Читать книгу The Invisible Guardian - Долорес Редондо, Dolores Redondo - Страница 16

9

Based on the light levels, Amaia guessed it must be about seven in the morning. She woke Jonan, who was asleep under his anorak in the back of the car.

‘Good morning, chief. How did it go?’ he asked, rubbing his eyes.

‘We’re going back to Elizondo. Has Montes called you?’

‘No, I thought he was at the autopsy with you.’

‘He didn’t turn up and he’s not answering his phone. I keep getting his voicemail,’ she said, visibly annoyed. Deputy Inspector Zabalza, who had come down to Pamplona in the same car as them climbed into the back seat and cleared his throat.

‘Well, Inspector, I’m not sure if I should get involved in this, but I don’t want you to worry. When we left the ravine, Inspector Montes told me he’d have to go and change because he’d arranged to have dinner with someone.’

‘To have dinner?’ she couldn’t contain her surprise.

‘Yes, he asked whether I was going to Pamplona with you for the autopsy, I said yes and he told me that in that case he’d be less concerned, that he supposed that Deputy Inspector Etxaide would be going too and that everything would be fine if that was the case.’

‘Everything would be fine? He was well aware that he should have been here,’ said Amaia furiously, although she immediately regretted making a fool of herself in front of her subordinates.

‘I … I’m sorry. From the way he was talking I assumed that you’d agreed to it.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him later.’

She wasn’t at all tired in spite of not sleeping. The faces of the three girls stared into the void from the surface of the table. Three very different faces, but made equal in death. She carefully studied the enlargements of the pictures of Carla and Ainhoa she had requested.

Montes came in silently with two coffees, placed one in front of Amaia and sat down a short distance away. She looked up from the photos for a moment and gave him a penetrating stare until he dropped his gaze. Another five officers from her team were also in the room. She took the photos and slid them towards the centre of the table.

‘Well, gentlemen, what do you see in these photos?’

They all leaned over the table expectantly.

‘I’m going to give you a clue.’

She added Anne’s picture to the other two.

‘This is Anne Arbizu, the girl who was found last night. Do you see the pinkish marks that extend from her mouth almost as far as her ear? Well, they’re from lip gloss, a pink, greasy lip gloss that makes the lips look wet. Take another look at the photos.’

‘The other girls aren’t wearing any,’ observed Iriarte.

‘Exactly, the other girls aren’t wearing any, and I want to know why. They were very pretty and trendy, they had high heels, handbags, mobile phones and perfume. Isn’t it strange that they weren’t wearing even a trace of make-up? Almost all girls their age start wearing it, at least mascara and lip gloss.’

She looked at her colleagues who were regarding her with confused expressions.

‘The stuff for your eyelashes and the one for your lips that’s somewhere between lipstick and lip balm,’ Jonan translated.

‘I think that he removed Anne’s make-up, which would explain the traces of lip gloss, and that he had to use make-up remover and a tissue to do it, or, more likely, facial wipes; they’re like the ones used to wipe babies’ bottoms, but with a different solution on them, although you could use the ones designed for babies. I also think it highly likely that he did it by the river; there was next to no light down there and even if he had a torch with him it wasn’t enough, because he didn’t finish the job on Anne. Jonan and Montes, I want you to go back to the river bank and look for the wipes; if he used them and didn’t take them with him, we might be able to find them somewhere round there.’ She didn’t miss the look on Montes’s face as he looked down at his shoes, a different style, brown this time, and clearly expensive. ‘Deputy Inspector Zabalza, please speak to Ainhoa’s friends and find out whether she was wearing make-up the night she was killed; don’t bother her parents with this, especially since she was quite young and it’s quite possible that even if she did wear make-up, her parents wouldn’t have known … Lots of teenage girls put it on once they’ve left the house and take it off again before they get back. As for Carla, I’m sure she would have been wearing more make-up than a clown wears face-paint. She’s got it on in all the photos we have of her alive and, furthermore, it was New Year’s Eve. Even my Aunt Engrasi wears lipstick on New Year’s Eve. Let’s see if we can find anything by this afternoon. I want everyone back here at four.’

Spring 1989

There were some good days, almost always Sundays, the only day her parents didn’t work. Her mother would bake crisp croissants and raisin bread at home, which would fill the whole house with a rich, sweet fragrance that lasted for hours. Her father would come slowly into the room, open the blinds on the windows facing the mountain and go out without saying anything, leaving the sun to wake them with its caresses, unusually warm for winter mornings. Once awake, they would stay in bed, listening to their parents’ light chatter in the kitchen, savouring the feeling of their clean bedding, the sun warming the bedclothes, its rays drawing capricious paths through the dust in the air. Sometimes, before breakfast, their mother would even put one of her old records on the record player, and the house would resonate with the voice of Machín or Nat King Cole and their boleros and cha-cha-chas. Then their father would put his arms around their mother’s waist and they would dance together, their faces very close and their hands entwined, going round and round the whole living room, skirting the heavy, hand-finished furniture and the rugs woven by someone in Baghdad. The little girls would get out of bed, barefoot and sleepy, and sit on the sofa to watch them dance while the adults smiled rather sheepishly, as if, instead of seeing them dance, their daughters had surprised them in a more intimate act. Ros was always the first to clasp her father’s legs to join in the dance; then Flora would attach herself to their mother, and Amaia would smile from the sofa, amused by the clumsiness of the group of dancers singing boleros under their breaths as they turned. She didn’t dance, because she wanted to keep watching them, because she wanted that ritual to last a bit longer, and because she knew that if she got up and joined the group the dance would end immediately as soon as she brushed against her mother, who would leave them with a ridiculous excuse, like she was tired already, she didn’t feel like dancing anymore or she had to go and check on the bread cooking in the oven. Whenever that happened, her father would give her a desolate look and carry on dancing with the little girl a while longer, trying to make up for the insult, until her mother came back into the living room five minutes later and turned off the record player, claiming that she had a headache.