'Would you like to explain this?' Gabriel Sanchez yelled at Rita and Dominguez as they stood in front of him. A video was open on his computer.
Rita watched, an awful sinking feeling in her chest. The video showed Pepelito eating something out of her hand in the street. It showed Dominguez and Alfonso coaxing him into Silvio's truck, and the four of them enjoying a cigarette.
'Rita, your brother-in-law is a murder suspect, in fact, Jesus, you spent most of the other day questioning him! You know how discredited that man is, and how bad it looks for the whole department to assist him in anything right now, or to take a side in this stupid culture war? For my officers to hand over, what I'm sure isn't, but appears to be a gentle, sweet natured animal?' Sanchez glared at both of them.
'Señor, you know that I would never, ever assist Castella,' Rita said, saying the matador's name as if it was a swear word. After the grilling she had got a few years ago, she couldn't stand the thought of Sanchez thinking she'd helped him.
'What on earth did you think you were doing, then - you thought you could get some money without consulting me, or the department first, or considering how bad it would look?' Sanchez spat.
'We're all under enough pressure to improve our cleanup rate, the British cops may pitch up here next week over the McKenzie investigation, and I could frankly do without threats from animal rights extremists!' Rita could hardly believe what she was hearing after the events of two days ago. All she could manage was 'Yes, Señor.'
'Actually, we were doing the opposite,' Dominguez mumbled. Rita wasn't sure whether this was a very good or very stupid idea. Sanchez's eyes bulged.
'Doing the opposite? What on earth do you mean, Jesus?'
'Castella sent a group of thugs who work for the local plaza to look for the bull, they chased him into Rita's, obviously terrified out of his mind. You won't believe the damage that beast caused, all her doors are destroyed and there's cow shit everywhere. Most of her house was ruined. Anyway, we managed to catch him and put a rope round him after they'd gone, and rung an animal charity to pick him up.' Dios mio, Rita thought. He didn't drop me in it. Sanchez looked completely unconvinced.
'This is certainly a story that raises more questions than answers. Where are these thugs now - why weren't they arrested?'
'Well, some of them are sitting in the cells downstairs.'
'What happened to the bull?'
'Oh, I don't know,' Dominguez said. 'Not my problem any more.'
Rita took a deep breath. 'Señor,' she said. She was in enough trouble as it is. And Sanchez clearly didn't believe Dominguez's story.
'Yes?'
'That's not quite what happened.' Dominguez gave her a horrified look and nudged her hard.
'A week ago, I found Pepelito lying in my doorway. He was horrendously injured after escaping from Castella's corrida. I got veterinary advice on how to treat his injuries. I've been looking after him ever since - until the thugs from the ring tried to force their way in. He was petrified so he bolted. At which point, Jesus and I caught him and arranged someone to pick him up, and that's what you see in the video.' She carefully left out the part implicating Alfonso.
'Looking after him where, half the country must have been looking for him at some point?'
'In my flat.' Sanchez's mouth dropped open and shut and open again like a goldfish. He stared at her as if she was crazy.
Perhaps she was.
'So it was you? You hid Castella's bull in your flat for a week?'
'Yeah.' As she spoke, Sanchez buried his head in his hands.
'Get out of my office,' he yelled.
*
Rita walked out, shaken and stunned. Relief filled her that she wasn't suspended, or worse, charged. Sanchez wasn't much for animal rights. But he was concerned about terrible publicity from his officers handing a docile, affectionate creature, who had unwittingly starred in a viral video seen by millions, to his torturer, a man soaked in animal and almost certainly human blood. The younger generations disliked the police enough as it was.
'How was it yesterday?' she asked Dominguez once they were out of earshot.
'Apart from Pepelito running over my foot and ripping my shirt when we let him in the field, it was fine. Silvio thinks he's great, told you he loves cows. Doesn't think the same about me, couldn't wait to get me gone. He liked Luis, thinks I threw a good thing away.' He sighed, looking sad.
'Probably prefers animals to people. I can relate.' Rita walked into the kitchen for some coffee.
She missed Pepelito. She had got used to having him around. When she did move back into her flat it would seem strangely empty without him. Instead, she had moved in with a man she hardly knew. Alfonso seemed decent, caring and crazy about her. But the murder and DV statistics suggested this was probably more dangerous than sharing a flat with a bull. She opened her phone and wrote, 'My boss knows. It went better than I thought it would.'
Rita sat down at her computer and opened her emails to find she had one from Caroline McKenzie's son. With a pang of guilt she realised she had forgotten to tell him she was now off the case.
'Inspectora Silvera, I hope you are well? I am just wondering how the case was going and if there has been any progress in finding my Mum's killer?' The truth was, there had been no progress. All the hotel guests had been ruled out, and they were close to ruling out Castella himself.
'Hi Iain, thanks for your email. I've been taken off this case, but I've forwarded it on to Inspector Abdul Mansouri who you have met, he is currently in charge of the investigation.' She hated fobbing people off like this. It was horrible. As she sipped her cup of coffee, her phone rang.
