García Pico’s gaze slowly returns to focus on the comisario. Now his expression is weary, as if he is overwhelmed by everything: by Tizón, this situation, the sweltering heat, Cádiz, Spain. And by the explosion that rings out just at that moment near the Puerta de Tierra, making both men turn toward the open window.
“Let me read you something.”
He opens a desk drawer, takes out a printed sheet of paper and reads the first lines aloud: “Torture is hereby abolished forever in all the territories and dominions loyal to the Spanish Crown, and with it the associated practice of threatening and intimidating defendants using means which are abusively and illegally referred to as coercion; it is further decreed that no judge, tribunal or court of law may order or sanction torture.”
At this point he stops and looks up at Tizón. “What do you think?”
The comisario does not so much as blink. Do you really think it’s worthwhile reading me these bedtime stories? he thinks to himself; I am heading up the police in a city where the poor man can have himself acquitted for eighty reales, a craftsman for two hundred and a rich man for two thousand.
“I’m aware of the statute, señor. It was published five months ago.”
García Pico sets down the document on his desk and studies it, trying to think of something to add. Finally, he thinks better of it and files it in the drawer. Then he points his right index finger at Tizón.
“Listen to me. You slip up once more and we’ll have everyone down on top of us. Including the newspapers with their habeas corpus and all the rest of it … It is a very sensitive subject. Even the most respectable conservative deputies have been taken in by these newfangled ideas. Or they pretend to be. No one dares challenge them.”
García Pico clearly misses the good old days, when things were straightforward and blunt. Tizón nods guardedly. In his own way, he misses them himself.
“I don’t think that will really affect us, señor. Look at El Jacobino Ilustrado … It is defending the actions of the Comisariado. ‘Impeccable humanist rigor,’ it said last week. ‘A modern police force,’ and so on. ‘An example to other nations.’ ”
“Are you joking?”
“No.”
García Pico glances around him as though something stinks. At length he turns an icy stare on Tizón. “I don’t know how you fixed things with that worm Zafra, but the Jacobino is a rag … I am more worried about the serious newspapers: the Diario Mercantil and the others … The governor is watching our every move with a magnifying glass.”
“I’m taking care of it, señor.”
“You are? Really? Well, listen to me very carefully. If the newspapers come looking for a suspect, I’ll throw you to the wolves.”
The newspapers have got other things to worry about, the comisario reassures him phlegmatically. The recent cases of malignant fever have the townsfolk worried; they fear there may be another outbreak of yellow fever. At the Cortes, the deputies have even discussed moving out of the city, because the overcrowding and sweltering heat make it unpleasant. News of the war also keeps the populace distracted, and what with General Blake’s fiasco at Niebla, the surrender of Tarragona, the fear of losing the whole of the Levant and the rising cost of tobacco from Havana, there is more than enough to keep idle tongues wagging in the cafés on the Calle Ancha. And in addition, there is the forthcoming foray against the French under the command of General Ballesteros.
“How do you know about that?” García Pico starts in his chair. “That is a military secret.”
The comisario looks at his superior in genuine surprise.
“You know about it, señor. I know about it. That is normal. But everyone else knows about it too. That is Cádiz.”
They stare at each other in silence. García Pico is not a bad man, the comisario thinks coolly—or no worse than any other, himself included. The General Intendant is simply trying to hold on to his job and adapt to the new regime, to survive the young blades and the visionary philosophers of San Felipe Neri who, without one whit of common sense, have turned the world upside down. The problem with this war is not the war itself, it is the mayhem it brings.
“Leaving the matter of those poor murdered wretches aside,” says García Pico, “there is something else that worries me. There are too many people coming and going between Cádiz and the enemy coast … too much smuggling and so on.”
“So on?”
“You know very well what I mean. Espionage.”
The comisario shrugs his shoulders. “That is surely normal in times of war? More so in Cádiz.”
García Pico opens another drawer in his desk but this time he does not take out anything. He closes it again slowly, thoughtfully.
