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It was past three in the afternoon, but the place was still filled to capacity. From one corner, a waiter was staring at Carlos with a sullen expression. He pretended not to realise, and to be very busy checking his mobile. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw as the waiter was approaching. The man came alongside the table with his hands placed behind his back, and softly cleared his throat in order to catch his attention. Carlos looked up and gave him a friendly smile.
‘Do you need anything?’ he asked, caringly.
‘Yes. Your reservation was for two-thirty, and we have many people waiting. If you are not going to order anything, I am going to have to ask you to vacate the table.’
‘As you will know, my reservation was for three people. My companions have been held up a little, but they must be here any minute.’ Carlos smiled again by way of apology. ‘You don’t need to worry. We’ll leave a tip that’ll make up for all the trouble we may be causing you.’
The waiter furrowed his brow, but left with his head held high and an offended expression on his face, without saying anything else, as if he were upset by the mere fact of having to debase himself by talking to him. Carlos went back to looking at his phone, whilst thinking that he was not going to be leaving a single euro as a tip for that snooty man. In that moment, the door opened and Natalia and Gus came into the restaurant. He raised his hand so that they would see him, and they headed for the table.
‘You certainly took your damn time,’ he protested as they took their seats.
‘It was Natalia’s fault. I was all ready to leave, but Natalia got caught up gutting people. You know how she likes those things...’
‘It was an important post-mortem. I couldn’t leave it halfway through,’ Natalia explained by way of apology. ‘If you had let me know about this invitation to eat further in advance, I would have been able to have organised my schedule better. I had planned on doing the post-mortem until three, and then going and getting a sandwich out of the machine...’
‘And eating it right there, amongst the dead,’ interrupted Gus. ‘Dude, that’s quite a stomach you have!’
‘It’s a job. It’s a matter of getting used to it.’ Natalia shrugged her shoulders in order to downplay it, and turned towards Carlos. ‘Can you tell us now what this invitation is about?’
The waiter came over in that moment to take their orders. He seemed very annoyed upon seeing that they still had not decided what to eat, so he remained standing, alongside the table, piling on the pressure. When they finally ordered and he left, Carlos resumed the conversation:
‘I wanted to talk to you about the case of Azkar and Quicklove...’
‘No, Carlos, please...’ Natalia covered her face with her hands as she shook her head. ‘You’re still going over that?’
‘Going over what?’ asked Gus, intrigued.’
‘Carlos had a dream the other night and now he thinks that Roberto wasn’t the one responsible, but rather that he was another victim, and that we have to carry on investigating in order to do him justice.’
‘I’ve tried forgetting it, but I’ve been going over and over it for days, and every time I find more things that don’t tally,’ Carlos explained.
‘Everything tallies. All the clues point to him. The only thing that doesn’t tally is your dream, but it’s nothing more than that: a dream.’
‘Do you want to do me the favour of listening to me till the end?’ Carlos raised his voice a little, causing the customers at the neighbouring tables to turn towards them. Upon realising this, he leant over the table and lowered his tone, causing his friends to also have to draw closer to listen to him. ‘Let me explain it to you. If, when I finish, you still both think there’s nothing to investigate, I’ll forget everything and won’t bother you again.’
‘Really? No more talking about prophetic dreams, hunches, and that “you feel it in your gut”?’ she asked, sarcastically.
‘I swear to you, but in exchange I require you to both have an open mind.’
Natalia nodded, giving her consent. Gus limited himself to leaning back in the chair and shrugging his shoulders.
‘Don’t look at me. I’m an underling.’
‘No, Gus. You’re important too,’ said Carlos. ‘I want your honest opinion. If, when I finish speaking, you both think that what I say doesn’t make any sense, I’ll forget it.’
‘Okay. Shoot,’ replied Gus.
Carlos took a deep breath, brought a notebook out of his jacket pocket, and, after going through a few odd pages until he found what he was looking for, he began to speak:
‘Okay, let’s see... I’m in agreement with you about there being a ton of clues that seem to indicate that Roberto was the culprit: the height, the physique, the age...’
‘And the IP of his computer. And the locks of the victims’ hair in his home. And the box of Luminal he had taken. And the abbreviation from the Bible written in his own handwriting on his suicide note...’ interrupted Natalia.
‘Excuse me... Wasn’t I going to be the one speaking?’ asked Carlos, annoyed. ‘I know that all of this seems to indicate that he is the culprit. In fact, up until a few days ago, I myself was ready to close the case.’
