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Carlos thought that it was a terrible day; there was no better way to put it. October had arrived now and, although the temperatures were still mild, down from the sky there fell a curtain of slow and continuous rain that seemed inoffensive, but which had already managed to seep through to his underwear.
In spite of that, Art had to go out to play every day. He had too much energy to be kept in the flat. If he did not go out and let off some steam, he would spend the day bringing them toys, pushing them with his paw, and following them even when they went to the bathroom. So here he was, getting drenched like an imbecile whilst he threw the ball for the dog.
He looked all around for the umpteenth time. The dog park was still empty. It seemed that everybody else had been intelligent enough to stay at home. Art raced up to him with the ball between his teeth, to ask him to throw it again. Carlos smiled upon seeing his excited face. To tell the truth, in spite of the cold and the rain, it was worth it. And it was also worth it seeing Natalia’s expression of dread whenever she saw him arrive back covered up to his ears in mud. It had been his turn to take Art out, so she would be the one who would have to clean him.
Half an hour later, their bodies a couple of kilos heavier with mud, they returned to the flat. As soon as Carlos opened the door, Art shot down the corridor towards the kitchen, covering it with sticky paw-prints. Carlos had to contain his laughter upon hearing Natalia:
‘My God, look at the state of you! Down... Stay... Stop, you’re soaking everything.
Carlos headed for the bathroom in order to dry off and, upon passing in front of the kitchen, he saw that Natalia had managed to tackle the dog, and now had him on his back in order to rub his belly with a towel. The dog was trying to catch her hands with his mouth, but he seemed delighted with such a game.
‘Are you going to lie me down and dry me off next?’ asked Carlos.
‘You could do with it. You’re soaked,’ she replied. ‘Dry yourself off and come over here. We need to talk.’
The smile vanished from Carlos’s face. If he had learnt anything in his life from his experiences with women, it was that those four words never foretold anything good. He dried his hair haphazardly, changed his shirt, and returned to the kitchen, whilst wondering what he could have done wrong this time.
Natalia was sitting down with Art sprawled over her feet. Carlos took note of the amount of papers that were spread out over the table and allowed himself a glimmer of hope. Maybe she wanted to talk about the case, and not some new instance of his having put his foot in it.
‘I’ve been looking at things for the wedding,’ commented Natalia.
‘The wedding? What wedding?’
‘Ours. Who else’s? Remember when you asked me to marry you?’
‘Bloody hell, of course I remember. I’m still paying for the ring. How could I forget?’
‘Ever the romantic.’ Natalia laughed as she shook her head and placed several photographs in front of him. ‘I’ve been looking at churches. This is the one that corresponds to me, because it’s where I was christened, but I just don’t like it. I love this chapel, but at the same time it’s a bit far for us...’
‘Natalia, darling...’ Carlos cut her off with a gentle voice. ‘We can’t get married in a church. I’m divorced. Don’t you remember? I have an ex-wife in London...’
‘And did you marry her in a church?’
‘Yes, I’m sorry... It was something she was eager about...’
‘I imagine it would be a lot of trouble for her to come from England to request an annulment, right?’
Carlos limited himself to shrugging his shoulders. He knew that such a thing was not his own fault. He had made that decision many years earlier. Nevertheless, inside he felt as though he had let Natalia down.
‘Never mind.’ She took his hand and gave him a forced smile. ‘We can get married in the Town Hall or the Court House.’
‘Yes, I’m sure we’ll find a wonderful one,’ commented Carlos, without having the slightest idea whether that could be true. ‘In any case, the ceremony is the least crucial detail. The important thing is the reception. That’s the one everyone remembers.’
‘You’re right.’ Natalia’s smile became more sincere as she held out a leaflet to him. ‘Look how nice this restaurant is. It’s in a lovely place, filled with gardens and fountains... And look at the dining room. Doesn’t it look incredible?’
‘Yes, it’s very nice, but it says here that the minimum number of guests has to be one hundred. I have virtually no family, and as you know I’ve never been very sociable, so I reckon that, even inviting people I don’t even really like, I can produce about fifteen or twenty. How about you?’
‘More or less the same,’ Natalia picked up the brochure in her hands and sighed. ‘Well, I’m sure there are other lovely places.’
