A Death in Valencia (20 page)

It was Flores.

Torres came running up to him as he entered the Jefatura.

‘Chief, I've got something.'

‘So have I.'

‘OK, you first.'

They found the lift and started heading up to their office.

‘Flores wants to come in and make a statement,' Cámara said once the doors closed and they were out of earshot.

‘Flores?' Torres did not have the most demonstrative of faces, not least because most of it was covered in thick black hair, either from his beard or his eyebrows, but the surprise in his expression was evident nonetheless.

‘In person,' Cámara said. ‘I've had him on the phone just now asking for a formal interview.'

‘What did you say?'

It wasn't a facetious question: they both knew from experience that Flores was not the kind of person who did anything without various other motives–ulterior or otherwise–being in play.

‘I told him to come down right away, but that I would only do it here and with Pardo present as well.'

The doors pinged as they reached their floor.

‘I'd like you to join us.'

‘My pleasure,' Torres said. They stepped out on to the corridor, but remained standing for a moment before walking towards the incident room, where other officers were milling around.

‘What do you think it's about?' Torres said in a low voice.

‘Well, I don't think he's coming to discuss the arrears on my driving tax.'

‘Yeah, I got that.'

‘So what's your news?'

Torres glanced down the corridor, then back at Cámara.

‘This Navarro guy,' he said, ‘and his connection with Cuevas, the head of Valconsa. You remember Maldonado mentioned it in the squad car?'

‘Yes,' Cámara said. ‘What did you find out?'

‘I was digging around. Maldonado was right–Navarro served under Cuevas in the
Guardia Civil
's intelligence unit, the
Servicio de Información
, ten years back. It was the last position Cuevas had before he quit the
Guardia Civil
.'

‘And walked into the job at Valconsa.'

‘Right. They made him director of communications at first, but he took over as CEO five years ago. Well, look.'

Torres pulled out a paper he was holding and showed it to Cámara.

‘These are the names of the other people who were in the unit with him at the time.'

There were half a dozen of them. Torres placed his finger under one of them.

‘There's Navarro,' he said. He moved his finger down the list.

‘And then there's this one.'

Cámara read out a name: ‘Juan Antonio Guisado López.'

He looked at Torres.

‘He left the
Guardia Civil
as well a few years later,' Torres said. ‘Got a job in security as a driver and bodyguard.'

‘Who does he work for now?'

‘Cuevas's brother-in-law.'

‘Cámara!' A voice called out from the other end of the corridor. They both looked round: it was Pardo.

‘One other thing,' Torres said quickly. ‘Maldonado didn't pick this up: Cuevas had a second-in-command. He stayed in the force. Guess who it was.'

‘Who?'

‘Comandante Lázaro.'

Pardo was insistent.

‘Get over here,' he shouted. ‘He's arrived.'

Flores's skin looked almost pale under the harsh strip lights. But the fluorescent glow only heightened the eye-watering contrast of his olive-green suit with a bright orange shirt and a chequered rose-and-lemon tie. An officer had already ushered him into an interview room, where he was sitting on his own, his hands on his lap, looking relaxed, if determined. Pardo had ensured they were put in a room where the recording equipment actually worked and would be switched on.

‘Whatever this is about,' he muttered in Cámara's ear as they were about to step inside, ‘forget the history between you two and let the man speak.'

Flores glanced up as they opened the door and entered.

‘Three of you,' he said with a grin. ‘I'm honoured.'

Cámara took a seat in front of him, Pardo sat beside him and Torres remained standing.

‘You've brought the hairy one along as well, I see,' Flores nodded. ‘Frightened that I might try to break out? Oh, I forgot, you're the one with the violence issues.'

‘You called us, Flores,' Cámara said. ‘We're here because you want this.'

‘There was a bit of a bust-up at a brothel near the beach the other night, I hear,' Flores continued. ‘Funny, because the description that was passed on to me of the one causing all the fuss reminded me so much of you. He even identified himself as a policeman, apparently. But you wouldn't do something so stupid, now would you? Not unless…No, I refuse to believe all those years in narcotics turned you into a drug user.'

‘Have you come here to make accusations against one of my police officers?' Pardo butted in. ‘If so, we're too busy to hear it now.'

‘Oh, no,' Flores smiled. ‘No, I'm not here about that. Although I do worry about your chief inspector sometimes, Commissioner. He does have a habit of getting himself into trouble. I hear there was quite a fuss yesterday at the Pope's event.'

