––––––––
Time had not progressed much since three o’clock that afternoon when Eva was still sleeping peacefully in the darkness of her bedroom. Javi’s murder had affected her in such a way that she had been incapable of getting to sleep until well into the morning. She had reviewed it meticulously, weighing up the possibilities point by point, including those which at first glance seemed the most off the wall, but she did not manage to find a logical explanation for the case. There was always something that did not fit, a connection that was not convincing, and she ended up between the sheets in exasperation. Basically, the coherent idea of a hitwoman seemed to be completely at odds with a small and peaceful city like Ourense.
In the end, it was only a mug of hot milk at mid-morning, drunk in the semi-darkness of the kitchen, that had managed to send her off into a deep sleep. That, and returning to bed imagining the sweet awakening by her young husband Ramón on his return home from work at three thirty.
However, here gentle relaxation was now being threatened by the strident tone of her mobile, ringing with insistence on top of the bedside table, battling its way into her dreams. When she finally managed to identify the sound back in the real world, she reached out, with her eyes still closed, and torpidly put the phone to her ear, pressing the ‘answer’ button.
“Santiago!” The superintendent’s domineering voice resonated through Eva’s head like the most cruel and efficient of alarm clocks. “Are you still in bed?”
Eva moved the phone away from her ear slightly, to check the time: 3.10pm. She then brought the handset back to her ear.
“Sir, I had the night-shift last night, don’t you remember?” she answered, her voice heavy with sleep.
“Santiago, are you familiar with Covelo Recycling?”
“What? No, I don’t think so. I don’t know what that is...”
“It’s a recycling company over in O Vinteún. It works on grinding down every kind of material.”
“Well, I think this is the first I’ve ever heard of it. Why do you ask, should I know it from something?” What are you going on about, she thought as she answered.
“Because today, about an hour ago now, a man fell into a grinder, and everything suggests that it was the owner, Sebastián Covelo. Does that name ring any bells?”
“Oh, the poor man!”
“You can leave out your ‘poor man’ and gratuitous sentimentalities. The situation at hand is that we have a body in pieces after being visited by a dark-haired woman during the first hour of the morning’s work,” he barked forcefully. “The body was discovered by one of his employees when he returned from his delivery...”
“Sir, are you waking me up so I can cover an accident?” Eva interrupted, still not understanding the situation.
“I’m waking you up because next to the body was a golf ball. Still sound like an accident to you?”
Eva started so much that she sat up in bed.
“A golf ball?” she asked immediately.
“Yes, carefully and, I’m afraid, strategically placed on the machine’s display screen. That is why I’ve called you. I believe that last night you became acquainted with one of those balls.”
“Yes, I’m on my way now,” she answered hurriedly, as she got out of bed. “Give me ten minutes. Who will be there now?”
“The two patrol officers we sent. And Miguel and Juan too, who are here to start their shift, and also wanted to go. But they are all constables, and I need an inspector. Do you want to go, or shall I send another?” insisted the superintendent.
“No, no, I’ll get dressed and I’ll go,” she responded, now out of bed. “Do me a favour and call Antón, and send him there.”
“What?” exclaimed the superintendent immediately, “Santiago, he also did a night shift last night. You are the inspector; are you not capable of sorting them out alone until he comes in to work on time?”
“No, call him,” she answered brusquely, “and don’t worry, I’ll explain it all to him.”
Eva hung up and, without wasting any time, finished getting dressed. Immediately after, she tied her curly mane into a ponytail, and grabbed her coat from the peg, along with three slices of mouldy bread from the kitchen and, before leaving, wrote on the noticeboard on the fridge:
‘Hi darling- unforeseen circumstances.
I’m really, really, really, really sorry,
And I love you even more,
And I want you,
Lots of love xxx’
All of this took place in less than a minute. As for finishing arranging herself and eating, she would do that on the way. It’s a rare skill, being able to put on one’s makeup in the rear-view mirror whilst driving a police car at top speed with a mouthful of bread.