‘The evidence is still there, Carlos. The only thing that’s changed is the fact that you’ve had a bloody dream...’
‘Which has made me see that all that evidence can be manipulated,’ Carlos cut her off, raising his voice again. ‘I now realise that there are many things that don’t agree, and which we have ignored in order to be able to close the case.’
‘Like what?’ Natalia leant back in the chair with her arms folded across her chest, with an attitude of defiance.
‘Well, many... For example, we suspected that the killer had to be someone married or widowed, and with a possible prison sentence for domestic violence. Roberto was single, and has a clean record.’
‘Well, you don’t have to have been married to have had bad romantic experiences. It could be that in his past he had a girlfriend who really hurt him...’ suggested Natalia.
‘And what about the prison sentence for domestic violence?’ insisted Carlos.
‘That was only a supposition; a road in order to try and find the killer somehow. Now we see that it was a road that didn’t lead anywhere.’ Natalia sighed and leant forwards as she explained. ‘It’s possible that Roberto felt hurt by some relationship in his past, but that he had never made any retaliation towards that woman. His rage stayed inside him, simmering away, until it exploded.’
‘I’m not convinced by it, but we’ll leave it for now,’ replied Carlos. ‘It doesn’t bother me; I have more arguments. How do you explain the Luminal thing? Roberto wasn’t epileptic, and I’ve searched the list of patients that Aguirre gave us, and haven’t found any direct family member either.’
‘I don’t know.’ Natalia shook her head. ‘Maybe he has some distant family member, or some friend he stole them from. Maybe he bought them illegally over the Internet, maybe he found them when searching some home and decided to keep them... I don’t know where he could have got them from, but what we can’t deny is that he had access to that drug. In fact, we found him with an entire boxful in his stomach.’
‘Because the real killer was able to put them there,’ suggested Carlos.
‘Do you seriously believe that? Roberto was a strong man, trained in hand-to-hand combat and in firearms. Do you think that someone came into his house and made him take a lethal dose of barbiturates without him putting up resistance? Does it seem easier to you to think that than to believe that he realised we were on the verge of catching him and decided to commit suicide?’
‘It doesn’t tally for me that Roberto would kill himself. He loved himself too much...’
‘It doesn’t tally for you because you don’t want it to tally, Carlos.’
The waiter arrived at that moment with the dishes they had ordered. The three of them remained silent until they were served. Once the waiter went away, Carlos faced Gus:
‘What do you think?’
‘I’m sorry, man... You’re on your own. I don’t see it either.’ Gus picked up his fork and began stirring the food on his plate. ‘I’d like to be able to help you, but I don’t think there’s anything to investigate.’
‘Seriously? Nothing of what I’ve said has convinced you?’
‘No, I’m just more convinced by Natalia’s arguments.’ Gus shrugged his shoulders. ‘But, if you are that sure, start investigating it on your own. If at any moment you find anything that could convince me, you’ll have my absolute cooperation. I promise.’
Natalia allowed herself a smile of triumph before starting to eat. Carlos shot them a look of fury, but decided not to carry on arguing. He would convince them soon enough when he had more evidence. And he also had to convince them that, since they had not even listened to him, they were going to be the ones to pay for that meal.
*****
Night had already completely fallen by the time Gus parked in the car park to the club. He had been busy at headquarters and had finished very late. It was just as well that Natalia had lent him her car again.
Gus got out and spent a few minutes sitting on the bonnet, smoking a cigarette. He would have liked to have had a bit of time to himself, but the car park was almost full, and there were a lot of people, leaning against their cars like him, and smoking or drinking. A few cars had their bonnets open in order to allow deafening music to come out of the subwoofers. The different melodies mixed together, causing a refined torture for any ear that was accustomed to good music. He tossed his cigarette onto the ground and headed for the entrance. If they were going to torture him with Puerto Rican “reggaeton” music, he preferred that they did it in an orderly fashion: one ghastly song at a time.
After paying an outrageous price for entry, he headed towards the dance floor in search of Lorena. He was afraid that he might find her angry about his lateness, but she was dancing in high spirits, surrounded by her female friends. As soon as she saw him, she threw herself into his arms and planted a long wet kiss on him that tasted of alcohol and peach.
‘Hello, Gus,’ she greeted him. With only those two words, he noticed that her speech was slurred. They must have started drinking quite some time ago. ‘You’re late.’
‘I know. I’m really sorry. I got caught up at work.’
‘Do you want to dance?’ she threw her arms around his neck, placed one of her legs between his and began sinuously rubbing against him.
