Death on a Galician Shore (2 page)

As soon as he was old enough to stay at home on his own, Leo gave up the torture of the winding roads and stopped accompanying his father to the estate. When he went to university, his father left his job in Vigo and moved permanently to his wife’s old family home, which he had gradually restored.

The land, initially providing comfort in his time of affliction, was now a profitable business, and the nights of weeping were no more than a shadow in the memory.

Wine, the downfall of so many men, had been his salvation.

They hardly spoke during the drive. The modern roads were less tortuous, but Caldas still opened the window a crack and closed his eyes for the journey. He sank back in the seat and didn’t move, even when raindrops got in and spattered his face.

Beside him, his father drove one-handed, gripping the nails of the other between his teeth without breaking them, while in his mind he travelled from his childhood to the hospital room.

When they reached the estate, Caldas got out to open the gate and waited in the rain while his father drove through. Back in the car, on the way up to the house, he thought he saw a dark shape moving behind them. Through the rain-streaked rear window he made out an animal running after them.

‘Have you got a dog?’ he asked, surprised.

‘No.’

‘Isn’t it yours?’ he insisted, motioning behind them.

Caldas’s father looked in the rear-view mirror for a moment and then said firmly, ‘No, it’s not.’

All the way from the car to the front door, the dog bounded around Caldas’s father, barking. It leaped and shot off in all directions in the rain, spinning around within a few metres and galloping back, howling with delight, thrashing its tail and trying to lick the inspector’s father’s hands, face or whatever else he saw fit to proffer.

‘Look at the mess he’s made of my clothes,’ he complained as they entered the house. He shook his trousers and shirt, which the dog had smeared with dark mud, and went up to his bedroom. Caldas stayed downstairs.

‘Lucky the dog isn’t yours, then,’ he muttered.

Circling the large dining-room table he made his way to the sitting room. He sat down on the sofa, facing the fireplace, which still contained the ashes and dead embers of a recent fire. Next to the coffee table, beside a pile of old newspapers, stood a basket of logs.

His father returned, wearing a fresh change of clothes.

‘Shall I put some dry things out for you?’

‘Maybe tomorrow. I’d rather dry off in front of the fire. Can I light it?’ Caldas asked, pointing to the firewood.

‘If you think you know how …’ said his father disdainfully before slipping off to the kitchen.

Caldas sighed and knelt down by the fireplace. He took two large pine logs from the basket and placed them in the hearth. Crumpling up a few sheets of newspaper, he pushed them between the logs and laid pine cones and vine prunings on top. He rummaged in his pocket for his cigarettes and lighter, and lit up with the same flame he held to the newspaper. Once it was alight, he sat on the sofa, smoking in front of the fire.

His father returned with an unlabelled bottle of white wine. After opening it with the bottle opener on the wall, he left it on the coffee table and went to get two glasses from the cupboard.

‘This is the latest vintage,’ he said, filling the glasses with wine that was still cloudy. ‘See what you think.’

Caldas laid his cigarette on the ashtray and thrust his nose into his glass. His father did the same.

‘It stills need to clarify, but as far as the nose goes, it’s ready,’ he said.

‘Right.’

‘How do you like it, Leo?’

The inspector raised the glass to his lips and swilled the wine around in his mouth for a few seconds before swallowing.

‘What do you think?’ asked his father, standing waiting for his son’s verdict.

Caldas nodded several times then emptied his glass in one gulp.

*

They opened another bottle, from the previous year this time, and heated some of the soup from the fridge, made with slab bacon, beef broth, turnip tops, broad beans and potatoes. Afterwards they ate a local cheese with some of Maria’s home-made quince jelly.

When they’d finished eating and had cleared the dishes, Caldas carried the wine to the coffee table and refilled the glasses. He sat on the sofa, facing the fire; he could have stared at it for hours. His father went to the bookshelves and stood searching for a couple of minutes, cursing under his breath until he found a small notebook behind the books. Its cardboard cover was so worn it was difficult to tell its original colour. Taking his glass, he went to sit at the dining table and leafed through the notebook for a while.

