Or the Bull Kills You (5 page)

Thinking better of pulverising an innocent plastic cup, he relaxed his hand and began trying to push it back into shape. A crack had developed on one side, though; it was useless. He looked for a rubbish bin, but there was none to be found. With a sigh he opened one of the drawers in the desk and dropped the cup in.

The phone whined in his ear as he beat out a flamenco rhythm with his fingers on the desk: SEVEN EIGHT nine TEN. There was a click and Torres's heavy voice came on the line.

‘Morning, chief.'

‘I take it you've found Antonio Aguado.'

‘He was at his home in El Cabanyal. On his own.'

‘Saying anything interesting?'

‘Not at the moment. Bit cut up.'

‘Makes sense.'

‘Pardo told us to bring him in,' Torres said.

‘Go easy on him,' Cámara said.

‘We'll sort out one of the duty lawyers. And of course, it's a Sunday, so until he or she arrives…'

Torres paused for a moment. Cámara could hear the sounds of El Cabanyal – the old fishermen's quarter – from the other end of the line: cars honking, a Gypsy woman shouting out for her kids.

‘I'll catch you later,' Cámara said. ‘I've got to go out.'

‘Got a date already?'

‘Kind of. Bit of a hot shot, actually.'

‘Ho ho. Emilia's given you the call already, has she?' Torres said. ‘I thought she might. Give her a kiss from me.'

 

Avoiding the lifts, Cámara walked down one flight of steps and along a corridor to the control room. This was the one functioning section of the building, the bit that they'd had to get right before anyone could move in. One wall was taken up by a giant screen with a colourful interactive map with little symbols of
zetas
– squad cars – dotted in half a dozen places, slowly moving around the city streets. In front of the screen sat four uniformed policemen and women, leaning back in their chairs and chatting. Things were quiet.

Cámara stepped into the small booth-like office adjacent to the control room.

‘I thought they'd got rid of you years ago,' a voice said. He looked up and caught sight of a familiar, smiling face.

‘They're still working on it, Beltrán,' he said.

‘Taking their time, are they?'

‘They think they've just found the perfect excuse,' Cámara said.

‘Don't tell me…?' Enric Beltrán slapped him on the shoulder.

‘First officer on the scene,' Cámara said, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘No escape.'

Beltrán gave him a knowing look. He was ex-GEO (
Grupo Especial de Operaciones
), the elite force within the National Police; small, with closely cropped black hair, a prizewinning marksman, and usually regarded as the toughest man in the Jefatura. Not that he boasted in any way; he didn't have to: men like Beltrán gave off an air of physical strength and ability that was unmistakable. He and Cámara had been on a training course together a couple of years before – ‘confidence enhancement'; the usual, irrelevant bullshit – and naturally gravitated towards each other. Neither man was given much to toeing a line that was increasingly corporate in tone; alone among the others – all greasy-pole specialists – they had found they could communicate.

‘Who was on duty here last night?' Cámara asked.

‘I was,' Beltrán said. ‘Doing an American shift.'

Cámara had worked enough of those himself, bunching up your hours as much as possible to get a longer weekend. Except that for a few days it meant you ended up virtually living at the Jefatura.

‘What happened last night?'

‘You mean with the Blanco killing?' Beltrán said. ‘The
Municipales
called it in. One of theirs found the body and got on to us. I thought he'd gone and found you himself.'

‘Just wanted to hear it from you,' Cámara said. ‘What about the demonstration by the
Anti-Taurino
League?'

‘Again,' Beltrán said, ‘the
Municipales
were on it. I've seen their report. The usual bunch. We've come across them before a couple of times. That Marta Díaz seems to be the leader, along with her boyfriend, Angel Moreno. Trained to be a torero himself years back, before he turned against it.'

‘Can you get it to me?'

‘It's already been sent. It should be there.'

‘OK.'

‘There were a couple of ours at the bullring,' Beltrán said, ‘as there always are for a fight, but they'd gone by the time all that was happening. Why? You wondering about that breakaway group that went down to the Bar Los Toros? Heard you did all right looking after that lot yourself.'

Cámara cast an eye over the control room to the side, and the flashing screen on the wall.