‘Ballester,' Pardo said with an impatient sigh. ‘Yes, we got him. The Pope was unharmed.'

‘Thank fuck for that.'

‘It was Chief Inspector Cámara who pulled Ballester down,' Torres said. ‘And brought him in.'

‘So it speaks, does it?' Flores jerked a thumb in Torres's direction. ‘Amazing.'

‘
Basta de gilipolleces
,' Cámara said, clapping his hands together. That's enough bullshit. ‘What are you here for?'

‘Yeah, right,' Flores said. He leaned forward and laid his hands out on the table as though about to say something, but remained silent. Cámara exchanged a glance with Torres.

‘You're still working it out, aren't you?' Cámara said. ‘Whatever it is, you're still calculating all the possibilities and eventualities of what you're about to say. Funny to see you so unprepared.'

‘Shut the fuck up,' Flores snapped. ‘As you said, I'm the one who asked for this, and I'm going to take my time if I have to.'

‘Señor Flores, perhaps I didn't make myself clear,' Pardo barked. ‘We don't have a lot of time. Now get on with it or get out.'

Flores leaned back in his chair.

‘Perhaps he's upset he's no longer the one shagging Emilia,' Torres said. ‘And he needs someone to talk to.'

‘Could be that,' Cámara agreed.

‘No one to tuck him in at night.'

‘Oh, for fuck's sake,' Flores laughed.

‘That's enough!' Pardo shouted. He leaned over and grabbed Flores by the lapel.

‘Start telling me something fucking interesting or I'll have you arrested!'

‘All right, all right,' Flores said. ‘Calm the fuck down.'

He unwrapped Pardo's fingers from their grip on his jacket and placed his hands together.

‘I know,' he said, looking Cámara straight in the eye, ‘that you know that someone connected with the Town Hall was receiving transcripts of the
Guardia Civil
tap on Sofía Bodí's phone.'

There was a pause.

‘And?' Pardo said.

‘I want to do a deal with you,' Flores said.

‘There is an ongoing and urgent police operation into the whereabouts of Sofía Bodí,' Cámara said. ‘If you have information that can facilitate that operation it is your civic duty to pass it on. We're not here to do deals. A woman's life is at stake.'

‘Hear me out first,' Flores said.

‘We've got a ticking clock,' Torres said. ‘The kidnappers have said they'll kill Sofía by today if the government doesn't change the anti-abortion law.'

Cámara frowned; perhaps Maldonado hadn't been bluffing with Ballester after all.

‘You want to hear what I've got to say, all right,' Flores said. ‘Just run with me on this one.'

‘How did you find out?' Cámara asked.

‘What? About you knowing about the phone tap?'

Flores gave a self-satisfied grin.

‘I'm afraid I can't tell you.'

‘Right,' Pardo said, standing up. ‘I've had enough. Inspector Torres, go and fetch a charge sheet. This man is wasting police time. And I've got a murder squad to run.'

He moved towards the door.

‘No, no, no!' Flores said. ‘Sit down, you've got it all wrong.'

Pardo didn't stop; Cámara got up to follow after him.

‘It wasn't me, you see?'

Cámara paused and turned to look back at him. Pardo was already at the door, but his hand rested on the handle.

‘What wasn't you?'

‘Sit down, will you?' Flores said.

Cámara sniffed, then sat.

‘What wasn't you, Flores?'

‘It wasn't me receiving the transcripts.'

Cámara remained silent; Pardo turned back to face the room.

‘I know you think it was me.'

‘How do you know I found out about the transcripts?!' Cámara shouted.

‘I have a contact inside the
Guardia
. Come on, Cámara, you can work that one out yourself.'

‘Herrero?'

‘No. Not Captain Herrero. He'll be facing the usual disciplinary measures for his indiscretion, but you don't have to worry about him. Look, it doesn't matter, the point is I knew you wouldn't believe me if I simply denied being the one receiving the transcripts.'

Pardo moved away from the door and towards the table, but remained on his feet. Still in his earlier position, Torres crossed his arms.

‘You're pretty full of yourself, aren't you?' Pardo said. ‘Why would we assume it was you getting the transcripts?'

‘Because it's my job to know stuff. That's my role in the Town Hall. And I know you know that. Which is why you thought I was the one reading about Sofía's phone calls. Am I right?'

