The Invisible Guardian

‘I’m sorry, it caught me by surprise, I was searching the river bank and I suddenly saw the biggest fucking rat ever, the beast looked at me and … I’m sorry, I fired instinctively. Fuck! I can’t stand rats, and then the officer told me it was a … I’m not sure what.’

‘A coypu,’ clarified the officer. ‘Coypus are a kind of mammal that originally came from South America. Some of them escaped from a French breeding farm in the Pyrenees a few years ago, and they happened to adapt well to the river. Although they’ve more or less stopped spreading, you still see one or two. But they’re harmless, in fact they’re herbivorous swimmers, like beavers.’

‘I’m sorry,’ repeated Montes, ‘I didn’t know. I’m musophobic, I can’t stand the sight of anything that looks like a rat.’

Amaia looked at him uncomfortably.

‘I’ll submit the weapons discharge form tomorrow,’ he muttered. He looked at his shoes in silence for a while, then moved aside and stood there without saying anything more.

Amaia almost felt sorry for him and for the fun the others would have at his expense over the next few days. She knelt by the body again and tried to empty her mind of everything other than the girl and her immediate surroundings.

The fact that the trees didn’t grow all the way down to the river along that stretch meant that there was no scent of soil and lichen, which had been so powerful up in the woods. Down there, in the gorge that the river had carved in the rocks, only the mineral odours from the water competed with the sweet, fatty smell of the txantxigorri. Its aroma of butter and sugar filled her nose, mixed with another more subtle scent that she recognised as that of recent death. She panted as she tried to contain her nausea, staring at the cake as if it were a repulsive insect and asking herself how it was possible for it to smell so strong. Dr San Martín knelt at her side.

‘Goodness, doesn’t it smell good?’ Amaia looked at him aghast. ‘That was a joke, Inspector Salazar.’

She didn’t reply, but stood up to give him more room.

‘But to tell the truth, it does smell very good and I haven’t had supper.’

Unseen by the pathologist, Amaia grimaced in disgust and turned to greet Judge Estébanez, who was making her way down between the rocks with enviable ease in spite of her skirt and heeled boots.

‘I don’t believe it,’ muttered Montes, who didn’t seem to have recovered from the incident with the coypu yet. The judge gave a wave of general greeting then went over to Dr San Martín to listen to his observations. Ten minutes later she had already gone again.

It took them more than an hour and a real team effort to get the coffin containing Anne’s body up from the gorge. The technicians suggested putting her in a body bag and hoisting her up, but San Martín insisted that she should be in a coffin in order to perfectly preserve the body and avoid the multiple bumps and scratches it might receive if it were dragged up through the jungle-like forest. At certain points the narrowness of the gaps between the trees obliged them to turn the coffin on its end and wait for fresh hands to take over from others. After several hairy moments they managed to carry the coffin as far as the hearse that would transport Anne’s body to the Navarra Institute of Forensic Medicine in Pamplona.

Each time Amaia had seen the body of a minor on the autopsy table she had been overwhelmed by a sense of her own impotence and helplessness and that of the society she lived in. A society where the death of its children signified its inability to protect its own future. A society that had failed. Like she had. She took a deep breath and entered the autopsy room. Dr San Martín was filling in the paperwork before the operation and greeted her as she made her way over to the steel table. Already stripped of all clothing, Anne Arbizu was laid out under the harsh light which would have revealed even the slightest imperfection on any other body, but in her case only underlined the unscathed whiteness of her skin, making her seem unreal, almost painted; Amaia thought of one of those marble Madonnas found in Italian museums.

‘She looks like a doll,’ she murmured.

‘I was saying the same thing to Sofía,’ the doctor agreed. The technician raised a hand in greeting. She would have made an excellent model for one of Wagner’s Valkyries.

Deputy Inspector Zabalza had just come in.

‘Are we waiting for anyone else or can we get started?’

‘Inspector Montes should have arrived by now …’ said Amaia, consulting her watch. ‘You start, Doctor, he’ll arrive any moment.’

She dialled Montes’s number but it went straight to voicemail; she supposed he must be driving. Under the harsh lights she could see some details she hadn’t noticed before. There were several short, dark, quite thick hairs on the skin.

‘Animal hairs?’

‘Probably, we found more stuck to the clothes. We’ll compare them with the ones that were found on Carla’s body.’

‘How long do you reckon she’s been dead for?’

‘Judging by the temperature of the liver, which I took when we were by the river, she might have been there two or three hours.’

‘That’s not very long, not long enough for any animals to approach the body … the cake was intact, it almost seemed freshly baked, and you could smell it as well as I could; if there had been animals close enough to leave hairs on her they would have eaten the cake like they did in Carla’s case.’

