Chapter 1: October 22, 192X

A cluster of sheer boulders loomed over the river, creating a mountainous barrier that stretched beyond the horizon. The place was covered with woods and small plots, separated from each other by stone walls low enough so that it was not difficult to jump them. This was vineyard country, so it was also not surprising that dozens of narrow dirt paths diverged from the main road, continuing through these fields until they were lost in the vegetation.

That morning we were required early in those hills, not long after dawn. Although the sun should have risen more than an hour by the time we reached our destination, gray clouds seemed to refuse to allow light to illuminate the paths.

Not only was it threatening to rain at any moment, but a thick fog covered the valleys, reducing our field of vision to only a few feet.

I have to stop my narration here to verify that, despite never having dedicated myself to agriculture or even lived in a place so far from the big cities, I did spend several festivities in this part of the mountains. So no, the place was not unknown to me... Or shouldn't, because I also have to admit that the days I spent here in the past were in summer, a time when storms were more sporadic and there was no icy blanket covering the depths of the valley, even in the later hours of the morning.

It should be noted, then, that the feeling I might have had in my past did not correspond to the one I was having now.

The days of revelry and good weather had turned into a mass of cold and restlessness without me having a chance to process it. And that is what I felt when I set foot again in those fields, the fear of the unknown, of not knowing what terrain I was on despite the fact that my head pointed towards a specific place and memories.

A shiver ran down my spine as I dismounted, not only was the reason we'd been called rough in itself, but through the mist I could feel dozens of gazes settle on me as I did my best not to land in some small hole next to the main path: It had already been quite a feat to get to that point, the road was so narrow that cars could not pass and the only way to reach the exact place where they claimed us was by using horses that would take on the task of dodge the potholes, going down through innumerable slopes, in our place.

“Where is it?”

Just before my feet hit the ground, I heard Lieutenant Taboada ask this question ahead of me. The aforementioned had led the march since we arrived at La Ribera and, together with a couple of locals who offered as guides, it was also he who took the lead when he got off his horse.

"A little further down that road," said Freire, one of the farmers, pointing to a specific point through the mist; you couldn´t see three on a donkey, but the guy seemed pretty sure where he was aiming. “The land is owned by the Navia, they have a winery about twenty meters above the level of the river, from here it´s not possible to see. Be that as it may, we find it in their vineyards, at the bottom of a small precipice.”

"Did you find him? Who exactly?"

'To be precise, it was first noticed by merchants crossing by boat to the neighboring province. In a way, it seems we got lucky and the body fell in a sparsely wooded area, not far from the shore. So for those people who crossed the river it was not difficult to see it. They were the ones who called us.”

"I imagine those merchants won't be here anymore," my superior ventured to comment; he knew as well as any of those present that the current was no joke and, once on a fixed course, it would be difficult to turn around without risking capsizing.

“No. They were going through the middle of the stream when they noticed the poor bastard. They just yelled at us from where they were, hoping we could hear them. And boy do we listen to them! You don't know what it's like to be finishing manuring some farms, when one has just woken up, and suddenly an echo appears from the distance announcing that there is a deceased a few meters from you.”

"How close were you to the aforementioned?"

“Not so much, he was on the other side of the property and that way we had already finished paying. We stopped by the warehouse, we still hadn't even started to unload the manure we brought. And if you add to this the fog and vegetation… Well, the deceased would have taken a little longer to find, if not for the extra help.”

"We think he fell off the cliff," interjected another of the farmers who was listening, like everyone else, to this unusual conversation; It wasn't every day that someone died in the middle of the vineyards. “We´ve created accesses to reach certain farms, but even for people used to working here, it is difficult to move if there is not enough light.”

The lieutenant nodded and, although I could tell that he was wondering the same question as me, he didn't say anything else about it. How could a man have plunged into the depths of those rocky cliffs? It had to have happened during the night, since dozens of people worked in those parts during the day and, if they had seen it the day before, they would have raised the alarm much sooner.

