Antonio Hill - The Good Suicides

Héctor made as if to take out a cigarette, but stopped himself.

“Smoke if you like,” she said. “I’m still in the phase when the smell of smoke is pleasant.”

“You sure?” He lit the cigarette with the car lighter and lowered the window halfway. He blew the smoke out. “When did you give up?”

“Twenty days ago.” She smiled. “I know. The typical New Year’s resolution.”

“I should give up too.” This sentence, just after taking a generous drag on his cigarette, seemed faintly ridiculous.

“To tell the truth, I’ve tried a few times with no success, but now I’m taking it seriously. At first I was smoking roll-ups. It’s supposed to be relaxing, but it made me anxious. In the end, rather than put up with substitutes, better to give it up completely.”

The ray of sun was buried once again behind a slow but implacable cloud. Not much longer, thought Héctor.

A quarter of an hour later, they turned off onto the mud track that led to the house. The friendly road on which they’d been traveling became a narrow, treacherous trail, full of stones and holes. Lola clung to the door handle as the car stumbled along, nervous, faster than the terrain permitted.

A woman in her forties was waiting for them at the door of the house, smaller than it looked in the pictures. It was clear the people from the development center had let her know ahead of time.

Héctor had left the car at the entrance, to one side of the road, although he was almost certain he could have parked in the middle of the road without inconveniencing anyone for a good while. Though the trail didn’t end at the house, from that point it became even rougher. He and Lola walked toward the woman, who raised a hand in greeting. It was cold: the sun had already given up in that uneven battle. For the umpteenth time that day, Héctor asked himself what they could possibly discover in this house, ten months after the Alemany Cosmetics group had been there. Lola, however, seemed in good spirits, even if it were simply being out of the car at last and able to walk.

The woman received them with a smile that wasn’t free from distrust.

“Good afternoon.” She had a pronounced Catalan accent, like the majority of the region’s inhabitants. “Come in, come in. They told me you were coming, although I was expecting you later. I’m Dolors Vinyals. My husband Joan and I have a little house nearby and we take care of this one when they ask us to, as you already know.”

Héctor introduced himself and Lola, not specifying that she didn’t belong to the forces of law and order. Señora Vinyals didn’t ask and they went inside.

It was just as the photos had shown: a classic masía , with mismatched furniture that somehow managed to create a harmonious whole. The fireplace, unlit, provided the indispensable decorative country touch to a room usually heated by radiators. That day they weren’t switched on, which had to mean no group was expected. It was chilly and none of the three removed their jackets.

“If you’d like to see the rooms …” said the woman, doubtfully.

“Not just now,” answered Héctor. “We really wanted to speak to you.”

Dolors Vinyals didn’t invite them to sit, though in all probability this was due to the fact that she wasn’t in her own home. Neither Héctor nor Lola felt like it; they’d spent hours in the car and it wouldn’t hurt to stretch their legs a little, so they remained standing in the middle of that long, narrow dining room.

“I don’t know what Señor Ricart has told you …” Héctor began.

“He told me to give you all the information you need,” she replied, very proper.

“Do you remember this group? They came in March last year and were here for three days,” he said, showing her the photo.

The woman looked at the photograph with interest, and for a moment seemed not to recognize them.

“Maybe it would help if I told you that an unpleasant incident occurred during their stay: they found some dogs strangled.”

The information was enough for Señora Vinyals to nod her head.

“Ah, yes! I didn’t remember their faces, to be honest. But that, yes. I don’t understand how anyone could do something like that to those poor animals. People from elsewhere, certainly.”

Héctor smiled inwardly. Baddies always came from elsewhere: another country, another region, even from the neighboring town.

“Not a regular occurrence, I suppose.”

“Of course not!” The decent woman was indignant. “I’d never seen anything like that, if I’m honest. Well, in fact I didn’t see it, although they told me about it on the Saturday afternoon.”

Héctor had listened to the tale of the discovery of the dogs too many times.

“And did they tell you they were planning to go and bury them?” he immediately asked to settle the subject.

“No. I told them I would call the Mossos and they thought that a good idea. I suppose they decided afterward, because mid-afternoon they called me to tell me so. We weren’t here; we went to Figueres for the afternoon, with the boys. It’s so isolated here and sometimes we go to the city.”

Sílvia Alemany had already told him about the dogs. The group had the afternoon free and set themselves the task of burying those poor creatures.

Answering a question not yet formulated, the woman turned to the window and pointed out a kind of shed attached to the house.

“That’s where they picked up the hoes and spades … By the way, they must have taken a spade as a memento. Or they lost it.”

“Are you sure there was one missing?”

“That’s what Joan said. He was complaining because he had to work in the garden with another smaller one. I told him they must have left it behind when they went to bury the dogs … Anyway, now I remember, they were a rather strange group.”

Dolors turned back toward them.

“Don’t misunderstand me. Everyone has their quirks, and at the end of the day they come here in their spare time and think this is a hotel.”

“Don’t you take care of the food and cleaning?”

“Not while they’re here. Joan and I drop by, in case they need anything. Nothing else. And when they leave we clean the house.”

“And why do you say they were strange?” asked Lola.

The woman sighed.

“Well, there was one who asked for a room on his own. I tell you, some think they’re at a hotel …”

“Was that all?” Lola insisted.

“Well … I don’t think it matters if I tell you. It seems one of the women was scared one night. She went out to take a walk, alone, and according to her she saw someone. A … an immigrant.”

Dolors was about to use another word, but in the end she decided on the official term.

“Arab? Colored?”

“Yes, dear, an African. Back then there were more-they were working in the fields. Now you see them much less.”

“But he didn’t attack her?”

Señora Vinyals gestured disparagingly with her hand.

“Bah, she must have seen a shadow or something! You’d ask what was she doing taking a walk in the middle of the night. The next day she asked me if there’d been robberies around here.” She laughed. “As if no one’s ever robbed in Barcelona!”

Héctor smiled.

“Was she scared?”

“A little-but she gave me the impression she thought it was our fault. Like she was annoyed.”

Héctor was straightening out the facts. Saúl Duque’s call to Amanda was on Friday. Saturday midday they’d discovered the dogs. In the afternoon they went to bury them and they went home on Sunday. If something else had happened, something they weren’t telling, it had to have been on Saturday night.

“How long do you think it took them to bury the dogs?”