A Death in Valencia (13 page)

‘And no solutions here in Spain.'

‘No way. I mean, everyone knew where to go for a back-street job, but…' She rolled her eyes. ‘There was no guarantee you'd get out of there alive.'

‘Yes, I've heard,' Cámara said.

‘I haven't talked about this for a long time,' Lucía said, taking a sharp breath. ‘And now here I am telling all my secrets to a policeman. Anything else you need to know while I'm at it?'

‘How've you kept yourself going since the divorce? Financially, I mean.'

‘Ooh. You're serious, aren't you? You're going to tell me now you're not from
Homicidios
, but actually a tax inspector.'

‘No, I'm not from
Hacienda
. But all of this does help us build up a picture, and brings us closer to finding who killed your ex-husband.'

‘If you put it like that.'

She shivered and let out a sigh.

‘Oh, what the hell. I've got a little sewing business. From home. Mending people's clothes, that kind of thing.'

‘Cash in hand?'

‘Hey, you just told me you're not interested in that.'

‘You're right. And I don't think it's important here.'

‘I should bloody well hope not.'

‘Any other emotional attachments since the split with Roures?'

She looked at him sharply.

‘I'm sorry, but I have to ask.'

‘Men…come and go,' she said, looking away. ‘Nothing serious. And nothing at all for the past couple of years.'

Cámara got up and went to pay the barman, then returned to the table. Lucía was finishing the last of her drink.

‘Still,' she said as she got up to go. ‘I'm glad to see you're really concentrating on this.'

‘It must be hard for you.'

‘He was my husband. It's been a long time now since we split up, but when someone you've been close to dies…And suddenly and violently like that…'

‘I'm very sorry.'

‘Yes. So am I.'

She reached out to shake his hand.

‘Will I be seeing you again?'

‘I don't know,' Cámara said. ‘There may be some loose ends to tie up later on. One of my colleagues may be in touch.'

‘If there's anything I can do.'

‘You've been a great help.'

She let go of his hand and made to leave.

‘One other thing,' Cámara said.

She turned and looked him in the face.

‘Has someone called Sofía Bodí been in touch with you at all recently?'

She squinted.

‘Sofía Bodí? What, like the woman in the news?'

Cámara nodded, catching sight again of the pulse in her neck.

‘No,' she said with a frown. ‘Not at all.'

‘I wasn't sure if you'd show up.'

In her text message she'd said the Bodeguilla del Gato restaurant. Ten o'clock. Cámara knew it well, tucked away down an alley behind the Plaza del Negrito in the heart of the Carmen area. In a moment's rush to the head, he'd booked a room for the night at a small boutique hotel around the corner. Something far more expensive than he would otherwise choose. Just in case. Yes, a double. He'd need somewhere to sleep anyway.

The restaurant did the best
patatas bravas
and
rabo de toro
he'd tried anywhere, but his stomach felt tight-squeezed like a sponge as he stepped into the cramped, rosy-lit space. Couples perched on stools at the bar, bodies engaged, gaze distracted as they sipped on cool red vermouth, condensation pouring down the glass and dripping on their laps in spite of the dry cold draught blowing from the air conditioning unit. A blur of faces soaked into his eyes until he found one that appeared clear, delineated, silent. Alone.

Alicia hesitated before looking up. Cámara sat down at the table as she busied herself with a cigarette, fishing it out of the packet with dark-painted nails and taking three strikes with the lighter to catch a flame. Then finally, as smoke drained from her nostrils, her eyes met his.

‘I wasn't sure either.'

Cámara took in the details of her face: the upturned nose; the slight, endearing gap between her front teeth; crow's feet around her eyes, perhaps a tad deeper than when last he'd seen her. She was keeping her hair longer, he noticed, not the short, wiry crop of when he'd first met her, at the start of the Blanco case. Her skin was darkened by the sun, shiny and inviting, and her breastbone was decorated with a black-and-silver necklace with a deep red stone at the centre. Moroccan, by the looks of it. He felt he'd seen the design before, perhaps in a market in Fès, or Tangier. He couldn't say.

And then there was a certain glow about her, something he'd perceived the moment he'd first seen her. Other men, he could sense, were drawn to it as well, an energy, an eroticism, a way of looking at the world with a cheeky, playful grin. That, more than anything else, had intoxicated him back then, an attraction that went not to the heart, but which seemed to get under his nails and seep into his blood. As he absorbed and observed her now, an inner sense momentarily more active than his outer ones, he could see it was there, just as before, but less brilliant, perhaps, of a slightly duller, less intense hue.

‘I'm glad you came.'

The waiter walked over and Cámara ordered a bottle of Mahou; Alicia a gin and tonic.

‘I need something cold,' she said.

‘And strong.'

She grinned.

