Offering to the Storm

Amaia took in the array of talismans with which Elena had surrounded herself: the poor woman was desperately trying to convince herself that she was in control, and yet her body language betrayed her.

‘Elena, look at me,’ she commanded.

Elena turned off the tap, dropped the sponge and swung round to look at her.

‘I had a twin sister who died at birth. The official cause was registered as cot death.’

Pale with fear, the woman raised her hands, placed them over her distraught face, moist with tears, and asked: ‘Where is she buried? Where is she buried?’

Amaia shook her head, watching the woman flinch as she went on to explain:

‘We don’t know. I found her tomb, but the coffin was empty.’

Elena gave a terrible, visceral howl, and lunged at Amaia, who leapt to her feet, startled.

‘Leave my house! Leave my house and never come back!’ she screamed, corralling Amaia to force her to walk on.

Before opening the front door, Amaia turned once more to plead with the woman.

‘At least tell me where the house is.’

After the door slammed shut, she could still hear the woman’s muffled sobs coming from inside.

Instinctively, she reached into her pocket for her phone and dialled Special Agent Aloisius Dupree. She pressed it tightly to her ear as she walked back to her car, listening hard for the faintest sound at the other end of the line. She was about to hang up, when she heard a crackle. She knew he was there, the FBI agent who had been her mentor during her time in New Orleans, and who remained an important part of her life, despite the distances. The sound that reached her through the earpiece a moment later made a shiver run up her spine: the repetitive drone of a funeral chant, the echo of voices suggesting a large space, possibly a cathedral. There was something bleak and sinister about the way three words were repeated over and over again in a monotone. But it was the shrill, anguished death cry that made her stomach turn. The tortured death throes continued for a few seconds, then at last the pitiful sound faded, she assumed because Dupree was moving away.

When at last he spoke, his voice betrayed the same anguish she herself felt.

‘Don’t call me again, I’ll call you.’ Then he hung up, leaving Amaia feeling so small and far away from him that it made her want to scream.

She was still holding her phone when it rang. She looked at the screen with a mixture of hope and panic. She recognised the FBI’s ID number and heard Agent Johnson’s friendly voice greeting her from Virginia. He announced that the seminars at Quantico had been given the green light, and they were hoping she might contribute to the area of studies concerned with criminal behaviour. They were currently in the process of requesting permission from her superior.

Up to that point, their conversation didn’t differ from any of the previous conversations she’d had with FBI officials, but the fact that she’d received the call moments after speaking to Dupree didn’t escape her notice, and what Agent Johnson said next instantly confirmed to her that they were monitoring her calls.

‘Inspector, have you had any type of contact with Special Agent Dupree?’

Amaia bit her lip, hesitating, as she recalled the conversation she’d had with Agent Johnson a month or so ago, when he’d advised her not to use official telephone lines for anything relating to Agent Dupree, and had given her a special number to call. On the rare occasions when she had managed to get in touch with Dupree, his voice always sounded far away, plagued with echoes; invariably, they got cut off, and on one occasion his number had vanished from her phone as if the call had never taken place. Then there had been the mysterious emails she’d asked Jonan to look into; he’d succeeded in tracking the source to an IP address in Baton Rouge, Louisiana – at which point the FBI stepped in and ordered him to desist with the search. Johnson had asked her about Dupree as if he’d forgotten what she’d told him during their last conversation, namely that Dupree always answered her calls. In any event, Johnson was calling her now because he knew she had just spoken to Dupree. Informing her that she had been accepted on to the course was simply a pretext.

‘Not very often. I occasionally call to say hello, the same way I do with you,’ she said, nonchalantly.

‘Have you spoken to Agent Dupree about the case he is currently working on?’

Johnson sounded as if he were ticking boxes on an internal questionnaire sheet.

‘No, I didn’t even know he was working on a new case.’

‘If Agent Dupree gets in touch with you again, will you inform us?’

‘You’re freaking me out, Agent Johnson, is something wrong?’

‘Only that in the last few days we’ve had trouble contacting Agent Dupree. I expect the situation has gotten a little complicated, and for reasons of security he’s decided to lie low. There’s no need for you to be alarmed, Inspector. However, if Dupree does get in touch with you, we’d be grateful if you’d let us know immediately.’

