Los Gatos 30/? part 2
Pairing: David Villa/David Silva (main), Sergio Ramos/Fernando Torres, others
Characters: Iker Casillas, Víctor Valdés, David Silva, Jordi Alba, David Villa, Fernando Torres, Isco, Gerard Piqué, Olalla Domínguez, Alexis Ruano, Roberto Mancini (this part of the chapter)
Rating: R (?)
Warnings: AU
Disclaimer: I don't claim it has ever happened.
A/N penny_jordan has done an awesome manip illustrating the previous part :) Check it out, it has Xavier in a uniform in it! http://penny-jordan.livejournal.com/7482.html
Chapter 30
The line went dead but Iker still didn’t hang the phone back, stuck in a weird limbo.
“And?”, Alba’s face appeared on the other side of the plastic cabin of the hospital public phone, “What’s up? They’re bringing him in-”
“They’ve lost him”, he growled, all but throwing the receiver. It bounced off the wall and then hung limply on the frail cord, swinging back and forth.
“What?”, Alba began to jog after him when he simply set off, several displeased glares from various nurses focused on his retreating back, “How could two trained officers-”
“Who won’t see themselves promoted till the end of their pitiful careers lost a fucking boy they’d been explicitly told to watch?”, he pushed a door of the ward open.
It would’ve banged loudly was it not made of plastic. Alba managed to scurry past, avoiding getting hit by it.
“They apparently lost him in a McDonald’s”, he continued through clenched teeth, “In a restroom”, this time, he kept the door open for the photographer, feeling stupid for making him chase him through the whole building.
“There are those storage rooms in every McDonald just next to the restrooms…”, Alba didn’t seem to have even noticed aynthing unusual about their way downstairs. His eyes were a bit harder and eyebrows drawn together as he reached the conclusion his sergeant with 10 years of practice hadn’t taken under account.
“Well, they clearly don’t visit fast foods often”, he snorts dryly, “It was in a shopping centre, they’re consulting the blueprints but I bet the storage led to the corridor for other boutiques’ storage rooms…”
“And outside”, Alba finished, coming to a halt in front of the main entrance, “Shit, I’d honestly like nothing more but to examine in detail just how incompetent you all are”, he trailed off, looking at Iker pointedly and not backing an inch when the DI crossed his arms, daring him to elaborate, “Here, I’ll send you the photos”, he changed the subject, opening his huge bag and taking out a slim pen, “Got anything to write on?”
On first impulse, Iker almost offered him his arm but yeah, it’s not the best choice when one wanted to keep their secrets, so he checked his pockets - of the jeans and of the jacket he really didn’t know why he bothered to take with him - and finally encountered a pretty battered pack of tissues.
“Here”, he presented one with a triumphant expression.
Alba arched an eyebrow in his typical fashion, but didn’t comment. Instead, he slowly took the tissue, as if afraid it had been previously used - Iker jokingly assured he was almost certain it hadn’t been - and handed it back, neatly folded.
“What’s that?”, he took the tissue and for a moment Alba didn’t let go, so that they ended up in a quite awkward pose, looking as if they were holding each other hands.
The Catalan gave out some frustrated noise, quickly snatching his hand back as if Iker’s fingers burnt, prompting him to just see for himself with a sharp jab of the chin.
“SanIker30?”, he’s sure he didn’t get that one right, “What the hell is that?”
“Your new e-mail address”, if Alba wasn’t hissing so venomously he’d have thought he was blushing, “Be glad I didn’t use your real age”, he added snottily, “And use some lesser known server, not gmail…”
Smirking despite himself - and despite his urgent need to kill Llorente and Morata, tampered only by the fact he had allowed Silva to play him as well - he suggested the server.
“Okay”, Alba nodded, once, then walked to the door so Iker followed, wondering what he should do next as he figured he had several options, and of course they both didn’t really pay attention to what the other was doing and decided to walk out at the exactly same time, getting squashed in the doorframe.
“Sorry”, they mumbled in unison, Iker words getting lost somewhere in Alba’s head, and wasn’t it kind of freaky how short he was, in a strange, compact way so unlike Xavi or Andrés.
“I’ll keep in touch”, Iker was surprised how important it suddenly became, with his completely random decision to give his new number only to the photographer.
“You’d better”, Alba called back, already halfway down the parking lot.
...
His heart was still pounding madly as he scurried down the corridor, wishing fervently not to bump into anyone who was actually authorised to be there. He had no idea what the regular procedure concerning people sneaking around shops’ facilities was, but given his current… Hmm, looks, he wouldn’t be that shocked if it involved security.
