Antonio Hill - The Summer of Dead Toys

I’m flying back to Barcelona from Dublin next Sunday morning. I’d like to see you straight away and tell you some things about Marc. . and about me.

Many thanks,

Alwaysiris

Héctor lifted his head from the piece of paper.

“I don’t understand it.” The threads of this case seemed to be multiplying, pointing in different directions, nothing definite. If half an hour before he’d been relatively certain that the fight between Aleix and Marc had something to do with drugs, now this new name had appeared, Iris. There’d been an Iris in Marc’s phone. “Alwaysiris. It’s a strange way to sign an email, isn’t it? As if it weren’t her name. As if it were a form of homage.”

Joana picked up her gin and tonic, her hand shaking a little.

She brought it to her lips, but didn’t manage to drink. The group at the bar was reaching the level of passionate discussion. “I was on the point of telling my ex-husband yesterday. Of asking him if he knew anything about this Iris, if the name sounded familiar. He was so cruel, I thought it was better not to. Also, this girl asked me not to tell anyone, as if there were danger, as if she were hiding something. .”

“You’ve done the right thing in telling me,” Héctor reassured her.

“I hope so,” she smiled. “I barely recognize Enric. Want to know something? When we were boyfriend and girlfriend I thought I would be with him all my life.”

“Doesn’t everyone think that?”

“I suppose so. But everything changed so much when we got

married. .”

“Is that why you left?”

“That, and the idea of being a mother terrified me.” Joana finished off her gin and tonic and put it back on the

table.

“It sounds awful, doesn’t it?”

“Fear is human. Only idiots are immune to it.”

She laughed.

“Nice try, Inspector Salgado.” She looked toward the door.

“Would you mind if we took a walk? I think it’s stopped raining. I need some air.”

The rain had left a shiny layer over a city preparing for the weekend. There was a slight breeze, not much, but between that and the drenched streets they breathed a freshness welcome after days of intensely muggy weather. Héctor and Joana began to wander aimlessly, walking toward Plaça Espanya and once there they heard animated ethnic music coming from the Montjuïc Palace area, where it appeared one of those summer parties was being celebrated. Maybe they felt comfortable with one another, maybe neither of them felt like returning to an empty house; what is certain is that both, with a tacit accord, walked toward the music. Night was falling, and the illuminated stage attracted them. En route stalls with empanadas, tacos and mojitos by the jug offered their produce between colored flags and puddles of water. Those in charge of the stalls had tried to put a brave face on the bad weather, but it was obvious that the rain had spoiled part of the party.

“May I ask if you’re married?”

“I was.”

“Another victim of falling out of love?”

“And who isn’t?”

She laughed. It had been a while since she felt so at ease

with someone. He stopped in front of one of the stalls and ordered a pair of mojitos.

“You shouldn’t have, Inspector. One shouldn’t buy a single woman more than one drink.”

“Shhh, lower your voice.” Going to pay, he took his mobile from his pocket and saw he had three missed calls that had gone unheard in the Caribbean beat. “Excuse me a moment,” he said, and moved a few steps away. “What? Sorry, I’m on a street and there’s a lot of noise. That’s why I didn’t hear the mobile. What? When? In her house? I’m coming.”

Joana watched the stage, with the two mojitos in her hands. At the bottom, the fountains of Montjuïc were throwing out their streams of color and the street began to fill with people who, like them, had decided to join the party after the rain. The mojito was good. She took a long drink and held out the other glass to Héctor with an almost coquettish gesture, but her smile evaporated on seeing the expression on his face.

The Martís’ house seemed to have been invaded by a troop of wary soldiers, who spoke in hushed tones and carried out the pertinent tasks with serious faces. In the lounge, a severe Lluís Savall gave succinct orders to his men, out of the corner of his eye watching Salvador Martí and his wife, who, despite being seated beside each other on the dark sofa, gave the impression of finding themselves kilometres apart. His gaze was fixed on the door; she was tense, braced by an inner force, and her dry, reddened eyes betrayed a mixture of pain and incredulity. In that closed space the horror was only in their minds, in images they would manage to erase only with difficulty. In the bathroom, however, the tragedy lay unfolded in all its macabre splendour: scattered strokes on the white walls of the bathtub, a razor blade on the ledge, the water dyed red, and Gina’s inert body, with the tranquil appearance of a sleeping child. Opposite the door, Héctor listened attentively to what a serious Agent Castro was telling him while a colleague from forensics finished collecting evidence of the tragedy. It wasn’t a long tale; no need for it to be so. Regina Ballester had gone to collect her husband at the airport around six, but the plane was delayed. During the wait, which was over an hour, she called her daughter a number of times, but Gina didn’t pick up the phone. Salvador Martí’s plane finally landed, and they both arrived home around a quarter past nine, after negotiating a huge traffic jam caused by the rain and the weekend rush. Regina had immediately gone up to her daughter’s room, and not finding her there thought she’d maybe gone out, but when she passed the bathroom she saw that the door was ajar and the light was on. Her screams on seeing Gina in the bathtub, submerged in a sea of blood, alerted her husband. It was he who called the emergency services, although he already knew that there was nothing medical science could do to revive his only daughter. The apparent conclusion, from lack of any other evidence, was that Gina Martí had slit her wrists in the bathtub.

“Was there a note?”

Leire nodded.

“On the computer, barely two lines.” She consulted her

notes. “It said something like: ‘Cant take it any more. I have 2 do this. . I cant live with the remorse.’ ”

“Remorse?” Héctor imagined Gina, a bit drunk, indignant, looking at Marc sitting on the window ledge. Walking toward him, possessed by a grudge, pushing him before he could turn around and make her waver in her decision. That he could picture. What he couldn’t believe was that this same girl, temperamental enough not to accept no for an answer, could then go downstairs to sleep in the bed of the boy she loved and had just killed and stay there, asleep or not, as if nothing had happened. He didn’t believe that Gina Martí would have been capable of acting with such coldness.

“Inspector Salgado, they told me you were on holiday.” The forensic scientist, a slight and lively woman, famous for her efficiency and her sharp tongue, turned toward them and interrupted their thoughts.

“I missed you, Celia.”

“Well, for someone missing me so much you’re late arriving. We were waiting in case you wanted to see it.” She looked inside with the lack of expression of someone who’d spent years examining cadavers, young, old, healthy, sick. “I heard there was a suicide note?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then I don’t have much to add.” But her tone, her furrowed brow, said otherwise.

Héctor went into the bathroom and looked at poor Gina’s lifeless body. He suddenly remembered her outburst on the sofa, when she shouted that she and Marc loved each other, under the condescending gaze of her mother. He’d detected a flash of triumph in her voice at that moment: Marc was no longer here to contradict her; she could cling to that love, real or not. With time, with people unfamiliar with this affair, she would even have changed her story: removed Marc’s rejection of her on his last night, transformed him into the young man in love who gave her a kiss, told her affectionately to ‘Stay awake, I won’t be long,’ and then fell into the void in an unexplained accident.