The Good Suicides Read online

  ALSO BY ANTONIO HILL

  The Summer of Dead Toys

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Translation Copyright © 2013 by Laura McGloughlin

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Originally published in Spain as Los Buenos Suicidas by Random House Mondadori, Barcelona, in 2012. Copyright © 2012 by Toni Hill Gumbao. This translation originally published in the United Kingdom by Doubleday, an imprint of Transworld Publishers, London, in 2013.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hill Gumbao, Toni.

  [Buenos suicidas. English]

  The good suicides : a thriller / Antonio Hill; translation by Laura McGloughlin. — First American Edition. “Originally published in Spanish as Los Buenos Suicidas by Random House Mondadori, Barcelona, in 2012.” “This translation originally published in the United Kingdom by Doubleday, an imprint of Transworld Publishers, London, in 2013.” 1. Suicide victims—Fiction. 2. Barcelona (Spain)—Fiction.

  I. McGloughlin, Laura, translator. II. Title.

  PQ6708.I45B8413 2014

  863′.7—dc23

  2013019691

  ISBN 978-0-7704-3590-5

  eBook ISBN 978-0-7704-3591-2

  Jacket design by Christopher Brand

  Jacket photograph: Thomas Northcut

  v3.1

  For Jan,

  the youngest of

  the family

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue: A Normal Family

  Part 1: Héctor

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Part 2: Leire

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Part 3: Sara

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part 4: Leire

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Part 5: Gaspar

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part 6: Leire

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Part 7: Amanda

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Part 8: Leire

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Part 9: Héctor

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Part 10: Ruth

  Chapter 45

  Part 11: Six Months Earlier

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  A Normal Family

  Lola Martínez Rueda, The Voice of the Others

  Thursday, September 9, 2010

  “They were a lovely couple,” say the neighbors. “You didn’t see him much, but he always seemed very well-mannered; he’d be friendly and say hello. She kept her distance a little more, perhaps … But she was certainly very devoted to her daughter.” “They had a beautiful baby,” says the owner of a café close to their home, situated in the Clot district of Barcelona, where a few days before, around ten o’clock, Gaspar Ródenas, his wife Susana and their daughter, Alba, fourteen months, were having breakfast. “They came many weekends,” she adds. And without my asking she tells me what they usually had: a black coffee for him and white for her, and how beautiful the little one was. Minutiae, of course. Insignificant details and banal commentaries that now, in light of the facts, are disturbing.

  Because in the early hours of September 5, while his wife slept, this “meek but friendly” father rose from the marital bed, entered the bedroom of his only child, put a pillow over her face and squeezed with all his might. We cannot know if the mother awoke, alerted perhaps by that sixth sense that has disturbed maternal sleep since time began. In any case, Gaspar Ródenas, “such a well-mannered” husband according to neighbors and colleagues, didn’t intend to leave her alive either. Susana died shortly afterward, from a single shot to the heart. Then, as the canon of the chauvinist killer decrees, Gaspar gave himself the final shot.

  The names of Susana and her daughter have swelled the list of women falling victim to those who in theory should have loved them, respected them and even, if we think of the little girl, protected them. Forty-four women have died in the course of this year (2010) at the hands of their partners. Forty-five, with the macabre addition of a daughter. Maybe this case does not conform to the formula we have learned to recognize: a separation under way, reports of ill-treatment. Gaspar Ródenas wasn’t—such is the irony of life—a violent man.

  The State can, for once, stick its neck out and declare that nothing seemed to indicate that Susana and Alba were in danger. And they are right … But that just makes their deaths even more terrible, if possible. Because many of us women already know that mechanisms exist—however scarce and insufficient they may be—to defend ourselves against those men who believe they have a right to control our lives and our deaths. Against those guys who shout at us, put us down and beat us. What we cannot know is how to protect ourselves from the rancor that accumulates in silence, from that mute hatred which suddenly explodes one night and destroys everything.

  There is a photo of the three taken just weeks before, on a beach in Menorca. In it Alba can be seen sitting on the shore with a red spade in her hand. She is wearing a little white cap to protect her from the August sun. Kneeling behind her is Susana. Happy, she smiles at the camera. And at her side, with his arm around her, is her husband. Seeing him there, in a relaxed pose, squinting in the sun, no one could have imagined that scarcely a month later this man would use those very hands that are caressing Susana to kill them both.

  Why did this thirty-six-year-old man, with a steady, well-paid job in a well-known cosmetics company, with no extraordinary financial burdens and no previous record of any kind, commit murders even more repulsive than others? When did it occur to him to end the lives of his wife and daughter? At what moment did madness overcome him and distort daily reality to the extent of convincing him that death was the only way out?