Oh Virgin, please don’t let him meet any security.
He succeeded to reach the exit without any trouble.
All that remained was to walk the last distance separating him from the outside world through the main aisle. He didn’t know where the officers trailing after him were, if they had realised he was no longer back at the McDonald, if they had called someone for help, or if they were combing through the centre…
He had to lean against the wall because fuck, he was trembling like a leaf. It hadn’t been that difficult to notice that he had been followed, he had expected it after all - prayed that he had been wrong, but expected it nevertheless -, neither had it been too tricky to lose them. He hadn’t been planning to, but he had quickly come to a conclusion he had no choice: it had been either ditching them somehow or trotting around the centre until… Exactly, until what? He wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere, seek out anyone or even change those damn clothes. So when he had been walking down the aisle, frightened as hell and totally helpless, he hadn’t hesitated when he had spotted the familiar yellow-red logo.
There was always all kind of people in McDonalds. No one would be overly scandalised by one scantily clad rent boy ordering a hamburger. He had just wanted to pop in and be able to sit down and think, and try very, very hard not to burst into tears. But then he had caught that conversation at the nearby table, a quarrel really between a girl and her boyfriend, because the guy had lost their receipt with the code and she couldn’t use the toilette. He hadn’t been sure about the storage room yet, but he had had every right to go to the restroom, right? It had been a sign from Heaven that the said room was not only unlocked and unoccupied but also leading to the common back corridor.
A faint swish of an opening door made him jump, glance nervously over his shoulder and, after closing his eyes for a second, push the doorknob down and walk into the light of the aisle.
...
He made it out of the shopping centre without any incident but instead of lifting his spirits, it was only making him wonder what had he got wrong. It wasn’t possible that the cops keeping an eye on him had simply decided to give up, was it? They must be lurking around somewhere, surly it didn’t take a genius to guess where he had disappeared to?
He shook his head, cursing his lingering. If he was to stand there reminiscing his actions from the last hour, he could have as well stayed where he had been.
He crossed the street, repeating over and over again that he had done the better thing, only he still didn’t know how to proceed, it’s not as if Villa had ever told him what to do in such situation, whether to stay put or go back home, or maybe go to some other place and wait there until someone collected him…
He stopped before the next street as the light changed to red. A black Subaru passed him and then slowed down, pulling off some ten metres away.
The back door opened.
He pursed his lips. Subtle, very subtle. When Villa had been dating him, hell, even after, like, all the time, he had only been using a Mercedes and now, when he supposed discretion was needed, he was sending a Subaru?
He got in anyway, trying not to show anything as Piqué kept watching him in a rear mirror. He’d like to ask why the Catalan was there since he was responsible for Villa’s safety, why he had left his Boss to pick him up, there were others who could do it, but he stayed silent.
Piqué didn’t speak up either, only rolled the car back onto the street.
...
A building the bodyguard led him to is of the sort that would normally make David seriously consider changing the side of the road he was walking. It wasn’t run-down, strictly speaking, but it was dark and obviously hadn’t constituted an object of interest of the authorities for a very long time. There were three or two people in an alley on its left, conversing in hushed voices that suddenly grew silent when Piqué’s shadow fell on them. Nevertheless, the Catalan didn’t react to their presence, so it was either expected or of no importance, and David scampered off after him, feeling their eyes on him leaving a slimy trail down to his arse.
Piqué introduced a code that opened the door of a musty staircase. The intercom looked recently-installed, still silver-black without any rust and the code turned out to be quite complicated given the quality of the abode. One of the figures from the alley worked up the nerve to approach the front pavement and leer at him suggestively, and David didn’t manage to restrain his lips before their curled in utter disgust.
Before the man could respond, Piqué’s giant arm hoarded him inside. Then, he got pulled towards the stairs before he could take notice of two doors on the ground floor.
As they ascended, it occurred to David that he may be very well being led to his death but he discarded that motion almost immediately. While he was sadly aware that his worth had been steadily decreasing over the course of the last few hours he also doubted that getting rid of him would require such elaborate schemes.
He desperately tried to come up with something that would disabuse that motion completely.
“In”, Piqué finally found his voice back, only to bark at him impatiently as they were nearing a door left slightly ajar.
Swallowing, he advanced as instructed, unnerved by the unlit interior of the flat. He hadn’t seen many gangster films, but it was still rousing unwanted memories. He was already several steps inside when he realised Piqué was no longer behind him.
Oh Virgin.
