“She’s given lots of evidence of her power. And one day the Church will recognize her for what she is: a miracleworking saint, a creature beloved of the Lord. If you can bring her flowers, candles, things like that, it helps when you ask, because it lights up her path, but all you really need is faith, lots of faith, and then you ask her for help and say a prayer. An Our Father, a Hail Mary, whatever you prefer. And ask from the bottom of your heart, with lots of faith. You understand?”
The Count nodded and remembered Jorrín. They must be saying goodbye to him now; no doubt the Boss, a companion of thirty years standing, would speak of his record of unstinting service to society, family and life. Then he looked at the grave opposite and tried to recall a prayer. If he was going to ask for something, he’d do it properly, trying to recover the scattered bits of the faith he’d reneged on, but he didn’t make it past the first lines of the Lord’s Prayer that he confused with fragments of Mario Benedetti’s Lord’s Prayer for Latin America – that had become so popular during his time at university, when an urgent Latin Americanization of Cuban culture was decreed and strident rock groups transformed into pathetic, chameleon-like adepts of Andean and Altiplano folklore, panpipes, tambourines and ponchos included, and some even sang in Quechua and Aymara rather than Spanish. But now faith was what was crucial. Which faith? I’m atheist, but I have faith. In what? In almost nothing. Too much of a pessimist to have space for faith. But you’ll help me, Miraculous One, won’t you? Huh-huh. I’ll only ask for one thing, though it’s a very big one, and as you work miracles, you’ll help me, because I need a miracle as big as this cemetery to get what I want, you understand?… I hope so and that you’re hearing me: I want to be happy. Is that so much to ask for? I hope not, but don’t forget, Miraculous One, all right?
“Thanks a lot,” he said to the black woman when he stood up. She’d been looking at him all that time and smiled.
“Come back whenever you want, sir.”
“I think I might,” he said waving at the women, who’d switched from the topic of eggs to the chickens that had yet to reach the butchers. The usual story: the chicken or the egg? He walked back to the central avenue and, on his right, saw the mourners coming back from the burial. He adjusted his glasses and went to look for the car, hoping he’d be able to sit down. He felt weak and ridiculous and he knew he was going soft. It’s as if I were in meltdown. Bloody shit. He tried his door but it was locked like Manolo’s. He saw the radio aerial on the back seat. He distrusts even the dead, he thought. And then thought: will she grant me my miracle?
“How did it go?”
Greco, in uniform, was waiting for them under the almond tree planted by the entrance to the parking lot at headquarters. He barely saluted when Conde came over and replied.
“Plain sailing. We got to his house at eight, as Manolo told us, called in his mother, explained it was a routine investigation connected to Orlando San Juan, and then called him in – he was still asleep. The search carried out by Cicerón’s people brought nothing to light, Conde.”
“What did you make of him?”
“He’s a bit loud-mouthed and protested to start with, but I think it’s pure show.”
“Did you tell him anything else?”
“No, not a thing. Crespo’s with him upstairs in your cubbyhole. It’s all set up as per instructions.”
“Up we go, Manolo,” he then said and they went into a building that was quiet at a time when it was usually bustling. They found the lift waiting for them, doors open, in the lobby. Miracles already? wondered the Count and pressed the button to his floor. When they were in the corridor, Manuel Palacios took a deep breath and filled his lungs, like a deep-sea diver about to take the plunge.
“Shall we begin?”
“Be tough,” said the Count following him.
Manolo opened the door to the cubicle where bald Crespo and Lázaro San Juan were sitting. Crespo stood up and saluted Manolo with almost a martial air.
“Bring him here, Crespo,” asked the sergeant.
Still in the corridor, the Count saw the boy come out. He was handcuffed and he’d lifted his hands to his forehead.
