Antonio Hill - The Summer of Dead Toys

“I’ll call you,” she said, then turned around.

“What?”

Regina smiled to herself.

“Just that. I’ll let you know.” She turned back toward him, trying to make her expression as contemptuous as possible. “Oh, and if you really need that money, keep looking for it. If I were you, I wouldn’t count on me giving it to you.”

He held her gaze. Bitch, he mouthed.

“You know what you’re doing,” Aleix said instead. He desperately sought a phrase to settle thiswrangle in his favor, but found none, so he just smiled at her again. “You have until Monday to save your little girl from this mess. Think about it.”

She waited a few seconds before opening the door and escaping.

Martina Andreu looked at her watch. Her shift finished in less than half an hour and she had just enough time to go to the gym before picking up the kids. She needed some good stretches; her back was killing her these days and she knew it was partly due to lack of exercise. She tried to be organized, but sometimes it was simply too much. Work, husband, house, two little children overflowing with after-school activities. . She placed the papers from the Dr. Omar case in the file with a sigh of frustration. If there was anything that drove her crazy, it was cases that were going nowhere. She began to think this guy had taken off with his macabre music for somewhere else. It wasn’t a ridiculous idea at all: if the women-trafficking network had been his main source of income, now he had to find another way of earning a living. The blood on the wall and the stunt with the pig’s head could have been just a smokescreen, a way of disappearing in triumph, so to speak. Although, on the other hand, the guy wasn’t young. In Barcelona he had his contacts and that repugnant clinic. Maybe he wouldn’t earn enough to make him a millionaire, but certainly more than he’d make somewhere else, where he’d have to start from scratch.

The man’s personality was a mystery. The people of the barrio hadn’t contributed much information. She herself had gone door to door all morning, trying to find out anything, and the only thing clear was that the name of the “doctor” inspired distrust at the very least; in some cases, genuine fear. One of the women she’d spoken to, a young Colombian who lived on the same floor, had distinctly said: “He is a strange guy. . I used to cross myself when I passed him. He did bad things in there.” She had pushed her a little more and had obtained only a vague “They say he takes the devil out of the body, but if you ask me I say he is the devil in person.” And from then on she was as silent as the grave. It wasn’t that strange, thought Martina: however surprising it might seem, a number of “exorcisms” took place regularly in cities like Barcelona, and given that now the City of Counts’ priests didn’t get involved in these affairs, believers in such things had to find alternative exorcists. She was sure that Dr. Omar was one of them. Searching his clinic had contributed very little but none the less significant evidence: a multitude of crosses and crucifixes, books on satanism, santería and other similar stories, written in French and Spanish. His banking transactions were ridiculous: he’d bought the flat for cash years before; he had no friends; and if he had clients, they wouldn’t go to the station to make a statement. Martina shivered at the thought that these things could still be happening in a city like Barcelona. Modernist façades and modern shops, hordes of tourists ravaging the city, camera in hand. . and underneath all that, protected by anonymity, individuals like Dr. Omar: no roots, no family, devoting himself to aberrant rituals without anyone knowing. Enough, she told herself. I’ll continue on Monday. She left the closed file on top of the desk and was already getting up when the phone rang. Shit, she thought: last-minute phone calls always lead to problems.

“Yes?”

A woman’s voice, trembling with nerves and with a marked South American accent, stammered on the other end: “Are you covering the doctor case?”

“Yes. Your name, please?”

“No, no. . Call me Rosa. I have something to tell you. If you like we can meet in person.”

“How did you get my number?”

“A neighbor you questioned gave it to me.”

Martina looked at her watch. The gym was fading into the horizon.

“And you want us to meet right now?”

“Yes, straight away. Before my husband gets back. .” I hope this is worth it, thought Martina, resignedly. “Where can we meet?”

“Go to the Ciutadella. I’ll be behind the fountain. Do you know where I mean?”

“Yes,” answered Martina. Taking the kids to the zoo in the park so much had its advantages.

“I’ll wait for you there, within the next half-hour. Be punctual, I don’t have much time. .”

The sergeant was going to say something, but the call wasended before she could do so. She grabbed her bag and left the station. With a bit of luck, she’d at least get to pick up the kids.

The afternoon was also proving fruitful for Leire Castro. Before her, she had a record of Aleix Rovira’s telephone activity for the last two months, and the list was interesting, not solely because of the extremely high number of calls. With the list on the table she was noting the numbers that occurred most often, which, given the intensity of this mobile’s communications, was no easy task. The most curious were those at the weekend: throughout the day, and for a large part of the night, Aleix’s mobile received brief calls, barely seconds long. There were other numbers that occurred quite frequently. Leire wrote them down, ready to find out to whom they belonged. One of them had called various times, ten to be exact, on the night of 23 June. Aleix hadn’t answered any of them, but he did contact that number the following day. A four-minute conversation. It was the only call he bothered to return, after leaving numerous others unanswered. She counted: six different numbers had called repeatedly, and Aleix had answered the first. No more.

She tried to put the scattered data in order while she mentally went over the story Gina and Aleix himself had given in previous statements. A story that wasn’t wholly true. Why had he and Marc Castells argued? An argument bad enough to leave Marc’s t-shirt bloodstained. To whom did the number that had persistently called that night, and that Aleix had bothered to answer the next day, belong? That, at least, would be easy to discover. In fact, after some quick checks, she obtained the user’s name: Rubén Ramos García. She sighed. The name meant nothing to her. She then entered another of the numbers that appeared most in the list. Regina Ballester. Gina Martí’s mother. . They were certainly going to have things to ask Aleix on Monday.

She looked at her watch. Yes, she still had time. She put the name Rubén Ramos García into the computer. Seconds later, thanks to the magic of information technology, a photo of a young, sallow man appeared on the screen. Leire, completely bewildered, read the details. What the hell was a young guy from a good family, as the superintendent would say, doing mixing with this kid who clearly didn’t belong in his social circle? Rubén Ramos García, twenty-four years old, cited in January of the year before and again in November for possession of cocaine. Suspected of drug dealing, unproven. Another note: questioned in relation to a skinhead assault on some immigrants who ended up dropping the charges.

Leire made a quick report of all this and left it on the table, just as she’d agreed with the inspector. Then, not wanting to stop to think about anything, she picked up her helmet and went for her motorbike.