Fic: The Catalan Opening, Part III (Fútbol, gen/various)
Title: The Catalan Opening, Part III
Fandom: Fútbol
Pairing: Puyol/Piqué (hear, hear, Dr Sid!), various others
Rating: PG-13 for language and violence
Word count: ~4400 this chapter (~14000 so far)
Summary: AU cop dramedy. Police Chief Carles Puyol hunts for a killer and, in the process of doing so, saves his own life. A very loose interpretation of the "Piqué cheers Puyi up" prompt on the football kink meme.
A/N: This is probably the longest thing I've written and I've been with it so long that I sort of hate it, and it's not even over yet. Which is just to say that feedback and concrit would be especially appreciated. Thank you! :)
Disclaimer: Lies.
< Part I < Part II
Seven months earlier
They found Robin van Persie in the back of an alley with a bullet through his brain. The only son of the Dutch ambassador, he had last been seen leaving an exclusive nightclub in the Eixample district, several streets from the consulate where his family was staying. Witnesses claimed they'd seen nothing unusual, and the victim's companions were similarly tight-lipped. But a young embassy aide who'd been in Van Persie's party confessed that the boss's son had been drinking heavily that night, and that he'd stormed out of the club after a heated argument with an unknown young man.
There were trace amounts of cocaine on the body, and DNA under the fingernails led to one Rafael Alcântara, brother of Thiago and son of the late unlamented Mazinho, who'd run a virtual monopoly on the old city coke trade in the nineties. It should have been that simple. But six of Rafael's friends swore that he'd been with them in the club the entire evening, and Afellay had been unable to pick him out in the dark. Ballistics were a bust: the bullet had been fired from a silenced police-issue Walther P99 that had probably been stolen from the force, and if there had ever been gunshot residue on the suspect's hands he'd been clever enough to remove it. Even the DNA evidence was less binding than they'd hoped: Rafael, who had at first tried to deny knowing Van Persie, simply got in touch with the family lawyer, and changed his tune to the effect that they were casual acquaintances who'd had a minor drunken disagreement over football.
The Dutch were equally unhelpful. Coenraad van Persie baulked at the slightest suggestion that his son's death was drug-related, claiming diplomatic immunity and denying them access to Robin's records and personal effects while simultaneously demanding results. Carles tried to get more out of Afellay, but Coenraad got wind of it, and the young man clammed up. The press, on the other hand, overflowed with commentary on the matter. Hola and Diez Minutos produced elaborate specials on the drug orgies that were supposedly running rampant amongst the upper classes, and the snooty broadsheets were almost worse, with editorial after editorial lambasting law enforcement and bemoaning the lack of safety on the streets. One memorable evening a reporter from ABC considerately informed Carles that they'd be running a piece comparing his city to Pablo Escobar's Columbia, and asked if he would like to give a quote. He declined.
With the mayor and the media both breathing down his neck, Carles started working late and eating at his desk. He made late-night, last-ditch phone calls to Xavi, who sympathised but was unable to prosecute on such flimsy grounds. Days were spent following up on increasingly far-fetched leads and combing uselessly through every meagre scrap of data they had, stopping only to refuel with takeout and caffeine, or to pacify some furious higher-up. There was a small breakthrough when he discovered that Van Persie had been sitting on a small mountain of credit card debt and that he'd used to frequent the raves in Amsterdam, but with the consulate uncooperative nothing more specific could be found.
For weeks the case stalled, and worse than stalled. Rafael lied, Thiago taunted, and Victor had a series of intense conversations with Zlatan, the last of which culminated in a large webbed crack in the interrogation room's wall-to-wall mirror. Their luck turned even sourer after that, which Carles would not have believed possible, except that Coenraad's next step was to go public with his demands for a conviction. Given that they had no hard evidence to go on, his plan unsurprisingly backfired, provoking nothing but the wrath of the magistrate in charge. Doña Guardiola was big on civil liberties, and was expressively displeased at being pressured into granting a search warrant for the Alcântaras' house. By the time she relented the case details had been so widely publicised that the search was all but useless, and the police ended up with egg on their faces when the murder weapon failed to turn up.
It was a stupid thing that did it, in the end. The lift was taking too long and Carles, head fuzzy and spinning from another twenty-six-hour day, knew that if he stood and waited for it he'd fall right asleep on his feet. His apartment was only five floors up, so he stumbled up the stairs, ignoring the mild twinges in his chest as he always did. By the fourth floor he was having trouble breathing; by the fifth he was seeing double. His keys scratched and clattered against the lock on the front door, but somehow he got it open before collapsing onto the delicate, spindly-legged, powder blue coat-stand, which toppled over with a loud crash. The last thing he thought was, “Well, good, I always hated that thing, anyway.” The last thing he saw was Leo's startled, boyish face.
Present day
Carles woke to the sound of running water. He groaned, skulked in bed till the pipes stopped rattling, and then stomped into the kitchen to confront his rude guest, only to stop short at the outlandish sight of Leo in broad daylight. Piqué, shower hog and evident worker of miracles, was standing half-naked at the kitchen counter, instructing him in the fine art of whisking eggs.
“I think I'm done,” Leo said, presenting a bowl for inspection.
“No you're not,” Piqué said, barely sparing a glance at its contents. “Bubbles, Leo! It needs bubbles! Aerate!” He turned back to the stove, and tossed a small pile of ingredients into a pan - diced onions, shredded spinach, and slivers of white mushroom so thinly sliced that you could see through them. Carles stared blankly at the moles on his bare shoulders and thought, “This is getting ridiculous.” But the kitchen smelled heavenly. He said nothing.
