Death on a Galician Shore (35 page)

‘You already know. We’re investigating Justo Castelo’s murder.’

‘What’s Marcos got to do with it?’

‘He and Castelo used to work together—’

‘Over ten years ago, Inspector,’ she interrupted, her voice even. ‘Since I’ve known Marcos he hasn’t set foot in the harbour once. He has no interest in what goes on there. He has nothing to do with any of the fishermen.’

‘We know.’

‘So how is he connected with that man’s death?’

Caldas sidestepped the question. ‘It’s our duty to check everything out.’

‘You’re trying to protect him, aren’t you?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The other day you asked if I thought my husband had seemed worried lately, or if anyone had tried to scare him. That’s it, isn’t it? Is someone trying to hurt Marcos?’

‘Has he seemed more anxious?’ asked Caldas.

‘Please don’t be so Galician, Inspector. Can’t you be more direct? He is my husband. Is there something I should be concerned about?’

‘Have you asked him that question?’

‘You don’t know Marcos,’ she sighed. ‘I think he may be even worse than you.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ muttered Estevez. ‘They’re all the same.’

Valverde’s wife was about to say something when they heard the sound of a car in the courtyard.

‘That’s him,’ she said, rising to her feet. The two policemen stood as well.

‘Have you still got my number?’ asked Caldas.

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Please don’t hesitate to call me,’ he said, and she turned down the corners of her mouth in the beginnings of a smile.

She went to the sound system and turned up the music. Caldas didn’t take his eyes off her.

‘This is the song, Inspector,’ she said, gesturing towards one of the speakers.

‘The song?’

‘“Solveig’s Song”,’ she said, as if no explanation were needed. ‘You asked about it the other day.’

Caldas nodded. Valverde’s wife smiled, and he glimpsed Alba’s smile briefly before it disappeared.

The inspector turned to look out of the huge window. While they waited for the former member of the
Xurelo
’s crew, he watched the waves with their crests of foam, looking like lambs on the water.

Justo Castelo’s sister was right. ‘Solveig’s Song’ did sound like a Galician tune.

‘What are you doing here? Why have you come back to my home?’ hissed Valverde. A dark tie and the lapels of a grey suit were just visible beneath the property developer’s open overcoat. ‘My wife was worried enough by your visit the other day.’

‘We need to speak to you.’

Valverde glanced around the empty sitting room.

‘I told you everything I remembered on Saturday.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ retorted Caldas. ‘Are you going to tell us what happened in Aguiño?’

‘I told you, I don’t remember.’

‘You’re lying. No one forgets a night like that, no matter how long ago it was.’

‘Maybe I’ve got a poor memory,’ said Valverde quietly.

Estevez came up behind the inspector and whispered in his ear, ‘I know a cure for that.’

Caldas tutted disapprovingly. Estevez was quite capable of shoving Valverde’s head into the fireplace to jog his memory.

He said to Valverde, ‘Would you mind if I tell you a story?’

‘My wife has supper waiting,’ said the developer, gesturing towards the dining table.

‘It won’t take five minutes.’

Valverde hesitated. He glanced at the closed door through which his wife had departed and motioned to the policemen to follow him back out to the garden. He headed away from the house along the
gravel path, stopping once they were far enough away not to be overheard from the house.

‘So what’s this story you want to tell me?’ he asked, turning towards the policemen.

Caldas took out his cigarettes and pulled one from the packet. He lit it and drew on it a couple of times before speaking.

‘It’s about a fishing boat. The skipper was a veteran and he had a crew of three younger men, all friends. One wet, windy evening, when they were quite a distance from their home port, they heard a forecast of worsening weather,’ he began, and Valverde averted his gaze towards a corner of the garden. ‘Despite the warning, they continued fishing until they were forced to shelter in a nearby port. It was late. The harbour was deserted. From the boat they saw the lights go out in the only bar that was open in the evening. The skipper knew the owner and thought he could get him to give them something to eat before closing. The owner not only agreed to serve them wine and sandwiches but when he went home he left the gallery at the entrance open so they could sit inside.’

