12 Cala d’Hort
Cala d’Hort
The popular swimming cove known as Cala d’Hort lay on the western side of the island, a drive of thirty minutes from Ibiza
Town. Inspector Aragón slid the Citroen into an empty space in the car park, then, after removing her shoes, set off across
the beach. Gabriel followed after her in his sport jacket and suede footwear, much to the bemusement of two young women stretched
seminude upon the sand. At the water’s edge he drew his phone and snapped a photograph of the jagged rock formation rising
like a weathered gravestone from the flat waters of the Balearic Sea. Then he compared it to the photo taken by Alice Winter
two days before her disappearance.
“It’s exactly the same,” said the inspector. “It was definitely taken from this beach.”
“It wasn’t, actually.” Gabriel pointed toward the restaurant at the far end of the cove. “It was taken right over there.”
It was nearly six o’clock, the lull between lunch and dinner, and only two tables were occupied. The barman was thirty or
so, with a shaved head, pierced ears, and tattooed arms.
Gabriel handed the man his phone. “Do you recognize her? She was here about a week and a half ago.”
The barman gave the photo a cursory glance. “Sorry, my friend.”
Inspector Aragón laid her credentials on the bar. “How about now?”
“On second thought,” said the barman, “she looks familiar.”
“She’s British,” replied the inspector. “She would have been driving a flashy Mercedes convertible.”
“Was she alone?”
“You tell me.”
“She was alone when she arrived, but she met someone.”
“Who?”
“A guy who was hanging out on the beach. It looked to me as though they were surprised to see one another.”
Gabriel reclaimed his phone. “How did it happen?”
“She noticed him walking past the restaurant and waved to him.” The barman shrugged. “Just one of those things.”
“Did she call out his name?”
“She might have. But I don’t remember what it was.”
“How did he look?”
“Tall, thin, decent shape.”
“What about his face?”
“He was wearing a hat and sunglasses.” The barman pointed toward the distant end of the open-air seating area. “They were
sitting at that table over there.”
“Did anyone else get a better look at him?” asked Inspector Aragón.
“Mariella.”
“Their waitress?”
The barman nodded.
“Mariella what?”
“Cruz.”
“And where can we find Mariella Cruz?”
“She’s off today.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
The barman folded his arms. “You can find Mariella in San Rafael.”
“Great,” said Inspector Aragón. “Where in San Rafael?”
The problem, she explained, was one of supply and demand. Mass tourism on Ibiza had driven up the demand for low-wage seasonal
workers, and yet the supply of affordable housing had dwindled, replaced by multimillion-euro estates owned by superrich foreigners.
The monthly rent on the inspector’s small apartment in Ibiza Town was twenty-five hundred a month, which devoured most of
her modest government salary. Still, she considered herself fortunate. Many of the island’s essential workers—its firefighters
and teachers, its nurses and ambulance drivers—had no choice but to commute from the mainland each day.
“Needless to say, a dishwasher or hotel maid can’t afford to spend sixty or seventy hard-earned euros on airfare. The lucky
ones live in one-bedroom apartments with ten other roommates.”
“And the ones who aren’t so lucky?”
“You’ll see when we get to San Rafael.”
It was located in the center of the island astride the highway that connected Ibiza Town to the port of Sant Antoni. On the
northern side of the town, just beyond the football pitch, was a makeshift village of tents, shanties, and caravans.
“Welcome to the other side of paradise, Senor Allon. The owner of the land rents the plots for four hundred euros a month.
He charges another hundred a month for water and electricity.”
“He must be doing very well for himself.”
“Too well, if you ask me.”
Gabriel climbed out of the car and accompanied the detective into the encampment.
Shanties of plywood and corrugated metal, crude tarpaulin tents, worn-out cars and rusted caravans—the other side of paradise indeed.
At the center of the camp was a dusty common area with four portable lavatories and a single water tap.
Two young boys were kicking a ball about, watched over by an exhausted-looking woman of perhaps thirty.
Inspector Aragón addressed the woman in Spanish, and she shook her head in reply.
Then, after having a look at the inspector’s credentials, she pointed toward the encampment’s western boundary.
It was there they found Mariella Cruz. She was seated on a folding beach chair outside an aged French-made caravan. She wore
a cotton tank top and shorts and a pair of soiled trainers. Her hair was nearly black, as were her eyes. They settled first
on Inspector Aragón.
“I’ve been expecting you.” She glanced at Gabriel. “You too, Senor. But I’m afraid my colleague Ramón didn’t catch your name.”
“Did he tell you why we wanted to see you?”
“He said it had something to do with the Englishwoman who sat at one of my tables a few days ago.”
Mariella Cruz had not risen from her folding chair or offered her hand in greeting. Perhaps, thought Gabriel, she regarded
herself as an untouchable. She seemed to sense his discomfort.
“It’s not so bad here, Senor No-Name. Much better than my last place.”
“And where was that?”
“A garage in Santa Eulària. I shared it with six other girls. No water, no electricity, no toilet.” She shrugged. “Heaven
on earth.”
“And before that?”
“Long story. And very boring.”
Gabriel handed Mariella Cruz his mobile phone. “Do you remember her?”
She lowered her eyes toward the screen. “The Brits all start to look the same after a while, but this one I remember. Hard
not to.”
“What about her friend from the beach?”
“I really didn’t get a good look at him.”
“Was he British as well?”
“He spoke perfect English, but he had a slight accent. It might have been German.”