“I have had a report from General Valdés … His surveillance fleet have captured two spies in the past three weeks.”
“As have we, señor. It is not just the Navy and the Army who deal with such matters.”
García Pico gives a dismissive wave.
“I know that. But there was an unusual detail in his report. On two occasions there was mention of a Negro or a Mulatto who has been operating between the shores of the bay.”
Rogelio Tizón has no need to rack his brains: he knows the Mulatto. He has been intending to deal with this matter ever since his conversation with the innkeeper on the Calle de la Verónica. So far, he has not discovered anything concrete: all his men have been able to establish is that someone is trafficking people between the shores. This is the first time the word espionage has come into the story, though Tizón is not about to admit this to his superior.
“The report may well be referring to a boatman we have had under surveillance for some time now,” he says cautiously. “He has been mentioned by a number of our informants as someone not to be trusted … We know he is involved in smuggling; we have been investigating his involvement in spying.”
“Well, don’t let this suspect get away. And keep me informed on the matter … Oh, and on the matter of the murdered girls.”
“Of course, señor. We are deploying all our art.”
The other man looks at him as if trying to detect a note of sarcasm in this last statement; Tizón braves the scrutiny with impassive innocence. After a moment, García Pico seems to relax a little. He knows the comisario very well, or thinks he knows him. It was he who appointed him to the post when he became General Intendant two years ago, a decision he has never regretted. At least not until today. The comisario’s methods are a barrier to shield his superior officers from any awkward situations. Efficient, discreet and with no political ambitions, Rogelio Tizón is a useful man in difficult times. And in Spain, these are difficult times.
“Regarding these young women, I have to admit that you have done a fine job. Kept everything under control … As you say, no one has made the connection between the four murders.”
Tizón allows himself a faint, deferential smile, with just the right note of complicity. “And anyone who has made the connection has kept their mouth shut. Or I’ve shut it for them.”
García Pico flinches again and sits up in his chair. “I don’t need to know about that.”
There is a brief hesitation. He glances up at the wall clock next to the window. Interpreting this action, Tizón picks up his file and gets to his feet. García Pico stares at his hands.
“Remember what the governor said,” he says pointedly. “If there’s any scandal about these murders, we’ll need a culprit.”
Tizón bows slightly—a faint nod of the head, not an inch more than absolutely necessary.
“We are working on it, señor. Trying to lay our hands on him … I have every neighborhood police captain sifting through their files, and every officer that can be spared is pounding the streets.”
“I’m not sure I made myself clear; I mean someone who is actually guilty.”
Tizón does not even blink. He looks as smug as a cat sitting beside an empty cage, brushing feathers from its whiskers.
“Of course, señor. A genuine cu
lprit. Understood.”
“And this time I don’t want him to escape, understood? Remember what I just read to you, for Christ’s sake. Do whatever it takes so he does not have to escape.”
FLAMING TORCHES DRIVEN into the sand beneath the ramparts cast their flickering light on La Caleta, leaving in silhouette the boats and light vessels bobbing in the high tide next to the silent shore. The night is clear. The waning moon will soon arch across the starry vault of the heavens. There is not a breath of wind, not a single ripple on the calm black waters. The vertical flames of the torches cast a reddish glow on the dingy bars and flamenco cabarets that run along the sandstone walls where, at this time of year, there are seafood restaurants by day and dance halls by night. A lenient attitude is taken to law and order along this half moon of hard, flat sand between the reef at San Sebastián and the Castillo de Santa Catalina, on the western tip of the city overlooking the Atlantic. Since La Caleta is outside the city walls, the curfew is not enforced here and through the city gate leading down to the beach comes a steady crowd of people with safe-conduct passes or enough money to bribe the guards. From the ramshackle bars comes the sound of glasses, of fandangos and boleros, the click of castanets, the voices of flamenco singers, of sailors, soldiers, immigrants with fat wallets and those looking for someone to buy them a bottle, young gentlemen slumming it, Englishmen and boatmen plying their trade. With warships moored nearby to protect the area from French shelling, the place is thronged with officers and crewmen. Everywhere there is the clamor of conversation, loose women laughing, guitars playing, voices singing, drunkards roaring and brawlers fighting. The night-hawks and the scapegraces of Cádiz come to La Caleta to find pleasure in the second summer of the French siege.