Caldas drew on his cigarette. Valverde was rubbing his hands on his legs. He took the pause as an invitation to confirm the account and was about to speak when the inspector continued:

‘At around eleven, as the four men sat chatting in the gallery, a young woman came in. She’d come to buy cigarettes,’ said Caldas, holding up his own cigarette. ‘No ordinary girl, but a real head-turner. Are you following me?’

Valverde nodded, his mouth half-open like a small boy watching a conjuror. Caldas went on.

‘She couldn’t get cigarettes because the bar was closed, so the fishermen offered her some of theirs. She was friendly as well as pretty. She sat down for a drink but after a while she said she had to get home. The weather was terrible and two of the men offered to walk her back. She didn’t refuse. She was enjoying their company and was happy to prolong the encounter a little while longer. But the men weren’t content to leave her at her front door. They wanted to come inside, the girl said no. She claimed that if things had been different she’d have let them in but that she couldn’t that night because her son would still be up. The fishermen insisted – they didn’t believe she had a son, they thought she was just making excuses. But, still
friendly, she stood her ground,’ said the inspector, raising his cigarette to his lips. ‘They were about to give up when the front door opened. In the darkness, the fishermen caught a glimpse of her son. He was a teenager, and they couldn’t believe she had a son that age. He mumbled something about spending the night at a friend’s and rushed off.’

Caldas exchanged a look with Estevez. He swallowed as his mouth was dry from talking and smoking. Valverde shoved his hands into his coat pockets but still couldn’t stop fidgeting.

‘One of the fishermen decided to return to the boat but, now that the son was out of the way, the other one persuaded the woman to let him in. Once inside, he was determined to overcome every obstacle she put in his way. But then something went wrong. He went too far. He had to clean up the house and dispose of the woman’s body. He went back to the boat and tried to convince the other three that they had to set sail before morning. His powers of persuasion worked once more. They put out to sea in the early hours but they didn’t get far. The storm was too severe. They were driven towards shallows and the boat started to take on water. In under a minute, the
Xurelo
had gone down.’

The developer raised a hand to his forehead, covering his eyes.

‘The three younger men managed to swim ashore in their life jackets, but the skipper drowned trying to save the boat. Weeks later, his decomposing body was found in the nets of a trawler miles away. The woman was never seen again. Maybe she disappeared out at sea like the skipper.’

Caldas paused to draw on his cigarette again, watching Valverde, who was still shielding his eyes with his hand.

‘The three fishermen returned to their village, but their friendship, like the boat, had foundered in the shallows. They broke off all contact and never spoke of what happened that night. They hoped that it would all disappear in the mists of time,’ he continued. ‘But then, years later, when they thought everything had been forgotten, graffiti appeared on the boat of one of the men who had walked the woman home. “Murderers”, it read, together with the date of the sinking and of the woman’s disappearance. The people of the village attributed it to the ghost of the drowned skipper. They had never understood why the crew had put out to sea in a storm, and had
always suspected that something murky lay behind the sinking of the
Xurelo
. The three fishermen, however, feared something else. They were scared, bewildered at having been found. They wondered how they’d been tracked down after all that time.’

Caldas finished his cigarette and bent to stub it out on the ground.

‘One morning, weeks later, the body of the fisherman who was threatened washed up on the shore,’ he said, pointing towards the sea.

Valverde took his hand away from his eyes, then touched it to his tie knot before thrusting it into his coat pocket again. ‘Who told you all this?’

‘The man who returned to the boat was Justo Castelo,’ said Caldas, ignoring Valverde’s question. ‘Which of the others went inside the woman’s house?’

‘It wasn’t me,’ said Valverde.

‘That’s not what I asked.’

Valverde glanced at Estevez and then said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know who went in.’

‘You were there. You must know,’ said the inspector.

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘We just need a name.’

‘I can’t give you a name, Inspector.’

‘Was it you?’ asked Caldas, looking Valverde straight in the eye.

‘No.’

‘Then tell me who was with the woman,’ he pressed. ‘Or was it more than one of you?’

‘No.’

‘Was it Arias?’

‘I don’t remember,’ said Valverde, covering his eyes again.

‘Have you been threatened?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ he said, his voice barely audible.