‘I’ll do that, Agent Johnson.’

‘Thank you, Inspector, we look forward to seeing you here very soon.’

She hung up, then sat in her car for ten minutes waiting for the phone to ring again. When it did, she recognised Johnson’s private number on the screen.

‘What was that all about?’

‘I told you, Dupree has his own way of doing things. He’s been incommunicado for some time, which, as you know, is normal when you’re working undercover. Finding the right moment can be difficult. However, that, together with Agent Dupree’s somewhat irreverent attitude, is causing them to question the security of his identity.’

‘You mean they think his cover might have been blown?’

‘That’s the official version. The truth is, they think he may have been taken hostage.’

‘What do you think?’ she said, warily, wondering how far she could trust Johnson. How could she be sure this second call wasn’t also being recorded?

‘I think Dupree knows what he’s doing.’

‘So do I,’ she declared, with all the conviction she could muster, as the grotesque cries she had heard when Dupree answered his phone resounded once more in her head.

10

They had spent the afternoon at the shopping centre on Carretera de Francia on the pretext of buying clothes for Ibai, and to escape the cold brought by the fog that was thickening as night fell; by the time they left for dinner in the evening, they could scarcely see beyond the far bank of the river. The Santxotena restaurant was relatively lively, the murmur of laughter and voices reaching them as soon as they crossed the threshold. They were in the habit of reserving a table by the kitchen that opened on to the spacious dining room, so that they could watch the orderly bustle of three generations of women, clad in starched white aprons over black uniforms, moving about the kitchen as if it were a formal dance they’d rehearsed a thousand times.

After choosing from the wine list, James and Amaia were content to enjoy the atmosphere in the restaurant for a while. They hadn’t touched on the subject of the funeral, and had avoided bringing to a head the palpable tension that had arisen between them that afternoon. They knew they needed to talk, but had made a tacit agreement to wait until they were alone.

‘How’s the investigation going?’ James asked.

She looked at him, debating how to answer. Since she joined the police force, she had been meticulous about never discussing her work with her family, and they knew not to ask. She had no desire to talk to James about the more disturbing aspects of her job, in the same way she felt there were scenes from her past it was best not to mention, even though he already knew about them. She found it difficult to talk about her childhood, and for years she’d buried the truth beneath a false veneer of normality. When the barriers holding back all that horror had burst open, driving her to the edge of sanity, confiding in James had been the chink in the wall of fear that allowed light to flood in, creating a place for them to come together – a place that had delivered her back to a world where, if she was vigilant, the old ghosts could not touch her.

And yet, she’d always known that fear never goes away completely, it merely shrinks back to a dark, dank place, where it waits, reduced to a tiny red light you can still see even if you don’t want to, even if you refuse to acknowledge its existence, because it prevents you from living. She also knew that fear is a private thing, that no amount of talking about it, or naming it, will make it go away; that the old cliché ‘a burden shared is a burden halved’ didn’t apply where fear was concerned. She had always believed that love would triumph over everything, that opening the door and revealing herself to James with all the baggage of her past would suffice.

Now, sitting opposite him, she still saw the handsome young man she had fallen in love with. The self-assured, optimistic artist no one had ever tried to kill, with his simple, almost childlike way of looking at things that enabled him to follow a steady path, safe from life’s cruelties. It allowed him to believe that turning the page, burying the past, or talking to a psychiatrist for months about your mother’s desire to eat you, would help her to overcome her fears, to live in a world of green meadows and blue skies sustained by simply willing it to be so. This belief that happiness was a choice struck her as so naïve as to be almost insulting. She knew James didn’t really want to know how her work was going, and that when he asked he wasn’t expecting her to explain that she had questioned a psychopath about where her mother or her vanished sister’s body were.

She smiled at him, because she loved him, because his way of seeing the world still intrigued her, and because she knew that part of love was making the effort to love someone.

‘Quite well. I’m hoping to wrap up the case in a couple of days,’ she replied.

‘I spoke to my father today,’ he said. ‘He hasn’t been feeling well lately. My mother insisted he have a check-up and they’ve found a lesion in his heart.’