He began to creep even more slowly, peeking around without any sudden movements, just in case. It appeared to be a small bedsit… No, wait, there was another room on his right, and the one he was, judging by the shape of the ceiling, divided into two separate parts, the one ahead maybe serving as a kitchenette? He stalled unsure which direction should he choose, but in the end he settled for moving forwards. It was probably better to keep the closed door closed.
He had been right, it was a kitchenette with a mini-stove and two cabinets, and there was a window on the opposite wall, with the curtains drawn-
One of them moved suddenly, as if it was emerging from the wall and he froze, watching with wide eyes as it took a shape of a man.
“Hello, pet”, Villa’s low voice rumbled through the kitchen and for a second, David sagged with relief.
Then, he stiffened again.
“Do you like your new place?”, Villa continued, abandoning his spot in the corner.
“My… New place?”, David breathed out when the man was so close that they could touch, he could practically feel Villa’s warmth, “What’s happened to my… Old place?”, his fingers curled uselessly over his thigh.
Villa loved touching him, in fact he’d always seemed to see physical contact as a sort of claiming. That he wasn’t initiating it now didn’t bode well.
“What happened?”, he couldn’t see in this darkness, but he could swear the man was smirking, “Sweetheart, you got kicked out by your Italiano after you’d demolished his flat with your drug disturbances, does it ring a bell?”, then, the tone grew more sombre, sterner, “And you have realised that you can’t return to my flat, haven’t you? Not since you’re now a prostitute I’ve only met once.”
No, David hadn’t realised that, he hadn’t thought about coming home, wherever it was if he even had a home anymore. It was so painfully obvious once Villa had said it that he couldn’t breathe around that obviousness.
Villa made as if to bypass him and that was when his breath decided to hitch, to give out that choked sound of a man drowning with no hope of rescue.
The man stopped, with his back still to David, and his head dropped a little.
“You have to disappear”, it sounded almost wistful and David shuddered all over, because what if he’d miscalculated everything and Villa would take out a gun now?, “They…”, he paused and shifted, so that he was looking at David over his shoulder, “They have your fingerprints.”
It should mean something. It should mean something to him, because Villa was staring at him solemnly as if he was waiting for a reply-
“I don’t-”, he was barely able to form words. Why wasn’t Villa saying anything, damn it! Why did he always have to leave him hanging, scraping for any hint that would help him piece the details together?
“From Calle Ecuador, you little sniper”, there was a growl and an undercurrent of… Something echoing in the small room, “They have the samples from there and now from your visit to the Bureau, do I have to spell it out for you?”
He was sure Villa would lounge at him, his face was so fucking dark and scary, eyes blazing with fury and hands clenching as if they longed to clasp on his neck.
David took a step back, totally on autopilot, his insides turning to ice and then inside out as he tried to make his lips move, to work out any words to say.
“You can’t do anything”, it was the most idiotic thing to say, because if he could, he wouldn’t be telling you all of that, you moron.
Villa sent him a furious glance.
“No, I can’t, my man learnt too late that they were comparing the samples. It wasn’t authorised”, he gritted out, turning back again.
“You’re leaving?”, David hugged himself, rocking on his heels.
The man carried on his way out of the kitchenette as if he hadn’t said anything and maybe he didn’t, maybe that small, desperate voice was just a cry for help of his mind. He didn’t know what to do, if he was expected to stay… Yes, it was most likely that, but what use was it going to be, he couldn’t spend the rest of his life in that ratty hole…
“And what else would you have me do?”, he didn’t need to see Villa’s face to catch his amusement, “Stay until Piqué barges in, thinking you’ve stabbed me with a butter knife? I bet you’d try, after all, if one has already taken a shot at Casillas…”
An electric current ran down David’s spine. He wouldn’t have fucking missed then if Cesc hadn’t thrown himself at the DI.
“Besides, what’s to do here? I can’t leave my fingerprints all over the place”, he stressed the word ‘my’ infuriatingly.
He didn’t want to listen to it, he couldn’t stand listening to it, to that patronising, mocking voice that had once caressed his skin with the softest of names, the most alluring of promises and was now leaving, leaving the flat and him, while not so long ago he couldn’t bring himself to let go of his body.
He didn’t know what he’d do if Villa left him.
“You don’t have to touch anything”, he didn’t even realise when he made his way to the man, looking at him pleadingly from behind a veil of lowered eyelashes, “You could touch just me…”, boldly, he grabbed Villa’s hand and brought it up to his hip when he could spot to reaction to his words.
The man’s eyes clouded even more so he smiled invitingly, coquettishly, pushing his leg between Villa’s, rubbing his thigh against his crotch. Their flesh made contact and then, Villa’s hand tightened on his hipbone.
