Death on a Galician Shore (8 page)

After sorting the crabs, Arias went to the other basket, which was full of hundreds of squirming shrimp. He tipped them out on to three trays and went through them carefully, discarding the dead ones and removing seaweed, small crabs and starfish. As he finished, he placed each tray on the scales for the auctioneer to mark them with their weight. Finally, he set them out on the metal table.

A few feet away, Ernesto Hermida and the woman in the apron were also sorting through the catch, but his traps contained only crabs. They graded and weighed them and then placed them on the table alongside Arias’s. Hermida had also caught some fish – six
pollock and a couple of mackerel – which he laid on another tray, before standing aside with the woman to wait for the auction to begin.

A man with long grey sideburns and two women were leaning over the table, carefully inspecting the catch. Caldas assumed they were choosing which trays they would bid on.

Another two men, about the same age as Hermida, stood at the entrance, looking out at the rain and the sea, with little apparent interest in the auction.

In the course of his work Caldas had been to the fish market in Vigo a few times. He’d always been struck by the noise of the auctions, the hustle and bustle of boats, lorries, people and crates. He’d enjoyed listening to the shouts and laughter of these men of the sea, aware that the city slept beyond, indifferent to the wakefulness of these nocturnal beings. That morning, however, at the market in Panxón, the only sound disturbing the silence was the rumble of waves breaking on the shore, and Caldas assumed that it must be Justo Castelo’s very recent death that was silencing the place.

The auctioneer approached the table, ran a hand over his black goatee, and indicated the trays on which the shrimp from Arias’s traps wriggled.

‘Excellent shrimp,’ he announced. ‘I’ll start at forty-five euros. Forty-five, forty-four and a half, forty-four, forty-three and a half, forty-three …’

Panxón was a small port, with few fishermen or buyers. No one had deemed it necessary to modernise the auctions with electronics, as they had done in most ports in Galicia. Here, the auctioneer still called out the prices.

‘It’s going down,’ whispered Estevez.

‘Of course,’ replied Caldas.

‘Some system. You just have to wait …’

The two women and the man with the sideburns seemed to confirm Estevez’s theory, remaining silent as the auctioneer called out ever-lower prices.

‘Thirty-two and a half, thirty-two …’

One of the women raised a hand. ‘Yes,’ she said.

The auction stopped and the woman inspected the trays of shrimp again, choosing which to buy at the price.

‘I’ll take them all,’ she said. Beside her, the man with the sideburns flashed her an annoyed look.

‘See?’ whispered the inspector. ‘If you wait too long, you can end up with nothing.’

The auctioneer pointed towards the crabs and began his chant again. Then he auctioned the fish. When it was over, the man with the grey sideburns and the women went to a small office at the side of the hall, where the auctioneer took payment and issued receipts.

At the door to the office, Caldas heard them exchange brief words of regret over Castelo’s death. He wanted to speak to the auctioneer before he closed the market until the following day, and ask if he’d noticed anything odd about Castelo’s behaviour. He’d have time to question the two fishermen later.

He looked round to check that they hadn’t left. Hermida was over in the corner, removing his waterproofs, but there was no sign of Arias.

‘Where’s the tall one?’ he asked Estevez.

‘He was here a moment ago, carrying his plastic bag. He must have gone outside.’

Caldas was afraid he’d gone home to bed after the night’s fishing.

‘Make sure the other fisherman and the auctioneer don’t leave until I get back,’ he said to his assistant. ‘I want to speak to them.’

He walked quickly towards the entrance, where the two old boys were still silently staring out to sea.

Emerging from the market building, Caldas looked around for Arias. Dawn was breaking and, with the tower of the Templo Votivo del Mar looming above it, the village was waking up. He saw a couple of people in the distance, walking along the promenade, but the fisherman hadn’t had time to get that far.

He turned back towards the old men. Before he’d even asked, one of them jerked his head towards the slipway, and Caldas saw Arias crouching at the water’s edge.

Caldas hunched deeper into his cagoule as a fine rain fell on his head. A few paces away, the fisherman, in a waterproof hat, turned the plastic bag inside out to release the crabs. They dropped on to the stone slipway and, now free, scuttled down to the water and disappeared.

