Blood Wedding (36 page)

‘Coffee, Max? I’ve got some of the real stuff.’

‘Please. Black.’

They sat facing each other.

‘Well, what exactly do you want to know, Max?’

‘As I said, the truth about Leila and you.’

Juan looked Max straight in the eye; only his voice betrayed any tension. ‘Okay. Things haven’t been going too well between Isabel and me lately. Then along came Leila, wanting to interview Paula. We got talking, and, well . . . we went out together a few times here in Granada.’

‘Juan, come on. It’s me, Max. You can be straight with me. You never just went out with a pretty girl for a talk on art and architecture.’

‘Well, a bit more than that. Nothing serious.’

‘Juan, we have the evidence you took her to a restaurant at least twice. I can check round the town. I just prefer you to tell me.’

Juan fell silent, and stared at the coffee stains on his carpet.

‘Is this a police investigation?’ he finally said.

‘Not yet,’ replied Max. ‘Just tell me the truth.’

‘The truth, the fucking truth,’ yelled Juan.
‘Los
magistrados
are going to declare that kid guilty, close the case, and all you want is to cause problems by asking me about my affair with Leila.’

‘Affair?’

‘Yes, a fucking affair,’ screamed Juan, his face turning red with anger.

They both stood up, and started yelling at each other.

‘You stupid bastard,’ Max yelled. ‘You are in deep shit.’

Juan stopped yelling. ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ he retorted, putting his face in his hands. ‘Max, I wanted to come forward, but I just couldn’t. Think of the family.’

‘Juan, I’m thinking of her death.’

‘Death? It was nothing to do with me.’

‘I’ve done my investigation work.’

Juan looked up at Max. ‘I didn’t kill her, Max. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t get home until after six.’

‘Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? So you were having an affair with Leila. For how long?’

‘Had an affair, Max. I ended it. But we had been seeing each other for quite some time. But we only got together in Granada.’

‘Here?’

‘Here. Hotels. And a weekend in Seville. I really cared for her, Max.’

‘You were going to leave Isabel? Your wife didn’t understand you, I suppose.’

‘Leila asked me to, Max. I wanted to. But I couldn’t leave the kids. She kept asking. She said we could go and live abroad. But I couldn’t. So I said we had to stop seeing each other.’

‘And?’

‘Oh God . . . She was furious, really lost it. It started to get nasty.’

‘Okay. And the day she died?’

‘The day of her death . . . I’ve told the police all about that.’

‘I know you have Juan. And it’s not the full truth. I would just like to hear the truth from you.’

Juan bit his lip, and hesitated. ‘Well, as I told León . . . I drove to the Motril supermarket to get some things for the Sunday barbecue. Did that, had a coffee, then drove back, and got home after six.’

Max sighed. He was going to have to drag every last bit of information out of Juan, and the more he did so the worse it seemed for Juan. Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hidden long, he thought.

‘That’s what you told León. Now how about telling me what really happened. Juan, I’ve checked with the supermarket in Motril: I can prove you were there an hour earlier than you claim in your statement. I can prove you left Café Puro at four, and I have an eyewitness that your car was seen on the Jola road at about 4.45 p.m.’

Juan turned pale, he gulped nervously, then exploded. ‘You sneaky little bastard, you little shit. You’ve been checking up on me, haven’t you? Me, your cousin. Your best mate since we were kids. I—I—’

Juan moved towards Max, his fist clenched. Max stood still, offering no defence. Juan drew his fist back, and then let it fall by his side. Max stepped up to him, and took him in his arms.

‘Juan, Juan . . . what have you done?’

They sat down again, facing each other.

‘I’ll tell you what I think happened, Juan. Correct me if I’m wrong.’

Juan nodded his head.

‘You went to Motril. Yes. But you got there earlier than you said in the statement. So you finished your shopping before three thirty – the girl on the till remembers you, said you looked a bit like Antonio Banderas and you made one of your usual bad jokes. You then went to Café Puro for your coffee. The waitress says you left when she finished her shift at four . . . so you could have been on the bridge with Leila around the time she died.’

‘You’ve made a thorough cop, after all. I never thought you would.’

‘So you drove back fast to dodge the storm. But the rain came down before you got home, and you saw Leila on the bridge.’

‘Yes. I did. I stopped. It was bucketing down. I wanted to talk to her again. But I didn’t kill her, Max. Honest I didn’t.’

