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The order was clear. One police patrol car was to stand guard over Isaac’s house, day and night, with turnover every four hours, so as to avoid fatigue. The objective: ensure at all costs that Emma’s plan to place the sixth golf ball on a corpse was thwarted.
In the police station in Ourense, during the very early Saturday morning, nobody had even the slightest doubt that Emma’s call to Isaac asking him to come to Ourense meant that he would be the next victim. They still needed to find the name of the seventh victim, but Eva and Antón would be endeavouring to find that out over the next twenty-four hours. To do that, they were relying on the information that Isaac could give them and, above all, the car crash report from the Guardia Civil. After Javier’s explanation, they were hoping that this report might be able to unearth another clue regarding the seventh victim.
However, this hope dissipated just after eight o’clock that morning, as soon as the long-awaited report arrived in Eva’s hands from the fax machine. The inspector looked at it for half a minute, and then pursed her lips in an expression of vexation and, finally, she gave it to Antón.
“Throw it in the bin,” she said, the moment she dropped it onto her colleague’s desk.
He did not take long in checking that the report qualified Emma’s accident as a simple veering off of the road without justified cause. It even noted at the end that the cause of the accident could well have been a lapse of concentration at the wheel, the slippery state of the road, or, simply, a tired driver.
A few minutes before the clock at the station showed ten o’clock, Eva decided that it was time to go to the mortuary in Seixalbo, where Sandra’s body would be kept throughout that day. It was still over two hours until the arranged meeting with Isaac, but they would have a quick coffee beforehand. It had been a long night, and the hours of lost sleep were beginning to accumulate. Eva would also take the opportunity to call Ramón. At moments like this, she always maintained that his love for her was true, his understanding was admirable, and his patience was infinite. She had not set foot in her house in three days.
At half past ten, Eva and Antón parked outside the mortuary, with the police badge in perfect view on the dashboard. They did not pass by unnoticed. No sooner than they had got out, somebody approached them in an impeccable Audi A5 that had been parked only metres away from where they were.
“I’m pleased to see you, Miss Santiago,” said a man, from inside the car. He had a clear parting in his hair, and a tie that had not been well tied at all.
Eva and Antón turned around immediately, surprised.
“I’m Isaac Calvo Merino,” he introduced himself, at the same time he got out of the car.
Eva recognised the voice. She waited for him to approach, without moving, and with Antón by her side. Isaac closed the car door behind him and slowly made his way towards them.
“I believe we were talking on the phone this morning,” he added, locking the door with the fob as he walked.
A sharp beep immediately echoed throughout the square, and the car’s lights flashed on and off a few times, dizzily, as if announcing his presence. Everybody there looked in unison, including Javier, who was leaning up against the mortuary door a few metres away.
From the moment the man had said his name, Eva could not stop imagining him as the sixth corpse. She had kept quiet for the duration of his arrival, but now that the spectacle of light and sound was over, she decided to answer:
“You told me you weren’t going to be here until twelve,” she said.
A hint of a cynical smile materialised on Isaac’s face.
“Well, the time I told you was approximate. Basically, I knew that whatever time I arrived you’d be waiting for me,” he said with gratuitous arrogance.
“Haven’t you gone into the mortuary yet?”
“Yes, but I find mortuaries boring. I went in for a bit, did what I came to do, and went outside as soon as I could to wait for you. Her beauty definitely deserves such an honour.”
Eva preferred to skim past that final sentence.
“You find the mortuary containing the mother of your child boring?” she asked instead.
Before answering, the man’s smile widened, and the cynicism along with it.
“Sandra and I were together two years ago, but not anymore. I’m sure Javier’s already described to you how she was a wonderful woman, but that’s not exactly true. In fact, towards the end she only called me when she needed money. Toni was the perfect excuse for that.”
“Weren’t the two of you in love six years ago?”
“No,” he said, almost offended. “All we had together six years ago was sex, pure sex. Lot’s of it, and it was good too.”
“You’re telling me that you only got together for sex?” Eva blurted out, perplexed.
“Yes, of course, like all couples. Ninety per-cent of a relationship is sex. But in our case, it was a hundred per-cent,” he specified. “I was insatiable, and still am, and Sandra liked to pleasure me, whatever I wanted. An ideal situation for me, of course, if it weren’t for the fact that she was increasingly taken with the idea of marriage. You know, white dress, a pretty church, the belle of the ball. The usual thing for a woman.”
Eva remained silent, trying, with some difficulty, to assimilate Isaac’s explanations. He continued:
“The fact is that she deluded herself with this idea for such an unbearably long time. Right up until the day she discovered I liked women, that is, multiple women. Not singular, as she had wanted to believe until then. She pretended that I was faithful to her simply because every now and then I’d tell her that I loved her. The fact is that one day I just got tired of her demands, and decided to get the hell out of there. Then she ended up with that,” he said, pointing slyly towards Javier, “although she wasn’t happy.”
“But you had a child together.”
“Well, that’s the result of the fact that every time I told her I loved her, she’d get very affectionate and, evidently, we didn’t always have protection to hand in those moments,” he answered, winking at Antón, who said nothing.
