Ba-boom. The explosion causes the whole observation deck to shudder, temporarily deafening the captain. One eye still open—he closed the other so as not to be blinded by the flash—he sees the fleeting flare light up everything around, sketching out the ramparts, the nearby barracks, the observation deck and the shore by the black expanse of the bay. It lasts barely a second and then everything is dark again, by which time Desfosseux already has his other eye glued to the telescope, focusing it on the point he is trying to observe. Seven, eight, nine, ten, he counts, not moving his lips. In the circular field of the telescope, wavering slightly because of the distance, the lights in the building at which Fanfan is aimed cast a glow against the blurred outlines of the masts of the boats anchored close by. His count has reached seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one.
A black plume, a jet of spray and foam half the height of the masts rises in the center of the lens, momentarily obscuring the illuminated building on the mainland. Not enough range, the captain thinks gloomily, with the irritation of someone who has bet on one card only for another to appear. Though the calculations were perfect with regard to the aim, the bomb dropped into the sea, having barely reached 2,000 toises—a distance that, given the work and the calculations they have put in, is ridiculous. Perhaps the wind over the target was different; or perhaps, as has happened before, the projectile left the barrel too soon, before all the powder had time to ignite. Or the bush pin has come loose again. Desfosseux decides to leave any further thoughts until later, as a series of flashes appear in the embrasures of the fort at Puntales: the Spanish artillery are returning their nocturnal greetings, firing at the Trocadero. He dashes down, then hurries for the nearest casemate—taking rather less care than he did on his way up—just as the first Spanish grenade splits the night above his head and explodes fifty toises away, between Cabazuela and the fort at Matagorda. Thirty seconds later, huddled in the shelter with Bertoldi, Labiche and the artillerymen, in the greasy light of an oil lamp, Desfosseux feels the ground, the timber walls and the roof shudder under the hail of Spanish fire. The imperial cannons at Fort Luis respond in a fierce artillery duel fought from opposite shores.
Out of the corner of his eye, the captain sees sergeant Labiche spit a plug of tobacco on the floor, between his crudely darned gaiters.
“It was hardly worth it,” grunts the NCO, winking at one of his companions. “Waking them up at this hour.”
* * *
* The Spanish Inquisition.
CHAPTER FIVE
The white queen retreats in disgrace, seeking the protection of a knight whose own position is far from safe—two black pawns are prowling with malicious intent. Stupid game. There are days when Rogelio Tizón loathes chess, and today is one of those days. With his king pinned, castling is an impossibility; already one rook and two pawns down, he plays on only out of respect for his adversary, Hipólito Barrull, who seems totally relaxed, enjoying himself thoroughly. As usual. The bloodbath on Tizón’s left flank was triggered by his own foolish error: a pawn moved unthinkingly, a narrow opening and suddenly an enemy bishop piercing his home ranks like a dagger, which within a couple of moves has destroyed a Sicilian defense constructed with great patience and to little effect.
“I’m going to flay you alive, Comisario,” Barrull laughs cheerfully, utterly ruthless.
As always, his tactic has been to lie in wait, like a spider at the center of its web, until his opponent makes a mistake, then pounce and tear him to pieces. Tizón, all too aware of what lies in store, hopelessly defends himself. There is little possibility that the professor will lower his guard now. He is always ruthless and precise in the endgame. A born executioner.
“Take that!”
A black pawn closes the circle. The knight’s harried steed whinnies, searching for some way to bound from the circle and escape. Barrull’s pitiless face, etched by countless hours spent frowning over books, widens beneath his spectacles into a boastful smile. As always when he is at the chessboard, his habitual courtesy gives way to an insolent, almost murderous brutality. Tizón looks up at the paintings that adorn the Café del Correo: nymphs, flowers, birds. There is no help to be found there. Resigned, he captures a pawn, thereby sacrificing his knight, which his opponent immediately takes with a grunt of jubilation.
“Let’s stop there,” pleads the policeman.
“Another game?” Barrull seems disappointed, his bloodlust not sated. “Don’t you want to get your revenge?”
“I’ve had enough for today.”
He gathers up the pieces and stows them in their box. The slaughter complete, Barrull returns to normal. Already, his long, equine face is almost friendly. In another minute, he will be his usual polite, affectionate self again.
“The more observant player always beats the more gifted,” he offers his opponent by way of consolation. “It’s simply a matter of being alert. Prudence and patience … Don’t you agree?”
Tizón nods distractedly. He stretches his legs under the table, pushing his chair back against the wall, and looks at the people around them. Conversations, open newspapers, waiters cutting through the curtains of cigar and pipe smoke, carrying chocolate pots, coffee and glasses of cold water. Merchants, members of the Cortes, soldiers, immigrants wealthy and destitute, spongers looking for a free drink or a loan sit around tables or on the patio, coming and going from the billiard room and the reading room. The men of the city bask in late-afternoon indolence, winding down after the day. The café is a bustling hive with its fair share of drones and parasites, which the expert eye of the policeman can detect with a methodical glance.
“How are things going with the footprints in the sand?”
