It was a somewhat difficult first interrogation. The guy couldn't stop crying. We carried out all the recommended protocols for emotional excesses: I asked him to calm down using my sweetest voice. I handed him a tissue. Garzón offered him coffee. We even suggested to him that, with an exception, he could light a cigarette even while at the police station. He didn't smoke, didn't want coffee and carried his own pack of tissues. The only thing he seemed willing to do was continue crying inconsolably. Neither the sub-inspector nor I are two monsters. No one can accuse us of not respecting the sensitivity of witnesses. But from that man we expected something more than a simple testimony. The circumstances made him suspicious at first. In principle, nothing more, because we were right at the beginning of the case. It had been only three hours since the body had been removed.
Christophe Dufour, French citizen residing in Spain. Thirty eight years. Documentation in order. Occupation: restaurateur. In the absence of more extensive forensic reports, we knew that he had been murdered by a couple of accurate stabs with a large, sharp knife. It happened at dawn, while he was sleeping peacefully in his food truck.
—His what? — Garzón asked, exaggerating the tone of curiosity.
—You know, sub-inspector, those vans that make and sell food. Now they are very fashionable, they are a global phenomenon.
—And you're going to write it like that in the reports, fud trac?
—If we translate it, it looks terrible. Food van, restaurant truck?
—Well, to me, fud trac seems like nonsense.
I promised to find a Hispanic alternative that would not offend his linguistic orthodoxy. The sub-inspector was like that, capable of getting finicky about adjacent issues when the problems that confronted us were of the first order. And in that case they were: there were no initial clues that we could draw on nor were there any witnesses. If we were trying to interrogate that stubborn mourner, it was not because there was anything against him in the first place. Eduardo Castillo was simply a friend and associate of the victim — and as such, he must have known something, or going a little further, he could have done something.
—Mr. Castillo, please. If you don't contain yourself a little, we can't talk, and you're here just for that, to talk.
—And we can't leave it for tomorrow? Maybe I'm a little more whole now.
—No, it's important that it be now.
—Is that why the first forty-eight hours after a crime are the most important to investigate?
"More or less," I responded, but upon seeing that Castillo had abandoned his tearful rant and was asking amateurish questions to the events section, the sub-inspector lost patience.
—Let's see, Eduardo, you are forty years old. At your age, you already control your tear ducts, so don't waste any more time and answer our questions.
"But they haven't done anything to me yet," he said with the innocence of a suckling child. She was right. At that moment I understood that this Eduardo was a very special man and that, between that and the happy food truck, that case also seemed like something out of the ordinary. I was not wrong.
Eduardo Castillo Montes. Just forty years, what today is considered "a young man" and years ago was called a man in maturity. Single. Born in Madrigal de las Altas Torres, but transplanted to Barcelona since time immemorial. Psychology studies that he had abandoned in the second year. Finally, that "suspect" spoke up, and there were moments when I thought I preferred him crying to ranting. He was so profuse in his verbal expression that, after asking him, we were forced to cut off his speech every now and then.
—We were the best friends. Flesh and Bone. Christophe was the nail because although younger than me, he was tougher and more resistant to adversity. Me, the flesh, because everything can easily hurt me. We started this business three years ago. Our society could have become a pot of crickets. I don't know if you are familiar with how a food truck works, but you can get an idea. The cooking space is small. Most of the time one cooks and the other serves at the same time. If you are not on good terms, sparks can fly at the slightest opportunity. But there were never any sparks between us. Christophe made the specialties that he had not finished preparing the night before and I served the customers without the slightest stress. Our gastronomy, French in general, but also with touches of "fusion", was very popular and...
—Did you live together? —was my first interruption.
—As I was telling you, life in the food truck business has a special aspect in many things. For example, in how these types of businessmen stay. In our case...
—What I want to know is if there was a sentimental relationship between the victim and you.
—No, not at all, not to mention! We are both straight and there was only friendship between us. Also, as I was going to tell you, because of our special way of living, we didn't even share the same roof. Our van is equipped so that one person can sleep comfortably. When we arrived at a place to work, one of us would take a room in a hotel and the other would stay in the vehicle. We took turns, one day him, another me. This way we could shower and, at the same time, the one who stayed kept watch so that we did not suffer theft or vandalism and...
—Is that type of accommodation usual? —Garzón asked.
—There is everything, everyone does it as best they can. It was going well for us because...
—Where did you meet?
—Eating at the counter of a cafeteria. We had both ordered the same dish, and since it was disgraceful, we started ranting in a very low voice and then...
My patience began to waver.
—Eduardo, could you be more specific in your explanations?
—I don't understand it, but I am very specific.
—That's clear, you are very specific and speak very well, with great propriety. What I mean is that you should not be so wordy in your explanations, that you should go more to the point of what interests us.
-I'll try.
It seemed that he was enjoying the interrogation, that after the tearful phase, he felt like the protagonist of a theatrical performance. “Curious individual,” I thought again.
—Tell me about Christophe. Has family?
-I don't think so. She was the loneliest person in the world. She never told me she had a family.
—Girlfriends, romantic relationships?
—It was more of a one-time hookup.
—Did you know any of his dates?
-Yes and no.
—Can you be more explicit?
—I'm afraid of going too far, inspector! After the cut that just hit me...
-It is not personal. You want your friend's murderer to appear, right? Well, when you talk, think about what can help us discover it and what can't.
He sighed resignedly. He was wearing denim overalls and a thick wool sweater. Lanky, of medium height. Skinny, with a prominent nose, straight hair and small lively eyes. He looked funny, a little childish.
—I knew the flirts he sometimes made with clients, he was a handsome man, he was successful with women. But when I say knew I mean that he had seen them. He never presented them to me or talked to me about details. He was very reserved.