‘Of course there are, darling... Don’t worry. We’ll plan a perfect wedding.’
‘Yes, of course. With no church, no guests...’
Carlos preferred to remain quiet for a few seconds in order to give her time to calm down. As Natalia went along creating a little heap with the restaurant brochures, it occurred to him that the wedding could be a perfect occasion for Natalia to reconcile with her father. The man came across as a nasty piece of work to him, but Carlos was certain that she missed him.
‘Have you thought about who’s going to be giving you away?’
‘Yes,’ replied Natalia with a smile. ‘I’m going to ask Gus.’
‘Gus? Bloody hell, Natalia... You’re giving him more excuses to stay in our lives forever.’
‘You know you’re never going to be free of him. Besides, if I don’t ask Gus, who do you want me to ask?’
‘Well your father, like people have always done.’
‘My father? Are you mad? I want nothing to do with him.’
‘Excuse me, woman... I thought you wanted a traditional wedding...’
‘A traditional wedding? We can’t get married in a church, and the most certain thing is that we’ll end up grabbing a bite to eat with four friends in a pub.’
In that moment, Carlos’s mobile phone rang. To him, it sounded like celestial music. He made a gesture to ask Natalia’s permission to answer. She looked daggers at him with her most glacial gaze and leant back in the chair, with her arms folded in front of her chest. Carlos took out his phone and checked the screen to see who was calling. It was Aguirre. As he answered, he prayed with all his might for the sergeant to order him to leave the flat, and for refusal to not be an option.
‘Carlos, are you with Natalia?’
‘Yes, we’re both at home.’
‘You have to come to headquarters immediately. We have a man saying he’s recognised the first victim.’
‘And who is he?’
‘Her husband. Would you both be able to come and question him?’
‘Of course. We’ll be there in quarter of an hour.’
Carlos hung up and went back to face Natalia. Her angry expression had disappeared and she was looking at him with curiosity. Carlos got up from his chair and gestured to her for her to do the same.
‘We’re going to headquarters. The first victim’s been recognised.’
‘Fantastic. I’ll go and get my coat.’ Natalia left the kitchen and went a few metres down the hall, before retracing her steps and poking her head back round the door. ‘I think it’ll be better if we leave the whole matter of the wedding until after we solve the case. We’re very stressed at the moment, and we’re seeing nothing but problems. I’m sure that we’ll be able to plan a fantastic wedding when we’re feeling more relaxed. The important thing is that it’s you and me. I don’t care about the rest.’
‘Me neither.’ Carlos took her by the waist and planted a gentle kiss on her lips. ‘I don’t need anything else.’
Natalia gave him a smile and disappeared down the hallway once more. Carlos puffed out in relief and, raising his eyes to the heavens, muttered a thank you to whatever entity had had the good heart to grant him that respite.
*****
Carlos sat down in front of the one-way mirror through which he could see the interview room. He liked to observe his “victims” before entering into the hunt: to get a sense of their state of mind, their nerves, their behaviour when they thought they were not being watched... He knew that on this occasion it was not a suspect he had to question, but rather the husband of one of the victims, but, even so, he preferred to get an idea of what he was going to be dealing with before going in.
In the interview room, there was a tall and strong man. Given that he was currently sitting, Carlos could not know for sure, but he looked like he was over 5’11”. In spite of being completely bald, he was not very old. He must have been around thirty or thirty-five years old, and he was that kind of man that baldness looked good on. His body was very toned and built up, and it was clear that the guy knew it, because he was wearing a t-shirt that was so tight that it was possible to count his abs. Carlos did not like his appearance, or how he looked away, or the way in which he cracked his knuckles one after the other in a methodical manner.
When he felt ready, he picked up the case file for the first victim and, without knocking on the door, went into the room. The man jumped upon hearing it open, but recomposed himself in a matter of seconds. He straightened back up in the chair and feigned a look that was confident and with a touch of aggression.
‘Good afternoon. I am Inspector Vega.’ Carlos sat down in front of the man without offering his hand, opened the file, and began going through the pages. ‘I’m sorry for having made you wait.’
‘To tell the truth, I’ve been sitting here for almost an hour...’
