Antonio Hill - The Summer of Dead Toys

“I can’t deceive you, Carmen.” He tried to smile, but his exhausted expression and sad eyes ruined the effort. “Everything is shit. I beg your pardon. For a long time everything has seemed like shit.”

Investigation 1231-R H. Salgado

Resolution Pending

Three short lines noted in black felt-tip pen on a yellow post-it note attached to a file of the same color. So as not to see them, Superintendent Savall opened the file and looked over its contents. As if he didn’t already know them by heart. Statements. Affidavit. Medical reports. Police brutality. Photographs of that scumbag’s injuries. Photographs of that unfortunate young Nigerian girl. Photographs of the flat in the Raval where they had the girls corralled. Even various newspaper cuttings, some-very few, thank God-deliberately narrating their own version of the facts, emphasizing concepts like injustice, racism and abuse of power. He slammed the file shut and looked at the clock on his desk. Ten past nine. Fifty minutes. He was moving his chair back to stretch out his legs when someone knocked on the door and opened it almost simultaneously.

“Is he here?” he asked.

The woman entering the office shook her head without asking to whom the question referred and, very quietly, leaned both hands on the back of the chair facing the desk. She looked him in the eyes and spoke.

“What will you say to him?” The question sounded like an accusation, a burst of gunfire in six words.

Savall shrugged his shoulders, almost imperceptibly.

“What I have to. What do you want me to say to him?”

“Fine. Great.”

“Martina. .” He tried to be brusque, but he was too fond of her to get truly angry. He lowered his voice. “Fuck it, my hands are tied.”

She didn’t give up. She moved the chair back a little, sat down and drew it back up to the desk.

“What else do they need? That guy is out of hospital. He’s at home, cool as can be, reorganizing his business while-”

“Give it a rest, Martina!” Sweat broke out on his forehead and for once he lost his temper. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t when he got up that morning. But he was human. He opened the yellow file and took out the photos; he scattered them across the desk like uncovered playing cards showing a poker of aces. “Broken jaw. Two fractured ribs. Contusions to the skull and abdomen. A face like a fucking map. All because Héctor lost his head and planted himself in this shit’s house. The guy was lucky not to have internal injuries. He beat him half to death.” She knew all this. She also knew that had she been sitting in the chair opposite, she would have said exactly the same. But if there was something that defined Sergeant Martina Andreu it was her unswerving loyalty to her own: her family, her colleagues and her friends. For her the world was split into two distinct groups: her people, and everyone else, and without doubt Héctor Salgado fell into the first. So, in a loud and deliberately disdainful voice, one that irritated her boss more than seeing those photos, she counter-attacked.

“Why don’t you take out the others? The ones of the girl. Why don’t we see what that evil black quack did to that poor young girl?”

Savall took a deep breath. “Watch it with that black stuff.” Martina gestured impatiently. “That’s all we need. And the thing with the girl doesn’t justify aggression. You know it, I know it, Héctor knows it. And what’s worse, so does that asshole’s lawyer.” He lowered his voice: he’d worked with Andreu for years and trusted her more than any of his other subordinates. “He was here the day before yesterday.” Martina raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, What’shisname’s lawyer. I put things very clearly to him. Withdraw the charges against Salgado or his client will have a cop following him until he goes to his fucking grave.”

“And?” she asked, looking at her boss with renewed respect.

“He said he had to consult him. I pushed him as much as I could. Off the record. We left it that he’d ring me this morning before ten.”

“And if he agrees? What did you promise him in return?”

Savall didn’t have time to respond. The telephone on the desk rang like an alarm. He asked the sergeant to be quiet with a finger to his lips then picked up.

“Yes?” For a moment his face was expectant, but instantly his expression became one of simple irritation. “No. No! I’m busy now. I’ll call her later.” Rather than hang up, he slammed the receiver down and, directing himself to the sergeant, added: “Joana Vidal.”

She snorted.

“Again? ”

The superintendent shrugged.

“Nothing new in her case, is there?”

“Nothing. Did you see the report? It’s as clear as water. The boy got distracted and fell from the window. Pure bad luck.”

Savall nodded.

“Good report, by the way. Very thorough. It was the new girl’s, right?”

“Yes. I made her do it again, but in the end it was good.” Martina smiled. “The girl seems clever.”

Any praise coming from Andreu had to be taken seriously.

“Her record is impeccable,” the superintendent said. “First in her class, unbeatable references from her superiors, courses abroad. Even Rosa, who’s merciless with the newbies, wrote a complimentary report. If I remember correctly, she mentions ‘a natural talent’ for investigation.”

Just as Martina was preparing to give one of her sarcastically feminist commentaries on the gap in talent and average IQ between the men and women of the force, the phone rang again.

At that moment, in the station’s front office, the young investigator Leire Castro was using that natural talent to satisfy one of the most striking features of her character: curiosity. She’d proposed having a coffee to one of the agents who’d spent weeks giving her discreet yet friendly smiles. He seemed a good guy, she told herself, and giving him what he wanted made her feel somewhat guilty. But since her arrival at the central police station in Plaça Espanya, the enigma that was Héctor Salgado had been challenging her thirst for knowledge, and today, when she was expecting to see him appear at any moment, she couldn’t take it any more.

So it was that, after a brief preamble of small-talk, with a black coffee in her hands, controlling the desire to smoke, wearing her best smile, Leire got straight to the point. She couldn’t spend half an hour gossiping in the office.

“What’s he like? Inspector Salgado, I mean.”

“You don’t know him? Oh yeah, you arrived just as he started his ‘holiday’.”

She nodded.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” he continued. “A normal guy, or so he seemed.” He smiled. “You never know with Argentines.”

Leire did her best to hide her disappointment. She hated generalizations and the individual with the friendly smile automatically lost points. He must have noticed, because he made an effort to expand on his explanation.

“A couple of days before it all happened I’d have said he was a calm man. Never raised his voice. Efficient. Stubborn but patient. A good cop. . Thorough, sleuth-style. But suddenly, boom, his mind clouds over and he goes wild. Left us all dumbfounded, to tell the truth. We’ve enough bad press without an inspector losing his head like that.”

He was right about that, Leire said to herself. She took advantage of her companion’s silence to ask: “What happened? I know the gist, I read something in the papers, but-”

“What happened was he lost it. No more, no less.” In this respect the guy seemed to have a firm opinion with no hesitation. “No one says it out loud because he’s the inspector and all that, and the super is very fond of him, but it’s true. He beat that guy half to death. They say he turned in his resignation but the super threw it back in his face. He did order him on a month’s ‘holiday’ until the air cleared. And you know the press haven’t fed on the subject. It could have been much worse.”