‘You got out of the car, and then quarrelled?’

‘No. She got in the car – out of the rain. We had an awful row in the car. Then we both got out. She threatened to tell Paula, tell everyone, things she had found out from her research.’

‘Her research?’

‘Yes. About
el abuelo.’

‘Grandpa? Was that sufficient reason to kill her?’

‘Max, I swear on Encarnita’s life I didn’t kill her. I got back in the car and left. When I left her, she was alone on the bridge. That’s the truth.’

‘I don’t know whether to believe you. You haven’t been exactly straight with me. What about your clothes? When I arrived at the house on Sunday, Isabel complained to me that you’d put your best white shirt in the washing machine along with all your other clothes. Is that because they had mud on them when you clambered down the ravine to see if Leila was dead?’

‘No. They were soaked through, that’s all. The rain had stopped just before I got home, and I didn’t want Isabel going on and on about my sodding shirt. You know what she’s like.’

‘Juan, what sort of idiot do you take me for?’

‘It wasn’t like that, believe me. Leila begged me to go away with her. I said I couldn’t. And we got out of the car into the rain.’

‘And then what?’

‘We both lost our tempers. She’s a bloody wildcat . . . . said she’d tell Isabel everything. I could have lived with that. But then she threatened to tell Paula, and the whole bloody world, that she’d found evidence that grandpa betrayed Lorca, and shafted Antonio as well. That would have killed Paula, Max. It would have killed her.’

‘Juan, I think you’re telling me the truth now. But to a cop it looks bad, very bad.’

‘I know. I didn’t want the affair to come out. And once I delayed . . . then all the evidence pointed at me. And the more I delayed the more the arrow pointed straight at me. I was trapped.’

‘And the sweet wrapper?’’

‘The sweet wrapper?’

‘Yes. You gave me a mint wrapped in a distinctive silver paper. I found a fragment of that paper, close to where we found Leila’s body.’

‘I’m fond of mints. Got a taste for them, that’s all. El Café Paraíso gives them out with every coffee. Anybody could have dropped that mint paper.’

‘If you didn’t kill her, then who did?’

‘Well, the police think it’s that Muslim kid.’

‘Too convenient for the police, for everyone. Where’s the motive?’

‘He was very keen on her. Leila told me . . . said she needed a younger man, and had a beautiful one keen on her. I assumed she was joking.’

‘That’s no reason to kill her.’

They fell silent, Juan anxiously looking at Max.

‘Juan, I just don’t know what to do.’

‘What good would it do if I came forward now? Destroy the family? Kill Paula? Leila’s dead. Hassan’s dead. Won’t do anybody any good.’

‘But I’m a cop now, Juan. I don’t know any more.’

‘Sometimes the truth harms the good, Max.’

‘I know. I know. Maybe Leila was just winding you up on grandpa?’

‘Never thought of that. I’ve got some of her research here. She used this office to work in sometimes. I put it in the cupboard over there.’

‘Have you looked at it?’

‘No. I haven’t. Not my scene.’

Max got up, walked to the cupboard, and opened the door. Inside were five boxes – the boxes she took from the archive.

‘Could be she found something among these,’ he said. ‘I’ll take them with me, and go through them, and then return them. I won’t say where I found them at this stage. Have you got a big bin bag?’

‘Should have. Let me look.’

Juan returned in a minute with a large plastic bin bag.

‘You always were the historian in the family, Max. Me, I prefer to forget the past.’

‘If you do that, the past will come back to haunt you,’ said Max, putting the boxes in the bin bag. ‘I’m exhausted.’

‘Here, let me help you. I’ll drive you home. My car’s not far.’

Juan took the black bag, and they walked down the stairs, out of the building and round the corner to Juan’s car. Juan put the bag in the back seat. Max got in beside him.

‘Max, I swear to you I didn’t kill her. It looks bad, I know. So bad I can’t see anyone believing me if I say I’m innocent. You’ve got to believe me.’

‘You’ve always had a gift for concocting stories. This time, I do believe you. But that’s because I’ve known you all my life. Who else will believe you?’

Juan stopped the car outside Max’s apartment. ‘Let me carry this up for you.’

When they got to the top of the stairs, Juan said, ‘What will you do?’

‘Do? I don’t know. For the moment, just sleep.’

