Chapter 3 The Poacher #2
The man nodded. Seeming to think for a moment, he then put his hand in the sack and produced a spider crab.
“Here, have one,” he said, “but don’t tell anyone you saw me around here.”
“There’s no need.” Roberto shook his head without taking his eyes off the creature, which clicked its claws insistently. “As far as I’m concerned, we’ve never met.”
The poacher grunted and returned the crab to the sack, allowing Roberto to catch a brief glimpse of a writhing mass of legs, pincers, and seaweed-covered shells.
“I’m Víctor Pampín,” the man said as he jutted his chin in the direction of the other side of the island. “I live close to Punta Xubenco. If you want any fish or seafood, come and find me. You won’t eat better.”
“Do you live here all year round?”
The man gave an ambiguous shrug.
“You’re the first person I’ve met here who isn’t either a Freire or a Docampo,” Roberto went on, ignoring the poacher’s reticence. “I heard that everyone who stays on the island over the winter is from one of those two families.”
“Most, yes,” replied Pampín. “But there are a few of us who don’t have anything to do with them. And there’re the lighthouse keepers, of course.”
“Isn’t it tough here?”
“Tough?”
“I just mean, it’s pretty cut off in the winter, harsh even, given the lack of electricity and the poor connections with the mainland.”
“This is my home,” the poacher said, as if no further explanation were required.
“I’ve always lived on the island, and I hope to die here.
Some stay because they don’t have anywhere to go on the mainland, and others because this is their place, and they want to make sure everything’s in good order. ”
“Really? What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you seen all the vacation homes on the island?” replied Pampín, who was gradually becoming more talkative. “And then there’re a couple of restaurants and a grocery store. This place turns into a theme park in the summer. And it’s all controlled by the same people.”
“The Freires and the Docampos,” hazarded Roberto.
“Exactly, the fucking Freires and the fucking Docampos.” Pampín’s face was suddenly contorted by rage. “They’re the bosses of the island, and they behave as if everything belongs to them by divine right, even the things that don’t.”
“You’re not so keen on them, I’m guessing.”
“They’re a bunch of thieving bastards, the lot of them. They have contracts with the park; they own the boats that bring the tourists; I’m pretty sure they’re in with the authorities too.” Pampín spat on the ground in disgust. “God knows what shady dealings they’ve got going on.”
“How did they get their hands on everything?” Roberto looked around. “I thought this place wasn’t much more than an isolated fishing village until the 1970s. Where did they get the money from?”
“That’s a question you’d have to ask them.” Pampín’s expression became much more opaque. “Anyway, I don’t want any problems, and I’ve probably said too much already.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t say a word,” Roberto assured him.
It was clear that the island, like all remote, rural places, had its own collection of stories, rivalries, and jealousies.
But the reporter inside him couldn’t help being intrigued.
How had two fishing families managed to amass a fortune and basically take possession of the whole island while the rest had had no choice but to emigrate?
He added the enigma to the long list of things he couldn’t quite believe.
“And what’s that for?” Roberto pointed at the pole with the blunt metal blade.
“This?” He shook it in front of him. “It’s a scraper. For pulling goose barnacles off the rocks. Best goose barnacles in the world. You should try them.”
“Isn’t it dangerous?” Roberto asked, vaguely remembering a documentary he had once seen about the men and women who risked their lives to gather this prized seafood from the treacherous rocks below the tideline.
Pampín muttered something unintelligible and looked down at the ground. Roberto would have bet anything that the man had never seen a fishing license in his life.
“How do you manage to make a living on the island?” he asked.
“From the sea, of course,” the poacher replied. “In the summer, I sell my catch on the mainland; in the winter, I just feed myself. Octopus, mussels, fish . . . Between that and the vegetable patch, I get by.”
“You don’t get bored?”
“No,” the man laughed. “There’s always something to do. I don’t stick my nose into other people’s business, and I try to make sure they don’t stick their noses into mine.”
“The rangers in particular,” Roberto joked.
