Antonio Hill - The Good Suicides

For the next few minutes Roger Fort obediently told him of the impressions gathered in his brief encounter with Kristin Herschdorfer. He explained that, while not definitive, they suggested Sara Mahler was not easy to live with, she led a solitary life and generally didn’t seem happy. All ready for happy Christmas to be the final blow, thought Héctor. Her flatmate was away, the house empty. If Sara had felt depressed in those final days, perhaps she had opted to end it all forever. Suddenly something occurred to him that it seemed no one had acknowledged up to now.

“And why was she in the metro station at that time? Any idea?”

Agent Fort looked uncertain.

“I mean, according to this Kristin, Sara hardly went out … And if she was in the habit of staying out all night, she would have told you so. But in the early hours of Thursday Sara was in the metro. She had to be going or coming from somewhere, right?” He answered himself: “Even if she had decided to throw herself onto the tracks, she didn’t have to go to a station so far away. And I doubt if she left home with that idea.”

It was a more than reasonable doubt. Although statistics were an inexact science, few women chose this method to end their lives. Héctor still believed those who did were succumbing to a momentary temptation, that moment of desperation in which the fatal jump felt like the only option.

Roger shook his head, distressed.

“I don’t know, sir. I’m sorry, it hadn’t occurred to me until now.”

“Well, don’t worry. What else did you want to tell me?”

Slowly, Fort continued with his story: the description of the apartment, of the bedroom; the photos of the footballers on the corkboard … and finally came to the photograph Inspector Salgado had before him.

It showed Sara with seven people: two women and five men of various ages, between thirty and fiftysomething. Sara was at one side of the photo and, although she was smiling, there was a barely perceptible but real distance between her and the rest of the group.

“Are they all work colleagues?”

“Yes, sir. As soon as I saw it, I had the impression that one of the faces was familiar. The guy on the opposite side of the photo. The one wearing glasses.”

“And?”

“If I’m not mistaken, and I don’t think I am, that’s Gaspar Ródenas.”

Héctor frowned slightly. An excited Roger Fort finally repeated the phrase he’d said at the start of the conversation that the inspector hadn’t heard.

“Last September, Gaspar Ródenas killed his wife and his fourteen-month-old daughter. Then he committed suicide.”

Salgado looked at the photo. He didn’t take on domestic violence cases, but the age of the little girl had stayed with him.

“You mean Sara and Gaspar Ródenas worked at the same company? And both have committed suicide?”

“Yes, sir. Bit strange, isn’t it?”

Yes, thought Héctor. Very strange. He looked back at the photo: of those eight people, all relatively young, two had died in a violent manner. In the case of one, the suicide took place alongside his family; in the other, all alone. Although everything could have another explanation, if you listened to the experts.

“Remember the knock-on effect?” he asked Fort. “If you asked me, I’d say I don’t really believe in these things, but there’s something in it. If Sara was very depressed, her colleague’s action might have given her the idea.”

He said it without much conviction. The acts of a parricidal killer could hardly be taken as an example for anyone in their right mind. And up to now, his idea of Sara Mahler was that she was no lunatic.

Héctor checked the time before speaking again. That day he wanted to leave the office on time.

“Fort, make me a copy of the photo before you go. Tomorrow try to establish what Sara was doing in that station. And get information from the domestic violence people, see what they tell you.” His eyes sought the card Víctor Alemany had given him and finally they found it. “As soon as we gather a little more information, we’ll go and pay Alemany Cosmetics a courtesy call.”

Roger Fort nodded, although Héctor wasn’t sure he’d picked up the sarcasm.

“Oh, and good work, Fort. Keep it up.”

You said it Savall-style, he reproached himself. Last minute and not looking him in the eyes.

Although he’d had the keys to Sílvia’s apartment for months-since before the summer, when they announced their engagement-whenever César used them when she wasn’t there he felt like an intruder. He opened the door slowly and lingered a few seconds before going in, like someone fearing the attack of a nonexistent dog. Shortly it would be his home as well, he thought, but he just couldn’t shake off the behavior of a guest entirely. He was aware of it, and to tell the truth it annoyed him. He would prefer to move around and feel relaxed as in his own apartment: leave his jacket thrown any old way on the chair, kick off his shoes and change his clothes. In her place, he hung up his coat on the coat stand in the hall and loosened the knot of his tie a little.

He couldn’t hear a sound, and went toward the kitchen to grab a beer. He knew Sílvia bought them for him. He opened it and tossed the cap in one of the three small trash cans, not without checking that he’d thrown it into the right one. Damn recycling. At his apartment he had a single garbage bag, as always, but Sílvia was obsessed with these details. And her children were as well. Fuck, once he’d felt like an environment-wrecker just for putting a milk carton where he shouldn’t. The clock showed 18:40, which meant Sílvia still wouldn’t get home for more than an hour. Pol had indoor soccer training and Emma, the oldest, must be at some friend’s house. Good, César felt more comfortable without them there.

Tuesday was the only day Sílvia left work a little before six to attend her weekly yoga class. Only a devastating tornado could have altered this routine, which was then followed by a light dinner at home, a spell of TV on the sofa and a quick fuck in the bedroom. That was why César was there, although that Tuesday he’d arrived earlier than usual. He’d left work early, not because he had anything in particular to do, but because halfway through the afternoon he was sick of the atmosphere, charged with conjecture, pervading the air at the laboratory.

Since the day before, the news of Sara’s death had been on everyone’s lips: mostly malicious gossip, which pointed to the suicide of the MD’s secretary as the only explanation. “No one falls onto the metro tracks by accident” had been the phrase of the day, with some minor variations. From there, the musings shot off in various directions, with no more foundation than cheap psychology: the sadness of Christmas, isolation of women, rootlessness, lack of sex. Nonsense really, because very few really knew Sara Mahler; if they carried out a popularity contest in the company, she would have come close to last in the rankings, not because people found her disagreeable, but it wouldn’t have occurred to them to mention her. Sara went unnoticed: she preferred email to communicating in person, she barely moved from her desk, she attended company dinners and had good manners, but didn’t socialize very much. To top it all, at some point a rumor had gone around that she wasn’t to be trusted: too close to Víctor Alemany, too reserved for anyone to include her in general gossip and too foreign to understand people going out to smoke during work hours or spending more than five minutes at the coffee machine. And yet César knew they were wrong: Sara had been perfectly capable of keeping a secret … At least, he hoped so.

Enough, he told himself. He’d left work so as not to talk about Sara and now he couldn’t get her out of his head. And when Sílvia arrived the subject would certainly come up again. He finished the beer and threw the bottle in the glass bin. Then he went to the sitting room, sat down carefully on a sofa still as miraculously white as its first day and switched on the TV. One of those evening contests, presented by an individual trying to muster enthusiasm in the audience, appeared on the screen. One of the competitors was a black kid, who was verbally dueling with a middle-aged woman whose knowledge he indubitably surpassed. With a slight involuntary gesture of disgust, César changed the channel and found a documentary about fish. This is better, he thought, letting himself be rocked by a monotonous and serene voice. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was having spent the whole of the previous night awake, or maybe it was because deep down he didn’t much like fish, but what was certain was that he was dead tired. He told himself just one minute, closing his eyes would help him relax, and a few minutes later he was asleep, head tilted and the remote control on his crotch.