The Good Suicides (8 page)

Martina was intrigued, no doubt. Since the previous afternoon, Salgado’s words had been going around in her head, like an annoying sting too small to pull out. To top it all, he’d spent the whole morning with Savall once more and he wasn’t free until after lunch.

“Spit it out, Héctor,” she blurted as soon as she sat down opposite him. “You have me on tenterhooks and I won’t put up with it. You know surprises make me nervous.”

He did know. Sometimes Héctor sympathized with the sergeant’s husband, whom he barely knew. Having someone at your side who was always right could be annoying at times.

Salgado took a deep breath.

“You saw I was in a meeting with Savall yesterday?”

“Of course I did. Don’t play hard to get,” she warned him with a smile.

“Wait. Don’t be impatient.” He’d considered the most appropriate words, but at that moment, with her sitting opposite looking at him
with her usual frankness, he ditched them completely. “Well, Calderón was here. You know him, from the National’s organized crime unit.”

Martina knew him by sight. They’d worked together on the Nigerian women-trafficking case the year before, although it had been Héctor who’d worked more closely with him.

“I’ll sum it up briefly. Now he’s involved in various things, although he is focusing on one thing in particular. Eastern mafia. Ukrainians, Georgians, Romanians … and Russians.” The emphasis on the last word was clear. “Until now, the Russians have used Spain as a site of investment, not crime.”

Martina nodded. The news of the supposed
vor v zakonye
, or “thieves in law,” had been current in newspapers and official circles for some time. They were the equivalents of the
capos
of the Italian mafia, residing comfortably and luxuriously in different parts of Europe, especially in the south, and they laundered money thanks to the great bottomless well that had been property investment, in coastal developments in particular.

“Good,” Héctor continued. “As you also know, property is no longer what it was and, according to Calderón, some of those who up to now focused only on investment are changing their strategy. They are moving their money somewhere else more profitable, and they’re beginning to think of Spain as a place of business. You know—drugs, girls, everything …

“It seems they’re scattering. Previously they all lived together, on the coast generally, with the intention of going unnoticed and being taken for foreign residents seeking a more favorable climate than their own. According to Calderón, the moves began a few months ago. The boss stays in place, but his associates have been dispatched to different points on the peninsula: Valencia, Madrid, Galicia, Tarragona …”

“They think they are building a kind of organized network?”

“Exactly. Tough times, Martina, as we all know. And at a time like this, money is well received everywhere without anyone asking too many questions.”

“You mean corruption?”

“Corruption, necessity … Poverty, at the end of the day. The best incentive for crime. The poverty of the new rich, especially those who don’t want to go back to being poor.” Héctor shrugged. “I don’t know the details. Apparently the thing is just starting, and perhaps for once we have an advantage over them. At least we know their movements, which is something. And the Ministry of the Interior is firmly resolved not to allow their businesses to flourish. Whatever happens.”

Martina Andreu said nothing, but it was clear from her body language that she didn’t understand what she had to do with it all.

“Good. This firm resolve translates into funds for a special unit headed up by Calderón. And with colleagues from all the different autonomous forces. I think Savall called it a ‘built-in unit.’ ” He smiled.

“And?” Martina didn’t dare to ask the question directly.

“And they want you in. Well, actually, they want you to coordinate our part. You’ll be in charge of a small group of agents and will report directly to Calderón.”

Martina leaned back in the chair, as if someone had pushed her.

“But …” She wasn’t diplomatic, she never had been, and she put the question to him straight. “Wouldn’t it be more logical for you to take charge of this? Or some other inspector?”

Salgado raised his eyebrows.

“Well … Martina, let’s not kid ourselves, you know I’m more or less on the bench at the moment.” With a movement of his head he hushed the sergeant’s imminent protest. “It’s how it is. I asked for it, partly.” He lightly hit his chest. “Mea culpa. Don’t worry about it.”

“Of course I’ll worry. It’s not fair, and—”

“Martina! As the tangos say, life isn’t fair. I pity anyone who believes otherwise. I broke Omar’s face—that’s a fact that, on record, translates as violent tendencies, with no space for explanations. And then”—his voice became more serious—“there’s the matter of Ruth.”

