Antonio Hill - The Summer of Dead Toys

“Upstairs. But you have no right to-”

Héctor slapped him across the face. A red mark spread over the boy’s cheek.

“Hey, this is police brutality!” he protested, seeking Leire’s help with his eyes.

“What?” she asked. “You mean what’s come up on your face? You’ve been bitten by a mosquito. There’re lots in summer. Even in this neighborhood.”

The uproar had brought Edu out of his room. Héctor released Aleix and focused all his attention on his brother. He forced himself to forget what Inés had read them barely half an hour before, to stifle the superhuman rage which threatened to cloud his vision once again. He remained tense for a few seconds, fists clenched. His face must have been frightening because Edu drew back.

“You know why we’re here, don’t you?” asked Leire, placing herself between the inspector and Eduard Rovira. “We’ll all go to the station, and there we can talk more calmly.”

Leire observed Aleix, who was sitting on the other side of the table in the interrogation room, not daring to look up. The red stain had almost disappeared from his cheek, but a slight scratch was still visible.

“We have to talk about Edu, Aleix.” Her voice was cold, impartial. “You know your brother is sick.”

He shrugged.

“All right. How long have you known? Did he abuse you too?”

“No! He doesn’t-”

“He doesn’t like boys. Just a detail! So he prefers girls. When did you find out?”

“I’m not going to say anything.”

“Yes. Yes you’re going to say. Because it could be that your brother killed Marc and Gina to hide all this. And maybe Marc mightn’t matter to you, but you loved Gina. .”

“Edu hasn’t killed anybody! He didn’t even know about this until yesterday.”

Leire was treading carefully. Any error could be fatal.

“If that’s true, talk to me, Aleix. Convince me. When did you realize Edu liked little girls?”

He looked her in the eyes; she knew he was calculating all the possibilities and mentally crossed her fingers until he finally answered.

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“Yes you do. . You like knowing things about others, Aleix. And you’re nobody’s fool.”

Aleix smiled at her.

“Well, let’s say a couple of years ago, one summer that he came home, I found some things on his computer. I’m good at passwords. But you can’t prove it because you won’t find anything on it now.” He kept smiling. “Not a trace.”

Thanks to you, motherfucker, thought Leire. Aleix was bragging; he wanted to show that he was the cleverest. I’m going to get you for being cocky, asshole.

“And when Marc came back from Dublin determined to find the boy who had abused Iris, you ended up putting two and two together and thought it could be Edu, didn’t you? You remembered he’d been a camp monitor with Fèlix, and it’s obvious your family and the Castells got on well. Marc didn’t even remember Edu, or know you when all this happened. And Edu’s been away for years. . In places where he does humanitarian work. And plays with little girls.”

He held her gaze insolently.

“You said that, not me.”

Leire paused. They were getting to the most important point in this whole matter, the point at which she stopped knowing and had to ask, the point at which she needed to be more adept than this conceited brat. She took a few seconds before forming the next question.

In the adjoining room, a silent and terrified Eduard was facing Inspector Salgado’s harsh, tense voice. He’d told him, point by point, detail after detail, everything contained within Iris’s diary.

“And what’s more, you’ve been unlucky,” he finished. “Because for some legal reason I can never understand, these cases of abuse expire after fifteen years. And that summer was only fourteen years ago. Have you heard what they do to paedophiles in prison?”

Edu paled, and gave the impression of cowering in his seat. Yes, everyone had heard of that.

“Well, in your case it will be worse, since I’ll make sure the guards tell the reliable prisoners. And in passing let slip that you’re a good boy who evaded justice for years because of Daddy’s contacts.” He laughed inwardly, seeing the face this worm was making. “If there are two things prisoners hate it’s paedophiles and rich kids. I really wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when three or four of them corral you in one of the rooms while the guards look the other way.”

He seemed on the verge of breaking down. Good, that’s how I like it, thought Salgado.

“Of course if you cooperate a little, maybe I’ll do the opposite. Ask the screws to protect you, tell them you’re a good boy who’s made a few mistakes.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What did your brother tell you?”

Leire was about to form the next question when a serious Héctor Salgado appeared in the room and, moving slowly toward Aleix, said to him very quietly:

“Edu’s been explaining a few things to me. The idea of going to jail has made him very communicative.”

Salgado sat on the edge of the table, very close to Aleix.

“And by the end I’d formed an opinion of you. Want to know what it is?”

The boy shrugged.

“Answer me when I speak to you.”

“You’re going to tell me anyway, aren’t you?” replied Aleix.

“Yes. You’re a clever guy. Very clever. At least in school. First in class, leader of the pack. A good-looking boy with a rich family behind him. But deep down you know there’s lots of shit hidden in this family. The rest don’t matter, but Edu is special. You’ve done a lot of things for Edu. .”

Aleix looked up.

“Edu helped me a lot years ago.”

“Yeah. Because of that you couldn’t let Marc’s plan proceed. It was a somewhat crazy plan, but it could have come off and your precious Edu would have had to face a very disagreeable time. You killed Marc for that? So it wouldn’t go ahead?”

“No! I’ve told you a hundred times. I didn’t kill Marc. Not me, not Edu-”

“Well, right now it’s on you. It all adds up.”

Aleix looked at Salgado, then at Leire. He didn’t find even a hint of understanding. Finally he threw his head back, closed his eyes and inhaled. When he opened them again, he started speaking slowly, almost relieved.

“Marc got really angry with his uncle when he refused to tell him who that monitor was. And then that stupid idea occurred to him.” He paused. “You know everything already, don’t you? I suppose you found the USB at Gina’s house.”

Leire didn’t know what he was talking about but nodded. “I was lucky. I grabbed it when you left.”

“Well, then you’ve seen it. The photos of Natàlia, ready to be downloaded on to his uncle’s computer. In a way it would have been funny: seeing enormous Father Castells’ face when he turned on the computer and found photos of a naked little girl on it, along with some others Marc had downloaded from the internet. Also, Marc worked on the photos. He took lots of the little one one night while she was asleep. Did you know that little Chinese girls are very popular with paedophiles?”

Leire tried not to let the emotion and disgust she felt show in her appearance. She was mentally putting two and two together, trying to anticipate and not put her foot in it. But then Salgado intervened.

“It would have been difficult for him to explain those photos if someone had seen them.”

“Of course. And for once the cassock wouldn’t protect him from the rumors. Rather the contrary.”

“Rumors like the ones you spread in school about that teacher,” said Héctor, remembering it at that moment.

Aleix smiled slightly.

“Yes. Stupid bitch. I found a profile of hers on the internet, all very decent, I swear. I stole the photos, played around with Photoshop to enhance certain charms, added other text and then sent the thing to her whole list of contacts. And not just private ones; I even included the principal of the school. It was brilliant!”