When she was just about to arrive at the crime scene, Eva turned off the siren and went down the straight Rúa do Vinteún in her blue C4 as if it were any other car in the neighbourhood. At the end of the street, the residential buildings finished, and the industrial site began. Arriving unannounced was an old custom that she always put into practise on any occasion that called for it. Perhaps it was a false intuition, but something inside her head was telling her that Juan and Miguel’s interest in being at that site was greater than it logically ought to have been, under normal circumstances.
From the middle of the street, she made out three police cars at the back and, at her side, some tape cordoning off a wide area in front of a large industrial unit. Directly above the entrance door, there was a big white and green sign: Covelo Recycling. She parked on the right, level with the end of the residential buildings, and on whose pavement the neighbours were milling around, trying to catch a glimpse of the scene. She got out of the car, with the last slice of bread in her hand, and approached the factory as she calmly ate. None of those present suspected that she was one of the police.
When she was still a certain distance away, she waved a greeting to the officer guarding the taped-off area, who returned the greeting whilst conversing in a forced manner with a journalist. Then she focussed on the movements that were coming from within the restricted zone: three men, of different ages, were waiting to the side of the unit with distressed faces. Inside one of the police cars, one officer remained seated whilst the other, Miguel, was talking with an older man who was waiting outside. She concluded that the other officers must have been inside the unit.
Just to the side of the tape, a young press photographer contemplated the scene in the hope of being able to capture a relevant photograph, without noticing Eva’s arrival. She swallowed the last mouthful of bread, and approached him.
“What’s happened?” she asked, from near his shoulder.
“Inspector!” responded the surprised young man. “You’re asking me?”
“Yes, they’ve only just told me,” she explained. “Anyway, I’m sure you know how to wheedle information out of a witness better than any of my men,” she continued.
“That’s for sure,” he said with conviction, “I don’t have such a desire to get answers in an accident,” he said, pointing towards Miguel, who continued to insistently interrogate the man. “Unless it wasn’t an accident...”
“I still don’t know,” Eva was unperturbed by the insinuation. “Before confirming it, we always have to discard all other options.”
The young man accepted the reply with the indifference of one who does not expect any concession from the person they are speaking to. In reality, he did not even understand why an inspector should have stopped to speak with him of all people before entering the scene of a crime.
Eva advanced towards the inside of the taped-off area, and stealthily approached where the three men were with Miguel. As soon as the latter noticed her presence, he turned to face her:
“Good afternoon, inspector.”
“Constable, I’m the one who questions the witnesses here,” she whispered to him, almost in his ear. “Don’t forget it.”
Miguel bowed his head. His face was like that of a child whose teacher had just caught him copying. Then he said, excusing himself:
“I was only asking him if he had seen her. He has to remember something about that woman.”
“And I hope that you remember what I have just told you.”
There was no need for her to press the matter. Miguel gave a reserved look towards the three men, and then got into the patrol car in which Juan, his partner, was waiting for him. They set off on their way. At the end of the day, they should not have been there.
Once the patrol car had gone, Eva directed herself towards the inside of the unit. There, the usual aroma of crushed metal did not manage to conceal the cold and yet penetrating odour of lukewarm blood. She had barely taken a few steps forward. She could make out to her left what was undoubtedly the office. Ahead was the grinder, in front of which one of the officers was tirelessly taking notes. To the left of him, and skirting the edge of the office, was the rest of the unit: it was an elongated space, and perpendicular to where she was standing. She deduced that the lorries with the crushed material would leave through the main entrance, and enter with the uncrushed material through the other side, even though this was certainly a trivial detail as far as the investigation was concerned, and as such she preferred to focus her attention on the grinder, and on the more than evident consequences of that morning’s bloody occurrence. The officer who was taking notes took no time in approaching her:
“Good afternoon, inspector. Are you leading the case?” he wanted to confirm.
“Yes, Míguez has called me.” She did not need to give any further explanations. “What do we know?”
