Edu paled, and gave the impression of cowering in his seat. Yes, everyone had heard of that.
“Well, in your case it will be worse, since I’ll make sure the guards tell the reliable prisoners. And in passing let slip that you’re a good boy who evaded justice for years because of Daddy’s contacts.” He laughed inwardly, seeing the face this worm was making. “If there are two things prisoners hate it’s paedophiles and rich kids. I really wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when three or four of them corral you in one of the rooms while the guards look the other way.”
He seemed on the verge of breaking down. Good, that’s how I like it, thought Salgado.
“Of course if you cooperate a little, maybe I’ll do the opposite. Ask the screws to protect you, tell them you’re a good boy who’s made a few mistakes.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What did your brother tell you?”
Leire was about to form the next question when a serious Héctor Salgado appeared in the room and, moving slowly toward Aleix, said to him very quietly:
“Edu’s been explaining a few things to me. The idea of going to jail has made him very communicative.”
Salgado sat on the edge of the table, very close to Aleix.
“And by the end I’d formed an opinion of you. Want to know what it is?”
The boy shrugged.
“Answer me when I speak to you.”
“You’re going to tell me anyway, aren’t you?” replied Aleix.
“Yes. You’re a clever guy. Very clever. At least in school. First in class, leader of the pack. A good-looking boy with a rich family behind him. But deep down you know there’s lots of shit hidden in this family. The rest don’t matter, but Edu is special. You’ve done a lot of things for Edu. .”
Aleix looked up.
“Edu helped me a lot years ago.”
“Yeah. Because of that you couldn’t let Marc’s plan proceed. It was a somewhat crazy plan, but it could have come off and your precious Edu would have had to face a very disagreeable time. You killed Marc for that? So it wouldn’t go ahead?”
“No! I’ve told you a hundred times. I didn’t kill Marc. Not me, not Edu-”
“Well, right now it’s on you. It all adds up.”
Aleix looked at Salgado, then at Leire. He didn’t find even a hint of understanding. Finally he threw his head back, closed his eyes and inhaled. When he opened them again, he started speaking slowly, almost relieved.
“Marc got really angry with his uncle when he refused to tell him who that monitor was. And then that stupid idea occurred to him.” He paused. “You know everything already, don’t you? I suppose you found the USB at Gina’s house.”
Leire didn’t know what he was talking about but nodded. “I was lucky. I grabbed it when you left.”
“Well, then you’ve seen it. The photos of Natàlia, ready to be downloaded on to his uncle’s computer. In a way it would have been funny: seeing enormous Father Castells’ face when he turned on the computer and found photos of a naked little girl on it, along with some others Marc had downloaded from the internet. Also, Marc worked on the photos. He took lots of the little one one night while she was asleep. Did you know that little Chinese girls are very popular with paedophiles?”
Leire tried not to let the emotion and disgust she felt show in her appearance. She was mentally putting two and two together, trying to anticipate and not put her foot in it. But then Salgado intervened.
“It would have been difficult for him to explain those photos if someone had seen them.”
“Of course. And for once the cassock wouldn’t protect him from the rumors. Rather the contrary.”
“Rumors like the ones you spread in school about that teacher,” said Héctor, remembering it at that moment.
Aleix smiled slightly.
“Yes. Stupid bitch. I found a profile of hers on the internet, all very decent, I swear. I stole the photos, played around with Photoshop to enhance certain charms, added other text and then sent the thing to her whole list of contacts. And not just private ones; I even included the principal of the school. It was brilliant!”
“And Marc thought to do the same with Father Castells’ email account and the photos of Natàlia,” added Héctor.
“More or less. Really Marc wanted to use it as a threat. Thanks to a few things I’d taught him, he’d deciphered his uncle’s account password. His plan was simple. On one hand, upload the file with the photos on to Father Castells’ computer, then after the San Juan long weekend call and corner him: either he gave him the name he wanted or those disgusting photos that Fèlix, horrified, was seeing for the first time would be revealed to all his contacts. Knowing his password and having the USB with the photos, Marc could do it from home. Enric, Glòria, the priest’s colleagues, the clerical associations-can you imagine their faces if suddenly an email arrived from Castells containing photos of his naked niece?”
“It’s sick,” Leire pointed out. “He was going to do that to a man who raised him, who’d almost been a father to him?”
Aleix shrugged.
“Marc’s theory was that Fèlix would have talked. In the moment of desperation he’d reveal the name he wanted. And then he wouldn’t have to carry out his threat. Anyway, he didn’t feel too bad about giving him a fright: at the end of the day he was an accessory.”
“And you thought he’d get his way?”
The boy nodded.
“The plan could have failed spectacularly and Fèlix could have refused, but. . It’s a bad time for priests regarding this subject. He wouldn’t have risked his reputation to protect Edu. . I tried to dissuade Marc, point out the risks. I insisted that this wasn’t a school joke any more, it was a much more serious thing. If the truth came out he and Gina could have had a bad time of it. I managed to convince him to postpone the whole thing for a few days, at least. I told him we should think about it so as not to put our foot in it and I persuaded him to leave it until after the exams. He didn’t bring up the subject again, but through Gina I knew he’d gone ahead with the plan behind my back.”
“And you couldn’t allow that. . So you convinced Gina to keep the USB,” Héctor continued interrogating him. “It was easy. She was hugely jealous of the girl from Dublin and she was really frightened. Also, Gina was a sensitive girl.” He smiled. “Too sensitive. Seeing those photos horrified her. Marc saved them on the USB to delete them from his computer. At my request, Gina convinced him that it was better that she kept it in her house until he had the opportunity to access Fèlix’s computer.”
“And the opportunity arose over San Juan weekend,” said Leire, recalling that Fèlix was staying with the rest of his family in Collbató. “But Gina didn’t bring the USB to the party and Marc got angry,” she continued, sure of herself thanks to Rubén’s story. “He got angry with you and with her and ended up flushing the drugs you had to sell. The drugs you still had to pay for, incidentally. You tried to stop him and you hit him. The T-shirt he was wearing got stained with blood. Because of that, he then took it off and put on another.”
“More or less. .”
“You said you left, and your brother confirmed it, but your mutual alibi isn’t very satisfactory now, would you say?”
He leaned toward the table.
“It’s true! I went home. Edu was there. I didn’t tell him any of this. God, I only told him last night because I need money to pay these guys. If not, I’d never have told him anything. He’s. . my brother.”
Leire looked at Héctor. The boy seemed to be telling the truth. Salgado pretended to ignore his colleague and sat down at a corner of the table.
“Aleix, what I can’t understand is how a boy as clever as you could make such a crude mistake. How did you let Gina keep the USB? You were in control of everything. And you knew you couldn’t trust her-”
“I didn’t!” he protested. “I asked her for it the same day you came to question her. But she got mixed up and gave me the wrong one. You know something? I am cleverer than you. Do you have the transcription of the suicide note that Gina wrote to hand? Do you remember it? Gina would never have written that! She was incapable of leaving off an accent or using abbreviations. Her father, the writer, hates them.”