But then again, someone dying there during the hours of darkness didn't make any sense. Who in his right mind would roam the plantation in the wee hours of the morning? Without any inhabited houses around, or even streetlights to illuminate the road to the nearest village, after dark it would be like being in the lion's den.

“I remember visiting Navia´s winery a few years ago and I know that there is a considerable slope to reach it. It wouldn't be surprising if someone had had an accident,” Lieutenant Taboada confirmed, indicating with a silent gesture to our guide that he had his permission to lead the march once more through the vineyards. “Is it known who the deceased was?”

“A resident of Parada, surnamed Herrero. He doesn't work here, but he's…was, a distant cousin of a couple of our guys,” he explained, referring to some of his co-workers but not pointing specifically at any of them. “From time to time he dropped by, passing through to his town, so we all knew him even if it was by sight.”

That was the most common thing. In that part of the countryside, and despite the fact that the villages were separated from each other by kilometers and kilometers of forests and little traveled roads, the neighbors socialized enough to recognize each other, even though they did not belong to the same municipality. It didn't matter if one person didn't remember another, it was highly probable that in his social circle there would always be someone who was a friend of the second cousin of the individual's uncle.

They were all related in some way or another.

“Be careful where you step, the floor´s slippery.”

Someone made such a warning from behind, once we began to walk in procession through the plantations, deep into a mist that soon caused us to lose sight of the road we came from.

Freire and the lieutenant were at the head of our little group, as seemed to be the norm on this unpleasant excursion to the Ribera. They were followed by Ballejo, the official doctor from the nearest village, closely accompanied by another of the farmers with whom he had been speaking until shortly before arriving at the Navia property. Then I ventured last, having instructed the few spectators still left on the main road not to move from where they were until we returned.

In truth, I was not very clear about what my presence was required for.

Just a couple of months ago I had left the academy, being already an active member of the Civil Guard, and decided to accept the transfer to a police station located in the same town that welcomed me during so many summers of my childhood and subsequent adolescence.

This was a job I didn't dislike, but I wasn't particularly excited either: I had chosen it because it was the right thing to do, what my father wanted for me. And while I would have much preferred to sit behind a desk and spend the day filling out account reports in complete solitude, I wouldn't dare to say that going ahead with my training was a mistake either. At the end of the day, I liked to be outside, patrolling the streets. And, in any case, I didn't think that anything violent or out of the ordinary would happen in such a remote town.

How could I have guessed that, shortly after beginning to adjust to my new position, we would be sent to oversee the recovery of a deceased under such unfortunate circumstances?

Certainly that was not the same thing as suicide or murder. It wouldn't cause the same fuss, and it wouldn't force us to do an exhaustive investigation to the point of having to involve half the community in our investigations, but it was still a hassle. Tragedies like these always destabilized the routine and, although I considered myself to have the necessary knowledge to handle myself, I did not have the experience.

This whole situation was intimidating to me and the worst part had not even started.

"Last night it was drizzling," Freire commented, as soon as we stopped, "so between that and the poor vision, we think Herrero may have tripped over here."

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There were no stones on the path, but the ground was still wet and a clear trace could be seen on it, as if something or someone of considerable size had slipped down the slope, destroying all the plants in its path. At the end of the trail, and giving truth to the logic demonstrated by those who found it, a corpse remained prostrate next to some rocks, which must have prevented it from continuing to roll down to the river.

It couldn't be analyzed very well from where we were, but it was indisputable that Herrero was dead. The position in which he was found left no room for doubt and, as if this were not enough, even with the fog and the little light that was able to filter through it, we could still see the blood that at some point came out of his skull open and now accumulated in a puddle, around his inert body.

Dr. Ballejo was the first to react, carefully approaching where the deceased lay.

Although the setting was imposing, it could not be considered that it was a ravine, at most a slope that was too steep. If you stepped carefully, you weren't in the slightest danger. So it was not surprising that neither Ballejo nor the rest of us needed help to catch up with Herrero. Even I, with my usual clumsiness, was able to walk the scant ten meters that separated us from the deceased with hardly any need to grab onto any log for support.

