, they had to stick to mineral water. Deputy-Inspector Maria del Mar ordered ice cream for dessert and Serra, who was slightly sweeter-toothed, went for the home-made cake. Before they left the restaurant, while Serra was finishing the camomile infusion he had ordered to help his digestion, and was the object of the quizzical glances of the locals, the Deputy-Inspector went to the lavatory to change her Tampax.

“What about a little glass of something for the road, sir? On the house,” asked the bar-owner.

“No thank you! I'm on duty,” Serra answered, pleased by the suggestion.

“I guess you're investigating the case of that writer murdered in Barcelona?”

“Well… no… I mean, yes…”

“Amadeu didn't seem such a bad lad,” the bar-owner continued casually. “Rather full of himself, perhaps, but I'd never have said he could do anything like that. Obviously, appearances can deceive, can't they?”

“Yes… I mean, no… Well… In fact, it's all rumours really,” Serra was starting to sound nervous. “I mean we're not sure the other disappearances have anything to do with any crime or the suspect.”

“That's right, the Valls' daughter. Good people… In other words, the police suspect that maybe…”

“No, not at all, all I said was…”

At that moment the Deputy-Inspector emerged from the lavatory and walked emphatically towards their table. The bar-owner knew he wouldn't extract any more information from the
mosso
with her around and decided to retreat to the bar. He'd realized the woman was in charge and that her colleague was very green.

“Well, Serra? How about it?”

“Right you are!” responded Serra, standing up, relieved because he was sure the Deputy-Inspector wouldn't have approved of that rather rash conversation he'd just been having with the bar-owner. “You see, Maria del Mar?” he began euphorically when they reached the door. “I didn't drop us in it this time. Nobody's realized we came to Vic to investigate whether Amadeu Cabestany is a cannibal!”

The silence that descended on the bar would have been sepulchral if the television hadn't been switched on. Every head turned and Deputy-Inspector Maria del Mar Alsina-Graells felt her back being pierced by the gaze from four dozen bulging eyes. Luckily, it was her spirits that sank to her feet and not the Tampax, although it was a close thing. The Deputy-Inspector automatically closed her eyes and began to pray, begging the earth to swallow her up or to go back in time. It couldn't be. Within hours Cabestany's cannibalism was the talk of the town.

15

The news of Amadeu Cabestany's alleged habits was splashed over the following day's front pages and began to stress everyone out. First, Amadeu's lawyer and his wife, who was already flat out on their sofa after downing potent tranquillizers, and, naturally, the prosecution, the judge responsible for the case and the police. The stress translated into a series of furious calls to the Director of the Model demanding he find out where the fuck – to quote verbatim – that macabre story had come from and how it had got out. The forensic declared there wasn't the slightest sign of any cannibalistic practices on Marina Dolç's corpse, and the fact that the population of Vic were adamant one of their ranks was a depraved cannibal had a reasonable enough explanation if one considered how an aspiring
mosso
had blurted out and kick-started the rumour, as more than a dozen eyewitnesses could confirm. Amadeu, who'd also glanced at the story in the paper before a disgruntled inmate took it and graphically indicated what he used the dailies for when going to the lavatory, thought the description of cannibal was a metaphor referring to his use of tradition and literary sources, which hardly made his day. It was fine to say he was inspired by his favourite authors but not that he devoured them like a cannibal, as the article suggested.

Everybody in the Model had seen Amadeu Cabestany's photo on the front pages and it had created a real fuss. The director had shut himself away in his office at dawn and had ordered his minions to open an investigation to find the source of a rumour that, judging by the judge's hysterical screams from the other end of the line, could cost him his career. Two hours later, his minions were unanimously agreed that all the evidence pointed to Paquito Expósito, a prisoner in the fifth gallery.

“Bring him to my office immediately,” spat out the director.

The director was aware that all that mess was his fault, and was very worried. If he had bitten his tongue, rather than rushing to ring the judge in order to impress her… But that was ancient history and perhaps there was a perfectly reasonable explanation. Anyway, he ruminated while waiting for Paquito, perhaps the cannibal story was true and he might get out of this shit almost unharmed. It was too much to believe that that bunch of brainless fools had invented the whole thing, and he was hoping Paquito Expósito would explain himself and help clear up the mystery.