The Good Suicides Read online

  “But you believe it’s so, right?”

  Héctor looked over his shoulder, as if he were afraid someone might hear. “That’s what fucks me over most.” He had lowered his voice, speaking more to himself. “You can’t even mourn her because you feel like a fucking traitor who threw in the towel too early.” He took a deep breath. “I beg your pardon. Christmas has never agreed with me. I thought I’d have come further with this, but … I had to give in. There’s nothing. I’ve found nothing. Damn it, it’s as if someone erased her from a drawing without a trace.”

  “I thought the case was no longer in your hands.”

  Héctor smiled.

  “It’s in my head.”

  “Do me a favor.” That was always the prelude to the end. “From now until the next session try to concentrate, at least for a while every day, on what you have. Good or bad, but what your life is made up of; not what’s missing.”

  It was almost two in the morning, and Héctor knew he wouldn’t go back to sleep. He took his cigarette and cell phone and left the house to go up to the roof terrace. At least up there he wouldn’t wake Guillermo. The therapist was right in three things. One, he should start taking the damn sleeping pills, even if it annoyed him. Two, the case was no longer in his hands. And three, yes, deep down within him there was the conviction that Ruth was dead. Because of him.

  It was a nice night. One of those nights that could reconcile you to the world if you let it. The coastline of the city extended before his eyes, and there was something in the bright twinkling lights of the buildings, in that dark but tranquil sea, that managed to chase off the demons Héctor carried within him. Standing there, surrounded by planters with dry plants, Inspector Salgado asked himself, with complete honesty, what he had.

  Guillermo. His work as an inspector in Catalonia’s police force, the Mossos, simultaneously intense and frustrating. A brain that seemed to function correctly and lungs that must be half black by now. Carmen, his neighbor, his landlady; his Barcelona mother, as she said. This roof terrace from which he could see the sea. An annoying therapist who made him think about bullshit at three in the morning. Few friends, but good ones. An immense collection of films. A body capable of running six kilometers three times a week (despite lungs worn out by the damned tobacco). What else did he have? Nightmares. Memories with Ruth. The void without Ruth. Not knowing what had happened to her was a betrayal of everything that mattered to him: his promises from another time, his son, even his work. This rented apartment where they had both lived, loved and fought; the apartment she had left to begin a new life in which he was only a supporting actor. Even so, she loved him. They continued loving each other, but in another way. He was learning to live with all this when Ruth disappeared, vanished, leaving him alone with the feelings of guilt against which he rebelled every minute.

  Enough, he told himself. I’m like the protagonist of a French film: fortysomething, self-pitying. Mediocre. One of those that spends ten minutes looking at the sea from a cliff, plagued by existential questions, only then to fall in love like an idiot with an adolescent ankle. And just after this reflection he remembered the last chat, more accurately an argument, he’d had with his colleague, Sergeant Martina Andreu, just before Christmas. The reason for the dispute was incredibly petty, but neither of the two seemed capable of putting an end to it. Until she looked at him with that insulting frankness and, without a second thought, fired point-blank: “Héctor, really, how long has it been since you had a fuck?”

  Before his pathetic response could reverberate in his head, his cell phone rang.

  2

  Plaça Urquinaona was bathed in the blue light of the patrol cars, to the surprise of the four beggars, pickled with alcohol, who usually used the wooden benches as mattresses and couldn’t sleep that night.

  Héctor identified himself and descended the metro stairs, feeling apprehensive. Suicides who chose this method to carry out their angel’s leap were more numerous than the ones covered in the media, more than were accounted for in the statistics, although not as many as urban legend suggested. Some cited the existence of “black stations,” platforms from which the number of people who decided to end their lives was disproportionately higher than normal. In any case, and to avoid what was known as the “copycat effect,” these deaths were kept from the public. Héctor had always thought, with no proof other than intuition, that these suicides were more the result of a moment of desperation than a plan laid out beforehand. In any case, the police procedure was characterized by prompt action: remove the body as soon as possible and reestablish service, although in this case, given the hour, they had more time; hide the occurrence under the alibi of an incident or breakdown during the time in which the traffic was necessarily suspended. Because of that he thought it strange that Agent Roger Fort, who was on shift that night, had bothered to call him at home in the middle of the night to inform him of what had happened.

  The same Roger Fort who at this moment was looking with a hesitant expression at Inspector Salgado as he descended the second flight of steps that led to the platform.

  “Inspector. I’m glad to see you. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  There was something about this boy, a respectful formality that Héctor appreciated yet distrusted at the same time. In any case, Fort was the most improbable replacement for the young, determined and shameless Leire Castro. Héctor was convinced that the last thing that would have occurred to Agent Castro in these circumstances was to call a superior: without a doubt she would have felt herself qualified to deal with it on her own. That was the only objection Héctor had about her work: Leire was incapable of waiting for others to reach their conclusions; she went ahead and acted of her own accord without asking permission. This was a trait that wasn’t always looked on favorably in a job where order and discipline were still considered synonymous with efficiency.