“Take off the handcuffs,” he ordered Crespo and looked at Lázaro San Juan’s face; although it bore no similarity to Lando the Russian’s, family traits were in evidence – an apparently absent gaze and almost straight, lipless mouth. He looked older than a youth who’d just celebrated his eighteenth birthday. His body was endowed with a firm, adult bone structure, and layered in rippling muscle. A few spots on his face betrayed his youth, but not even the red acne pimples obscured his masculine grace. His hair was parted down the middle and he didn’t seem scared. Lissette was a woman who ate well and badly with equal relish, because it was a way to eat twice. That boy must have been her favourite dish, thought Conde. Tough on the digestion.
They processed awkwardly along the corridor and entered the lift. They went up to the next floor and walked out into a similar corridor, one lined with glass and aluminium doors. They went through two doorways and opened a wooden door that led into the tiniest of cubicles that was in semi-darkness. There was a curtain down one side. Manolo pointed Lázaro to the only chair and the youngster sat down. Crespo switched the light on.
“Lázaro San Juan Valdés?” asked Manolo and the youngster nodded. “An eleventh grade student at La Víbora Pre-Uni, correct?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“All right, do you know why you’re here?”
The youngster looked around him, as if trying to get an idea of where he was.
“I was told it was an investigation into Pre-Uni.”
“Do you know or can you imagine what kind of investigation?”
“I think it’s to do with Lissette the teacher. I was in the lavatories the other day when your colleague came in and asked about her.” He replied looking at Conde.
“That’s right,” Manolo continued, “it’s about her. Lissette the teacher was murdered on Tuesday the eighteenth, at around midnight. She was strangled with a towel. Someone had sexual contact with her just before. Someone gave her a good beating just before. But before that, lots of alcohol was drunk in her place and marijuana smoked. What can you tell us about any of that?”
The youngster looked back at Conde, who’d lit a cigarette.
“Nothing, comrade, how could I?”
“Are you sure? Call Greco,” Manolo addressed Crespo. The policeman picked a phone up and whispered something. He hung up. In the meantime, Manolo leafed through a small notebook he was holding and opted to read, an apparently enthralling read, while the Count smoked and looked all casual, as if present at a very familiar performance. Seated in the centre of the tiny room, Lázaro San Juan shifted his gaze from one to the other, as if waiting for them to award him a deferred mark in a final examination. Doubt grew in his gaze, for all to see, like a well-nourished weed.
Two knocks on the wooden door, and in walked Greco’s sharp-pointed bones. I’m surrounded by skin and bones. I’m even turning skin and bones, recalled the Count. Greco was carrying a piece of paper. He handed it to the Count and left. The lieutenant glanced at it and nodded, when he looked up at Manolo. Lázaro San Juan’s gaze flew from one to the other. Still waiting for his mark.
“All right, Lázaro, we’ll get down to the serious stuff. On the eighteenth you were in the house of your teacher Lissette. Your fingerprints are there. And it’s very likely you were the one who went to bed with her that night: your blood is group O, the same as the man whose semen she had in her vagina when she died.” Manolo walked towards the curtain which was to the left of Lázaro, drew it back to reveal the translucent glass that, as in a game of mirrors, gave a to-scale reproduction of the room where they were, but with less backdrop, action and characters. “Your cousin, Orlando San Juan, sits in there, accused of possessing and peddling drugs, attempted illegal departure from the country and the theft of a motor launch belonging to the State. He has confessed to all his crimes and told us moreover that on the eighteenth, at around 7.30 p.m., you went to his house and stayed there for a while. Moreover it transpires that the marijuana your cousin possesses is the same kind as the stuff that turned up in the toilet in Lissette’s place. As you can see, Lázaro, you’re more trapped up in this tale of drugs and murder than mincemeat in a pie. Even if you don’t confess, any court will have a ball with all these facts I’ve given you. What’s more, the colleague who brought me these papers has just gone to get Luis Gustavo Rodríguez and Yuri Samper, your little Pre-Uni friends, and when we talk to them, you bet they will confirm lots of things. OK, as you can see, very serious stuff. You got anything to say?”