The Night Watchman Read Online Free PDF Page B

her more than my clowning. So perhaps it is my own wish for another chance that I always listen for when I am unable to sleep. Maybe our second chances are the only ghosts who ever appear to us.
    The police officer who’d been in charge till my arrival introduced himself as Marcos Soutelo and asked if I wanted his briefing.
    I’ve noticed over the years that PSP cops tend to begin their rundowns with an unusual detail, and the more startling the better. My theory was that the surreal atmosphere at the crime scene – the rigid, judgemental silence of the dead under all the commotion – made them need to be reassured that we shared the same notions about what was unusual and unexpected. And reassured, therefore, about what was normal. And yet in comparison to them, I felt fortunate; I’d had the advantage of learning when I was very young that there was no normal.
    ‘The vic doesn’t look fifty-nine years old, does he?’ Soutelo began, and as though hoping to astonish me further, he added that Coutinho had been married to a former TAP stewardess twenty-two years his junior. ‘Her name is Susana Soares,’ he said, ‘and judging from the photos in the library, she’s a knockout!’
    If Luci hadn’t been next to me, I’d have felt compelled to reply with a remark establishing my manly credentials, such as, Some guys have all the luck, but, as it was, I was able to simply ask if the couple had had any kids. With his voice shifting into a more professional register, probably feeling mildly censured, Soutelo replied that they had one daughter, Sandra. She was fourteen years old and in the eighth grade at the Charles Lepierre French High School. He went on to tell me that the victim owned a construction company with offices in Paris and Lisbon, and that, in addition to this house and one in the Algarve, he kept a large apartment just across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. He’d moved back to Lisbon from Paris four years earlier. His car, a 1967 Alfa Romeo spider, was parked in a private garage nearby. None of the neighbours who’d been questioned so far had heard a gunshot the day before. The housekeeper had discovered the body at ten o’clock this morning. Her name was Maria Grimault.
    ‘I thought you’d want to talk to her right away,’ Soutelo told me. ‘She’s waiting for you in the kitchen. Through that door,’ he said, pointing.
    While I fought the urge to stay where I was, and remain safely outside a case I didn’t yet feel up to investigating, the most experienced of the techs, Eduardo Fonseca, started down the staircase at the back of the room, cradling his Nikon, his face poking fox-like out of his hood. He snapped off two quick photographs – the flash spraying in our eyes – with the glee of a kid testing a brand-new birthday present. ‘Henrique Monroe, caught red-handed at the scene of the crime!’ he exclaimed.
    Like most of the Portuguese, Fonseca pronounced Monroe as Monroy. I forgave him that and his cringingly loud voice because he was the sweetest man I knew.
    He pumped my hand in both of his as he always did. After introducing him to Luci, I told him, ‘I’m guessing you’ve already taken pictures of the body.’
    ‘Yeah. Now I’m photographing anything that catches my eye.’ He tugged off his hood. Sweat had plastered thinning bangs to his brow. He was looking more and more like a chihuahua as he aged – tiny and sunken-eyed, with wrists as slender and pale as celery. I wished he’d eat more. And cut down on his smoking. Though he claimed that tar and nicotine were the only things keeping him standing.
    ‘Four things you need to know for now, Monroe,’ he said in a quick, businesslike voice. ‘One – we found cigarette butts in the ashtrays here in the living room and in the vic’s bedroom – four Marlboro Lights and two Gauloise Blondes down here, one more Marlboro in the bedroom. No lipstick stains on any of them. We’ve already collected them. Two – there’s a