  But, much to his regret, Castro was on maternity leave and Superintendent Savall had put this agent, recently arrived from Lleida, on the team. Dark, with a permanent five o’clock shadow that persisted despite shaving, average height and with a rugby player’s complexion; his surname, Catalan for “strong,” seemed to fit him perfectly. Like Leire, he was not yet thirty. Both belonged to the new crop of investigative agents filling the Mossos d’Esquadra with guys who seemed to Salgado too young. Maybe because at forty-three he sometimes felt like an old man of seventy.

  “You didn’t wake me. But I’m not sure if I’m happy you called.”

  Fort, somewhat disconcerted by this answer, flushed. “The corpse is already covered and it’s being taken away, as ordered …”

  “Wait.” Salgado hated the official terminology, usually the fallback of incompetents when they don’t know what to say. And then he repeated something said to him when he started, a phrase that had gained meaning over the years. “This isn’t a ten o’clock series. ‘The corpse’ is a person.”

  Fort nodded and his cheeks became a more intense red.

  “Yes, it’s a woman. Between thirty and forty. They are looking for her bag.”

  “Did she jump onto the tracks with it?”

  The agent didn’t answer the question and stuck to his script.

  “I want you to see the images. The metro CCTV recorded part of what happened.”

  The sound of voices proceeding from the platform below made it clear something was happening.

  “Who else is down there?”

  “Two boys. The patrol guys are with them.”

  “Boys?” Salgado summoned up his patience, but his dissatisfaction was evident from his tone. “Didn’t you tell me on the phone that the suicide occurred a little before two? I would’ve thought you had plenty of time to take a statement from them and send them home.”

  “We did. But the boys came back.”

  Before Roger Fort had the chance to explain further, the security guard approached them. He was middle-aged, with bags under his eyes and a tired look.

  “Agent, are y
ou going to watch the tape now or would you prefer to take it with you?”

  In layman’s terms, Héctor translated: Are you going to let me finish my damn shift? Agent Fort opened his mouth to say something, but the inspector beat him to it.

  “Let’s go,” decided Héctor, not looking at his subordinate. “Then you can explain the thing with the boys, Fort.”

  The booth where the images of what happened on the platforms were recorded was small and a thick odor hung in the air, a mixture of sweat and must.

  “Here you are,” was all the guard said. “Though don’t expect too much.”

  Héctor looked at him once again. Either there were people born to carry out a specific job, or the job molded those who did it until symbiosis between person and task was achieved. This wan-faced individual with sour breath, slow-moving and a monotonal voice, seemed the perfect candidate to sit there for eight hours, if not more, observing this bit of subterranean life through a low-resolution screen.

  The camera focused on the platform from the end at which the train entered, and Salgado, Fort and the guard silently contemplated the arrival of the metro at exactly 01:49. In an instant Héctor remembered his dream: perhaps because of the diffuse, grayish shade of the screen, the individuals waiting on the platform looked like bodies with blurred faces and syncopated movements, like urban zombies. Just when the whistle was announcing the train’s departure, a group of kids, dressed in baggy jeans, hoodies and caps, came running onto the platform and, furious on seeing they’d missed that train, they beat against the already closed doors—a reaction as absurd as it was useless. One of them made a telling gesture with his finger to the camera when the metro pulled out, leaving them in the station.

  “They had to wait six minutes because—” said the guard, his voice finally expressing something resembling satisfaction.

  Agent Fort interrupted him. “There she is, Inspector.”

  And indeed, a woman entered from the other end. There was no way of telling if she was short or tall. Dark-haired, with a black coat and something in her hand. She was so far from the camera that her face was hardly visible. Because of the distance, and because again and again she turned her head back to where she had come onto the platform.

  “See, Inspector? She keeps looking behind her. As if someone is following her.”

  Héctor didn’t respond. His eyes were fixed on the screen. On that woman who, according to the clock showing the countdown to the next metro, had a little more than three minutes of life remaining.

  She was keeping away from the tracks, her profile to the camera. Close up, two of the four kids had sat down, or rather fallen onto the benches. Héctor then made out a girl among them. He hadn’t seen her before. Tiny black shorts, very high heels and a white anorak. Beside her, one of the boys tried to grab her waist and, bad tempered, she broke free and said something to him that made the other two erupt into laughter. The kid turned to them, threatening, but both continued making fun of him.

  Héctor’s eyes were fixed on the woman. She was uncomfortable, that was obvious. At first, she made as if to go toward the kids; however, on hearing the laughter she stopped and clutched her bag tightly. No one else had come down to the platform, but she kept looking stubbornly behind. Maybe it was an attempt to ignore the teenagers, obviously of Latin American origin. Finally she shifted her gaze to what she had in her hand and, thoughtful, took a couple of steps, which put her on the yellow line that marked out the safe area, as if she wanted to gain a few seconds by being at the edge of the platform.

  “She’s looking at her cell,” Fort pointed out.

  And then everything seemed to happen at once. The kids leapt up, taking up the entire image at the time the train entered the station.

  “She must have jumped just at that moment,” said the guard, while on the screen the convoy stopped, the doors opened and the platform filled with curious passengers. “But you can’t see it because of those Latinos. In fact, it was the driver of the train who raised the alarm. Poor guy.”

