The rain and the sudden drop in temperature seemed to have kept away the bar’s usual clientele. Few were here tonight. Granted, the hour was later than yesterday. Lieutenant Nogueira had insisted on meeting after eleven. Manuel was indifferent to the choice of hour. After returning from As Grileiras, he’d lunched on the inn’s soup and beef filet and then slept all afternoon, plunged into torpor by the dim light of the long rainy day. Daylight was dying away when he awoke. He shut his eyes and tried to hold for an instant longer to the dream image of his sister lying beside him in close embrace. It was no use; she was gone. He looked through the window at stones darkened by water and soaked trees patiently withstanding the lashing rain. It all looked as sad and static as those bleak Sundays of his childhood in his aunt’s apartment.
Manuel opened the window and took a deep breath of humid air laden with smells of loam and rock. The prevailing deep silence made those scents seem even more pungent. He again told himself this was perfect weather for writing, and he even looked around for his materials.
The brilliant white sheets of writing paper gleamed on the somber desktop, still untouched in their transparent cellophane wrappers. He was jolted by the sudden realization that his reluctance to put pen to paper was ridiculous. His refusal was part of a strange masochistic pleasure in suffering that only prolonged this torture of his soul. He was that foolish angel sleeping in the open and refusing from sheer pride to return to paradise. He went back to bed and huddled under the covers, leaving the window open. He reached out with one hand to pick up the collection of Poe’s macabre writings. He was killing time until his meeting with Nogueira.
The retired policeman sat there with a beer and a plate with what looked like the remains of a bar snack. Manuel ordered a draft beer and almost sent back the slice of omelette the waiter delivered with it. “You want it?”
Nogueira nodded and didn’t bother to thank him. “You should take it while you can, man. Free food’s a blessing.”
Maybe not. Manuel glanced at the potbelly that bulged against the man’s thin sweater. And that’s about all you’ve got on your mind.
“You remember what I told you the first day?”
“Your promise to haul me off behind the mountain and shoot me? How could I forget that?”
Nogueira stopped the fork halfway to his mouth. He was not amused. “A real comedian today, aren’t you? Keep that in mind. I was dead serious. We’ve got a lot to lose in this case.”
“I know that.”
“And don’t forget it. Today we’re going to pay a visit to a lady friend of mine who has something to tell you.”
“Ophelia?”
A sour grin gleamed behind Nogueira’s big mustache. “No, not that kind of friend. I’m warning you—you’re probably not going to like what you hear.”
Manuel nodded. “Got it.”
The policeman paid the bill, exited the bar, and paused in the shelter of the awning at the entrance. He lit a cigarette and smoked with evident pleasure. “We located the phone booth, the one with the strange number used to call álvaro. Not that it’s of much use. It’s in Lugo; there’s no telling whether the caller is from that area or was just covering his tracks.”
Manuel nodded again but made no comment.
“What did the administrator tell you?”
“He admitted he telephoned álvaro. But he claims he didn’t know álvaro was in town until Santiago called to tell him about the accident. He said Santiago had been urgently requesting a large amount of money, more than the firm was authorized to pay out.”
“How much?”
“Three hundred thousand euros.”
“Wow!” Nogueira liked that. “That stinks to high heaven! Did he say what he needed it for?”
“No, he refused. But he told Gri?án he needed it right away.”
“And when he couldn’t lay hands on it, he must have said he couldn’t wait another week for his brother’s scheduled visit,” Nogueira concluded. “What did Santiago say?”
“He wasn’t back,” Manuel lied. “He returns tonight.” The writer didn’t share the scene of Santiago in the church covering his face to stifle his howling desperation.
“Are you sure Gri?án didn’t warn him?”
He recalled the administrator’s contrite expression at the conclusion of their conversation. “He didn’t. And he won’t.”
“Good,” the officer snorted. “So we’ve made a little progress at least. There’s only one thing that doesn’t add up. Why didn’t Santiago just phone álvaro?”
“He didn’t have the number. The only way the family could contact álvaro was through Gri?án.”
Nogueira seemed inclined to dispute that, but he dropped the matter. “We’ll take my car.” He snuffed out the cigarette in a container of sand by the entrance and strode out into the rain toward his parked vehicle.
A STRANGE WORLD
The quiet swish of wipers at low speed was the only sound that disturbed the silence.
Manuel waited until they were well on the highway. “I managed to spend some time with Herminia and Elisa. They both told me about Fran, the youngest brother.”
Nogueira’s nod indicated he was listening.
“Herminia’s story was more or less like what Gri?án said. Fran was devastated by his father’s death, and he killed himself by overdosing on heroin.” He paused to choose his words. “But Elisa is certain it wasn’t suicide. She said Fran was clean, done with drugs. He reassured her, told her everything would be all right. Of course, someone thinking about suicide might say that too.”
Nogueira didn’t comment. He clicked his right turn signal, drove into an open lot, and stopped the car. Through the rain-soaked windshield the blinking neon lights of a bar were visible. There were few cars in the lot.
“That’s exactly the kind of crap I mentioned the other day.” His voice was testy.
Manuel waited in silence.
“I told you already. This wasn’t the first time they papered over something the Mu?iz de Dávila family might have found painful. I was in charge of the team that responded to the call from As Grileiras before dawn. We found the young addict dead across his father’s grave. The syringe was still in his arm. The family and employees gave us the same story. The father died and they’d buried him the day before. Fran was terribly stressed, they said, and after the burial he said he wanted to be alone. Everything we got from the relatives suggested he was depressed. After a year in rehab with his fiancée, he’d come back for the old man’s final days. Everybody claimed father and son were very close, and they all assumed that instead of dealing with it, the boy took the worst possible way out. Only the fiancée found it hard to believe. She told me the same thing she said to you. I wasn’t too surprised. Suicide is always hard on those left behind. But when we removed the body I concluded she was right.”
Manuel looked at him in astonishment.
“Yeah, there was a syringe in his arm, but the boy’d been struck hard on the head. The toes of his shoes were scuffed and scratched, as if he’d been dragged. We initiated a routine investigation but got called off. The bosses ‘suggested’ it would be a shame to cause additional suffering, considering it was obvious how the youngster died. The lab tests did in fact confirm an overdose killed him. Inside the church we found the kit used to prepare the fix, so it was officially decreed that he’d collapsed there but then managed to stagger out to the cemetery. They concluded that on his way through the graves in the dark, he must have stumbled and hit his head. A good hard blow, one that left him dazed but not unconscious. He dragged himself as far as his father’s grave, passed out, and succumbed.”