Читать книгу The Invisible Guardian - Долорес Редондо, Dolores Redondo - Страница 17

After a brief siesta, from which she woke disorientated and confused, Amaia felt worse than she had in the morning. She took a shower and read the note that James had left her, a bit annoyed that he wasn’t at home. Although she would never tell him, she secretly preferred him to be nearby while she slept, as if his presence could soothe her. She would feel ridiculous if she ever had to put into words what waking up in an empty house did to her and her wish that he had been there while she was asleep. She didn’t need him to lie down beside her, she didn’t want him to hold her hand; but it wasn’t enough for him to be there when she woke up. She needed his presence while she was asleep. If she had to work at night and sleep in the morning she would often do it on the sofa if James wasn’t at home. She didn’t manage to sleep so deeply there as when she was in bed, but she preferred it, because she knew that if she got into bed it would be impossible. And it didn’t make a difference if he went out once she had fallen asleep: although she might not hear the door, she would immediately notice his absence, as if there wasn’t enough air, and on waking up she would know for certain that he was not in the house. I want you to be at home while I sleep. The thought was obviously and rationally absurd, which was why she couldn’t say it, couldn’t tell him that she woke up when he went out, that she felt his presence in the house as if she detected it with a sonar system and that she secretly felt abandoned when she woke up and found he had left his place at her side to go out and buy bread.

Back at the police station and three coffees later, she wasn’t feeling much better. Seated behind Iriarte’s desk, she was heartened to observe the evidence of his domestic life. The blond children, the young wife, the calendars with pictures of the Virgin, the well-tended plants that grew near the windows … he even had saucers under the pots to collect the excess water.

‘Have you got a moment, chief? Jonan said you wanted to see me.’

‘Come in, Montes, and don’t call me chief. Please take a seat.’

He made himself comfortable in the chair opposite and looked at her, his mouth forming a slight pout.

‘Montes, I was disappointed that you didn’t attend the autopsy. I was concerned that I didn’t know the reason why you weren’t there and it made me very angry that I had to find out from someone else that you weren’t coming because you were going out for dinner. I think you could at least have saved me the embarrassment of spending the whole night asking after you, wasting my time on phone calls you didn’t answer, only for Zabalza to tell me what was going on.’

Montes looked at her impassively. She continued.

‘Fermín, we’re a team, I need absolutely everyone in place all the time. If you wanted to go I wouldn’t have stopped you; I’m just saying that with what we’ve got on our plates I think you could have at least called me or told Jonan or something, but you certainly can’t disappear without giving any explanation. Right now, with another murdered girl, I need you at my side constantly. Well, anyway, I hope it was worth it,’ she smiled and looked at him in silence waiting for a response, but he continued to stare straight through her with an expression that had twisted from the childish pout to disdain. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything, Fermín?’

‘Montes,’ he said suddenly, ‘Inspector Montes to you. Don’t forget that although you might be in charge of this investigation for the moment, you’re speaking to an equal. I don’t have to explain myself to Jonan, who’s my subordinate, and I let Deputy Inspector Zabalza know. My responsibility stops there.’ His eyes half closed with indignation. ‘Of course you wouldn’t have stopped me going out for dinner, that’s not up to you, even if you have begun to think so lately. I had already been working on the homicide team for six years when you started at the academy, chief, and what’s pissing you off is looking incompetent in front of Zabalza.’ He settled back in the seat and gave her a challenging look. Amaia looked at him with a feeling of sadness.

‘The only one who looked incompetent is you, incompetent and a poor policeman. For God’s sake! We’d just found the third body in a series, we still don’t have anything and you go off out for dinner. I think you resent me because the Commissioner assigned the case to me, but you have to understand that I had nothing to do with that decision and what we ought to be worried about now is solving this case as soon as possible.’ She softened her tone and looked Montes in the eye, trying to gain his support, ‘I thought we were friends, Fermín. I would have been happy if it were you. I thought you respected me, I thought I’d have every possible help from you …’

‘Well, keep thinking that,’ he muttered.

‘Don’t you have anything else to say to me?’ He remained silent. ‘Alright, Montes, have it your way, I’ll see you at the meeting.’