Martina looked away. She’d come to dislike that name and all it implied, although she’d never say so to her boss. She cared about Héctor a
lot; she’d seen him so obsessed with finding an answer that when Savall held firm and took him off the case she’d almost felt relieved. It wasn’t fair, but as he’d just said, was life ever?

“So now all you have to consider is whether you’re interested or not.” They both knew that was stupid. If the superintendent had put her forward, there was little to be considered. “Martina, this is a good opportunity. You know it is.”

Héctor was aware, or at least guessed, that there was something else. Savall had wanted to rescue Martina Andreu, a woman he cared about personally and professionally, from the camp of exiles. For better and above all for worse, Andreu’s name was associated with Salgado’s, and the sooner this bond was broken the better it would be for the sergeant’s career. Of course, he wasn’t going to tell her so. Martina was so loyal she wouldn’t hesitate in raising hell if she suspected anything of the sort.

“My situation is complicated,” she clarified. “You know Rafa is still unemployed, right?”

He nodded. The sergeant’s husband was a technical architect and had been one of the first to feel the pinprick in the property bubble. First he went months without being paid and finally had been left with no work, and with few prospects of finding any, the previous September.

“I don’t know if this is the best time for me to …”

Héctor understood, but his obligation was to bring her around to the contrary.

“Martina, don’t scupper it. Don’t sacrifice a great opportunity through misguided loyalty. That won’t do either of you any good, not him and not you.”

“You can’t imagine what it’s like to see him at home.” She wasn’t given to discussing personal subjects, even with him. “He’s irritable, he gets angry at the kids over stupid things. Sometimes I think I’m not going to put up with it anymore. It kills me to see him depressed and at the same time it makes me angry, as if it’s partly his fault. As if the solution is that he should accept anything. And then I hate myself … Fuck.”

“It’s not his fault and you know it. But if you let this opportunity go, then you really will have something to blame him for.”

She forced herself to smile.

“So you want to get rid of me, Inspector Salgado.”

“Of course,” he admitted, feigning seriousness. He looked at the roof, as if he were giving thanks to a supreme being. “All this is a conspiracy I dreamed up to finally be free of your nagging.”

They looked at each other more affectionately than usual. Neither of the two was exactly effusive in their affections; perhaps that was why they had always understood each other so well.

“And if I accept, when does it all start?”

“Savall is waiting for you in his office … now. There’s a meeting in Madrid the day after tomorrow.”

“Fuck. Is someone at home packing my suitcase without me knowing?”

“I thought of sending Fort, mainly so he’d do something useful …”

Héctor’s joke hung in the air like an aimless arrow as the door opened and the person in question appeared on the threshold.

“Excuse me,” Roger apologized.

Salgado almost blushed, and Martina Andreu took advantage of the moment to rise.

“I’ll leave the boss all to you. We’ll talk,” she added, turning to Salgado. She winked at him before leaving and murmured, “Go on making friends.”

Héctor spent the first few minutes trying to figure out if Fort would have heard his unfortunate comment; he cursed himself for having said it and yet he couldn’t help thinking that that boy had the gift of bad timing. So when he suddenly saw in his face that Fort had just asked a question he hadn’t heard, he didn’t know how to answer and looked at the photo the agent had placed on his desk with unusual intensity.

“So, Fort,” he finally said, in an attempt to summarize, “you found this photo in Sara Mahler’s apartment and spoke to her roommate. Don’t rush, describe the interview slowly.”

His subordinate looked at him, flushing.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and Héctor felt even worse than before. “I suppose I’m in a hurry to get to the end.”

For the next few minutes Roger Fort obediently told him of the impressions gathered in his brief encounter with Kristin Herschdorfer. He explained that, while not definitive, they suggested Sara Mahler was not easy to live with, she led a solitary life and generally didn’t seem happy. All ready for happy Christmas to be the final blow, thought Héctor. Her flatmate was away, the house empty. If Sara had felt depressed in those final days, perhaps she had opted to end it all forever. Suddenly something occurred to him that it seemed no one had acknowledged up to now.

“And why was she in the metro station at that time? Any idea?”

Agent Fort looked uncertain.

