Antonio Hill - The Good Suicides

“Inspector, can we talk?”

Héctor turned to the agent with a look that would have been frustrating for anyone not so excited. Fort, thought Héctor, has the principal quality of superheroes and madmen: he is impervious to disappointment.

“Of course,” he answered. “Talk to me.”

“I’ve finally tracked down a waitress who saw Sara Mahler having dinner with someone on Reyes in a restaurant near the metro station where she died. We hadn’t spoken to her before because she was on vacation. She remembers her, her and her companion, because they seemed a curious pair: one blond, one dark.”

“Blond? A woman?”

“Yes, sir. The waitress doesn’t remember much more-it was Reyes and there were a lot of people. Just that she was young and blond.” Fort dared to add, “It might have been Amanda Bonet.”

Damn, thought Héctor. He’d hoped that Sara’s mysterious companion would contribute some information to this puzzle.

“Another thing, sir,” Fort continued. “Señor Víctor Alemany has called a number of times asking for you. He was pretty angry. He wanted to speak to the superintendent-”

“He can go to hell!” Héctor exclaimed. Fort had to force himself not to take a step back. “They can all go to hell. They think they can give us the runaround, then scare us with phone calls. It’s run out.”

“Run out?”

“My patience has run out, Fort.” The shine in Salgado’s eyes was definitely one of rage and not just exasperation. “I’m going to destroy this group. Tomorrow you and I are going to Alemany Cosmetics and we’ll make a few arrests. Just to question them. Right there, in front of their colleagues, so everyone hears about it.”

Fort remembered the stories that went around the station about Salgado, but he thought it was within his rights to ask: “Who are we going to arrest, sir?”

“The strongest and the weakest, Fort. The lady who acts like a queen and Manel Caballero. And I swear I’ll get the truth out of them even if I have to question them nonstop for twenty-four hours.”

I shouldn’t have agreed to this meeting, thought Leire when the taxi left her just at the entrance to Los Jardines de la Maternidad in the area of Les Corts. She’d had a bad night and slept fitfully, overwhelmed by unsettling dreams in which Ruth and Dr. Omar appeared, talking in low voices. In the end, sick of nightmares, she’d risen around seven, a little queasy. She ate breakfast with no appetite and a while later, despite having promised herself she wouldn’t, she picked up her cell phone and called the number that the stranger had given her the night before.

And here she was, in these gardens that might be beautiful in summer but in the month of January had the gloomy air of a decaying mansion. It was eleven o’clock, although it could have been six in the evening judging by the sky. An insidious cold, with no wind or rain, was ravaging a city little accustomed to extreme temperatures. Nervous, not knowing why, she waited at the gates of the park; she supposed the man who had to see her would recognize her, because she hadn’t the least idea of his appearance.

Standing by the railings, she wondered why this person had chosen this particular place. “Better somewhere in the open air,” he’d told her. “That way we can speak more freely.” She agreed: as a general rule open spaces didn’t bother her, but just then, off-color despite the huge overcoat she was wearing, she wished she’d suggested any café where she could at least sit down to wait.

She didn’t have to wait long. At five past eleven, a man in his thirties turned the corner and moved directly and unhesitatingly toward her.

“Agent Castro,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Andrés Moreno.”

She put out her hand and felt relieved. There was nothing sinister about this guy; on the contrary, his medium stature and friendly face, almost too friendly to be attractive, seemed to dispel any trace of distrust. He was carrying a rucksack slung on his shoulder, which repeatedly slipped down the sleeve of his brown leather jacket.

“Apologies for calling at your house last night,” he said to her, “but I leave tomorrow and didn’t want to go without seeing you. Shall we walk?”

She nodded, although as soon as they went through the gate she sought out a bench. She found one and went toward it. There were few people in the gardens, and the old buildings, bathed in that winter light, had an almost ghostly air.

“Mind if we sit?” she asked, in the same informal manner. “I weigh too much to move a lot.”

Smiling, he nodded. Opposite the bench there was a statue of white stone: a young mother with a child in her lap. Although the buildings now fulfilled other needs, years back this group of pavilions had been a hospital where mothers gave birth. Leire caressed her bump as she sat down. Abel seemed to be sleeping; as lazy as the day, she thought. He certainly took after his father.

“Well,” said Leire. “I’m intrigued.”

Andrés Moreno smiled.

“I suppose so. And the fact is, now I have you here I don’t really know where to begin.”

“You told me you had something to tell me about Ruth Valldaura. I think that would be a good place to start.”

He placed the rucksack on the bench between them, opened it and was going to take something out, but thought better of it and stopped. Instead, he asked a question that took Leire completely aback.

“Have you heard of the stolen babies?”

“What?” She recovered from her surprise immediately. “Of course, who hasn’t?”

It had been some time since the news, the scandal, had circulated in newspapers and on television programs. Babies separated from their mothers at birth, believed dead by their real parents and given in shady adoptions to families who believed they were taking in unwanted children. What had begun as a consequence of the war, involving mothers on the losing side who according to the morality of the time were unworthy of the name, had evolved into a plot, a business maintained for many more years: cases of children born in the sixties and seventies now desperately seeking their biological parents; biological parents who until recently were convinced they had lost a child and suddenly discovered the grave was empty; adoptive parents horrified to discover that they had unknowingly been part of an immoral criminal scheme. The subject was spine-chilling and its ramifications implicated midwives, nuns and doctors, although in the majority of cases the law could do very little. The statute of limitations of the crimes added to the difficulty of irrefutably proving they had been committed.

While Leire thought about it all, the snippets of information heard and discussed, Andrés Moreno took some papers and photos from his backpack.

“I’m a journalist and I’ve spent months delving into this subject. As you already know about it, I won’t go into detail. I’ll just say that there are many cases to be discovered, to be brought to light. But the names of some implicated doctors come up again and again, as do the names of an uncharitable religious woman, to call her by another name.”

Leire nodded, although she didn’t know what all this had to do with her and Ruth Valldaura.

“As you’ll see, there are few traces of these illegal adoptions. The method varied. Some biological mothers gave birth in hospitals and were told after the birth that their babies had died. They even had the body of one- Forgive me.” He stopped, seeing that Leire was becoming pale.

“No, it’s all right,” she lied.

“Fuck, now I think about it, it’s not very appropriate to speak to you about this. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry. You’ve started now. Go on.”