day as usual; they were investigating the case of a missing woman, whose partner was the chief suspect. For months the disappearance had been regarded as intentional, but her daughters’ insistence that their mother hadn’t left of her own accord had aroused Amaia’s interest, and she had reopened the investigation. Besides her two daughters and three grandchildren, the middle-aged woman was a catechist at her local church and paid daily visits to the care home where her elderly mother lived. Too many commitments for her to vanish without a word. They had established early on that suitcases, clothes, personal documents and money were missing from her house. Even so, when Amaia decided to take over the investigation, she insisted on going back there. Lucía Aguirre’s house was as neat and tidy as the photograph of its smiling owner, which had pride of place in the hallway. In the tiny sitting room, a piece of crochet lay on a coffee table covered with photographs of her grandchildren.
Amaia searched the kitchen and bathroom, which were spotlessly clean. In the master bedroom, the bed was made and there were few clothes in the wardrobe and chest of drawers. In the spare room were twin beds.
‘Jonan, do you notice something strange here?’
‘The bedcovers are different,’ said Deputy Inspector Etxaide.
‘We noticed that the first time around. The matching counterpane is in the wardrobe,’ explained the accompanying officer, checking his notes.
Amaia opened the wardrobe to find the blue counterpane matching one of those on the bed neatly folded in a see-through plastic pouch.
‘And didn’t it strike you as odd that this neat, house-proud woman wouldn’t take the trouble to use matching bedspreads, when she had them to hand?’
‘Why start changing bedspreads if she was planning to disappear?’ the officer said with a shrug.
‘Because we’re slaves to our nature. Did you know that some women from East Berlin mopped the floors of their houses before fleeing to West Germany? They were abandoning their country, but they didn’t want anyone saying they weren’t good housewives.’
Amaia pulled the bulky package out of the wardrobe and put it on one of the beds before unzipping it. The sharp odour of bleach permeated the room. With one gloved hand, she tugged at the edge of the counterpane, unfolding it to reveal a yellowish stain in the middle where the bleach had eaten away the colour.
‘You see, officer, it doesn’t fit,’ she said, turning towards the policeman, who nodded, speechless.
‘Our murderer has seen enough TV programmes about crime scene investigations to know that bleach gets rid of bloodstains, but he’s a terrible house husband because he didn’t take into account that it also removes the colour. Call in Forensics to do a blood search – this stain is enormous.’
After a thorough search by the forensic team, traces had been found, which, despite the attempted clean-up, revealed amounts of lost blood that would have resulted in loss of life: the human body contains five litres of blood; losing five hundred millilitres is sufficient to cause fainting, and the tests suggested more than two litres had been spilled. They had arrested the suspect the same day: a vain, cocky individual, his overly long hair streaked with grey, and his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. Amaia suppressed a laugh when she saw what he looked like from the adjoining room.
‘The return of El Macho,’ said Deputy Inspector Extaide. ‘Who’s going to question him?’
‘Inspector Fernández, they’ve been working on the case from the beginning …’
‘I assumed it would be us, now that this is a murder inquiry. If it hadn’t been for you, they’d still be waiting for her to send a postcard from Cancún.’
‘It’s a matter of courtesy, Jonan. Besides, I can’t interrogate suspects in this state,’ she said, pointing to her belly.
Inspector Fernández entered the interview room and Jonan switched on the recorder.
‘Good morning, Mr Quiralte. My name’s Detective Inspector Fer—’
‘Wait a minute,’ interrupted Quiralte. He raised his cuffed hands, accompanying the gesture with a flick of his hair worthy of a diva in a celebrity magazine. ‘Don’t I get to be interrogated by the star cop?’
‘Who do you mean?’
‘You know, that inspector woman from the FBI?’
‘How do you know about that?’ asked Fernández, taken aback. Amaia clicked her tongue in annoyance. Quiralte smirked.
‘Because I’m smarter than you.’
Fernández looked nervous. He had little experience interrogating murderers, and the suspect had already succeeded in unsettling him.
‘Don’t let him get the upper hand,’ muttered Amaia.
As if he could hear her, Fernández took control of the interview.
‘Why do you want her to interrogate you?’
‘Because they tell me she’s hot, and I’d rather be questioned by a pretty woman inspector than by you any day,’ he said, settling back in his chair.
‘Well, you’ll have to make do with me. The inspector you are referring to is on leave.’
Sneering, Quiralte turned towards the two-way mirror as if he could see through it.
‘Well, that’s a shame, I’ll just have to wait until she gets back.’
‘You don’t intend to give a statement?’
‘Of course I do.’ He was clearly enjoying himself. ‘Don’t pull that face, if the star cop isn’t here, take me before the judge and I’ll tell him I killed that stupid cow.’
And that was precisely what he did. He confessed straight away, only to remind the magistrate impudently that without a body there was no crime, and that for the moment he had no intention of telling them where it was. One of the youngest magistrates on the circuit, Judge Markina’s chiselled looks and stonewashed jeans occasionally fooled some felons into giving too much away, as had been the case with Quiralte. He gave the man one of those dazzling smiles that wrought havoc among the female clerks, before ordering his detention.
‘So, no body, eh, Mr Quiralte? Well, then we’ll just have to wait until it appears. I’m afraid you’ve been watching too many American movies. The fact of admitting that you know where the body is while refusing to divulge this information is reason enough to detain you indefinitely. Moreover you’ve confessed to a murder. A spell in jail might refresh your memory. I’ll talk to you again when you have something to tell me. Until then …’
Amaia had walked home, trying to thrust the details of the case from her mind, as an exercise in self-control but also to get herself in the mood for celebrating her final day at work with James. The baby was due in two weeks’ time, and although she felt perfectly capable of working right up until the last moment, James had persuaded her to take some annual leave because his parents were due to arrive the following day. After dinner, she had fallen into bed, exhausted, and gone to sleep without realising it. All she remembered was that one minute she was talking to James and then, nothing.
She heard the woman first, before she saw her. She was shivering with cold; the sound of her teeth chattering bone against bone was so loud it caused Amaia to open her eyes. Lucía Aguirre was wearing the same red-and-white knitted sweater as in the photograph in her hallway, a gold crucifix round her neck, short fair hair, no doubt dyed to mask the grey. Nothing else about her appearance resembled the cheerful, self-possessed woman who was smiling at the camera. Lucía Aguirre wasn’t weeping, wailing or sobbing, yet there was a deep, distressing pain in her blue eyes that gave her face an air of profound bewilderment, as if she understood nothing, as if she couldn’t accept what was happening to her. She stood quietly, disoriented, rocked by a relentless wind that seemed to blow from every direction and made her sway rhythmically, adding to her air of helplessness. Her left arm was clasped about her waist, in a self-protective gesture that afforded her little