A Small Death in Lisbon

'We'll go to the notary tomorrow,' said Alex.

'What for?'

'I want to make sure that when I go, this place is yours.'

'Eh, homem, don't talk like that.'

'There's one condition.'

'Look, forget it, you're…'

'Pour another drink and listen to me,' said Alex.

'I'm listening.'

'You have to change the name of the bar to A Bandeira Vermelha. That way nobody will forget.'

***

On 2nd May 1974 Joaquim Abrantes, Pedro, Manuel and Pica had lunch in a small restaurant in the centre of Madrid. It was agreed that Manuel would fly to'Sao Paulo in Brazil and open a branch of the Banco de Oceano e Rocha. Joaquim and Pedro would go to Lausanne and track the political situation in Portugal from there. Pica wanted to know why they couldn't do it from Paris, but nobody paid any attention to her.

On the 3rd May 1974 just as Manuel Abrantes' flight from Madrid to Buenos Aires was leaving the West African coast, thirty-six ex-PIDE/DGS agentes made themselves available to the new regime for traffic control and vehicle registration.

Chapter XXXII

Tuesday, 16th June 1998, Policia Judiciaria, Saldanha, Lisbon There was a rush on at the office that morning which did not include me. Narciso's secretary was waiting for me in the corridor and led me straight up to see him but, of course, he wasn't ready and the five minutes that his secretary had promised turned into twenty. She wouldn't let me leave.

At 08.30 I was standing in front of Narciso on the other side of his desk. He was standing too, with his chair pushed back to the wall, his hands spread wide apart gripping the edge of his desk as if he was going to tip it over me. Emotions made rare appearances in his face but that morning there was one-anger. Not the eruptive, volcanic type, more the penetrating, gelid variety.

'I haven't seen your revised report yet.'

'I haven't had the opportunity to get behind my desk this morning.'

'I also haven't seen the report on what happened yesterday.'

'For the same reason, Senhor Engenheiro.'

'But I have already heard things,' he said, 'about you and agente Pinto putting yourselves at risk and the destruction of all evidence in a fire.'

'That was unfortunate.'

'What have you learnt from the fire department?'

'I haven't…'

'I've heard a taped interview with the suspect of such glaring incompetence that I can't believe the two of you have got your minds properly on the job.'

'Our minds are very firmly on the job, Senhor Engenheiro.'

'What time did you leave this building yesterday?'

'Something like quarter-past-four, we were working the bus queues on Avenida Duque de Avila, which was where the girl was last seen, getting into…'

'And you didn't come back to the office.'

'I sent agente Pinto…'

'And where did you go?'

'I had nothing further…'

'You were seen going into an apartment building just up the road here in Rua Actor Taborda.'

'The victim's teacher lives there.'

'How long did you spend with her?'

Silence.

'I can't hear you, Inspector.'

'Four hours.'

'Four hours! And what did you have to discuss over four hours?'

'I'm seeing her privately, sir.'

Narciso hardly missed a beat. He'd planned this through to the end.

'Do you have any idea of the pressure I'm under?' he asked.

'I'm sure it's considerable.'

'You asked me to make sure that Inspector Abilio Gomes found out where Dr Aquilino Oliveira was at the time of his wife's death.'

'It was just a thought.'

'He was having dinner in the private residence of the Minister of Internal Administration.'

I shut up. The situation was not calling for my observations on the friendship between the lawyer and the minister. Narciso dropped his head and stared into his desk top.

'I'm taking you off the case,' he said, quietly. 'Abilio Gomes will handle it from now on. I want you to go down to Alcantara and investigate a body that's been found in a rubbish bin at the back of the Wharf One club.'

'But Senhor Engenheiro Narciso, you haven't…'

'You are in no position to defend your professionalism on the Catarina Sousa Oliveira case. "Investigating officer has affair with witness",' he said, stretching his hand out into the possible banner headline in the Correio da Manha. 'Now take agente Pinto and go down to Alcantara.'

I sat in my office chewing various nails. Carlos had left a note with Lourenco Goncalves' telephone number and a business address on Avenida Almirante Reis. I tried the number wondering why Narciso had praised me yesterday morning for looking in the wrong direction, and frozen me out twenty-four hours later just when I was getting somewhere. There was no reply. Carlos came in and sat across the desk. I put the phone down.

'We've got a problem,' he said.

I know.'

'Traffic won't give me the information.'

'We're off the case.'

'Do they know that?' he asked, slumping back in his chair.

'Maybe,' I said, and picked up the phone.

I called one of my friends in Traffic who would do favours for me. He put me on hold. Five minutes later he told me the computer had crashed. I hung up.

'We have an internal problem here,' I said.

Carlos looked suddenly bewildered, cold, like a kid on the beach who'd lost his parents. I gave him a resume of Narciso's conversation.

'What does it mean?'

It means that whereas before we were swimming close to the beach, now the tide has suddenly swept us out over the continental shelf and we've got ten fathoms of dark, cold water underneath us.'

Carlos leaned closer, serious as a headstone.

'What are you talking about?'

I don't know any more.'

It was hot and humid down in the Alcantara docks complex and the body in the rubbish bin was already high enough for people to be holding handkerchiefs to their faces. The photographer had been and gone, and the pathologist, a woman I didn't know, was struggling into a pair of surgical gloves. I took a quick look at the body which was of a male, about eighteen years old, dark-skinned, with black, wavy hair, no fat on him and only wearing a pair of brief burgundy underpants with a smiley face over the genital area. I felt his feet. Soft. The killer had stolen his shoes or somebody else had come along afterwards. The pathologist joined me.

A couple of the staff were finishing cleaning up the nightclub,' she said. 'They emptied the rubbish at five o'clock and by seven when they closed up to leave out the back there, the body was in place. They also told me he's a known male prostitute. Can I move the body?'

I nodded her on. She was fast and thorough. I briefed Carlos on what he had to do and we waited for the pathologist's initial report.

'Right. Cause of death,' she said. 'Severe cerebral haemorrhage caused by savage and multiple blows to the top, back and side of the head. The killer wanted this one unambiguously dead. I'll run an HIV test on the blood, that could be a possible motive. I had a quick look in his rectum and he'd been working. I'll be fuller once I've seen him in my lab.'

I left Carlos with his notebook and dark intelligence and walked to the Alcantara train station. I telephoned my friend in Traffic again while waiting for the train.

'Is your computer still down?'

'Sorry, Ze,' he said.

'Does that mean that it's always going to be down when I call?'

'I can't say.'

I telephoned the lawyer's house and the maid answered. I said I wanted to speak to her. She said she was alone in the house.

I boarded the Cascais train and by 10.00 a.m. I was walking up to the lawyer's house through the old village. I rang the bell. The maid opened the door but Dr Aquilino Oliveira was walking down the corridor behind her.

'Thank you, Mariana,' he said, and ordered her to bring us some coffee. He stood at his desk in his study. I remained standing too.