Chapter 46 A Difficult Truth
A Difficult Truth
Varatorta’s gaze shifted from Ibaibarriaga to Antía, from her to Diego, and finally from Diego to Roberto. Finding the writer sitting there at the kitchen table, he showed a flicker of bewilderment, but this was quickly replaced with a beaming, satisfied smile—a look of pent-up excitement.
“Christ, Varatorta,” Ibaibarriaga exploded. “What took you so long?”
Varatorta didn’t respond immediately but stared steadily at Roberto. For some reason, he seemed delighted by the writer’s presence, rather than seeming to have any thought about Roberto giving him away. Grinning, Varatorta gave Roberto a slow, complicit wink.
“I went down to the beach, like you told me to,” he said at last, his voice soft.
“Where does that passageway come out?” Antía said.
“At the old woodshed,” Ibaibarriaga said.
“And what were you doing at the beach?” Roberto interrupted, trying to control the tremor in his voice.
“It was his job to check on the Colombians’ rearguard and the place they docked,” Ibaibarriaga said. “But I don’t get what took so long. Did you run into anyone?”
“There was nobody there, álvaro.” Varatorta took off his oilskin and sat down at the table, completely serene. “Just an unmanned speedboat pulled up on the sand, that was all.”
“So why didn’t you come and help out at the graveyard?” Ibaibarriaga growled. “Borja’s been hit! If you’d been there, things might’ve gone differently.”
“I was still on the beach when I heard it all kicking off.” Varatorta shrugged. “And then I had to make a detour. I couldn’t just walk up the road with those gunmen heading right this way!”
“Well,” Ibaibarriaga snorted, “we need to get ready. They’ll be here any minute.”
“I love it when we have visitors.” Varatorta stretched his delicate hands across the table, right in front of Roberto. “Especially the unexpected kind.”
“I swear to God,” Ibaibarriaga said, “I don’t get you sometimes. Okay, I’m going back up to see where they’ve gotten to. Don’t let this lot out of your sight. I’ll be right back.”
Ibaibarriaga went off again. For a moment there were only the crackling of the fire in the corner and the ticking of an ornate grandfather clock. It was like the room was holding its breath.
“Well, this is a surprise,” said Varatorta, leaning back in his chair. “I thought you’d still be . . . in the place we last saw one another.”
“Your secret cave, you mean.” He was pleased to see a glimmer of apprehension enter Varatorta’s face. “It’s all right. She knows everything.”
“As in . . . everything?”
“Not every single detail. I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
Varatorta gave an excited whimper, as if he’d just opened a long-awaited Christmas present. “Really?”
“Really.”
Antía was observing Varatorta quizzically. He gave her one of his contorted smiles.
“It’s so nice that you brought her,” Varatorta said, and then nodded at the sleeping Diego. “And him too. I knew you’d get it in the end.”
“What’s all this?” Antía gave Roberto’s hand a fearful squeeze. “What are you talking about?”
Roberto said nothing, all his focus on the man across from him as he weighed up his next move.
Careful, he thought. Be very careful now.
“From one artist to another?” he finally said.
“From one artist to another,” Varatorta said, all smiles. “Oh, I knew it! I knew I should have talked to you sooner, when there was more time! All the incredible work we could have done together! But now—”
“Now the curtain’s about to drop.” Roberto sighed. “The authorities will surely be here soon, probably no more than half an hour.”
“I know.” Varatorta, with a sad smile, reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of bloodstained gold teeth, and dropped them on the table.
Roberto picked one up, with a mixture of disgust and horror.
“I was actually held up because I met someone down at the beach, by the speedboat,” Varatorta said conspiratorially. “He had a mouthful of these things. I didn’t like the way they looked on him, so when I cut off his head, I thought it’d be nicer to take them out.”
Roberto suppressed a shudder, forcing a smile. “Lovely—really nice.”
He squeezed the tooth in the palm of his hand so hard that it hurt, while Varatorta calmly gathered the rest of the gold teeth and put them back in his pocket. In the midst of his madness, he exuded serenity, like a kamikaze pilot about to embark on his final flight.
“I have something else,” Varatorta added, as if this were all the most regular thing. “A little something for you, Mr. Lobeira. A token of admiration and friendship.” He reached for his backpack and offered it to Roberto.