‘You're right,' he said. ‘I could do with one myself.'

He called the waiter back and changed his order. A moment later, two tall tubular glasses of fizzy, slightly fluorescent liquid stood on the table between them.

‘
Chin-chin?
' she asked, raising hers.

Cámara hesitated, then lifted his and tapped it lightly against her glass.

‘Going to be like that, is it?' she said. She took a long drink, emptying almost half of it in one. Vapour was rising from the ice cubes, while her lip was wet from where the gin had splashed against the side.

‘OK, it's not just a social call,' she said. ‘Although it is…'

‘I realised that. Let me guess, the paper in Madrid has sent you over here to write something on The Case of the Missing Abortionist.'

‘Yeah, I suppose we could use that as a headline, but it's a bit clichéd. Sounds like Sherlock Holmes meets Stieg Larsson.'

‘Well, it's a good job I'm not a journalist, then.'

She pulled on her cigarette and looked him in the eye.

‘I didn't know what to expect, really. Thought you might be, well, a bit hostile, a bit sharp. But it's been over a year. Are you so angry at me?'

Cámara waved her comment away.

‘It's just our usual banter,' he said with a grin.

‘Yes. I suppose it is.'

They decided to order some food. Thick peppered gammon served on a wooden platter, leeks soaked in vinegar, and, of course, a serving of
bravas
. If they were still hungry afterwards they might order the oxtail as well. They opted for a bottle of Somontano wine to accompany it.

‘Go on,' Cámara said as they started eating. ‘I know you're itching to. Ask me about the case.'

Replying to her questions, he confirmed the Maldonado theory, that a GAL-type organisation was behind the kidnapping, and that, nominally at least, he was part of the investigation team, that all other cases had been suspended to bring manpower to this. He told her what he knew about Sofía, about her background, her history as a pro-abortion activist. Much of this Alicia already knew, but she was fascinated by his description of Sofía's old-fashioned flat, and the curious, foetus-like behaviour of Ballester, her lover. About the diaries, however, he remained silent.

‘You know the Pope's arriving tomorrow morning, right?'

Cámara's eyes opened wide.

‘Christ, I'd almost forgotten. Tomorrow already.'

‘Pretty strange timing, don't you think?'

‘It'll have been planned for months, years.'

‘Not the visit. I mean kidnapping Sofía.'

‘That's part of the thinking,' Cámara explained. ‘We find Sofía as quickly as possible so that as the Pope's here preaching anti-abortion the
Policía
arrive on a white horse saving the abortionist who's now in the headlines.'

‘I get that,' Alicia said. ‘Although it is a bit far-fetched for the police to cast themselves as heroes of democracy all of a sudden; they've hardly got a clean record themselves. What I mean, though, is why, if you're a bunch of hard-line conservatives, would you kidnap Sofía just as the Pope's arriving? Doesn't it just embarrass him?'

Cámara shrugged.

‘Oh, come on. You're not going to tell me the thought hadn't crossed your mind.'

Cámara stabbed a fork into the gammon.

‘This
lacón
is delicious.'

‘Or is it just because Maldonado's in charge that you're not taking the idea seriously.'

‘Here. Try some.'

‘You're not going to answer me, are you?'

‘Listen,' he said, dropping his fork on to the plate. ‘Right now it's a united police force working tirelessly together to solve this as fast as we can. That's the public image they want, that's what it's got to be for now. All right?'

Alicia held up her hands in a defensive gesture.

‘OK. I get it.'

She lifted one of the leeks on to her plate and started cutting into it. ‘Although it's hardly that tireless if you've got time to have dinner with a journalist the night before you-know-who shows up.'

‘I've switched off my phone,' Cámara said with a grin. ‘Besides…'

‘What?'

‘Nothing.'

Cámara drained the last of his gin and tonic and poured them both some wine.

‘You going to be doing any other stories while you're over?' he asked.

‘Like what?'

‘Like, I don't know, this whole El Cabanyal thing?'

She pursed her lips.

‘That's turning into a big story, a national story,' she said. ‘It's like we can't believe that kind of old-fashioned, bulldoze-it-all development is still going on. Most people have realised we spoilt whole swathes of coastline by building as fast as we could, and that this needs to stop, but in Valencia there's this old-style mentality insisting on razing anything old and characterful and replacing it with concrete blocks of flats.'

‘Creatures of habit.'

‘Bloody dinosaurs, you mean.'

‘Jobs for the boys?'

‘Oh, yeah. That's part of it as well. You know Javier's on the Valconsa board of directors?'

‘Gallego? Your ex?'

‘That's right.'

‘On the board of the construction company?'

‘Yes, the people working on the El Cabanyal project.'

‘He's still editor of
El Diario de Valencia
, I take it?'

‘Very much so.'

