‘Where are you from, inspector?’
‘I was born here, sir. Nearby. In a fishing village in Noitía. A de Meus.’
‘Do your parents still live here?’
‘My father died some time ago. At sea…’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘A stick of dynamite went off in his hands.’
When he gave this detail, something he endeavoured to do as quickly as possible, Fins knew there would be an infinite moment, something like the pause between the ticking of a clock.
‘Oh!’
It was raining lightly. Fins allowed the windscreen wiper to introduce a couple of asides. Then he expanded on the information. ‘My mother’s still alive. She has problems managing her memory. Of memory loss, I should say.’
‘Alzheimer’s is terrible,’ remarked Lieutenant Colonel Alisal. ‘My mother had it. She’d mix me up with the weatherman! Blow kisses whenever he appeared on television…’ He made the contained gesture of someone blowing a kiss from the palm of his hand. ‘I don’t know how she made that association.’
‘Maybe the weatherman’s pointer and the staff of office,’ said Fins.
Humberto Alisal laughed and shook his head. ‘No, she never saw me with a staff of office.’
Fins was about to say something about body language, but they were reaching their destination. He slowed down. The windscreen wiper groaned out of laziness. From the car park where they came to a halt they could hear the low panting of the sea muffled by blasts of errant water.
The car park opposite the Civil Guard barracks was full of mostly new, top-of-the-range cars. Given that this was a restricted space, it made the conglomeration of luxury vehicles even more obvious. The contrast between the one Fins Malpica had just parked, his Citroën Dyane, and the others was like that between a barge and a fleet of high-class yachts.
Once out of the vehicle, with Fins behind him, Lieutenant Colonel Alisal seemed to be giving the impressive sedans the once-over. His was a silent review that didn’t conceal his displeasure. He walked slowly, paying careful attention to the minor details, starting with the number plates, all of which indicated that the cars had only just been bought. ‘This is shameful!’
Fins had been hugely surprised when Superintendent Carro called him into his office to inform him of Alisal’s visit and request that he should accompany him. Ever since, on a different trail, he’d located these ‘trout in the milk’, he’d been in touch with Chief Superintendent Freire of the Civil Guard. The kind of guy he trusted, with whom he would have entered the heart of darkness. Freire paid an undercover visit. And was the one who informed his superiors.
‘It hurt me to discover the truth, sir. To start with, I tried to look the other way, but more and more trout kept appearing in the milk. So then I spoke to Chief Superintendent Freire. He came here incognito. Saw first hand what there was.’
‘Trout, you say? You’re far too polite. Are they all this filthy?’
‘No, sir. There are three clean ones. They had a bad time.’
‘A bad time? Why? Because they were carrying out their duty?’
‘They’re off sick. Severe depression.’
‘Depression!’
Lieutenant Colonel Alisal marched towards the barracks building. His indignation could be heard moving through the gears. As he walked, he expressed his thoughts aloud, ‘Three honourable, sick men. Well, that is something!’ Suddenly he stopped and turned to Fins. ‘What’s going on here? Please explain it to me.’
Fins was always at the ready, but even so he couldn’t pinpoint the right answer. He might have said, ‘Corruption, sir, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.’ But he didn’t like to be direct. He was never that direct. Lieutenant Colonel Alisal gazed up at the front of the building, the motto ‘All for the Fatherland’, and then sought out the sea’s horizon. It was a thick, dark, oily sea, across which slid and swept a ragged bunch of clouds.
‘All of this on account of some tobacco and a handful of drugs?’
‘That’s prehistory, sir.’
‘But the statistics… This doesn’t comply with the statistics. We’ve increased the number of seizures.’
The lieutenant colonel stopped in front of the guard standing sentry at the entrance to the building.
‘I wish to talk to the superintendent on duty. At once!’
The guard raised his eyebrows. He didn’t like that tone, especially coming from a civilian.
‘At once? Who are you then, the Generalissimo?’
The lieutenant colonel took his papers out of the inner pocket of his jacket.
‘I am Lieutenant Colonel Party Pooper.’
The guard checked his papers. Immediately stood to attention.
‘At your orders, sir!’
He was about to call the sergeant in the guardroom. Tell him to find the superintendent as quickly as possible. But this plain-clothes superior didn’t seem too worried about formalities. He had other obsessions. ‘Tell me, which of these cars is yours?’
The guard glanced at the third man, who had remained silent. He knew him from somewhere, but couldn’t quite place him. He had the appearance of a shadow. Fins, however, knew who the guard was. One clue had led to another without him even trying. Most of the cars had been bought from the same dealer. They hadn’t even bothered to cover their tracks. The owner shared business interests with Mariscal. Though the latter wasn’t exactly crazy about cars. He still drove his 1966 Mercedes-Benz. Its tail fins formed part of the Wild West landscape.
‘Are you happy, does it run well?’
‘I can’t complain. The car runs well. If you increase your speed, the consumption goes up. But I’m not one to do that.’
‘At ease!’
‘Thank you very much, sir.’
33
‘AN INTERVIEW? WHAT for, counsellor? Cui prodest?’
‘You do. You stand to gain. You’re a gentleman, you can’t go down in history as a cattle thief.’
Óscar Mendoza had already accepted on his behalf. An image campaign, he explained. Cui prodest. Cui bono, etc., etc. He had nothing to lose. On the contrary, everything to gain.
‘I already have a good image,’ countered Mariscal. ‘I’m known as a bit of a Casanova.’
The lawyer played along. ‘That’s right, but it could be bettered. Do you know what Churchill used to say? “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”’
‘Who said that?’
‘Churchill,’ repeated Mendoza. ‘Winston Churchill.’
‘I know who Churchill is, counsellor!’
Mariscal used this occasion to tell a story with mocking familiarity. ‘My father sold him wolfram at a good price. He sold it to the others as well. The Nazis wanted wolfram to make weapons and the Brits to stop them. On occasion, like other people, my father would sell the same material twice.’
‘A real neutral!’ exclaimed Mendoza.
That’s right. A neutral. Many border fortunes had been amassed as a result of this mineral needed for Hitler’s cannons. Mutatis mutandis. He rather liked the idea of an image campaign. He touched his neck with his hand, pinched the skin of his double chin. The last time he’d come face to face with a journalist had been to give him a warning. Right there, on the chin.
‘They say you’re the perfect example of a self-made man, Mr Brancana.’
‘Don’t beat about the bush. Call me Mariscal.’
He stared at the journalist in silence. Made out he was considering her statement when in fact he was thinking about her. She knew. There was an animal intelligence in her eyes. He noticed this because the first thing she did on entering the Ultramar’s back room was pay attention to the little owl. And when they sat down, on opening her notebook the first words she wrote, as he could see upside down, were ‘little owl’. The blinds were half lowered and filtered a staircase of light. Mariscal had lit a Havana cigar, the smoke of which rose in rings that lazily came back to ground. He soon saw that extended periods of silence made her nervous, and this discomfort on her part made him feel secure. The animal’s eyes were intelligent, but also meek. He liked this. He didn’t have time for high voltage.