‘If there was anything else to tell me—'

‘I'd have told you already,' Beltrán said. ‘Nothing. Nothing strange or out of the ordinary. It was pretty quiet until that call came in from the
Municipales
.'

‘And you got in touch with Pardo?'

‘We put it straight through to
Homicidios
. I didn't talk to Pardo personally. Why?'

Cámara shrugged.

‘Nothing.'

Beltrán gave him a friendly, if bruising, punch in the arm.

‘Big case,' he said, raising his eyebrows.

A phone started flashing a yellow light from the other side of the office.

‘Maldonado again,' Beltrán said with a sigh.

‘What's up?'

‘Been calling me all morning. Trying to make up for the fact that he skived off yesterday afternoon to go to the bullfight.'

Cámara sniffed.

‘He was there?'

‘Loves his bullfights,' Beltrán said. ‘He only goes because he dreams of taking over from Pardo as president of the bullring one day.'

He turned and went to pick up the phone.

‘All part of his scheme for taking over the world,' he said.

One of the
zeta
cars was heading into the centre and Cámara hitched a lift as far as the
Estación del Norte
train station. Crossing the road he stepped into the small square – not much more than a widening of the pavement – at the entrance to the bullring. The bullfight schedu led to take place that afternoon had been cancelled out of respect for Blanco, and notices to the effect in large black lettering had been hurriedly plastered over the bright posters announcing the usual
Fallas
bullfights; only the traditional banner –
¡6 Bulls, 6!
– was still visible at the top. A few people – a solitary man wearing a flat, blue corduroy cap; and a middle-aged couple, the woman leaning heavily on her husband's arm – were standing in front of the building with vacant, lost expressions on their faces, as though trying to understand what had just happened, how such a great bullfighting figure had been taken away from them – and in a manner which they struggled to comprehend.

Cámara was surprised to see that the
Anti-Taurino
League were in their usual spot near the entrance, with their trestle table and their leaflets and posters. He recognised some of their faces from the night before – Marta Díaz, the girl with the loudspeaker, Moreno, her muscular-looking boyfriend, straightening everything up as the papers got caught in a breeze, tidily placing them back into neat piles. They all looked a bit smarter today.

It was strange that no one had objected to their being there on this day. Not that they weren't allowed to be, but he would have expected them to have eased off for a while. Either that or be heaved from their pitch by irate Blanco supporters. Or a
Municipal
more interested in social decency than the demonstrators' constitutional rights. Perhaps people were still in a state of shock.

He showed his ID and badge to the policemen guarding the door and stepped into the cool shade of the bullring. Avoiding the passageway down into the arena, he walked around the outer corridor to the entrance through which the bullfighters themselves entered the ring – the
Puerta de Cuadrillas
. There he saw a couple of Huerta's colleagues from the
Científica
. They nodded at the open door of the chapel nearby and Cámara walked in.

Huerta was standing on his own near the altar, pinching his nose and pursing his lips – his usual habit when trying to concentrate. Cámara waited, taking in as much of the surroundings as he could. The altar was very much like any other in Valencia, with a large statue in the niche of
La Virgen de los Desamparados
, Our Lady of the Helpless, the patron of the city. A deep red carpet extended along the floor and up the steps. More noticeable, however, was the positioning of some of the oak benches lined up in front of him: one was lying face down, while another two had been forcibly pushed out of place. Close to where Huerta stood, pieces of broken ceramic were also scattered on the floor.

Huerta looked up and nodded at Cámara.

‘The chaplain's told us there was a statue here of San Pedro Regalado as well. The patron saint of bullfighters,' he explained. ‘Got smashed to pieces in the struggle, is my guess.'

Cámara took a tentative step forwards.

‘It's all right,' Huerta said. ‘We've done that bit.'

‘So it was here, then?' Cámara said.

Huerta lifted up an evidence bag containing what looked like a thin black strap.

‘Almost certainly. Found this under one of the benches.'

‘You'd better get it to Quintero soon if you want to check it against the marks on his neck,' Cámara said. ‘He's releasing the body to the family this afternoon.'

Huerta rolled his eyes, then called over one of his team. Handing him the transparent bag, he gave him some instructions and then turned back to Cámara.

‘But Blanco wasn't an easy kill, by the looks of it,' Cámara said, looking at the damage to the chapel.

