Or the Bull Kills You (32 page)

‘No one knew then that Blanco was dead. Only the
Municipal
who came to fetch me, and I was with him the whole time.'

Cámara placed his hands on his thighs.

‘And Moreno?' Pardo asked.

‘It would have been easy enough for him to break away from the rest of the demonstrators for a while,' Cámara said. ‘No one would have noticed. Hid himself in the chapel, strangled Blanco, carried his body out to the middle of the ring, mutilated it, then escaped out down the drainpipe of the Enfermería and slipped back into the crowd, joining the others just as they passed that way heading down to the Bar Los Toros.'

‘So Marta Díaz was in on it as well.'

‘It would have helped for her to manoeuvre the demonstration round to where Moreno needed it just at the right time, but it might be hard to prove unless you've got material evidence against her.'

‘Or a confession,' Pardo said.

‘Someone's got to find her first.'

Pardo waved a hand.

‘Just a matter of time,' he said. ‘She can't hide for too long.'

He paused.

‘The mutilation, though. What…?'

‘Moreno trained as a bullfighter when he was a kid,' Cámara said. ‘Never made it, though. They threw him out of bullfighting school.'

‘So he knew all about it, about making it look authentic,' Pardo said. ‘Revenge as well of some sort, perhaps. But why try to murder Roberto? Weren't they working together?'

Cámara carried on with his explanation. Perhaps if he told Pardo all this now he'd save himself the bother of having to write it all down in a
minuta
. Or would that end up being his final act in
Homicidios
?

‘Roberto tried to make Ruiz Pastor's murder look like Blanco's – as though it was the same person. But Moreno didn't like that. Vanity, I reckon. He was a touchy sort, proud of his technique. He didn't like someone else copying him. I doubt he liked the fact that Roberto knew he was Blanco's murderer, either. He'd taken Roberto's money, he'd got what he wanted. Perhaps he thought it would make things easier in the future to get rid of him now.'

‘The girlfriend can help confirm all this.'

Cámara was silent.

‘You don't think we're going to catch her, do you?' Pardo said.

‘I don't know,' said Cámara. ‘There are plenty of groups abroad willing to help out a leader of the Spanish anti-bullfighting league. Push it too hard and before you know it we'll have a diplomatic incident on our hands, the French or the Germans or whoever refusing to hand her over in the name of humanity.'

Pardo looked at him.

‘You've changed your tune a bit. A week or so ago I'd have said you'd be the first helping her over the border. Don't tell me you've become an aficionado overnight.'

Cámara shrugged.

‘All right. None of my business,' Pardo said. ‘Still, if you ever want tickets just give me a nod. Right?'

Cámara was alarmed to see that the man was actually smiling at him. What was this? Some sweetener to soften the blow of demotion? Or of being fired completely? It wasn't easy for them: he was a civil servant, after all, guaranteed a job for life. But he'd disobeyed a direct order. They could push it to that if they wanted. He wouldn't get in their way.

Pardo leaned in again, a look of seriousness on his face this time.

‘You're not the brightest officer on my staff, Cámara,' he said. ‘In fact, I've sometimes wondered if the top floor was fully furnished in your case.'

Cámara kept a straight face.

‘But you've got a good instinct,' Pardo continued.

Here we go, Cámara thought to himself. A good instinct for which corner of the warehouse to store some stolen goods no one was ever going to reclaim. Bye bye
Homicidios
, hello
Depósito
.

‘You showed that over Roberto.' He raised a hand. ‘Don't worry. I'm confident we'll nail him. Quintero's coming back soon with the DNA test. And if that doesn't get him, something else will. You're right on this one. I know you are. His size forty-three shoes, the fact that his plane back to New York didn't leave till the afternoon on the day Ruiz Pastor was killed. He had the time and motive to do it; there's more than enough pointing at him to convince me, at least. What's more, officially the
Guardia Civil
should have pulled him in – Ruiz Pastor's murder was their case. Makes us look doubly good.'

He turned in his chair and stared out the window again.

‘Of course, none of us should have been fooled by all that
anti-toro
stuff he's been spouting over the years. What do they say about blood ties, families, that kind of thing?'

‘
Nada mejor en la vida que una familia unida
,' said Cámara. There's nothing better than a united family. Although this clearly didn't always extend to half-siblings, he thought to himself.

‘Yes. Thought you'd know that one. Perhaps that's what put you on to it in the first place. All that old wives' stuff might not be such bollocks after all.'

