The Angst-Ridden Executive (17 page)

‘You still say you don’t believe the official version?’

‘I know how these things work. I’ll wait till they put the silly fucker inside, and then I’ll know who’s calling the shots, and whether he’s signed with the fear of God up him, or whether he actually knew something. At this moment he’ll be at the police headquarters. This evening they’ll take him to the Modelo, and tomorrow I’ll send in a lawyer to find out what’s going on.’

‘They might put him in solitary.’

‘If they put him in solitary, I’ll send the lawyer of one of the prison big-shots, because they can get to talk to prisoners in the punishment cells and they always know everything. By tomorrow we’ll know something, for sure.’

‘Would you be able to find out who’s putting the pressure on?’

‘That’s none of my business. My territory begins and ends in Plaza de Catalunya, as you might say. Anything beyond that is up to you. It must be someone pretty big, though, because we’ve been behaving ourselves, and for the last two days they’ve been grabbing our balls with both hands. Anyway, you’d best go now, because the less I’m seen with you the better.’

The bar lay outside Barcelona’s criminal quarter, and had an air that suggested it served nothing but tomato juices and camomile infusions for forty-year-old ladies lost in the desert of the late afternoon. He returned to his office on foot, mingling with the midday crowds on the Ramblas and bathing in the innocence of the sun: students, office workers, old-age pensioners, all looking to enjoy a stroll and soak up the free nutrition of the spring sunshine. Looking like a puppy thrown out of his kennel, Biscuter was standing in a corner of the office which had been invaded by one of the long-haired policemen of the previous visit, and a gigantic inspector who looked like he weighed a ton, and who seemed to have two moustaches, one over his mouth, and another between his eyes.

‘You’ve been out early this morning, eh, dick-sniffer.’

Without replying, Carvalho settled himself in his seat and swung it to right and left. Biscuter slowly recovered his confidence to the point of taking a step forwards and coming to stand’ at his side.

‘We’ve come to save you a bit of work.’

Carvalho’s silence caused the two policemen to look at each other. The older man leaned the full weight of his thorax over the table and propped his hands on the edge.

‘It’s all been cleared up now. A pimp has owned up that Jauma was killed because he was going too far with one of the girls. It wasn’t him who killed him, and he doesn’t know who did, because he’s new on the scene. But a lot of his associates are talking about it. Our chief says that we should call on the dick-sniffer and tell him to take a vacation. The police have got things in hand.’

‘So there’s no need for you to go wasting your time,’ said the younger man, in a conciliatory tone.

‘No point in cutting up meat that’s already been sliced. One of these days we’ll pick up the murderer, probably on some minor charge, and that’ll be that.’

‘If you insist on carrying on with this wild goose chase, it must be because you’re a workaholic, or you’re trying to bump up your client’s bill.’

Carvalho’s state of having apparently been struck dumb was accompanied by a semblance of being lost in thought.

‘Would you happen to be trying to get rid of us? You haven’t even said good morning, yet. Did you hear this gentleman say good morning?’

‘He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to.’

‘I’d like to hear the sound of his voice, though. I don’t usually talk to people just for the fun of it.’

He lowered the weight of his half-ton of thorax further in Carvalho’s direction, and the chair suddenly stopped rotating.

‘Biscuter—did you offer these gentlemen something to drink? Would you fancy something, gentlemen? It’s easier to talk with a glass in your hand.’

‘Ah—at last—things are looking up! He spoke! Did you happen to take in what we’ve just been telling you?’

‘Yes. I understand that sometimes you have to do things that you don’t like doing, and that often you don’t even know why you’re doing them. You’re just obeying orders.’

‘That’s right. Spot on!’

‘It’s obvious that someone, somewhere, is very keen for this case to be closed, and they’ve come up with some half-starved trainee pimp with more fear than pride.’

‘Ah, so that’s what you’re thinking—that we force confessions out of people by beating them up and waving guns at them.’

‘There are people in this world who shit themselves just at the sight of a police station—give them half a chance and they’d happily sign their own death warrants.’