  Strange, thought Héctor, he feels more pity for the driver than the suicide. As if she was inconsiderate in her final act.

  “Are there no other cameras that capture the image from another angle?” asked Salgado.

  The guard shook his head and added, “There are the ones monitoring the turnstiles, so that people don’t sneak through without paying, but in that time no one came in that way.”

  “Okay. We’ve seen it now,” declared Salgado. And if Fort had known him better he’d have recognized that that dry tone didn’t bode well. “We’ll take the tape so this man can close up and go home.”

  The guard didn’t object.

  “For Christ’s sake, Fort, tell me you haven’t made me come at this time just to show me a tape where you can’t see anything.” Fort had been under his command for only a couple of weeks, so the inspector expressed his disgust in the most polite way possible over the short distance separating them from the platform, although speaking quietly didn’t manage to conceal his bad mood. He took a breath; he didn’t want to be too harsh, and at that hour of the morning it was easy to get carried away. To top it all, the agent had such a contrite expression that Salgado took pity on him. “It doesn’t matter, we’ll talk about it later. Since I’m here, let’s sort out those boys.”

  He hurried down the steps, cutting Fort off mid-sentence.

  The boys, just two of them, were sitting on one of the benches, the same one they’d occupied before. Not laughing now, thought Héctor, seeing them totally rigid. The party had ended all of a sudden. As he went toward them, he tried not to see the black plastic bags scattered over the track. He turned to the agent.

  “Make sure they’re finished, and remove the body immediately.”

  The faint station light made the boys look dirty. Two uniformed agents stood in front of them. They were chatting, seemingly removed from the kids, but without taking their eyes off them. When Salgado approached, they both greeted him and took a step back. The inspector remained standing and fixed his eyes on the adolescents. Dominican, almost certainly. One of them was around eighteen or nineteen; the other, who judging by appearances must be his younger brother, was younger than Guillermo. Thirteen, fourteen tops, Héctor decided.

  “Well, boys, it’s very late and we all want to finish as soon as possible. I’m Inspector Salgado. Tell me your names, what you saw and explain to me what brought you back,” he added, remembering what Fort had told him. “Afterward, we’ll all go home to bed, okay?”

  “We didn’t see anything,” the younger one retorted, looking at his brother with a certain resentment. “We were out partying and we were going home from Port Olímpic. We changed from the yellow line to the red, but we missed the metro. Only just.”

  “Name?” repeated the inspector.

  “Jorge Ribera. And that’s my brother Nelson.”

  “Nelson, you didn’t notice the woman either?”

  The older boy had very black eyes and his face had a hard, distrusting expression. Impassive.

  “No, sir.” He looked ahead, not fixing his eyes on anyone. The tone of his answer sounded hostile.

  “But you saw her?”

  The little one smiled.

  “Nelson only has eyes for his girl. Even though she’s mad at him …”

  Salgado recognized him as the one who’d been pestering the girl with the white anorak. Nelson gave his brother a withering look. Jorge must have been accustomed to it, because he didn’t so much as flinch.

  “Good. Was there anyone else in the station?” Héctor knew there wasn’t, although there was always the possibility that someone had entered the station at the last minute. However, both boys shrugged. It was clear that they’d been entertained by the argument between Nelson and the girl. “Fine. Then what did you do?”

  “They threw us out of the metro, so we ran to catch the night bus. And when we were already at the stop, Nelson made me come back.”

  His brother elbowed h
im to continue and Jorge lowered his head. His self-confidence seemed to have suddenly evaporated.

  “Tell him,” ordered Nelson, but Jorge just looked away. “Or do you want me to tell him?”

  The little brother let out a snort.

  “Fuck, I saw it on the platform. Before the doors opened. The metro braked suddenly, without coming right into the station, and then I noticed that there was something on the ground. I grabbed it without anyone seeing.”

  “What was it?”

  “It was a cell phone, Inspector,” answered Roger Fort, who had joined them after carrying out his orders. “A pretty new iPhone. This.”

  Jorge looked at the bag Fort was holding with a mixture of frustration and longing.

  “You made your brother come and bring it back?” It was obvious that it was so, but the question came out without thinking.

  “We Riberas don’t steal,” answered Nelson, serious. “Also, there are things it’s better not to see.”

  The little one rolled his eyes, like someone sick of hearing nonsense. Héctor noticed, and after winking at the elder brother he turned to Jorge with a very severe tone.

  “Okay, kid. You and I are going to the station. Agent Fort, bring him.”

  “Hey, I haven’t done anything! You can’t—”

  “Theft, tampering with a crime scene. Resisting arrest, which is something I’m adding because you are going to resist for sure. And … how old are you? Thirteen? I’m sure the minors’ judge won’t like a kid your age going out ‘partying,’ as you say, in the early hours of the morning at all.”

  The kid looked so terrified that Héctor held back.

  “If it weren’t … if it weren’t for your brother, who seems a sensible guy, assuring me that he’ll take care of you. And you promise me you’ll listen to him.”

  Jorge nodded, with the same fervor as a young shepherd to whom the Virgin appears. Nelson put his arm around his shoulders and, without his brother seeing, returned the inspector’s wink.