‘They're as traditional in this country as bullfighting,' Cámara said. Pardo grinned.

‘Look, the point is I'm keeping you on,' Pardo said. ‘You solved this case. That's what counts. I don't care who wants you gone. You've done good police work. Messy as fuck, and a huge amount of crap to clear up. But you got there.'

‘The transfer…' Cámara started.

‘Bollocks to the transfer. You're staying. And they're going to have to get rid of me first if they want you out of here. Don't worry, Cámara. Today you're a hero. You got Blanco's killers. All right, so one of them's in the morgue. But we've got the other one, and he's a big fish, a big player. Not the usual junkies and pimps we have to deal with most of the time. That counts, Cámara. Looks good. Looks like we're not afraid to go after the criminals whoever they are. The public like that.'

Cámara was silent, too stunned to say anything.

‘I'm not going to give you a fucking medal,' Pardo said. ‘Go on, you can fuck off now.'

He nodded at the door, and somehow Cámara found himself rising to his feet and making his way out.

‘One other thing,' Pardo said as Cámara leaned out to reach the door handle. ‘All that Bautista business.'

Cámara felt the hairs tingle on the back of his neck. Here it came, the final, subtle stabbing. Demotion to inspector? He turned round to face Pardo.

‘You can forget about it,' Pardo said. ‘You're clean.'

Cámara blinked.

‘The report's gone missing,' Pardo said with half a smile. ‘Bit of a mystery, really.'

It was the first truly hot day of the year, and Cámara was glad he'd left his jacket at the office. His service weapon was back in a drawer in his desk. No need to bring it for this. Although what was it going to be, exactly? A social thing? Perhaps there was a work angle to it. She hadn't said on the phone.

Crossing the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, he rolled up his sleeves and felt the cooling air circulate around his wrists.
No te quites el sayo hasta el cuarenta de mayo
: Don't take off your smock till the fortieth of May. They were still a few days short, but already spring felt it was giving way to summer. The nights were still cool, but soon he'd be having to sleep with all the windows open. It would be like that until almost the end of September.

The square was back to normal, the madness of
Fallas
barely a memory from almost a couple of months back. The florists' stalls were bright with richly coloured blooms, traffic flowed in its usual jerky and aggressive fashion. A bus was honking its horn at some motorcyclist for getting in its way, the sound like a thousand mules braying in unison. Someone had once told him that in parts of France – was it Montpellier? – the local buses were fitted with tinkling little bells instead of horns, giving off a gentle peal whenever they needed to make their presence felt. Not here, not in Valencia. That could never catch on.

He thought about stopping for a quick beer at one of the touristy bars at the side of the square, quenching his thirst in the heat before his meeting, but the clock tower on the Town Hall told him he didn't have time. If he went straight there he would only be a few minutes late. A couple of posters of Emilia's grinning face stared back at him as he raced past. Not content with having won the election, the mayoress felt the need to remind her fellow Valencians of the fact weeks, even months after the event. What struck him most was that none of the images had been defaced. Only a few years back some politicised graffiti artist would have carefully doctored each one. But no one seemed to go in for that kind of thing these days; everyone was too busy worrying about their mortgage repayments, or finding a job.

He crossed Xàtiva in front of the train station and worked his way past the bullring towards Calle Castellón, glancing up at the Enfermería and its rogue drainpipe. The same old useless spikes were there at the top, still failing to prevent anyone getting in and out. Perhaps in the nineteenth century, when they'd built the place, that had been enough to deter any would-be trespassers. But now? After all that had happened? In his mind he could hear the bullring officials justifying to themselves why there was no need to change anything, or make it more difficult to get in and out by that route. It was a one-off, a freak incident. There weren't going to be any more attempts on bullfighters' lives like there had been on Blanco. So just leave it as it is.

They were probably right. If anything, Blanco's death had taught the country to value its bullfighters even more. The wave of sympathy for
los toros
hadn't been enough to dethrone Emilia, but there was no sign of the increased interest in bullfighting falling off. Not yet, at least. Perhaps next year would be different, but for now matadors were appearing in unexpected places, writing articles for leading newspapers, appearing in cultural programmes on television. According to rumour, a couple of bullfighters had parts in films that were about to go into production. Having seen its most precious son martyred, the country as a whole appeared to have fallen in love once again with its ‘national fiesta'.