After their unaccustomed dainty breakfast of egg white omelette Piqué folded himself once again into Carles's SEAT, and they braved the morning rush hour to get to the station. Leo went back to sleep, which Carles had half expected. The real mystery was how Piqué had managed to get him up in the first place.
“Leo's a quiet guy,” Carles ventured, “most of the time.” The what did you do to him went politely unsaid.
“Yeah,” Piqué agreed. “But he's nice. I like him. Not in that way!” he added hurriedly at Carles's pointedly raised eyebrow. “Though he could be cute with the right haircut.”
“Hah, please,” Carles said, steering bullishly into a gap between a Benz and an Audi. “I can't even get him to leave the house, much less go to a barber. Don't even know what he gets up to all night. Hey, what's your problem, asshole?” as the Benz blared its horn in displeasure.
“Ehh,” Piqué said neutrally, staring out at the raging sea of traffic. “I wouldn't worry. He's a smart kid.”
“I know,” Carles said.
He left Piqué in the labs oohing over the computers like a kid in a toy store. Xavi was waiting for him outside his office, looking a little less bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than usual. Andrés and the two detectives were stood off to one side in a subdued little huddle, and Carles took one look at their faces and braced himself for bad news.
“Look,” Xavi said, cutting right to the chase, “we're wasting our time. We've got to bring charges by nine o'clock tomorrow night, which means that there's less than 36 hours left. The Van Persie case is going nowhere, and for once we have solid evidence on the trafficking, so let's focus on that, push for the harshest sentence, and forget about the homicide, all right?”
Carles gaped at him in disbelief. “'Forget about the homicide?' What- Xavi- are you even listening to yourself? Where is this coming from?”
Xavi squared his round jaw. It was mottled with stubble. “If Van Persie wants a conviction he can cooperate with the police. He's ignored us, lied to us, and pretty much put his entire staff down for obstruction of justice. Twice. I know you were hoping for a fresh shot at this, but you have to admit that we haven't really found anything new. I have to be honest with you guys - from a legal standpoint, this one is dead in the water. Andrés agrees.”
“Andrés always agrees,” Villa pointed out dryly.
“Well, he convinced me on this one,” Xavi retorted. “We've been up all night reviewing the evidence, and I think the best we can do is to keep it simple. Make the drug charges as watertight as possible, and -”
“Watertight?” Carles exclaimed, glancing to Victor for support. “It's suspicious as hell, and you know it! You were there!”
Xavi threw up his hands in frustration. “They had six kilos in their possession and we know they've been trafficking for years - how much more watertight can it get? The way I see it, we should be thanking our lucky stars that they were dumb enough to forget the stuff in the glove compartment, and leaving it at that. It'll only weaken the case if we try to add homicide to the charges - the trial'll drag out for months, and we'll probably lose in the end. Look, I don't like this any more than you do, but let's face the facts - we've got nothing.”
But Carles couldn't make himself agree. “Not nothing,” he argued. “In fact I brought Gerard Piqué in today, and he's upstairs working on Identi-kit right now.”
There was an uncomfortable pause. Xavi looked at his assistant, who looked down at his bulky black shoes. At last Xavi spoke. "It's a waste of time," he said gently. "You've been on this case for seven months, Puyi, and nothing good's come of it. Let it go."
Carles stared at him, at all of them. Villa just sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. Victor - Victor wouldn't even look at him. And Andrés lowered his gaze and shrank guiltily into the background, his shoulders hunched in as if they could shield him from unwanted attention.
Carles straightened his spine. “No,” he told them quietly, voice firmer than he knew. “No. There's been a murder, and we have a lead, no matter how small it is, and we are running it down until there's nowhere left to run.”
The Identi-kit produced a narrow-faced young man with dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a slim assassin's jaw. Carles knew he was projecting, though - as adamant as Piqué had been about his "instincts", it was more than likely that the face belonged to a normal twenty-something kid whose only crime had been stopping to admire a flashy sports car. Neither Thiago nor Rafael could identify the man, and no matches turned up in the federal and European offender databases. Carles caught Victor and Xavi exchanging sombre glances. But nobody actually said, "I told you so." Xavi might have said something when Carles went ahead and ordered an all-points bulletin anyway, but Andrés, looking almost sorry for him, stepped in and volunteered to take care of the paperwork. Xavi just shook his head and relented. It was a sad state of affairs when Andrés thought you needed to be put out of your misery.
After that, there was little else to do but plod on. Villa went back over the financials for the half-dozenth time, and Victor called Zlatan in just in case they wanted to badger the prisoners some more. But no one was in the mood for another fruitless interrogation, and the defence attorney spent the morning stalking up and down the corridors and casting aspersions on the vending machines while Carles buried himself in old case files and felt futile. He was trying to avoid thinking about what the press would say when they found out he'd lost the trail a second time, when Piqué stuck his head round the door.
"Hey," he stage whispered. "Who's the hot guy in the suit?"
Andrés did a double-take. "Zlatan?" he blurted.
Victor sniggered. Andrés ducked his head.
"Zlatan, eh? Is that, like, Hungarian or something?" Piqué said consideringly. And then, "What?", at their dubious expressions. "I can appreciate tall, dark, and handsome."
"Yeah, but him?" Villa said.
"He's a lawyer," Carles informed him. Xavi did the lip thing.
"Oh, oh, oh that's different then. I don't do lawyers. My dad's one, you see."
"Ew," Villa said. Carles privately agreed.
"Shame though," Piqué added. "It looked like a very nice suit."
“Anyway,” Carles said briskly, changing the subject. “Have you been here all this while?”