“That’s what you’re going to do now? Act like a whore to make me stay five minutes more?”, the hold was well past the bruising strength as Villa leaned over, so that his cheek was almost touching David’s.
He didn’t answer, just used the momentum to push his mouth against Villa’s neck, kissing hungrily, bitingly, because even if Villa was planning to move over, to leave him, he would never forget that and maybe, just maybe, it would result impossible to leave too…
He yelped when instantly their bodies got rotated and his back and head hit a wall with a sickening thud.
“But that comes naturally to you, doesn’t it”, Villa carried on, having forced his lips away from his neck. Quick as a snake, he fisted his hand in David’s hair, pulling until he had his entire throat exposed and could do nothing more but gaze up onto Villa’s face, “That’s what you do when you want your men to dance to your tune: you give them your body”, his teeth scraped over David’s Adam’s apple, “Like how you were planning to do with your Englishman…”, the words got muffled as Villa sank his teeth into his neck.
He twisted the skin between the teeth, causing David’s knees to buckle and his muscle to strain in order to keep himself up for the duration of the languid kiss that had, in fact, little in common with a real kiss.
Finally, he was let go with one last hard pull on his hair and when he could at last see straight over the colourful dots of pain, he got a perfect view of Villa’s satisfied face above his. He felt that the hands on him loosened their hold, so he sagged back and Villa’s body didn’t follow, leaving some space between them.
And then, when he was sure the man’s guard was momentarily down, he sprang forward, throwing his arms around Villa’s neck and crushing their lips together.
“I’m not a whore, I’ve never been a whore”, he kept on murmuring, worrying at Villa’s bottom lip leisurely, “I just want you”, sensing no protest, he once again pushed his thigh against the man’s crotch. He liked very much what he felt there, so he grinned widely in the kiss he had no wish to end, “And you want me”, he plastered his body as close as he could to Villa’s hot chest.
A hand sneaked under his t-shirt and started to pull it up, then paused to twist his nipple as he was once more rearranged in the man’s arms, this time landing arse to Villa’s front, so he wriggled, reaching behind him and dragging Villa’s head lower so that it rested in the crook between his neck and shoulder.
“I’m not giving you what you want”, despite his previous excitement, Villa’s voice returned to its cold steeliness, “I have some things to attend to-”
He didn’t get to finish before David gracefully turned in his grasp, stood on his toes and whispered, his tongue trailing over the shell of Villa’s ear.
“I know who your mole is”, he playfully lapped at the crystal stud his tongue encountered.
He barely avoided pulling at it with his teeth as he got pushed away, hard.
“Stop joking around”, Villa readjusted his shirt but didn’t move.
He couldn’t tell if he was joking. David fought down an urge to grin brightly. Instead, he just ran the tongue over his bottom lip.
Villa interpreted that correctly.
“I should kill you, then.”
He should have probably done it months ago.
David brought a hand up to his neck, where he knew he bore a mark of Villa’s passion, and then let it fall lower, over his chest, and lower, lower, to the waist of his jeans.
He let himself be pushed forwards and then down, onto a carpet of the room - he could never dream of fighting Villa off anyway - and lifted his hips helpfully when the man tugged at his waistband.
“Tell me”, a low growl vibrated in his ear.
Villa wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.
...
“I’m terribly sorry for how it turned out”, Isco repeated for the fourth time just when Miss Domínguez threw her still slightly wet hair over her shoulder, stalking towards the exit and paying him absolutely no mind, “However, it’s my duty too-”
“I did say I understand, didn’t I?”, she finally stopped, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him when he almost walked into her.
Yeah, she might have mentioned that, some two minutes or so earlier.
“Yes”, he admitted sheepishly. It would do him absolutely no good to start to explain how he really preferred he hadn’t had to drag her out of her flat after allowing her only a moment to take care of her hair and to put something on. And especially how he wished he’d never ambushed her in her nightgown. In her bathroom. In her own flat, “But as I was saying-”
“Do you actually have something other than that to tell me…?”, she interrupted him at once, not ceasing the glaring.
“Isco”, he supplied immediately and felt like the last idiot when her eyebrows jumped up. She obviously wasn’t looking for his name, “I mean, Francisco Suárez”, he tried to salvage the situation.
“Yes, I know”, she said, very slowly and even more flatly, “You’ve introduced yourself, Sergeant Suárez, once when you arrested me and then when you were interrogating me”, clearly those weren’t ones of her fondest memories, “I actually meant if there’s some reason you’re escorting me to the door.”