He was cornered. Caldas tried to offer him a way out. ‘Did you know that José Arias has left the village?’

‘When?’

‘On Saturday,’ replied Caldas. ‘Did you know?’

‘No,’ said Valverde. ‘I haven’t spoken to him for years.’

‘Since that night?’

‘Since the days that followed.’

‘Was it him?’

‘I don’t remember,’ he said yet again, and his reply never changed after that. He continued to claim that he couldn’t remember until the policemen left.

Shuffling, eyes fixed on the dead leaves on the path, Valverde saw them back to their car. He leaned on his black sports car as Estevez manoeuvred out of the courtyard.

Caldas lowered the window and made one last try. ‘You still don’t remember who went inside the house?’

Valverde shook his head.

‘If you do happen to remember, give me a call.’

‘I will,’ he said, but his tone suggested the opposite.

‘Why are you afraid?’ asked the inspector.

‘Haven’t I got reason to be?’

‘Not if you have a clear conscience,’ said Caldas. But he wasn’t sure he was right.

As they drove up the hill back to the main road, Estevez complained, ‘Why don’t you ever let me have a go?’

‘How would you get him to talk?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Estevez, scratching his chin. ‘String him up by that tie of his, maybe?’

Caldas’s eyes widened. ‘You’re not serious?’

‘No,’ smiled Estevez.

‘Shall we get something to eat?’ Estevez asked, getting out of the car. ‘It’s almost three.’

‘You go,’ said Caldas, though his stomach had been rumbling on the journey back from Panxón. ‘I need to speak to the superintendent.’

He made his way through the police station and opened the glass door to his office. He was relieved to see that there were no Post-it notes with urgent messages stuck to his desk. He hung up his raincoat and left the room.

Superintendent Soto was on the phone but gestured for him to enter. The inspector sat down opposite him.

When the superintendent hung up, Caldas felt like asking how he managed to keep his desk so clear when Caldas’s own was a vast array of papers. Instead he said, ‘We know who killed the fisherman in Panxón.’

‘A neighbour?’ asked the superintendent.

‘No,’ Caldas replied, and went on to summarise the new developments in the case.

When he’d finished, he explained what had brought him to the superintendent’s office. ‘I’d like there to be an investigation into the disappearance of Rebeca Neira, Superintendent.’

‘Aguiño is outside our jurisdiction.’

‘Couldn’t you have a word with Headquarters?’ asked Caldas. ‘That boy isn’t a simple executioner. He ended up alone at fifteen. He came to us and, instead of helping him, we destroyed him.’

Soto sighed. ‘Would you mind explaining the whole thing again? But slowly this time,’ he said. ‘Let me see if I can understand.’

‘Where do you want me to start?’

‘At the beginning.’

‘The business in Aguiño?’

‘Yes, and the business in Panxón, Leo. From the beginning,’ said the superintendent.

Caldas explained how Castelo’s body had been found. He described the blows to his head and the green cable tie binding his wrists.

‘Sounds like suicide,’ said the superintendent.

‘That’s what everyone in the village believes. The man was a depressive and former drug addict. But the cable tie was fastened round by his little fingers. According to the pathologist, he couldn’t have done it himself.’

Soto nodded, and the inspector went on to say that, though fishing was prohibited on a Sunday, Castelo had put out to sea at six thirty that morning.

‘Was he alone?’ interrupted Superintendent Soto.

‘Yes,’ replied Caldas. ‘We have a witness who saw him set sail. The deck was empty. There was nowhere for anyone to hide.’

‘So how did they get to him?’

‘From another vessel,’ said Caldas, and he described the spot where the dead man’s boat had been found a few days later, by the lighthouse at Punta Lameda, on the other side of Monteferro.

Caldas explained that a boat couldn’t be towed to the rock pool there, meaning that at least two people had to have been involved in the murder.

‘One of them must have remained on his own boat while the other one took Castelo’s boat to Punta Lameda.’

‘Why didn’t they sink the boat out at sea?’ asked the superintendent, just as Caldas had.

‘Because they needed to land without being seen,’ said Caldas. ‘The pool is like a natural harbour. It’s a spot illegal fishermen use to land their catches.’