‘I’d have to ask the forest rangers,’ commented Zabalza, ‘but I don’t think it’s somewhere the animals normally go to drink.’

‘An animal could get down there easily,’ Dr San Martín observed.

‘Yes, they could get down there, but the river forms a narrow pass at that point which would make escape difficult, and animals always drink in the open where they can see as well as being seen.’

‘Well, in that case, how do you explain the hairs?’

‘Perhaps they were on the murderer’s clothes and were transferred during contact.’

‘That’s a possibility. Who would wear clothes covered in animal hair?’

‘A hunter, a forest ranger, a shepherd,’ said Jonan.

‘A taxidermist,’ added the technician who was assisting Dr San Martín and had remained silent until that point.

‘Right, we’ll have to track down anyone who matches that profile and was in the area, and also take into account that it must have been a strong man, a very strong man in my opinion. If it weren’t for the intimacy required by this sort of fantasy, I’d say there was more than one murderer. But one thing is certain, and that’s that not just anybody would have been able to carry a body down that slope, and it’s clear from the lack of scratches and grazes that he carried her down in his arms,’ said Amaia.

‘Are we sure she was already dead when he took her down there?’

‘I’m sure, no girl would go down to the river at night, even with someone she knew, and she certainly wouldn’t leave her shoes behind. I think he approaches them then kills them quickly before they suspect anything; perhaps they know him and that’s why they trust him, perhaps not and he has to kill them straight away. He gets the string round their necks and they’re dead before they know it; then he takes them to the river, arranges them just as he imagined in his fantasy and once he’s completed his psychosexual rite he leaves us a signal in the form of the shoes and lets us see his work.’ Amaia suddenly fell silent and shook her head as if waking from a dream. They were all looking at her as if spellbound.

‘Let’s move on to the string,’ said San Martín.

The technician grasped the girl’s head at the base of the cranium and lifted it high enough for Dr San Martín to extract the string from the dark channel in which it had been buried. He paid special attention to the sections adhering to the sides, on which small whitish fragments of something that looked like plastic or glue could be seen.

‘Look at this, Inspector, this is something new: unlike the other cases, there are bits of skin attached to the string. You can see that by pulling so hard he inflicted a cut, or at least a graze, which took away some of the skin.’

‘Given the absence of fingerprints, I thought he must be using gloves,’ Zabalza chipped in.

‘It would seem likely, but sometimes these killers can’t resist the pleasure they get from feeling a life end under their own hands, a feeling that would be deadened by gloves. As a consequence they sometimes end up taking them off, if only at the key moment. Even so, it’s sometimes enough for us.’

As Amaia had expected, Dr San Martín agreed that Anne had defended herself. Perhaps she had seen something that her predecessors hadn’t, something that had made her suspicious and was enough to prevent her from going to her death submissively. The symptoms of asphyxia were obvious, and it was clear that the killer had tried to use Anne to recreate his fantasy. He had succeeded up to a certain point, because at first glance that crime and all the paraphernalia the killer had used were identical to the previous ones. However, Amaia had the inexplicable impression that the killer hadn’t been at all pleased with the death, that the little girl with her angelic face, who could have been the monster’s masterpiece, had been tougher and more aggressive than the others. And although the killer had made an effort to arrange her with the same care as he had the others, Anne’s face didn’t reflect surprise and vulnerability but rather the fight for her life that she had kept up to the last and a parody of a smile that was actually rather terrifying. Amaia observed some reddish marks that had appeared around her mouth and extended almost as far as her right ear.

‘What are those red marks on her face?’

The technician took a sample using a swab. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as we know for certain, but I would say that it’s …’ she smelled the swab, ‘gloss.’

‘What’s gloss?’ asked Zabalza.

‘It’s like lipstick, Deputy Inspector, a greasy, shiny lipstick,’ explained Amaia.

In the course of her time as a homicide inspector she had attended more autopsies than she wanted to remember, and considered that she had more than fulfilled her quota of what I need to do to prove a woman can do this. With that in mind, she didn’t stay to watch the rest. The brutality of the y-shaped incision performed on a corpse is unparalleled by any other surgical procedure. The process, which consisted of removing and weighing the organs and then replacing them in the cavities, was never pleasant, but when the body belonged to a child or a young girl, as in this case, it was unbearable. She knew that it was less to do with the technical, unvarying steps of the autopsy procedure than the inexplicable reasons why a child would be on that steel table, which they ought to be forbidden from as a matter of course. The incongruity of that diminutive little body which barely filled the surface it had ended up on, the explosion of brilliant colours inside it and, most of all, the girl’s small, pale face with tiny drops of water still trapped in her eyelashes acted like clamorous cries to which she could not help but respond.

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.

10

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.’