Death on a Galician Shore (9 page)

‘Nothing surprises me.’

‘Do you have any idea who—’

The fisherman answered before Caldas could finish the question: ‘I don’t know, Inspector. I don’t know.’

The two old fishermen were still standing at the entrance to the market. Before he went inside, the inspector took one last look at the tall man in orange walking away, head bowed, down the empty street.

Caldas pushed back his dripping hood. It had stopped raining.

Caldas went back inside, shaking the rain from his cagoule. The auctioneer was hosing down the floor, directing the jet at seaweed stuck to the cement surface. Estevez was keeping his distance, making sure his gleaming shoes didn’t get splashed.

‘Where’s Hermida?’ Caldas asked his assistant.

‘He’s gone home for a bit,’ Estevez replied. ‘He said he’d be back in ten minutes.’

‘He lives just round the corner,’ said the auctioneer, turning off the hose.

‘Hello. I’m Inspector Caldas.’

‘From the radio?’ asked the auctioneer, smiling through his black goatee.

Did
Patrolling the Waves
reach Panxón, or had his assistant blabbed?

Estevez raised his hands, palms upward, mutely declaring his innocence.

‘Lots of people here tune in,’ said the auctioneer.

Caldas forced a smile, trying to appear pleased.

‘Did you speak to Arias?’ asked Estevez.

Caldas nodded.

The auctioneer coiled up the hose and dropped it on the floor beside the tap.

‘Are there always so few people here on market days?’ enquired the inspector.

‘In winter, generally, yes. Not many fishermen or buyers. Only
three men work from here on a daily basis. Well, two now.’ He fell silent for a moment. ‘It’s some time since we lost a man at sea.’

‘Did you know Castelo well?’ asked Caldas.

‘I saw him here almost every day,’ said the auctioneer. ‘El Rubio was a good man. ‘

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘At the auction on Saturday.’

‘Did you notice anything odd about him that day?’

‘No. He was the same as usual, going about his business. He had a good day on Saturday – he caught a lot of shrimp and they fetched a good price. He certainly didn’t seem down enough to do something like that. I’m from Baiona, you know,’ he gestured in the direction of the town across the bay. ‘A few years ago, a fisherman there threw himself into the sea. The same as El Rubio, with his hands tied so that he wouldn’t be able to swim.’

‘It’s possible Castelo didn’t commit suicide,’ said Caldas.

The auctioneer looked first at the inspector, then at Estevez, as if questioning what he’d just heard. ‘Isn’t it true that his hands were tied?’ he asked when Estevez nodded to confirm his boss’s words.

‘It’s true,’ said Caldas.

‘What then?’

‘We’re looking into it.’

‘You think someone tied him up and threw him in the sea?’ asked the auctioneer, increasingly curious and plainly dissatisfied with the inspector’s answers. ‘Why would they do that?’

‘We don’t know. It’s just a possibility,’ said Caldas, noncommittally. ‘The market’s closed on Sundays, isn’t it?’

The auctioneer puffed out his upper lip, before expelling the air with a high-pitched sound.

‘Sundays and Mondays, because there’s no fishing on Saturday or Sunday nights.’

‘But Castelo went out in his boat this Sunday. I understand someone saw him before dawn.’

‘In theory a fishing boat can’t put out to sea on a rest day,’ the auctioneer explained. ‘It’s prohibited.’

‘Even if it’s not to go out fishing?’

‘A fishing boat is a fishing boat, Inspector. It’s illegal, but …’ he left the words hanging.

‘But …’ Caldas encouraged him to go on.

‘There are things that are forbidden but people still go ahead and do them. You know more about that than me.’

‘Right. Do you know of Castelo going out on other occasions? Fishing on a Sunday, I mean.’

‘On a rest day? Not as far as I’m aware. Neither El Rubio nor the others. But I don’t live here, Inspector.’

‘But you are here every day.’

‘On market days, yes. I arrive, like today, at five to eight, I auction whatever they’ve caught and I go straight back to Baiona. I have another auction there at ten,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘And that market’s not like this one. They have a lot more boats, and a big fishermen’s association, so I need to prepare thoroughly. I don’t come to Panxón when there’s no market, so I don’t know what goes on then.’

‘And nobody’s ever told you about anyone fishing on a Saturday or Sunday night?’