‘Oh, James! Is it serious?’

‘No, even my mother is relaxed. Apparently he has a small blockage in one of his coronary arteries due to early stage arteriosclerosis. He needs a bypass to prevent future heart attacks. However, he’ll have to stop working. My mother has been pressuring him to hand over the day-to-day management of the company, but he likes to keep busy, so while his health held out he was content to carry on indefinitely. She seems almost happy about it, and is already talking about the trips they’ll make when he gets over the surgery.’

‘I hope it all goes well, James, and I’m glad you’re taking it this way. When’s the operation?’

‘Next Monday. That’s why I asked how your work was going. I was hoping the three of us could fly over there together. My parents haven’t seen Ibai since the baptism.’

‘Hm …’

‘We could leave after the funeral. Flora stopped by this morning to tell us she thinks it’ll be on Friday. She’s going to confirm tomorrow. We’d only stay for a few days. I doubt you’ll have a problem taking vacation at this time of year.’

Too many loose ends, too much that needed sorting out. Yes, the investigation would be officially closed in a few days, but there was that other business; she had yet to receive confirmation from the commissioner’s office about whether she’d be attending the seminars at Quantico, and she hadn’t even mentioned that to James.

‘I don’t know, James … I’ll have to think about it.’

The smile froze on his face.

‘Amaia, this is really important to me,’ he said solemnly.

She instantly grasped the implication. He had given her a glimpse yesterday. He had his own needs, his own plans, he wanted a place in her life. The image of the stalled works at Juanitaenea flashed into her mind, together with Yáñez’s words: ‘a house isn’t the same as a home’.

She reached across the table to clasp his hand.

‘Of course, it’s important for me too,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘First thing tomorrow, I’ll put in a request. As you say, I doubt they’ll object, no one goes on holiday at this time of year.’

‘Excellent,’ he replied cheerily. ‘I’ve been looking at flights. As soon as you’ve got permission, I’ll book our tickets.’

James spent the rest of the dinner planning their trip, excited at the idea of taking Ibai to the States for the first time. She listened, saying nothing.

11

She was aware of his hot breath on her skin, of becoming intensely aroused as she sensed his closeness. He murmured something she couldn’t hear, but she didn’t care, something about his voice mesmerised her. It evoked the contours of his mouth, his moist lips, the smile she had always found so troubling. Inhaling the warmth of his skin stirred her desire; she longed for him, eyes closed, holding her breath, as her senses yielded to pleasure. She felt his lips on her neck, descending in a slow, unstoppable advance, like lava flowing from a volcano. Every nerve in her body was engaged in a furious struggle between pleasure and pain, pleading for more, wanting more, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling, her nipples contracting, a burning sensation between her thighs. She opened her eyes, glancing about, confused. The little light she always left on at night permitted her to recognise the familiar shape of their bedroom in Engrasi’s house. Her body tensed, alarmed. James whispered in her ear as he went on kissing her.

It was daylight, and Ibai was already awake. She could hear him moving, gurgling softly as he kicked his legs in the air, pushing off the duvet, which would end up at the foot of his cot. She didn’t open her eyes immediately; it had taken her ages to fall asleep again after they made love, and, eyelids still heavy, she relished the idea of lazing in bed for another five minutes. She heard James get up, gather Ibai in his arms and whisper to him:

‘Are you hungry? We’ll let Ama snooze.’

She heard them leave the room, as she lay there, trying in vain to relax into a peaceful, dreamless sleep. All of a sudden, the dream about Markina came flooding back. She knew better than anyone that we aren’t responsible for our dreams, that the most pleasurable fantasies and the sickest nightmares come from a mysterious, unreachable place beyond our control. Still, she felt guilty. Wide-awake now, irritated at having had to renounce those five extra minutes of peace, she analysed her feelings. She realised the sense of guilt came not from having dreamt about Markina, but rather because she had made love with her husband stimulated by the desire she felt for the judge.

As James entered the room, bringing her a cup of coffee, the mobile on her bedside table made an unpleasant buzzing noise.

‘Good morning, Iriarte.’