Cámara shrugged.

‘You are an obvious candidate,' he said.

‘See?' Flores said. ‘But I also knew that if I denied that you wouldn't believe me.'

Cámara didn't react.

‘Hold on,' Torres said. ‘I know what's coming here. You want us to do some dirty work for you, don't you.'

‘I was coming to the bit about a deal.'

‘That's what you were spouting on about last time you were here, getting other people to do your dirty work for you.'

Torres took a step forwards.

‘We're policemen,' he said. ‘We're not here to fuck around with cunts like you. I'm going to get that charge sheet.'

‘Wait!' Pardo said.

‘Just one thing,' Cámara said. ‘Why did you come to me? Why not get in touch with Maldonado? He's your inside man with us, isn't he?'

‘Maldo's useful at times, it's true,' Flores said. ‘But I don't want him getting above himself.'

There was a slam of the door as Torres left the room.

‘He won't be long,' Pardo said. ‘Now hurry the fuck up.'

‘What do you want?' Cámara asked.

Flores tapped his fingertips together.

‘Silence. About this conversation.'

He took a deep breath and sighed.

‘Lázaro's caused a lot of problems for all of us with his stupid investigation into the clinic,' he said. ‘And things have got out of control. There's going to be a lot of fallout when this story breaks.'

‘And it's going to break soon?'

‘Oh, yes.' Flores leaned in.

‘Why?'

‘Because I'm about to tell you who was reading the transcripts of Sofía's phone calls,' he said. ‘And I just want to be sure the shit lands on the right head.'

The problem was where to look; not only for the murderer of Pep Roures, but for the man behind the disappearance of Sofía Bodí. If he was the same person, he had killed once: had he done so again? And if not, could they get to him in time?

As it was, though, Rafael Mezquita was nowhere to be found.

‘He's been tipped off,' Torres said when searches of the Town Hall and his home proved fruitless.

‘Who by?'

‘His brother-in-law's ex-
Guardia Civil
, isn't he?'

‘
Navarro ha cantado
,' said Cámara. Navarro's told everything. ‘He knew we'd be on to him soon enough. At least we got Guisado, his driver.'

And after a full half a minute of pressure, during which it was explained to him that not only would he go to jail, but that he'd lose his salary, unemployment benefit and pension too if he didn't co operate, Juan Antonio Guisado had also sung for them. And unlike Navarro, who had only been interrogated by his own people so far, Guisado had fallen into the hands of the
Policía Nacional
, who were all too happy to be able to get their teeth into a member of the
Guardia Civil
. Although not literally, at least not quite.

Guisado had told them everything as quickly as he could: how Mezquita had told him to kidnap Sofía and take her to an address in El Cabanyal. A new campaign, Mezquita had told him, was about to begin against the left-wing liberalism that was corroding the conservative, Catholic values the country was built on. If the government in Madrid wanted fully to legalise abortion, they would have to face the consequences. Guisado was given a chance to be there at the start of a new beginning for Spain, to have a crucial early role in what would snowball into a mass movement, turning the clock back and restoring the decency that had once prevailed. Kidnapping Sofía Bodí was just the first step in a concerted strategy that would quickly take root across the rest of the country. Guisado was to play a vital, initial part for this large, nationwide, but very secret body.

So it seemed it had been Mezquita's idea to make the kidnapping look like an arrest by the
Guardia Civil
, knowing that thanks to Lázaro's investigation into Sofía's clinic, and the high profile the case had, this was likely to arouse fewer suspicions. At least initially. Guisado had fallen for it, getting in touch with his old
Guardia Civil
colleague Navarro. Your chance to play a part in making history, mate. Navarro had provided the car and a uniform for Guisado.

Sofía had looked nervous, and ruffled, Guisado said, but hadn't struggled in any way, assuming that her kidnapping was in fact the arrest she had long feared coming. A blow to the back of the head had blacked her out, then once they'd got her into the abandoned house on Calle San Pedro, chaining her to a pillar in the attic, they'd injected her with a barbiturate to keep her unconscious. A bottle of water, and some bread and sausage, were left nearby for when she regained consciousness. And a bowl for pissing and shitting. They didn't have to worry, Mezquita had told Guisado. Their job would finish there. Someone else would come later and take over once they'd left.

Hadn't anyone seen them going into the house?

That part of the street was virtually deserted, especially in the heat of the daytime. Only a few junkies looking for shady corners to jack up.