“Yeah, I was just chilling with Dani - the computer guy? Yeah, he's awesome. He let me play around with the software for a bit after we were done, and guess what I made?” He held up a printout. It was a creditable if slightly fleshy-looking replica of Carles's face, complete with dress uniform and labradoodle hair. “Pretty good, eh?”
“It's beautiful. I love it. We'll put it up on the fridge,” Carles said, deadpan. “Now go away.”
Piqué actually flinched. Carles felt like a cad.
“What he means,” Victor said, jumping in gallantly, “is that unfortunately, what with the sensitive nature of the case-”
“And the unreasonable expectations,” continued Villa, “and the mind-numbingly imbecilic media, and our own sad inability to get anywhere with this investigation for the last half a year -”
“- he sometimes turns into a bit of a dick,” Victor finished.
“Don't take it personally,” Xavi said, with an oblique little smile.
“You're one to talk!” Carles grumbled, not quite sure whom he was referring to. Everyone, he supposed. “Anyway, what I meant was,” he cast about desperately for an idea, “-would you like to go on a tour of the building? We're a little preoccupied here, as you can see, but I'm sure someone in the traffic department could take you round.”
“Oh. Sure,” Piqué said, still looking a little forlorn. He twisted the picture of Carles in his hands. “If it's not too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all!” Carles lied. “Victor will show you the way.”
Victor left him with Tito, who left him with Keita, who eventually offloaded him onto a hapless-looking work experience kid with floppy bangs and a puppy-eyed stare. They returned three hours later, arm in arm and twittering like best girlfriends.
"Thanks Geri," Work Experience said, gazing adoringly at Piqué as they lingered in the corridor.
"No problem," Piqué said. He thumped the kid on the back. "Remember, self-confidence is the key. Those assholes won't know what hit them!"
"Had a good look around?" Victor enquired when the younger boy had prised himself away from the hitchhiker's side.
"Oh, yeah," Piqué told him. "Bojan got us in everywhere - the shooting range, the dispatch room, the morgue - which was awesome, by the way -"
"The morgue?" Carles said, giving up on the pretence of report writing. "That's restricted access!"
"It's all right, we wore masks and everything," Piqué said with a nonchalant wave. "Bojan knew the guy at the desk and he said it was okay as long as we didn't tell the captain."
"I'm the captain," Carles said.
"Oh," Piqué blinked. "Sorry?"
"I don't look captainly to you?" Carles said when they were in the car later. It was nine in the evening and they had finally called it a night when Villa's wife showed up at the precinct to drag him home. They were on the way back to Carles's place and he didn't know why he was still a bit miffed about Piqué's earlier breach of protocol. It had certainly been the smallest of the day's failures.
"What? No!" Piqué said, twisting around in his seat. The seat-belt squeaked in protest. "I mean, you do! You're definitely scary enough, when you want to be. But also you're sort of... cuddly? And not in a suit. I thought you had to wear a suit."
"Cuddly," Carles said, not because he was fixating or anything.
"Yeah," Piqué said. "You know, like a lion."
Carles eyed him. Piqué's face betrayed not a smidgen of irony. "You've obviously never met a lion," he said finally.
"Well, of course not. Have you? Oh!" Piqué slapped his knee, interrupting himself. "We should go to the zoo! They've built a new elephant enclosure since the last time I went. You know, because Susi was dying of loneliness?"
"What?" Carles said.
"Yes! She was lonely and depressed and it was terrible," Piqué said (still no irony)."So they bought her a friend, to make her feel better. His name is Yo-yo. It was on the news even in England. We should visit, check it out. And we should take Leo, he needs to get out more."
"I'll go if he goes," Carles said, smug as the immovable object.
The next morning they made a last valiant effort to flog their dead case back to life. Carles got in early, and squandered most of his good mood from Piqué's whole wheat blueberry waffles on a long-distance phone call to Van Persie, who'd slunk back to Amsterdam as soon as the fuss had died down. Villa, who'd clearly gotten laid the night before (plausible little bastard), spent his arguing with Europol; Victor, who clearly hadn't, blackmailed an old friend in forensics into expediting the full results on the cocaine powder. This turned out to be the final nail in the coffin.
"Fuck," Carles muttered when he'd read the lab report through a second and then a third time.
Villa looked up from his computer screen. "You mean just in general, or is this something new?"
"Something new," Carles said, mind racing with the implications. "Look at this."
The results appeared typical enough at first: the sample was 86% pure, cut with 2% baking soda, 12% other. "Other" was never a good thing, and this time was no exception: a stomach-turning mixture of benzocaine, crystal meth, and levamisole, a livestock de-worming agent commonly used as a diluent in the States and known to have leprosy-like side-effects. But that wasn't even the real problem. The real problem was at the bottom of the report, in a helpful little note in Pepe's large, emphatic hand:
N.B. COMPOSITN NOT A MATCH W STANDARD MAZINHO PRODCT?? USU. B.S./STARCH/VIT. B/VIT. C - DBL-CHK ORIGIN???
"Damn," Victor said.
Carles's heart sank. "How bad is this, Victor? I mean, is there a chance that they're just changing things up a little? Trying something new?"
"It's possible," Victor rubbed his chin, "but I don't think so. Mazinho's people have been around for a long time, and they have a reputation to maintain. I'm not saying they'd never change their recipes, but this is seriously nasty stuff - very addictive, and it'll melt your skin right off your face if you use it too much, which you will. Frankly, I'm not sure that Thiago is ruthless enough for that yet."
"Well, fuck," Villa said. "So they were framed after all?"
"By a rival, maybe," Victor replied slowly. "Someone who wanted them put away for a long time, at any rate."