‘You saw him,' Huerta said. ‘They're not musclemen, those bullfighters. But they're no weaklings either.'

‘Blanco fought back, then?'

Huerta pursed his lips.

‘Struggled, yes. Not sure about fighting back. If our man knew what he was doing with that thong then Blanco didn't stand much of a chance. The brain gets starved of oxygen in seconds.'

Cámara looked around the chapel. To one side there was a small wooden confession box, with a purple curtain over the central section. Huerta signalled to him that it was all right to have a look. Stepping over, Cámara flicked the curtain open: white powder marks dotted the side panels where Huerta's team had already been searching for fingerprints.

‘It's clean,' Huerta said as Cámara pulled his head back out. ‘Although someone's been in there: the polish on the wood has been smudged.'

‘Nothing?' Cámara asked.

‘Not even any fibres.' Huerta allowed himself a half-smile. ‘I'm telling you, our man was very careful. Did he use the confession box to hide in, though, before pouncing on Blanco? Yes, that's a fair assumption.'

Cámara looked from the confession box to where Huerta was standing, imagining the killer coming out, catching Blanco unawares from behind as he – what? Prayed? Perhaps. Huerta read his mind.

‘A quick struggle as Blanco fights to stay alive. A bench or two get knocked over, the statue smashes to the floor.'

‘And then?' Cámara said.

‘And then he cuts off his
traje de luces
– we've got signs of that here.' He pointed to a space on the floor near where the benches had been pushed to the side.

‘Small bits of Blanco's suit,' he said. ‘Hard to see against that carpet. But they're there. Then he carries the body out to the centre of the bullring along with a matador's sword and a couple of
banderillas
.'

‘Puts the body in place,' Cámara continued, ‘mutilates it, and then disappears.'

‘Mutilation certainly didn't happen in here,' Huerta said. ‘Not a single bloodstain or spatter. Even though he was already dead when it happened, he was still fresh enough to ooze blood, even a small amount.'

‘What about his point of exit?'

‘Still a mystery,' Huerta said. ‘As I said, no sign of any forced gates or locks. Our man must have climbed out somewhere.'

‘Carrying the
traje de luces
with him,' Cámara said. ‘I take it there's no sign of it here.'

Huerta shook his head.

‘Of course,' he said, ‘if half my team hadn't taken time off for fucking
Fallas
I could have someone working on finding that as we speak.'

Cámara waved a hand as he turned to leave.

‘Forget it,' he said.

 

A dayglo-orange tour bus was circling around the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, the top deck brushing against palm tree fronds, as the driver explained to the bemused tourists why the large paved open space in the middle was fenced off at this time of year. Preparations for the lunchtime
mascletà
– the ear-splitting firecracker display – were at an advanced stage, and already some of the noise junkies were hovering around the entrance to the post office on the other side of the square, hogging the best places next to the Red Cross van in case the excess of decibels made them faint, or their eardrums burst. The usual TV truck from Canal 9 was there to televise the event, but so too were a couple from international news channels. They were clearly not here for
Fallas
, but for the high-profile murder that had put the city unexpectedly in the public eye.

Cámara dodged the traffic to cross the road and stepped inside the Town Hall, where he was directed upstairs to the mayoress's assistant.

The girl behind the desk was no more than twenty-five, and very pretty, he couldn't help noticing, with dark brown hair curled behind her ears, large gold earrings and thickly painted full lips.

Cámara introduced himself.

‘Chief Inspector Cámara. The mayoress wants to see me.' He placed his hands on the desk and leaned in.

‘I know it's a Sunday, and it's
Fallas
, but I've got rather a lot to do today.'

‘Mayoress Delgado is busy,' the girl said. ‘You'll have to wait.'

Cámara glanced at the clock on the wall, then over again at the girl behind the desk. Back straight, head down, she seemed strangely lifeless.

A text message came through on his mobile. Cámara fished it out of his pocket; it was from Torres: the prints on Blanco's body had been confirmed as Aguado's. He sniffed and flipped the phone shut.

Pacing over to some of the noticeboards on the far side of the hall, he tried not to think of the time that was being wasted, or of what was probably happening back at the Jefatura. A photograph of a bull on one of the posters caught his eye. It was black, with magnificent white horns curling up from its head: a
toro de lidia
, a bullfighting bull.

