Robert Wilson - A Small Death in Lisbon

I caught the train in early to Cais do Sodré. I walked along the river, buffeted by purposeful people arriving for work from the ferries. It was another hot day and I had my jacket off and over my shoulder. I looked out across the river and saw the massive Lisnave gantry crane rising up out of the early morning haze. I thought about Carlos Pinto. I thought about seeing him again, working with him, accepting him.

You think you know yourself until things start happening, until you lose the insulation of normality. I would have called myself 'aware' before I lost my wife. People would look at me, Narciso for instance, and think there goes Zé Coelho, a man who knows himself. But I'm like anybody else. I hide. My wife was right. I'm inquisitive for the truth but I hide from my own. The stuff I've carried with me and ignored.

My father-a good man who thought he was doing the right thing for his country. He died of a heart attack without ever talking to me. Maybe a three-line conversation would have been enough, and we could have unburdened ourselves.

My daughter, unable to bear my disappointment… like an unfaithful lover. An horrific concept. The sight of her and Carlos in the graphic act…

An image flashed in my mind, Lucy Marques' description of what Teresa Oliveira had seen. Her daughter. Her lover. Pumping buttocks. Ankles around the ears. What an absurd act, but what a crucial one. An unrecoverable situation.

I saw it then looking out over the water of the Tagus, the dazzling, shimmering river. I saw that I could pick up another bag of rocks, hump another sack of guilt or history and carry that through the rest of my days. Or I could accept, trust, accommodate… give myself a break.

But if I was going to do that there was something I had to see first.

I turned away from the river, walked up through the Baixa to the Largo Martim Moniz and caught the Metro north.

Carlos and I were called straight into Narciso's office without a word being exchanged.

'I sent you down to Alcântara yesterday,' said Narciso, his mood unchanged in twenty-four hours.

'That's where we went, Senhor Engenheiro,' I said.

'You went there but you didn't stay, Senhor Inspector. A PSP officer saw you leave the crime scene and board a train in the direction of Cascais. I want to know where you were going on police time?'

'I went to see Dr Oliveira…' I said, and Narciso's tanned face purpled, '…to offer my condolences.'

'As part of the Inspector Zé Coelho service?'

I didn't answer. Narciso looked between Carlos and me.

'And what can you tell me about the murder of this eighteen-year-old down in Alcântara, Senhor Inspector? The maricão in the bin… what's his name?'

'He doesn't have a name, Senhor Engenheiro ,' said Carlos. 'He's known as Xeta.'

'Cheta? As in não tenho cheta? ' I haven't got a penny.

'It's Brazilian for "kiss", Senhor Engenheiro.'

'These people. My God. Just tell me what's been going on.'

'The investigation…' started Carlos.

'I want the investigating officer's report,' Narciso cut in.

'The boy was a known prostitute. We've conducted…' I started.

'Don't give me any more bullshit, Inspector. You don't know anything. You haven't done anything. You're heading for suspension, you know that, suspension without pay. And, agente Pinto…'

'Yes, Senhor Engenheiro?'

'The Narcotics agents who'd mounted a surveillance on the Inspector's property noted that you went in there at six-thirty p.m. What the hell were you doing in Paço de Arcos?'

'I wanted to brief the Inspector on developments.'

'There haven't been any.'

'To discuss alternative approaches.'

'With the Inspector's daughter?'

'She let me into the house, yes. I had to wait some time before the Inspector turned up.'

'You're at the end of the road now, agente Pinto. If you don't make your assignment with Inspector Coelho work, you're finished. You're out. You'll be looking for a job in the PSP. Do you understand me?'

'Perfectly, Senhor Engenheiro.'

'Get out, both of you.'

Carlos made it out of the door first. Narciso called me back. I clicked the door shut. He stuck a finger in his collar and pulled it out, too much blood stuck up in his head and the collar not letting it back down.

'Your tie, Senhor Inspector,' he said. 'Where did you buy it?'

'My tie?' I said, marking time, looking for the angle.

'What you have around your neck, Senhor Inspector?'

'My daughter made it for me.'

'I see…' he said, embarrassed by that. 'Would she make one for me?'

'You'd have to ask her, Senhor Engenheiro … she'd have to see your face, you know, to work out what would suit.'

He wiped his face with his hand and waved me away. I left his office with his aftershave in my nostrils and went back down to my own. Carlos was staring out of the window at the crowds of people in the photo booths in Rua Gomes Freire. I collapsed into my chair and lit an SG Ultralight and drew on it fiercely, desperate for a proper hit of nicotine.

'Who's going to get coffee?'

Carlos left without a word and came back with two mini plastic cups with an inch of coffee in each.

'Are we going to talk?' he asked, putting my bica down.

'Have you spoken to your father?'

'What about?'

'About what happened last night.'

'No.'

'No. I didn't think you would. You wouldn't have made it into work with two broken legs after he'd thrown you off his balcony.'

He looked off out of the half-open door with his hands clasped between his knees.

'So, you want to talk,' I said. 'Let's talk. Let's talk about how agente Carlos Pinto has gone through my life in a pair of jackboots, trampling everything underfoot.'

He ran a hand over his cropped hair and rubbed his nose vigorously with his finger and thumb.

'She's sixteen. You're twenty-seven. Shit. I'm beginning to sound like that bloody lawyer now. We have laws about sex, agente Pinto. Do they cover that in the police academy these days?'

'They do have laws, yes, and they cover them, but as you know Inspector, you can be an old hand at fourteen or an innocent at twenty-four. That's a ten-year grey area.'

'Twenty-four?' I said, engaging his eyes.

He stuck his chin out… daring me.

'That's right, Inspector, I live with my parents. It's not so easy.'

Olivia had said he didn't know what he was doing.

He grinned, his nerves getting to him.

'You're lucky, agente Pinto. You're lucky Narcotics turned up. You're lucky I talked to Olivia. You're lucky I was married to an Englishwoman for nearly half my life. You're lucky…'

'To have met her,' he said, fixing me with a look. 'I'm lucky to have met your daughter… and you for that matter.'

'That's what she told me,' I said, riding that wave, struggling with all sorts of things now.

'I'm in love with her,' he said, the statement of fact, no frills.

'I'm not sure if she's been around long enough to know the difference between someone who's in love with her and someone who's just looking for an easy lay.'

The anger flared in him, quick and bright as a magnesium flash. It was what I'd wanted to see.

'At least I'm not black,' he said, which I probably deserved.

I pointed a finger at him, my longest, most penetrating one and jabbed it at him.

'I trust you, Carlos Pinto,' I said, 'and that was the last reason why you were lucky.'

He sat back, blinking. The anger gone now and something like pain in his face. He nodded at me. I put the finger down and nodded back. I pulled the drawer open in my desk and put my feet up on it and stared at the ceiling and sipped my coffee for five minutes, wincing.