A Small Death in Lisbon

Chapter XXXVIII

15.30 Wednesday, 17th June, Bella Italia, Av. Duque de Avila, Lisbon The Bella Italia was empty at this hour except for the old woman at her table with her view of the street, and the young barman who'd served Catarina her last coffee.

'Do you remember me?' I asked the old woman, who was wearing a pink silk dress of some class and antiquity.

'You're the Inspector,' she said, looking up from under lids more heavily pleated than her silk dress.

'The day that girl got slapped out there on the street, do you remember a car, a black Mercedes outside the school around the time it happened?'

'Like an old taxi, except it didn't have a green roof.'

'Yes,' I said. 'I liked those old taxis, black with a green roof.'

'They were Lisbon,' she said. 'These beige things… I keep thinking I'm getting into someone's private car by mistake. Still, that's Europe for you. When we joined in 1984 my husband said by the year 2000 we wouldn't be speaking Portuguese.'

'So far it's only the taxis.'

'And McDonald's. My grandchildren won't eat pasteis de bacalhau'

'McDonald's are American.'

'It's the same thing,' she said. 'We eat them and they eat away at us.'

I went to the bar and ordered another water, too much caffeine in my system already-life coming at me too bright and sharp for comfort.

'Do you remember me?' I asked the barman. 'And the girl. You remember the girl.'

He nodded.

'You said she was on her own when she came in here.'

'And I'm still saying that now.'

'And nobody came in after her?'

'No.'

'The place was completely empty.'

'Apart from her,' he said, indicating the old lady. 'She was just getting up to leave.'

'What's her name?'

'Dona Jacinta,' replied the old lady, still hearing pretty well.

'She's got her hearing aid turned up,' whispered the barman.

'Yes, I have,' she said. 'And the girl came in on her own and nobody came in after her on that particular Friday… last Friday.'

'What does that mean, Dona Jacinta?'

'That's what happened last Friday. The previous Friday was different. I was here. That couple who are always arguing about their dog were sitting in the corner. You were here, Marco, weren't you?'

'I was here,' he said, a little bored.

'The girl came in. And a man stood outside on the pavement for a few moments before coming in after her.'

'That's right, Dona Jacinta,' said Marco, suddenly revitalized, 'and he sat down on that chair right behind her. He was looking at her legs… so you see I'm not the only one, Inspector.'

'Did he do anything?'

'He ordered a coffee over her shoulder. I think they looked at each other in the mirror.'

'He was big and fat,' said Dona Jacinta, 'and bald with a moustache and an expensive suit.'

'And his tie,' said Marco. 'His tie…'

'What about his tie?'

'He bought his tie in the same shop that you bought yours,' said Dona Jacinta.

'My daughter made it for me,' I said automatically.

'Then your daughter also made this man's tie,' she said.

I sat down slowly on the edge of a chair.

'Drink your water,' said Marco, holding it out to me.

'You saw the tie as well?' I asked.

'I saw it.'

I opened my wallet and took out the picture I'd just torn from VIP magazine. I smoothed it out on to the bar and tapped the face of Miguel da Costa Rodrigues.

'Shit,' said Marco. 'That's him. Show it to Dona Jacinta. That's him.'

I drank the water and went to the door. Dona Jacinta had her glasses out. She took the picture and nodded.

'That's the same tie, too,' she said.

I folded the picture back into my wallet.

'Nobody says anything about this. Not one word.'

A man in dark glasses came into the bar. He looked at the three of us and backed out.

I ran down to Saldanha. I was sweating in seconds. I picked up a taxi and told him to go to the Rua da Gloria and he gave me a knowing look. I sat in the back, astride the drive shaft of a despised beige taxi, and sweated, supporting myself on two hands. The traffic was heavy heading down to the Praca Marques de Pombal and the driver cut down the back streets around the hospitals of Miguel Bombarda and Santa Marta.

I sprinted up the blue lino to the Pensao Nuno reception. No Jorge. I slapped and hammered on the counter. Dinged the bell. Jorge came down the stairs, his flip-flops slapping the heels of his feet, taking the steps one at a time leaning on the bannister.

'That leg doesn't look too good, Jorge.'

'It isn't,' he said, with instant aggression. 'What do you want?'

'I've come to balance you out.'

He stopped on the stairs.

'Look,' he said, 'I told you I'd been sick…'

'Are you going to answer my questions?'

'Ask them first. I'll see.'

'Catarina,' I said, 'the girl who was killed. You said she'd been in here before… Friday lunchtimes.'

'I did.'

'What about the Friday lunchtime before last?'

'She was here.'

'Where?'

He hesitated, sensing I knew something more this time. I came up the stairs at him.

'You can stay down there,' he said. 'I just need to think.'

'Show me the room.'

'It was the same one as last time.'

'Show it to me.'

He turned and shuffled round on the step, aged twenty years in as many hours. I followed his flip-flops, his feet blue at the ankle.

'Who was she with, Jorge?'

He didn't answer, his breathing laboured. At the top of the stairs he leaned over the bannister rail. There were noises coming from the room, wild ecstatic noises of the sort a working girl learns with her first customer.

'Who was she with, Jorge?'

'Could have been a tap salesman from Braga for all I know.'

'Let's take a look in the room next to it, see if that'll jog that memory of yours.'

'She wasn't in that room.'

'I don't feel like interrupting, so we'll go in this room.'

'It's occupied.'

'It's very quiet in there for a room that's occupied.'

'I told you.'

'Open the door.'

'It's locked.'

'Get it open.'

