Crazy Tales of Blood and Guts Read online

  Far be it from me to seem melodramatic, but considering that the modus operandi seems to be the same in each case, I’m beginning to think we are dealing with the first prehistoric serial killer ever. The fellow who did it has bumped off three men and we’ve yet to find him, so I deduce he must be a cold, calculating male, and a brainy chap too.

  Mid-morning the hunters returned with a couple of mammoths. There were no casualties on this occasion. After clearing it with Charles I started my interrogations, and spoke to every member of the tribe to see if anyone didn’t have an alibi. Unfortunately they all did, because they swore to a man they were snoozing in the cave. As I’d spent the night at the necropolis reflecting on the question of to be or not to be, I realized I was the only one without a rock-solid alibi. But I’d swear I didn’t kill Philip. I’m almost absolutely sure on that front.

  Given that everyone has an alibi, I concluded we were perhaps looking in the wrong place. Not far from our cave there’s a small hamlet of stone houses we call Canterbury, because the inhabitants love cant. It’s more than likely the murderer doesn’t belong to our tribe and has come from outside. If the murderer is an outsider, the Canters are top of my list; as far as we know, they are the only prehistoric community round about. After I had informed Charles of my conclusions, our chief decided to send a fact-finding mission.

  Charles, Harry, Alfred and yours truly went to Canterbury. At first we were on tenterhooks, given that the Canters are practising cannibals (“endocannibals” is the term they use) and we were afraid they’d gobble us up before we could explain why we’d come. In the end, our fears were groundless. The Canterbury Neanderthals are amazingly hospitable and gave us a first-rate welcome, all things being equal. They even invited us to wash in a green bath of aromatic herbs, a form of ritual ablution, but as water is not our favourite element, we politely refused the bath, claiming our beliefs forbade us to wash and we’d come on business. After the typical exchange of presents – an oval stone for a round one, a trefoil for an ammonite – we told William, their chief, what had happened in our cave and our suspicions. He was adamant in his response.

  “How on earth could the murderer be a Canter if, as you say, nobody tucked in to the corpses? You know we are cannibals!” he grimaced, visibly annoyed.

  “Yes, but you always say you practise endocannibalism, I mean you only eat your own…” I retaliated.

  “In fact, we like a little bit of this and a little bit of that…” William confessed rather reluctantly. “However, we use more sophisticated tools and don’t go around killing people with rocks, like you. For God’s sake, if it had been one of us, he’d have used an axe, not a boulder!”

  “True enough,” I acquiesced.

  “Right, let’s be off then!” roared Charles, springing to his feet. “That’s all cleared up, William, we won’t bother you any more. Do forgive us for burdening you with all our woes. Some individuals,” he added, giving me a withering look, “think they’re real bloody sapiens sapiens…”

  “Don’t worry,” said William knowingly, “weeds prosper wherever.”

  We walked back in silence, our tails between our legs (in Alfred’s case not merely metaphorically speaking). Back in our cave, I got a tongue-lashing and savaging I couldn’t dodge. Charles and Harry were livid and shouted at me in front of the women.

  “We were made to look like complete fools!” Harry spat in my face. “I don’t know what the fucking use such a highly developed brain is if you never get it right!”

  “To err is only human,” I answered meekly.

  “Come on, Mycroft, stop being such a Sherlock and get cracking. See if you can invent the axe!” added Charles. “We were made to look like a bunch of yokels!”

  “All right, I’ll see what I can do in the morning,” I agreed.

  I had no choice but to discount the outsider theory and concentrate on the inhabitants of our cave, because if the Canters are innocent, the guilty party must be one of us. After ruminating a while, waiting for the women to serve tea, I thought I’d better concentrate on discovering what the three victims – that is, Philip, James and Edward – had in common, and I reached the following conclusions: a) all three were male; b) all three were hunters; c) none was immortal. Apart from that I drew a blank and couldn’t establish a motive, because the deceased were all beautiful people. Strictly in terms of their characters, I mean.

  After tea, while getting ready to have a nap, I thought it would be worth my while to create a psychological profile of the murderer and see if I could eliminate any suspects. The results were disappointing: the only conclusion I drew was that the guilty man is someone who can wield a rock. So I could discount the children and Geoffrey, who doesn’t have any arms because a bear ate them one day while he was taking a siesta under a pile of branches by the cave. Not counting the three who’ve already passed away, there remain some fifty-three suspects, because I wouldn’t want to leave the women out or they’d be furious and accuse me of being a male pig. Fifty-three suspects are a lot of suspects, but it’s better than nothing.

  In any case, I had to shorten this list. I retraced my steps, recalling how I’d established, quite reasonably, that the murderer must be a cold, calculating, intelligent fellow. Naturally, that led me automatically to eliminate women and children from my enquiry. I reviewed the list of males in the tribe and, essentially, was unable to identify a single one worthy of the epithet of “intelligent”. Once more, the finger of suspicion points at me: I don’t have an alibi and am the only Neanderthal in the group whose neurons function at all. Moreover, I’m a cold customer and the only one able to calculate within a reasonably small margin of error how many tribal males are left if three bite the dust. I plucked up my courage and accepted the evidence: no doubt about it, I’m the murderer.

