“There’s something else I haven’t mentioned. Nogueira, you already know most of this. A few days after álvaro’s funeral the police returned his effects. With them was a cell phone I’d never seen before, and when we checked the history there was one call from a public phone booth. álvaro’s secretary told me he used that phone exclusively for his business here.” He looked at Nogueira, who nodded in confirmation. “What you don’t know is that his secretary told me the day before álvaro left to travel here, a call came in on that phone and she picked it up. The person on the other end said, ‘You can’t ignore it, you hear me? He has the proof, he knows you killed him, and he’s going to tell unless you do something.’”
Lucas was so enraged he spun almost completely around. “For the love of God! Are you saying álvaro was a murderer? Maybe you’re right, Manuel, when you say you never knew him. But I did, and I’m telling you álvaro was not a killer.”
“What I’m saying is that I’m convinced it was his own brother who telephoned. Santiago must have been so desperate that somehow he managed to get álvaro’s number. It’s not inconceivable that Gri?án might have given it to him. When Gri?án told me about Santiago’s request for money, he said Santiago was in a hurry and very worried. Think about those words: He knows you killed him. The person who knew was To?ino, and To?ino turned up dead. According to the medical examiner he’s probably been dead since the day he went missing, the same day álvaro came back to deal with the problem. Don’t you try to threaten me.”
Lucas furiously rejected the possibility, pressing his lips together in an expression of unyielding opposition and enormous anger.
Manuel’s phone buzzed, suddenly loud in the confines of the vehicle. He looked down at the screen, about to turn off the phone. It was Mei Liu. He took the call, listened to her without saying a word, and ended it. The tense silence hung heavy inside the car like a looming tempest. He found himself missing his furry little friend, Café.
The final miles were driven in total silence. Nogueira pulled up in the parking lot, let Lucas and Manuel out, and took to the highway, this time heading for the crime scene.
A troubling tension hung in the air between Manuel and Lucas. Manuel went toward his car.
Lucas followed him. “Where are you going, Manuel?”
“I’m going to As Grileiras. You can come or stay here, but I’m fed up. I want an answer, and I want it right now.”
Lucas accepted that. He went around the car and took the passenger seat.
REASON AND BALANCE
The light of late afternoon was fading fast. By the time they got to the estate, the last rays of the setting sun cast a golden glow across the front of the manor house that made it look deceptively welcoming.
They went straight to the kitchen entrance. As they’d expected, they found Herminia and her husband seated at the kitchen table. The two were holding hands and their faces were full of pain. Startled at the sight of Lucas and Manuel, the housekeeper leaped to her feet and threw herself in the priest’s arms. “Oh, please, no! Please, not this.” She broke down in sobs. They were shaken by her terrible distress.
Lucas was particularly alarmed. “What’s the matter, Herminia?”
“You don’t know? You’re not here because of Santiago?”
Lucas, still holding Herminia close, glanced at Manuel in amazement. “What’s happened to Santiago?” Manuel, baffled, threw up his hands.
Herminia dissolved in tears. “Fillo, this house is cursed. They’re all dying on me! I’m going to lose all my darlings!”
Manuel turned to her husband. He sat watching, stolid and unspeaking, as if all this had nothing to do with him. Or perhaps as if nothing could surprise him anymore. Manuel racked his brain and managed to recall the man’s name.
“Damián—what happened to Santiago?”
“They took him away in an ambulance. Catarina’s with him. They say he took a whole pile of pills. If it weren’t for the child, he’d be dead by now. The boy went into his room and was shaking him, trying to get him to wake up.”
“Samuel?”
The man nodded. “He’d be dead if the boy hadn’t found him.”
“Where’s the boy? Is he all right?”
Herminia pulled free of Lucas’s arms. “Manuel, the child is fine, don’t worry about him, he has no idea of what happened. The poor little thing thinks it was all a game. He’s upstairs, and his mother is reading him a story.”
Manuel crossed the kitchen and dropped heavily into a chair. Everything around him was collapsing. He tried to put his thoughts in order. He’d come intending to pin Santiago down, to confront him and wring a confession out of him. His mind called up the vision of the afternoon he’d glimpsed Santiago weeping alone in the dark church. Maybe Santiago had been weighed down by more anguish than anyone knew, more pain than he could bear.
Lucas got ahead of him. “What happened, Herminia? There has to be a reason for it. You know Santiago as well as anyone, and nobody suddenly decides to kill himself, not from one day to the next. What was he thinking?”
Herminia’s lips twisted in a terrible grimace. Her distress disappeared in a flash, giving way to a ferocious look of absolute contempt. “Of course I know what happened. The same as always: that horrid old woman won’t stop until she’s buried all her children! Any sane person’d say she loves to see them suffer! That”—her face hardened, and she spat out the word—“bitch!” She paused. “Yesterday Catarina told us their big news. She’s pregnant again. And, well, you know how Santiago is about such things; he’s always worrying about her. They had an early supper and went to bed.” She broke down again, weeping bitterly. “But that witch wouldn’t let us celebrate!”
Damián raised his chin and looked at her, upset but resigned.
Manuel got up and reversed their roles. Just as Herminia had comforted him days earlier, he took her hands and led her to a chair; then, with her hands still in his, he sat close and let her speak.
“It was this morning. I was with Sarita, cleaning one of the rooms upstairs, and I heard them arguing. You already know I never go into her part of the house,” she declared emphatically. “I saw him come out of there in tears. His mother stood in the door behind him laughing and carrying on, and she didn’t care that Sarita and I were there. The old woman kept mocking him and laughed until she heard him slam the front door downstairs. I went to the window and saw him ride off on one of the horses; he always goes riding when he’s upset. Except that he shouldn’t, with his hand in a cast the way it is.”
“Do you know what they were arguing about?”
Herminia shook her head.
“And when did all this with the pills happen?”
“Less than an hour ago. The boy was looking for someone to play with, went into Santiago’s room, and thank God he went to tell Elisa his uncle wouldn’t wake up.”
“I had no idea about Santiago, Herminia,” Manuel told her gravely. “I know you love him, and I’m very sorry about this.”
She gave him a miserable little smile of appreciation for his sympathy.
“I’m here because I wanted to ask you a question.”
Herminia’s expression changed to one of puzzlement.
“About something you said the other day when we were talking about álvaro and how they sent him away when he was only twelve. When I brought it up, you mentioned a certain day when something happened between álvaro and his father.”
Herminia looked away for a moment. “I wasn’t talking about any particular day. They just didn’t get along at all, and the school expelled álvaro. His father was very angry with him.”
“Yes, I heard what you said,” Manuel replied patiently. “But they expelled álvaro from San Xoan on December 13, and I just received a call from Madrid telling me he entered boarding school on the 23rd of that same month. I know something bad must have happened during those ten days to make them send away a child from a Catholic home the day before Christmas Eve.”
“Nothing in particular happened.” Herminia got up and busied herself with the pots on the stove.