The text underneath explained a policy that was now so familiar to everyone that he could almost recite it with his eyes closed. Mayoress Delgado's regionalist party was proposing a ban on all bullfights within the municipal boundaries, hoping to beat the hated Barcelona to the north to become the first city in Spain to do so. Valencia, host to the America's Cup, and now the Formula 1 European Grand Prix, was reinventing itself as a venue for international sporting events. There was no place in this grand scheme for archaic and barbaric activities such as bullfighting. The age of cruelty to animals must come to an end. Valencia, rich, clean and prosperous, wanted to put forward a different face to the new wave of visitors, usually exploring the city for the first time. The bullring, that temple of death at its heart, would be converted into a shopping complex and open-air concert hall for some of the world's top rock bands, front-men with bug-eyed spectacles and spiky hair all too happy to promise an appearance in the name of humanity once the killing had officially been stopped.

Of course it had been easier to make this promise a couple of years back, when the policy was first presented. Bullrings across Spain appeared to be in terminal decline then; ticket sales had never been so low. Some bullrings were even talking of closing for good. Back then some had seen Mayoress Delgado's move as bold and cutting edge, a certain vote winner among those most lethargic of voters, the under-thirty-fives, whose support she would need if she were to hold on to power. Others commented that she was merely killing off an already moribund tradition.

But all that had changed when Blanco made his dramatic comeback. Seats high up in
Sol
– the sunny part of the bullring, and hence the cheapest – usually sold for around twenty euro. Now they were changing hands on the black market for as much as six hundred.

Cámara only read newspapers once in a while, and he avoided the TV news if he could, but the proposed ban on bullfighting had been one of those stories that was hard to miss. Would the plan work to help Mayoress Delgado win a record fifth term?

Cámara glanced at the slowly moving hands on the wall. It was almost one o'clock. The girl was tapping her fingers on the desk and sucking at a biro while concentrating on her papers. A fly had found its way up to the hall from outside and was buzzing above their heads with a steady, monotonous drone. Cámara watched its triangular flight pattern as it stayed in a central patch of space, never moving from an invisible cage it seemed to have constructed for itself, flying and flying around the same point: following a straight line for a second or two, then turning sharply and cutting back – the same pattern repeating itself again and again. It was odd: neither food, nor water, nor searching for other flies appeared to be on its mind, preferring instead to remain trapped in a world of its own making.

Cámara moved towards a small sofa nearby to sit down; he felt his body sink into the cushions, the weight easing from his back as he crossed his fingers over his stomach and stared up at the high ceiling. As he relaxed he realised that for a moment he had almost allowed himself to be rushed, as though much depended on him getting through this and heading back to the Jefatura as fast as he could. In fact, when he thought about it, he was sure that was far from true. Seeing how late it was now, and how close to lunchtime they were, he allowed himself to slip into a late-morning lull, listening to the sound of the Town Hall clock bell as it chimed. Torres could take care of things with Aguado. If Pardo was right, he'd be singing his confession in full any time now. Just another crime of passion, like the others.

He closed his eyes as a door opened and the sound of footsteps came from across the hall.

‘Chief Inspector?'

He stood up and saw the familiar face of Emilia Delgado beaming at him, with just the slightest of reactions when she caught sight of his split lip. Her face was blotchier than in the photos, Cámara noticed. Perhaps the rumours of her heavy drinking and smoking were as true as the ones about her private life.

She stood where she was, waiting for him to walk over to her, then held out a hand framed by heavy gold bracelets; Cámara shook it, and they gave a self-satisfied rattle.

‘I'm so glad you came, Chief Inspector,' Emilia said, her voice deep and husky. ‘This is my campaign manager, Javier Flores.'

Flores looked the same as he had on the TV news the night before: heavily overweight, the kind of man who hadn't seen his own penis without the aid of a mirror since the age of twenty-five. He was wearing a black suit with a pale green shirt and bright pink tie with a wide knot. His clean-shaven face was covered with a thin film of grease. He gave Cámara a limp handshake.

‘I hope we didn't wake you,' he said.

Ever since she'd been in power there had been stories about which one of her underlings the famously single Emilia was sleeping with. All part of an image that the former cabaret singer never seemed at pains to play down. These days her bed partner was Flores. Allegedly.