The girls’ dead faces were there again, their eyes gazing into infinity and veiled by death, and, beside them, as if to emphasise the great loss they represented, were other photos, colourful and bright, showing Carla’s mischievous smile as she posed by a car that undoubtedly belonged to her boyfriend, Ainhoa holding a week-old lamb in her arms and Anne with her school theatre group. A plastic bag contained various wipes that had almost certainly been used to remove the make-up from Anne’s face and there was another that held the ones that had been found at the scene of Ainhoa’s death. No-one had paid them any attention at the time because it had been assumed that they had blown down to the river from the esplanade up by the road where couples often met.

‘You were right, chief. The wipes were there, they’d been dumped a few metres away, in a crack in the river bank. They’ve got pink and black marks on them, from the mascara I suppose. Her friends say she usually wore make-up and I’ve also got the original lipstick, which was in her handbag. It’ll help us confirm whether it’s the same one. And these,’ he said, pointing to the other bag, ‘are the ones found where Ainhoa was killed. They’re the same kind with the same stripy pattern, although these ones have got less make-up on them. Ainhoa’s friends say she only used lip gloss.’

Zabalza got to his feet.

‘We haven’t been able to find anything where Carla was killed, too much time has passed and we have to bear in mind that the body was partially submerged in the river; if the killer left the wipes nearby it’s likely they were washed away by the flood water … We’ve confirmed with her family that she used to wear make-up pretty much every day, though.’

Amaia stood up and started to walk around the room, moving behind her colleagues, who remained seated.

‘Jonan, what do these girls tell us?’

The deputy inspector leant forward and touched the edge of one of the photos with his index finger.

‘He removes their make-up, takes off their shoes, which are high-heels, women’s shoes in all three cases. He arranges their hair so it hangs to either side of their faces, he shaves off their pubic hair, he makes them into little girls again.’

‘Exactly,’ agreed Amaia, vehemently. ‘It seems to this guy that they’re growing up too fast.’

‘A paedophile who likes little girls?’

‘No, no, if he were a paedophile he would choose little girls in the first place, and these are teenagers, more or less young women, at the stage when young girls want to seem older than they are. It’s nothing unusual, it’s part of the adolescent growing up process. But this killer doesn’t like these changes.’

‘What’s most likely is that he knew them when they were smaller and he doesn’t like what he sees now, and that’s why he wants to make them go back to how they were,’ said Zabalza.

‘It’s not enough to take off their shoes and make-up and shave off their pubic hair and leave their sexes like a little girl’s,’ Amaia continued. ‘He slashes their clothes and exposes their bodies, which are not yet those of the women they wished they were, and instead of a body that symbolises sex and the profanation of his concept of childhood, he gets rid of the body hair, which is a sign of maturity, and replaces it with a pastry, a soft little cake, which symbolises past times, the traditions of the valley, the return to childhood, and so on. He disapproves of how they dress, the fact they wear make-up, their adult ways, and he punishes them by using them to represent his idea of purity; that’s why he never violates them sexually, it’s the last thing he’d want to do, he wants to preserve them from corruption, from sin … And the worst of all is that, if I’m right, if this is what torments our killer, we can be sure that he won’t stop. More than a month passed between the murders of Carla and Ainhoa, and barely three days between the murders of Ainhoa and Anne; he feels provoked, confident and like he has a lot of work to do; he’s going to continue recruiting young girls to return to purity … Even the way he arranges their hands facing upwards symbolises surrender and innocence. Where have you seen hands and expressions like these before?’ She looked at Iriarte and pointed at him with her finger.

‘Inspector, can you bring me the calendars from your desk?’

Iriarte was back in barely two minutes. He put a calendar with a picture of the Immaculate Conception and another with a picture of Our Lady of Lourdes on the table. The virgins smiled, full of grace, as they held their open hands at either side of their bodies, generous and without any reserve, showing their palms, from which shone rays of sunlight.

‘There you have it!’ exclaimed Amaia. ‘Like virgins.’

‘This guy is completely crazy,’ said Zabalza, ‘and the worst thing is that if there’s one thing we can be sure of, it’s that he’s not going to stop until we make him.’

‘Let’s update his profile,’ said Amaia.

‘Male, aged between twenty-five and forty-five,’ said Iriarte.

‘I think we can narrow it down a bit more, I’m inclined to think that he’s older. This resentment he shows towards youth doesn’t really match up with a young man; there’s nothing impetuous about him, he’s very organised, he takes everything he might need with him to the scene, and yet he doesn’t kill them there.’

‘He must have some other place, but where could it be?’ asked Montes.