"Which could be anyone," Carles said. Making a decision, he grabbed the report off the desk and made a beeline for Xavi's office.
"Those weren't their drugs," he said abruptly, shoving the file into the astonished lawyer's hand.
"What?" Xavi said, scanning the document. And then, thirty seconds later, "What!"
Carles didn't say "I told you so"; they were all in trouble here. "I don't know what the hell's going on," he said, "but it looks like there's a chance they were telling the truth."
"That can't be right," Xavi said, turning over the report like he was expecting to find a big April Fools' sign on the back. There wasn't one. "Fuck. What are we going to do?"
"Let them go?" Carles suggested with a strangled, half-hysterical noise that might have been a laugh.
"Fuck that," Xavi said. "Andrés- hey, where did he go?"
"I don't know," Carles said again impatiently. "But I need you to get Zlatan and cut them a deal. I don't care what it takes, I want them in that room and talking within the hour. We're getting to the bottom of this, Xavi, and we're doing it now."
Zlatan set his briefcase on the floor and sat down. “They'll talk,” he said crisply, “but we want full immunity.”
“Immunity?” Xavi said incredulously, rising like vengeance from behind his desk. “You'd be lucky to get a plea bargain. We have them on nine years on a Class A drug charge!”
“Not any longer you don't,” Zlatan said, “and you know it. You try to bring this to trial, and I'll subpoena your friend in the labs and get that crazy Piqué guy to swear the coke was planted. My clients will walk, and you'll get nothing - not on the drug charge, and certainly not on the homicide.”
“Those might not be his drugs, but we know he's a dealer. And-”
“Immunity,” Zlatan repeated, steepling his long fingers and leaning complacently back in his chair. “For both him and the brother, and your word that you won't make excuses to detain them when all this is over. Otherwise, feel free to get Guardiola on the phone. See where that gets you. She'll throw your case right out of court.”
Xavi looked just about mad enough to try it, but Carles shook his head. “Much as I hate to admit it...”
The prosecutor glowered at them both for a moment, but then he puffed out his cheeks and swallowed his ire. “Fine,” he said severely. “If it leads to a conviction.”
Zlatain grinned like a shark. “That's your job, though, isn't it?”
Thiago looked worried for the first time since they'd dragged him in at the start of the Van Persie investigation. He didn't look much like a man who'd just gotten away with murder. His eyes were tight with tension, darting around the small room like he was scanning for ghosts in the wall padding, and he licked his dry lips several times before speaking.
“Rafinha's seventeen," he began in a low mumble. "What we do, in the business - what I have to do - it doesn't involve him. I keep him out of it. He knows nothing. But people know he's my brother, so I have to look out for him. And Rafinha- he doesn't make it easy. He-”
He stopped, and glanced up at Zlatan, a lost look in the planes of his face. He's nineteen, Carles realised suddenly. Younger than Leo.
“Go on,” Zlatan prompted, in a surprisingly gentle tone.
“He goes to these clubs,” Thiago said at last, staring a hole into the table. “He- he's homosexual,” almost angrily, defiantly.
“Okay,” Victor said, not batting an eye. “And?”
“And he's too young but they let him in because they know who he is. And he's no trouble - he doesn't even drink - he just likes to dance, and he didn't even fuck until he met that bastard Van Persie. About a year ago, at the Arena Diana.
“Rafinha's an idiot. He didn't know he was fucking the ambassador's son. Van Persie didn't tell him. He thought he was just a tourist, just some rich boy who liked to party. Started seeing him whenever he came into town. Every couple of weeks he'd sneak out to meet him, and they'd go to hotels, high-end places. Van Persie was real smooth, acted like a real gentleman. But I knew he was trouble.”
“So you killed him,” Victor said.
“I didn't kill him!” Thiago glared at him. “Though I might've if I'd known what would happen. He was using him.”
(Xavi and Villa snorted identical snorts. “What?” Carles frowned at them. “It's sort of sweet.”)
“Using him how?” Victor asked.
Thiago shook his head. “I don't know for sure,” he admitted, “but he's got ties to the drug business somehow. Definitely a user, and probably a dealer as well.”
(“I knew it!” Carles said triumphantly. “Those lying Dutch bastards,” Xavi agreed.)
“The night he went and got himself killed he and Rafinha had a fight. Van Persie was drunk - he cornered him in the Arena and said something about knowing who Rafinha was, who his family were. Maybe he thought Rafinha was spying for us or something, I don't know. Anyway he went mad, talked all kinds of rot about turning himself in and telling the cops everything, ending it all. Rafinha panicked and ran, and the next thing we know, the bastard's found dead right outside the club they were in, and Rafinha's convinced that everything is his fault.” He scowled. “All those interrogations didn't help.
“That's why we went to France. I thought I'd wait till things quietened down a little, take him out of the city, get him out of his shell. I tried to take him to a brothel, even, made sure they had boys. But he couldn't go through with it. It's been more than six months, detective,” he lifted his chin and looked Victor dead in the eye. “What does that tell you? My brother didn't kill Robin van Persie. He was in love with him.”
(“Oh my god,” Villa said.)
Victor recovered quickly. “That's a very moving story,” he said coolly. “But it's not going to catch us the killer. And until we turn up someone else with the means and the motive, your brother is still the prime suspect.”
“Why don't you look at who Van Persie was working for, then?”
“And who was that?” Victor asked.
“I don't know,” Thiago avoided his eyes.
“But you can guess.”
Thiago fisted his hands. He looked up at his lawyer.
“Full immunity,” Zlatan reassured him. “And witness protection, if it comes to that.”
“We don't want you,” Victor added. “We want the killer.”
