She had been decapitated.
And there was no trace of her head.
30
You’re Being Watched
The wave of nausea was overpowering. The musty smell of the room was mixed with the unmistakable stench of blood and feces that stained the woman’s legs after she had lost control of her sphincters at the moment of death.
Nervously, Roberto checked the hovel, ready to flee at any moment. But the curtain that separated Elvira’s sleeping quarters from the rest of the room had been drawn back, and he could see that the place was deserted.
He peered outside. Whoever was responsible for this could be hiding in the darkness, observing him, waiting to jump him when he emerged. The thought was enough to make him slam the door shut and wedge one of the stools against it, panting nervously.
Sweat poured down his back. He confirmed, much to his relief, that the blood on the floor was dark brown and coagulated. It was far from fresh, so there was no reason to believe that the killer was still on the scene.
Somewhat reassured but with his heart in his mouth, he walked around the room. In the guttering candlelight, things did not appear to have been disturbed.
He couldn’t say if anything was missing in that jumble of possessions and pieces of junk, but it still appeared to be arranged according to a system that only the unfortunate Elvira had understood. Unable to bear the sight of her body any longer, Roberto removed the cover from the bed and draped it over her as an improvised shroud. Doing that made him feel slightly better.
This was the work of the same murderer who had killed Ricardo Docampo; there was no doubt about that. The same primeval violence, the same modus operandi, the same mixture of savagery and precision in the ritual arrangement of the victim and, above all, the absence of the head. The trophy. The proof of the killer’s triumph.
He analyzed the scene meticulously. The door had not been forced, which meant either that the killer had a key or that Elvira had let them in. Either she already knew her murderer, or she didn’t think they were a threat. Whatever the case, once inside, the killer couldn’t have found it difficult to overcome the old woman.
Inside. That’s it!
For the first time,Tangarañohad made a mistake. Unlike the previous murder scene, this location was under cover, and the rain hadn’t washed away any prints. There might be some kind of a clue.
He began to systematically search the room but soon lost heart.
It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, particularly since he didn’t know what he was looking for. The place was a perfect mixture of a chronic hoarder’s sanctuary and the lair of a crazy old witch. It was impossible to say if anything was out of place.
“Come on, Elvira,” he muttered, glancing at the body outlined under the bedspread. “There must be something. Where is it?”
Deflated, he dropped into the chair that was pulled up to the table, on which sat a cold dish of untouched, grilled mackerel and boiled potatoes, the woman’s last supper, which she hadn’t even had time to eat, interrupted by her lethal visitor. The fish stared at him with dead eyes, silent witness to whatever had happened there, as if it were laughing at him.
His feet encountered something beneath the table. Intrigued, he bent down and discovered the heavy wooden chest where the old woman kept the gifts she demanded of her visitors.
“This is it!” he exclaimed, unable to contain himself. “It has to be here!”
Let’s see what gift you brought to gain entry. I’ve got you, you bastard!
He opened the chest and looked inside. It was like the treasure trove of a mad antique dealer. At the top was his old fountain pen, the one he had given her a few days before in exchange for the cleansing ritual she had performed.
His hopes faded. He had been sure there would be something more, some object that unequivocally gave away the murderer, but like all expectations based on illusions, the answer wasn’t there.
Any gift that had followed his own visit should have been on top of the fountain pen, but everything else in the chest looked as if it had been there for a long time. Even so, he rummaged through the contents in the vain hope of coming across something.
His fingers closed around a hard, metallic object. To his surprise, he extracted an old Walther P38 from the chest, identical to the one Antía had offered him at El Cucorno but in much worse condition. Unlike the Freires’ one, this had rust spots all over, was missing part of its handle, and had an air of neglect. It was impossible to know how long it had been in there, but it was clearly an offering either from a Freire or a Docampo.
He put it in his pocket. Did this gift mean that one of the two families was involved in the ritual deaths, or was there simply no connection? Things were becoming even more complicated.
Just then, he heard a distant noise over the storm. He wouldn’t have picked it out if it hadn’t been completely unlike all the other noises on the island. It was a sound he knew perfectly, but here it was completely out of place, and his blood froze.
It was the sound of an engine.
He rushed out of the house. No more than a quarter of a mile away, the headlights of an SUV bobbed along the track, making their way toward him through the pouring rain.
What the hell?
