A Small Death in Lisbon

'What's happening here, agente Pinto? I've spent the last twenty years of my life not thinking about the revolution other than the fact we get a holiday on 25th April. I've been with you less than half a day and we've talked about it three or four times. I don't think it's any way to start a murder investigation by going back twenty-five years and looking…'

'It was only talk. He was projecting himself as a liberal. I don't believe him… and that's one of the reasons why.'

'Guys like that are too intelligent to believe in anything. They change…'

'I don't think they do. Not this late on. My father's forty-eight, he can't change and now he's scrap in the breaker's yard along with all his old pumps.'

'Don't get fixed ideas about people, agente Pinto. It'll cloud your vision. You don't want to ram somebody into a life sentence just because they're politically disagreeable, do you?'

'No,' said Carlos, innocent as his hair, 'that wouldn't be fair.'

Chapter VII

Saturday, 13th June 199-, Dr Aquilino Oliveira's house, Cascais We were shown into the sitting room which, judging by the furnishings, was not Dr Oliveira's side of the house. There was natural light in the room, fancy ceramics and no dark corners of books. The art on the walls was the sort that demanded comment unless you happened to be a police inspector from Lisbon in which case your opinion didn't matter. I took a seat on one of the two caramel leather sofas. Above the fireplace was a portrait of a skeletal figure in an armchair as seen through lashes of paint. It was disturbing. You had to be disturbed to live with it.

Under the thick plate glass of the coffee table was Senhora Oliveira's more human side. Magazines like Caras, Casa, Maxima and the Spanish?Hola!. There were plants in the room and an arrangement of lilies but just as the eye relaxed it came across a dark metal figure scrabbling out of the primordial slime or a terracotta head, open-mouthed, screaming at the ceiling. The safest place to look was the floor which was parquet with Persian rugs.

Dr Oliveira showed his wife in. She was probably the same height as her daughter but her hair gave her another ten centimetres. It was big, pumped-up and blonde. Her tanned face looked tight, still puffy from barbiturate sleep and she'd tried to mask it with heavy eye make-up. Her lips were pink and she'd added an extra dark line to the rim of her mouth. She wore a cream blouse and a bra that created cleavage where none naturally existed. Her short silk skirt was five shades off matching her blouse and she was chained with gold about the waist. We shook hands. The jewellery felt crusty.

'We'd like to talk to your wife alone, Senhor Doutor.'

He was going to make a stand, a man in his own home, but the side of his wife's face said something to him which I missed and he left the room. We sat. Carlos took out his notebook.

'When did you last see your daughter, Dona Oliveira?'

'Yesterday morning. I took her to school.'

'What was she wearing?'

'A white T-shirt, a mini-skirt, light blue with a yellow check. Those big clumpy shoes they all wear these days studded with rhinestones. She also had a thin leather lace choker with a cheap stone strung on it.'

'No tights in this weather?'

'No, just bra and pants.'

'Any particular make?'

She didn't answer but squeezed her bottom lip between her thumb and forefinger and then rubbed them together to disperse the grease.

'Did you hear the question, Dona Oliveira?'

'I just…'

Carlos leaned forward and the sofa creaked underneath so he stopped halfway. Senhora Oliveira blinked her slightly enclosed brown eyes.

'Sloggi,' she said.

'Did something else occur to you then, Dona Oliveira?'

'A horrible thought… when you asked about the underwear.'

'Your husband's already told us that Catarina has been sexually active for some years.'

Carlos sat back. She dabbed at her smudged lower lip with a finger.

'Dona Oliveira?'

'Was there a question, Inspector Coelho?'

'I wondered if you'd tell us what's on your mind, it might help.'

'It's every mother's fear that their daughter might get raped and killed,' she said, automatically, as if that hadn't been what she was thinking.

'How have you been getting on with your daughter over the past couple of years?'

'He's told you…' she started, and held herself back.

'What exactly?' I asked.

She darted a look at Carlos who didn't help.

'How we haven't been getting on.'

'Mothers and daughters don't always…'

'…compete,' she finished for me.

'Compete?' I asked, and she picked up on my surprise.

'I don't think this will help you find Catarina.'

'I'd like to know more about her psychological state. If she was likely to get herself into a difficult situation. She's a confident girl. That could have been the start of the…'

'Why do you say she's confident?'

'She fronts a band… that needs something.'

'It wasn't a very successful band,' she said, and switched. 'Yes, it's true, she can appear older than she is.'

'Is that what you meant by competing?'

Our eyes connected but she couldn't hold mine for more than a few seconds. She seemed to steady herself against the coffee table, rapping it with her ringed fingers.

'I didn't… I'm wondering what he's told you now,' she said, glancing at the door.

'Just tell me what happened.'

'Did he tell you I found Catarina in bed with my brother?'

'Why would you see that as competitive?'

'He's thirty-two years old.'

'But he's your brother.'

'I don't see any reason to be discussing middle-age female paranoia with someone investigating my daughter's disappearance. The fact is if she can get him she can…'

'Your husband said that too.'

'This is hopeless.'

'Maybe your brother's the one to help us with…'

'I don't know why he has to do this… now of all times.'

'He?'

'I didn't find Catarina in bed with my brother. She was with my lover,' she said, coolly, now that she'd given up the pretence.

'Do you still see this man?'

'Are you insane, Inspector?'

'And your daughter?'

Silence.

'I don't know,' she said, after a while.

'I'll need to speak to him,' I said.

Carlos handed her the notebook. She scribbled fiercely and finished with a pile-driving dot that must have gone through to the cardboard.

'How did your husband find out?'

She pushed up her chin like a boxer who could take anything now. Truth, part truth and lies passed behind her eyes.

'You can imagine the atmosphere in this house… between me and Catarina. My husband talked to her. He's good with words. He wrung it out of her.'

'Did she seduce your lover… Paulo Branco?'

'The delicacy of young flesh is difficult to resist so I'm told.' She said it in a way that particularly pained her.

'She was a drug-user. Your husband knows about hashish. Were you aware of her taking anything stronger?'

'I wouldn't know the difference. I've never taken drugs.'

'But you know how you feel when you've taken a sleeping pill, Senhora Oliveira?'

'I go to sleep.'

'In the morning, I mean.'

She blinked.

'Doesn't it give you an insulated feeling, the real world kept at a distance? Did you ever notice Catarina in that state or perhaps the opposite, nervous, hyperactive, wired… I think they call it?'

'I really don't know,' she said.

'Does that mean you didn't notice or…'

'It means that, of late, I haven't cared.'

It was a long silence in which the unheard air conditioning made its presence felt.

'How did she get her money?' I asked.

'I gave her five thousand escudos a week.'

'What about clothes.'

'I used to buy her clothes until… until last year,' she said.

'Did you buy the clothes she was wearing?'

'Not the skirt. I wouldn't have bought her anything that short. It barely covered her knickers but then that's the fashion so…'