“They’re a bunch of thieving bastards, the lot of them. They have contracts with the park; they own the boats that bring the tourists; I’m pretty sure they’re in with the authorities too.” Pampín spat on the ground in disgust. “God knows what shady dealings they’ve got going on.”
“How did they get their hands on everything?” Roberto looked around. “I thought this place wasn’t much more than an isolated fishing village until the 1970s. Where did they get the money from?”
“That’s a question you’d have to ask them.” Pampín’s expression became much more opaque. “Anyway, I don’t want any problems, and I’ve probably said too much already.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t say a word,” Roberto assured him.
It was clear that the island, like all remote, rural places, had its own collection of stories, rivalries, and jealousies. But the reporter inside him couldn’t help being intrigued. How had two fishing families managed to amass a fortune and basically take possession of the whole island while the rest had had no choice but to emigrate?
He added the enigma to the long list of things he couldn’t quite believe.
“And what’s that for?” Roberto pointed at the pole with the blunt metal blade.
“This?” He shook it in front of him. “It’s a scraper. For pulling goose barnacles off the rocks. Best goose barnacles in the world. You should try them.”
“Isn’t it dangerous?” Roberto asked, vaguely remembering a documentary he had once seen about the men and women who risked their lives to gather this prized seafood from the treacherous rocks below the tideline.
Pampín muttered something unintelligible and looked down at the ground. Roberto would have bet anything that the man had never seen a fishing license in his life.
“How do you manage to make a living on the island?” he asked.
“From the sea, of course,” the poacher replied. “In the summer, I sell my catch on the mainland; in the winter, I just feed myself. Octopus, mussels, fish ... Between that and the vegetable patch, I get by.”
“You don’t get bored?”
“No,” the man laughed. “There’s always something to do. I don’t stick my nose into other people’s business, and I try to make sure they don’t stick their noses into mine.”
“The rangers in particular,” Roberto joked.
“Yes,” grunted Pampín, clearly irritated, before abruptly falling silent.
“What’s up?” asked Roberto, inwardly cursing his inability to lay off the irony.
But the poacher didn’t answer. Instead, he turned and walked off to one side of the path. The slope grew gradually steeper until it reached an old, half-ruined wall. The man pointed to something on the slope.
“That wasn’t there two days ago,” he said.
Roberto looked in the direction Pampín indicated, trying to make out what he was referring to. Eventually, he spotted something of a beaten track through the bracken and brambles. He would never have noticed it without the poacher pointing it out.
“Someone’s come this way recently,” Pampín said nervously.
“Some animal, I bet,” Roberto ventured. “Maybe a rabbit or a badger.”
“There’s nothing big enough here to make a path like that.” He shook his head. “It has to be something else.”
They cautiously approached the beginning of the path. Pampín put his sack down, grasped the scraper with both hands, and held it out in front of him. He seemed nervous. Using the scraper, he pushed the vegetation aside, clearly on edge.
Underneath, there were just earth and the droppings of some small rodent. The man sighed in relief and straightened up, but Roberto quickly shattered his tranquility.
“What’s that?”
Pampín looked where Roberto was pointing.
It was a drop of dried blood; there was no doubt about it. A bit farther on, following the track through the undergrowth, was another—and another.
Once he’d seen it, the trail of blood was clear as day. Whatever it was had left a series of drops, running up to the crest of the hill and out of sight.
“Let’s see where it leads,” said Roberto.