But less than two days later the house had been demolished, as Mezquita, the head of urban development, would have known. There was no one in the house when the bulldozers moved in: a preliminary check was routine, even when dealing with places that were almost falling down on their own, and the technicians at Valconsa had confirmed this. So Sofía had been moved elsewhere, presumably by Mezquita himself.

Where either of them was now, however, remained a mystery.

While everyone was put on alert, running up and down the corridors, jumping in and out of squad cars as they followed up reported sightings or possible leads, Cámara sat in his office, staring out the window, his hands held together, twisting gently from side to side.

It was time to stop. Do nothing. Not even think. Just let what he already knew rise to the surface.

‘Chief!'

It was Torres at the door.

‘Emilia's holding a news conference on TV. Mezquita's been sacked with immediate effect and she's saying she'll cooperate fully with the police investigation.'

‘OK. Thanks.'

‘We're moving in now on Mezquita's parents' house. You coming? Get a chance to meet his old fascist father.'

‘You go ahead.'

Torres didn't argue; he'd seen that meditative, pregnant expression on Cámara's face before.

He closed the door behind him, muffling the sound of urgent feet outside.

Maldonado had been right–almost. There
was
a GAL-type organisation behind Sofía's kidnapping, but only in Guisado and Navarro's minds. There the conspiracy ended; it was no more than Mezquita's invention to make them take the first step on his behalf in what was a purely personal, grubby affair.

First Roures, then Sofía. Mezquita was the link between the two.

How would Roures have worded it? His phone records had shown that he'd called Mezquita's office. Was it a straightforward blackmail attempt?

You're head of urban development now, Mezquita. You can stop all this, you can stop them bulldozing my home and my restaurant, what I've spent my life building up. You can stop the barbaric demolition of a great swathe of this historic
barrio.

Because if you don't, I'm going to tell everyone your little secret. Now, just as the Pope's arriving.

But Mezquita was supposed to be the man who would finally implement the El Cabanyal development plan after years of being bogged down in the courts and the sex scandal that had crippled his predecessor. He was Emilia's new star, perhaps even her new lover after Flores had fallen out of favour. He wasn't about to turn Town Hall policy on its head. This was Emilia's pet project, her chance to leave a stamp on the city she had begun to regard as her own personal fiefdom. There was no way out.

Ultimately, he suspected the problem hadn't been about El Cabanyal in Mezquita's mind. Cuevas was right: you didn't murder someone over a demolition project, no matter how damaging that might be. What troubled him was the prospect of losing face, and being made to look a fool.

The Pope was about to arrive in order to head the World Families Conference, with its strictly anti-homosexual, anti-abortion message. And if, on the morning his plane touched down at Manises airport, news broke that a leading member of his welcoming committee had arranged an abortion himself years back for a child he had conceived out of wedlock?

Stop the demolition, Roures would have said, or your secret's out: it was your child Lucía aborted in Paris back then, not mine.

Good old Roures. Mezquita had said how Roures had felt indebted to him after breaking his nose. Did Roures feel that he'd redeemed himself by sorting out Mezquita's complicated problem for him? Whisking Lucía off and pretending that
he
was responsible? Certainly Mezquita's right-wing, conservative family, with strong links to the dying Francoist regime, would have been unsympathetic. Mezquita was young and ambitious back then, already a member of the far-right Falangist FES movement. He wasn't going to marry some girl from El Cabanyal that he'd slept with. An abortion was the only option available. And in the circumstances, he probably had no one else to turn to.

So Roures had stepped in, driving Lucía up to Paris in his Renault 5. Perhaps it was the kindness he showed her then that had changed Lucía's mind about redheads. Accompanying a girl to carry out an abortion wasn't an obvious way to start a relationship, but he could imagine Lucía craving another person's sympathy at that time, someone she was familiar with, someone from El Cabanyal. They shared a secret themselves after that. In a tightly knit community, it could be enough to draw two people together.

But in the end Roures had decided to break his debt of honour with Mezquita and played his strongest hand–his only hand. Had he not expected some kind of backlash? Perhaps faith in the rightness of his cause had blinded him to the danger he was putting himself into.

For a moment, Cámara felt the blood throbbing in his neck as he imagined the murder taking place. There was something botched about it, Quintero had said. What had Mezquita done? Looked up a web page on how to stab someone from behind? They could check his computer later.