The Town Hall's attempt to jump on an
anti-toro
bandwagon now seemed badly misjudged. The fact was, though, that as the
Municipal
had told Cámara, there was never any chance that the local city authorities could ban the event. Soon after the election results were announced, and the celebration parties had ended, a brief communiqué was made stating that while Emilia stood firm in her stance against bullfights, there was little she could do as her hands had been tied by the government in Madrid. It was bullshit, as everyone knew. But she'd won another four years; that was all that mattered. People gave their usual shrug on hearing the news and then got on with things. Politicians lied and got rich; it's what they did. Wouldn't everyone do the same in their position?

The Bar Los Toros was empty. The TV was blaring from its usual corner while the cigarette machine flashed from the opposite wall. Cámara walked over, placed a few coins in the slot and hooked out a fresh packet of Ducados from the shelf at the bottom. Clearly the barman had found a way to override the lock designed to stop children from buying cigarettes. He heard a rattle of bottles as he lit a cigarette: the barman was out at the back clearing away crates of empties.

‘
Hombre
,' he said when he caught sight of Cámara. ‘Didn't hear you come in.'

‘That's all right,' Cámara said. He checked the time on his new mobile. ‘No one else turn up?' he said. The barman raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘A woman?' Cámara added.

‘Nah,' the barman said. ‘Believe me, if a woman had come in I would definitely have noticed.'

He wiped the bar in front of him and then reached for a glass.

‘You'll be wanting one of these,' he said, pouring Cámara a Mahou from the tap. ‘It's getting hot.'

‘Yes,' said Cámara. ‘Came on quite suddenly.'

‘I prefer it like this,' said the barman. ‘Don't like the cold, me.'

Cámara accepted the beer, but kept his eye on the door, expecting it to open at any moment. And with something of a surprise he realised he was feeling slightly nervous. Why had she said here, of all places? He laughed to himself. Where else would she have said?

At that moment he heard the click of the door and spun round before the barman could say any more.

‘
Hola
,' he said.

There was a pause.

‘Oh,' she said at last. ‘You're already here.'

He leaned down and felt Alicia's face brushing against his as she gave him a kiss on either cheek. A brief sense of disappointment passed through him. What had he expected? Part of him had had some dream of a more passionate reunion than this, perhaps. But the feeling passed; a more professional side switched on: whatever her motives were for meeting him, reigniting a sexual spark didn't appear to be one of them.

He picked up his glass and they walked across to a table near the window. In the light from the street he tried to get a better look at her, but her hair, slightly longer now, was hanging over her face as she fumbled with her bag and squeezed into the tiny space between the table and the chair. He could tell that there was something changed in her, less centred, somehow.

Finally she sat up straight, pushing her hair behind one ear and smiling at him.

‘It's been a very long time,' she said.

He nodded.

‘Too long,' she said. ‘It's just that I was…'

‘It's all right,' he said. ‘What do you want to drink?'

‘Red wine,' she said without a pause. ‘Shall we get a bottle?'

A few moments later the barman placed a Rioja in front of them with a couple of plates of nuts.

‘We've run out of anything more elaborate,' he said, pointing at the tapas. ‘Unless you want me to heat up some chorizo.'

‘That's all right,' Alicia said. ‘This will do.'

He went back behind the bar and started rattling his crates again, giving them a sense of privacy.

‘I knew we'd be virtually alone here,' she said. ‘That's why I chose it.'

Something fluttered inside Cámara at her words.

‘How are things at the newspaper?' he said.

‘Oh, you know, busy,' she said. ‘There was all the fallout from Roberto's arrest to cover, stuff on Angel Moreno; people wanted to know who had actually killed Blanco, what kind of a person he was. All that stuff about him being kicked out of bullfighting school, his relationship with Marta Díaz. That kind of thing. They needed a Satan character, or something; a Judas. Roberto is more difficult, more complicated. But Moreno? I'm almost glad he died, because if you'd got him alive they'd be ripping him to pieces right now.'

She checked herself.

‘All right, I don't mean that,' she said. ‘You were there, weren't you?'

Cámara shrugged.

‘It was bad, eh?' she said. ‘Yeah, I can imagine so.'

She lifted the bottle of wine and poured.

‘It's good to see you again,' she said, raising a glass. Cámara raised his and they clinked together.

‘You too,' he said.

‘Anyway,' she continued, ‘they put me on to cover the court case as well, the whole prosecution thing. I don't know anything about legal reporting, but because I knew Blanco they thought I was the right person to follow the story right to the end.'