“What’s this?”
“Go on, open it!” Varatorta said, eyes sparkling. He looked jubilant, gleefully expectant, like he was the one now presenting a long-hoped-for present.
Roberto took a deep breath, wincing at his broken ribs, while at the same time trying to avoid letting on just how much pain he was in. The pain, more than anything else, served to clear his mind.
He didn’t know what was in the backpack, but he could be pretty certain it wasn’t going to be something pleasant.
Precisely as he’d anticipated, it was very much a Varatorta kind of gift.
As he unzipped the backpack, it was all Roberto could do to keep himself from vomiting, while Antía, looking over his shoulder, let out a horrified scream.
There inside the backpack was Luis Docampo’s severed head, staring up at him with lifeless eyes, the mouth half open and the swollen, bluish tongue poking out between nicotine-stained teeth.
“If I’m really honest,” Varatorta enthused, tittering, “I wasn’t planning on using him for one of my pieces. Such a brutish man. No sparkle, if you know what I mean. But then I bumped into him on the road, and he was stumbling along—”
Because I’d just hit him over the head with a big piece of wood . . .
“And I remembered that he was the one who pushed you down that shaft . . .” Varatorta shook his head, looking like a displeased schoolteacher. “And he shouldn’t have done that. So I just thought—”
“That I’d like you to take care of him,” Roberto said, finishing the sentence. “Another gift for me, like the rabbit’s head.”
“That’s right!” Varatorta drummed his hands on the table in delight. “See? See how you and I really understand each other? I realized I maybe went over the top when I tied you up, and probably that would have been unpleasant for you, so . . .”
Roberto closed the backpack, his mind whirring.
From Varatorta’s perspective, this was the greatest peace offering possible.
What Varatorta didn’t know was that, in his twisted attempt to ingratiate himself with Roberto, he had inadvertently done away with the only other person on the island with blood on their hands.
He had avenged Víctor Pampín’s murder. But for it to have been done in such a manner . . .
“What about the body?” Roberto said. “Is that also . . . ?”
“Oh”—Varatorta waved his hand dismissively—“fish food, like the guy at the beach. Trash, second-rate material, nothing like what’s coming in now.”
“Now?”
“Of course! I’m just going to say hello to my old colleague Borja.” He stood up and winked again, before giving Antía a hair-raising, head-to-toe look. He appeared to be evaluating her. “Later on, we can discuss how to use what time we have left.”
“Sure,” Roberto said, managing, despite everything, to maintain a faint hint of a smile.
“Oh, and by the way, the passageway.” He jerked a thumb at the sideboard behind him. “At the far end, there’s a steel door, three inches thick. I’ve got the only key. Just mentioning it in case our lady friend here felt like making an early exit.”
To make completely sure, Varatorta now produced the key, shoved the tip into a crack in the countertop, and brought the palm of his hand suddenly and violently down on the bow of the key, succeeding in snapping it.
“Nobody’s going through this door,” he said, looking at them both. “Whatever happens, this thing ends here.”
With that, he left the kitchen, making for Pazos’s bedroom. As soon as he was out of earshot, Roberto groaned and collapsed forward on the table, trembling.
“What the hell was that all about?” Antía said, a horrified expression on her face. “Was that part of your plan too?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Not at all. Just trying to buy some time.”
“So you just go along with that psychopath? He’s killed two more people, and he’s talking about killing me, like it was the most normal thing in the world!”
“We don’t have much choice,” replied Roberto. “We’re locked in. This place is like a fortress. There’s a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound lighthouse keeper who’s obsessed with getting rich, and a serial killer who seems convinced that time’s against him in trying to complete his work . . .”
“So what on earth are we going to do?” Roberto’s reply made her blood run cold.
“Honestly, I don’t have a clue. Varatorta’s being here changes everything. Unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
But Roberto didn’t answer. He was staring at the wall, thoughts seething. Just then, Ibaibarriaga’s heavy footsteps were heard approaching along the hall. The lighthouse keeper burst into the kitchen.
“They’re nearly here,” he said, and then frowned. “Where’s Varatorta?”
“He’s gone to see Borja,” said Roberto, recovering his composure. “álvaro, we need to talk. It’s Varatorta. He’s been lying to us.”