The Invisible Guardian Read online

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Look at how they’ve scattered it at the sides of the body,’ observed Amaia, pointing out several small piles of fine hair. ‘It seems more likely they wanted to get rid of it to replace it with this,’ she said, gesturing to a small, sticky, golden cake that had been placed on the girl’s hairless pubic mound.

  ‘What a bastard. Why do people do that sort of thing? As if it wasn’t enough to kill a young girl without putting that there. What on earth can they be thinking to do something like this?’ exclaimed Jonan in disgust.

  ‘Well, kid, it’s your job to work out what that swine was thinking,’ said Montes, going over to San Martín.

  ‘Was she raped?’

  ‘I don’t believe so, although I won’t know for certain until I examine her more thoroughly. The staging is decidedly sexual … cutting her clothes, leaving her chest exposed to the air, shaving her pubic area … and, of course, the cake … it looks like some kind of cupcake, or …’

  ‘It’s a txantxigorri,’ Amaia interrupted him. ‘It’s a local speciality made to a traditional recipe, although this one’s smaller than normal. It’s definitely a txantxigorri though. Jonan, get them to bag it, and please,’ said Amaia, addressing the group, ‘don’t mention this to anybody. It’s classified information, at least for now.’

  They all nodded.

  ‘We’re finished here. She’s all yours, San Martín. We’ll see you at the Institute.’

  Amaia got up and took one last look at the girl before going up the slope to her car.

  2

  Inspector Montes had chosen an eye-catching, and doubtless very expensive, violet tie that morning, which stood out against his lilac shirt. The overall effect was elegant, but it did have an incongruous air of Miami Vice about it. The cops who joined them in the lift must have thought the same thing and Amaia didn’t miss the disapproving looks they exchanged as they got out. She glanced at Montes since it was likely he’d noticed too, but he carried on checking the messages on his smartphone, enveloped in a cloud of Armani aftershave and apparently unaware of the effect he was having.

  The meeting room door was closed, but before Amaia could even touch the handle it was opened from inside by a uniformed officer, as if he’d been stationed there expressly to await their arrival. He stepped aside, giving them a clear view of a light, spacious conference room and more people than Amaia was expecting. The Commissioner was at the head of the table with two empty spaces to his right. He waved them forward and began the introductions as they moved into the room.

  ‘Inspector Salazar, Inspector Montes, you already know Inspector Rodríguez from Forensics and Dr San Martín. This is Deputy Inspector Aguirre from Narcotics and Deputy Inspector Zabalza and Inspector Iriarte from the police station in Elizondo. They happened to be out of town when the body was found yesterday.’

  Amaia nodded a greeting to those she knew and shook hands with the others.

  ‘Salazar, Montes, I’ve called you here because I’ve got a suspicion Ainhoa Elizasu’s case is going to be trickier than expected,’ said the Commissioner, taking his seat and gesturing to them to do the same. ‘Inspector Iriarte contacted us this morning to share some information that could be important when we see how the case you’re working on develops.’

  Inspector Iriarte leant forwards, putting his enormous aizkolari woodsman’s hands on the table.

  ‘A month ago, on January 5th to be precise,’ he said, consulting a small black leather-bound notebook that was almost hidden by his hands, ‘a shepherd from Elizondo was taking his sheep to drink at the river when he found the body of a Carla Huarte, a seventeen-year-old girl. She disappeared on New Year’s Eve after going to the Crash Test night club in Elizondo with her boyfriend and a group of friends. She left with him at around four in the morning and he returned alone about three quarters of an hour later. He told a friend they’d had a fight and she’d become so angry she’d got out of the car and stormed off. The friend convinced him to go and look for her and they went back an hour later but they couldn’t find any trace of her. They say they weren’t too worried because there were a lot of courting couples and stoners around the area. Furthermore, the girl was very popular so they assumed someone had given her a lift. We found hair belonging to the girl and one of those silicon bra straps in the boyfriend’s car.’

  Iriarte paused for breath and looked at Montes and Amaia before continuing.

