“I’m in no mood to play games, Mario, please.” And she pressed her eyelids, although she didn’t look tired. When she took her fingers away, her eyes shone even more brightly.
“I’m sorry,” he replied and returned his pen to his shirt pocket. “Tell me about Rafael.”
She sighed and shook her head at something only she was aware of and glanced towards the picture window that looked over the interior garden. How theatrical, he thought, and following her gaze he could just discern the artificial, slightly darkened colour of the ferns proliferating beyond the Calobar glass.
“You know, I’d have preferred another policeman. I find it hard going with you.”
“So do I with you and Rafael. What’s more, if your husband hadn’t gone missing, I’d be at home reading and free until Monday. Now I just want him to turn up quickly. And you’ve just got to help me, right?”
She made as if to get up, but then sank back into the sofa. Her mouth was now a pencil line, the mouth of someone in disagreement, only softening when she looked at Sergeant Manuel Palacios.
“What can I tell you about Rafael? You know him too… He lives for his work. He didn’t get where he is by only doing what he liked, and the best thing about him is that he enjoys working like a dog. I think he’s a good leader, I really do, and everyone says he is. He’s in great demand and always delivers. He also reckons he is successful. He spends his life travelling abroad, particularly to Spain and Panama, to sort out contracts and purchases, and it seems he’s a good businessman. Can you imagine Rafael as a businessman?”
He couldn’t either and looked at the sound system in the corner of the living room: turntable, double cassette deck, CD, equalizer, amplifier and two no doubt incredibly powerful speakers, and thought how music from there must really sound like music.
“No, I can’t,” he said and asked: “Where did that hi-fi system come from? It’s worth more than a thousand dollars…”
She glanced back at Manolo and then straight at her old school friend.
“What’s wrong with you, Mario? Why all these questions? You know nobody works like crazy just for the fun of it. Everybody is after something and… in this place if you can get steak, you don’t settle for rice and eggs.”
“Sure, to him that God gave…”
He searched for his pen but then left it where it was.
“All right, all right, forget it.”
“No, I can’t. If you had to travel in your work, wouldn’t you travel and buy things for your wife and son?” she asked, seeking Manolo’s approval. The sergeant barely raised his shoulders, was still holding his cup of coffee.
“Nil return on both counts: I don’t travel abroad and don’t have a wife and child.”
“But you are envious, aren’t you?” she responded quietly, looking back at the ferns. He knew he’d touched Tamara on a raw nerve. For years she’d tried to be like everybody else, but her background had won out and she always seemed different: her perfumes were never the cheap scents others used; she was allergic and could only use a few brands of male eau-decologne; her weekend party outfits seemed like those her friends wore but were made from Indian cotton; she knew when and how to cough, sneeze and yawn in public and was the only one who immediately understood the lyrics of Led Zeppelin or Rare Earth songs. He placed the ashtray on the sofa and looked for another cigarette. It was the last one in the packet and, as ever, he was alarmed by the quantity he’d smoked but told himself it wasn’t true, he wasn’t at all envious.
“I guess so,” he demurred as he lit up and realized he hadn’t the energy to argue with her. “But that’s what I least envy about Rafael, I can tell you,” he smiled knowingly at Manolo: “May St Peter bless these things.”
She’d shut her eyes, and he wondered if she could have understood the level of envy he was experiencing. She’d come nearer, and he could smell her to his heart’s content, and then she gripped one of his hands.
“Forgive me, Mario,” she pleaded. “I’m very on edge with all this mess. You must understand that,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “So you want a guest list?”
“Comrade, comrade,” Sergeant Manuel Palacios finally piped up, raising his hand as if asking for permission to speak from the back of the class and not daring to look the Count in the eye. “I know how you must be feeling, but you must try to help us.”
“I thought that was what I was doing.”
“Of course. But I don’t know your husband… Before New Year’s Day, did you notice anything strange? Did he act at all oddly?”
She lifted a hand and caressed her neck for a moment, as if very lovingly.
“Rafael was always rather odd. His character was like that, extremely volatile. He was easily upset. If I did notice anything untoward, I’d say he seemed uneasy on the thirtieth. He told me he was very tired after all the end-of-year accounting but he was almost elated on the thirty-first, and I think he enjoyed the party. But work always worried him.”
“And he didn’t say anything or do anything that struck you as odd?” Manolo continued to avoid the lieutenant’s gaze.
“I really don’t think so. Besides, on the thirty-first he went to have lunch with his mother and spent almost all day with her.”
“I’m sorry, Manolo,” interjected the Count, who’d observed how the sergeant was rubbing his hands, warming to the task: he could go on questioning her for an hour. “Tamara, I’d like you to try to think of anything he might have done recently that may relate to what’s happened. Anything could be important. Things he wouldn’t usually say or do, if he spoke to someone you didn’t know, whatever… And it’s also important to get that list ready. Do you intend going out today?”
“No, why?”
“Nothing in particular, just so I know where you are. When I finish at headquarters I may pass by to pick the list up and we can talk more. It’s not a problem. It’s on my way.”
“All right, I’ll be expecting you and will get the list done, don’t worry,” she said, tussling yet again with her wayward lock.
“Look,” he replied, tearing a page from his pad. “If anything crops up, you can get me on these numbers.”
“All right, of course,” she replied taking the paper, and her smile was radiant. “Hey, Mario, you’re thinning out on top. Don’t tell me you’re going bald?”
He smiled, stood up and walked over to the door. Turned the door handle and let Manolo through first. Now he was opposite Tamara, looking her in the eye.
“Yes, I’m going bald into the bargain,” he said, adding: “Tamara, don’t worry for my sake. I’ve got a job to do and you must understand that, I suppose?”
“Yes, of course, Mario.”
“Then, apart from you, tell me who would benefit from Rafael’s death?”
She seemed surprised but then smiled. Forgot her lively lock and said: “What kind of psychologist were you going to be, Mario? I could bene… a sound system and the Lada downstairs?”
“I really don’t know,” he admitted and lifted a hand to wave goodbye. “I never get it right with you.” And he left the house he’d not entered for fifteen years knowing he’d been hurt. He preferred not to see her waving farewell from her doorway. Walked to the road and crossed over without looking at the traffic.
“Walking warms you up,” he declared as he settled down in the car, and he could not not look towards the house and see the farewell wave from that woman standing on her doorstep by the side of an aggressive concrete shrub.
“That egg’s asking for a pinch of salt.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Take care, Conde, take care.”
“What do you mean, Manolo? You going to tell me off?”
“Me tell you off? No, Conde, you’re getting on, and you’ve been in the force too long to know what you should and should not do. But I have my doubts about her.”