Antonio Hill - The Summer of Dead Toys

“And Marc thought to do the same with Father Castells’ email account and the photos of Natàlia,” added Héctor.

“More or less. Really Marc wanted to use it as a threat. Thanks to a few things I’d taught him, he’d deciphered his uncle’s account password. His plan was simple. On one hand, upload the file with the photos on to Father Castells’ computer, then after the San Juan long weekend call and corner him: either he gave him the name he wanted or those disgusting photos that Fèlix, horrified, was seeing for the first time would be revealed to all his contacts. Knowing his password and having the USB with the photos, Marc could do it from home. Enric, Glòria, the priest’s colleagues, the clerical associations-can you imagine their faces if suddenly an email arrived from Castells containing photos of his naked niece?”

“It’s sick,” Leire pointed out. “He was going to do that to a man who raised him, who’d almost been a father to him?”

Aleix shrugged.

“Marc’s theory was that Fèlix would have talked. In the moment of desperation he’d reveal the name he wanted. And then he wouldn’t have to carry out his threat. Anyway, he didn’t feel too bad about giving him a fright: at the end of the day he was an accessory.”

“And you thought he’d get his way?”

The boy nodded.

“The plan could have failed spectacularly and Fèlix could have refused, but. . It’s a bad time for priests regarding this subject. He wouldn’t have risked his reputation to protect Edu. . I tried to dissuade Marc, point out the risks. I insisted that this wasn’t a school joke any more, it was a much more serious thing. If the truth came out he and Gina could have had a bad time of it. I managed to convince him to postpone the whole thing for a few days, at least. I told him we should think about it so as not to put our foot in it and I persuaded him to leave it until after the exams. He didn’t bring up the subject again, but through Gina I knew he’d gone ahead with the plan behind my back.”

“And you couldn’t allow that. . So you convinced Gina to keep the USB,” Héctor continued interrogating him. “It was easy. She was hugely jealous of the girl from Dublin and she was really frightened. Also, Gina was a sensitive girl.” He smiled. “Too sensitive. Seeing those photos horrified her. Marc saved them on the USB to delete them from his computer. At my request, Gina convinced him that it was better that she kept it in her house until he had the opportunity to access Fèlix’s computer.”

“And the opportunity arose over San Juan weekend,” said Leire, recalling that Fèlix was staying with the rest of his family in Collbató. “But Gina didn’t bring the USB to the party and Marc got angry,” she continued, sure of herself thanks to Rubén’s story. “He got angry with you and with her and ended up flushing the drugs you had to sell. The drugs you still had to pay for, incidentally. You tried to stop him and you hit him. The T-shirt he was wearing got stained with blood. Because of that, he then took it off and put on another.”

“More or less. .”

“You said you left, and your brother confirmed it, but your mutual alibi isn’t very satisfactory now, would you say?”

He leaned toward the table.

“It’s true! I went home. Edu was there. I didn’t tell him any of this. God, I only told him last night because I need money to pay these guys. If not, I’d never have told him anything. He’s. . my brother.”

Leire looked at Héctor. The boy seemed to be telling the truth. Salgado pretended to ignore his colleague and sat down at a corner of the table.

“Aleix, what I can’t understand is how a boy as clever as you could make such a crude mistake. How did you let Gina keep the USB? You were in control of everything. And you knew you couldn’t trust her-”

“I didn’t!” he protested. “I asked her for it the same day you came to question her. But she got mixed up and gave me the wrong one. You know something? I am cleverer than you. Do you have the transcription of the suicide note that Gina wrote to hand? Do you remember it? Gina would never have written that! She was incapable of leaving off an accent or using abbreviations. Her father, the writer, hates them.”

Héctor watched Aleix, not saying anything. But it was Agent Castro who caught his attention then, as, in a voice trying to be firm, she asked: “What was on the USB Gina gave you, Aleix?”

“Her Art History notes. What does that matter?”

Leire leaned on the back of the chair. Far away she could hear Héctor continuing to interrogate the witness, although she knew it was pointless. Aleix hadn’t killed Marc, and of course Gina hadn’t either. He was an idiot and he deserved to have his face smashed in by the dealers, but he wasn’t a killer. Neither was his brother, the pious paedophile.

Without saying anything, she left the room and made a call. She didn’t need anything else: just to confirm something with Regina Ballester, Gina Martí’s mother.

Sitting on the white sofa of the Castells’ house, while Glòria finished bathing the little one before coming down to join them, Héctor said to himself that in this lounge he was breathing in the same peace he’d noticed the last time they were there. But now, while he contemplated the elegant décor and heard the soft music floating in the air, Héctor knew that all this was nothing more than a set. A false calm.

He and Leire had argued a lot on how to approach the next part of the matter. Salgado had listened to Castro’s reasoning and together they’d joined all the dots to arrive at the same conclusion. But when they got to the end of the process, when the name of the person who had killed Marc, and probably Gina as well, was clear to both of them, Héctor remembered something he’d said to Joana: “It’s possible this case may never be resolved.” Because, even with the truth before them, the proof was minimal. So minimal that he could only trust that the tension and fear combined would be stronger than endurance and cold blood. For that reason he’d imposed his will and gone alone. For what he was going to do, two was a crowd.

Enric Castells was tired, Héctor said to himself. Dark circles cast a shadow over his expression.

“I don’t want to be rude, Inspector, but I hope you have a good excuse for turning up at my home on a Sunday evening. I don’t know if you are aware that this weekend hasn’t been exactly easy for us. . Yesterday we had to give our condolences to good friends whose daughter committed suicide and maybe killed. .” He was quiet for a moment. “And since then I can’t stop going over everything in my mind. Everything. .”

He rubbed his face with his hands and took a deep breath.

“I want all this to be over,” he said then. “If Glòria ever comes down. . Can’t we begin without her?”

Héctor was going to repeat what he had said to him as he came in, that he needed both of them to cooperate because new and disturbing evidence had come to light in relation to his son’s death, but just then Glòria came in alone.

“Finally!” exclaimed Enric. “Does it take so long to bathe that little girl?”

The hostility of the question surprised the inspector. “That little girl.” Not “the little one” or “my daughter,” or even “Natàlia.” That little girl.

Glòria didn’t bother to respond and took a seat beside her husband.

“Well, get on with it, Inspector. Are you going to tell us why you’ve come?” asked Castells.

Héctor stared at them. And then, before this couple who seemed to be living in a state of cold war, he said: “I have to tell you a story that goes back years, to the summer when Marc was six years old. The summer a little girl called Iris Alonso died.”