“The fingerprints in the criminal record coincide with the ones found on the electricity box,” he said.
Ericourt looked at the young man sympathetically.
“You’ve done well, Blasi.”
“I can’t claim I have, sir.”
He evaded his boss’s gaze. A sticky dejection had taken hold of him. He was exhausted by the previous day’s exertion, the process of tracking people down to reveal their hidden sides, the permanently heightened mistrust needed to examine every action minutely. One ended up feeling the itch of doubt even with one’s superiors.
Why had Rita committed suicide? What memories, what remorse awoke in her soul when she guessed at the secretive goings on in the building? The previous night Ericourt had instructed Blasi to slip down a rope from Soler’s apartment and climb into the Iñarras’s kitchen window to unscrew the cover of the electricity box.
Everything had gone well at first. He was even excited by the adventure, which had a savour of romance even if its motives were dishearteningly run-of-the-mill. The people best placed to deal with life are those who do not remove its heroic wrapping.
However, Soler’s cheery willingness to lend his assistance had made Blasi uneasy, like when one suddenly lifts one’s eyes and is surprised to find that the mirror returns one’s own shameful grimace. Is that, then, how others see us?
Soler and an officer checked the sailing knot that tied the rope to the window. The officer threw the rope according to Soler’s precise instructions, but it was Blasi who had to go through with it.
“It’ll easily hold.” Soler had examined Blasi’s face after saying these words and left the kitchen, returning with a bulbous glass containing two fingers of liquor.
“Have some cognac to pep you up. And when you launch yourself out, move your body in time with the swinging rope, like when a horse starts trotting, but not too much.”
Blasi was already climbing onto the marble table to kneel on the windowsill. He shot a reproachful look at Soler that made him blush.
“That’s what we used to do at the English school when we wanted to escape at night. The experience did me proud a few years ago,” he added glibly, “when an inconvenient husband came home unexpectedly.”
“In my case I’m more likely to be the inconvenient husband,” replied Blasi, “since my job forces me to work at night.”
He wanted to make it clear that he was still on the other team and that this momentary collaboration was not as significant as Soler seemed to think.
From then on it was all ghastly, the shadowy space trapping the cold, his foot feeling for some support, his hands burning from the roughness of the rope, his body hitting against the solid darkness of the walls. Reality is in fact far more frightening and bothersome than it is heroic. Even Hercules’ labours must have been disagreeable at the time.
It had not been pleasant. Any clue provided by the rectangular electricity box might prove painful for some, and on top of that there had been that terrible thud, breaking the silence like an explosion. His job was done, all he had to do was sneak out, not knowing who had thrown themselves out of the window or why. He found out later at the station. The colleague who told him did not look so utterly exhausted as he did.
“Poor woman!” he now said sadly to Ericourt.
“Poor woman indeed. Not for her death, though, but for what she did in life. I have the German police report here. Boris’s photography studio was a front. His true profession was as a chemist, and during the Nazi regime he had been an informer. His victims were countless. Rita supported him.”
“But why did she kill herself?”
“Who knows? Her brother’s death must have been unbearable for her. She had given him her soul completely and with that she gave herself over to death. She couldn’t carry on alone.”
“It’s a shame the circumstances didn’t give us time to prevent such a terrible, unnecessary thing happening.”
“The circumstances shape the investigation in their own way. We have to learn that lesson humbly. Is everything in order?”
“Yes,” said Blasi patting the documents he had brought with him.
The file remained on Ericourt’s desk. On the pink Manila cover there was a name: Iñarra, Agustín Pedro.
Blasi and Betty were waiting, sitting across from one another in the Iñarras’s living room. Lahore and Ericourt had gone in to talk to señor Iñarra. Betty was pretending to read a magazine and Blasi scrutinized her reticent expression. Her reserve, even though she had once said her fault was that she trusted too much, must have stemmed from the deepest part of her nature.
How much of the truth did Betty know and to what extent had she used it for her own ends the day of her half-confession? She must have thought him very naïve to rely on him backing her up with silence.
Later events implicated her more than she had previously imagined. Did she know that appearances pointed an accusatory finger in her father’s direction? Was señor Iñarra a maniac who, like many others, faked illness in order to cover up secrets and devious plans? Was she his accomplice, perhaps? What about Gabriela? What role did she play in their home, that of victim or instigator?
The relationship between Betty and Czerbó now seemed different to how it had first appeared but Blasi did not know whether that was a good thing. Looking at the young woman’s wide forehead and distinctive nose, he told himself that friendliness could not be so deceptive. Yet Betty had not been friendly when he first saw her in the lobby with her stepmother. She dominated the scene with an air of complacency that must have been put on. Why did she not look shocked that night? A dead body in a lift in the middle of the night is not, after all, a common sight. Betty, he clearly remembered, had been keen to not appear worried and to distance herself from the situation.
It was clear that she had wanted to get hold of the photographs. She had surely destroyed them. Why? Who did they incriminate? Who did she want to protect? Betty barricaded herself in silence, the weapon of the guilty.
From the hall came hushed voices. Betty pretended not to hear them but must have been straining to listen to what they were saying. Suddenly there came a sharp scream accompanied by hysterical sobs. Ericourt appeared at the living room door.
“Come with me, miss,” he said. “Your mother needs you.”
The two men entered Don Agustín’s room. He was sitting in front of the writing desk next to the window. The shadow cast by the anxieties of the past days darkened his face. The morning light emphasized the marks that the years and his illness had left on his drooping eyelids and wrinkled cheeks.
“Come in,” he said by way of a cordial greeting, sweeping away the unpleasant feeling that the presence of those two men in his house must have caused him. “I’m very pleased you allowed my daughter to come home last night. I was sure this business would end well for her.”
“This business hasn’t ended,” said Lahore. “We’re here to question you and your wife.”
“What? Why? I demand that you explain what’s going on!”
“Perhaps we should let your wife explain it.”
“She doesn’t have anything to say to you.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Don Agustín reluctantly rang the bell to call Gabriela. His left arm lay across his chest, the other hand grasping his wrist to calm the convulsive trembling somewhat. There was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” said Don Agustín.
Gabriela’s brief glance interpreted the scene immediately.
“What’s going on, Agustín? Don’t you feel well?”
“Don’t be alarmed, darling.” Iñarra’s voice was as cold in giving the advice as it was in defence. “These men want to ask us more questions, although I really don’t see why.”