One of the crabs fell upside-down and Caldas saw that it was a female, its abdomen covered with roe. He noticed the same coral patch on all the crabs the fisherman was returning to the sea. They were females about to spawn, loaded with hundreds of tiny eggs the same colour as the fishermen’s waterproofs.

‘Not everyone does that,’ said Caldas. He’d found crabs on his plate just as full of roe on too many occasions.

The man shrugged and shook the bag gently with his great big hands, emptying the last few stragglers. ‘It’s none of my business what others do,’ he said in a voice that sounded as if it came from the bottom of a cave.

The last crab fell out of the bag and disappeared into the sea. It was dark, but Arias remained crouching for a moment, staring at the water as if he could see them crawling away on the sea floor.

When Arias stood up, Caldas realised that Estevez had been right: the fisherman was even taller than his assistant and, though he didn’t have Estevez’s bulk, he too was solidly built. He had dark skin and eyes, and the stubble on his chin was flecked with grey.

‘José Arias?’

The man nodded.

‘Do you have a moment?’

‘I was about to bring the boat up on to the slipway,’ he said, gesturing towards the small wooden craft in which he’d rowed back to land. It sat in the water beside Hermida’s, a few metres from the slipway. Both vessels were moored to the same metal ring embedded in the stone.

‘Is it OK if I hang around while you do that so we can talk? I’m Inspector Caldas, with the police. I’d like to ask you a few questions.’

The fisherman shrugged. ‘Fine. If you don’t mind the rain,’ he said, and pointed to a platform on the slipway where other small boats like his lay. ‘I’ll go and get the trailer.’

It was too late to back out so the inspector unzipped the neck of his cagoule, and drew out the hood.

Arias returned, pulling a small, two-wheeled metal trailer. He left it by the water’s edge.

‘It’s about your colleague Castelo, as you can guess,’ said Caldas, and he saw Arias wrinkle his nose.

‘Of course,’ he said, untying the end of the rope. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Did you know each other well?’

‘As you can see, there aren’t many of us fishing here. But we weren’t friends, if that’s what you’re asking.’

Caldas wasn’t particularly close to any of his colleagues at the station either.

‘I still can’t believe he’s dead,’ added Arias. ‘Is it true that his hands were bound?’

‘That’s right.’

The fisherman pulled on the rope, hauling in the boat until it was lined up with the trailer.

‘When did you last see Castelo?’

‘Saturday. In there.’

‘At the auction?’

‘That was in the morning,’ said Arias. ‘I saw him later on at the Refugio.’

‘Where?’ asked the inspector.

The fisherman pointed a huge finger at the promenade. Next to the fish market, outside the last building before the yacht club, hung a sign: ‘El Refugio del Pescador’.

‘When was that?’

‘In the evening.’

‘What time?’

‘It must have been seven or eight. I can’t give you a precise time.’

‘Was he alone?’

Arias nodded. ‘He was at the bar, talking to the waiter. Then he left.’

‘And you didn’t see him again?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Did you speak to him?’

Arias shook his head and crouched down by the boat, holding it by the bow. He removed the oars and dropped them on to the seaweed-covered stone.

‘How about at the auction, in the morning?’

‘No, not then either.’

‘Did he seem worried?’

Arias looked up. ‘I didn’t speak to him,’ he insisted in his deep voice.

‘Even so, did he appear anxious?’

‘You didn’t know him, did you?’

Caldas shook his head.

‘El Rubio never seemed anxious,’ said the fisherman, and in less time than it took him to say this, he lifted the boat out of the water, turned it over in the air and dropped it on to the trailer, upside-down. Water poured out of the boat and Caldas jumped aside so as not to get splashed.

‘Can I help?’

Arias lifted the boat by its side and centred it on the trailer.

‘No, thanks.’

Caldas recalled Justo Castelo’s skull on the autopsy trolley. The pathologist believed he’d been struck with a metal bar before being thrown into the water. Caldas pictured the man before him brandishing just such a bar. He wouldn’t have needed to exert his full strength to cause a wound like the one on the dead man’s head.

‘You say he never seemed anxious?’

‘He never got agitated, no.’

‘About anything?’

‘That’s how he was,’ replied Arias, and began pulling the trailer up the slipway.

Caldas followed. ‘Are you sure I can’t help?’