The auctioneer again blew air into his upper lip, shaking his head, before expelling it and replying, ‘This is a small port, Inspector. Only three men work from here. Anyone could see them in their boats and report them. They risk being fined, and losing their licence. It’s too high a price for someone who earns a living from fishing. And, believe me, they need their rest days. The work’s too hard to be doing overtime,’ he smiled.

‘I can imagine,’ said Caldas. Then he asked: ‘Do they always row out to their boats?’

‘In winter, yes, they take the rowing boats,’ the auctioneer explained. ‘In summer there’s a boatman on duty ferrying people to and from their yachts and he drops the fishermen off en route.’

‘But there are more than three rowing boats on the slipway.’

‘Because some belong to the people on List Seven.’

‘The people on what?’

‘The men who don’t fish for a living. Most of them are retired, like those two,’ he said, pointing at the two fishermen at the entrance. ‘They can only go out from sunrise to sunset, without traps or gear. They use lines, you know, legering or lure fishing.’ He closed his hand as if holding a fishing line. ‘They’re not allowed to catch more than five kilos in total per day. Unless it’s a single fish, of course.
You can catch one fish of any weight. It doesn’t matter if it’s a conger eel that weighs fifteen kilos or twenty-five or whatever. Though there aren’t too many of those left.’

‘Do you know if any of them put out to sea on Sunday?’

‘I don’t know for sure, but I assume none of them did,’ said the auctioneer, adding after a pause: ‘The weather was bad. Like today.’

Caldas nodded and returned to the drowned man’s last hours: ‘You say that at the Saturday auction nothing unusual happened?’

The auctioneer replied without hesitation: ‘Nothing.’

‘What about the previous days? Anything that caught your attention?’

‘No, nothing. It was a quiet week.’

‘I see,’ said Caldas. ‘How did Castelo get on with the other fishermen?’

‘I don’t really know.’

‘Any conflicts over fishing zones?’

‘The sea is open to everyone, Inspector.’

‘Never any problems between them? Friction within professions is not unheard-of.’

‘Hermida can be a bit grumpy sometimes, but that’s because his joints ache,’ said the auctioneer. ‘He should have retired by now, you know. But he won’t hear of it.’

Caldas couldn’t help thinking of his father, of his hopes for the newly planted vines even though there’d be no harvest from them for at least six years.

‘What about Arias?’

‘He and El Rubio didn’t have much to do with each other.’

‘They got on badly?’ asked Estevez.

‘I wouldn’t say that exactly,’ said the auctioneer. ‘It’s just that they each went their separate ways.’

This echoed what Arias himself had told Caldas on the slipway.

‘They’re both good guys. And good fishermen,’ added the auctioneer. ‘I think they used to be quite close. For a time, they even crewed on the same fishing boat. A bigger one, like the ones that go out for octopus.’

‘Why did they give that up?’ asked the inspector.

The auctioneer again puffed out his top lip and whistled. ‘The boat sank. It was about ten or twelve years ago. Before my time.’
Again he gestured towards the two men at the door. ‘Any of them can tell you the story.’

‘Any dead?’ asked Caldas, thinking of Joss, the sailor-turned-town crier in the French novel.

The auctioneer rapped his knuckles on the metal table and spat on the floor. Both policemen glanced at the sign cautioning against this.

‘One man,’ said the auctioneer, spreading the spittle with the sole of his shoe.

Arias had not mentioned this.

‘What can you tell me about the buyers?’

‘What do you want to know?’ replied the auctioneer.

‘Were they on friendly terms with Castelo?’

‘Yes, on the whole. Everyone got on with El Rubio.’

‘They never had any disagreements over price?’

‘Not exactly disagreements,’ said the auctioneer. ‘Sometimes the fishermen complain if they don’t get a good price for their catch. It’s hard to spend all night fishing and be paid peanuts.’

‘But the auction goes downwards,’ said Estevez. ‘What happens if no one stops it?’

‘If the price goes down too far I halt the auction myself, or the fishermen signal for me to stop. The catch is kept for the following day, or else I take it to be auctioned in Baiona.’

‘Has that happened recently?’

‘No, the catches have been small this year. We haven’t had that problem.’

‘Have you got a list of regular buyers?’ asked Caldas.

‘Of course,’ the auctioneer replied.

He went to the office and returned a moment later with a sheet of paper, which he handed to Caldas.

‘It’s always the same people who buy, is that right?’ said the policeman, seeing that the list contained barely a dozen names.