  The answer of his relatives, friends and work colleagues is still the same, although now none of them can believe what they insist on repeating: Gaspar, Susana and Alba were a normal family.

  1

  For the second time in a short period, Inspector Héctor Salgado turns his head suddenly, convinced someone is watching him, but he sees only anonymous and indifferent faces, people who, like him, are walking on a packed Gran Vía and stop once in a while in front of one of the traditional stalls of toys and games occupying the pavement. It is January 5, the night before Rey
es, though no one would think so judging by the pleasant temperature, ignored by some strollers conveniently dressed in overcoats, some even with gloves and scarf as befits the season, happy to participate in a sham of winter lacking the main ingredient: cold.

  The parade has been finished for a while and the traffic fills the road under garlands of shining lights. People, cars, the smell of churros and hot oil, all seasoned with supposedly happy carols, their lyrics dipped in surrealism, which the loudspeakers launch against the passersby without the least decorum. It seems no one has bothered to compose new songs, so for yet another year there are the same fucking tidings of comfort of joy. That must be what’s fucked up about Christmas, thinks Héctor: the fact that generally it always stays the same, while we change and grow older. It seems to him inconsiderate to the point of cruelty that this Christmassy atmosphere is the only thing that is repeated year after year without exception, making our decadence ever more evident. And for the umpteenth time in the last fifteen days he wishes he’d flown from all the revelry to some Buddhist or radically atheist country. Next year, he repeats, as if it were a mantra. And to hell with what his son might say.

  He is so absorbed in these thoughts that he doesn’t notice that the queue of pedestrians, moving almost as slowly as that of the cars, has stopped. Héctor finds himself at a halt in front of a stall selling little plastic soldiers in bags: cowboys and Indians, Allied soldiers dressed in camouflage ready to shoot from a trench. He hasn’t seen them in years and remembers buying them for Guillermo when he was a kid. In any case, the vendor, an old man with arthritic hands, has managed to re-create an exquisite military scene, down to the last detail, worthy of a 1950s film. That’s not all he sells: other soldiers, the traditional lead ones, bigger and in shiny red uniforms, march on one side, and a legion of Roman gladiators, historically out of place, on the other.

  The old man gestures to him, inviting him to touch the goods, and Héctor obeys, more out of manners than any real interest. The soldier is softer than he expected and the feel of it, almost like human flesh, repulses him. Suddenly he realizes that the music has ceased. The passersby have halted. The car lights have been switched off and the Christmas lights, flickering weakly, are the street’s only lighting. Héctor closes his eyes and opens them again. Around him the crowd begins to vanish; the bodies suddenly disappear, evaporate without leaving the least trace. Only the vendor remains at his stall. Wrinkled and smiling, he takes one of those snow globes out from under the counter.

  “For your wife,” he says. And Héctor is about to answer that no, Ruth detests those glass domes; they’ve upset her ever since she was a child, like clowns do. Then the flakes clouding the interior fall to the bottom and he sees himself, standing in front of a toy soldier stall, trapped within the glass walls.

  “Papa, Papa …”

  Shit.

  The television screen covered in gray snow. His son’s voice. The pain in his neck from having fallen asleep in the worst possible position. The dream had been so real on Reyes night.

  “You were shouting.”

  Shit. When your own son wakes you out of a nightmare the moment has come to resign as a father, thought Héctor as he sat up on the sofa, sore and in bad humor.

  “I fell asleep here. And what are you doing awake at this time of night?” he counterattacked.

  Guillermo shrugged his shoulders without saying anything. As Ruth would have done. As Ruth had done so many times. In an automatic gesture, Héctor searched for a cigarette and lit it. Cigarette butts were spilling out of the ashtray.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t fall asleep here again. Go to bed. And don’t forget we’re going out early tomorrow.”

  His son nodded. As he watched him walk barefoot toward his room, he thought how hard it was to act as a father without Ruth. Guillermo wasn’t yet fifteen, but at times, looking at his face, you would say he was much older. There was a premature seriousness in his features that pained Héctor more than he cared to admit. He took a long drag on his cigarette and, without knowing why, pressed the button on the remote. He couldn’t even remember what he’d put on that night. With the first few images, that still black-and-white photo of Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, he recognized it and remembered. Breathless. Ruth’s favorite film. He didn’t feel up to watching it again.

  Approximately ten hours earlier, Héctor had been contemplating the white walls of the psychologist’s practice, a space he knew well, a tad uncomfortable. As usual, the “kid” was taking his time before beginning the session and Héctor still hadn’t worked out if those minutes of silence served to gauge his state of mind or if the guy was simply a slow starter. In any case, this morning, six months after his first visit, Inspector Salgado wasn’t in the mood to wait. He cleared his throat, crossed and uncrossed his legs, then finally leaned forward and said, “Would you mind if we started?”