  ‘And here’s the bit that might interest you. Carla’s body turned up in an area about two kilometres from where Ainhoa Elizasu was found. She’d been strangled with parcel string and her clothes had been cut open from top to bottom.’

  Amaia looked at Montes in alarm.

  ‘I remember reading about this case in the papers. Had her pubic area been shaved?’ she asked.

  Iriarte looked at Deputy Inspector Zabalza, who replied, ‘The truth is, there wasn’t much of it left; her whole pubic mound had been torn away by what looked like animal bites. The autopsy report mentions tooth marks from at least three different types of animal and hairs from a wild boar, a fox, and possibly a bear.’

  ‘A bear? Are you serious?’ exclaimed Amaia with an incredulous smile.

  ‘We’re not one hundred per cent sure, we sent moulds of the tooth marks to the Institute for the Study of Pyrenean Plantigrades. Apparently, since bears walk on all fours with flat feet, they fall under their area of expertise. We haven’t heard back from them yet, but …’

  ‘What about the little cake?’

  ‘There wasn’t a little cake … well, maybe there was. That would explain the bites around the pubic area, since the animals would have been attracted by such a sweet, unfamiliar smell.’

  ‘Were there bite marks elsewhere on the body?’

  ‘No, although there were some hoof and paw prints.’

  ‘What about pubic hair arranged around the body?’ asked Amaia.

  ‘We didn’t find that either, but you should keep in mind that Carla Huarte’s body was found in the river, submerged from her ankles to her thighs, and there had been torrential rain in the days following her disappearance. If there was anything, the rain would have washed it away.’

  ‘Didn’t you remember this case when you examined the girl yesterday?’ Amaia turned to the forensic scientist.

  ‘Of course,’ agreed San Martín, ‘but it’s not that simple, they’re only similarities. Do you have any idea how many bodies I see in the space of a year? There are common elements in many cases that are entirely unconnected. Anyway, yes, I did think of this case, but I needed to consult my notes from the autopsy before saying anything. In Carla’s case, everything pointed to a sexual assault by her boyfriend. The girl had alcohol and all kinds of drugs in her system, several love bites on her neck and a bite mark on her chest that matched the boyfriend’s dental imprint. We also found suspicious fragments of skin under her nails that matched a deep scratch on his neck.’

  ‘Did you find traces of semen?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did the boy have to say for himself? And what’s his name, by the way?’ asked Montes.

  ‘He’s called Miguel Ángel de Andrés. He told me he’d been drinking and had also taken cocaine and ecstasy, and I’m inclined to believe him,’ Aguirre smiled. ‘We arrested him on the sixth of January, during the Reyes Magos Epiphany celebrations and he was as high as a kite then, too. He tested positive for four different drugs including cocaine.’

  ‘So where’s this little treasure now?’ asked Amaia.

  ‘He was refused bail and is on remand in the prison in Pamplona, awaiting trial for sexual assault and murder … He’s got previous drug-related convictions,’ said Aguirre.

  ‘I think this calls for a trip to the prison to question Miguel Ángel de Andrés again, don’t you? Perhaps he wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t kill the girl.’

  ‘Could you give us a copy of Carla Huarte’s autopsy report, Dr San Martín?’asked Montes.

  ‘Of course.’
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  ‘What we’re most interested in are the photos taken at the scene.’

  ‘I’ll get them to you ASAP.’

  ‘And it’s probably worth inspecting the girl’s clothes again now we know what to look for,’ added Amaia.

  ‘Inspector Iriarte and Deputy Inspector Zabalza are leading the investigation at the station in Elizondo,’ intervened the Commissioner. ‘That’s where you’re from originally, isn’t it, Inspector Salazar?’

  Amaia nodded.

  ‘They’ll give you all the help you need,’ said the Commissioner and he got to his feet, bringing the meeting to an end.