‘You’re talking about the old days. Police training is different these days. I myself have studied scientific methods for observing a criminal’s behaviour without having to get physical with him. I won’t deny that the police used to beat people up, but things are different nowadays.’

The older man seemed not very amused by his longhaired associate’s attempts to dissociate himself from the old days.

‘Don’t go teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. A criminal is still a criminal. Always has been and always will be.’

‘People can change.’

The younger man stuck to his guns, encouraged by Carvalho’s comments on humanity’s potential for transformation. The larger policeman disagreed vigorously.

‘If you go through life thinking like that, you’ll never get ahead in this profession, and you’ll just find people taking advantage of you.’

‘I observe an interesting difference of opinion between the two of you,’ Carvalho commented, in a neutral tone. ‘In your case it’s the voice of experience speaking. . . years on the job.’

‘Twenty-five.’

‘That’s a long time. And in your case it’s technique that’s talking, and that also has its value.’

‘I don’t deny that you can learn through science—you learn a lot, in fact—but I believe in calling a spade a spade.’

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Thanks, but not while we’re on duty.’

The caveman with the double moustache calmed down and switched police roles, from the aggressive to the paternal. He smiled at those present and turned to his young assistant:

‘If you carry on thinking like that, you’ll find criminals getting away right under your nose. You have to be distrustful, because prevention is better than cure. My father was a guardia civil in a small village during the Depression, when everyone was hungry. People were thieving every day. Chickens, corn, rabbits, potatoes. And every day people came complaining to the guardia civil. Whenever my father picked up a suspect, crack! he’d stick his fingers in the door and crunch them till he confessed. Obviously, he didn’t always get the right man, and more than one person ended up with his fingers crunched even though he’d never stolen a thing. But he certainly stopped the chicken-stealing. Now there’s food for thought!’

Biscuter gripped his hands and closed his eyes, as if, through the tunnel of time, he was communing with someone else’s pain, or as if he was scared that at any moment somebody might jam his fingers in a door.

‘Who was it rang you within the last couple of hours to insist that the Jauma case is now closed?’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Did they tell you to ask me to call off my inquiries?’

‘Yes. Don’t worry, though. You’ll get your money.’

‘That’s not the problem. The hard bit is making your first million—after that, it’s plain sailing. Can’t talk openly over the phone, but you still haven’t said who rang you.’

‘They told me that some young criminal had confessed to the killing.’

‘They should be so lucky! Either under threats, or under some pressure—probably the former—he sang like the proverbial canary. Do you follow me?’

‘I think so.’

‘Give me three more days on this case and I think I can crack it. Tell me, though, who was it who rang?’

‘Gausachs, Fontanillas, and Argemi.’

‘In that order?’

‘No. Gausachs phoned today. Fontanillas and Argemi called last night. In that order.’

‘There’s been nothing in the papers, so how did they find out?’

‘They were my two representatives during the police investigation. I wasn’t actually there myself, so the police dealt through them.’

‘The police will come knocking at your door in a few hours, trying to put pressure on you to close the case.’

‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘I repeat, just give me three days and I’ll be able to prove that things aren’t as simple as they say they are.’

‘OK. Three days —but that’s your lot.’

Nuñez was skeptical about his chances of convincing Jauma’s widow:

‘Sometimes she prefers Vilaseca, Biedma, and me, but when it comes to what she considers “serious” things, she’ll only trust Fontanillas and Argemi. She thinks they’re more reliable. I’ll do what I can, though.’

Biscuter arrived from the market, puffing and carrying a basket full of treasures. He put the day’s papers on Carvalho’s desk before going to unload his wares in the kitchenette next to the toilet. As Carvalho cast an idle eye over the headlines, his attention was suddenly drawn to a picture with a caption that said, ‘Identikit portrait of Peter Herzen’.

The Avis car-hire staff in Bonn had given the police a description of Herzen, which matched a description given by two waiters at a motorway restaurant just a few miles from where the German’s car had been found. The likeness was startling. It was Dieter Rhomberg, without a doubt. Carvalho had a half-hour wait before getting through to Berlin. Rhomberg’s sister didn’t seem particularly worried at first.

