All Yours (12 page)

“That’s good, glad to hear it.”

“…”

“…”

“I called you because I’ve got a problem.”

“If it’s only one then that’s an improvement on the other day!”

“…”

“Go on, have a laugh, it’s good for the little striker.”

“…”

“See? That’s better. Go on, tell me what’s up.”

“My stomach keeps going hard, very hard and then soft again. I thought, I don’t know, that maybe your wife might know what it means.”

“Are you being straight with me, love?”

“Yes, why?”

“You’re having contractions. Are you close to the right time?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“You’re taking the piss…”

“…”

“What does the doctor say?”

“I, no – I haven’t seen a doctor since I got this way.”

“The worst thing is that I can tell you’re not taking the piss…”

“…”

“Look, stay where you are and I’ll come and get you and take you to hospital.”

“To hospital?”

“Where else would you go to have a baby, love?”

“But do you mean that it’s about to arrive?”

“Well, I don’t know; I’m a travelling salesman – I sell zippers and that kind of thing, love, but I’ll take you to the hospital just to be on the safe side. Tell me which shopping centre you’re in.”

“…”

“Hello…”

“…”

“Hello!”

“…”

“For Christ’s sake! She’s hung up!”

30

They took Alicia Soria’s body out of the refrigeration unit and laid it on the table. A few days previously dental studies had confirmed her identity, which was written on a piece of card. The medallion bearing her initials and the date of her birth was not proof enough of her identity for the forensics. For the others it was. Her father had known that it was her. Her mother knew. Charo, Ernesto and Inés knew, without even seeing the medallion.

They opened the zipper on the plastic body bag and the stench of Alicia’s death filled the room. “The body is in a very advanced state of decomposition,” dictated the forensic pathologist to the assistant who was taking notes for the report. The pathologist examined the body, first externally, looking for bruising, laceration, bullet wounds. This routine examination was made harder by the body’s decomposed state and potentially futile given that the evidence pointed to a death by drowning. One must follow the routine, all the same. He turned the cadaver over and continued with his inspection. Something caught his eye. “Prevertebral sanguineous infiltration,” he dictated to the assistant. Gently he felt along her neck, then added: “Fractures in the body of the sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae with almost total separation of fragments and medular distension.” He turned the body face up again. Not everything about this cadaver was so clear-cut. He picked up his scalpel and made a Y-shaped incision in Alicia’s chest, being careful not to drag the delicate skin on her breasts. When the outline was completed, he handed the scalpel to his assistant and pulled open the skin. His assistant passed him an electric saw and the pathologist sectioned the thoracic cage, breaking through the sternum. He removed the collarbone, and came to the lungs. An assistant was given the job of evisceration. He took out Alicia’s organs together then separated them in order to measure and weigh them. He began with the lungs. It was clear to all of them that Alicia had not met her death by drowning. “There is no evidence of water in the lungs,” dictated the pathologist.

His assistant removed the remaining organs. When it came to the uterus, he cut it, as was the usual procedure, in order to preserve it in formaldehyde. However, after the first cut he hesitated, then proceeded with greater care. He did not perform the third cut. He called the pathologist, who came over, opened the organ, looked inside and nodded: “Foetus estimated at approximately twelve weeks.”

They filled the body’s cavity with wadding, carefully sutured the cuts and washed it. Then the zipper was pulled closed again and Alicia was returned to refrigeration.

31

Ernesto waited for me in the bedroom while I went to get the tool box. As I climbed the stairs, the box in my arms, I had a strange sensation, as if I were acting in a film with a camera following my progress, step by step. I, the protagonist, was illuminated at the centre of the screen. I even had one of those instrumental soundtracks that typically accompany a scene like this running through my head. It was weird. But I liked it. I felt important: I was about to do something really crucial for the future well-being of my family. Something which put me in a privileged place, one reserved for those who can bring their influence to bear on other people. Some people go through life without ever leaving a trace. Incredibly sad. Like my mother, who achieved nothing in her life apart from hatred of my father, a hatred which left its mark on her alone. Because, I know I talk about it a lot, but he was her life, her man. I was on the outside. Like Lali. If Mummy had killed him, that would have been something else, but just to hate him… As for me, if it hadn’t been for the series of events set in play by Alicia’s death, I too would have died without ever leaving my mark on this world. Instead, here I was, rising up like a queen, bearing in my arms an offering for the gods waiting for me at the altar… (or rather, the tool box for Ernesto, who was waiting in the bedroom).