‘Good morning, Inspector. We’ve just had a call from the prison in Pamplona. Berasategui has been found dead in his cell.’

She hung up, leapt to her feet, dressing between sips of coffee. She hated drinking it like that; she’d got into the habit of drinking her morning coffee in bed back when she was a student and it remained her preferred way to start the morning. Rushing to get ready was something she detested; it always augured a bad day.

The prison governor was waiting for them at the entrance, pacing up and down like a caged animal. He extended his hand courteously, then invited them to follow him to his office. Amaia refused, requesting to see the body immediately.

A guard escorted them through the various security gates until they reached the isolation cells. They could tell which one was Berasategui’s from the guard posted outside the metal door.

‘The doctor found no signs of violence on the body,’ explained the director. ‘He was placed in isolation yesterday at Judge Markina’s request, and hadn’t spoken to anyone since.’ He signalled to the guard to unlock the door, then ushered them in.

‘But someone must have come in here,’ said Inspector Montes, ‘if only to confirm that he was dead.’

‘One of the guards noticed he wasn’t moving and raised the alarm. The only people to have entered the cell are the prison doctor, who confirmed that he was dead, and myself. We called you immediately. It appears he died of natural causes.’

The cell, which contained no personal effects, was clean and tidy, the bedclothes smoothed out, military fashion. Dr Berasategui lay face up on his bunk, fully dressed down to his shoes, face relaxed, eyes closed. The scent of his cologne filled the cell, yet the perfect neatness of his clothes, his hands clasped on his chest, gave the impression of an embalmed corpse.

‘Natural causes, you say?’ Amaia frowned. ‘This was a thirty-six-year-old man who kept himself in good shape; he even had a gym in his apartment. Not only that, he was a doctor, so he’d have been the first to know if he was unwell, don’t you think?’

‘I must admit, this is the best-looking corpse I’ve ever seen!’ Montes joked, nudging Zabalza, who was searching the perimeter of the cell with a flashlight.

Amaia pulled on the gloves Inspector Etxaide handed to her and approached the bunk. She studied the body in silence for a few minutes, until she became aware of Dr San Martín standing behind her.

‘What have we here, Inspector? The prison doctor tells me there are no signs of violence, and suggests death by natural causes.’

‘There are no objects in here with which he could have harmed himself,’ said Montes, ‘and whatever the cause of death, you can see from looking at him that he didn’t suffer.’

‘Well, if you’ve finished here, I’ll take him away. The results of the autopsy should be ready later today.’

‘Berasategui didn’t die of natural causes,’ Amaia broke in. The others said nothing, and she thought she heard Zabalza sigh. ‘Look at the way he’s arranged, right in the centre of the bed. Clothes smoothed out, shoes polished. Hands placed exactly as he’d want us to see them when we walked in here. This guy was a proud, vain narcissist, who would never have let us discover him in an embarrassing or humiliating attitude.’

‘Suicide doesn’t fit the profile of a narcissistic personality,’ Jonan ventured.

‘Yes, I know, that’s what threw me when we walked in. On the one hand, it fits; on the other, it doesn’t. Suicide may not be typical of someone with his personality, but if Berasategui were going to take his own life, this is exactly how I imagine he’d go about it.’

‘But the body shows no signs of suicide,’ protested Zabalza.

His curiosity piqued, San Martín approached Berasategui’s corpse, felt his throat, lifted his eyelids and looked down his throat.

‘All the hallmarks of a heart attack, but it’s true he was relatively young and in good shape. On the other hand, there are no lesions, no defensive wounds, or other signs of injury. Anyone would think,’ said the doctor, looking round at the company, ‘that he simply lay down and died.’

‘Quite right, Doctor. That’s exactly what he did: he lay down and died. But to do that, he needed help. How long had he been in isolation?’ she said, addressing the director.

‘Since approximately eleven o’clock yesterday morning, shortly after Judge Markina called me. I was away, but my deputy informed me fifteen minutes after he’d been moved.’

‘Are there any cameras in these cells?’ asked Montes, shining a flashlight into the corners of the room.

