Antonio Hill - The Summer of Dead Toys

The rest he’d already described at the beginning, his face distorted, before Héctor arrived. The pig’s head on the desk. Blood everywhere. And not a trace of the doctor.

“Just what we needed,” muttered the super as soon as the nervous lawyer had left the office. “We’ll go back to having the press biting us like vultures.”

Héctor thought the vultures were hardly biting, but he stopped himself commenting. In any case, he wouldn’t have had time because Savall picked up the receiver and called an extension. Half a minute later, Sergeant Andreu was coming into the office. Martina didn’t know what was happening, but she guessed by her boss’s face it was nothing good, so after winking at Héctor by way of a greeting, she got ready to listen. If the news Savall gave her surprised her as much as it had them, she hid it well. She listened attentively, asked a couple of pertinent questions, and left to carry out her orders. Héctor’s eyes followed her. He almost started on hearing his name.

“Héctor. Listen carefully because I’m only saying this once. I’ve risked my neck for you. I’ve defended you to the press and the brass. I’ve pulled out all the stops to bury this business. And I’m on the verge of convincing that guy to drop the charges. But if you go near that flat, if you intervene in this investigation even for one minute, I won’t be able to do anything. Understood?”

Héctor crossed one leg over the other. His intense concentration showed in his face.

“It’s my head on the chopping-block,” he finally said. “Don’t you think I’ve a right to know why they are cutting it off?”

“You lost it, Héctor. The same day you came to blows with that swine you gave up your rights. Now you’re facing the consequences.”

The thing was, Héctor knew all this but at that moment he didn’t care. He couldn’t even manage to repent: the blows he’d showered on Omar seemed to him just and deserved. It was as if the serious Inspector Salgado had regressed to his youth in a Buenos Aires barrio, when disagreements were resolved by punching each other to shit at the school gates. When you’d go home with a split lip but say you’d been hit in the face playing football. A burst of rebellion was still pricking him in the chest: an absurd, break-my-balls thing, decidedly immature for a cop just turned forty-three.

“And no one remembers the girl?” asked Héctor bitterly. A poor defense, but it was the only one he had.

“Let’s see if you get this into your head, Salgado.” To his regret, Savall had raised his voice. “As far as we know, there wasn’t the least contact between Dr. Omar and the girl in question after the flat where the girls were kept was taken apart. We couldn’t even show there was any beforehand without the girl’s word. She was in the centre for minors. Somehow they managed to do. . that. . to them.”

Héctor nodded.

“I know the facts, chief.”

But the facts didn’t manage to convey the horror. The intensely panicked face of a little girl, even in death. Kira wasn’t fifteen, didn’t speak a word of Spanish or of any language other than her own and yet she’d managed to make herself heard. She was slight, very slim and in her smooth, doll-like face her eyes shone, a color somewhere between amber and chestnut that he’d never seen before. Like the others, Kira had taken part in a ceremony before leaving her country in search of a better future. They called them ju-ju rites, in which, after drinking water used to wash a corpse, the young girls offered pubic hair or menstrual blood, which was collected before an altar. They then promised never to report their traffickers, to pay the supposed debts incurred by their journey and generally to obey without question. The punishment for whoever did not comply with these promises was a horrible death, for her or for the relatives she’d left behind. Kira suffered it herself: nobody would have said so fragile a body could contain so much blood. Héctor tried to block the image from his mind, that same vision that at the time had made him lose his head and go in search of Dr. Omar to extract every bone from his body. That individual’s name had come up during the investigation: in theory his only function had been to attend to the girls’ health. But the fear betrayed by the girls on hearing his name indicated that the doctor’s duties went further than purely medical attention. Not one had dared speak of him. He took precautions and the girls were brought to his clinic individually or in pairs. The most he could be accused of was of not asking questions, and that was a very weak accusation for a witch doctor who ran a squalid clinic and tended to illegal immigrants. But that wasn’t enough for Héctor; he’d chosen to lean on the youngest, the most frightened, with the help of an interpreter. All it had achieved was that Kira said, in a very quiet voice, that the doctor had examined her to check whether she was still a virgin and in passing he’d reminded her that she must do what those men said. Nothing else. The following day, her child’s hand took up a pair of scissors and made her body a fountain of blood. In Héctor’s eighteen years in the police force he’d never seen anything like it, and he’d seen a lot: from junkies without a healthy piece of skin to inject into, to victims of every type of violence. But nothing like this. A macabre, perverse sensation emanated from Kira’s mutilated body, something unreal which he couldn’t put into words. Something belonging to the realm of nightmares.

“Another thing,” Savall continued, as if the previous point had already been agreed without argument. “Before being reinstated, you have to attend some sessions with a force psychologist. It’s mandatory. Your first appointment is tomorrow at eleven. So do what you can to appear sane. Starting with a shave.”

Héctor didn’t protest; in fact, he already knew. Suddenly, and in spite of all the good resolutions he’d made on the long flight back, he didn’t give a shit about any of it. Any of it except the bloody pig’s head.

“Can I go?”

“One moment. I don’t want statements to the press, not even a hint of one. As far as you’re concerned, all of this is ongoing and you have no comment. Have I made myself clear?”

Seeing Héctor nod, Savall exhaled and smiled. Salgado got up, ready to leave, but the superintendent didn’t seem disposed to let him go yet.

“How was Buenos Aires?”

“Well, you know. . it’s like the Perito Moreno glacier: from time to time it looks like it’s going to fall to pieces but the block stays firm.”

“It’s a fantastic city. And you’ve put on weight!”

“Too many barbecues. Each Sunday I had one in a different friend’s house. It’s difficult to resist.” The phone on Savall’s desk rang again and Héctor wanted to take advantage of the moment to get out of that office once and for all.

“Wait, don’t go. Yes? Fuck! Tell her I’ll call her back. Then tell her again!”

“Problems?” asked Héctor when his boss had hung up.

“What would life be without them?” Savall fell silent for a few seconds. This usually happened when an idea suddenly seized him and he needed time to translate it into words. “Listen,” he said very slowly. “I think there’s something you can do for me. Unofficially.”

“Do you want me to beat someone up? Fine with me.”

“What?” Savall was still absorbed in his deliberations, which exploded like bubbles in an instant. “Sit down.” He inhaled, nodding and smiling with satisfaction, as if he were convincing himself of his brilliant idea. “The person who called was Joana Vidal.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you were away when it all happened. It was the night of San Juan.” Savall opened one or two files on the desk until he found what he was looking for. “Marc Castells Vidal, nineteen. He was celebrating the festival in his house, just him and two friends. At some point during the night, the boy fell through the window in his room. He died instantly.”