—Didn't he tell you about his past?
-Not too much. He was born in Paris, traveled around the world many times, had worked on a cargo ship, in a Chinese import and export agency.
—And then you became a cook?
—I don't know if he was a professional cook with studies and all that stuff, but he cooked very well.
—Was your business working for you from an economic point of view?
—Yes, we were making a lot of money. The history of food trucks is an expanding trend. We didn't miss a fair, or a sports concentration... We had more and more contacts, they told us from the town halls in case we wanted to reserve a place at an event. Everything was going very well for us. The idea was to save until I could open a conventional restaurant. In the end, we all become bourgeois and think that putting down roots and living like ordinary people is ideal after a certain age, although we probably make a mistake.
He looked down and was thoughtful.
—Do you have any idea who could have killed your partner, any suspicions, any theories?
—No one stole anything, Inspector. Chris had no friends, but no enemies either. What can I say? A crazy person, a heartless person, someone from another planet... I don't know.
—You can go.
-We do not talk anymore?
—If your friend's murder is not solved in forty-eight hours, we will talk many more times, you'll see.
Garzón told me that this guy got on his nerves. He threw out his theory about the type of witnesses he included him in. According to him, someone who talks a lot and tries to give all kinds of details that have not been asked for is hiding something. The verbose forest covers the concrete discovery. The theory was not bad, nor new, but he had difficulty accepting it as good on this occasion. First: the witness can be a person who in any circumstance expresses himself in a big way, and second: not everything that the verbose witness might want to hide would necessarily be a crime. I had always been more in favor of thinking that those who talk a lot do so because they have little interesting to say, and that included witnesses and citizens in general. To me, from the outset, Eduardo Castillo did not cause me suspicions of guilt. He seemed sincere, and his initial uncontrollable tears showed, from my point of view, genuine pain. But who can know? The acting capabilities of human beings are neither measured nor counted, especially now that everyone is hooked on television series and can start imitating the protagonists.
It wasn't very clear where we should start. I had let myself be carried away by the impulses that usually attack me and before reading the few reports that I had had time to present to me, I had decided to question Castillo. Thus, the first step in the investigations would also be given by my intuition. After all, feminine intuition is one of the least pestilent clichés about women out there.
—Let's go to the morgue, Garzón.
-You believe?
—Can you think of any better place?
—Man, inspector, when it comes to that place... you can bet it is! And wouldn't it be better to start with the dossier that they have prepared for us? We do not know if a witness has appeared in the last moments or the exact circumstances or...
—I know, I know! But I want to physically see the victim and imagine her in a duet with Castillo.
—The food truck duo looks like a musical group, although one of the members will have few opportunities to sing.
—You never know, Fermín, don't they say that the dead also speak?
—But no one has said anything about them singing.
At that point in my professional life, heights that were beginning to make me dizzy, entering the morgue did not give me the same impression as when I started. However, a certain respect was always noticeable. There lived the dead in transit towards their definitive end; so visiting them was a kind of social ritual. The coroner in charge of the deceased Frenchman became very nervous when he saw us. He began to make excuses before we asked him for any explanation: it was too early, there were other corpses on the list, an autopsy is not a matter of a short time as we knew very well... When I told him that we only wanted to greet the corpse, his nervousness increase. That was an obvious example of why I hate interacting with people without a sense of humor. The sub-inspector finished confusing the situation by asking him bluntly: "But has he already cut it or not?" The doctor, who was young and inexperienced in police treatment, looked at me as if wondering who the caveman accompanying me was, and then his look turned into a request: "For God's sake, take him away from me!"
—Dr. Rosselló, all we want is to take a look at the body to see what it looks like, nothing more. Then we will wait for the result of the autopsy, which will be welcome when it arrives. Can you please allow us?
He took us with notable annoyance to the living room and opened the corresponding refrigerator drawer with a furtive gesture that seemed to expect some unpredictable action on our part. What was he afraid of, that we would kidnap the body? Without separating too much from us, he settled in the background to observe what we were doing. I turned calmly towards him:
"Could you leave us alone, please?" It's just that we need to have a confidential talk with the dead man.
He finally left. I perfectly imagined what he would say that night to his friends or his wife: "Two of the gang showed up saying nonsense and gave me a really hard time." Before I focused on looking at the corpse, my mind took a detour thinking about the amount of time human relationships make you waste. Charlatan witnesses, distrustful forensic experts... if the predictions that the world would end up dominated by robots were true, such an extreme had to be considered an absolute blessing for the work.
Christophe Dufour's body was striking: tall, strong, compact, with large hands and feet. On his pale face a red beard stood out, identical in color to his abundant hair. The features, somewhat altered by death, were regular, manly, almost noble, I would dare say. He must have been very attractive for those who like Nordic, Viking-type men. Garzón, since deep down he didn't understand what the hell we were doing there, asked me, hissing:
—So, inspector, what do you think of the stab wounds?
I hadn't even noticed the wounds, but yes, there they were, pale and regular next to the heart.
—Some clean and direct stabs.
—Well, I wonder what kind of animal could have hit them, because this guy is a sperm whale. The murderer must have had tremendous strength. That would rule us out a woman.
—Only discard the children, Fermín, and not because they don't have murderous instincts, which are becoming more and more common. There are very strong women.
—He didn't defend himself.
—The murderer surprised him, or they knew each other or he suddenly stood before him. And he went straight to the heart, with good aim. But the autopsy will tell us that with more precision.
—So, what were you interested in seeing, Inspector Delicado?
—What I wanted to see I have already seen. Now I have a perfect idea of what the food truck duo was like.
