Robert Wilson - A Small Death in Lisbon

'That doesn't mean I think that black people are all criminals,' I said. 'I lived in Africa, I know Africans, and a lot of them I liked. What it means is that there are plenty of people out there who are racially prejudiced and I wouldn't want my daughter to have to face any of that if she didn't have to.'

The dark gardens of the Jardim da Estrela slipped by looking cool and soporific. I cut up by the side of the Basilica and climbed the hill up to Lapa. This is embassy land, an old money haven overlooking the docks of Alcântara, probably so the rich could see their money coming in. We parked in a central square outside an old apartment block with a view over an old and decrepit palácio which had scaffolding around it and a building licence from the town hall on the front gate.

We rang the bell. No answer. A gardener hacked away at some undergrowth on the other side of the railings.

'That's the Palácio do Conde dos Olivais,' I said to Carlos. 'It's been locked up and in ruins since I can remember.'

'Looks like they're doing it up.'

I shouted over to the gardener, an old dark-skinned guy with a face like a mule. He stopped work and leaned against the railing and removed the cigarette from his mouth that had gone out some time ago.

'It's going to be a bordello,' he said.

'Is that right?'

'You know what you need for a good bordello?'

'Nice girls, perhaps.'

'Plenty of rooms. This place is perfect,' he said and set off on an asthmatic laugh. He wiped his face off with a soiled rag. 'No. It's going to be one of those exclusive clubs for rich people with too few ideas on how to spend all that money they've got under their mattresses.'

Carlos grunted a laugh and rang the bell again. No answer. The gardener relit his cigarette.

'This is where the Nazis lived in the war,' he said. 'Then the Americans took it over when they lost.'

'It's a big place for a club.'

'They're serious people… the rich. That's what they tell me anyway.'

We got an answer. A very faint one. A spindly female voice too frail to comprehend. She let us in on the fifth explanation. We walked up the stairs to the second floor. A woman in a thick green cardigan and a tweed skirt answered the door. She'd forgotten who we were already and when we re-explained she said she hadn't called the police, that nothing had happened. She began to close the door with a shaky Parkinson's hand.

'It's OK, Mum,' said a voice behind her. 'They're here to talk to me. It's nothing to worry about.'

'I sent the maid out for something… and they always come when she's out, and I have to get up and answer the bell, and I can never hear anything from that…'

'It's OK, Mum. She'll be back soon.'

We followed the woman who shuffled into the living room on her son's arm. The walls were floor-to-ceiling with books and the air space was mostly taken up with racks of drawings, paintings, sketches and watercolours. The boy sat the woman down at a table which had a large diameter glass on it and a decanter of what might have been tawny port.

The boy, in regulation T-shirt and jeans, took us into another room. He had long straight dark hair parted in the middle and a sad face with a limited range of expression. His mouth barely opened when he spoke. The walls of this room were covered in more drawings and sketches, none of them framed.

'Who's the artist?' asked Carlos.

'My mother was a gallerist… this is what's left of her stock.'

'She looks sick.'

'She is.'

'Have you spoken to Valentim?'

'He called.'

'When did you last have sex with Catarina?' I asked, and Carlos flinched as if he'd have to answer the question.

Bruno stepped back and brushed his hair over his shoulders with his two hands flapping like a startled bird.

'What!' he said, his mouth opening two millimetres more than a clam's, which was a Munch's ' Scream, ' for him.

'You heard.'

'I wasn't…'

'Teresa Carvalho says you were. You, Valentim and half the university.'

He looked broken already, as if he was a spider wearing his skeleton on the outside. Valentim might have prepared him for something but not this. He swallowed.

'We don't want to hear Valentim's script either,' I said. 'This is a murder investigation so if I think for two seconds that you're lying and obstructing the course of justice, I'll take you down to the tacos for the weekend. Have you ever been there before?'

'No.'

'Do you know what they are?'

No answer.

'Pimps, prostitutes, druggies, drunks, pushers, pickpockets and other assorted punks too violent to be allowed home. No daylight. No fresh air. Pig slop for food. I'll do it to you, Bruno. The maid will look after your mother, so I won't feel bad about that. So, forget Valentim… and let's have it.'

He stood by the window and his head slid round to look over the palácio to the patch of the River Tagus visible through the trees. It didn't look as if he was going to have to do too much thinking.

'Friday lunchtime,' he said to the windowpane. 'Where?'

'The Pensáo Nuno… it's near the Praça da Alegria somewhere.'

'What time?'

'Between one and two.'

'Were drugs involved?'

Bruno came away from the window and sat on the bed. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and spoke to the floor. 'We took a tab of E each and smoked a joint.'

'Who supplied?' He didn't answer.

'We're not doing anybody for possession or supply of drugs,' I said. 'I just want to have the picture straight in my head. I want to see every minute of that day clearly as if it were my own. Was it Teresa Carvalho?'

'Valentim,' he said.

'Valentim was there as well?' asked Carlos. The boy nodded to the floor.

'The two of you were there together… having sex with the girl?' Bruno gripped his forehead trying to squeeze the memory out. 'How did this happen?'

'Valentim said she was into it.'

'Was that true?'

He opened his hands and shrugged. 'So which of you sodomized her?' I asked. He coughed, a half sob, half retch. He wrapped his hands over his head and leaned over in the plane-crash position as if expecting some terrible impact.

I dropped Carlos and Bruno off at the PJ building in Rua Gomes Freire so that Carlos could take down his statement, and went back to Odivelas to pick up Valentim.

There were a few things different about Valentim's apartment block. Life had moved on a centimetre, there were different TV programmes raging, techno music ricocheted down the stairwell, heat came off the walls as if the building was running a fever.

The tick answered the door and turned without a word. He delivered the same passing knock on Valentim's door and went into the kitchen where he picked up an open bottle of Sagres.

'Police,' he shouted over the bottle-top and began chugging beer.

Valentim's mother appeared in the door frame. I hammered on the cardboard door until Valentim tore it open.

'We're leaving,' I said. 'You won't need anything.'

'Where are you taking him?' said the mother, screechy now.

'Lisbon.'

'What's he done?' she asked, bouncing off the door frame, coming down the corridor at me.

The tick stayed in the kitchen, sipping beer, spreading his weak moustache with a forefinger and thumb, looking well-pleased.

'He's going to help us with our enquiries into the murder of a young girl.'

'Murder?' she said, moving to embrace him as if he'd been condemned already.

'Let's go,' he said, turning away from her.

We got in the car. Valentim rested an elbow on the window ledge, and played drum solos on the roof with his fingers as we drove back into town in the highest heat of the day.