The fisherman glanced over his shoulder. ‘If you wouldn’t mind grabbing the oars …’

Caldas walked back to where the fisherman had left them and, as he bent down, he slipped on the seaweed that covered the lower section of the slipway.

‘Watch it,’ said the fisherman, scraping the sole of one of his rubber boots on the stone. ‘Those shoes are no good here.’

They weren’t much good for walking around a vineyard either, the inspector reflected, remembering the previous morning when he’d got them covered in mud by the river.

Stepping carefully, he followed Arias up to the platform where the fishermen kept their boats out of reach of high tide. Caldas counted six rowing boats. He noticed they all had the word
auxiliary
beside the name of the boat they served. On José Arias’s boat it read:
Auxiliary Aileen
.

‘What does that mean?’ asked Caldas, pointing at the dark letters hand-painted on the stern.

‘Aileen? It’s a name.’

‘I’ve never heard of it.’

‘It’s Scottish,’ said the fisherman, dropping the trailer on the slipway. He took the oars from the inspector and rested them on the upturned boat.

Caldas enquired about the dead man again: ‘Do you know if Castelo had had an argument with anyone recently?’

‘No, I don’t. As I said, El Rubio and I didn’t talk much,’ replied Arias in his deep voice.

This was the second time he’d mentioned that, though they were colleagues, they weren’t friends.

‘You didn’t get on?’

The fisherman said no, it wasn’t that, as he put a chain around the trailer, boat and oars.

‘Well, what, then?’

Arias shrugged. ‘Life,’ he said, tightening the chain and securing it with a small padlock.

Caldas looked around. All the other rowing boats were chained
up, too. He wondered who would want to steal these little old wooden boats.

‘You’re afraid they’ll get stolen?’

‘No, of course not, but sometimes the oars float off or get washed up on the beach.’ Arias indicated the padlock. ‘This thing can be kicked open, but at least the oars stay put.’

‘Which one is Castelo’s?’

‘That’s his trailer,’ he said, glancing over at one that lay empty. Then he indicated one of the rowing boats bobbing on the water tied to a buoy. ‘His rowing boat is moored there.’

The inspector went over to the empty trailer. It was chained up and the tiny padlock was locked. He recalled the two keys found on Justo Castelo’s body when he was pulled from the water. Neither was small enough to fit the padlock.

He thought he’d call Forensics to request a thorough examination of the trailer and the rowing boat out on the water, but he looked at his watch and decided to call later. Not even the conscientious Clara Barcia would be at work this early.

‘Whose is the other one?’ he asked, pointing to another empty trailer beside Castelo’s.

‘It’s the old man’s. Hermida’s his name. His rowing boat’s tied up down there.’

Caldas turned to look at the boat moored to a rusty ring.

‘Did you know that Castelo put out to sea on Sunday morning?’

‘So I heard.’

‘But there’s no fish market on a Sunday, is there?’

‘No.’

‘Do you and your colleagues go out fishing on Sundays?’

‘No,’ replied Arias without hesitation. ‘We rest.’

‘But someone saw Castelo in his boat before dawn.’

Arias shrugged. ‘If they saw him, then it must be true.’

‘Don’t you find it odd?’

‘It’s unusual,’ Arias admitted.

‘Why do you think he went out this particular Sunday?’

‘You’d have to ask him.’

Unfortunately that was no longer possible.

‘Do you know who saw him go out in his boat?’

‘No,’ replied the fisherman in his cavernous voice.

‘Not you, of course.’

‘No.’

Caldas felt for the packet of cigarettes in the pocket of his cagoule and held it for a moment.

‘What were you doing on Sunday morning?’

‘Sleeping,’ Arias muttered, and Caldas realised he wasn’t going to get any more out of him.

‘Thank you for your time,’ he said, holding out his hand. It disappeared in the fisherman’s, huge and rough. ‘I haven’t got any more questions for now, but I may need to speak to you again.’

‘I’ll be here.’

‘If you remember anything else, you can contact me on this number.’

Arias took the card Caldas handed him.

‘El Rubio didn’t commit suicide, did he, Inspector?’

Caldas replied with a question: ‘Would that surprise you?’

The fisherman made a face, which Caldas was at a loss to interpret.