When I went in, Ernesto was sitting on the bed. I put the box down beside him and went to sit on the other side of it. That was really sweet too – Ernesto and I on the bed, sharing something. Like when we were young and we used to look at photos or when we used to stay in bed of a morning, reading the papers. Mind you, I couldn’t swear on a Bible that we’ve ever done either thing. After twenty years, marriage ceases to be what it is and becomes what you believe it to be. You get muddled and something that could have happened to someone else seems to have happened to you. Everything is so similar, especially marriages like ours, typical family, standard model. I don’t know if Ernesto and I had ever looked at photos on the bed together before, but even if we hadn’t, we could have done. And that was the sensation I had now – one of recovering something that we had lost.

Lifting the lid of the box gave Ernesto his first shock. He saw Alicia’s revolver. “What is this?”

“The gun Alicia was thinking of using to kill you.”

Ernesto stared at me for a moment. “To kill me?”

“I imagine so. I found it with your nude shots and the tickets to Rio.”

“Where?”

“In her bedside table.”

“You went to her apartment?”

“Yes.”

“That was crazy, Inés! Someone could have seen you! Did anyone see you?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I walked past the doorman, but he didn’t look at me, and I had a coffee in the bar across the road, but the waiter there is as thick as a brick.”

“Which waiter? A tall man, with grey hair?”

“Yes, thin with a black moustache. He up-ended half the sugar pot over me.”

Ernesto was still looking at me, his expression tense. I don’t know if “tense” is the word. Then he seemed to relax and picked up the revolver. He looked at it, examined it, held it up as though preparing to shoot.

“Ernesto, be careful, you could hurt someone!”

“Is it loaded?”

“Obviously. She wouldn’t get far trying to kill you with an empty one.”

Ernesto opened the drum and took out the bullets, closed it again and put everything away, gun and bullets, in the drawer of his bedside table.

We looked through the other things. The letters signed “your true love”. The lipstick kisses. The packet of condoms, complete with dedication. Ernesto refused pointblank even to think of using the photographs in which he appeared naked. It shamed him, and anyway, we already had plenty of incriminating material. The idea was simply to convince the police that there was a woman with a sufficiently strong motive to get Alicia out of the way. A jealous, possessive woman, madly in love with Ernesto. A woman who wanted him for herself alone. And who was very familiar with the movements of the deceased. Charo. Who, moreover, owing to her family connection with Alicia, was obliged to meet her often, at family parties, and perhaps to endure her reproaches. It had all became too much, almost unbearable, so she decided to put an end to the pain and get rid of Alicia once and for all. I was trying to order Ernesto’s ideas for him, while adding a few of my own flourishes to make his own declarations sound convincing: that Charo was tremendously possessive (item 1, letter number 1, “I can’t wait another minute to see you”); that she could not bear the idea that there was another woman (item 2, a letter written on a paper napkin, “I want you just for me”); that she was capable of anything (item 3, the dedication on a condom packet; the words in themselves are not relevant here, but the action speaks for itself); that she had on at least one occasion hinted at the idea of getting rid of Alicia (item 4, words on a box of matches from a hotel, “nothing must come between us”).

Ernesto would then state to the relevant authority that he had not previously believed that any serious intent lay behind these words. And that, only after considerable thought, he had felt a duty to warn them of Charo’s possible involvement in all this. It wasn’t going to be easy; Charo would counter-attack, but Ernesto had an alibi: he was at home – I would give my word on that – sleeping upstairs while I watched
Psycho
. Charo wasn’t so lucky. Ernesto said that she did not have an alibi, although he wouldn’t tell me what she had been doing that night. Unless she invented one, as we had. But she could not count on the unconditional support of someone to provide cover, to protect her. Ernesto could: he had me.