Finally, Thiago answered. His voice was a whisper. “The Pale Knight.”
Part IV >
Fandom: Fútbol
Pairing: Puyol/Piqué (hear, hear, Dr Sid!), various others
Rating: PG-13 for language and violence
Word count: ~4400 this chapter (~14000 so far)
Summary: AU cop dramedy. Police Chief Carles Puyol hunts for a killer and, in the process of doing so, saves his own life. A very loose interpretation of the "Piqué cheers Puyi up" prompt on the football kink meme.
A/N: This is probably the longest thing I've written and I've been with it so long that I sort of hate it, and it's not even over yet. Which is just to say that feedback and concrit would be especially appreciated. Thank you! :)
Disclaimer: Lies.
< Part I < Part II
Seven months earlier
They found Robin van Persie in the back of an alley with a bullet through his brain. The only son of the Dutch ambassador, he had last been seen leaving an exclusive nightclub in the Eixample district, several streets from the consulate where his family was staying. Witnesses claimed they'd seen nothing unusual, and the victim's companions were similarly tight-lipped. But a young embassy aide who'd been in Van Persie's party confessed that the boss's son had been drinking heavily that night, and that he'd stormed out of the club after a heated argument with an unknown young man.
There were trace amounts of cocaine on the body, and DNA under the fingernails led to one Rafael Alcântara, brother of Thiago and son of the late unlamented Mazinho, who'd run a virtual monopoly on the old city coke trade in the nineties. It should have been that simple. But six of Rafael's friends swore that he'd been with them in the club the entire evening, and Afellay had been unable to pick him out in the dark. Ballistics were a bust: the bullet had been fired from a silenced police-issue Walther P99 that had probably been stolen from the force, and if there had ever been gunshot residue on the suspect's hands he'd been clever enough to remove it. Even the DNA evidence was less binding than they'd hoped: Rafael, who had at first tried to deny knowing Van Persie, simply got in touch with the family lawyer, and changed his tune to the effect that they were casual acquaintances who'd had a minor drunken disagreement over football.
The Dutch were equally unhelpful. Coenraad van Persie baulked at the slightest suggestion that his son's death was drug-related, claiming diplomatic immunity and denying them access to Robin's records and personal effects while simultaneously demanding results. Carles tried to get more out of Afellay, but Coenraad got wind of it, and the young man clammed up. The press, on the other hand, overflowed with commentary on the matter. Hola and Diez Minutos produced elaborate specials on the drug orgies that were supposedly running rampant amongst the upper classes, and the snooty broadsheets were almost worse, with editorial after editorial lambasting law enforcement and bemoaning the lack of safety on the streets. One memorable evening a reporter from ABC considerately informed Carles that they'd be running a piece comparing his city to Pablo Escobar's Columbia, and asked if he would like to give a quote. He declined.
With the mayor and the media both breathing down his neck, Carles started working late and eating at his desk. He made late-night, last-ditch phone calls to Xavi, who sympathised but was unable to prosecute on such flimsy grounds. Days were spent following up on increasingly far-fetched leads and combing uselessly through every meagre scrap of data they had, stopping only to refuel with takeout and caffeine, or to pacify some furious higher-up. There was a small breakthrough when he discovered that Van Persie had been sitting on a small mountain of credit card debt and that he'd used to frequent the raves in Amsterdam, but with the consulate uncooperative nothing more specific could be found.
For weeks the case stalled, and worse than stalled. Rafael lied, Thiago taunted, and Victor had a series of intense conversations with Zlatan, the last of which culminated in a large webbed crack in the interrogation room's wall-to-wall mirror. Their luck turned even sourer after that, which Carles would not have believed possible, except that Coenraad's next step was to go public with his demands for a conviction. Given that they had no hard evidence to go on, his plan unsurprisingly backfired, provoking nothing but the wrath of the magistrate in charge. Doña Guardiola was big on civil liberties, and was expressively displeased at being pressured into granting a search warrant for the Alcântaras' house. By the time she relented the case details had been so widely publicised that the search was all but useless, and the police ended up with egg on their faces when the murder weapon failed to turn up.
It was a stupid thing that did it, in the end. The lift was taking too long and Carles, head fuzzy and spinning from another twenty-six-hour day, knew that if he stood and waited for it he'd fall right asleep on his feet. His apartment was only five floors up, so he stumbled up the stairs, ignoring the mild twinges in his chest as he always did. By the fourth floor he was having trouble breathing; by the fifth he was seeing double. His keys scratched and clattered against the lock on the front door, but somehow he got it open before collapsing onto the delicate, spindly-legged, powder blue coat-stand, which toppled over with a loud crash. The last thing he thought was, “Well, good, I always hated that thing, anyway.” The last thing he saw was Leo's startled, boyish face.
Present day
Carles woke to the sound of running water. He groaned, skulked in bed till the pipes stopped rattling, and then stomped into the kitchen to confront his rude guest, only to stop short at the outlandish sight of Leo in broad daylight. Piqué, shower hog and evident worker of miracles, was standing half-naked at the kitchen counter, instructing him in the fine art of whisking eggs.
“I think I'm done,” Leo said, presenting a bowl for inspection.
“No you're not,” Piqué said, barely sparing a glance at its contents. “Bubbles, Leo! It needs bubbles! Aerate!” He turned back to the stove, and tossed a small pile of ingredients into a pan - diced onions, shredded spinach, and slivers of white mushroom so thinly sliced that you could see through them. Carles stared blankly at the moles on his bare shoulders and thought, “This is getting ridiculous.” But the kitchen smelled heavenly. He said nothing.