  “Of course.” And the psychologist raised his eyes from his papers, although he added nothing further.

  He remained silent, interrogating the inspector with his gaze. He had an absentminded air that, combined with his youthful features, made you think of one of those child prodigies who solve complex equations at the age of six but at the same time are incapable of kicking a football without falling over. A false impression, Héctor knew. The kid took few shots, certainly; however, when he fired, he was on target. In fact, the therapy sessions, which had begun as a work requirement, had become a routine, weekly at first then fortnightly, that Héctor had followed of his own volition. So that morning he took a deep breath, as he’d learned, before answering.

  “Really sorry. The day didn’t start off well.” He leaned back and fixed his eyes on a corner of the office. “And I don’t think it will end any better.”

  “Difficulties at home?”

  “You don’t have teenagers, do you?” It was an absurd question, given that his listener would have to have been a father at fifteen to have offspring of Guillermo’s age. He remained quiet for a moment to reflect, then, in a tired voice, he went on, “But it’s not that. Guillermo is a good boy. I think the problem is that he was never a problem.”

  It was true. And although many fathers would be satisfied by this apparent obedience, Héctor was worried by what he didn’t know; what was going on in his son’s head was a mystery. He never complained, his marks were normal, never excellent but never bad either, and his seriousness could be an example to madder, more irresponsible kids. However, Héctor noticed—or rather he sensed—that there was something sad behind this absolute normality. Guillermo had always been a happy child and now, in mid-adolescence, he’d become an introverted boy whose life, when he wasn’t at school, basically passed by within the four walls of his bedroom. He spoke very little. He didn’t have many friends. All in all, thought Héctor, he’s not so different from me.

  “And you, Inspector? How are you? Still not sleeping?”

  Héctor hesitated before admitting it. It was a subject on which they couldn’t agree. After months of insomnia, the psychologist had recommended some gentle sleeping pills, which Héctor refused to take. Partly because he didn’t want to become accustomed to them; partly because it was in the early hours that his mind worked at full capacity and he didn’t want to dispense with his most productive hours; partly because sleeping plunged him onto uncertain and not always pleasant ground.

  The kid deduced the reasons for his silence.

  “You’re wearing yourself out uselessly, Héctor. And, without wanting to, you’re wearing out the people around you.”

  The inspector raised his head. He rarely addressed him so directly. The kid held his gaze without turning a hair.

  “You know I’m right. When you started to come to the practice we were dealing with a very different subject. A subject that was put aside after what happened to your ex-wife.” He spoke in a firm voice, without hesitation. “I understand that the situation is difficult, but becoming obsessed won’t get you anywhere.”

  “You thi
nk I’m obsessed?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Héctor gave a faint, bitter smile.

  “And what do you suggest? That I forget Ruth? That I accept that we’ll never know the truth?”

  “You don’t need to accept it. Just live with it without rebelling against the world every day. Listen to me while I ask you as the police officer you are: how many cases remain unsolved for a time? How many are cleared up years later?”

  “You don’t understand,” Héctor replied, and took a few seconds to continue speaking. “Sometimes … sometimes I manage to forget it all, for a few hours, while I work or when I go out running, then it comes back. Suddenly. Like a ghost. Expectant. It’s not an unpleasant sensation, not accusing or asking, but it’s there. And it doesn’t go away easily.”

  “What is it that’s there?” The question had been formulated in the same neutral tone that marked all the young therapist’s interjections, although Héctor noticed, or perhaps feared, that he was picking up a particular nuance.

  “Relax.” He smiled. “It’s not that sometimes I see dead people. It’s just the feeling that …” He paused to find the words. “When you have lived with someone for a long time, there are times that you just know they’re at home. You wake up from a siesta and you sense that the other person is there, without needing to see them. You understand? That wasn’t happening to me anymore. I mean, it never happened during the time I was separated from Ruth. Only after her … disappearance.”

  There was a pause. The psychologist scribbled something in that notebook to which Héctor had no visual access. At times he thought that those notes formed part of the theatrical ritual of a session: symbols which served only to make the interlocutor—that is, him—feel listened to. He was going to put forward his theory out loud when the other man began to speak; he spoke slowly, amiably, almost carefully.

  “You know something, Inspector?” he asked. “This is the first time you have admitted, even in a roundabout way, that Ruth might be dead.”

  “We Argentines are well aware what ‘disappeared’ can mean,” replied Héctor. “Don’t forget that.” He cleared his throat. “Even so, we have no objective proof that Ruth is dead. But—”