"He split his head open with these rocks, most likely it was an immediate death," Ballejo told us, having squatted down next to the corpse, he proceeded to carry out a very brief preliminary examination. “His right foot is twisted, a possible sprain. It's too early to tell, but the theory that he tripped on the road, lost his balance, and then plunged down the hill makes sense.”

“It's also bad luck that it ended up on the only boulders in the immediate vicinity. Had it not been so, and even if he could still hurt himself, this would have been a scare.”

And the lieutenant was right. Although these mountains were quite rocky, it was not so common to find outcroppings of this type in the middle of the vineyards. Most of the embankments were made up of earth and, in the event that someone fell, it would be more normal for them to end up on one of the adjoining paths or even for some tree or bush to cushion the blow a little.

"Can you tell when he died?"

“It´s difficult to say, this climate can affect rigor mortis. But judging by how he is now, I'd hazard a guess that it's been at least four hours since he died.”

"Close night, then," Taboada concluded, confirming our first suppositions, and turning to Freire, he asked. “Have you touched anything?”

"No, as soon as we saw it we rushed to send someone to the village to report" he replied, sounding sincere. “Regarding those of us who stayed here, we stopped the work on this land and we stayed to wait for help to come. We did not touch anything nor did we see anyone approaching.”

“I see.”

He didn't seem convinced.

"Is there a problem, Lieutenant?"

“No, I was just wondering, if we establish that Herrero died during the early hours of the morning, how is it that he didn't have a lantern with him for guidance? But the doctor's right, it's early to guess.” Addressing me for the first time since we arrived at Riverside, he motioned. “Corporal, can you go back to the main road and ask Garaza and company if they can come down with the stretcher? I think it's time to lift the body, if there´s no problem.”

Ballejo gave his approval, so there wasn't much more to say. I simply nodded and inquired, before heading up the hill again, if they needed me to do anything else.

“Just one more thing, Eloy. Then a full report will have to be filled out for headquarters, regarding this matter and, since we don't have the equipment, I hope you memorize this scene well so that it can be recorded later in the documents.”

"It won't be a problem, I have a good memory."

I said that, but there really was a problem. It had nothing to do with my memory, it's just that that scene seemed disgusting to me, although I did my best not to let it show on my face.

The victim of our particular accident was lying on his stomach, with one of his legs twisted and his head tilted. It was not easy to tell if his neck was broken or not, but when seen up close it was indisputable that it was those rocks that had fractured his skull to a depth that made it possible, from a certain angle, to glimpse the opening perfectly and part of his brain.

The blood that once oozed from his body was already starting to dry up. The rocks had been stained and around Herrero's head there was still a large puddle that, at some point close to the moment of the blow, had overflowed and dropped several threads of the red liquid down the mountain, in the direction of the river, which now were lost in the vegetation.

Although the disposition of our victim was already grotesque in itself, what struck me the most was not the violence shown by the body, but the expression on his face: Herrero still had his eyes open, completely out of focus. With his mouth twisted, he wore a sneer that could only be described as pure terror. As if, just before exhaling his last breath, he had met death itself.

No, the report Taboada was talking about would have to be written the same way. That was clear. The only thing I regretted was that we did not have a camera with which to take a couple of photos of Herrero and, later, be guided by that to make a brief description of the find.

Without proper equipment, I would have to record every torturous detail and play it back on my typewriter as densely and explicitly as possible. I hated it, and although I didn't complain either, at that moment I assumed that I would have a hard time sleeping that night.

"Also," the lieutenant went on, completely oblivious to my mundane concerns, "when you get back I need you to do a thorough search of this estate. We may have missed something and, if so, now is the time to find it.”

I had a bad feeling, so I ventured to say:

"The lantern?"

"You can ask some of the Navia workers to help you," he answered, evading my question entirely, and also assuming that this task would take me a long time given the amount of forest to cover.

That was great. In addition to having to memorize a face that would give me nightmares for nights to come, I now also had to be stranded in the fog to search for a lantern I wasn't even sure existed.

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