‘It’s highly tempting, but you know I don’t dance.’
‘Don’t be boring... Dance with me.’ Lorena pouted her lips in an expression that he found enchanting.
‘I think I need a couple of drinks before getting to your level. I’m going to get something at the bar. I promise you that, as soon as I lose my embarrassment, I’ll give you my first dance.’
‘Okay, Mr boring. The guys are over there.’
Lorena pointed towards a table at which Gus was able to make out all of Lorena’s male friends. As the Basque traditions commanded, not one of them was dancing. Gus greeted them with a wave and went over to the bar. He had to endure the whole of Despacito by Fonsi before the waitress deigned to look at him and pour him a vodka and coke.
With his drink in his hand, he headed towards the table where Lorena’s friends were, and sat down beside them. They greeted him in a friendly way and then continued with their conversations. Gus tried to integrate himself into one of the discussions, but found it to be impossible. The music was too loud and, from the few words he managed to catch, he discovered that they were talking about subjects such as golf and sailing. He leant back in the sofa and kept himself entertained by watching Lorena and her friends dancing as he downed one drink after the other.
By the fourth vodka and coke, he had already blown all of the money he had brought with him for that night. Going out with Lorena was turning out to be extremely expensive for him. Not only was he spending all of the money that the Ertzaintza was paying him for his internship; he had now already begun dipping into the money he had been keeping saved up to buy a car. If he carried on this way, Natalia would have to lend him hers for the rest of his life.
He looked at the dance floor again. Lorena was dancing with her eyes closed and a smile on her face. The light from the spotlights illuminated her long blonde mane and made her short white dress gleam. She looked like an angel, the type of girl that you can only yearn for from a distance, and who never gives you a second glance; the type of girl that guys like him could only dream about. And she was his girlfriend. It did not matter how much money he had to spend, or the favours he had to ask. It was worth it.
The volume of the music, along with the buzz of the conversations and the four drinks that he had imbibed, were making him dizzy and giving him a headache. He got up off the sofa, shouted goodbye to the guys, and headed to the dance floor. As soon as she saw him step onto it, Lorena smiled, and hooked herself back around his neck and started swinging her hips in front of him again. Gus returned the smile, wrapped his arms around her waist, and tried to move himself a little to the rhythm of the music.
‘Shall we go?’ he mumbled in her ear.
‘Are you serious? But we were having such a good time...’ Lorena went back to pouting like an angry little girl.
‘You know I hate this kind of music. I can’t talk with your friends because I can’t hear half of what they’re saying, and they’re talking about things I don’t understand... Let’s go, please.’
‘Okay, but you owe me one,’ she said, pointing at him with her index finger.
‘I’ll owe you anything you like, but let’s get out of here before I go crazy.’
They left the club, holding onto each other’s waist. When they arrived at the car and sat down, Gus turned on the sound system and allowed the opening bars to The Call of Ktulu, as interpreted by Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, to invade the inside of the car. He leant his head back against the headrest and, with his eyes closed, he took a cigarette out of his pocket and began smoking with a smile on his face.
‘I don’t understand how you can enjoy this music.’ Lorena’s sharp voice interrupted his moment of peace. ‘It makes me nervous. It’s so sinister...’
‘Shhhh, give me a minute, please,’ replied Gus, his eyes still closed. ‘I’ve spent two hours in that hell for you. Just a minute.’
Lorena did not protest, although after a few seconds she began making noise as she searched for something in her bag. Gus gave up and opened his eyes to see what she was doing. Lorena was taking things out and placing them on the dashboard.
‘You mind telling me what you’re doing now?’
‘Retouching my makeup.’ Lorena managed to find her compact and lipstick and moved the car mirror in order to look at herself. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I don’t have a single euro left now, so somewhere that isn’t very expensive,’ suggested Gus.
‘Okay, let’s go to Artxanda.’
Gus swallowed and, without saying a word, started up the car and pulled away. Mount Artxanda was the official love nest for all Bilbao locals at the weekend. The kerbs of the roads that led up to the mountain would be filled with cars with their windows misted up. Or at least that was what he had heard. Maybe it was an urban legend and Lorena only wanted to go to admire the view of Bilbao. He focussed on driving and not getting his hopes up too much, even though his hands were sweating so much on the steering wheel that they were slipping.
‘What are we going to do tomorrow?’ he asked, in order to distract himself.
‘We could go to the cinema, and then meet up with my friends to go and have a few little drinks in Puerto Viejo in Algorta. And then we could go out for dinner. There’s an Italian place you’d just love...’