“Good evening … Could I have a moment of your time?”
Seated at a table made of bare boards nailed together, Pépé Lobo exchanges a quick glance with Ricardo Maraña; then looks up at the stranger who has just stopped in front of him, a curious man with a hook nose and a round straw hat, carrying a walking stick, sporadically outlined against the distant flashes from the San Sebastián lighthouse. Wearing a gray redingote, open to reveal a waistcoat, and a pair of rumpled breeches, he looks disheveled. His long, thick sideburns are of a piece with his bedraggled mustaches and the dim light makes his eyes look even darker. Perhaps dangerous. Like the handle of his cane, which Lobo cannot help but notice: a large brass knob fashioned like a walnut, ideal for splitting a man’s skull.
“What do you want?” the sailor says, without getting up.
The other man gives a little smile, a fleeting, deferential smile that does not reach his eyes—a vestige, perhaps, of jaded courtesy. In the light of the torches planted in the sand, there is the flash of a gold tooth.
“I am the Comisario of Police. My name is Tizón.”
The corsairs glance at each other again—the captain of the Culebra is intrigued; Maraña, as always, indifferent. Pale, thin, elegant, dressed all in black from his necktie to his boots, the young man leans back in his chair, stretching out one leg that shows signs of a limp. With a glass of aguardiente on the table—the half bottle already in his belly does not affect his manner—and a cigar smoldering in the corner of his mouth, he turns slowly, halfheartedly, to look at the interloper. Pépé Lobo knows that, like himself, his first mate does not like policemen. Or Customs officers. Or naval officers. Or anyone who interrupts other people’s conversations in La Caleta at eleven o’clock at night when alcohol has begun to make tongues and thoughts slow.
“We didn’t ask who you were, we asked what you wanted,” says Maraña curtly.
The intruder calmly ignores this insult, notes Pépé Lobo, the word policeman immediately dissipating the alcoholic fog in his brain. The man is clearly thick-skinned. Another brief smile, another flash of the gold tooth. The grimace is a reflex, the corsair decides, a part of his job. As potentially lethal as the sturdy pommel of his cane or the dark, expressionless eyes which are as disconnected from his smile as if they were twenty paces apart.
“It concerns my work … I thought perhaps you might be able to help me.”
“You know who we are?”
“Indeed, Captain, you and your lieutenant. That is to be expected in my job.”
“And what do you want from us?”
The other man seems to hesitate for a moment, perhaps wondering how best to broach the subject. Finally, he decides.
“It is the lieutenant I need to speak with … This is probably not the right moment, but I am aware that you are putting out to sea shortly. When I saw him here, I thought perhaps this way I could avoid disturbing him tomorrow …”
I hope the first mate has not got himself mixed up in something, thinks Pépé Lobo. They can ill afford trouble, being two days from weighing anchor. But he decides that it is not his business. In principle. He overcomes his curiosity and makes to get to his feet.
“I will leave you alone, then.”
Maraña immediately puts a hand on his arm to stop him.
“The captain has my complete confidence,” he says to the policeman. “You may speak in front of him.”
The other man, still standing, wavers. Or maybe pretends to waver.
“I don’t know whether I should …”
He is watching them closely, as if deliberating. Waiting for some word, some gesture, perhaps, but the corsairs say nothing, do nothing. Pépé Lobo is still seated, waiting, watching his first officer out of the corner of his eye. Maraña stares impassively at the policeman, as cool as a gambler waiting for a card to set either side of his knave. Lobo knows the kind of existence his first mate leads: a dangerous game in which every day the young man rashly risks his life.