Barrull, who has taken out his snuffbox to take a pinch of snuff, follows Tizón’s gaze. The clamor of battle between black and white now forgotten, his expression is kindly, serene.
“It’s been quite some time since you mentioned the subject,” he adds.
The policeman nods again, keeping his eyes on the crowd. For a moment, he says nothing, then scratches one of his sideburns gloomily.
“The murderer has been quiet for some time now.”
“Maybe he’s stopped killing,” ventures Barrull.
Tizón shifts in his seat, doubtful.
“I honestly don’t know,” he confesses.
A long silence. The professor looks at Tizón thoughtfully.
“Blazes, Comisario, you almost seem disappointed that nothing has happened.”
Tizón turns to look the old man in the eye, and Barrull’s mouth forms an O as though he is about to whistle.
“Good God! That’s it, isn’t it?… If he doesn’t kill again, you won’t find any more clues. You’re worried that the man who killed those poor wenches has grown frightened, or weary … You’re worried that he will remain in the shadows and never be heard of again.”
Tizón continues to stare at him blankly, saying nothing. Taking a crumpled kerchief from his pockets, Barrull flicks away the snuff he spilled on himself. Then he extends a forefinger, pointing it at the top button of the comisario’s doublet like a pistol.
“It’s as though you’re afraid he won’t kill again … afraid that chance will keep him from your clutches.”
“There is something meticulous about him,” the policeman says gravely. “Something precise. I don’t think it has anything to do with chance.”
Barrull gives this some thought.
“Interesting,” he concludes, leaning back in his chair. “And there is something precise about his crimes. Perhaps he is a maniac?”
Tizón stares at the blank chessboard, at the pieces safely stowed in their box.
“Or perhaps he is playing a game?”
The question sounds naive from the lips of such a man. He immediately realizes this and feels uncomfortable, embarrassed. Barrull, for his part, gives a wary smile. He raises one hand a little, as though absolving himself of responsibility.
“Perhaps. I couldn’t say. Peo
ple are fond of games. Of challenges. But to murder in such a manner goes beyond a game … There are people whose instincts are like an animal’s, triggered by certain things: by the sound of an explosion, by a feeling … Everyone knows that. I would say that this case borders on lunacy, but we know all too well that the limits of madness are not always clear.”
He calls over a waiter, who refills their cups with two ounces of java and a fleck of foam. The coffee is excellent, very hot and aromatic—the best in all Cádiz. As he sips, Rogelio Tizón watches a group of men conversing on the far side of the patio. Among them is a suspicious immigrant—his father is in the service of the usurper king in Madrid—and a member of the Cortes whose mail the comisario has opened and read in secret, a precaution which, on the explicit orders of the General Intendant, applies to all members of parliament, civil and ecclesiastical. Tizón has a number of officers to perform this task.
“The murderer could be throwing down a challenge,” says the policeman. “To the city. To life. To me.”
Another curious look from Barrull. The policeman realizes that the professor is scrutinizing him, as though discovering something unexpected.
“I am unsettled by you taking this so personally. You … I mean …”
He allows the sentence to hang in the air, shaking his thick gray locks. He goes back to toying with his snuffbox. Eventually he sets it down on one of the black squares on the board, as though it were a chess piece.
“A challenge, you said,” Barrull adds after a moment. “From his point of view, perhaps that is what it is. But this is pure speculation. We are building castles in the air … These are simply words.”
Rogelio Tizón is still studying the patrons in the café. In Cádiz, there is no shortage of spies communicating with the French; one of them was garrotted yesterday at the castle of San Sebastián. As a result, orders have been given for tighter controls on immigrants, even those who claim to be refugees from the occupied territories, and all those without official papers are to be arrested. Though this will entail more work and more worry, it is exactly what Tizón wants: new arrivals, neighbors and the innkeepers who lodge them have seen a rise in official tariffs—and, consequently, in what is charged under the counter. This morning, the owner of a house on the Calle Flamencos Borrachos who was lodging foreigners with no official documents paid him 400 reales to avoid a fine of three times as much, and an immigrant, whose passport had been falsified using oxygenated muriatic acid, avoided jail and deportation by crossing his palm with two 100 real coins. This means that the comisario’s total profit for today already amounts to 30 pesos, like thirty shining suns. A well-rounded day.
“Ajax,” he says aloud.
Surprised, Hipólito Barrull looks at him over the rim of his coffee cup.
“We talked about similarities between this case and the manuscript you lent me,” Tizón goes on. “The other day, reading it again, I found two lines running almost together that unsettled me. O Woman, silence is the grace of woman, and further on, a mute grieving, with no loud wails, but groans, as of a lowing animal.”
Barrull, who has set his cup down on the table, is still staring at him curiously.
“Well?”
“The girls were gagged while they were being tortured—don’t you see the connection?”
The professor shakes his head.
“What I see,” he answers, “is that you are taking this too far. It has all the makings of an obsession. Ajax is merely a play. A coincidence.”
“An astonishing coincidence, if it is one.”
“You are making too much of this, letting your own ideas take over. I thought you more restrained … I’m beginning to regret lending you the manuscript.”