  “I’ve solved the case,” I told Charles, who was busy carving a mammoth. “After examining the facts, I’ve reached the conclusion that I did it.”

  “What do you mean?” retorted Charles, putting the mammoth to one side and glowering at me.

  “I’ve told you so many times that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable , must be the truth,” I declared. “Charles, I am the murderer.”

  “Mycroft, cut the crap!” thundered Charles, punching a rock and breaking a couple of bones in his hand. “How the hell could you have killed them if the sight of a drop of blood sends you fainting to the floor…!”

  “True enough. I’d forgotten.”

  “So, get on with it. If you don’t solve this case none of us will get any shut-eye, and you’re up for immolation, you know that, don’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t. It’s news to me.”

  “Well, I had the idea a while back. We voted on the motion and it was passed nem. con. Sorry, I forgot to pass the news on.”

  “That’s OK.”

  I have the impression I’m miscuing this investigation. From the start I’ve focused on who, but perhaps if I concentrate on why the answer will come just like that. Why were Edward, James and Philip in particular picked for the chop? What’s the motive lurking behind these deaths? Who gains?

  There’s one aspect Harry highlighted, and it may be worth some consideration. All we males of the tribe are stressed out by the murders, but the women, on the other hand, are as cool as cucumbers, as if the serial-killer thing doesn’t affect them. Not even Elizabeth, the matriarch of the group, seems the least bit worried by the fact we have a head-smashing psychopath in the cave. This made me wonder. What can’t I see? What am I missing?

  We all know women have a secret: What do they do to get pregnant? Do they swallow on the sly a magic root we know nothing about? Do they hoard their farts, inflate their bellies and thus create a child inside? All of us males are obsessed by procreation, because however much we bluster on our weekend binges, the females are in the driving seat. If we could crack the female secret behind pregnancy, the power they exert over us would evaporate. Can’t you tid
y the cave? You’ve pissed up the wrong tree! The meat was tough again! They treat us like dummies, and on the pretext that they have to suckle their babes they dispatch us to get rid of the rubbish and hunt wild animals, which means we often return to the cave limbless or missing a companion. But there’s no way we can find out how the buggers do it.

  The day before his head was smashed in, Edward announced he’d found out their big secret: females get pregnant thanks to our white wee-wee. Of course, this is pure idiocy, and apart from Philip and James, who are credulous men, none of us gave it a second thought. I mean, if male wee-wee was what got women pregnant, the goats and hens in the corral would also be bringing kids into the world! Those poor chaps are so simple-minded!

  Even though I don’t think the women’s secret is at all connected with the homicides, I decided to have a word with Elizabeth, because all in all this is making me feel uneasy. I told her my doubts and she reassured me straight away.

  “Mycroft, don’t get your knickers in a twist, I beg you.”

  “It’s just that you don’t seem scared by the psychopath in the cave. At the very least it’s a little odd…”

  “So you want to be the next one to appear one morning with his head smashed in?” she asked, picking up a rock.

  “Of course not… But if I don’t find the guilty party, they’re going to immolate me at the crack of the dawn. You know how pernickety old Charles is…”

  “Sit down and listen to me, then,” she said with a sigh. “This is what you must tell Charles and his band of rogues.”

  As Elizabeth isn’t short of spunk and is quite able to send an adult male flying from one end of the cave to another, I sat obediently next to her and listened to her most rational explanations. Given her excellent aim when sling-hunting bats, I found her arguments most persuasive. I immediately went to see Charles to tell him a second time that I’d solved the case.

  “James, Edward and Philip were punished by the gods because they discovered something they weren’t supposed to know,” I affirmed smugly.

  “And what might that be?” asked Charles offhandedly.

  “The women’s secret. The child thing…”

  “Oh!” Charles scratched his private parts with his nails and out jumped a couple of fleas. “And who the fuck might these gods be?”

  “Gods are superior beings who rule the universe,” I answered, making it up as I went along. “They are eternal, almighty and immortal. From up in the sky where they live, they see all and know all.”

  “How do you know?” he enquired, looking at me like a wet fish.

  “I had a vision in my dreams. I was told that if we stop trying to find out what women do to be with child there will be no more deaths.”

  “What good news!” exclaimed Charles, squashing another flea. “Case closed! Now let’s sup. I’m so hungry I could eat a diplodocus!”

  And he added, with a grin, winking his only eye at me, “If they weren’t extinct, I mean…”

  I can’t complain. Today I’ve solved three murders and in one fell swoop invented prophecies, gods and oneiromancy. And, into the bargain, saved my own skin. The only thing worrying me now is that from here on everybody will be badgering me to interpret his dreams and will have the cheek to want me to do it for nothing. I can see it all. “I’m having erotic dreams about my mother or dreaming about killing my father.” Or, “Yesterday I dreamt John’s menhir was longer than mine…” You know, perhaps I should consider inventing psychoanalysis. It’s not as if I have anything better to do.