“Well firstly that this poor guy has suffered a brutal death,” he said, a tone of compassion and fatalism was evident in his voice. “And his three employees have had to see something that no human being would ever want to see. Imagine the scene; one of them arrived and found the grinder working flat out and a wet, red mass underneath the exit chute. I don’t think even ten minutes had passed since it had happened. Then the other two arrived, and that was when they deduced that it had to be their boss who had fallen inside. He was alone, and was not expecting any visitors.”
“And the ball?” asked Eva, looking at the display, on which it was still perfectly balanced.
“The first man noticed it, when he went to turn off the machine. He found it on top of the control display. From what they have told me, it wasn’t just the ball that caught their attention but the fact that the boss had no reason whatsoever to turn on the grinder, and also the fact that, during the first hour that morning, he had seen a well-dressed woman who they had never seen before.”
Eva did not miss a single detail of what the officer was telling her.
“I know you’ll be taking a formal statement from them,” he continued, “but I’ll tell you now that they’ve already given such a wealth of information, that there’s not really any need to question them that much. I suppose it’s all down to the shock. I told headquarters I smelled a rat here, and the boss told me he was going to send an inspector immediately. Whilst you were on your way, I took the liberty of going around and collecting information, and the other patrol officer is taking photographs of everything,” he explained, seeking his superior’s approval. “But we haven’t touched anything.”
“I appreciate your work, constable. Tell me, did they tell you why he was alone in the factory?”
“Yes.”
The officer consulted the first few pages of his notepad before continuing, even running his finger down the paper. He had everything noted down there.
“It seems that as it is Holy Week,” he said, “they were only working in the morning. Therefore, they all left at the same time to make a last minute delivery, so they could finish early. According to them, that is not a regular occurrence, but he,” he pointed to the remains of Sebas, with a terrible expression of fatalism, “decided it.”
“By coincidence? Or because he was interested in meeting alone with the woman who had visited him in the morning?” Eva asked, almost instinctively.
The officer shrugged his shoulders, furrowed his brow, and nodded his head back and forth. He managed to do all three at the same time. Perhaps he assumed that he still had very much to learn before becoming an inspector.
“Good question,” he reasoned, pensively. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think that question’s occurred to either me or them,” he said, pointing to the employees with a subtle gesture.
“Don’t worry,” said Eva, smiling, moving on to the next topic. “Do you know if he had a family?”
“Yes, a wife. Another patrol car has been sent to give her the news. I imagine she’ll be coming here.”
“No, no,” she reacted, “get them on the radio and tell them to bring her to the station. I don’t want her coming here and seeing her husband like this.”
The officer moved away to speak on the radio, handing Eva all of the notes he had been taking. At that moment, Antón came through the door.
“Eva. The boss called me. He says that the murderer from last night has acted again,” he said, striding towards her. “What smells in here?”
The last question seemed, at first, random and out of place, but the answer would serve to make it all too relevant. But Eva did not even think of responding, and nor did he need her to. The very moment he had finished the sentence, his eyes fell upon the exit chute of the grinder:
“Oh my God!”
Eva stepped in front of the petrified figure of her partner, ignoring his reaction:
“Call Vigo and ask if they have found Aurora yet, the owner of the phone from yesterday. Meanwhile, I’m going to have a look around the office.”
He appeared not to have heard her.
“Move!” she shouted.
“Yes.”
Antón started dialling, without being able to take his eyes off Sebas’ remains until the conversation began with the person on the other end of the line. He had been talking for barely a minute when he went up to the office door, took the phone away from his ear, and offered it to Eva with an unfriendly expression. She took it and walked back inside, whilst he waited outside. When Eva raised the tone of her voice within the office, it could be heard throughout the entire unit:
“No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand. We have here a cold-blooded killer who’s knocked off two people in the space of twelve hours, and will certainly not be staying here. The only available lead we have is that woman, so do whatever you must to find her.”