Then he continued:
“Sandra was always a very... shall we say, special woman. After we’d broken up, and Toni was still a baby, she spent a while sleeping around in other men’s beds whilst I was starting work. Basically, she was waiting for me, even if she never realised it. In the end, I suppose she ended up realising that I wasn’t coming back, and decided to sign someone up permanently to be the father. You know, someone who doesn’t want answers and pays the bills.”
“Did you know about it when you were in Barcelona?”
“I always knew,” he replied, laughing in a self-satisfied way. “Look at him,” Eva turned towards Javier. “Would you entrust your nights to somebody with such a stupid face?”
Eva had already turned back to face Isaac before he’d even finished speaking.
“Well, that man with the stupid face could just be saving your life,” she contested, in the tone of a mother scolding her impertinent child. “I don’t think it would be too much to ask for you to show a little respect, if not gratitude.”
Upon hearing her, Isaac became serious for a moment. When the inspector had finished speaking, he recovered his smile. This time, it was much more cynical than any of the others he’d exhibited beforehand.
“No, no... I know how you women love a hapless loser,” he said, “but make no mistake, I save my own life. I don’t need anyone to cover my back. You’ll have come here thinking that man’s done me a favour; a noble act in moments of pain and rage from someone who, in reality, should want to see me dead. Definitely touching. But you’re wrong. Like everything he does in his life, his confession, probably made in the same significant tone he always uses when he speaks, really just serves for nothing. He could have saved her. But of course, then he wouldn’t have felt like a hero. A hero, at the cost of throwing the shit on everybody else,” he concluded.
“Were you driving one of those cars?” asked Eva, suddenly.
Isaac now laughed openly.
“Don’t be naïve. Do you really think I’m going to say yes when you’ve most likely been told about certain things that would constitute a crime?”
“At the moment, I don’t care what you all might have done back then. Right now I’m investigating five murders, and I assure you that if that woman called you yesterday, it’s because she has a perfectly laid-out plan to kill you today.”
“Right, and I have to believe that you’d gloss over a possible implication in other murders... No, no, my life at the moment is fantastic, and make no mistake, it will continue to be so.”
“You’re a pretentious idiot.” Eva’s patience was at its limit. “Much more stupid and pretentious than any of your dead friends, and even more so than I could ever have imagined.”
“And I think you’re too attractive to be a police officer,” he deliberately interrupted her.
Then he looked fixedly at her, defiant:
“Well you tell me, sharp-witted ingenious policewoman: do you think someone like me would miss out on the best parties? Do you think the rest of the gang was capable of pissing in a straight line without someone telling them how to do it?”
Isaac paused, expecting a reply. Eva preferred not to answer.
“You just keep playing your lottery game guessing who was in those cars,” Isaac continued over her silence, “link anyone you like with her, but you’ll have been the one to do it, not me. Tomorrow, I’m back on the road to Barcelona. Another ten hours in the car and, until then, I don’t plan on leaving my house in Covadonga. I can just rest and relax there. Basically, there’s nothing keeping me here, and I find Ourense boring. But don’t tell anybody,” he said, lowering his voice and leaning slightly towards her, “the people here are highly suspicious, and would take offence.”
When he finished speaking, he winked again, and carried on laughing as he walked away under the watchful gaze of Eva and Antón. Before getting into the car, he turned around and called back to them:
“You take care of the little man; make sure the little vigilante doesn’t go after him too. That would be a shame for everyone,” he murmured at the end.
“I’ve ordered protection for you for the duration of your stay in the city,” Eva replied from where she was. “I hope you’ll collaborate, at least, and not make things difficult for us.”
“Well if that’s what’ll keep you happy, then that’s fine by me. But if I really did need protection, I’d hire myself some good private bodyguards.”
He took a breath, and looked around. Then he continued:
“No, madam, I don’t need your people. I’m a financial officer; I invest in the stock market. I assess huge risks every single day, and I assure you that I wouldn’t be where I am now if I were the kind of guy to get scared of a little girl playing vigilante.”
Once he’d finished his speech, the flashing light and sound extravaganza resumed once more in the small car park. Everybody all continued to watch him. Just a few seconds later, Isaac drove away, and the place recovered its usual funereal atmosphere.
Eva then discreetly approached Javier, who must inevitably have heard some of the conversation:
“Don’t take any notice of what he said,” she said, trying to console him, “even though you probably know him much better than me.”
“Don’t worry, he’s always like that,” he said, without appearing upset. “You get used to him after a while.”
“The worst thing, though, is it’s not for lack of trying that we don’t know who else was in those cars,” Eva lamented, “because even under the assumption that Isaac is a victim, if our conclusions are correct, there’s still another future victim left to identify.”
“I don’t know who else was with them,” Javier cut in. “Until two days ago, I didn’t even know this story, and the other night, all Sandra told me was that there were two cars. That, and Isaac was driving one of them. That’s the car she was in.”
“Do you think that Isaac’s conscious of the danger he’s in here?”
Javier thought about his response.
“I think the only reason he’s come is to sort out Toni’s future,” he said at last. “Inside, he told me that on Monday he’ll call in to his lawyer’s office to sign the custody papers. As you can see, Isaac is capable of endangering his life if it means offloading his son as soon as possible.”
“Is he handing Toni over to you, then?”
“Of course. To me, he’s always been my son.”
Eva felt that, aside from the other less desirable details, that was the first bit of good news all day. It was fantastic for both Javier and Toni. She wished there could have been more.