‘In winter, yes. Almost always. The people you saw here today plus a few others. When the holidaymakers are here it’s another story, because lots of private individuals attend. The auction is a tourist attraction.’

Estevez made a sign to the inspector. Hermida was chatting to the other two fishermen at the entrance.

Caldas stood up. ‘I thought only people in the trade could bid,’ he remarked, recalling the rules at the Vigo fish market.

‘Here private individuals are allowed to buy up to four kilos,’ said the auctioneer. ‘This is a small market and we’re not as strict as Vigo or Baiona. Now you know, for next time.’

‘One last thing,’ said Caldas. ‘Do you know who saw Castelo in his boat on Sunday morning?’

‘I’m not sure, Inspector Caldas,’ the auctioneer replied. ‘But someone saw him – that’s for sure.’

Ernesto Hermida was a slight man. Time, sun and sea had worn his skin, and his face was crazed with cracks like parched earth. He wore a white shirt buttoned to the neck and a woollen sweater that was too big for him. He was still in the boots he’d worn to go fishing, the grimy rubber a contrast with Estevez’s shiny shoes.

‘So you’re the policeman off the radio,’ said Hermida when Caldas had introduced himself.

‘Yes,’ replied Caldas resignedly.

‘Another fan, boss,’ laughed Estevez. Caldas didn’t bother to respond.

‘Mr Hermida, we’d like to speak to you about Justo Castelo.’

‘You want to talk about El Rubio on the programme?’ asked Hermida.

‘No, no. This has nothing to do with the show. I’m here in my capacity as a police officer,’ Caldas explained, feeling ridiculous at having to clarify this. ‘We’re investigating Mr Castelo’s death and we need to ask you some questions.’

They were sitting at a table in the Refugio del Pescador, the last in a row of restaurants along Panxón harbour, and the place where Arias had claimed to have seen Castelo alive last. There were eight square tables, the three by the window marble-topped, the others wooden like the chairs. A television, switched off, was fixed to the wall beside a poster illustrating different sailing knots. Another similar one, a little distance away, showed all the species of fish in the
rias
, the estuaries of the Galician coast.

‘Go ahead,’ said Hermida, placing a float attached to two keys on the table. One was large with a black plastic grip, the other was small and smooth.

‘Is that the key to your boat?’ asked the inspector, reaching out a hand. ‘May I?’

The old fisherman nodded and Caldas picked up the key ring.

‘The black one is the ignition key,’ said Hermida.

Caldas held up the smaller one.

‘And this one’s for the padlock for your rowing boat, isn’t it?’

Hermida confirmed it with a nod.

‘Do all the fishermen keep them together?’

‘I suppose so,’ replied the old man, looking at the float and keys. ‘It’s handy.’

The waiter arrived with their order: water for Estevez, coffee for the inspector and Hermida, and an ashtray. Caldas took out his first cigarette of the day. He lit it, took a couple of drags, and gestured towards the packet on the table.

‘Help yourself …’

Hermida declined, tapping his chest. He sipped his coffee and, almost as soon as it touched his lips, grimaced, adding yet more lines to his face. ‘The waiter must be asleep,’ he complained and, holding his cup out, he said loudly: ‘What the hell is this?’

‘Black coffee,’ replied the waiter from the bar.

‘Forget that. Put a few drops in it,’ grumbled the old man.

The waiter brought a bottle of brandy and poured a good splash into the fisherman’s coffee.

‘Would you like some?’ he asked the inspector, who shook his head.

When the waiter had left, Caldas pointed at the brandy-laced coffee.

‘Will you get to sleep after drinking that?’

‘After a night at sea I can drink a cauldron of anything and still drop off as soon as my head hits the pillow,’ the old man assured him.

‘How did the fishing go last night?’ enquired Caldas.

‘It went,’ replied the old man, causing Estevez to clear his throat.

Caldas smiled. ‘I’ve heard there’s not much of a catch these days.’

‘Not much,’ acknowledged Hermida. ‘But there aren’t too many of us fishing from here. Fewer every day.’

‘That’s true,’ said Caldas. ‘I’m sorry about your mate.’

‘It’s a shame. El Rubio was a good lad,’ said the fisherman.

‘What was your relationship with him?’

‘We worked together,’ said the fisherman.

‘I know. But how did you get on?’ pressed Caldas.