A Small Death in Lisbon

‘I’m in no condition to . . .’ I said, my brain still blundering around.

‘Ah yes. I forgot. How was it? How are you?’

‘Cooler about the face.’

‘Good.’

‘More fragile in the head.’

‘They say it could get up to forty degrees today,’ he said, not listening.

‘Where are you, sir?’

‘On my mobile.’

A good answer.

‘There’s some good news, Zé,’ he said, quickly. ‘I’m sending someone to help you.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘A young guy. Very keen. Good for leg work.’

‘Whose son is he?’

‘I didn’t catch that?’

‘You know I don’t like to tread on anybody’s toes.’

‘This line’s breaking up,’ he shouted. ‘Look, he’s very capable but he could use some experience. I can’t think of anybody better.’

‘Does that mean nobody else would have him?’

‘His name is Carlos Pinto,’ he said, ignoring my question. ‘I want him to see your approach. Your very particular approach. You know, you have this ability with people. They talk to you. I want him to see how you operate.’

‘Does he know where he’s going?’

‘I’ve told him to meet you in that communist’s bar you like so much. He’s bringing the latest missing persons printout.’

‘Will he recognize me?’

‘I’ve told him to look for someone who’s just had his beard shaved off after twenty-odd years. An interesting test don’t you think?’

The signal finally broke up. He knew. Narciso knew. They all knew. Even if I’d been a stick insect those scales would still have come out at eighty-two kilos. You can’t trust anybody these days, not your own daughter, not your own family, not even the Polícia Judiciária.

I showered and dried off in front of the mirror. Old eyes, new face looked back at me. Having just levered myself over forty maybe I was too old for this kind of change and yet, just as my wife had said I would, I looked five years younger without the beard.

Sunlight was beginning to colour the blue into the ocean just visible from the bathroom window. A fishing smack pushed through it and for the first time in a year I had that same surge of hope, a feeling that today could be the first day of a different life.

I dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt (short sleeves lack gravitas), a light grey suit and a pair of black brogues. I selected one of the thirty ties Olivia had made for me, a quiet one, not one that a pathologist would like to trap in a petri dish. I went to the top of the shabby wooden stairs and had a momentary feeling of a man who’s just been told to take a grand piano down on his own.

I left the house, my crumbling mansion which I inherited from my parents at a peppercorn rent, and headed for the café. The plaster was flaking off the garden wall which was reckless with unpruned bougainvillea. I made a mental note to let the riot continue.

From the public gardens I looked back at the faded pink house whose long windows had lost all their white paint and thought that if I didn’t have to go and inspect bludgeoned, brutalized bodies I could persuade myself that I was a retired count whose annuity was in a vice.

I was nervous, part of me willing this day not to proceed to my first meeting with a new person and my face naked – all that sizing up, all that accommodation, all that . . . and no mask too.

A corner of pepper trees in the gardens whispered to each other like parents who didn’t want to wake the kids. Beyond them, António, who never slept, who hadn’t slept, he once told me, since 1964, was winding down his red canvas awning which sported only the name of his bar and no advertising for beer or coffee.

‘I didn’t expect to see you before midday,’ he said.

‘Nor did I,’ I said. ‘But at least you recognized me.’

I followed him in and he started the coffee grinder which was like a wire wool scrub on my eyeballs. Yesterday’s Polaroid was already up on his memorial wall. I didn’t recognize myself at first. The young-looking one between the fat man and the pretty girl. Except that Olivia wasn’t looking very girlish either, more . . . more of a . . .

‘I thought you were off today,’ said António.

‘I was but . . . a body’s been found on the beach. Anyone been in yet?’

‘No,’ he said, looking out vaguely in the direction of the beach. ‘Washed up?’

‘The body? I don’t know.’

Standing in the doorway wearing a dark suit which had been cut in Salazar’s time and had knuckle-brushing sleeves was a young guy. He approached the bar stiffly as if it was his first time on TV and asked for a bica, the one-inch shot of caffeine which adrenalizes a few million Portuguese hearts every morning.

He watched the black and tan mixture trickle into the cups. António turned the grinder off and the golfball cleaner effect on my eyeballs eased.

The young guy put two sugar sachets into his coffee and asked for a third. I flicked him one of mine. He stirred it lengthily to a syrup.

‘You must be Inspector Senhor Doutor José Afonso Coelho,’ he said, not looking at me but glancing up at the hammer and sickle António kept behind the bar. His relics.

‘Engenheiro Narciso will be pleased,’ I said, glancing around the empty bar. ‘How did you guess?’

His head flicked round. He must have been mid-twenties but he looked no different than he had done at sixteen. His dark brown eyes connected with mine. He was irritated.

‘You look vulnerable,’ he said, and nodded that into me for effect.

António’s eyebrows changed places.

‘An interesting observation agente Pinto,’ I said grimly. ‘Most people would have commented on the whiteness of my cheeks. And there’s no need to call me Doutor. It doesn’t apply.’

‘I thought you had a degree in Modern Languages.’

‘But from London University, and there you don’t get called a doctor until you have a PhD. Just call me Zé or Inspector.’

We shook hands. I liked him. I didn’t know why I liked him. Narciso thought I liked everybody but he had that confused in his mind with ‘getting on with people’ which he couldn’t do himself because he was colder and rougher-skinned than a shark with blood on its radar. The fact was, I’d only ever loved one woman and the people I’d call close were in single figures. And now Carlos. What was it about him? That suit? Old-fashioned, too big and wool in summer said no vanity . . . and no money. His hair? Black, durable, disobedient, short as a trooper’s, said, to me anyway: serious and dependable. His irritated look said: defiant, touchy. His first words? Direct, candid, perceptive said: uncompromising. A difficult combination for a policeman. I could see why nobody else would have him.

‘I didn’t know about London,’ he said.