A Small Death in Lisbon. Robert Thomas Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ asked Carlos.

      I didn’t answer.

      The mist had cleared from around the bridge, the cranes being used to sling the new rail link underneath it saluted Cristo Rei, the massive Christ statue on the south bank, whose outspread arms reminded us that it could all be possible. I didn’t need reminding. I knew it. Lisbon had changed more in the last ten years than in the two and a half centuries since the earthquake.

      It had been like a mouth that hadn’t seen a dentist for too long. Rotten buildings had been yanked out, old streets torn up, squares ripped out, centuries of plaque scraped off, façades drilled out and filled with a pristine amalgam of concrete and tile, gaps plugged with offices and shopping centres and apartment blocks. Moles had tunnelled new stretches of Metro and a brand-new intestine of cabling had been fed into the root canals of the city. We’d wired in new roads, built a new bridge, extended the airport. We’re the new gnashers in Europe’s Iberian jaw. We can smile now and nobody faints.

      We thundered over the patchy tarmac at Alcântara. An old tram dinged past the Santos station. To the right the steel hulls of freighters flashed between the stacks of containers and advertisements for Super Bock beer. On the left office blocks and apartment buildings climbed up the hills of Lisbon. We ran the light at Cais do Sodré as a new tram, a mobile hoarding for Kit Kat, hissed behind us. I lit my first cigarette of the day – SG Ultralights – hardly smoking at all.

      ‘Maybe he’s just going to his office,’ said Carlos. ‘Do a bit of work on a Saturday morning.’

      ‘Why speculate when you can call him on his mobile?’

      ‘You’re kidding.’

      ‘I’m kidding.’

      The yellow façade and the massive triumphal arch of the Terreiro do Paço sucked us away from the river towards the grid of the Baixa valley between the hills of the Fort of São Jorge and the Bairro Alto. The temperature hit thirty degrees. Fat, ugly bronzes loafed in the square. The lawyer’s Morgan cut right down the Rua da Alfândega and left into Rua da Madalena which climbed steeply before dropping away into the new-look Largo de Martim Moniz with its glass and steel box kiosks and disinterested fountains. We skirted the square and accelerated up the slope of the Rua de São Lázaro past the Hospital de São José and into the square dominated by the pedimented, pillared façade of the Institute of Medicine. We parked close to the statue of Dr Sousa Martins, his plinth heaped with stone tablets of thanks, wax limbs and candles. Dr Oliveira was already parked and walking down the hill to the Institute of Forensic Medicine. Carlos took his jacket off and revealed a long dark stripe of sweat-soaked shirt.

      By the time we arrived in the Institute the lawyer was using all his training to get what he wanted – the staff, however, were more difficult to impress than a judge. I left him with Carlos and arranged for the body to be displayed. An orderly brought in Dr Oliveira, who had removed his dark glasses and now wore the bifocals. The assistant drew the sheet back. The lawyer blinked twice and nodded. He took the sheet from the assistant and pulled it back to see the whole body which he inspected closely. He drew the sheet back over her face and left the room.

      We found him standing outside in the cobbled street. He was cleaning his sunglasses endlessly and wearing an expression of extreme determination.

      ‘I am sorry for your loss, Senhor Doutor,’ I said. ‘I apologize for not telling you earlier. You have every right to be angry.’

      He didn’t look angry. The initial determination had flagged and the confusion of emotions that had followed had left his face strangely flaccid. He looked as if he was concentrating on his breathing.

      ‘Let’s walk up here and sit in the gardens in the shade,’ I said.

      We walked on either side of him through the cars, past the good doctor’s statue which rather than being imbued with the success of the cured was, in its pigeon-shit-spattered state, infused with the sadness of those who’d been lost. The three of us sat on a bench in surprising cool some distance from the pigeon-feeders and the coffee-drinkers idling in plastic chairs around the café.

      ‘You may be surprised to know that I am glad that you are investigating the murder of my daughter,’ said the lawyer. ‘I know you have a difficult job and I also realize that I am a suspect.’

      ‘I always start with those closest to the victim . . . it’s a sad fact.’

      ‘Ask your questions, then I must go back to my wife.’

      ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘When did you finish in court yesterday?’

      ‘About half-past-four.’

      ‘Where did you go?’

      ‘To my office. I keep a small office in the Chiado on Calçada Nova de S. Francisco. I went by the Metro from Campo Pequeno, changed at Rotunda and got off at Restauradores. I walked to the Elevador, took that up to the Chiado and continued on foot to my office. It took me maybe half an hour and I spent half an hour there.’

      ‘Did you speak to anybody?’

      ‘I took one call.’

      ‘From who?’

      ‘The Minister of Internal Administration asking me up to the Jockey Club for a drink. I left my office just after half-past-five and as you may know it’s only a two-minute walk to Rua Garrett from there.’

      I nodded. It was cast-iron. I asked him to write down the names of the people who were with him at the Jockey Club. Carlos gave him his notebook for the purpose.

      ‘Can I talk to your wife before you tell her what’s happened?’

      ‘If you follow me back there, yes. If not, I won’t wait.’

      ‘We’ll be right behind you.’

      He gave me the paper and we walked back towards the cars.

      ‘How did you know to come here, Senhor Doutor?’ I asked, as he threaded his way back to his Morgan.

      ‘I spoke to a friend of mine, a criminal lawyer, he told me that this is where they bring the bodies of those who have died in suspicious circumstances.’

      ‘Why did you think she’d died like that?’

      ‘Because I’d already asked him about you and he told me you were a homicide detective.’

      He turned and walked across the cobbles to his car. I lit a cigarette, got into the Alfa, waited for the Morgan to pull away and followed.

      ‘What did you make of that?’ I asked Carlos.

      ‘If it had been my daughter in there . . .’

      ‘You were expecting more distress?’

      ‘Weren’t you?’

      ‘What about numbness? Trauma leaves people numb.’

      ‘He didn’t seem numb. The look he had on his face when we came out, he was galvanized.’

      ‘Concerned about himself?’

      ‘I couldn’t say . . . you know, I only saw СКАЧАТЬ