When Caldas got up for more wine, he asked: ‘Is that the Book of Idiots?’

His father nodded. ‘I wonder how Alberto remembered it. I haven’t looked at it for years,’ he said, turning pages full of names, of the fragments of life associated with each one. Then he took a pen and turned to the last entry in the notebook.

‘It was Dr Apraces, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said the inspector and, glancing at his father, once again saw eyes glistening with unfamiliar tears.

Caldas stretched out on the sofa and remained there for the rest of the evening, staring at the fire so that his father could weep with each glass of wine he drank.

The next morning, Caldas took a change of clothes from his father’s wardrobe, had a long shower and went out into the courtyard between the house and the winery. After weeks of rain, autumn had called a truce and, though the sun was hidden by clouds, the new day was bright and still.

Approaching a flowerbed, he pinched a sprig of lemon verbena in his fingers and inhaled the fragrance.

‘I hear you enjoyed the soup,’ said a voice behind him.

Maria, who came every morning to clean the house and prepare his father’s meals, was sweeping up the russet leaves shed overnight by the sweetgum tree.

‘Very much, Maria,’ said Caldas.

‘The trick is to skim it well,’ she said, still sweeping. Then, wanting to return the compliment, she added: ‘I really enjoy
Patrolling the Waves
. We never miss it.’

The inspector wondered how on earth they received the show out there. Surely Radio Vigo only covered the city itself?

He thanked her and changed the subject: ‘Have you seen my father?’

‘He was heading that way, with the dog,’ she said, pointing beyond the winery to the river. ‘Don’t you want breakfast? There’s hot coffee in the thermos.’

‘Maybe later,’ said Caldas, slipping out of the courtyard.

He made his way around the house. Leaning with his elbows on the
stone parapet, he looked out over the seven hectares of terraced vineyards sloping down to the river.

A few hundred metres below, a tractor was parked on the path beside one of the plots to the right. Caldas could make out a few people among the vines and remembered his father saying over supper that they had begun pruning.

He lit a cigarette and remained leaning on the parapet, savouring the peace and quiet. He was about to call the station, to tell them not to expect him until the afternoon, when his mobile rang shrilly in his pocket. He answered, seeing his assistant’s name on the display.

‘Are you on your way here, boss?’ asked Rafael Estevez by way of greeting, before Caldas could speak.

‘Is something up?’

‘We got a call about half an hour ago from Panxón. A man’s body’s been found in the water.’

‘A fisherman?’

‘How should I know, Inspector?’

Caldas’s assistant, who came from the province of Aragon, was obviously in fine form from first thing in the morning.

‘Had we had a report of anyone missing?’ asked the inspector, aware that sometimes it took days for bodies to be washed ashore.

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Right.’

‘D’you mind telling me how long you’ll be?’ asked Estevez with customary impatience. ‘The coroner set off for Panxón ten minutes ago, and the pathologist called to ask if we could pick him up en route.’

Caldas glanced at his watch and reflected that all the hassle was starting much too early this Monday. He was glad to be well away from the city.

‘Well, you pick him up en route.’

‘What about you?’

‘I don’t think I’ll be able to get there till this afternoon, Rafa.’

‘You don’t think so, or you know so for a fact?’

‘Don’t start, Rafa. I was just about to call to let you know.’

Estevez hung up with a grunt. Caldas thought of phoning the superintendent to let him know he wouldn’t be in that morning and
have him assign someone to go with Estevez, but changed his mind. It was only a drowned man after all.

He headed along the path between the vines that cut through the estate to the river like a sinewy scar. The vines in the upper part had yet to be pruned, though autumn had already divested them of their foliage, with only a few branches retaining a languid leaf or two.

He stopped when he was level with the tractor and stood watching in silence as the workers took five or six stems on each vine and tied them to the wires. They chose stems that already had several buds, from which shoots would sprout in the spring, and cut off the others. Later, before moving to the next section of vineyard, they would collect in the tractor any pruned branches that might serve as kindling and leave the rest to rot on the ground.

