‘They were definitely fucking,’ Barnes murmured to himself while gesturing toward Thompson with a vicious smile.
‘… they must have been so immersed in their affairs, they didn’t bother to lock the door from the inside. The other door confirms that it was closed from inside, and the murderer didn’t trouble himself to throw it open. He let off three shots, and everything was over.’
‘I don’t know where you are going with this,’ Thompson said, confused.
‘It’s simple, Thompson. Whoever did this was not worried about the old man. He didn’t even take the trouble to make sure he was dead, or see who he was. It didn’t matter to him. I say Keys was already inside when the couple entered. Later the murderer entered, opened their door, and shot them. Since Keys’s door was locked, he assumed there was someone inside. He got off three shots and got out of there. In summary, this was for them’ — Staughton pointed to door four — ‘and not for him.’
‘Do you know their identities?’ Barnes asked Thompson. He obviously supported Staughton’s theory.
‘It’s here,’ Thompson announced, handing him a paper with the identifications.
Barnes looked at the names. Two unknown people, male and female, both dead in the course of their pleasure. Barnes didn’t hold back his smile, imagining them releasing their fluids and energy, and, suddenly, poom, poom, or better, puff, puff, since no one in the entire station heard anything resembling a shot. He was carrying a silencer. Solomon Keys on the other side, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, maybe even excited, to the extent permitted at eighty-seven, by the madness he must have been listening to and trying to imagine, and then suddenly, nothing. Probably he heard the bodies falling helplessly, and, later, silence, only silence. He bet not even breathing was heard from either of them. What a fucked-up way to die. A man who gave everything for his country. There was no justice. Barnes felt humiliated for Solomon Keys, for himself, since no one knows how he’s going to cross over to the other side. Dead, that’s for sure, you arrive dead, but the ultimate moment, that last moment, of the last breath, how many are going to have the serenity, the perspicacity to feel it, to know it has arrived and to say good-bye? The moment of poof, poof, poof, for Solomon Keys with his pants down. The bastard finished him off. There was no justice. He was collateral damage, in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was no worse luck than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everything was tolerable except that. But who had the power to divine what places are wrong or right? The English couple was the reason for the crime. The killer was after them.
‘Oh, shit,’ Barnes cursed.
‘What’s the matter, Chief?’ Thompson wanted to know.
‘Do you recognize one of these names?’ Barnes asked, passing the identification page to Staughton.
Not waiting for an answer, Barnes took out his cell phone and made a call.
‘Oh, no,’ Staughton let escape.
‘What’s going on? Somebody tell me,’ Thompson kept asking, angry at not recognizing any of the names.
‘It’s Barnes.’ He identified himself as soon as the call was answered. ‘I want to report a homicide.’ He waited a few moments. ‘Call him, please.’ For a moment he appeared to be listening to what the party on the other end of the call was saying. ‘I don’t care if he’s busy. Call him immediately and cut the shit. There has been a murder, but that’s the least of our problems.’
16
Let us return to the gears and solitary wheels that only know their part, ignorant of the final result. Let us speak about Sarah Monteiro and the whirlwind that invaded her, the call from her father and JC, strange and worrying, the two together in the same house. How anxious must Raul Brandao Monteiro feel? Certainly her father’s voice sounded stressed. She sensed no sorrow, but who knew the reality of anything concerning JC? He was the one who seemed to know everything and everyone and disposed of everything and everyone as he wished. He was the designer of the gears, the engineer and constructor, the one who created the movements of toothed wheels, chains, belts, now toward one side, now another. Everything danced to his music; Sarah was sure of that. She owed her position as editor of international politics at The Times to him, as well as the correct news forecasts. Even absent, he was always present during the last year, whispering stories in her ear, the shadow that dissipated when she looked over her shoulder. But not today, not now when she heard his voice again. To stay to see his sentence carried out was not an option. Better to comply with his instructions and figure it out later.
The taxi took her to her new place in Chelsea, a two-story house with lots of space and a dream view for someone who liked buildings and the river with its brown water. After that night a year ago, she hadn’t been able to set foot inside her old house in Belgrave Road again. The scenes constantly came to mind, and she recalled them all too intensely. How everyone looked suspicious, even ordinary pedestrians she saw through the window. The man with a garbage bag, the woman talking on a telephone who was always looking out the second-floor window of the Holiday Inn Express, in front, the 24 bus stop, the black car with tinted windows parked in the street, the man who broke into her house with a gun pointed at her, and the two mysterious shots that left holes in the window of her old bathroom and two deadly wounds in the man who came to bring her down. Only later did she realize who’d helped her, who killed the assassin who came to kill her. She thought about him often, although she’d never seen him again. He appeared to her every night freeing her from the nightmares, from the image of JC, from the other well-dressed man, from the shots, the deaths, the malignant laughter, the evil acts. It was always him coming to lie down with her, every night, murmuring lullabies in her ear, until Sarah woke up in the morning, calm and serene, a smile on her lips, alone, with no one. The monsters returned every night, the same images, people, faces, the same bullets, deaths, the last night in the house on Belgrave Road, the gun pointed at her, the final moments of a short life, and he who returned to her side, murmuring lullabies until she slept again. After that she went to live temporarily in the studio apartment of her friend and colleague Natalie Golden on Pentonville Road. Later she rented another studio on Polygon Road, until her recent employment gave her the financial security to lease a new place. She wouldn’t have it if it weren’t for him, or be in this taxi, nor would Simon Lloyd be her intern seated at her side with a look of happiness in his eyes.
Sarah wouldn’t feel right leaving without word, so she’d informed her editor-in-chief about her brief absence. A journalistic coup, at the last minute, an exclusive worth investigating, would justify her trip.
‘In that case, take Simon with you,’ the editor ordered her, and she hadn’t been able to argue against it. Perhaps another time, more calmly, she could have persuaded him not to send Simon, without questioning his competence, but her mind was occupied with more urgent problems.
‘What are we going to do in your house?’ Simon was curious and impressed by the speed the taxi was making through the streets of London, despite the late afternoon hour.
‘I’m going to look for some investigative files,’ Sarah explained. ‘And afterwards you’re free to go,’ she concluded.
It was worth trying, but she was certain Simon was not going to follow such a suggestion.