Offering to the Storm

‘What haven’t you finished?’

‘If I don’t finish, this will all have been in vain.’

Amaia’s curiosity deepened:

‘What exactly do you mean?’

Suddenly, Esparza seemed to realise where he was, and that he’d said too much. He immediately clammed up.

‘Did you kill your daughter?’

‘No,’ he replied.

‘Do you know who did?’

Silence.

‘Perhaps your wife killed her …’

Esparza smiled, shaking his head, as if he found the mere thought laughable.

‘Not her.’

‘Who, then? Who did you take to your mother-in-law’s house?’

‘No one.’

‘No, I don’t believe you did, because it was you. You killed your daughter.’

‘No!’ he yelled suddenly. ‘… I gave her up.’

‘Gave her up? Who to? What for?’

He grinned smugly.

‘I gave her up to …’ He lowered his voice to a muffled whisper: ‘… like all the others …’ he said. He murmured a few more words, then buried his head in his arms.

Amaia remained in the cell for a while, even though she realised that the interview was over, that she would get no more out of him. She buzzed for them to open the door from outside. As she was leaving, he spoke again:

‘Can you do something for me?’

‘That depends.’

‘Tell them not to cremate her.’

Deputy Inspectors Etxaide and Zabalza were waiting with Iriarte in the adjoining room.

‘Could you hear what he was saying?’

‘Only the part about giving her up to someone, but I didn’t hear a name. It’s on tape; you can see his lips move, but it’s inaudible. He was probably talking gibberish.’

‘Zabalza, see if you can do anything with the audio and video, jack up the volume as high as it’ll go. I expect you’re right, he’s messing with us, but let’s be on the safe side. Jonan, Montes and Iriarte, you come with me. By the way, where is Montes?’

‘He’s just finished taking the relatives’ statements.’

Amaia opened her field kit on the table to make sure she had everything she needed.

‘We’ll need to stop somewhere to buy a digital calliper.’ She smiled, as she noticed Iriarte frown. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Today is your day off …’

‘Not any more, right?’ she grinned, picking up the case and following Jonan outside to where Montes was waiting for them in the car with the engine running.

5 (#ua3e92a81-94f0-5908-bd3c-8a54345460b6)

She felt a kind of sympathy bordering on pity for Valentín Esparza when she entered the room his mother-in-law had decorated for the little girl. Confronted with the profusion of pink ribbons, lace and embroidery, the sensation of déjà vu was overwhelming. This little girl’s amatxi had chosen nymphs and fairies instead of the ridiculous pink lambs her own mother-in-law had chosen for Ibai, but other than that, the room might have been decorated by the same woman. Hanging on the walls were half a dozen or so framed photographs of the girl being cradled by her mother, grandmother and an older woman, possibly an aunt. Valentín Esparza didn’t appear in any of them.

The radiators upstairs were on full, doubtless for the baby’s benefit. Muffled voices reached them from the kitchen below, friends and neighbours who had come round to comfort the two women. The mother seemed to have stopped crying now; even so, Amaia closed the door at the top of the stairs. She stood watching as Montes and Etxaide processed the scene, cursing her phone, which had been vibrating in her pocket since they left the station. The number of missed calls was piling up. She checked her coverage: as she had suspected, because of the thick walls it was much weaker inside the farmhouse. Descending the stairs, she tiptoed past the kitchen, registering the sound of hushed voices typical at wakes. She felt a sense of relief as she stepped outside. The rain had stopped briefly, as the wind swept away the black storm clouds, but the absence of any clear patches of sky meant that once the wind fell the rain would start again. She moved a few metres away from the house and checked her log of missed calls. One from Dr San Martín, one from Lieutenant Padua of the Guardia Civil, one from James, and six from Ros. First she rang James, who was upset to hear that she wouldn’t be home for lunch.

‘But, Amaia, it’s your day off—’

‘I’ll be home as soon as I can, I promise, and I’ll make it up to you.’

He seemed unconvinced.

‘But we have a dinner reservation …’

‘I’ll be home in an hour at the most.’

Padua picked up straight away.

‘Inspector, how are you?’

‘I’m fine. I saw your call, and—’ She could barely contain her anxiety.

‘No news, Inspector. I just rang to say I’ve spoken to Naval Command in San Sebastián and La Rochelle. All the patrol boats in the Bay of Biscay are on the alert and they know what to look for.’

Padua must have heard her sigh. He added in a reassuring tone:

‘Inspector, the coastguards are of the opinion, and I agree, that one month is long enough for your mother’s body to have washed up somewhere along the shore. It could have been swept up the Cantabrian coast, though the ascending current is more likely to have carried it to France. Alternatively, it could have become snagged on the riverbed, or the torrential rains could have taken it miles out to sea, into one of the deep trenches in the Bay of Biscay. Bodies washed out to sea are rarely found, and given how long it’s been since your mother disappeared, I think we have to consider that possibility. A month is a long time.’

‘Thank you, Lieutenant,’ she said, trying hard not to show her disappointment. ‘If you hear anything …’

‘Rest assured, I’ll let you know.’

She hung up, thrusting her phone deep into her pocket, as she digested what Padua had said. A month in the sea is a long time for a dead body. But didn’t the sea always give up its dead?

While talking to Padua, she had started to circle the house to escape the tiresome crunch of gravel outside the entrance. As she followed the line in the ground traced by rainwater dripping from the roof, she reached the corner at the back of the building where the eaves met. Sensing a movement behind her, she turned. The older woman from the photographs in the little girl’s bedroom was standing beside a tree in the garden, apparently talking to herself. As she gently tapped the tree trunk, she chanted a series of barely audible words that seemed to be addressed to some invisible presence. Amaia watched the old woman for a few seconds, until she looked up and saw her.