old man with names on the tip of my tongue but unable to articulate.
I am shivering. That’s what my mind can do to me. I’m cracking up. I’ve been sleepwalking. Lucía told me when I was in the shower. She said I went down to my study at three in the morning. Later that day I found a blank pad on the desk. I saw the indent of some handwriting. I couldn’t find the original. I took it to the window and saw that it was something I had written: ‘the thin air…’?
Wednesday, 24th July 2002
‘I want my mummy. I want my mummy.’
Consuelo Jiménez opened her eyes to a child’s face only centimetres from her own, which lay half buried in the pillow. Her eyelashes scratched the cotton slip. The child’s fingers grabbed at the flesh of her upper arm.
‘I want my mummy.’
‘All right, Mario. Let’s go and find Mummy,’ she said, thinking this is too early for anybody. ‘You know she’s only just across the street, don’t you? You can stay here with Matías, have some breakfast, play a little…’
‘I want my mummy.’
The child’s fingers dug into her arm with some urgency and she stroked his hair and kissed him on the forehead.
She didn’t want to cross the street in her night-clothes, like some working-class woman needing something from the shops, but the child was tugging at her, wheedling. She slipped on a white silk dressing gown over her cotton pyjamas and fitted her feet into some gold sandals. She ran her hands through her hair while Mario sheafed her dressing gown and started hauling her away like some stevedore down at the docks.
Taking his hand she led him down the stairs one at a time. They left the chill of the air-conditioned house and the heat, even this early in the morning, was solid and unwavering with not even a lick of freshness from the dawn after another oppressive night. She crossed the empty street. Palm trees hung limp and frazzled as if sleep had not come easily to this neighbourhood. The only sound out on the tarmac came from the air conditioner’s fans blowing more hot, unwanted air into the suffocating atmosphere of the exclusive neighbourhood of Santa Clara on the outskirts of Seville.
Water dripped from a split unit on a high balcony of the Vegas’ house as she half dragged Mario, who’d become suddenly cumbersome and difficult as if he’d changed his mind about his mummy. The drips clattered on the leaves of the abundant vegetation, the sound thick as blood in the hideous heat. Sweat beaded on Consuelo’s forehead. She felt nauseous at the thought of the rest of the day, the heat building on weeks of torrid weather. She keyed in the code number on the pad by the outer gate and stepped into the driveway. Mario ran to the house and pushed against the front door bumping his head against the woodwork. She rang the doorbell, whose electronic chime sounded like a distant cathedral bell in the silent, double-glazed house. No answer. A trickle of sweat found its way between her breasts. Mario pounded the door with his small fist, which made the sound of a dull ache, persistent as chronic grief.
It was just after eight in the morning. She licked at the sweat forming on her top lip.
The maid arrived at the gate. She had no keys. Sra Vega was normally awake early, she said. They heard the gardener, an Ukrainian called Sergei, digging at the side of the house. They startled him and he gripped his mattock like a weapon until he saw the two women. Sweat careened down his pectorals and the ridges of muscle on his naked torso to his shorts. He had been working since 6 a.m. and had heard nothing. As far as he knew the car was still in the garage.
Consuelo left Mario with the maid and took Sergei to the back of the house. He climbed up on to the verandah outside the sitting room and peered through the sliding doors and blinds. The doors were locked. He climbed over the railing of the verandah and leaned across to look in the kitchen window, which was raised above the garden. His head started back with shock.
‘What is it?’ asked Consuelo.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Sr Vega lying on the floor. He not moving.’
Consuelo took the maid and Mario back across the street to her house. The child knew that things were not right and started to cry. The maid could not console him and he fought his way out of her arms. Consuelo made the call. Zero–Nine–One. She lit a cigarette and tried to concentrate while she looked at the helpless maid hovering over the child, who’d thrown a tantrum and was now a writhing, thrashing animal on the floor, howling himself to silence. Consuelo reported the incident to the telephone centre at the Jefatura, gave her name, address and contact number. She slammed the phone down and went to the child, took his kicks and thumps and pulled him to her, held him against her and whispered his name over and over in his ear until he went limp.
She put him in her bed upstairs, got dressed and called the maid to come and keep an eye on him. Mario slept. Consuelo looked at him intently as she brushed her hair. The maid sat on the corner of the bed, unhappy at being caught up in somebody else’s tragedy, knowing that it would infect her own life.
A patrol car pulled up in the street outside the Vegas’ house. Consuelo went out to meet the policeman and took him to the back of the house where he climbed up on to the verandah. He asked her where the gardener had gone. She walked down the lawn to a small building at the bottom where Sergei had his quarters. He wasn’t there. She went back to the house. The policeman hammered on the kitchen window and then radioed information back to the Jefatura. He climbed down from the verandah.
‘Do you know where Sra Vega is?’ he asked.
‘She should be in there. That’s where she was last night when I called her to tell her that her son would stay the night with my boys,’ said Consuelo. ‘Why were you knocking on the window?’
‘No sense in smashing the door down if he’s just drunk and fallen asleep on the floor.’
‘Drunk?’
‘There’s a bottle on the floor next to his body.’
‘I’ve known him for years and I’ve never seen him incapable…never.’
‘Maybe he’s different when he’s on his own.’
‘So what have you done about it?’ said Consuelo, the testy Madrileña trying to keep her shrillness down in front of the more relaxed style of the local policeman.
‘An ambulance was dispatched as soon as you made your call and now the Inspector Jefe del Grupo de Homicidios has been notified.’
‘One moment he’s drunk and the next he’s been murdered.’
‘There’s a body lying on the floor,’ said the patrolman, annoyed with her now. ‘He’s not moving and he’s not responding to noise. I have –’
‘Don’t you think you should try and get in there and see if he’s still alive? He’s not moving or responding but he might still be breathing.’
Indecision flitted across the patrolman’s face. He was saved by the arrival of the ambulance. Between them the paramedics and the patrolman found that the house was completely sealed back and front. More cars arrived outside the front of the house.
Inspector
