Antonio Hill - The Good Suicides

“He’s not a bad guy,” replied Leire. “Really.”

“Ruth used to say that. When I got pissed off-excuse me-she’d always defend him. It’s so hard not to be jealous of someone who has been with your partner for so long …” She went on before Leire had time to interrupt, eyes fixed on the contents of the glass: “No, it wasn’t that. It was her. You know something? Sometimes Ruth made you feel like you were the center of the world. When you had a problem, when you were talking to her in the middle of the night, making love … But there were times her mind was far away, and then you realized you’d never be the center of her life. Ruth was much more free than she believed herself to be. And whoever was at her side had to accept that position without hoping for more. Of course, I see it now; at the time she drove me crazy. I lived in perpetual fear of losing her and I was striving to keep her.” She drank another sip of wine. “I suppose she would have ended up leaving me. I never imagined I’d lose her in such a way.”

She hesitated before those last words. Carol didn’t look like a person who cries in public, but the pain was imprinted in every gesture.

“What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know. One thing is certain: she’d never have gone off for no reason. She was too serious, too responsible. And there’s Guillermo also. At first I thought it was something to do with her ex. I know, I know, he’s a good guy.” She sighed. “I’m not saying he’d hurt her, although I admit I did suspect him. But as soon as I saw him, I knew that however much I hated him that man wouldn’t be capable of such a thing. When something hurts you, you become more receptive to the pain of others.”

She took a last sip of wine. All that remained in the glass was a deep-red shadow, like a trace of blood.

“It had to be something related to him, anyway. With his work, that man he beat up …” She looked Leire in the eyes, with an expression of absolute uncertainty. “Nothing else occurs to me. If not, who would hurt Ruth?”

“Forgive the question, but are you sure there was no one else?”

“Can anyone be sure of that?” They both smiled. “Not on my part, I can swear to that. Not even now, six months later. No one can compare to Ruth. Or even come close.”

Carol plunged into her memories for a few moments and Leire could almost feel nostalgia overwhelming the café, its blackboards and empty tables. Even the waitress, once again a pillar of salt, also seemed to evoke a lost love.

“I’d swear Ruth was faithful to me. I believe she’d have told me the truth. The months she deceived her husband were torture for her. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s the truth.”

“Was there ever a woman before you? Forgive my intrusion. It just seems strange to me that someone could discover their attraction to the same sex at the age of thirty-eight.”

Carol shrugged.

“I’m pretty sure I was the first, if that means anything.”

“You never asked her?”

“It’s so obvious that you didn’t know her. Ruth only said what she wanted to. And she was capable of leaving you speechless with only a look. Sometimes I used to laugh at her, saying she seemed to have been pulled out of an English TV series. You know, the ones with ladies and gentlemen upstairs and servants downstairs.”

Leire nodded. That aristocratic air could be seen in the photos of Ruth as well. Even in jeans and a T-shirt she was elegant. With her own style. In the bar a gentle music was playing, a sort of bossa nova to a jazz rhythm that filled the air with a murmuring, cloying melody.

“I don’t know what else I can help you with. And I don’t know if I want to continue talking about this,” Carol admitted, with honesty.

“I understand. Just one other thing-was Ruth working on anything new?”

“She always had something in mind. There are various files with sketches and loose drawings. They’re still in her house, of course.”

“Would you mind if I had a look?”

She didn’t hold out much hope; what she really wanted to see was the house, the place where the trail was lost.

“I have keys. I suppose it won’t matter if you see them, although I don’t see how it will help.” Carol sighed. “I definitely have to talk to Héctor about all this. No, not about you,” she clarified. “I mean what to do about the rent, Ruth’s things, the money …”

The money. It was the second time Carol had mentioned the subject, and the untrusting police officer in Leire couldn’t help noticing it. If she’d learned anything in her years of police experience it was that greed was one of the oldest emotions in the world. And one of the most lethal … In this case, however, and leaving aside personal impressions-she couldn’t imagine the woman sharing her table killing for money-there was one obvious fact: Ruth was worth much more alive than dead. She was young, with a professional career of many years ahead of her, which would generate benefits Carol would share. Without the creative mind, the commercial half of this partnership wouldn’t have anything else to sell. In spite of all this, she made a mental note to ascertain the financial state of the partnership they shared. The danger of any investigation, she knew, was to leave loose ends based on personal impressions or preconceived ideas. Anyway, she decided to concentrate for the moment on the possibility of seeing the space where Ruth had lived and worked. She wasn’t sure that Carol wouldn’t regret the offer if she didn’t seize the moment, so she risked asking, “Are you in a hurry? I was thinking it’s not too late and we could go over to Ruth’s house now, if it’s not inconvenient.”

“Now?” Carol hesitated.

“Suits me.” She didn’t want to insist too much, just enough. She perceived that she’d managed to build a climate of trust, of cooperation that evening, which might cool as soon as they separated.

She wasn’t mistaken. Carol thought for a moment and then agreed.

“All right. I have the car in the garage and I have the keys. Actually, I still haven’t managed to leave them at home.”

Leire didn’t say any more. She paid the bill, ignoring Carol’s protests, and turned to the door. The sooner they left, the fewer the possibilities for her companion to change her mind. Already at the door, while she was buttoning her coat-a type of shawl that according to her friend María made her look as poor as a Russian singer-songwriter-she looked at the waitress through the glass. In that café, so big and empty, she seemed an insignificant figure. She was still sitting behind the bar and at her shoulder rose a wall of bottles. A green slippery backdrop for that pale creature, with very red lips and plucked eyebrows, leaning her elbows on the white marble.

Empty apartments are like actresses in decline, thought Leire. Well kept, always awaiting the arrival of the person who gives them meaning so that they can once again become welcoming, lively spaces, they never manage to shake off a dusty, rancid air, an aspect of assumed neglect that repels rather than attracts. With grand dimensions and high ceilings, Ruth’s seemed even more hollow, more abandoned. More melancholy.

It wasn’t exactly a loft, more a hybrid between a studio and a conventional apartment. On one side was the sitting room and a breakfast bar that separated it from the kitchen; a prefabricated partition ate up a few meters: this had been Guillermo’s room. On the other side, at the end of a long, rather gloomy corridor, it opened up into a square space, equipped to serve as a studio and also supplied with some plasterboard walls, which marked out Ruth’s bedroom. In fact, it was like two symmetrical apartments, linked by that corridor.