‘And how about a cheaper plan? We could always meet up with my friends, and that way I can introduce you,’ suggested Gus, excited. ‘I have this one mate who has an enormous TV. It takes up half the wall, and has a killer sound system. It’s like being in the cinema...’
‘And why would we want to be somewhere that’s like a cinema, when we can just go to the cinema?’ Lorena cut him off.
‘Well, it’s cheaper, plus this way you’d be able to meet Rubén and Joseba. You already know Joseba. He’s on our course.’
‘I know him? Seriously?’
‘Yes, he’s that chubby guy who usually hangs around with me. He dresses in black, like me...’
‘It doesn’t ring a bell. Maybe I never paid attention to him.’
‘Of course, people of your kind don’t tend to see us,’ whispered Gus, feeling hurt. ‘Anyway, are you up for it then? We’ll watch a film, play an RPG, order a few pizzas...’
‘I’m sorry, but I really don’t remotely fancy such a stingy plan...’
‘Okay, no problem. We’ll do whatever you want.’
Gus carried on driving without saying anything else. When they left the city, they began to go up the mountain along a narrow road that was filled with curves. Several minutes later, Lorena told him to leave the road and park the car on a steep slope that was covered in grass. Gus stopped and made sure that the handbrake was firmly on. He did not want Natalia’s car to end up sliding away into the estuary. Although, in all honesty, given how much it had rained over the recent days, he was more worried about it becoming stuck in the mud and him not being able to get it out.
In spite of the prevailing darkness, he studied the surroundings. To the right was a row of trees which, in that month of February, appeared naked and stark. Several hundred metres behind the trees shone a few lights, coming from the closest buildings. In the place where they had parked, he made out a few tables and benches. The place must have been a picnic area that families would go to on summer days.
In front of him, many metres below, could be seen the city. He could make out the La Salve Bridge, with that red-coloured arch that had been placed as decoration, and which was so hideous. The Iberdrola Tower dominated the landscape, standing out against a mosaic of golden lights. He heard as Lorena unfastened her seatbelt and came closer to him to place her head on his shoulder.
‘You’re not angry about before, are you?’
‘No, it’s nothing,’ he lied. ‘I already told you we’ll do whatever you want.’
‘I’m glad. I didn’t want to tell you, but it would do you good to stop hanging out with those people. You’re not like them anymore.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You’re with me now; you’re in the group with the winners.’ Lorena caught hold of his chin and forced him to look at her, in order to give him a gentle kiss on the lips. ‘You can’t be mixing with those people and looking the way they look.’
‘What look? I look great,’ protested Gus, pointing at himself.
‘You look great at the weekend, when you’re with me, but when you go to classes you carry on wearing that horrible black clothing and that old jacket.’ She continued giving him kisses as she spoke, descending down his neck. ‘We go to the same class. I see you every day, remember?’
‘Yeah, okay, but I thought it wouldn’t matter to you what I wore to uni.’
‘I am your girlfriend twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.’ Lorena stopped speaking for a few seconds in order to lick and nibble his neck. ‘And I like to see you looking good always.’
‘Okay... Well... This... I’ll try to improve,’ said Gus, taking note of the fact that his breathing was speeding up and that he could not think clearly.
‘And something will have to be done about your hair...’
‘No, not my hair.’ Gus felt the excitement disappear and he regained control with a bang. ‘My hair is sacred. Ask anything else of me, but leave cutting my hair out of it.’
‘But you’d be so much more attractive... Having hair that long makes you look like a vagrant. You look like that guy who leads that party for poor people.’
‘Pablo Iglesias, the one from Podemos?’[2]
‘Yes, that’s the one.’ Lorena went back to attacking Gus’s neck with gentle biting. ‘Is it that you don’t want to be attractive for me? Wouldn’t you like your girlfriend to be proud of you?’
‘Damn it, Lorena...’ Gus forgot his ensuing argument upon noticing that she was sliding her hand down his abdomen and beginning to play around with the zip on his jeans. ‘Seriously, not my hair.’
‘I’m going to see if I can get you to at least think about it.’
Lorena manoeuvred a control on the side of the seat, and the latter slipped backwards and down, causing Gus to end up virtually lying flat. Lorena smiled at him, mischievously, whilst she positioned herself astride him and began to kiss him. The last rational thought he could allow himself to have before allowing his mind to be consumed in a bonfire was that Natalia must never find out that this had happened in her car.