“How old was he?”
“Maybe forty.”
“Hair color?”
“Sort of blond, but it was hard to tell because of the hat. For all I know, he was bald on top.”
“Wedding band?”
“I didn’t notice. But he was wearing a nice watch. A Rolex Daytona, the platinum model.” Her eyes settled once more on Inspector
Aragón. “Don’t you have any questions?”
“Any plans for the rest of the evening?”
“A long soak in my Jacuzzi,” she quipped. “And then dinner at a fancy restaurant.”
“Put on some proper clothes, Mariella. You’re coming with us.”
It was a ten-minute drive from San Rafael to the Policía Nacional headquarters. The inspector placed Mariella Cruz in an interview
room and escorted Gabriel to her cramped office. There she rang a colleague who dealt with matters related to immigration
and passport control and instructed him to prepare a list of all German, Austrian, and Swiss males who had visited the island
the previous week. At Gabriel’s suggestion she added Dutch males to the request, as well as those from Denmark, Norway, and
Sweden.
“How soon?” asked the colleague.
“Tonight.”
“Impossible.”
“Anything is possible,” said the inspector.
The Policía’s headquarters were located in a drab quarter of Ibiza Town but within walking distance of a glittering waterfront
promenade. With a flash of her credentials, Inspector Aragón secured a coveted table at El Principe, where they plied Mariella
Cruz with some of the finest food and drink the island had to offer. It was approaching half past ten when the inspector’s
phone rang. Gabriel paid the bill with Edward Knight’s cash, and they hurried back to the Policía HQ.
At any given time during Ibiza’s high season there are nearly one million tourists on the island. A significant portion are
German citizens, drawn by the warm weather and discount air fares. During the second week of June there were more than ten
thousand. Some fifteen hundred were German males between the ages of thirty and fifty. Mariella Cruz sat at Inspector Aragón’s
desk, head in her hands, eyes fixed dully on the computer monitor, as passport photos came and went. Only a handful warranted
more than a second or two of scrutiny. The last appeared on the screen shortly after midnight: Gerhardt Zimmer, forty-eight
years of age, from Frankfurt.
“No,” she murmured. “Not even close.”
The list of Austrian males was mercifully shorter. Mariella dispensed with them quickly, then turned her attention to the
male visitors from Switzerland. The twenty-second entry on the list was Peter Hoffmann, thirty-nine years of age, 188 centimeters
in height, born in Zurich. He had a full head of straw-colored hair and a fine-boned, cleanly shaved face.
Mariella Cruz stared intently at the screen. “That’s him.”
“Are you sure?” asked Gabriel.
“Definitely. No doubt about it.”
Gabriel drew his phone, searched the name Peter Hoffmann, and was buried beneath an avalanche of results. He added the words
Zurich and Switzerland, and the number of results shrank considerably. One was an asset manager at Bank Josef B?nzinger & Co. Gabriel clicked on
the link and saw a photograph of the same man, though this time he was wearing a pair of rimless spectacles.
He showed the photo to Inspector Aragón. “He did his graduate work at the London School of Economics.”
“Which would explain his perfect English.”
“It would,” agreed Gabriel.
“And before that?”
“University of Cambridge.”
“Which would explain how he knows Alice Winter.”
So it would appear, thought Gabriel. He snapped a photo of Peter Hoffmann’s passport, then looked at Mariella Cruz.
“Who left the restaurant first?”
She delivered her answer to the computer screen. “He did.”
“Where did he go?”
“Back to the beach.”
“Was he with anyone?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“And what about the Englishwoman?”
“She stayed for another ten minutes or so, then left.”
“How did she pay the bill?”
“Cash,” she answered. “No tip.”
They stopped at the Ibiza Gran Hotel long enough for Gabriel to remove a substantial sum of cash from his room safe.
During the drive back to San Rafael he slipped the money unobserved into Mariella Cruz’s worn handbag.
Inspector Aragón escorted her through the darkness of the encampment to her caravan.
Then she returned to the Citroen and they started back to Ibiza Town.
“How much did you give her?” she asked.
“A standard bundle of hundred-euro banknotes.”
“Ten thousand euros?”
“Very impressive, Inspector.”
“And very generous on your part.”
“I wish that were the case, but the money wasn’t mine.”
Gabriel’s phone pulsed with an incoming text. It was from Sarah Bancroft in London. Her message was two sentences in length.
Gabriel’s reply was briefer still. He tapped send and gripped the phone tightly in his hand. Gazing absently out his window he asked, “Who was the victim?”
“I’m sorry?”
“In your one and only abduction case.”
“A child,” replied Inspector Aragón after a silence.
“How old?”
“Eleven.”
“Boy or girl?”
“What do you think?”
Girl . . .
“And what went wrong?” asked Gabriel.
“Everything.”
“He killed her?”
“He raped her for a few days. Then he killed her and threw her body into a river up in the Pyrenees. She was eleven, Senor
Allon. Eleven.”
“Did you get him?”
“Eventually. And guess how many other girls he had killed?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Six,” she answered. “And those are the ones we’re sure about.”
Gabriel was silent.
“Do you have children?” she asked.
“A boy and a girl.”
“How old are they?”
“Eleven.”
Another silence, longer than the first. “It’s time for you to face facts, Senor Allon. Alice Winter wasn’t kidnapped, she
was murdered.”
“With all due respect, you’re mistaken. Alice was definitely abducted.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because her kidnappers just made contact with her husband.”