Free Havana Blue by Leonardo Padura Page A

of a thirteen-year-old boy, Lieutenant. A brilliant kid, you know? He was training to compete in the Latin American Mathematics Olympiad. Can you imagine? He was killed yesterday morning on the corner of his street, and his bike was stolen. Beaten to death by more than one person. He was dead before reaching the hospital; they’d fractured his skull, arms, several ribs and lots more besides. As if he’d been run over by a train, but it wasn’t a train, it was people after a bicycle. What’s gone wrong, Conde? How is so much violence possible? I should have got used to such things, shouldn’t I? But I never have, you know? And every time it hurts more, upsets me more. Ours is a fucking awful job, you know?”
    â€œYou’re right,” the Count replied, getting to his feet. He walked over and stood by his friend. “But what the hell can we do, Captain? These things happen . . .”

    â€œBut there are people walking around who can’t even imagine that they do, Lieutenant,” he interrupted the advice the Count was offering and looked back out of the window. “I went to the boy’s funeral this morning, and I realized I’m too old to be still doing this. Fuck, you know, they’re killing kids to steal their bicycles . . . It’s beyond me.”
    â€œCan I give you some advice, Maestro?”
    Jorrín acquiesced. The Count knew that the day old Jorrín took his uniform off, he’d embark on an irreversible decline that would end in death, but he also knew he was right and imagined himself, twenty years on, looking for the murderers of a young kid and told himself it was all too much.
    â€œI can think of only one thing to say, and I think it’s what you’d have said to me if I were in your situation. First find the boy’s killers and then consider whether you want to retire,” he pronounced before he walked towards the door, tugged at the door handle and added, “Whoever forced us to be policemen?” and headed down the corridor to the lift, infected by the maestro’s anguish. He looked at his watch and was alarmed to see it was already two-thirty. He felt he’d journeyed through the longest of mornings when minutes were languid and hours slow and difficult to defeat; his eyes saw a watch by Dalí. He went into the Boss’s office and asked Maruchi if he could see him when the intercom alarm went off. The young woman said: “wait”, waved her hand and pressed the red button. A rusty tin voice, turned into a stutter by the intercom, asked whether Lieutenant Mario the Count was around or where’d he got to as he’d not yet put in an appearance. Maruchi looked at him, changed her tone and said: “I’ve got him right here” and changed key again.

    â€œWell, tell him he’s got a call, from Tamara Valdemira. Should I transfer it?”
    â€œTell her yes, otherwise she’ll bite my head off,” said the Count, walking over to the grey phone.
    â€œTransfer the call, Anita,” Maruchi requested and cut off, adding, “I think the Count has an interest in the case.”
    The lieutenant put his hand on the receiver, and it rang. He was looking at the Boss’s chief secretary when the telephone rang loudly for a second time, and he didn’t lift up the receiver.
    â€œI’m a bag of nerves,” he confessed to the young woman, who shrugged her shoulders, what do you expect me to do? And he waited for the third ring to finish. Then picked it up: “Yes, it’s me,” and Maruchi just stared at him.
    â€œMario, that you? It’s Tamara.”
    â€œYes, tell me, what’s the matter?”
    â€œI’m not sure, something silly, but it might be of interest.”
    â€œI thought Rafael had turned up . . . Go on.”
    â€œNo, I was just looking in the library and saw Rafael’s telephone book, it was there by the extension and, I don’t know,