Or the Bull Kills You by Jason Webster Read Free Book Online

– where they all wanted to be if they’d admit it. And now he’d just landed himself the murder of the century. A couple of them nodded as he walked past. Maldonado was there as well, but pretended to look the other way.
    Inside, people were walking quickly in all directions with expressions of frustration on their faces, still trying to adapt to this new, ill-equipped building. They’d been fine back in the old place on Fernando el Católico Avenue. No one had wanted this. But the Ministry had insisted. Millions had been spent on it, and there was nothing the government in Madrid liked better than rubbing the Town Hall’s nose into the fact that it had screwed up. Bringing the police here had everything to do with political battles, not fighting crime.
    Cámara spotted his boss on the other side of the hall. Commissioner Vicente Pardo, head of the Grupo de Homicidios , looked as lost as the rest of them, his face colouring as he tried to show Judge Jordi Caballero the way to the lifts and away from the sea of flustered people. Cámara hesitated for a second: he’d hoped for a few minutes in his office before this.
    â€˜They’re over here,’ he said, eventually walking over to Pardo and pointing to the lift shaft hidden behind a pillar of more white cement.
    â€˜You don’t have to show me around,’ Pardo snapped.
    The three of them walked over to stand before the metal doors. No one moved, until Cámara leaned in and pressed the call button. Caballero stood still, taller than Pardo in a charcoal-grey suit, a sharp expression in his eye and grey hair spouting around his temples.
    The lift arrived and opened with a ping and they stepped inside.
    â€˜Well, now that we’re all together,’ Pardo started. He looked properly at Cámara for the first time. ‘What the fuck happened to your face?’ He sighed. ‘Never mind. I don’t want to know.’
    Cámara tried to cut him off before the inevitable speech.
    â€˜I’d like Torres with me on this one,’ he said.
    Pardo looked up at the flashing numbers above the door as they slowly ascended.
    â€˜It’s already been taken care of. I’ve packed him off to pull in your chief suspect. With any luck we’ll have this wrapped up by the end of the day. Quintero’s been on to us – Blanco’s body was covered in fingerprints. He’s got some special kit that can spot them. A Raman spectroscope.’
    He mouthed the name like some schoolboy proud of having memorised his times tables. Cámara hoped Huerta didn’t hear about it: anything more to highlight the poverty of the Policía Científica equipment in the Jefatura compared to what the forensics lot had over at the Instituto de Medicina Legal next to the law courts and he might just lose it. Huerta got to do the hard, dirty work, while the magistrates and medics, with their degrees and doctorates, got the best facilities.
    Pardo placed his fist to his mouth and gave an unnecessary cough. ‘You’ve met Judge Caballero.’
    Caballero nodded towards Cámara.
    â€˜Yes, of course,’ Cámara said.
    He recognised the judge who had shown up late the night before at the crime scene, just in time, as the person officially in charge of the investigation, to go through the motions of ordering the body to be taken away. It was his signature that would go on the warrants; the police gathered clues, wrote reports, but in the eyes of the law he made the final decisions, even if it didn’t always work like that in practice. Cámara hadn’t had any dealings with him before, but everyone in the Jefatura knew each judge in the city by reputation at least. Caballero wasn’t one of those old-style Francoist types who gave the police a free hand, believing in them implicitly as a force for good. Some attention had to be given to the rights of the suspects. But he wasn’t an interfering type