  The Offering

  When he got to the Clinical Hospital that morning and saw the name on the medical record for the body that had just come in, he didn’t give it a second thought. Eugènia Grau Sallent. Twenty-nine years old. Circumstances surrounding death: possible suicide caused by an overdose of diazepam, no other signs of violence. The victim hadn’t left a note. The autopsy was timetabled for the following day and he was the forensic scheduled to perform. Half of the staff was on holiday and the other hadn’t a spare moment, so it was only reasonable for him to be assigned the case, though he was hardly idling. It was his good luck that no corpses had been admitted over the last few days and he’d been able to devote some time to his backlog of paperwork. But the party was over. Experience showed that when one dead body came in, more would soon follow.

  The name of the woman whose autopsy he’d have to carry out made him think of another Eugènia and the bunch of reports he’d promised to take her that morning. Eugènia was one of the secretaries who worked for the forensic pathology department, and she’d been expecting that batch of overdue files for weeks. He glanced at the dossiers piling up on his desk and sighed. The bureaucratic procedures of the judiciary never failed to put him in a foul mood, but he decided he might as well complete the files that were almost finished. At the very least, he’d give Eugènia something to be getting on with. A couple of hours later, he hummed his way to her office with a sheaf of documents under his arm.

  Marta, the other secretary, was on holiday, and nobody was around. Eugènia’s computer was switched off and her table was neat and tidy, as if she’d not come in to work that morning. It was strange because in the six years he’d worked as a forensic doctor at the Clinical Hospital in Barcelona he couldn’t recall that girl ever missing a day. Perhaps she’d also gone on holiday? Not likely; the secretaries took it in turns and one couldn’t go off until the other was back. Besides, he’d seen her the previous afternoon behind her desk, as quiet and efficient as ever, and she’d whispered an inaudible “see you tomorrow” when he nodded in her direction. She’d not mentioned any holiday, so she must be ill. He left the reports on her desk and walked glumly back to his windowless cubicle. With a little luck, nobody would bother him and he’d be done by midday.

  How old was Eugènia? About his age? He imagined she was well past thirty, although he’d never actually asked her. In fact, the two of them couldn’t be said ever to do small talk. Eugènia was dour and introverted, and they had very little in common. And she was ugly. Incredibly so. A rare structural ugliness due to a range of small blemishes that weren’t easily removed. In her case, genes had dealt her a bad hand and made her the repository of all her ancestors’ flaws. Poor Eugènia had simply been very unlucky.

  She was short and stout and her legs were too short and her torso too long. Her breasts were massive in relation to her height, and she was round-shouldered. Dark-haired and swarthy, but dingily so, she was extraordinarily hairy into the bargain. When she waxed, her legs and arms became a mass of tiny red scars that only disappeared when her hair started to grow back. A real mess.

  As for her facial features, she hadn’t been let off lightly there either. Flabby cheeks, bulbous nose, bulging eyes and greasy, spotty skin that she tried to conceal beneath a thick layer of make-up. She dressed unpretentiously, normally in dark colours, but nothing she wore did her any favours. If she had ever worried about her appearance, she’d long ago given up trying to look pretty and now merely tried to pass unnoticed.

  He’d thought Eugènia was unpleasant from day one. When he had to go to the secretaries’ office to pass along a file, he always tried to deal with Marta, because her colleague’s unsightly body and unpleasant features put him on edge. He couldn’t help it.

  “Hasn’t Eugènia come in yet?” he asked one of his colleagues.

  “Eugènia? The poor thing’s downstairs. Didn’t you see her record?”

  “Record? Which one? You mean the one for the woman admitted this morning?”

  So secretary Eugènia, nature’s joke in bad taste, with whom he’d been working for six years, was the woman who’d committed suicide, currently going cold in the basement. He put on his gown and went down to the room where they kept the corpses to take a look. According to her record, Eugènia was in cooler ten. When he opened it, he came up against her misshapen body and familiar acne-splattered face. Yes, there she was, as white as marble except for her face, which now had a good colou
r to it. How odd. The girl had felt spirited enough to put make-up on before taking her own life. Powdered nose, rouge on cheeks, eyeliner, red lipstick… She wasn’t wearing earrings or any other adornment, except for a small, apparently antique ring on her right hand, and her hair was tied up with a blue ribbon. One thing did catch his attention: the sweet scent given off by her body. A fresh, strong, flowery fragrance, though he couldn’t identify the flowers. At most he could distinguish the smell of roses and violets, but that was as far as it went. Nevertheless, the smell emanating from Eugènia’s body wasn’t of violets or roses, or maybe it was, but mixed in with other scents. All in all, it was extremely pleasant. He sniffed her legs, her belly, her breasts, her arms, her neck and hair. No doubt about it. She had splashed perfume all over herself, every fold and cranny, as if wanting to ensure she would continue to smell sweetly after death.