After their unaccustomed dainty breakfast of egg white omelette Piqué folded himself once again into Carles's SEAT, and they braved the morning rush hour to get to the station. Leo went back to sleep, which Carles had half expected. The real mystery was how Piqué had managed to get him up in the first place.
“Leo's a quiet guy,” Carles ventured, “most of the time.” The what did you do to him went politely unsaid.
“Yeah,” Piqué agreed. “But he's nice. I like him. Not in that way!” he added hurriedly at Carles's pointedly raised eyebrow. “Though he could be cute with the right haircut.”
“Hah, please,” Carles said, steering bullishly into a gap between a Benz and an Audi. “I can't even get him to leave the house, much less go to a barber. Don't even know what he gets up to all night. Hey, what's your problem, asshole?” as the Benz blared its horn in displeasure.
“Ehh,” Piqué said neutrally, staring out at the raging sea of traffic. “I wouldn't worry. He's a smart kid.”
“I know,” Carles said.
He left Piqué in the labs oohing over the computers like a kid in a toy store. Xavi was waiting for him outside his office, looking a little less bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than usual. Andrés and the two detectives were stood off to one side in a subdued little huddle, and Carles took one look at their faces and braced himself for bad news.
“Look,” Xavi said, cutting right to the chase, “we're wasting our time. We've got to bring charges by nine o'clock tomorrow night, which means that there's less than 36 hours left. The Van Persie case is going nowhere, and for once we have solid evidence on the trafficking, so let's focus on that, push for the harshest sentence, and forget about the homicide, all right?”
Carles gaped at him in disbelief. “'Forget about the homicide?' What- Xavi- are you even listening to yourself? Where is this coming from?”
Xavi squared his round jaw. It was mottled with stubble. “If Van Persie wants a conviction he can cooperate with the police. He's ignored us, lied to us, and pretty much put his entire staff down for obstruction of justice. Twice. I know you were hoping for a fresh shot at this, but you have to admit that we haven't really found anything new. I have to be honest with you guys - from a legal standpoint, this one is dead in the water. Andrés agrees.”
“Andrés always agrees,” Villa pointed out dryly.
“Well, he convinced me on this one,” Xavi retorted. “We've been up all night reviewing the evidence, and I think the best we can do is to keep it simple. Make the drug charges as watertight as possible, and -”
“Watertight?” Carles exclaimed, glancing to Victor for support. “It's suspicious as hell, and you know it! You were there!”
Xavi threw up his hands in frustration. “They had six kilos in their possession and we know they've been trafficking for years - how much more watertight can it get? The way I see it, we should be thanking our lucky stars that they were dumb enough to forget the stuff in the glove compartment, and leaving it at that. It'll only weaken the case if we try to add homicide to the charges - the trial'll drag out for months, and we'll probably lose in the end. Look, I don't like this any more than you do, but let's face the facts - we've got nothing.”
But Carles couldn't make himself agree. “Not nothing,” he argued. “In fact I brought Gerard Piqué in today, and he's upstairs working on Identi-kit right now.”
There was an uncomfortable pause. Xavi looked at his assistant, who looked down at his bulky black shoes. At last Xavi spoke. "It's a waste of time," he said gently. "You've been on this case for seven months, Puyi, and nothing good's come of it. Let it go."
Carles stared at him, at all of them. Villa just sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. Victor - Victor wouldn't even look at him. And Andrés lowered his gaze and shrank guiltily into the background, his shoulders hunched in as if they could shield him from unwanted attention.
Carles straightened his spine. “No,” he told them quietly, voice firmer than he knew. “No. There's been a murder, and we have a lead, no matter how small it is, and we are running it down until there's nowhere left to run.”
The Identi-kit produced a narrow-faced young man with dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a slim assassin's jaw. Carles knew he was projecting, though - as adamant as Piqué had been about his "instincts", it was more than likely that the face belonged to a normal twenty-something kid whose only crime had been stopping to admire a flashy sports car. Neither Thiago nor Rafael could identify the man, and no matches turned up in the federal and European offender databases. Carles caught Victor and Xavi exchanging sombre glances. But nobody actually said, "I told you so." Xavi might have said something when Carles went ahead and ordered an all-points bulletin anyway, but Andrés, looking almost sorry for him, stepped in and volunteered to take care of the paperwork. Xavi just shook his head and relented. It was a sad state of affairs when Andrés thought you needed to be put out of your misery.
After that, there was little else to do but plod on. Villa went back over the financials for the half-dozenth time, and Victor called Zlatan in just in case they wanted to badger the prisoners some more. But no one was in the mood for another fruitless interrogation, and the defence attorney spent the morning stalking up and down the corridors and casting aspersions on the vending machines while Carles buried himself in old case files and felt futile. He was trying to avoid thinking about what the press would say when they found out he'd lost the trail a second time, when Piqué stuck his head round the door.
"Hey," he stage whispered. "Who's the hot guy in the suit?"
Andrés did a double-take. "Zlatan?" he blurted.
Victor sniggered. Andrés ducked his head.
"Zlatan, eh? Is that, like, Hungarian or something?" Piqué said consideringly. And then, "What?", at their dubious expressions. "I can appreciate tall, dark, and handsome."
"Yeah, but him?" Villa said.
"He's a lawyer," Carles informed him. Xavi did the lip thing.
"Oh, oh, oh that's different then. I don't do lawyers. My dad's one, you see."
"Ew," Villa said. Carles privately agreed.
"Shame though," Piqué added. "It looked like a very nice suit."
“Anyway,” Carles said briskly, changing the subject. “Have you been here all this while?”