‘Have you read anything in the papers about the disappearance of a German subject in Spain, by name of Herzen?’

‘I think I read about it.’

‘Didn’t they publish an Identikit picture in the German press?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t usually read the news pages.’

‘It’s a fact, isn’t it, that your brother actually left Germany four days ago.’

Her silence confirmed that he was on the right track.

‘Look, lady, let’s not play cat and mouse. This business is serious. There are people’s lives at stake, possibly including your brother’s.’

‘Yes. Dieter turned up a short while after you phoned. He was in quite a state. He said goodbye to the boy, and to us. He was going away on a long trip, he said.’

‘Did you give him my message?’

‘Yes. He wasn’t surprised. In fact he seemed to be expecting it. He said he was going to get it all sorted out.’

‘I don’t want to alarm you, but you should go out and get yesterday’s and today’s papers. Get the picture of Herzen, get a photo of your brother, and go to your local main Avis office.’

‘What are you saying? Are you suggesting that this Herzen was in fact Dieter?’

‘I’m sorry, but I see no other explanation.’

‘But why would he go and hire a car from Avis? He’s got a perfectly good car of his own—he hardly ever uses it.’

‘Please do as I say. I only hope I’m mistaken.’

‘I must say, you’re very Spanish in your way of doing things. All high drama. You shouldn’t go round frightening people like this.’

She was about to cry.

‘Listen, lady, do as I say. Get the papers, and a photograph of Dieter. My way of doing things is actually like a harp player. Very gentle. And I’ve never played castanets in my life.’

‘Fuck you,’ he thought, when he heard the woman start to cry. Her suggestion of his conformity to a national stereotype had infuriated him.

‘Come in,’ he shouted, in a voice that carried sufficient irritation for the two people entering his office to do so rather gingerly, with all the caution of soldiers in a minefield.

‘Does a detective live here?’

‘No. This is just where they hang people. There’s no detective living here. This is just where a detective works.’

‘That’ll do.’

The young man was evidently not amused. He had short hair, a musketeer’s moustache, a Mexican white-wool cardigan, jeans, and ibex sandals worn over thick woolen socks. The girl only came up to his chest, but in that short distance she contained an impressive geography of mounds, valleys and dips, beneath a small roof of blond hair piled up like a coolie hat with loose curls hanging below it. All in all, her bizarre hair-do was a ploy to distract the viewer’s attention from the marvel of her minuscule body. The attempt failed. He ran his gaze over the girl, until his eyes met hers. She smiled back mischievously.

‘We want to consult you about a case.’

‘You’ve lost half a kilo of hashish and you want me to find it?’

‘It’s more complicated than that.’

The girl let the male take on the active role, which he played very correctly, in a well-educated accent and a modulation to match. His gesticulatory style was convincing, as was the way she hung on his every word, and devoted equal attention to the way that Carvalho’s eyes were fixed on her cleavage as it thrust out of the square
décolleté
of a tight-fitting dress.

‘My brother has been under psychiatric treatment for the past two months. If it was a normal sort of case, we wouldn’t have come to you, because these days who
doesn’t
need psychiatric treatment? At least, you need it if you’re caught up in the cogs of a system of life based on production and reproduction. My brother was a rationalist. He was a member of the PSUC—he was a communist—and he wasn’t the sort of person who believes in witches and fairies, if you know what I mean. As far as he was concerned, one and one made two, and two and two made four. He’s the sort of person who was always having a go at me because, according to him, I’m a good-for-nothing layabout. My girlfriend and I are actors. You might have spotted us on one of the demonstrations on the Ramblas, seeing that they pass right under your windows. There are so many demonstrations these days that you’re bound to have seen us.’

‘How on earth could I ever have missed this mini-marvel,’ Carvalho thought to himself as he looked at the girl, and she knew what he was thinking, because she sucked in her cheeks to try to hold back a smile, but the smile still showed in her eyes.

‘But then this bastion of Marxist rationality came crashing down.’

‘Why? Did his wife run off with the local party chief?’