LITMIR.BIZ

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bunk and with several tubes sticking out of him. Even with the oxygen mask on, she could see the severe blistering around his nose and mouth. One of the paramedics was taking notes, while the other quietly gathered up their equipment.

      The prison doctor, who was an old acquaintance, wheeled around, removing his gloves before shaking Amaia’s hand.

      ‘Inspector Salazar, this was a tough one,’ he said arching his bushy eyebrows. ‘I got here first because I was still in the building. The paramedics arrived a few minutes later. We did our best, but we couldn’t save him. Ingesting this type of toxic substance seldom ends happily, still less when it’s self-administered.’ The doctor pointed to a discarded cyclist’s water bottle in the corner and continued: ‘As soon as he returned to his cell, he prepared the cocktail and drank it. He must have been in agony, but he didn’t make a sound or call for help.’ He contemplated the dead man once more. ‘One of the most horrific deaths I’ve ever encountered.’

      ‘Do you know if he left a letter or a note?’ Amaia asked, glancing about.

      ‘He left this,’ said the doctor, gesturing towards the bunk beds behind her.

      She turned, stooping slightly to read what Quiralte had written on the wall of the lower bunk.

       TARTTALO

      Jonan did so too, wrinkling his nose.

      ‘He’s written it in …’

      ‘Faeces,’ confirmed the doctor, behind him. ‘Using it to write with is a common protest tradition in prisons. As for the word, I’ve no idea what it means.’

       7

      Whenever Amaia called a meeting, she tried to make sure she’d be the first to arrive. She would remain for a few minutes staring through the windows looking out over Pamplona, collecting her thoughts, lulled by the growing murmur of voices behind her. Only Jonan would approach her, quietly, with a mug of coffee, which she always accepted, though it would often be left untouched after she had warmed her hands on it.

      When she heard Inspector Iriarte’s voice cheerily greeting the assembled company, she turned to face the room. Accompanying him was Deputy Inspector Zabalza, who nodded and said something under his breath as he sat down next to Iriarte. She waited until they were all seated, and was about to begin talking when the door swung open and the Commissioner entered. He stood with his arms folded, leaning against the wall, offering his apologies before inviting her to carry on.

      ‘Pretend I’m not here,’ he said.

      ‘Good morning, everyone. As I’m sure you’ve already gathered, the aim of this meeting is to establish a plan of action for investigating the desecrations that have been taking place at the church in Arizkun. The results of preliminary tests carried out on the bones show they belong to a human infant of less than a year old, but otherwise don’t shed much light on the matter. Dr San Martín will keep us informed of his progress as and when further results come in, but in the meantime I want to begin by looking at what constitutes an act of desecration and why this particular case falls unmistakably into that category …’ She got to her feet and walked over behind Deputy Inspector Etxaide.

      ‘Desecration is the act of depriving something of its sacred character, despoiling and treating with contempt objects that should be respected. Based on this premise, and bearing in mind these acts were perpetrated in a place of worship and involved the use of human remains, we would seem to be dealing with an act of desecration. However, before deciding how we take the case forward, there are a few things worth clarifying. As with every type of criminal behaviour, desecration takes many forms. Understanding the mechanics of desecration will give us a profile of the sort of person we’re looking for.

      ‘The most common type of desecration is vandalistic in nature, generally associated with urban gangs and marginal groups, who express their hatred of society by attacking its sacred and religious symbols. They might choose to attack a monument or a library, to burn a flag or smash the windows of a large department store. This type of desecration is the easiest to identify, because it shows clear signs of irrational violence.

      ‘The second type concerns people who desecrate churches and cemeteries, gangs or groups of criminals whose sole aim is to steal valuable objects, to strip the church of microphones, sound or lighting equipment, anything made of silver or gold, tabernacles, candlesticks, chalices, even gravediggers’ tools. In the most heinous cases, they may steal jewellery or even gold teeth from corpses. Recently, a gang was arrested for stealing the platinum frames from the photographs of the deceased that adorn many graves. Some of these delinquents admit to staging their crimes to look like satanic rituals in order to throw the police off the scent, directing the blame at sects and spreading fear among the locals. In such cases, it’s important not to be duped, to remember that satanists aren’t usually interested in pocketing a priest’s mobile phone. And this brings us to the third type of desecration, the esoteric kind. Jonan …’

      Jonan stood up and walked over to the whiteboard.

      ‘These are magic rituals that derive from various cultures. The majority of these so-called desecrations are in fact religious rituals used in santería, Haitian voodoo, Brazilian candomblé or the Cuban palo mayombé,’ he said, writing the words on the whiteboard.

      ‘These rituals are associated with death and spiritism and are habitually performed in cemeteries rather than in churches and temples. Only satanists choose places of Christian worship, because besides being devil-worshippers, their aim is to offend God. Satanic desecrations are rare, although at yesterday’s meeting with the Archbishop it was suggested that such acts are often hushed up in order to deter copycat crimes. Most frequently we find sacred symbols being soiled with faeces, vomit, urine, animal blood, and ashes, with the aim of creating a spectacle: decapitated saints, virgins with phallic symbols scrawled on them, inverted crucifixes, that kind of thing. A few years ago, a group of satanists broke down the door of a tiny chapel at A Lanzada in Galicia with an axe. They chopped the hands off a statue of the Virgin that was much revered in the region and tossed them over a cliff. This is a typical example of the theatrical gesture: they could have simply forced open the door, which was sturdy but had an ancient lock and no alarm; they could have taken away the whole statue, but what they did was much more spectacular and offensive.’

      Amaia took the floor again.

      ‘Lastly we have desecration as social protest, or so the perpetrators claim. I had the opportunity to study this type of behaviour close up while working alongside the FBI in the United States. This consists of vandalising graves, digging up bodies of specific people and performing amputations and mutilations, the sole aim of which is to shock. Individuals who perform such acts harbour strong feelings of hatred towards society, and profilers consider them extremely dangerous, because desecration is simply a starting point for their actions, which may go on to target living people. A well-known case occurred when a police officer was killed in an explosion during a raid on a safe house in Leganés where terrorists were hiding out after the 11-M atrocity in Madrid. After the funeral, a group dug up his body, mutilated it and then set it alight. It is worth pointing out that in the Muslim faith, fire signifies the total annihilation of the dead person’s soul, making their resurrection to eternal life impossible.

      ‘Studies of criminal behaviour consider this type of conduct as a stage of psychopathy. Subjects often have a history of torturing animals, arson, bed-wetting, extreme backwardness at school, abuse … There is often a significant psychosexual element, because of the difficulties they have in relating normally to the opposite sex.

      ‘To begin with, I must admit that I favoured the vandalistic theory – and I haven’t entirely ruled it out. However, there are aspects of the history of Arizkun – for those of you unfamiliar with it, Jonan has prepared a report explaining the possible historical motive – which mean we can’t dismiss the possibility that these attacks are a form of social protest, albeit in an embryonic phase.

      ‘Another kind of desecration which we have ruled out is art theft. Perpetrators enter

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