“Yes,” grunted Pampín, clearly irritated, before abruptly falling silent.
“What’s up?” asked Roberto, inwardly cursing his inability to lay off the irony.
But the poacher didn’t answer. Instead, he turned and walked off to one side of the path. The slope grew gradually steeper until it reached an old, half-ruined wall. The man pointed to something on the slope.
“That wasn’t there two days ago,” he said.
Roberto looked in the direction Pampín indicated, trying to make out what he was referring to. Eventually, he spotted something of a beaten track through the bracken and brambles. He would never have noticed it without the poacher pointing it out.
“Someone’s come this way recently,” Pampín said nervously.
“Some animal, I bet,” Roberto ventured. “Maybe a rabbit or a badger.”
“There’s nothing big enough here to make a path like that.” He shook his head. “It has to be something else.”
They cautiously approached the beginning of the path. Pampín put his sack down, grasped the scraper with both hands, and held it out in front of him. He seemed nervous. Using the scraper, he pushed the vegetation aside, clearly on edge.
Underneath, there were just earth and the droppings of some small rodent. The man sighed in relief and straightened up, but Roberto quickly shattered his tranquility.
“What’s that?”
Pampín looked where Roberto was pointing.
It was a drop of dried blood; there was no doubt about it. A bit farther on, following the track through the undergrowth, was another—and another.
Once he’d seen it, the trail of blood was clear as day. Whatever it was had left a series of drops, running up to the crest of the hill and out of sight.
“Let’s see where it leads,” said Roberto.
“You’re joking,” replied Pampín, his eyes wide open. “I wouldn’t go up there if you paid me.”
Roberto didn’t answer. The trail of blood on a lonely path pulled at his reporter’s instincts with the insistent force of a tugboat.
Accompanied by a reluctant Pampín, he followed the trail. Every few yards, there was another drop of blood, leading them on like the breadcrumbs in a fairy tale. Finally, they came to the top of the hill and stopped at a drystone wall.
“Holy Mother of God!” muttered the poacher, crossing himself. “This is the work of the devil!”
Next to the wall, somebody had built a small structure of branches, anchored firmly to the ground.
Tied to the branches with twine was the dismembered body of a rabbit, like some macabre imitation of the crucifixion.
Whoever was responsible for this scene had carefully opened the animal up and taken out its intestines, arranging them around the corpse like colored streamers in a complicated, indecipherable pattern.
“It’s got no head,” Pampín murmured anxiously. “Where’s the head?”
In my fridge, inside a plastic bag.
“That doesn’t matter.” Roberto crouched next to the dismembered animal in search of clues. “Do you have any idea who might have done this?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” Pampín again crossed himself and took a step back. “The devil’s work, I tell you. The sooner we get out of here, the better.”
Roberto gave him an inquisitive look. Pampín seemed genuinely terrified. Here was a hard man, someone who risked life and limb daily on wave-battered rocks, now trembling like a child at the sight of this small, headless animal.
“Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
But Pampín didn’t deign to answer, and instead turned around and set off back down the path. Roberto got out his phone and took a couple of photos of the rabbit before following the poacher. A thousand different ideas occurred to him, but one in particular stood out.
Whatever had happened the previous night, it had not been the work of an animal or some coincidence. Someone, whoever that might be, had left a message for him on his very doorstep. And, while he didn’t know what the person was trying to say, they clearly weren’t friendly.
Pampín was already on his way, pack over his shoulder.
“Hang on a moment!” shouted Roberto. “Are you sure you haven’t seen anything like this before?”
By way of a response, Pampín merely crossed himself again and kept going, almost at a run. At the last moment, he turned his head.
“Talk to Elvira!” he said. “She’ll explain it better than me.”
“Elvira? Who’s Elvira? Where can I find her?”
“Elvira Couto, the old woman who lives by Melide Beach, at the far end of the island,” the poacher shouted over his shoulder. “She knows about these things! Tell her Pampín sent you!”
And without another word, he set off, almost at a run, leaving Roberto Lobeira with a head full of unanswered questions.