'Good morning, am I speaking to someone from the Valladolid National Police Corps?' a woman's voice said in English. She had a thick accent and was hard to understand, even though Rita spoke it fluently.
'Yes. Inspectora Rita Silvera speaking.'
'I'm Detective Sergeant Heather Cooper from West Yorkshire Police, I'm calling about a body that was found in the area yesterday; we're hoping you may be able to help.' Heather took a deep breath on the other end of the line.
'The victim's been identified as an 18 year old man called Aidan Donnelly. This was an extremely violent attack against someone young and vulnerable, although he was legally an adult. So you'll understand we're very keen to catch whoever it is.' Rita listened intently. The woman sounded calm, but couldn't disguise her shock.
'An item that was found with the victim suggests a link to your region of Spain and we were hoping you could provide some assistance.' Heather spoke in a businesslike tone, but Rita had to think about her words before understanding the meaning.
'What sort of item?'
'We found a metal dart placed beside the body. We don't think it was the murder weapon, but it may have been one of the weapons used to attack the victim. There was an engraving on it saying it was manufactured in Valladolid.' Rita felt a chill down her spine as she sipped her coffee.
'Can you send me a picture of this dart? I'll see what I can do.' Rita said. Within seconds, she had it in her inbox. She stared at the gruesome object and disgust and anger coursed through her.
'Malditos. Escoria.' Scum.
'Just as well he came in here, if he had walked much further, this could have sunk down and pierced his lung,' Alfonso said, patting Pepelito and showing Rita a dart with a bloody ribbon attached. Despite the heat, the bull was shivering and the horror stricken look on his face wrenched her heart. Rita hadn't known cows could cry, with actual tears.
'Bullfighters use such darts. They attach it to a rosette, it's called a divisa, a currency, they stick it into the bull's back just before it runs into the ring. It's to make the bull run out quickly and seem fierce. Sounds like the killer is interested in such activities.' Rita spoke slowly, emphasising each word, but also because she didn't trust herself not to tear up. There was a horrified silence at the end of the line. She thought of Caroline and her friends' insistence that it was Castella who had a motive to kill.
Rita was irritated to hear Heather say, 'So someone from Spain then?'
'It doesn't only happen here. There are fans everywhere, half of them are tourists. You're just as bad with your fox hunting.' Rita put her cup down heavily, filling the embarrassed silence.
Defensively, she went on to say, 'The killer might not have bought it here, it's likely he didn't. There will be sites on the dark web selling these items. You can probably get them on eBay.'
'Of course. I wasn't suggesting -'
'Doesn't matter.'
'Yes it does. I really do apologise. Would you be able to send us a list of those convicted of murder and sexual offenders registered in the area, so we can cross check if any of them are currently resident in the UK or had recently visited?'
'I'll send you everyone on our system. Was the victim sexually assaulted?' Rita asked, feeling nauseous at the thought.
'No,' Heather said. 'But we're working on the assumption they've killed before; they must be getting some gratification out of it.'
Rita felt something twisting in her stomach. If the killer was from here, nonce cases and violent offenders couldn't just enjoy easy travel in and out of the EU. Did the killer slip through the cracks, or escape a criminal record altogether, like Castella had?
'When was the victim killed?'
'Two days ago.' Rita took a breath. That ruled him out. Castella couldn't have been released from custody, flown to the UK, killed a random person, got rid of all his DNA and flown back. Could he?
'I'll have a look at our cold cases and send through anything I can find. And we'll get the companies producing such items to provide a list of customers.' Rita copied in Dominguez and Mansouri to the emails she was sending. Sanchez had stuck her on desk duties for the next day or two, which meant she might be able to spend some time helping Heather. More worthwhile than waiting at her desk for someone to walk in and report something.
'Thanks very much,' Heather said.
Rita put down the phone and headed to the record storage room.
One file in particular caught her attention as she hunted through cold cases. The victim's name was Sonia Gutiérrez. She had died in 2012 age 32, a few years after Rita had joined the police department. She vaguely remembered the case. Not much had been recorded about the victim's life other than having three kids and selling sex for a living. With all her regular clients ruled out and no other murders of those working the streets shortly before or afterwards, her case had gone cold.
But on the day she went missing, Sonia was not working. It had been a Sunday and she had brought the kids to church with her mother, a devoted Catholic. Afterwards she left them with her, before walking to town to do some shopping and meet a friend. She usually hit the streets in the evening, but had never made it to work that night.
Rita looked through the autopsy report feeling like a heavy stone was sitting on her stomach. No DNA was found belonging to a suspect. Sonia was found dressed in clothes that didn't belong to her. There was a gap of several days between the last recorded sighting of Sonia and the discovery of her body.
And her injuries were almost identical to Caroline McKenzie's.
AN: Dedicated to my mate Natalie who's given me a ton of help with how Spanish police and lawyers act. And yeah I couldn't believe this is how her boss would act but I asked my friend about this situation and she said they'd get no more than a slap on the wrist lol. He's hugely concerned of his image and helping Castella is even worse than 'usual' for reasons you'll find out in the next chapter.