‘I don’t think it can be a building, at least not a house. It’s impossible that all the girls would agree to go to a house, and we have to remember that they didn’t put up a fight, with the exception of Anne, who resisted at the end, at the moment he attacked her. There are two possibilities: either he stalks them and carries out surprise attacks somewhere he might be seen, which doesn’t really fit his modus operandi in my opinion, or he persuades them to go somewhere, or even better, takes them there himself, which implies that he has a car, a large car, because he has to transport the body afterwards … I prefer the latter theory,’ said Amaia.

‘And, bearing in mind what’s going on, do you think girls would get into just anyone’s car?’ asked Jonan.

‘They might not in Pamplona,’ explained Iriarte, ‘but in a small town it’s normal. You’re waiting for the bus and some neighbour or other stops and asks where you’re heading; if it suits them they’ll give you a lift. It’s not at all unusual, and would confirm the fact that it’s someone from the town who’s known them since they were little and who they trust enough to get into his car.’

‘OK, a white man, aged between thirty and forty-five, perhaps slightly older. It’s likely he lives with his mother or elderly parents. It’s possible he had a very strict upbringing, or entirely the opposite, that he ran wild as a child and he created his own moral code which he now applies to the world. It’s also possible that he suffered abuse as a child or that he lost his childhood in some way. Perhaps his parents died. I want you to look for any man who has a history of harassment, indecent exposure, loitering … Ask the couples who hang out around there whether they know of any incidents or have heard about any. Remember, these delinquents don’t just appear, they come from somewhere. Look for men who lost their families as a result of violence, orphans, victims of abuse, loners. Question every man in the Baztán Valley with a history of abuse or harassment. I want everything added to Jonan’s database and, while we haven’t got anything else to go on, we’ll continue questioning the families, friends and closest acquaintances. Anne’s funeral and burial are taking place on Monday. We’ll carry out the same process we did for Ainhoa’s and at least we’ll have some material to compare. Make a list of all the men who attended both funerals and match the profile. Montes, it would be interesting to speak to Carla’s friends to find out whether anyone recorded the funeral or burial on a mobile phone or took photos. It occurred to me when Jonan said that Ainhoa’s friends didn’t stop crying or talking on their mobiles; teenagers don’t go anywhere without their phones, so check it out,’ she said, leaving out the ‘please’ on purpose. ‘Zabalza, I’d like to speak to someone from the Guardia Civil’s Nature Protection Service or the forest rangers. Jonan, I want all the information you can find about bears in the valley, sightings … I know they’ve got a few GPS tagged, let’s see what they can tell us. And I want to know immediately if anyone finds anything, no matter what time it is. This monster is out there and it’s our job to catch him.’

Iriarte came over as the other officers left.

‘Inspector, go along to my office. You’ve got a phone call from the General Commissioner in Pamplona.’ Amaia picked up the phone.

‘I’m afraid I can’t give you any good news, Commissioner. The investigation’s moving forward as fast as possible, although I’m afraid the killer is quicker than we are.’

‘It’s alright, Inspector, I think I’ve put the investigation in the best possible hands. I received a phone call an hour ago from a friend, someone connected to the Diario de Navarra. They’ll be publishing an interview with Miguel Ángel de Andrés, Carla Huarte’s boyfriend who was in prison accused of her murder, tomorrow. As you know, he’s been released. There’s no need to tell you where that leaves us; in any case, that’s not the problem: in the course of the interview, the journalist insinuates that there’s a serial killer on the loose in the Baztán Valley, that Miguel Ángel de Andrés was freed after it was discovered that the murders of Carla and Ainhoa are linked, and, on top of all this, the murder of the latest girl, Anne—’ it sounded like he was reading from notes, ‘—Urbizu, will be made public tomorrow.’

‘Arbizu,’ Amaia corrected him.

‘I’ll fax you a copy of the articles exactly as they’re going to appear tomorrow. I warn you that you’re not going to like them, they’re revolting.’

Zabalza came back with two printed sheets on which several sentences appeared to have been underlined.

Miguel Ángel de Andrés, who spent a month in Pamplona prison accused of the murder of Carla Huarte, confirms that the officers are linking the case with the recent murders of young girls in the Baztán Valley. The killer slashes their clothes and hairs of non-human origin have been found on the bodies. A terrible lord of the woods who kills within his domains. A bloodthirsty basajaun.

The article about Anne’s murder was headed ‘Has the Basajaun Struck Again?’