‘How did you meet?’
‘At school. I’d already left and I work … until all this happened I worked with my brother, tarring roofs. It suited me, and it was money in my pocket; it’s a shitty job but it’s well paid. She was still studying; she was repeating a year, though, and wanted to drop out, but her parents insisted and she gave in.’
‘You’ve said she had a lot of friends, do you know whether she was seeing anyone else? Any other boys?’
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ he said, regaining some energy and frowning. ‘She was with me and no one else.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘I am. Ask her girlfriends, she was crazy about me.’
‘Did you have sex?’
‘Yes, and it was good,’ he said, smiling.
‘When Carla’s body was found there were marks from your teeth on her chest.’
‘I already explained this at the time. That’s how it was with Carla, she liked it like that and so did I. Alright, we liked rough sex, so what? I never hit her or anything like that, they were just games.’
‘You say that she was the one who liked hard-core sex, however, in your statement,’ Jonan consulted his notes, ‘you said that she didn’t want to have sex that night, and that this made you angry. Something doesn’t add up here, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘It was because of the drugs, one moment she was like a motorbike going full-throttle and the next she came over all paranoid and said she didn’t want to … Of course I got angry, but I didn’t force her and I didn’t kill her, it had happened to us before.’
‘And when it happened before did you make her get out of the car and leave her stranded on the mountainside?’
Miguel Ángel shot him a furious look and swallowed before answering.
‘No, that was the first time, and I didn’t make her get out of the car: she was the one who took to her heels and didn’t want to get back in, even though I asked her to … Eventually I got fed up and left.’
‘She scratched your neck,’ said Amaia.
‘I’ve already told you, she liked it that way; she’d leave my back in shreds sometimes. Our friends can tell you; they saw the bite marks on my shoulders in the summer when we were sunbathing and they had a great laugh about it, calling her a she-wolf.’
‘When was the last time you’d had sex before that night?’
‘Um, probably the day before, whenever we saw each other we ended up fucking. As I said, she was crazy about me.’
Amaia sighed and got to her feet, signalling to the guard.
‘Just one more thing. How did she like to keep her pubic area?’
‘Her pubic area? You mean the hair around her pussy?’
‘Yes, the hair around her pussy,’ said Amaia without blinking. ‘How did she keep it?’
‘She shaved it, she just left a tiny bit,’ he said, barely hiding his smile.
‘Why did she shave it?’
‘I’ve already told you that we both liked that sort of thing. I loved it …’
Miguel Ángel got to his feet as they made their way to the door.
‘Inspector.’ The guard gestured at him to sit down. Amaia turned towards the boy.
‘Tell me, why now and not before?’
The inspector looked at Jonan before replying, considering whether that cocky little shit deserved an explanation or not. She decided that he did.
‘Because another girl has been found murdered and the crime is a bit similar to what happened to Carla.’
‘Well there you go! Don’t you see? When will I get out of here?’
Amaia turned towards the exit before answering. ‘We’ll keep you posted.’
Amaia was looking out of the window as the room started to fill up behind her. As she heard the scraping of chairs and the murmur of conversations she put her hands against the glass, pearly with microscopic drops of breath. The cold left no doubt that it was still winter outside and Pamplona looked damp and grey on that February evening as the light fled rapidly towards darkness. The gesture filled her with nostalgia for a summer that was so distant it seemed to belong to another world, a universe of light and warmth where dead girls would never be found abandoned on a river’s icy bank.
Jonan appeared at her side, offering her a cup of milky coffee. She thanked him with a smile and held it in both hands, hoping in vain that the warmth from the cup would transfer to her frozen fingers. She sat down and waited while Montes closed the door and the general murmur abated.
‘Fermín?’ said Amaia, inviting Inspector Montes to start things off.
‘I’ve been to Elizondo to talk to the girls’ parents and the shepherd who found Carla Huarte’s body. Nothing from the parents. Carla’s say that they didn’t like their daughter’s friends, that they went out a lot and got drunk, and they are convinced her boyfriend did it. One important detail: they didn’t report her missing until the fourth of January, bearing in mind that the girl left the house on the thirty-first … Their explanation is that the girl turned eighteen on the first and they thought she’d left home like she’d often threatened to do. It was only after they contacted her friends that they realised she hadn’t been seen for days.
‘Ainhoa Elizasu’s parents are in complete shock and are here in Pamplona at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, waiting for the body to be released once the autopsy’s taken place. The girl was wonderful and they don’t understand how someone could have done this to their daughter. The brother hasn’t been much help either; he blames himself for not having said anything sooner. And her friends from Elizondo say that they were at one of their houses first and then they went for a wander around town. Ainhoa suddenly realised what time it was and had to run; nobody went with her to the bus stop because it was very close to where they were. They don’t remember being approached by anyone suspicious, they didn’t argue with anyone, and Ainhoa didn’t have a boyfriend and nor was she messing around with anyone. The most interesting thing was talking to the shepherd, José Miguel Arakama, who’s a real character. He’s sticking to his initial statement, but the most important thing is something he remembered days later, a detail he didn’t think was important at the time because it didn’t seem to be at all related to the discovery of the body.’
‘Are you going to tell us then?’ interrupted Amaia impatiently.
‘He was telling me that a lot of prostitutes hang around that area and leave it in a real mess, with cigarette butts, empty cans, used condoms and even knickers and bras lying around, when he happened to mention that one day one of them left a pair of brand-new