Max awoke early. He sat up, put the pillow up to support his back, and watched the sun stream through the half-opened shutters. He watched the light dance on the floor tiles, move across the room on to his bed, and then stroke his face before finishing its ballet on the bedroom wall. Max sang softly to himself:

‘I Danced on a Friday
When the Sky turned Black,
It’s hard to Dance with
The Devil on your Back.’

And what a devil, he thought. What the hell do I do? Juan was at the scene of the crime, he had the motive, he had the opportunity, and he lied. Except he swears he didn’t kill her, swears he left her alive on the bridge. Anyone but Juan, and I wouldn’t believe it. Would a judge believe Juan? Unlikely. But could Juan still be lying? No, I’ve known Juan all my life. He’s a convincing fibber, but he’s never maintained a lie when it really matters.

Max went into the kitchen to make himself a cup of black coffee. He looked at the bin bag on the floor, took out the boxes of files and put them on the kitchen table. He made his coffee, and sat at the table, lost in thought. I can’t do anything before Paula’s birthday treat. If Juan was arrested it would kill her. There must be more evidence . . . one way or another.

Reaching that decision made Max feel a bit better. He took a shower, dressed, had a slice of toast and another coffee, and then sat down to go through the boxes of files. His task was easier than he expected: Leila had catalogued the material in each of them. He took out the papers on which she had catalogued the material, and started to read the list. His heart suddenly clenched: there, in her neat handwriting, was ‘Journal of Antonio Vargas, presumed shot near Diva, August 1937.’ Max took out all the material from the box corresponding to the catalogue list. And there, among piles of paper, was a small black notebook; mouldy, the cover stained with damp. Max opened it. It started with a poem. There were twenty-eight completed poems and some drawings. The second last poem was ‘On the Death of Federico García Lorca’. Max read aloud in a faltering voice:

‘The cypress and the cedar weep
But the moon sings loudly.
He is here. He is here.
And the sun is pale with rage.’

The poems stopped. Then there was a letter:

Querida Madre y Paula
,

It was wonderful to see you. You are both more beautiful than ever. I am well, and in good spirits. I made my way safely to the hut, and hope to get to the coast. There are some things I should explain to you, and I may not see you for a while. I told you that Luis Rosales, the poet, came to see me on the evening of 13
^th
August last year. It was an unexpected pleasure, as our lives had gone in such different directions. We talked about this and that, mainly our poetry. He finally told me that Federico was hiding in his family home and had asked to see me. We arranged I would go to the Rosales’ house the next evening, after dark, about midnight. Luis would be waiting to let me in. Federico and I talked for over an hour. He remembered you both with affection, and wished you every happiness. He had finished another play. He told me it had started as one of his Granada comedies –
The Nuns of Granada
. But given his circumstances he had changed direction completely, and it is now a full drama . . .
The Guns of Granada
. Art and life are very strange. It’s his most political play, perhaps his only political play, he said. He hopes that one day it will be performed here in Granada, but he decided not to tell the Rosales family about this play. They had been very kind to him and he did not wish to make things more complicated for them.

I have to tell you . . . Federico was frightened something might happen to him. He asked me to give the play to Manuel de Falla, and ask him to get it out of the country. I promised to do that. We embraced, and that was the last time I saw Federico. As I was leaving he said, ‘Antonio, if anything happens to me get in touch with Pablo Romero – he’s a relative of the Archbishop. Nobody here would do anything if the Archbishop opposes it.’

I left. I hid the play under the floorboards of my rented room. I never managed to hand the play over to Manuel de Falla. I went to see Pablo, and told him that Federico was hiding in the house of Luis Rosales. I told him that Federico felt his life was in danger, and that if he was arrested, he wanted Pablo to go straight to the Archbishop and use his family connections to plead for his release.

Two days later, a group from Acción Popular arrested Federico. I’m sure it was not a coincidence. I saw Pablo in the street before I left Granada, just after the rumours had started that Federico had been shot. We talked briefly. I asked him if he had gone to the Archbishop. He said he had not, as the Archbishop hated Lorca and wouldn’t lift a finger to help him. He claimed that just even asking the question could have compromised all of us . . . you, his own family and me. So he didn’t even try. What a coward! But he thought he was being very prudent. He then had the damned cheek to ask if he could become engaged to you, my little sister. I was so angry . . . I told him that as long as I remained alive he would never marry you.