Robert Wilson: A Small Death in Lisbon

'António!'

I yelled at him to come back up, but the wind whipped my voice away and shutded it through the girders of the new rail link.

António looked up at me with the terrible religious eyes of a suffering saint, or a tortured sinner on his way down to the next circle of hell. His face seemed to be broken up into pieces now, just shards of pottery miraculously floating together in a deep purple light. He looked over his shoulder and saw what I'd seen. The lights curving away over the black planet. The sea and the sky dense and empty and only the dark, cold wind calling.

The hammer went first, a silver speck into the night. His other hand disengaged from the rail and he fell backwards. The wind caught him to begin with and shored him back up, but then quickly let him have his weight. He stretched his arms out and shouted something that the wind tore off him. His foot caught in the rung of the rail, the ankle snapped and then he was on his way, dropping through the howling dark, gravity making an ant of him in seconds, and then nothing of him in a few more.

The sirens came. Steel light revolved in the night. I rolled away from the edge and felt like a man who'd momentarily had everything-friends, family, love and then just as quickly lost them all.

Carlos was in Intensive Care, his head and neck supported by some strange contraption that would keep it totally rigid and the back of his head free from any contact. Everything was functioning normally, all his organs, even his brain showed normal activity, but he hadn't regained consciousness, and there wasn't a neurosurgeon in Lisbon who would tell us when he would come out of his coma.

We watched him. His mother joined on to his father, who was set in stone, staring his will into his son. Olivia in shock over Carlos' state, but also in tears because she'd known António Borrego all her life. And me, tarred and feathered with guilt. If Carlos didn't make it, if he didn't make a full recovery, it would be the end of all possibilities. I would be, as Klaus Felsen had said, a man with no prospects.

They'd taken him off the ventilator after a few hours, once they were sure he was breathing properly. Now he was wired and tubed up and, with the blood transfusion over, he had only a saline drip in his arm. He was silent and still. The monitoring machines made noises for him. His muscles didn't twitch. His closed eyes didn't flicker. His face was relaxed. His body at peace, while his consciousness repaired itself. Where did they go, these coma people? Over what dark landscapes did they travel? Was there any light there at all, or was it a pothole with no light, not even an inkling of ambient light, only what your brain imagines as light?

At seven o'clock I left Olivia with Carlos' parents. I went to my office and sat at my desk. My colleagues came in to see me, to ask after Carlos, even though none of them had liked him, and I answered all of them. At 08.30 I went to see Narciso who made the expert, correct, nearly human sounds. I told him I was opening up an investigation into the disappearance of an ex-Pohaa Judiciária detective called Lourenço Gonçalves. He didn't respond.

I took a pool car and drove out to Odivelas and sat outside Valentim's apartment block. He surprised me by not keeping me waiting long-another man, perhaps, who wasn't sleeping so well at nights. He banded up his swag of ringlets and I rolled down the window and told him to get in the car.

I cruised into the heavy traffic heading south into town.

'Did you ever meet a guy called Lourenço Gonçalves?' I asked.

He repeated the name to himself and frowned, preparing to lie. I stopped the car in the traffic. Space built up in front of us and noise behind. I gave him the photograph of Gonçalves.

'He was a Security Consultant,' I said, 'which is a perfumed word for Private Investigator. He followed people around. That kind of thing.'

'Why should I know him?'

'Wasn't he the one who told you to put on an interesting little sex show in the Pensão Nuno? You know, something unusual like you, Bruno and an underage blonde…' I said. 'Do you remember what happened to her after that, after you made sure she was in the Pensão Nuno having sex with two guys at the same time?'

'She… she,' he faltered, as a guy from the car behind came and hammered on my window. 'She went back to school.'

I slammed my foot on the accelarator, floored it, and kept looking at Valentim. I threw his seat belt off. He put his hands out. I slammed on the brakes. His forearms buckled against the dashboard, his head smacked into the windscreen. Blood appeared in a line on his brow. He slumped back into the seat, his fingers feeling along the split skin. I picked up the photograph, pulled his hands away from his face.

'Tell me, Valentim and you're out of here.'

'He offered me money.'

'How much are we talking about?'

'Initially it was a million escudos.'

'Your new computer edit suite.'

He nearly looked ashamed, but that would have drawn on reserves he didn't have.

'Then he told me that I'd probably have to take some heat from your people and… and I doubled it.'

'Nice job, Valentim,' I said. 'Tell me your conscience is clear.'

'I thought…'

'You thought it was an interest-free gift?' I said. 'You should take a look at the cost of money these days.'

I pulled up and kicked his bony arse out of the car. He cringed over the pavement like a village cur.

I turned round and went back up to the 2 0 Circular and took the motorway out to Cascais. I drove to Cabo da Roca, to the last house on mainland Europe. The wind was stronger up there and the house looked sharpened, honed clean in the freezing air.

Felsen was in his enclosed terrace, his head folded down on to his chest like a dead bird. He came to as I sat down.

'Ah,' he said, but he couldn't quite place me.

'Inspector Coelho,' I reminded him, and gave him a few seconds to digest it. 'Who's your lawyer, Senhor Felsen?'

'Am I being charged with something?' he asked, confused for a moment. 'I don't know that I have one any more.'

'Did you have a lawyer in prison?'

'I didn't need one. The damage was done. Once you're in… it's the devil to get out.'

'And when you got out?'

'Not for some years. Then one came to the house. Or did I go to him? His name was…' a shaky finger came out to place the name, but didn't find it.

'Dr Aquilino Oliveira?'

'Yes, that was him. He was my lawyer for… maybe ten years. I don't know. He may still be now.'

'Did you tell him your stories?'

'He was a very good listener… unusual for a lawyer. They always like to tell you how it is, don't they? With the law and that-how damned complicated it all is and how much you need them.'

'You never mentioned that you knew a political called António Borrego in Caxias prison.'

'A political cleaned out my cell for several months. He asked me about this woman… I used to know her name too.'

'Maria Antónia Medinas,' I said. 'The last time we talked you couldn't get her name out of your head. Can you tell me what António Borrego wanted to know about her?'

'He asked if I'd seen her or heard anything about her.'

'Had you?'

Well, I knew she was dead.'

How?'

'She'd been murdered… if that's what they call it in prison.'

'And did you see who did it?'

'I saw him. I called out to him. Manuel. He was my son, you know, illegitimate son. But he didn't hear me, and the next morning they carried her out,' he said, and he looked as if he might cry, until I realized he was, in fact, disgusted. 'There was so much blood in her skirt, the weight of it… it dragged along the ground. It left a brown trail.'