“Yeah, I was just chilling with Dani - the computer guy? Yeah, he's awesome. He let me play around with the software for a bit after we were done, and guess what I made?” He held up a printout. It was a creditable if slightly fleshy-looking replica of Carles's face, complete with dress uniform and labradoodle hair. “Pretty good, eh?”
“It's beautiful. I love it. We'll put it up on the fridge,” Carles said, deadpan. “Now go away.”
Piqué actually flinched. Carles felt like a cad.
“What he means,” Victor said, jumping in gallantly, “is that unfortunately, what with the sensitive nature of the case-”
“And the unreasonable expectations,” continued Villa, “and the mind-numbingly imbecilic media, and our own sad inability to get anywhere with this investigation for the last half a year -”
“- he sometimes turns into a bit of a dick,” Victor finished.
“Don't take it personally,” Xavi said, with an oblique little smile.
“You're one to talk!” Carles grumbled, not quite sure whom he was referring to. Everyone, he supposed. “Anyway, what I meant was,” he cast about desperately for an idea, “-would you like to go on a tour of the building? We're a little preoccupied here, as you can see, but I'm sure someone in the traffic department could take you round.”
“Oh. Sure,” Piqué said, still looking a little forlorn. He twisted the picture of Carles in his hands. “If it's not too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all!” Carles lied. “Victor will show you the way.”
Victor left him with Tito, who left him with Keita, who eventually offloaded him onto a hapless-looking work experience kid with floppy bangs and a puppy-eyed stare. They returned three hours later, arm in arm and twittering like best girlfriends.
"Thanks Geri," Work Experience said, gazing adoringly at Piqué as they lingered in the corridor.
"No problem," Piqué said. He thumped the kid on the back. "Remember, self-confidence is the key. Those assholes won't know what hit them!"
"Had a good look around?" Victor enquired when the younger boy had prised himself away from the hitchhiker's side.
"Oh, yeah," Piqué told him. "Bojan got us in everywhere - the shooting range, the dispatch room, the morgue - which was awesome, by the way -"
"The morgue?" Carles said, giving up on the pretence of report writing. "That's restricted access!"
"It's all right, we wore masks and everything," Piqué said with a nonchalant wave. "Bojan knew the guy at the desk and he said it was okay as long as we didn't tell the captain."
"I'm the captain," Carles said.
"Oh," Piqué blinked. "Sorry?"
"I don't look captainly to you?" Carles said when they were in the car later. It was nine in the evening and they had finally called it a night when Villa's wife showed up at the precinct to drag him home. They were on the way back to Carles's place and he didn't know why he was still a bit miffed about Piqué's earlier breach of protocol. It had certainly been the smallest of the day's failures.
"What? No!" Piqué said, twisting around in his seat. The seat-belt squeaked in protest. "I mean, you do! You're definitely scary enough, when you want to be. But also you're sort of... cuddly? And not in a suit. I thought you had to wear a suit."
"Cuddly," Carles said, not because he was fixating or anything.
"Yeah," Piqué said. "You know, like a lion."
Carles eyed him. Piqué's face betrayed not a smidgen of irony. "You've obviously never met a lion," he said finally.
"Well, of course not. Have you? Oh!" Piqué slapped his knee, interrupting himself. "We should go to the zoo! They've built a new elephant enclosure since the last time I went. You know, because Susi was dying of loneliness?"
"What?" Carles said.
"Yes! She was lonely and depressed and it was terrible," Piqué said (still no irony)."So they bought her a friend, to make her feel better. His name is Yo-yo. It was on the news even in England. We should visit, check it out. And we should take Leo, he needs to get out more."
"I'll go if he goes," Carles said, smug as the immovable object.
The next morning they made a last valiant effort to flog their dead case back to life. Carles got in early, and squandered most of his good mood from Piqué's whole wheat blueberry waffles on a long-distance phone call to Van Persie, who'd slunk back to Amsterdam as soon as the fuss had died down. Villa, who'd clearly gotten laid the night before (plausible little bastard), spent his arguing with Europol; Victor, who clearly hadn't, blackmailed an old friend in forensics into expediting the full results on the cocaine powder. This turned out to be the final nail in the coffin.
"Fuck," Carles muttered when he'd read the lab report through a second and then a third time.
Villa looked up from his computer screen. "You mean just in general, or is this something new?"
"Something new," Carles said, mind racing with the implications. "Look at this."
The results appeared typical enough at first: the sample was 86% pure, cut with 2% baking soda, 12% other. "Other" was never a good thing, and this time was no exception: a stomach-turning mixture of benzocaine, crystal meth, and levamisole, a livestock de-worming agent commonly used as a diluent in the States and known to have leprosy-like side-effects. But that wasn't even the real problem. The real problem was at the bottom of the report, in a helpful little note in Pepe's large, emphatic hand:
N.B. COMPOSITN NOT A MATCH W STANDARD MAZINHO PRODCT?? USU. B.S./STARCH/VIT. B/VIT. C - DBL-CHK ORIGIN???
"Damn," Victor said.
Carles's heart sank. "How bad is this, Victor? I mean, is there a chance that they're just changing things up a little? Trying something new?"
"It's possible," Victor rubbed his chin, "but I don't think so. Mazinho's people have been around for a long time, and they have a reputation to maintain. I'm not saying they'd never change their recipes, but this is seriously nasty stuff - very addictive, and it'll melt your skin right off your face if you use it too much, which you will. Frankly, I'm not sure that Thiago is ruthless enough for that yet."
"Well, fuck," Villa said. "So they were framed after all?"
"By a rival, maybe," Victor replied slowly. "Someone who wanted them put away for a long time, at any rate."
"Which could be anyone," Carles said. Making a decision, he grabbed the report off the desk and made a beeline for Xavi's office.
