‘No problems, no quarrels, nothing that might have made you think of-’
Carmen interrupted her. ‘Another woman, you mean?’
She had understood where the young detective was going with her question. Looking at her, she also had the impression she already knew the answer, that she had only asked the question because it was part of her job.
But Carmen thought it was important to tell her how things had really been between her and her husband. Especially after what she had been thinking before these two people arrived and dredged up the story.
‘Believe me, Mitch and I and were in love, and he was crazy about his son. I’m a woman and I know when a man is distracted by other thoughts. Desire is the first thing that goes. Mitch thought about no one but me, day and night, especially night. And I felt the same about him.’
As another woman, Carmen knew Vivien would understand what she was talking about. Indeed, the detective seemed satisfied with what she’d said and changed the subject.
‘Can you confirm that your husband had a tattoo on his right shoulder?’
‘Yes. It was a pirate flag. You know, with the skull and crossbones. There were words underneath it, but I can’t for the moment remember what they were.’
‘
‘That’s it. It was the symbol of those weird biker friends of his. We used to live in Coney Island and Mitch-’
‘Yes, we know about the Skullbusters,’ Vivien interrupted her, gently but firmly.
Carmen remembered that she had reported her husband missing to the 70th Precinct. She wondered what could have happened for the police to come here from a precinct in Manhattan.
‘Did your husband have any broken bones?’ the detective continued, in the same professional tone, forceful but at the same time reassuring.
‘Yes. He fell off his bike once. Broke his humerus and tibia, I seem to remember. That was how we met. He was admitted to the hospital where I worked. When he was discharged, he made me write my phone number on the plaster. We spoke often on the phone and when he came back to take off the armour, as he called it, he asked me out.’
‘One last thing. Where was your husband working when he disappeared?’
Carmen made an effort to call up long-buried memories. ‘His company was renovating a building in Manhattan, around Third Avenue, I think.’
Vivien was silent for a moment, as if searching for the right words. There are words people say, it occurred to Carmen, which are like mathematical equations. However you change the order of the words, the result remains the same. What Vivien said next confirmed that fleeting thought.
‘Mrs Sparrow, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. We’ve found a body hidden in a cavity wall of a building on the corner of 23rd Street and Third Avenue. In the light of what you’ve just told us, we have reason to believe that it’s your husband.’
Carmen felt something come and go simultaneously, like a long-awaited wave that only makes the boat sway before sinking back into the open sea. In spite of what she’d said earlier, after so much time spent speculating, now that there was certainty tears started to run down her cheeks. She bowed her head and hid her face in her hands. When she looked up again, straight at Vivien, Carmen had the feeling they would be her last tears.
‘I’m sorry.’
She got up and went into the kitchen. When she came back she had a pack of paper handkerchiefs in her hand. As she sat down, she asked the question that had suddenly occurred to her.
‘Do you have any idea who…’
Vivien shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. That’s why we’re here, to see if we can get a clearer idea. Even identification is very difficult after all this time. We’ll only know for sure after the DNA tests.’
‘I have his pony tail.’
‘I’m sorry?’
Carmen got up from the armchair. ‘I won’t be a minute.’
She walked across the room and out into the corridor, where there was a door beneath the stairs. She knew where what she was looking for was kept. She remembered everything to do with her only husband.
Her only man.
And there it was, when she opened the door, a trunk full of things low in price but big in value. She snapped open the lock and lifted the lid. What she was looking for was on top of everything else, wrapped in a light cloth. She took out the package, removed the cloth, and looked at the object for a moment. There was a bitter taste in her mouth, the taste of the tenderness this strange relic aroused in her. She also took out an old photograph, from around the period when Mitch had disappeared.
Then she went back to the living room and showed her two visitors what she had brought with her. It was a dark wooden frame inside which, lying on a green cloth under glass, was a braid of fair hair.
Carmen smiled at the memory.
‘When Mitch started work,’ she said, speaking with the same clarity with which she was reliving the episode, ‘he cut his hair, which he used to wear in a pony tail. Before he did that, I gathered it into a braid and had it framed as a souvenir. You can take this. If you can find any of the bulbs, you can get DNA from hair.’ Then she handed Vivien the photograph. ‘And this is a photograph of my husband. One of the last.’
Carmen saw a hint of self-satisfaction on Vivien’s face. She had noticed that, all this time, the man had remained silent, looking at her intensely with those dark eyes that seemed to dig deep inside her. She had told herself that, of the two, the woman was the one who called the shots.
Vivien took the photograph and placed it beside her on the couch. ‘A couple more things, if you don’t mind.’
She took an object from the inside pocket of her jacket. She held it out and Carmen saw that it was a document holder.
‘Did this belong to your husband?’
Carmen took it in her hands and examined it carefully. ‘No, I really don’t think so. It isn’t his style. He only had things with the Harley brand name on them.’
‘Have you ever seen this person?’
Carmen looked at the photograph Vivien handed her, a photograph of a dark-haired young man and a big black cat posing for the camera.
‘No, never.’
As Vivien put the objects back in her pocket, Carmen had the impression that what she had just said had disappointed the detective but not surprised her.
‘As far as you know, did anything strange, anything out of the ordinary ever happen in your husband’s work? Anything he may have told you about, maybe not thinking it was that important.’ She gave Carmen time to think, then said to encourage her, ‘For obvious reasons I can’t tell you anything, but I want you to know that it’s extremely important.’
There was a hint of sadness in her tone, which conveyed a sense of anxiety to Carmen.
She thought it over for a while, then made a resigned gesture with her hands. ‘No. Mitch may have been wild in the past, but we led a quiet life. Every now and again he saw his old friends, the Skullbusters I mean, but apart from a couple of nights when he came back home with a few too many beers under his belt, he was a hard worker, always did what he was told. At home he didn’t talk much about his work. He played with Nick all the time.’
Vivien was about to reply when they were interrupted by the noise of a key in the lock and the front door opening. They stopped talking and listened to footsteps in the corridor that seemed more eloquent than words. Carmen’s daughter appeared in the doorway of the living room.
She had short hair made spiky with gel, heavily made-up eyes, purple lipstick and black