Roures had been removed, and the threat had been eliminated.

Except that it hadn't. Not entirely. Sofía Bodí had carried out the abortion all those years before. Trained in Paris, at the very clinic Roures had driven Lucía to. There was no reason for her to have known then who the real father was. Or subsequently, even. Besides, Mezquita was still just a teenager in the late seventies, not the rising Catholic politician he was today. But what if she found out? That was Mezquita's problem–the rot could easily spread. What if Roures had told her before Mezquita murdered him?

And he almost certainly had. Ballester had mentioned Roures talking to Sofía when they'd gone to eat at his restaurant. What would he have said?

You and I have a common enemy. There's something you need to know.

Mezquita hadn't known about that, but the fear that the two of them might have spoken at some point would have haunted him. He couldn't walk up to Sofía and ask her, though; if he was to regard her as a threat he needed some way of finding out what she knew.

The phone tap.

It had been clear once Flores started talking that he didn't know everything, despite his air of omniscience, but he was aware that Mezquita was involved in the Sofía case in some way, and that his receiving the phone tap transcripts was damning in itself. As head of the committee in charge of the papal visit, Mezquita had insisted he be given a copy for security reasons: the pro-abortion lobby, he argued, might be planning to stage something while the Pope was in the city. The phone tap was already in place. It would be irresponsible of him not to take advantage of an important source of information like that.

The excuse had been taken at face value at the time. Only Flores had had his doubts.

The Pope had been and gone. Then Navarro was arrested. Flores saw which way things were about to fall. And helped push them along, against the interests of his Town Hall rival.

Cámara wondered for a moment if Flores had been back at Emilia's side during the news conference.

He stopped circling in his chair and stood up. A small patch of sky was visible from his window and he stared at the irregular shape of cloudless space formed by the edges of the nearby buildings. From one end, high above, the vapour trail from an aeroplane was slowly streaking a double white line in its wake, cutting across his little azure parcel and splitting it in two.

His eyes jerked to the side: another plane had appeared and was moving in at the same time, almost at right angles to the first. With a frown he realised that the two were on a collision course, that in a matter of seconds they would crash into each other.

He held his breath and watched: the two planes crossed paths almost directly above his head, merged into one…and then continued along their respective routes, unharmed, the vapour trails hovering motionless behind them now in an ‘X' shape.

He smiled. From where he stood down there near the ground he'd been right: to all intents and purposes they were about to crash. Only his perspective had been wrong: what he couldn't see was that one of the two planes had been flying at thousands of feet higher than the other. There was never any collision course to begin with.

But he'd been blind to that.

There was no one to bother him as he walked down the corridor to take the lift: almost everyone was out trying to locate Mezquita–and Sofía. The fire exit at the back on the ground floor was left permanently half-open these days to allow smokers quicker access in and out. And the air conditioning in the building was so poor it barely made a difference if hot humid summer air was allowed to waft inside.

He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, leaning against a white cement pillar as his eyes lazed on the scattered remains of a thousand other smokes that had taken place out here.

What had Mezquita seen in the phone tap transcripts? He'd seen the one thing he'd hoped never to see: proof of contact between Sofía and Lucía Bautista. Two women who had only met briefly once thirty years before, now convening at Sofía's insistence after she called the clinic back in Paris to double-check what Roures had told her, and what her diaries said–that Sofía had given Lucía an abortion. There was only one thing they had to talk about, one thing they had in common. Did Lucía confirm to Sofía that Mezquita, not Roures, got her pregnant?

He had to assume that she had, for Mezquita had then seen Sofía on television, making a statement in the wake of the Lázaro investigation, commenting on her past, her time in Paris, and ‘consequences' if the harassment continued. ‘Right-wingers also abort,' she said. Maldonado had been right–it was a threat. But not to the people he imagined.

And so Mezquita had put in his plan to have Sofía kidnapped, another attempt to stop the spread of the rotting infection. Guisado and Navarro had played their parts well. Until Navarro had cracked.

What was the idea? To keep her locked away for the duration of the Pope's visit, to prevent her making embarrassing public comments about Mezquita? But the Pope had left a couple of hours before. If Mezquita hadn't killed her already, they had very little time to get to her first.

Now at least they knew who they had to find. They just didn't know where to look.

The cigarette was burning low and beginning to singe the skin on his fingers. He cast his mind back to his conversation with Mezquita when the Pope had visited his street.