He knocked on the door as if he didn't want to wake a princess.

'You can do better than that, Jorge.'

But the door opened. A small man in a cheap suit with a neat little pot belly stood in the darkened room.

I nodded him out and he shot down the stairs quicker than a pickpocket. I turned the weak light on. The room was empty. No girl. I checked the cupboard, its door already hanging open from the slope of the floor.

'Interesting, Jorge.'

I checked the unrumpled bed. There was a single dent close to the foot of the bed, opposite the mirror. I sat on it. It was uncomfortably warm. There were two thumbprints on the mirror. I lifted the mirror off the hooks. There was a view into the next room of a guy doing his very best with a girl handcuffed to the bedstead.

'Who was in here last Friday lunchtime, Jorge?' I shouted. 'And the Friday before that and all the other Fridays, for all I know!'

The guy in the next room stopped and looked over.

'Come on, Jorge!'

The guy eased himself off the girl and came over to the mirror. The girl followed him with her eyes. I tapped on the back of the mirror and the guy leapt back as if he'd seen his wife at the window, and started ripping into his clothes, didn't even take the condom off. I took out the picture of Miguel Rodrigues and held it up to Jorge.

'Was this the guy who was in this room last Friday lunchtime?'

He nodded.

'Out loud, Jorge.'

'It was him.'

The guy from the next room appeared in the doorway, looking murderous.

'If you want to help with a police investigation leave your address at reception,' I said.

He thundered down the stairs without a word. The girl, framed in the hole left by the mirror, looked from one chained wrist to the other.

'How long have you known him, Jorge?' I asked. 'You must be old pals by now.'

'Thirty-five years or so.'

'Thirty-five years or so,' I said. 'Early sixties. A very old pal.'

I looked him up and down-this tired, ruined man.

'I think I need a cigarette, Inspector. Mine are downstairs.'

I gave him one and lit it for him, his hands trembling now. He lowered himself on to the end of the bed.

'You and Miguel,' I said, 'it looks like your trains got separated, went off on different tracks.'

'He had some advantages that I didn't.'

'Family?'

The room was stuffy, airless. Jorge sucked on the cigarette, pulled his shirt off the rolls of empty skin around his belly. His face, already grey and broken-down, began to take on a green tinge in the weak forty-watt light. His eyes, unshifting, stared into a deep waterless hole, silted with bitterness.

'His father owned a bank.'

'Banco de Oceano e Rocha?' I asked, and he nodded. 'Is that where you met?'

'No, no. We met in Caxias… in Caxias prison.'

I looked at the torn-out picture of the sleek Miguel da Costa Rodrigues at his charity function at the Ritz.

'You don't look like communists,' I said. 'I mean he doesn't.'

Jorge shook his head.

'Were you crooks?' I asked. 'That'd be more like it.'

'We were with the PIDE,' said Jorge brushing some ash from his fly. 'We worked in the interrogation centre…'

'Wait a second here, Jorge,' I said. 'His father owned the bank? Fifteen years ago. I remember it. It was a big thing. It got into the newspapers all over the world. The owner of the bank was killed in a car crash on the Marginal. The whole family was killed. I don't remember the name but it wasn't Rodrigues.'

'It was Abrantes. His name is Manuel Abrantes.'

'Why did he change his name?'

Jorge dumped his cigarette in the sink. It hissed and stuck.

'You've come this far, Jorge.'

'He did some things, Inspector. We all did some things. Manuel Abrantes did some bigger things than most. He was an Inspector de Policia, how about that?'

'What sort of things are we talking about?'

'He killed a woman in Caxias prison. It was an accident, I think. She miscarried. I don't know. Maybe he kicked her… anyway, after that he was promoted to chefe de brigada.'

'That sounds like pretty regular stuff for PIDE. I'm sure there are a lot worse…'

'He was the leader of the squad that shot General Machedo in Spain.'

A drop of sweat travelled the length of my spine.

'Now you see,' said Jorge, 'how you have to be careful.'

I lit myself a cigarette this time and the hand was not so steady.

'I'm finished with him now. I've protected him over this thing. This girl. And now I'm done with him. Look at me, Inspector,' he said, and I turned my eyes away from the floor, not really wanting to look at him. 'Do I look like someone who's ever eaten at Manuel Abrantes' table?'

I started out of the room and looked back at him from the door. A collapsed human being, he stared into the niche above the sink without seeing further than his own head.

'Don't rush it, Inspector,' he said. 'It's not over by a long way.'

'Don't worry, Jorge. I'm not ready yet… but if anything happens to me, I'll know where to come looking.'

'You don't have to worry about me.'

'Where does he live? Abrantes.'

'Somewhere in Lapa. Where else? He took over his brother's old house. I don't know the address.'

There was a faint cry for help from next-door. Jorge's eyes suddenly registered what he was looking at. He shook his head and hauled himself to his feet.

I ran down the stairs two at a time. It was after five o'clock now. I called Olivia and asked for Miguel da Costa Rodrigues' address in Lapa. I called Carlos.

At a quarter-to-six we were standing outside a house in Rua Prior, leaning up against an old wall on the other side of the street.

At 6.15 p.m. an old guy opened up the gates to the house. One of two garage doors opened electronically and a black Mercedes C200 backed out into the street. I could smell the petrol engine and the registration number was 18 43 NT, but it did not have tinted windows. Lurdes Rodrigues was clearly visible through the glass. She parked up in the sunny street and got out. She went back into the house and returned with an envelope. In those few minutes the windows turned to black.