‘Which is why you never read any criticism of the bulldozing in the paper.'

It was Alicia's turn to shrug.

‘Or on regional TV.'

‘Well, that's totally controlled by Emilia's party,' Alicia said. ‘Has been for years.'

Cámara frowned.

‘We have elections every four years,' Alicia said with a starry-eyed smile. ‘We're a member of the European Union, we even criticise other countries for their lack of transparency or human rights records. Yet back home we have politicians and judges from Franco's day still in their jobs and a corrupt, politically manipulated media.'

‘I can see you're feeling at home at your new paper, then.'

Alicia sighed.

‘Yes, it's a little more to the left, but newspapers are newspapers. You're going to get the same tensions and squabbles wherever you go. And no one's feeling safe these days. I got in just before a whole load of the workforce got the chop. But at least I don't have to censor my own stories any more.'

‘As a bullfighting correspondent?'

‘That was only part of what I did. Although you'd be surprised.'

For a moment, Cámara's thoughts turned to the hotel room he'd booked for the night. He wanted to kiss her.

‘How do you like living in Madrid?'

‘It's fun. Bloody freezing in winter, but there's a lot going on. The people are great.'

‘So you've…made some new friends?'

‘One or two. Work keeps me busy, so I can't get out as much as I'd want.' Alicia smiled at him. ‘It's good to be back here, though.'

‘Are you over for a while?'

‘I've got to get back tomorrow.'

‘Staying at the flat?'

‘Yes. It's empty.'

There was a pause as the conversation lost momentum and they ate in silence, Cámara watching as the light reflected from the silver dolphin ring on her finger.

‘So how did Gallego end up on the board of Valconsa?' he asked.

‘He's friends with José Manuel Cuevas, the CEO,' Alicia said. ‘Who in turn is the brother-in-law of Rafael Mezquita.'

‘The new urban development councillor?'

‘That's the one. Clean churchgoing type. Emilia put him in to replace García Ramos, remember?'

‘Someone mentioned it. Something about a scandal involving a goalkeeper's wife.'

‘It was a big blow for Flores–Ramos was one of his disciples.'

‘So now the head of development in the city is related to the head of the company that's going to pull down El Cabanyal?'

‘Cuevas is married to Mezquita's sister. They were in the FES together at university.'

The
Frente de Estudiantes Sindicalistas
had been a Fascist youth movement back in the seventies and eighties before it was absorbed into the Falangist party. Former Prime Minister José-María Aznar had been a member before joining the
Partido Popular
.

‘So you do think there's a right-wing conspiracy afoot?'

Alicia smiled.

‘The forces of evil are out to get us,' she said theatrically. ‘They're everywhere.'

Cámara took a sip of his wine, masking his face.

‘Seriously,' he said. ‘There's a personal angle to the abortionist story for you, isn't there?'

Alicia's smile dropped. Without finishing her food first, she placed her fork down and started looking in her handbag for her cigarettes.

‘I mean, this is the clinic where—'

‘Max!' She held up a hand. ‘Stop there.'

‘We never had a chance to talk about it.'

‘Look, I…'

She lit her cigarette and stared out into space.

‘So what do you want to say?' she asked.

The moment of anger seemed to have passed, and Cámara fell silent.

‘You want to know what I think's happened to Sofía?' he blurted out as the idea took hold in his mind of a sudden. ‘I think some disgruntled would-be father who never got a chance to say what he thought about his child being aborted has decided to exact some revenge. You're right, we don't need any conspiracy theory to understand this. There's motive enough, thousands of them. One for every life she snuffed out. I've seen Sofía's diaries. She wrote down the name of every woman she carried out abortions on, like some death register.'

The cigarette was twitching in Alicia's hand.

‘Or life.'

‘Life?'

‘I met Sofía. She was the kindest person you could imagine, only interested in helping people in difficult, painful circumstances. Those women were given control over their lives by what she was doing.'

‘Only by killing—'

‘What? By killing what, exactly? Children? Babies? What do you think they are? Do you think they're actual people? Biologically they're less complex than the pig whose flesh you're chewing on right now.'

They were both raising their voices and looks were being cast in their direction from neighbouring tables. Cámara closed his eyes.

‘So what are we talking about?' Alicia continued. ‘The soul? Do you think embryos and foetuses have souls? You've got religious all of a sudden?'

Cámara had picked up his glass and was swirling the wine around inside it.

‘Come on,' Alicia said, lowering her voice as she realised that they were becoming the focus of attention. ‘Do you even know yourself what you think?'

She took a deep breath and sighed.

‘Don't imagine I didn't go through all this myself. Or do you think I skipped happily into the clinic with a bloodthirsty glint in my eye at the thought that I was about to abort something that had grown from an act of love, of intense, joyful love?'