Dolores Redondo - The Invisible Guardian

Iriarte came over as the other officers left.

‘Inspector, go along to my office. You’ve got a phone call from the General Commissioner in Pamplona.’ Amaia picked up the phone.

‘I’m afraid I can’t give you any good news, Commissioner. The investigation’s moving forward as fast as possible, although I’m afraid the killer is quicker than we are.’

‘It’s alright, Inspector, I think I’ve put the investigation in the best possible hands. I received a phone call an hour ago from a friend, someone connected to the Diario de Navarra . They’ll be publishing an interview with Miguel Ángel de Andrés, Carla Huarte’s boyfriend who was in prison accused of her murder, tomorrow. As you know, he’s been released. There’s no need to tell you where that leaves us; in any case, that’s not the problem: in the course of the interview, the journalist insinuates that there’s a serial killer on the loose in the Baztán Valley, that Miguel Ángel de Andrés was freed after it was discovered that the murders of Carla and Ainhoa are linked, and, on top of all this, the murder of the latest girl, Anne—’ it sounded like he was reading from notes, ‘—Urbizu, will be made public tomorrow.’

‘Arbizu,’ Amaia corrected him.

‘I’ll fax you a copy of the articles exactly as they’re going to appear tomorrow. I warn you that you’re not going to like them, they’re revolting.’

Zabalza came back with two printed sheets on which several sentences appeared to have been underlined.

Miguel Ángel de Andrés, who spent a month in Pamplona prison accused of the murder of Carla Huarte, confirms that the officers are linking the case with the recent murders of young girls in the Baztán Valley. The killer slashes their clothes and hairs of non-human origin have been found on the bodies. A terrible lord of the woods who kills within his domains. A bloodthirsty basajaun.

The article about Anne’s murder was headed ‘Has the Basajaun Struck Again?’

The enormous Baztán forest, which before its transformation by man consisted of beech woods up in the mountains, oak woodland on the low ground and chestnut, ash and hazel trees in between, now seemed to be almost entirely covered in beech trees, which reigned despotically over all the rest. Meadows and scrubland comprising furze or gorse, heather and ferns made up the carpet on which generation after generation of baztaneses walked, a truly magical place comparable only to the forest at Irati but now stained by the horror of murder.

The wood always gave Amaia a secret feeling of proud belonging, although its immense size also gave her a sense of fear and vertigo. She knew that she loved it, but hers was a reverent and chaste love based upon silence and distance. When she was fifteen she had briefly joined a hiking group. Walking in their boisterous company hadn’t been as pleasant as she’d expected and she quit after three outings. She only returned to the woodland paths once she’d learnt to drive, attracted once again by the forest’s magnetic pull. She had been amazed to discover that being alone on the mountain provoked in her a terrifying anxiety, the sensation of being watched, of being in a forbidden place or of committing an act of sacrilege. Amaia had gone back down to her car and returned home, excited and unnerved by the experience, and conscious of her atavistic fear, which seemed ridiculous and childish in Aunt Engrasi’s living room.

But the investigation had to continue, and Amaia returned to the thick undergrowth of the Baztán forest. Winter’s death throes were more noticeable in the forest than anywhere else. The rain that had been falling all night was taking a break now, leaving the air cold and heavy, weighed down by humidity that penetrated both her clothes and her bones, so that she shivered, in spite of the heavy blue anorak James had made her wear. Darkened by the excess water, the tree trunks shone like the skin of an ancient reptile in the tentative February sun. The trees that hadn’t lost their leaves gleamed with a green worn by the winter, the gentle breeze revealing silvery reflections on the underside of their leaves. The presence of the river could be detected further down in the valley, flowing through the woods and acting as a mute witness to the horror with which the killer had adorned its banks.

Zipping up his jacket, Jonan increased his pace until he reached her side.

‘There they are,’ he said, pointing out the Land Rover with the Forest Rangers’ emblem on it.

The two uniformed men watched them approach from some distance away and Amaia guessed that they were making some kind of jokey remark because she saw them look away and laugh.

‘Here we go, the typical yokel comments about girls,’ murmured Jonan.

‘Easy tiger, it’s not a big deal,’ she muttered as they approached the men.

‘Good afternoon. I’m Inspector Salazar, from the Policía Foral ’s homicide team; this is Deputy Inspector Etxaide,’ she introduced them.

The two men were extremely thin and wiry, although one of them was almost a head taller than the other. Amaia noticed how the taller of the two stood up straighter on hearing her rank.

‘I’m Alberto Flores, Inspector, and this is my colleague Javier Gorria. We’re in charge of keeping watch over this area; it’s very big, more than fifty square kilometres of woodland, but if we can help you in anyway, you can be sure that we will.’

Amaia looked at them in silence without replying. It was an intimidation tactic that almost never failed, and it worked this time too. The ranger who had stayed leaning against the Land Rover stood up and moved forward a pace.

‘Ma’am. We’ll do everything we can to help. The bear expert from Huesca arrived an hour ago, he’s parked a bit further down,’ he said, indicating a bend in the road. ‘If you’ll come with us, we’ll show you where they’re working.’

‘Good, and you can call me Inspector.’

The path became narrower as they went into the wood, opening out again in small clearings where the grass grew green and fine like a beautiful garden lawn. In other areas the wood formed a sheltered, sumptuous and almost warm maze, an impression reinforced by the endless carpet of pine needles and leaves that stretched before them. The water hadn’t penetrated as far into that level, scrubby area as it had done on the slopes, and great dry, springy patches of windblown leaves crowded around the bases of the trees as if forming natural beds for the forest-dwelling lamias . Amaia smiled as she remembered the legends Aunt Engrasi had told her as a child. In the middle of the forest it didn’t seem so far-fetched to accept the existence of the magical creatures that shaped the past of the people of the region. All forests are powerful, some are frightening by dint of being deep or mysterious, others because they are dark and sinister. The Baztán forest is enchanting, with a serene, ancient beauty that effortlessly brings out people’s most human side; a childlike part of them that believes in the fairies with webbed ducks’ feet that used to live in the forest. These fairies would sleep all day, emerging only at nightfall to comb their long blonde hair. Known as lamiak, they would give their golden combs to any man who chose spend the night with them, despite their ducks’ feet, thus granting him his heart’s desire.

Amaia felt the presence of such beings in that forest so tangibly that it seemed easy to believe in a druid culture, the power of trees over men, and to imagine a time when the communion between magical beings and humans was a religion throughout the valley.

‘Here they are, the Ghostbusters,’ said Gorria, not without a hint of sarcasm.