The osier bindings with which he’d helped his father tie in the first stems were now made of plastic, but nothing else seemed to have changed.

Ten metres or so further down, the brown dog that had greeted them the day before appeared on the path. A moment later, Caldas’s father emerged from the same row of vines holding a pair of pruning shears, his rubber boots glistening with dew.

Caldas went to meet him.

‘There are spare boots in the storeroom,’ said his father, looking at his son’s shoes.

Caldas shrugged. ‘I’ll stay on the path.’

‘It’s up to you. Have you seen the new planting?’ asked his father, motioning towards the river.

Caldas had seen it but said he hadn’t. They set off that way, with the dog ahead of them, nose to the ground, scurrying among the vines. Now and then the brown shape reappeared on the path, its head erect, making sure they were still following, before resuming its distracted scampering.

‘What’s its name?’ asked the inspector, pointing at the dog during one of its appearances.

‘I don’t know. It’s not mine,’ said his father without stopping.

They continued down the path, which turned right at an angle, parallel to the river, as it reached the lower part of the estate. On either side there were several rows of white posts with wires stretched between. At the foot of each post, a new vine was just visible.

Caldas’s father explained that they’d had to use a digger to level the ground and that they’d left a larger than usual gap between vines so that the tractor could manoeuvre more easily. The inspector listened in silence, nodding as if he were hearing it all for the first time.

While his father stopped to tie a loose stem to a post, Caldas headed through the rows of vines to look out at the river that flowed several metres below.

The stretch of river that ran past the estate had many whirlpools. If they wanted to swim they had to walk upriver for half an hour, to a bend with a beach where the water slowed. They’d set out after lunch and return along the bank, as it was growing dark. In childhood the days had seemed longer.

Seeing the water and hearing the murmur of the current, he remembered Estevez’s call about the man swept away by the sea. He thought of the night the pharmacist had drowned in the rapids. He had waited in the car while his father had helped the police as they scoured the riverbank, probing beneath the water with wooden poles. Later they’d driven back to Vigo for the night while the police continued their search downriver.

The pharmacist’s body hadn’t turned up for another three days. She was found by men fishing for lampreys eight kilometres from the spot where she’d fallen in.

Years later, the inspector learned that the pharmacist had jumped into the river and that she couldn’t swim. But for months, she had swum beside him in his childhood nightmares, begging him to save her from the swirling current that always swallowed her in the end. The young Leo would wake, terrified and drenched with sweat, as wet as if he really had been swimming.

Caldas looked at his watch: Estevez would have got to Panxón by now and he was sure he wouldn’t hear any more about the case until the afternoon, when he was back at the station.

His father joined him and they stood watching the river, the leaves and branches swept along by the current.

‘You should have put on boots.’

‘Right,’ said Caldas, staring at the water.

‘Have you had breakfast?’ asked his father after a pause.

Caldas shook his head.

‘Shall we go back for coffee?’ said his father.

As they made their way up to the house, he lamented: ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of planting in this area before.’

‘I thought you didn’t think sandy soil was good for vines.’

‘Well, you’ll see, it’ll make wonderful wine. Not this year, obviously, or next, but in five years time I think the best wine on the estate will come from these vines. And if I’m right, I’ll plant over there too,’ he said, pointing to the other side of the path.

‘Five years?’

‘Five or six. Once the vines have grown.’

‘Isn’t that too long?’

‘I don’t set the schedule. That’s how long they take to mature.’

‘I know,’ said the inspector. ‘I meant, aren’t you planning to retire before then?’

‘Retire? And do what?’

Caldas shrugged. ‘Anything …’

‘Isn’t all this anything?’ said his father, spreading his arms to encompass the vine-clad slopes on either side of the path. ‘At my age, the only way to have peace of mind and not dwell on things is to keep busy. The alternative is to resign yourself to living through other people and sit waiting for time to pass and do its work.’

Caldas felt he’d ruined his father’s morning. He was sorry he’d spoken. His father, however, added with a smile: ‘Besides, when you’re retired, you don’t get holidays.’