‘Yes, I know. I already said I’m sorry,’ Carlos cut him off, taking a copy of the photofit image and placing it in front of him. ‘Do you say you know this woman?’
‘Yes, she’s my wife. Her name’s Andrea Martínez. Where is she?’
‘Well, we’d have to confirm the identification, but if your wife is a match for this woman, I’m sorry to inform you that she is dead.’
‘That can’t be.’ The man threw himself back in the chair and ran his hands over his shaved head, as if he were trying to comb inexistent hair. ‘She can’t be dead.’
‘When did you last see Andrea?’
‘The eighth of September. I remember it perfectly because it’s our anniversary.’
‘Today’s the fourth of October. Do you mean to say you’ve gone nearly a month without seeing your wife or hearing any news about her?’
‘I know it sounds weird, but we had a really bad argument. I thought she’d be with her family or some female friend.’
‘Forgive me for being visibly sceptical, but to me that seems like a long time to go without worrying about her. Did you not call anybody to find out whether she was all right?’
‘No. After a few days had gone by, her mother called me to ask about her. She told me that she wasn’t answering her mobile and that she was worried. I told her that it was no big deal, that we were going through a rough patch, and that I would tell her to phone her whenever I saw her again.’
‘So, in addition to not worrying about the whereabouts of your wife this whole time, you also made it so that those close to her did not worry or report the disappearance either. Doesn’t that sound suspicious to you?’
‘No, no, no... I don’t know what it is you’re hinting at, but you’re way off.’
‘Really? Put me right,’ Carlos asked him with a sarcastic smile.
The man shook his head and ran his eyes over the entire interview room, as if searching for an exit. Then, his upright and muscular body seemed to deflate as he lowered his head and it sank between his shoulders.
‘I thought she’d be with a man, with one of her pickups...’
‘With one of her pickups? I don’t understand...’
‘She was unfaithful to me. She’d been unfaithful to me ever since before we got married. She would go out on her own and get involved with strangers, or meet up with any random person she met over the Internet, or hook up with friends... She cheated on me in every way possible: one-night stands, weekend flings, month-long romances... She always came back remorseful, crying, telling me she didn’t know what she was doing, that she really only loved me, that she wouldn’t do it again... And I believed her, I always believed her.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Carlos waited a few seconds before speaking again. ‘I imagine that such behaviour from your wife would make you very angry.’
‘Of course it made me angry, but I’d never do anything bad to her. We’d shout, throw things, but in five years of marriage I never raised my hand to her.’
‘All right. Let’s say I believe you... Why did you argue on the 8th of September?’
‘Like I told you, it was our anniversary. We’d been doing fairly all right for a couple of months, with almost no arguments... We’d been on holiday together, and she seemed altogether more balanced. I came home with a bouquet of roses and told her we were going out for dinner at a nice restaurant, but she told me that she had forgotten our anniversary, and that she’d arranged to meet with a female friend, and that she couldn’t cancel the date by that point. I insisted to her, but she refused, and so I realised that there was something more; that she was deceiving me with someone else again. We started shouting and I told her that if she went out through that door, she’d never come back. She told me that that was exactly what she was going to do, and that we were finished.’
‘So you thought that she’d left you forever? Is that why you didn’t report it?’
‘No, she’d already walked out on me before. Sometimes she’d disappear for a few days; other times, for a couple of weeks... I would wait for her, not knowing whether I wanted her to come back or whether the nightmare was over for good... But she would always come back in the end, and I’d forgive her every time.’
‘Do you know the name of the female friend she’d arranged to meet up with?’
‘Yes: Sandra, but I don’t know her surname.’
‘Don’t worry about that. Now you’re going to speak with a medical examiner who’s going to ask you about any distinguishing features of your wife that could help us to verify whether the body we’ve found is hers. If that is the case, we’ll need to search your flat and question you again. Are you willing to co-operate?’
‘Of course. If some son of a bitch has killed my Andrea, I want him caught, and for him to pay for it.’
Carlos nodded and left the interview room. Now it was Natalia’s turn to ascertain whether the unknown body belonged to Andrea Martínez, but he was not going to stop and wait for that confirmation. He was certain that it was her; her husband had recognised her, the dates tallied... Now he had the name of another victim, places to investigate, people to question, dates to check... At last, he was a little closer.