‘I hear proceedings are going to start against Roberto soon,' Cámara said. ‘I'm out of it now, as you know. But occasionally we hear things. I could give you a ring if I get wind of anything interesting, if you like.'

She gave a half-smile.

‘You gave me the thread,' he said. ‘The connection from Gallego to Flores to Roberto.'

‘I'm not sure if that makes me feel better,' she said. ‘If I hadn't said anything to Javier, Blanco might still be alive today.'

Cámara took a sip of his wine.

‘You think they'll get a conviction?' she asked.

‘I heard that Caballero was fairly confident,' Cámara said. ‘But the judge who's presiding over the court case is one of the tougher ones. He's thrown out watertight cases before because of some spelling mistake or other.'

Alicia laughed, and for a second there was a hint of a connection.

‘You don't care, do you?' she said.

‘About whether Roberto gets banged up?' He put his glass back down on the table.

‘I did my bit. He's guilty. I know that. Everyone knows that. Even if he walks free at the end of this, everyone knows he was behind Blanco's murder. And that he killed Ruiz Pastor himself. For Christ's sake, Ruiz Pastor had Roberto's DNA under his fingernails from scratching at him when he was being attacked.'

‘Roberto claims that's just because they shook hands a few hours before at Blanco's funeral.'

Cámara gave her a look.

‘Listen,' he said, ‘if the judge buys that…'

He waved his hand.

‘I'm a policeman,' he said. ‘My job ends the moment I hand over a suspect to the investigating judge. If he, or one of his colleagues screws it up afterwards…It's not that I don't care. I just can't afford to care too much.'

‘It's all right,' she said. ‘I understand. Still no word on Marta Díaz?'

Cámara shook his head.

‘There was a report of a sighting in France, a couple of weeks after Moreno died. But nothing came of it. Since then it's gone cold.'

He grabbed the bottle and refilled their glasses. The question of why Alicia had asked to meet up with him still hadn't arisen. Just to have a chat about the case? She'd already appeared to brush aside his offer of information.

‘How have things been for the Ramírez family?' he asked, trying to keep the conversation going. She'd get to it eventually, whatever it was.

She gave a long sigh. ‘Not good,' she said. ‘Not good at all.'

‘I bet the mother took it badly,' Cámara said.

‘She hasn't been seen since before Roberto's arrest. Staying at the farm up in Albacete. Hasn't left once, by all accounts. Just gone to ground.'

‘The others?' Cámara said.

‘From what I can gather, Ramírez has effectively handed everything over to Paco. He's broken; everyone says so. First losing Blanco, and now this.'

‘What about the drugs?' Cámara said.

‘I'd say they've taken a knock from it. Bookings are down. They'd built their reputation on providing the best bulls, as you know. And the denials only carry so much weight.'

They both knew that after Cámara had found the phials of dope in the Ramírez truck – later positively identified by Huerta as a variant of ketamine that left almost no traces in the bull, and was undetectable by the vets at the bullring – searches had been made of the Ramírez farm, but no other samples had been found. The family had denied all knowledge, claiming the drugs had been planted to stain their reputation.

‘People start looking back at previous bulls they've produced, trying to detect a trend there, to see if they really were doping them. They probably aren't doing it any more, but it's possibly too late for them. The doubt is there, and the crowds might react badly to seeing Ramírez bulls on the card now.'

‘You think they might close down?' Cámara asked.

‘They'll probably limp on for a year or two more,' Alicia said. ‘But after that?' She frowned.

‘Anyway,' she said, suddenly changing the tone. ‘How are you?'

‘All right,' he said.

‘Flores been giving you any more problems?'

He grinned.

‘I get parking fines from streets I've never even driven down,' he said. ‘Not every day, but occasionally. Then there's a demand for some non-existent arrears on my council tax. That kind of thing.' He laughed; it seemed even Maldonado had eased off recently after getting stung with his little gamble; rumour in the Jefatura was that he'd lost almost five thousand euros.

‘Nothing I can't cope with. It's good. Shows I really had him rattled.'

‘He doesn't give up,' she said.

‘Do any of us?'

She seemed embarrassed for a moment and stared down at the table.

‘And your girlfriend?' she asked. ‘Did that…?'

‘End?' he said. ‘Yes, it ended. Ended a long time back. It just had to go through the motions of dying. You know how it is.'