“It is a delicate matter, gentlemen,” says the policeman. “I would not wish to—”
“Skip the prologue,” cuts in Maraña.
The man gestures to a chair. “May I sit?”
Receiving no response, he grabs the back of the chair and sits down some distance from the table, setting his hat and his cane on his lap.
“Very well, I shall be brief. I have had reports that when in Cádiz, you have been making trips to the other side …”
Maraña goes on looking at him without blinking. His eyes, which can burn with a fire when roused, are calm. “I don’t know what trips you are referring to,” he says languidly. The policeman is silent for a moment, then tilts his head and looks out to sea as though indicating the direction. “Your excursions to the Puerto de Santa María,” he says finally, “at night, aboard boats owned by smugglers. You made just such a trip last night. There and back.”
A slight cough, quickly stifled. The young man laughs insolently in the policeman’s face.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides, it’s no business of yours.”
Pépé Lobo sees the gold tooth gleam again in the red torchlight.
“That’s true, of course. It’s not really my business … but that’s not the issue … I have reason to believe that the boat you took is owned by a man I am interested in. A smuggler, a Mulatto …”
Deadpan, Maraña crosses his legs, takes a long draw on his cigar then slowly, deliberately exhales. He shrugs his shoulders wearily.
“All right. That’s enough. Good evening.”
The hand holding the cigar gestures toward the beach, and the gate back to the city, but Tizón remains seated. He is clearly a patient man, thinks Pépé Lobo; patience is obviously a virtue in his godforsaken job. Those hard, dark eyes leave no room for doubt: it is obvious that the policeman dispenses with niceties when it comes to settling a score. These days no one can be certain that they will not end up on the wrong side of the law. Pépé Lobo is confident that, despite his youth, his insolence and the aguardiente fueling his contempt, Maraña is as aware of this fact as he is, and is accustomed to judging a man by his looks and his words in the way that a bird may be recognized by its droppings.
“I fear you have got the wrong impression, se
ñor … I have not come to talk to you about smuggling.”
A gust of laughter causes Pépé Lobo to turn toward the nearest bar, where a barefoot dancer, accompanied by a guitarist, is engaged in a spirited flamenco, pounding the wooden boards and hiking her skirt up to show off her bare legs. A group of English and Spanish officers have just arrived to cheer her on. The corsair pulls a face as he sees them settle in. Among the Spanish officers is a face he recognizes: Captain of Engineers Lorenzo Virués. A reminder of past unpleasantness and present antipathy. For an instant, the image of Lolita Palma’s face flickers before his eyes, sharpening his bitter hostility toward the officer. This merely adds to the disagreeable turn the evening has taken.
“What concerns me is more serious,” the policeman is telling Maraña. “We have reason to believe that a number of boatmen and smugglers are passing information to the French.”
On hearing this, Pépé Lobo suddenly forgets about Lolita Palma and Lorenzo Virués. I hope not, he thinks with a start. Curse the lot of them: Ricardo Maraña, this woman he’s been visiting in El Puerto, and this dog poking his nose into things. The captain of the corsair fervently hopes his lieutenant’s nocturnal excursions will not end up complicating his life. Two days from now, if the wind is set fair to leave the bay of Cádiz, the Culebra should be out on the open sea with a full crew, cannons ready, all sails set, ready for the hunt.
“I don’t know anything about that,” says Maraña brusquely.
Maraña’s pulse has not quickened, Pépé Lobo notices; it is as regular as that of a snake sleeping in the sun. He has just taken a deep swig of aguardiente and replaced the empty glass precisely on the ring of moisture he had lifted it from a moment before. He is as serene as a man prepared to gamble his booty on a hand of rentoy, to challenge a man to a fistfight, to leap from the deck of one ship to another amid the creaking of timber and the smoke of musket fire. Looking upon life—and upon himself—with a permanent sneer of disdain.
“Sometimes a man may know things without realizing he knows them,” says the policeman.
“I can’t help you.”