Free Havana Blue by Leonardo Padura

you in an hour.”
    â€œYou’ll see me in an hour. In an hour? Hey, you’re sending me packing on my hoss and you’ve not even told me what the sheriff said . . .”
    â€œNot much at all. I spoke to the head of security at Foreign Trade, and it seems the Spaniard is purer than the holy mother virgin. Fond of whores and mean with them, but he sang the usual refrain: he’s a friend of Cuba, has done good business with us, nothing out of the ordinary.”
    â€œAnd are you going to talk to him?”
    â€œYou know I’d like to, don’t you? But I don’t think the Boss will give us a plane to go as far as Key Largo. The guy went there on the morning of the first. Apparently everyone left on the morning of the first.”
    â€œI think we should see him, after what Maciques said . . .”
    â€œHe won’t be back till Monday, so we’ll have to wait. OK, I’ll be back within the hour, my friend.”
    Manolo stood up and yawned, opening his mouth as wide as he could, moaning plaintively.
    â€œI get so sleepy after lunch.”
    â€œHey, you realize what I’ve got to do now?” the Count pursued his interrogation, only pausing to walk
over to the sergeant. “I’ve got to see the Boss and tell him we’re clueless . . . You want to change places?”
    Manolo smiled and beat a quick retreat.
    â€œNo, that’s down to you, it’s why you earn fifty pesos more than me. You said in an hour’s time, didn’t you?” He accepted his lot and left the cubicle without waiting for the uh-huh of the lieutenant’s farewell.
    The Count watched him shut the door, then yawned. He thought how at that time of day he should be sleeping a long siesta, curled up under his sheets, after stuffing Jose’s meal or going to the cinema; he loved to relax in matinee shadows and watch very squalid moving films, like The French Lieutenant’s Woman , People Like Us or Scola’s We Loved So Much . There’s no justice, he muttered, and picked up the folder and his battered notebook. If he’d believed in God, he would have commended his soul to God before going to the Boss empty-handed.
    He left his cubicle and walked along the corridor to the staircase. A light was on in the last office on the passage, the coolest and biggest on the whole floor, and he decided to make a necessary stop. He tapped on the glass, opened the door and saw the hunched shoulders of Captain Jorrín, who was also looking through his window at the street, resting his forearm on the window frame. Headquarters’ old bloodhound barely turned round to say, Come in, Conde, come in; he stayed still.
    â€œHey, Count! Do you really think I should take early retirement?” the man asked, and the lieutenant realized he’d picked a bad moment. I’m a good one to be offering advice, he thought.
    Jorrín was the most veteran detective at headquarters, a kind of institution or oracle to which the Count and many of his colleagues had recourse hoping for
advice, predictions and omens of a tried and tested usefulness. Talking to Jorrín was a kind of necessary rite in every tricky investigation, but Jorrín was ageing and his question was painfully symptomatic.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Maestro?”
    â€œI’m gradually coming to the conclusion I should retire, but I’d like to know what someone like you thinks.”
    Captain Jorrín swung round but stayed by the window. He seemed tired, sad or even exhausted by something that was torturing him.
    â€œNo, I’ve no problems with Rangel, nothing of that sort. We’ve even been friends of late. I’m the problem, Lieutenant. The fact is this work will be the death of me. I’ve been struggling on for almost thirty years and don’t think I can stand any more, any more at all,” he repeated and looked at the floor. “You know what I’m investigating right now? The murder