There is a pause while Barrull ponders the matter with evident seriousness.
“It has to be coincidence,” he concludes. “I don’t believe the murderer could have read Ajax. It has not yet been published in translation in Spain … Or your murderer would have to be a very educated man. And there are not many of them around, even if we include the immigrants and those passing through. We would know the man.”
“Perhaps we do know him.”
This, the professor admits, cannot be ruled out. But it seems more likely it is mere chance. However, this does not stop Tizón connecting the two, drawing links, real or illusory, in his imagination. There are times when imagination makes it more difficult to analyze a situation dispassionately. As in chess, for example. Imagination may lead one along the right path, but sometimes it makes one go astray. Besides, it is wise to be wary of drawing on one’s reserves of knowledge, of piling information onto the facts and obscuring them. More often than not, the simplest route is the most direct.
“The most remarkable thing about the case,” he continues, “is not that this monster is murdering girls, or that he whips them to death, or that he does so near bomb sites … The most remarkable thing, Comisario, is that all these factors should come together. Do you understand? To go back to the chessboard, it is like a landscape—by studying the position of the various pieces, one can get an overall view of the situation. If we look at the pieces individually, we have no sense of the whole. Getting too close makes it difficult for the observer to evaluate.”
Tizón gestures at the clamor and the bustle of the café.
“The city is a complicated place these days.”
“It is not simply that. Cádiz is a collection of people, things and positions. And perhaps the murderer sees the city as a map on which a story is being played out. A map we cannot see … If you could, you might be able to anticipate his next move.”
“Like in a game of chess?”
“Perhaps.”
Thoughtfully, the professor picks up his snuffbox and slips it into his waistcoat pocket. He trails a nicotine-stained fingernail over the empty chess square.
“Perhaps,” he adds, “you should keep a watch on the places where bombs explode.”
“I am doing that,” Tizón protests, “as much as I can. I have posted officers to every site that seems appropriate—without success. As far as we know, he has not tried again.”
“Perhaps your vigilance has deterred him.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Very well.” Barrull adjust his spectacles. “Let us put forward a theory, Comisario. A hypothesis.”
Slowly, pausing from time to time to marshal his thoughts, the professor fleshes out his theory. When the French bombs began to fall on the city, the murderer’s complex mental world may have taken an unexpected turn. He may have been fascinated by the power of modern technology, the ability to fire bombs at distant targets.
“That would require a certain level of education,” insists Tizón.
“Absolutely not. No education would be needed to trigger certain innate impulses or feelings. They exist in everyone. Your murderer could be a man of culture or a complete illiterate … Imagine we are dealing with a man who, realizing that some of the bombs do not kill anyone, decides to do their killing for them … This is a decision he could have arrived at through complex reasoning or sheer stupidity, but the result would be the same.”
Barrull’s face seems to light up as he speaks. Tizón watches as he leans forward, laying his hands on either side of the chessboard. This is the expression he always wears when playing chess.
“If the criminal impulse is a primitive one,” the professor goes on, “solving the case could depend more on luck than on analysis; on the murderer killing again, making a mistake, on there being witnesses, or some other means of catching him in the act … Do you follow, Comisario?”
“I think so. You’re suggesting that the more intelligent the murderer, the more vulnerable it makes him?”
“That is one possibility, and certainly one that would make your investigation easier. Such a scenario, however complex and perverse, even if it were the product of a diseased mind, would have a rational motive—a thread you could pull to unravel everything.”
“So the more irrational the killer, the fewer the clues?”
“Exactly.”
Tizón’s gold tooth glitters. He is beginning to understand.
“The logic of horror …”
“Precisely. Imagine, for example, that the murderer—either by design or through some irresistible compulsion—wants to leave behind some testimonial linked to the bombs that have fallen. To pay homage to the technology, for example, by killing. Do you follow me? Imagine it’s not so far-fetched: precision, technology, bombs and the crimes that connect them.”
Barrull leans back, satisfied.
“What do you think?”
“Interesting. But unlikely. You forget you are talking to a dull, unsophisticated policeman. In my world, one plus one always makes two. Without those ones, there can be no total.”
“We are simply indulging in fantasy, Comisario. It was your idea. These are words, nothing more—armchair theories. This is merely one possible theory: that the killer murders whenever bombs explode without killing anyone. Let’s imagine that he does so with the intention of making good some flaw or deficiency in the technology. It would be fascinating, don’t you think? Achieving something that science cannot achieve. This way he can reconcile the point of impact and human life … Do you like our hypothesis? We could conjure up half a dozen, some of them coherent, others completely contradictory. And none of them matters a jot.”
Tizón, who has been listening carefully, chokes back the words that crowd into his mouth. These poor wretches who were flayed alive were real, he thinks. Their gaping wounds wept blood, their entrails reeked. They have nothing to do with these intellectual abstractions, this coffeehouse philosophizing.
“You think I am wrong to discount the possibility that it could be an educated man? A man of science?”
Barrull makes a vague, uneasy gesture; a wave that indicates he finds the issue too concrete. He did not claim to be so specific. But a moment later, he seems to relent.