“Cover that money up quick!” hissed Luis. “Don’t let him see it!”
Someone produced a faded blue tarpaulin and pulled it over the wheelbarrow. Beneath it, all that could be seen was a bulky form that could have been anything.
When Pampín reached the group, stopping and resting on his pole, he gave them a quizzical look.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
“There’s nothing going on here, Víctor.” Luis Docampo spread his arms wide and offered up an apparently sincere smile. “We’re just shooting the breeze.”
“The Freires and the Docampos having a friendly chat on a January afternoon.” Pampín looked doubtful. “Sure, Luis. You’re pulling my leg.”
“Aren’t we allowed to talk to each other?”
“I’ve never seen you spend more than ten minutes together without ending up at each other’s throats.” His eyes came to rest on Roberto, and he frowned, surprised to see him there, but he had the good sense not to reveal that they’d already met.
“Okay, Pampín,” Rosalía interrupted. “And what are you doing here? You don’t usually come down to the village.”
Pampín’s only response was to look at the flat blade at the end of his pole, as if he had just noticed he was holding it.
“I’m glad you’ve asked me.” His tone hardened. “I guess you know why I’m carrying this scraper, right?”
“You’ll have been collecting goose barnacles, I imagine,” Rosalía Freire said. “How should I know?”
“Don’t play the innocent with me!” The man’s angry outburst took them by surprise. “You know perfectly well what’s happened! This morning, I saw two of your nephews sniffing around Con da Fervenza, and when I went down a bit later, they’d scraped the place bare! There wasn’t a single barnacle left! Not one!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rosalía replied.
Behind Pampín’s back, two members of the Freire clan exchanged a guilty glance. Roberto sighed. This was just what he needed. Not only had Pampín turned up at just the wrong moment; now an argument about poaching had kicked off.
“Don’t treat me like a fool!” yelled Pampín, going red in the face. “We agreed that Con da Fervenza is my territory. I’m the only one who can collect there! Your family doesn’t have any right to be there!”
“I’m telling you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rosalía’s voice was ice-cold. “Anyway, this isn’t a good time. It would be better to talk later.”
“I don’t want to talk later! I want explanations now!” Pampín shouted. Just then, his glance fell on the wheelbarrow beneath thetarpaulin, and a suspicious expression came over his face. “What have you got there?”
“None of your business, Víctor,” Ramón Docampo said curtly. “Listen to Rosalía and get out of here.”
“Like hell I will!” the poacher snorted. “I’m not going to let you lot make a fool of me! You always act as if the whole damn island belongs to you. And I’m sick of it!”
“Back off, I’m telling you,” warned Ramón, but the man, overcome by rage, ignored him.
“I bet that wheelbarrow is full of shellfish from my beach! And I want them back!”
Later, Roberto would ask himself what would have happened if Pampín hadn’t made as if to remove the blue tarpaulin from the barrow. If he had instead been content to grumble and utter a couple of threats.
But he would never know, because Víctor Pampín grabbed the end of the tarp, about to reveal what lay beneath, and—with that simple gesture—set off the terrible chain of ensuing events.
It all happened so fast. Rosalía Freire grabbed Pampín’s arm to stop him. He pushed her away. She stumbled, and one of her feet hit a slab that had been loosened by the winter rains. That was enough to make her lose her balance. Her arms windmilled as she tried to stay upright, but she toppled backward. Antía stepped forward, trying to stop her mother from falling, but she was too far away. Her sudden movement startled Pampín. Maybe the man was completely beside himself, or maybe he thought Antía was trying to attack him. Who knows. Whatever the reason, in a reflex gesture, he raised the scraper and landed a heavy blow to Antía’s ribs, causing her to double over and groan in pain.
After that, it was as if everything were taking place in slow motion. Roberto saw it all happening in a blur. It took him a second to realize that it was Diego, and another to understand what was about to happen. But it was too late.
“Leave them alone!” yelled the boy, his eyes wide. “Don’t hurt them! Bad man! Bad, bad, bad!”
Diego was holding a hammer, the same one Roberto had used to break open the chains. In one clean movement, he brought it down on Pampín’s head before the man had time to defend himself.
There was a sickening crunch. Pampín staggered, dropped his pole, and took a couple of steps backward. Dark red blood trickled down his forehead. He raised his hand to his head, incredulous, and when he withdrew it, saw that it was stained red. For a moment, he stared at his sticky fingers, as if he couldn’t understand what was happening. Then his eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed, like a puppet whose strings had suddenly been cut.
And that was all. No more than twenty seconds could have passed, but Roberto felt as if time had stopped and he was trapped in a nightmare. Nobody moved a muscle; they were too shocked to say anything.