That was the end of the conversation. She then returned the phone to Antón, who took the opportunity to ask, now that he had recovered from his earlier shock:
“Who is the victim?”
“The boss, Sebastián Covelo.”
“And how can you be so sure?”
“Because they saw him speaking with our murderer this very morning. The company boss was her target, without a shadow of a doubt. If it hadn’t been him, she would not have killed here.”
Antón tried to take in her deduction. Eva continued to speak, and dispelled his doubts:
“This woman enters into their lives, gains their confidence, and then attacks them by surprise. Like a professional assassin, but she isn’t an assassin. If she were, she wouldn’t kill two different targets in such a short space of time; she would need longer. I feel that she has studied her victims beforehand. I don’t know how many, or who they are, but they are already decided, and the strategy for attacking them is already prepared. Nor do I know the motive, although it must be for a reason that impels her to act in this way. And that is the first thing that we should find out.”
She closed the office door from the outside, calling it a day on her search, and went in the direction of the exit:
“Stay here to wait for the judge, and the forensics team,” she told Antón before she left. “They need to search for prints on the ball, to see if, by any luck, she has slipped up. I am going to the station to speak with the widow. I hope she may be able to give us some explanations; something to give some direction to the case. I’ll wait for you there, don’t dawdle.”
No sooner had Eva set foot in the police station, Míguez immediately walked out of his office and shouted to her from the end of the corridor:
“Santiago!”
Then he waited in the threshold of his door whilst she approached. Eva entered the superintendent’s office and sat down in front of the desk, without saying a word.
“Tell me, what have you found out?” he asked her as he closed the door. “Do you think it’s the same person from last night?”
“Yes, I’m almost certain of that.”
“Leads?”
“The mobile from Vigo,” answered Eva, shaking her head. “Other than that, it’s exquisitely played out. She doesn’t leave loose ends. She arrives into their lives by surprise, gains their confidence, and in very little time, and when they are alone together and nobody can see her, she acts with precision. Cold, cerebral, and very intelligent.”
“Good.” It was the confirmation that she needed. “Well then, I want you to dedicate yourself to this case twenty-four seven,” the boss declared. “With this poor devil, we now have two corpses and I’m very much afraid that this lunatic is not going to stop there. If for any reason you do not feel up to it, tell me now and I’ll call Madrid for them to send us some expert in this type of case. I don’t want to run risks.”
Eva’s eyes glowed at such insinuation.
“No, I’ll take charge of it myself,” she said. “Twenty-four hours with just this is no problem. I’ll do it,” she assured with conviction. “The only thing I need is for Antón to assist me. I’m used to working with him.”
“Alright.” This was a very easy condition to concede to. “One last thing: try, at least for the moment, not to let out the detail of the ball. Ourense is a very small city. If it made it into the news that there’s a crazy woman running loose who’s dedicated to killing men, panic would spread, and the entire population would be on our backs. The pressure would be unbearable, and make our job very difficult.”
“Don’t worry,” said Eva, reassuring him, “you already know that we don’t give information to the press on our own. At the moment, as far as everyone is concerned, what happened last night was a crime of passion, and this today is an unfortunate accident,” the superintendent’s face showed the satisfaction of a well-made decision. “At least, until they act again...”
“We shall hope not. In any case, keep me informed on everything,” he said as a means of goodbye.
Two rooms further down waited María, the widow.
“Good afternoon. I am inspector Eva Santiago.”
The woman returned the greeting with a timid gesture. It was evident that, at that moment, she was not one for making a grand introduction.
“As I believe you have already been informed, you are here because your husband has suffered an unfortunate accident at work.”
“Yes, they told me he’s died, but I couldn’t go there because the place is under police investigation,” interrupted María. “I don’t understand anything of what is going on and, if I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t know what I am doing here,” the tone of the woman’s voice quietened as she spoke. “Please, I would like to see my husband as soon as possible.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll take you inside in a moment, but first I need for you to answer a few questions for me.”