That night I had a blissful sleep. We didn’t make love; Ernesto was tired. But I was happy, because we had shared something; we had been so close and that counted for more than the best bonking he may have had during his weekend with Charo. When two people connect the way we had, well, that’s something that can last a lifetime. Whereas even the greatest sexual attraction ends at the moment of orgasm. It’s not possible to keep up the fireworks indefinitely.

The next morning Ernesto went out earlier than usual, to present his statement to police at commissary Number 31, as we had planned. He didn’t ask me to go with him. “I want to keep you out of this as much as possible.” I handed him the tool box and he went. He was so nervous that he walked right past Lali’s room without going in to see her. That was really unusual – and lucky, as it turned out, because Lali hadn’t spent the night at home. Doubtless she was at her friend’s house, as usual, and hadn’t bothered to let us know. But her absence would have made Ernesto even more anxious, and he was already at the limit of what he could bear.

Not five minutes after he had left the house, I was struggling to contain my nerves. It was as if my body were too small for me. One of the most decisive events for my future life was about to take place, while the only choices available to me, cooped up in my house the same as every day, concerned such things as whether to change the sheets or leave them on for a day or two longer.

I called a taxi and went to the police station. If nothing else, I wanted to be a voyeur and to celebrate, from some suitable hiding place, my victory over Charo. Or rather, “our” victory, because Ernesto and I were once more working as a team. When I got there, it surprised me not to see Ernesto’s car parked anywhere in the vicinity. He hates paying to use car parks. I went to the door of the police station and peered inside. I didn’t see him there. Perhaps he was in a room, giving his statement. Nobody asked me what I was doing, if I needed assistance or anything like that, but I didn’t want to take advantage of the ineffectiveness of the staff on duty, so I looked for somewhere to sit and watch, unobserved. I waited for an hour and nothing happened. Different explanations occurred to me, but not having any paper on which to make a diagram, I ran over the options in my mind.

Possibility 1: Ernesto is giving his statement. He’s taking a long time because justice is slow.

Possibility 2: Ernesto is giving his statement. He’s taking a long time because he’s awoken some suspicion in them, and they’re detaining him.

Possibility 3: Ernesto had a problem with the car and got held up.

Possibility 4: Ernesto remembered that he had to drop in on the office, so he postponed giving the statement for a couple of hours.

Possibility 5: Ernesto is just arriving.

Actually this last was not merely another hypothesis but the evidence of my own eyes. At the exact moment I was trying to think of a fifth possibility, Ernesto drove past. Possibilities 1 and 2 were thus automatically dismissed and it no longer mattered much if he had been delayed by possibilities 3 or 4, because all that counted now was 5. Ernesto was here.

He parked at the corner and got out of the car. But he wasn’t alone. The passenger door opened and out stepped a man, tall, thin, greying. Somebody I knew, but couldn’t place. They crossed the road together, Ernesto a few steps ahead, as if showing the other man the way. Without the tool box. Before going into the building, the man smoothed down his hair, checking his reflection in the wing mirror of a patrol car. He was right in front of me. Then I saw his black moustache. A sickly sweet taste filled my mouth and there was no longer any doubting who the man was. It was the waiter who had spilled sugar over me, the morning that I was at Alicia’s apartment.

32

“It really hurts.”

“Yes, I know, darling. Try to be as nice and relaxed as possible, because I’m going to examine you now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to know if you’re dilated.”

“I’m scared.”

“Don’t worry, darling, just try to relax as much as you can.”

“What are you doing?”

“Just examining you, dear. You never got yourself seen, did you?”

“No.”

“You’ve been lucky, it looks as though everything’s fine.”

“…”

“Come, come, don’t cry – very soon you’re going to be holding your little baby in your arms. Now then, nice and relaxed, please.”