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

apt, given the circumstances.’
    â€˜I didn’t know he was going to get killed minutes later.’
    â€˜Bullfighting’s better off without him. Weirdo, that one. And a poof. Look, Cámara,’ he said. ‘It’s only fair, you know: you’re on probation with this one. That Bautista affair – it’s not going away. People just don’t like that sort of thing. Looks messy. Get this one right, though, and we’ll see what we can do, eh?’
    He started walking away.
    â€˜Oh, and Cámara,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘You might want to head down to the Town Hall. The mayoress has asked to see you ASAP.’
    Â 
    Piles of box files and papers were stacked in towers around the office. Cámara cursed as he cut a way through to his desk, trying not to send them crashing to the floor. No time even to work out where the coffee machine was, and already he had to be on the move.
    He sat down and glanced out for a second at the apartment blocks on the other side of the river, orange and green shutters flapping over the windows as the sun moved around and shone directly on the red-brick facade. He looked back at the chaos, wondering where to begin.
    A copy of the Sunday edition of El Diario was lying on the desk. They had just had time to get some copy in on the Blanco story before putting it to bed. A large photo of the dead matador taken the day before, holding two bull’s ears in his hands in triumph, took up most of the front page. Cámara pursed his lips: he had awarded him those. Turning over the page he glanced quickly through the newsprint. Most of it was a repetition of what he’d heard on the TV the night before, with a résumé of Blanco’s career, and an evaluation of his importance to bullfighting. There was also a special column by Alicia Beneyto, with a photo next to her byline looking several years younger. Shocked by the death of her friend, she’d still been able to fire out a five-hundred-word eulogy. Blanco was the best, she said. The best there’d ever been.
    Cámara folded the newspaper and cast it to one side. He felt thirsty. A piece of paper tucked under the base of the lamp caught his eye. He picked it up and read in familiar thick black handwriting: ‘It’s behind the last filing cabinet. Call me when you read this.’
    Cámara stood up and walked to the filing cabinet, then bent down and slid his fingers over the back until he felt something. Unpeeling the sticky tape that held it in place, he pulled out a stainless steel hip flask. He gave it a shake: it was still half full. Looking around, he spied a used plastic cup sitting on the windowsill. He shook out the dregs, staining half a dozen of the report papers lying on the floor, then poured himself a dedo – a finger’s width of brandy. He paused for a moment, smelt the alcohol tickling the insides of his nose, then made it a double. In two gulps it was gone, the warmth shuddering down his insides, a tingling where it had caught the still-raw cut on his lip. With a sense of satisfaction he crumpled the cup in his hand, feeling it crush under his fingers.
    An image of Almudena flashed in his mind: her expression as she’d cleaned him up the night before. And how she’d leaned back against the wall watching him as he lay in pain on the sofa. Strange that that was the enduring image from the previous night, he thought, and not the scene in the car when she’d dropped him off. Still, Pardo had picked something up about that, he’d noticed, with his sixth sense for other people’s weaknesses.
    Thinking better of pulverising an innocent plastic cup, he relaxed his hand and began trying to push it back into shape. A crack had developed on one side, though; it was useless. He looked for a rubbish bin, but there was none to be found. With a sigh he opened one of the drawers in the desk and dropped the cup in.
    The phone whined in his ear