  3

  The boy sitting opposite her was slightly hunched over as if he were carrying a heavy load on his shoulders, his hands were resting loosely on his knees, hundreds of tiny red capillaries showed through the skin of his face, and there were deep, dark circles under his eyes. Nothing like the photo Amaia remembered seeing in the papers a month earlier, in which he was posing defiantly next to his car. There was no trace of his former self-assurance or cocky pose and he looked visibly older. When Amaia and Jonan Etxaide entered the interview room, the boy had been staring at a point in the middle distance from which he found it difficult to return.

  ‘Hello, Miguel Ángel.’

  He didn’t answer. He sighed and looked at them in silence.

  ‘I’m Inspector Salazar and this,’ she gestured to Jonan, ‘is Deputy Inspector Etxaide. We want to talk to you about Carla Huarte.’

  He lifted his head and, as if overwhelmed by immense fatigue, muttered, ‘I have nothing to say, everything I have to tell you is in my statement … There’s nothing to add, it’s the truth, there’s nothing to add, I didn’t kill her and that’s a fact, there’s nothing to add, leave me in peace and talk to my lawyer.’

  He hung his head again and focused all his attention on his pale, dry hands.

  ‘Right,’ said Amaia with a sigh, ‘I can see that we haven’t got off to a good start. Let’s try again. I don’t think you killed Carla.’

  Miguel Ángel looked up, surprised this time.

  ‘I think she was alive when you left the mountain, and I think that someone else approached her later and killed her.’

  ‘That’s …’ Miguel Ángel stammered, ‘that’s what must have happened.’ Fat tears poured down his face as he started to tremble. ‘Yes, that’s what must have happened, because I didn’t kill her, please believe me, I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘I believe you,’ said Amaia, sliding a packet of paper tissues across the table towards him. ‘I believe you and I’m going to help you get out of here.’

  The boy clasped his hands together as if praying.

  ‘Please, please,’ he muttered.

  ‘But first, you have to help me,’ she said, almost sweetly. He dried his tears but was still snivelling as he nodded. ‘Tell me about Carla. What was she like?’

  ‘Carla was great, she was an amazing girl, really pretty, really outgoing, she had a lot of friends …’

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘At school. I’d already left and I work … until all this happened I worked with my brother, tarring roofs. It suited me, and it was money in my pocket; it’s a shitty job but it’s well paid. She was still studying; she was repeating a year, though, and wanted to drop out, but her parents insisted and she gave in.’

  ‘You’ve said she had a lot of friends, do you know whether she was seeing anyone else? Any other boys?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that,’ he said, regaining some energy and frowning. ‘She was with me and no one else.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘I am. Ask her girlfriends, she was crazy about me.’

  ‘Did you have sex?’

  ‘Yes, and it was good,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘When Carla’s body was found there were marks from your teeth on her chest.’

  ‘I already explained this at the time. That’s how it was with Carla, she liked it like that and so did I. Alright, we liked rough sex, so what? I never hit her or anything like that, they were just games.’

  ‘You say that she was the one who liked hard-core sex, however, in your statement,’ Jonan consulted his notes, ‘you said that she didn’t want to have sex that night, and that this made you angry. Something doesn’t add up here, wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘It was because of the drugs, one moment she was like a motorbike going full-throttle and the next she came over all paranoid and said she didn’t want to … Of course I got angry, but I didn’t force her and I didn’t kill her, it had happened to us before.’

  ‘And when it happened before did you make her get out of the car and leave her stranded on the mountainside?’

  Miguel Ángel shot him a furious look and swallowed before answering.

  ‘No, that was the first time, and I didn’t make her get out of the car: she was the one who took to her heels and didn’t want to get back in, even though I asked her to … Eventually I got fed up and left.’

  ‘She scratched your neck,’ said Amaia.

  ‘I’ve already told you, she liked it that way; she’d leave my back in shreds sometimes. Our friends can tell you; they saw the bite marks on my shoulders in the summer when we were sunbathing and they had a great laugh about it, calling her a she-wolf.’

  ‘When was the last time you’d had sex before that night?’

  ‘Um, probably the day before, whenever we saw each other we ended up fucking. As I said, she was crazy about me.’