"Those weren't their drugs," he said abruptly, shoving the file into the astonished lawyer's hand.
"What?" Xavi said, scanning the document. And then, thirty seconds later, "What!"
Carles didn't say "I told you so"; they were all in trouble here. "I don't know what the hell's going on," he said, "but it looks like there's a chance they were telling the truth."
"That can't be right," Xavi said, turning over the report like he was expecting to find a big April Fools' sign on the back. There wasn't one. "Fuck. What are we going to do?"
"Let them go?" Carles suggested with a strangled, half-hysterical noise that might have been a laugh.
"Fuck that," Xavi said. "Andrés- hey, where did he go?"
"I don't know," Carles said again impatiently. "But I need you to get Zlatan and cut them a deal. I don't care what it takes, I want them in that room and talking within the hour. We're getting to the bottom of this, Xavi, and we're doing it now."
Zlatan set his briefcase on the floor and sat down. “They'll talk,” he said crisply, “but we want full immunity.”
“Immunity?” Xavi said incredulously, rising like vengeance from behind his desk. “You'd be lucky to get a plea bargain. We have them on nine years on a Class A drug charge!”
“Not any longer you don't,” Zlatan said, “and you know it. You try to bring this to trial, and I'll subpoena your friend in the labs and get that crazy Piqué guy to swear the coke was planted. My clients will walk, and you'll get nothing - not on the drug charge, and certainly not on the homicide.”
“Those might not be his drugs, but we know he's a dealer. And-”
“Immunity,” Zlatan repeated, steepling his long fingers and leaning complacently back in his chair. “For both him and the brother, and your word that you won't make excuses to detain them when all this is over. Otherwise, feel free to get Guardiola on the phone. See where that gets you. She'll throw your case right out of court.”
Xavi looked just about mad enough to try it, but Carles shook his head. “Much as I hate to admit it...”
The prosecutor glowered at them both for a moment, but then he puffed out his cheeks and swallowed his ire. “Fine,” he said severely. “If it leads to a conviction.”
Zlatain grinned like a shark. “That's your job, though, isn't it?”
Thiago looked worried for the first time since they'd dragged him in at the start of the Van Persie investigation. He didn't look much like a man who'd just gotten away with murder. His eyes were tight with tension, darting around the small room like he was scanning for ghosts in the wall padding, and he licked his dry lips several times before speaking.
“Rafinha's seventeen," he began in a low mumble. "What we do, in the business - what I have to do - it doesn't involve him. I keep him out of it. He knows nothing. But people know he's my brother, so I have to look out for him. And Rafinha- he doesn't make it easy. He-”
He stopped, and glanced up at Zlatan, a lost look in the planes of his face. He's nineteen, Carles realised suddenly. Younger than Leo.
“Go on,” Zlatan prompted, in a surprisingly gentle tone.
“He goes to these clubs,” Thiago said at last, staring a hole into the table. “He- he's homosexual,” almost angrily, defiantly.
“Okay,” Victor said, not batting an eye. “And?”
“And he's too young but they let him in because they know who he is. And he's no trouble - he doesn't even drink - he just likes to dance, and he didn't even fuck until he met that bastard Van Persie. About a year ago, at the Arena Diana.
“Rafinha's an idiot. He didn't know he was fucking the ambassador's son. Van Persie didn't tell him. He thought he was just a tourist, just some rich boy who liked to party. Started seeing him whenever he came into town. Every couple of weeks he'd sneak out to meet him, and they'd go to hotels, high-end places. Van Persie was real smooth, acted like a real gentleman. But I knew he was trouble.”
“So you killed him,” Victor said.
“I didn't kill him!” Thiago glared at him. “Though I might've if I'd known what would happen. He was using him.”
(Xavi and Villa snorted identical snorts. “What?” Carles frowned at them. “It's sort of sweet.”)
“Using him how?” Victor asked.
Thiago shook his head. “I don't know for sure,” he admitted, “but he's got ties to the drug business somehow. Definitely a user, and probably a dealer as well.”
(“I knew it!” Carles said triumphantly. “Those lying Dutch bastards,” Xavi agreed.)
“The night he went and got himself killed he and Rafinha had a fight. Van Persie was drunk - he cornered him in the Arena and said something about knowing who Rafinha was, who his family were. Maybe he thought Rafinha was spying for us or something, I don't know. Anyway he went mad, talked all kinds of rot about turning himself in and telling the cops everything, ending it all. Rafinha panicked and ran, and the next thing we know, the bastard's found dead right outside the club they were in, and Rafinha's convinced that everything is his fault.” He scowled. “All those interrogations didn't help.
“That's why we went to France. I thought I'd wait till things quietened down a little, take him out of the city, get him out of his shell. I tried to take him to a brothel, even, made sure they had boys. But he couldn't go through with it. It's been more than six months, detective,” he lifted his chin and looked Victor dead in the eye. “What does that tell you? My brother didn't kill Robin van Persie. He was in love with him.”
(“Oh my god,” Villa said.)
Victor recovered quickly. “That's a very moving story,” he said coolly. “But it's not going to catch us the killer. And until we turn up someone else with the means and the motive, your brother is still the prime suspect.”
“Why don't you look at who Van Persie was working for, then?”
“And who was that?” Victor asked.
“I don't know,” Thiago avoided his eyes.
“But you can guess.”
Thiago fisted his hands. He looked up at his lawyer.
“Full immunity,” Zlatan reassured him. “And witness protection, if it comes to that.”
“We don't want you,” Victor added. “We want the killer.”
Finally, Thiago answered. His voice was a whisper. “The Pale Knight.”
Part IV >