“Do you all think that he could have been killed?” asked María, with mistrust.
“We don’t know. But you will understand that, faced with an event such as this, we want to discredit this option. We still need to confirm the circumstances in which he ended up in the grinder.”
“Sebas didn’t have any enemies,” she said between sobs, her voice hoarse. Perhaps she was sick of waiting, of living through such an unbelievable situation but, above all, of finding out that her husband really did die in that way, ground up like vulgar waste. “His life revolved around his business and me. What’s more, I don’t believe he had friends, just acquaintances. Mostly from work. But nobody wished him any harm, not even his employees.”
“And do you know if, amongst those acquaintances,” asked Eva, with obvious intention, “there was a dark-haired woman, of around thirty years old, one-metre-sixty in height, more or less, and slim build?”
María gave her a questioning look: she did not know what Eva was trying to insinuate, nor the role that woman could play in her husband’s accident that the policewoman was referring to.
“No, I don’t know anybody with those characteristics,” she said. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know,” Eva was not disposed to giving her any more details. “Forgive me for asking, but was your husband unfaithful?”
“On my life, he was not.”
“Had you known each other for a long time?”
“In reality, not much longer than two years. We met on Christmas Eve and, five months later, we were married. Ours was love at first sight, intense and honest, very honest. You can ask me whatever questions you like, but I don’t have the slightest doubt about my husband’s loyalty to me, nor his honesty,” she said, wanting to remove any room for further questioning on that front.
“And do you know about his life from before you met?”
“Very little, believe me,” Maria paused for a moment. “I do know that his past had not been completely ideal, but I don’t know many details either. He never talked about it, and I never asked. From the very first day, we were the perfect couple, and that was enough for us. The night we met, I saw him as he lit a joint, and I told him that I didn’t like it, and didn’t want it in my life. At that moment, we made a promise to each other: Sebas to straighten up his life, and me to believe in him whatever. We never broke that promise.”
In spite of the sobbing, María spoke calmly, in a way only possible for a person who is conscious of relating only the best and richest part of their own life.
“Are you certain that it’s him?” she asked then.
“I’m afraid so.”
María tilted her head, whilst Eva moved away a few metres, convinced that this woman did not have the key information that was going to be necessary to solve the case.
Basically, María was also a victim. Her ideal partner was gone, and now she would be embarking upon a new life for herself. A worse life, without a doubt. Eva observed how she only sobbed when she spoke; perhaps because she still maintained the hope that her husband hadn’t died, and had merely gone out to respond to some message and, when she returned home that night, she would find him sitting on the sofa, waiting for her like on any other normal day. Human beings usually cling on to such thoughts in such situations. Otherwise, she would be crying openly. This is what Eva thought, as her eyes stared fixedly at the back of the woman’s neck.
But before leaving, the inspector looked to either side, then she directed herself towards María:
“One last thing,” she said from the door, “I’m sure that over the course of today you have seen many police officers pass through here. Do you know any of them from before?”
“No, I don’t know any police officers. Should I?”
“And your husband?”
María cast a glance outside, trying to remember some face or any situation that could be eluding her. Then she looked at Eva.
“No, not that I can be sure of.”
“Thank you, and I am really sorry about what has happened.”
Eva walked to her office, and María stayed sitting there, with her head in her hands. She was now crying openly.
Antón entered the police station shortly after, and went straight to Eva’s office, but not before noticing the room occupied by María.
“Is that the widow?” he asked as he arrived next to the inspector.
She nodded, all the while writing up the relevant report regarding the action at the recycling company.
“A pretty girl,” he commented, as he sat down.
“Any news not related to the physical appearance of the victims?”
“Yes,” he handed the statements to Eva. “I have questioned the employees, and I think that we can now confirm that our suspect is the same person as the girl from last night. All three of them agree that she was dark-haired, 1.60-1.65m, with a slim build, smooth features, and straight hair. The description fits. That said, nobody saw her well enough to dare attempt to identify her in the photos. As for the rest of it, it’s the same as what we already knew when you left.”
