Free The Beggar's Opera by Peggy Blair Page A

Cuba. We punish it by firing squad.”

SIXTEEN
    Inspector Ramirez had watched the Canadian closely from his side-view mirror as he drove to the police station. His car had no rear-view mirror, and it was impossible to find a replacement for a Chinese car in Havana these days.
    He looked for signs of guilt in the man’s demeanour, but all he saw was a typically nervous, if uncomfortably seated, tourist. The Canadian seemed no more anxious than any other foreigner in Cuban police custody would be, which meant far from relaxed. Still, Ramirez observed nothing unusual except the crooked scar that ran from the suspect’s forehead down to his nose, then twisted at his upper lip, splitting his face unevenly in two.
    Sanchez and Ramirez had agreed they would not tell the suspect anything at first. Ellis had no way of knowing the boy’s body had been recovered. They would not arrest him, or even let him know he was a suspect. Instead, Sanchez would interview him about his wallet and see what information he volunteered while Ramirez watched from the observation room and waited for Apiro to come down with his preliminary results. Semen, hair, blood: once he knew if they had anything from the items seized at the hotel room, Ramirez would take over the interrogation.
    Ramirez hoped Apiro could get laboratory results back to him quickly. He felt his adrenalin pumping, excited to have a suspect already in custody.
    Questioning, cross-examining, trapping suspects in their own words: these were his greatest strengths. Like having a strong fish on the line, the pleasure came from playing it out, wearing it down. It was the part of the job he most enjoyed.
    This was Ramirez’s first case in years involving a child’s death, and it was important that the investigation of something so serious be done properly. That he keep thoughts of Edel out of his mind.
    Ramirez wondered what kind of animal would rape a boy for his own sexual pleasure, what kind of monster would murder a small child.
    The Russian author Leo Tolstoy had a club when he was a boy, Ramirez recalled. Tolstoy’s friends could only belong if they could stand in a corner for ten minutes and not think of a white bear. Edel was the white bear in the corner. He would have to try not to think about Edel during the interrogation and stay focused on the suspect’s responses.
    So far, from what Ramirez could see through the two-way mirror, Sanchez had used standard interview techniques. He tried to frighten the Canadian, cajole him, impress him into confessing. Nothing much, except an inconsistency as to when the suspect lost his wallet.
    The door creaked open and Hector Apiro entered. The small pathologist was fair-minded and very good at what he did, despite his obvious deficiency. Apiro took a moment to explain his preliminary findings.
    “I should have a written report for you in a few hours. But there were some stains on the sheets we seized from Room 612.
    Seminal fluid. I examined them under the microscope against the samples taken from the boy’s rectum. Both contained motile sperm. We also tested all the underwear in the room. Not the ones he is wearing, of course, he still has those on,” the small man joked. “Or at least I hope he does. If not, he will stick to the seat of that plastic chair very soon.”
    Ramirez smiled. Black humour kept them both sane.
    “We found one pair of briefs in the chest of drawers with microscopic amounts of blood that match the boy’s blood type,” Apiro continued. “The seminal fluid in all the samples appears to be from the same man. Type A blood. I’ll do DNA testing to make sure. Of course, I have no way of confirming that the seminal fluid came from this man.”
    “It’s his bed; no one else had access to it. It has to be his. That’s more than enough,” said Ramirez. Sufficient evidence of a crime was all he needed for an arrest. He was pleased he could meet the legal test so quickly. “Anything else, Hector?”
    “I found