  Amaia sighed and got to her feet, signalling to the guard.

  ‘Just one more thing. How did she like to keep her pubic area?’

  ‘Her pubic area? You mean the hair around her pussy?’

  ‘Yes, the hair around her pussy,’ said Amaia without blinking. ‘How did she keep it?’

  ‘She shaved it, she just left a tiny bit,’ he said, barely hiding his smile.

  ‘Why did she shave it?’

  ‘I’ve already told you that we both liked that sort of thing. I loved it …’

  Miguel Ángel got to his feet as they made their way to the door.

  ‘Inspector.’ The guard gestured at him to sit down. Amaia turned towards the boy.

  ‘Tell me, why now and not before?’

  The inspector looked at Jonan before replying, considering whether that cocky little shit deserved an explanation or not. She decided that he did.

  ‘Because another girl has been found murdered and the crime is a bit similar to what happened to Carla.’

  ‘Well there you go! Don’t you see? When will I get out of here?’

  Amaia turned towards the exit before answering. ‘We’ll keep you posted.’

  4

  Amaia was looking out of the window as the room started to fill up behind her. As she heard the scraping of chairs and the murmur of conversations she put her hands against the glass, pearly with microscopic drops of breath. The cold left no doubt that it was still winter outside and Pamplona looked damp and grey on that February evening as the light fled rapidly towards darkness. The gesture filled her with nostalgia for a summer that was so distant it seemed to belong to another world, a universe of light and warmth where dead girls would never be found abandoned on a river’s icy bank.

  Jonan appeared at her side, offering her a cup of milky coffee. She thanked him with a smile and held it in both hands, hoping in vain that the warmth from the cup would transfer to her frozen fingers. She sat down and waited while Montes closed the door and the general murmur abated.

  ‘Fermín?’ said Amaia, inviting Inspector Montes to start things off.

  ‘I’ve been to Elizondo to talk to the girls’ parents and the shepherd who found Carla Huarte’s body. Nothing from the parents. Carla’s say that they didn’t like their daughter’s friends, that they went out a lot and got drunk, and they are convinced her boyfriend did it. One important detail: they didn’t report her missing until the fourth of January, bearing in mind that the girl left the house on t
he thirty-first … Their explanation is that the girl turned eighteen on the first and they thought she’d left home like she’d often threatened to do. It was only after they contacted her friends that they realised she hadn’t been seen for days.

  ‘Ainhoa Elizasu’s parents are in complete shock and are here in Pamplona at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, waiting for the body to be released once the autopsy’s taken place. The girl was wonderful and they don’t understand how someone could have done this to their daughter. The brother hasn’t been much help either; he blames himself for not having said anything sooner. And her friends from Elizondo say that they were at one of their houses first and then they went for a wander around town. Ainhoa suddenly realised what time it was and had to run; nobody went with her to the bus stop because it was very close to where they were. They don’t remember being approached by anyone suspicious, they didn’t argue with anyone, and Ainhoa didn’t have a boyfriend and nor was she messing around with anyone. The most interesting thing was talking to the shepherd, José Miguel Arakama, who’s a real character. He’s sticking to his initial statement, but the most important thing is something he remembered days later, a detail he didn’t think was important at the time because it didn’t seem to be at all related to the discovery of the body.’

  ‘Are you going to tell us then?’ interrupted Amaia impatiently.

  ‘He was telling me that a lot of prostitutes hang around that area and leave it in a real mess, with cigarette butts, empty cans, used condoms and even knickers and bras lying around, when he happened to mention that one day one of them left a pair of brand-new red party shoes there.’

  ‘The description matches the ones that Carla Huarte was wearing on New Year’s Eve, and they weren’t found with the body,’ pointed out Jonan.

  ‘And that’s not all. He’s sure that it was New Year’s Day that he saw them; he was working that day and, although he didn’t take the sheep down to drink there, he saw the shoes clearly. In his own words, it looked as if someone had left them like that deliberately, like when you go to bed or for a swim in the river,’ he said, reading from his notes.