“I mean, according to this Kristin, Sara hardly went out … And if she was in the habit of staying out all night, she would have told you so. But in the early hours of Thursday Sara was in the metro. She had to be going or coming from somewhere, right?” He answered himself: “Even if she had decided to throw herself onto the tracks, she didn’t have to go to a station so far away. And I doubt if she left home with that idea.”

It was a more than reasonable doubt. Although statistics were an inexact science, few women chose this method to end their lives. Héctor still believed those who did were succumbing to a momentary temptation, that moment of desperation in which the fatal jump felt like the only option.

Roger shook his head, distressed.

“I don’t know, sir. I’m sorry, it hadn’t occurred to me until now.”

“Well, don’t worry. What else did you want to tell me?”

Slowly, Fort continued with his story: the description of the apartment, of the bedroom; the photos of the footballers on the corkboard … and finally came to the photograph Inspector Salgado had before him.

It showed Sara with seven people: two women and five men of
various ages, between thirty and fiftysomething. Sara was at one side of the photo and, although she was smiling, there was a barely perceptible but real distance between her and the rest of the group.

“Are they all work colleagues?”

“Yes, sir. As soon as I saw it, I had the impression that one of the faces was familiar. The guy on the opposite side of the photo. The one wearing glasses.”

“And?”

“If I’m not mistaken, and I don’t think I am, that’s Gaspar Ródenas.”

Héctor frowned slightly. An excited Roger Fort finally repeated the phrase he’d said at the start of the conversation that the inspector hadn’t heard.

“Last September, Gaspar Ródenas killed his wife and his fourteen-month-old daughter. Then he committed suicide.”

Salgado looked at the photo. He didn’t take on domestic violence cases, but the age of the little girl had stayed with him.

“You mean Sara and Gaspar Ródenas worked at the same company? And both have committed suicide?”

“Yes, sir. Bit strange, isn’t it?”

Yes, thought Héctor. Very strange. He looked back at the photo: of those eight people, all relatively young, two had died in a violent manner. In the case of one, the suicide took place alongside his family; in the other, all alone. Although everything could have another explanation, if you listened to the experts.

“Remember the knock-on effect?” he asked Fort. “If you asked me, I’d say I don’t really believe in these things, but there’s something in it. If Sara was very depressed, her colleague’s action might have given her the idea.”

He said it without much conviction. The acts of a parricidal killer could hardly be taken as an example for anyone in their right mind. And up to now, his idea of Sara Mahler was that she was no lunatic.

Héctor checked the time before speaking again. That day he wanted to leave the office on time.

“Fort, make me a copy of the photo before you go. Tomorrow try to establish what Sara was doing in that station. And get information from the domestic violence people, see what they tell you.” His eyes sought the card Víctor Alemany had given him and finally they found it. “As soon as we gather a little more information, we’ll go and pay Alemany Cosmetics a courtesy call.”

Roger Fort nodded, although Héctor wasn’t sure he’d picked up the sarcasm.

“Oh, and good work, Fort. Keep it up.”

You said it Savall-style, he reproached himself. Last minute and not looking him in the eyes.

Although he’d had the keys to Sílvia’s apartment for months—since before the summer, when they announced their engagement—whenever César used them when she wasn’t there he felt like an intruder. He opened the door slowly and lingered a few seconds before going in, like someone fearing the attack of a nonexistent dog. Shortly it would be his home as well, he thought, but he just couldn’t shake off the behavior of a guest entirely. He was aware of it, and to tell the truth it annoyed him. He would prefer to move around and feel relaxed as in his own apartment: leave his jacket thrown any old way on the chair, kick off his shoes and change his clothes. In her place, he hung up his coat on the coat stand in the hall and loosened the knot of his tie a little.

He couldn’t hear a sound, and went toward the kitchen to grab a beer. He knew Sílvia bought them for him. He opened it and tossed the cap in one of the three small trash cans, not without checking that he’d thrown it into the right one. Damn recycling. At his apartment he had a single garbage bag, as always, but Sílvia was obsessed with these details. And her children were as well. Fuck, once he’d felt like an environment-wrecker just for putting a milk carton where he shouldn’t. The clock showed 18:40, which meant Sílvia still wouldn’t get home for more than an hour. Pol had indoor soccer training and Emma, the oldest, must be at some friend’s house. Good, César felt more comfortable without them there.