Leonardo Padura: Havana Blue

“Where it says he’s squeaky clean.”

“I know you don’t like the squeaky clean of this world but too bloody bad. It does appear he is an immaculate trustworthy comrade and nobody has the slightest idea where he’s holed up or what’s happened to him, though I fear the worst… Hey, you interested?” he thundered, suddenly changing his tone of voice.

“He’s left the country?”

“Very unlikely. Besides, there were only two attempts yesterday, and both failed. The north wind is a bastard.”

“Hospitals?”

“Nothing, naturally, Mario.”

“Hotels?”

The Boss shook his head and leaned his elbows on his desk. Perhaps he was getting bored.

“Political asylum in bars, brothels or clandestine hostelries?”

He finally smiled, his lip barely flinching above his cigar.

“Piss off, Mario, but remember what I said: the next time I’ll do you proper, on charges for disrespect and whatever.”

Lieutenant Mario Conde stood up. Picked up the file in his left hand, straightened his pistol and gave a half-hearted military salute. He had just started to swing round when Major Rangel rehearsed another of his changes of voice and tone, seeking a rare balance that denoted both persuasiveness and curiosity: “Mario, let me first ask you two questions.” And rested his head on his hands. “My boy, tell me once and for all: why did you join the force?”

The Count looked the Boss in the eye as if he’d not understood something. He knew the latter found his mix of indifference and efficiency disconcerting and liked to relish that minimal superiority.

“I don’t know, Chief. I’ve spent the last twelve years trying to find out, and I still don’t know why. And what’s your other question?”

The major stood up and walked round his desk. Smoothed the top to his uniform, a jacket with stripes and epaulettes that looked fresh from the dry cleaner’s. He reviewed the lieutenant’s trousers, shirt and face.

“Since you are a policeman, why not start dressing like one, hey? And why not shave properly? Look at yourself, you look sick.”

“You’ve asked three questions, Major. You want three answers?”

The Boss smiled and shook his head.

“No, I want you to find Morín. I’m really not interested in why you joined the force and even less in why you don’t ditch those faded trousers. I want this sorted quickly. I don’t like ministers pressurizing me,” he added, mechanically returned his military salute, went back to his desk and watched Lieutenant Mario Conde depart.

SUBJECT: MISSING PERSON

Informant: Tamara Valdemira Méndez

Private address: Santa Catalina,1187, Santos Suárez,

Havana City

ID Card: 56071000623

Occupation: Dentist

Case Outline: At 21.35 hours on Thursday 1 January 1989 the informant presented herself in this station to report the disappearance of citizen Rafael Morín Rodríguez, the informant’s husband and resident at the above address, ID 52112300565, and following physical features white skin, light brown hair, blue eyes, approximately five foot nine inches tall. The informant explained that, it being the early hours of 1 January and after being at a party where she and her friends and work colleagues had seen in the New Year, the informant returned home accompanied by the said Rafael Morín Rodríguez and that after checking that their mutual son was asleep in his bedroom with the informant’s mother, they went to their bedroom and got into bed, and that the following morning, when the informant woke up, citizen Rafael Morín had already left the house, but that initially she was not particularly worried because he often went out without saying where he was going. Around midday, the informant, by now rather concerned, telephoned a few friends and work colleagues as well as the enterprise where Rafael Morín Rodríguez works, without eliciting any information as to his whereabouts. And by this stage she was really worried, since citizen Rafael Morín hadn’t used the car that was his property (Lada 2107, number-plate HA11934), or the company car, which was in the garage. By the late afternoon, and accompanied by citizen René Maciques Alba, workcolleague of the Missing Person, they phoned several hospitals to no avail and then visited others they’d been unable to communicate with via phone, with equally negative outcomes. At 21.00 hours, the informant and citizen René Maciques Alba presented themselves in this station with a view to making this statement on the disappearance of citizen Rafael Morín Rodríguez. Duty Officer: Sgt. Lincoln Capote.

Report Number: 16 – 0101 – 89

Station Chief: First Lieut. Jorge Samper.

Annexe 1: Photograph of the Missing Man

Annexe 2: The Missing Man’s personal and work details.

Initiate investigation. Raise to priority level 1, Provincial Headquarters Havana C.

He visualized Tamara making her statement and looked back at the photo of the man who’d disappeared. It was like a talisman stirring up distant days and hidden melancholies he’d often tried to forget. It must be recent, the card was shiny, but he could be twenty and would still be the same. You sure? Sure: he seemed impervious to the sorrows of this life and urbane even on his passport photos, always untouched by sweat, acne or fat or the dark threat of stubble, always that air of a perfect pristine angel. Yet now he’d gone missing, was almost a spit-ordinary police case, one more job he’d have preferred to pass on. “What the hell is up, mother?” he wondered and abandoned his desk with no desire to read the report on the personal and work details of squeaky clean Rafael Morín. From the window in his little cubby hole he enjoyed a vista that seemed quite impressionistic, comprising the street lined by ancient laurel trees, a diffuse green smudge in the sunlight yet able to refresh his sore eyes, an unimportant world whose every secret and change he noted: a new sparrows’ nest, a branch beginning to wither, a variation in foliage highlighted by the darkness of that diffuse, perpetual green. Behind the trees, a church with high wrought-iron grilles and smooth walls, a few glimpses of other buildings and the very distant sea that could only be perceived as a light or distant smell. The street was empty and hot and his head was fuzzy and empty; he thought how he’d like to sit beneath those laurels, to be sixteen again, to have a dog to stroke and a girlfriend to wait for; then, seated there as ingenuously as possible, he’d play at feeling very happy, as he had almost forgotten you could be happy, and perhaps he’d even succeed in reshaping his past, that would then be his future, and logically calculate what life was going to be like. He was delighted by the idea of such a calculation because he’d try to make it different: there couldn’t be a repeat of the long chain of errors and coincidences that had shaped his existence; there must be some way to change it or at least break out and try another formula, in reality another life. His stomach seemed to have settled, and now he wanted a clear head to get into a case that had emerged from his past to plague the sweet void he’d dreamed of for the weekend. He pressed the red intercom button and asked for Sergeant Manuel Palacios. Perhaps he could be like Manolo, he thought, and then thought how lucky it was people like Manolo existed, able to cheer up routine days at work just by their optimistic presence. Manolo was a good friend, acceptably discreet and quietly ambitious, and the Count preferred him to all the sergeants and assistant detectives at headquarters.

He saw the shadow loom against the glass in his door, and Sergeant Manuel Palacios walked in without knocking.

“I didn’t think you’d got here yet…” he said and sat down in one of the chairs opposite the Count’s desk. “This is no life, my friend. Fuck, you look really half-asleep.”