‘No, they aren’t necessary. Guards monitor prisoners in isolation through the windows in the cell doors. But we have CCTV out in the corridors. I assumed you’d want to see the tape, so I’ve prepared a copy.’

‘What about the two men who were guarding him yesterday?’

‘They’ve been suspended, pending an investigation of that other incident,’ replied the director, looking uncomfortable.

Montes and Etxaide, having no idea what this ‘other incident’ might be, turned to look at her, demanding answers. Ignoring them, Amaia approached the bunk once more and said:

‘Dr Berasategui had no wish to die, but his personality prevented him from permitting another to take his life for him.’

‘He didn’t want to die, yet he killed himself …?’

She leaned over the body, illuminating his face with her flashlight. Berasategui’s bronzed skin revealed a whitish residue confined to the wrinkles around his eyes.

‘Tears,’ announced San Martín.

‘Yes, sir,’ she agreed. ‘True to his nature as a narcissist, Berasategui lay down here, out of self-pity, wept over his own death. Copiously,’ she said, feeling a patch of fabric visibly darker than the rest. ‘He cried so much he soaked the pillow with his tears.’

12

Montes felt satisfied. The CCTV footage revealed a guard approaching Berasategui’s cell, and slipping something through the window, which, although it wasn’t visible on camera could easily have been something he used to kill himself. The guard had finished his shift and made himself scarce by the time they sent a patrol car to his house. He was probably in France or Portugal by now. Even so, knowing that bastard Berasategui was dead had made Montes’s day.

As he leaned forward to turn on the radio, the car swerved slightly, the front tyre touching the white line at the side of the road.

‘Careful!’ cried Zabalza from the passenger seat. He’d been subdued throughout the journey and Montes assumed he was sulking because he’d refused to let him drive. What the hell! No brat was going to take the wheel while Montes was in the car. He glanced sidelong at him, grinning.

‘Calm down, you’re as a tense as a teenage boy’s scrotum,’ he said, laughing at his own joke, until he saw that Zabalza was still irritated.

‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘She drives me crazy …’

‘Who?’

‘Who do you think? The fucking star cop.’

‘Watch your mouth, lad!’ warned Montes.

‘Didn’t you see that mystical act she puts on? The way she stood looking at Berasategui’s body, as if she felt sorry for him, waiting for the room to go quiet before she spoke, as if she was about to pass judgement. As for that bullshit about him crying – for fuck’s sake! Everyone knows that corpses cry, piss themselves, leak fluid from every orifice.’

‘Berasategui certainly didn’t piss himself … I imagine he was careful not to drink anything, because he wanted to be immaculate when we found him. Besides, the pillow was sodden. I think the guy really did weep over his own death.’

‘Rubbish,’ scoffed Zabalza.

‘No, it isn’t rubbish. You should be watching, not criticising, you might learn something.’

‘Who from? That clown?’

The two men were thrown forward slightly, as Montes stepped on the brakes, pulling over into a lay-by.

‘Why did you do that?’ Zabalza cried, startled.

‘Because I don’t want to hear you talk about Inspector Salazar like that again. Not only is she your superior, she’s an outstanding police officer and a loyal colleague.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Fermín!’ Zabalza laughed. ‘Don’t get so upset. You’re the one who coined the phrase “star cop” remember.’

Montes looked straight at him as he started the car again.

‘You’re right, and I was wrong. They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, don’t they? If you have any problems, you can always come to me, but I warn you, I won’t hear any more of this kind of talk,’ he said, joining the motorway again.

‘I don’t have any problems,’ muttered Zabalza.

As she left the cell, Amaia noticed the prison governor standing further along the corridor talking to Judge Markina, whose hushed voice brought back vivid recollections of her dream the night before. She concentrated on the brief summary she would give him before making her escape, but it was too late, the murmur of his voice had drawn her in, even though she was too far away to hear what he was saying. She stood watching his gesticulations, his habit of touching his face when he spoke, the way his jeans narrowed at the waist, how the blue of his shirt gave him a youthful air. She found herself speculating about how old he was, thinking it odd that she didn’t know. She waited for Dr San Martín to arrive and then joined them. She did her best to avoid Markina’s gaze while she gave a brief report, but without making it too obvious.