Eva signed the report and looked over Antón’s documentation. Then she left all of the papers on top of the table, to focus on her colleague.
“I have been speaking with the superintendent today. He wants me to take sole charge of the case. I’ve told him I’ll do it, but I also want you to accompany me. I’ll tell you now that if you can’t, or don’t want to, I will understand.”
“Yes, I would love to,” he said, cutting her short. “As you know, I like difficult cases.”
“I need you because I believe that all of this is only the beginning,” she continued explaining. “I get the feeling that this woman is going to keep on killing, and more or less at the same pace. It’s like a race: she escapes, she hides, she acts, and it’s up to us to chase down and capture her. The problem is that she has the advantage over us, a big one, so we have to regain ground. And the sooner the better. We have no other option.”
“I think exactly the same.”
“Good,” said Eva, satisfied. “Well then, the first thing to do is tell Sara, to see if we can simulate a computerised image of our murderer. For the moment, I think that it’s the best course of action at our disposal.”
“I’ll take care of that now,” answered Antón, obligingly. “Did nobody else from last night in the pub remember her face when you took their statement? I remember that there was a boy who, when I arrived, was saying that he had noticed her,” he suggested, jogging his memory.
Eva leaned back in the armchair.
“Yes, there was one. But what isn’t clear to me is whether he really was sober enough to be a reliable eye-witness.”
Antón waited for her to continue.
“I mean, he gave us two things to go on; firstly, where he tells us that ‘she was a bitch’, for all the good that can aide our investigation... and then the next bit where he tells us he’s not entirely sure if she was blonde or brunette,” said Eva, not without a considerable peppering of irony. “So, we can clearly trust his testimony...”
He appeared to admit that she was right without needing to speak.
“At your age,” she continued, through Antón’s silence, “you should already know that when you menfolk have to make room for alcohol in the brain, all of your grey matter runs away screaming, stampeding to take refuge between your legs. The bad thing about this is that penises don’t think.”
Then she sat up, and passed the report to her companion, so that he could revise it.
“I’m going to go home to shower and have something to eat, because I’ve come straight from bed,” Antón made a gesture of having understood, without stopping reading the report. “And also to give Ramón a kiss, as I’ve left him abandoned all alone, and I believe he will be seeing very little of me over the coming days. I’ll be on my way back in less than an hour. If you want to add anything to the report, do so. Then pass it along to Míguez.”
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Contents of report:
Incident: Murder at the company ‘Covelo Recycling’
Victim: Sebastián Covelo García, 28 years old, businessman (awaiting confirmation).
Method: Fell into a grinder. Was found with a golf ball placed on the machine’s display screen (relate to the case in ‘Corregidor Cuatro’.
Suspect: Identity unknown.
Approximate description: Caucasian female, 25-30 years old, 1.65m, 50-55kg, rounded features. Question.
Relation between them: Undetermined (they were seen speaking prior to the event).
Witnesses: None.
Mobile: Unknown.
Leads: None.
Immediate actions: Focus on the case of Corregidor Cuatro.
Awaiting post-mortem and fingerprint reports.
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When Eva had already walked out through the door, Antón called her back, offering her the telephone.
“It’s Inspector Lago, from Vigo,” he whispered.
Eva returned immediately. She took the phone and then sat down. She proceeded to listen attentively, and also with a certain air of powerlessness. A short while later, she hung up and sat thinking for a moment. Then she looked up at Antón, who was waiting expectantly:
“They’ve found Aurora’s body in her residence,” she said. “The think it could have been a suicide. Tomorrow morning, they will send us a report with everything they’ve been able to find out.”
Antón said nothing. He knew the significance of that news.
When Eva had now gone, he searched for the previous night’s report, took out his pen, and added onto it, just to the side of the word ‘Aurora’: ‘She has been found dead in her home (probable suicide)’.