Why was it even happening to him, wasn’t Casillas the one traditionally filling the quota of them making fools of themselves?
“Yeah”, he cleared his throat, “I’m afraid I have to ask you not to leave the city in the near future. Until we tell you the investigation’s over, actually”, he forced himself to stay professional and not apologise again.
“Thank you”, it was all she said when he opened the door for her. But she didn’t go out, instead, she turned to him, her eyes skipping down to his shoes, “What’s…”, her voice came out nothing more than a whisper, “Is Fernando going to prison?”
“I don’t know”, he replied truthfully, opening his arms, “There are good chances he is, but as for now nothing’s really certain about his case.”
She nodded curtly, as if to give herself courage or chase away depressing thoughts.
“Could you, perhaps, inform me about that?”, she clearly couldn’t force herself to repeat the ‘p’ word, “You are going to inform his family, aren’t you?”
Isco couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked something like that. Well, they weren’t strictly obliged to inform anybody’s relatives that they were locking someone up, culprits or accused usually took it upon themselves to contact their families or friends.
“I”, he was unsure how to phrase it, “Even if I really knew what’s going to happen with him… I couldn’t disclose it”, he made an apologetic face, but she wasn’t looking anyway, “And even if I could, I still have no idea…”
“I see”, she glanced up, sending him a small smile. He couldn’t tell if she believed him.
Then, she began to head down the street.
“Wait!”, he called out before his brain could point out that it wasn’t the best course of action, “Would you like a ride, Miss Domínguez?”, he hadn’t even taken the fucking keys with him.
“Thanks for the offer”, she tucked some loose hair behind her ear, “But I’d rather take a bus.”
...
“Ah, Casillas!”, Valdés was standing in the hall, having been apparently pacing, “Finally, I was beginning to worry you fainted at the sight of your blood in that hospital or something”, his tone was light but Iker had no doubts the pathologist had been honestly worrying how he’d react to seeing Cesc.
It was nice to know everyone thought him mentally frail, probably unstable and therefore a hazard to them all.
“No, jams are a bitch”, he didn’t care about the credibility of his excuse, “So, what has he said?”, he rolled his eyes when he noticed all the three technicians eavesdropping from behind a plastic panel.
“Suárez just finished with him, I guess you want to ask him that”, Valdés quickly followed his line of sight, “He’s gone downstairs I think”, he pointed to the lift and started towards the interrogation room, smoothly providing a reason to leave the unwanted public behind.
Shooting him a grim grin, Iker followed, just in time to see the lift door open and reveal the seemingly perturbed sergeant.
“Suárez!”, he called out when the other blindly turned in the wrong direction, “Update.”
The malagueño blinked and hurriedly joined them, again looking all business like usual.
“Well”, he started bleakly, after Valdés opened the door to the back room behind the two-way mirror of the interrogation room, “Supposedly, he and Ramos had an affair”, he related with a big amount of incredulity in his voice, “Or rather, Ramos has been courting him…”
“Courting him?”, yes, because that’s exactly what came to mind when one was picturing the pimp.
“His words”, Suárez shrugged, “They had a deal that involved ‘no mentioning work’”, he drew citation marks with his fingers, “So they kept it strictly professional.”
“A Mafioso and a cop dating each other”, Iker had snatched up the objects that were lying on the desk and was already pushing the door handle down, “That’s what I call the epitome of ‘professional’.”
...
“Torres”, he greeted, closing the door behind him.
The psychologist was sitting across from him, dejected, staring at a point somewhere in the centre of the table.
“I’ve talked to Suárez”, he took a chair himself.
“Did he explain-”
“He informed me of the content of your statement”, he interrupted, “Which in itself warrants your disciplinary dismissal, if not banning you from ever working on the force again.”
Torres bit his bottom lip, nodding miserably and Iker was unpleasantly reminded of another delincuent singing exactly the same tune there in the morning.
“And although your love story is extremely convincing”, he levelled the blonde with a look, “I’d still like you to explain this.”
With that, he put on the table the parking tickets from Torres’ office and a gun and a plane ticket they Busquets’s team had found in his flat. Then, he leaned away to study the psychologist’s reaction.
Torres opened his mouth as if completely shocked, then closed it, threw Iker a panicked look, then sagged in his seat with an expression that said ‘I fucking knew it’. Interesting.
“He gave me those”, he mumbled, pointing to the gun and the ticket.
“I hope I don’t have to remind a fellow officer that firearms in our country are only allowed for individuals with appropriate licences”, he rested his elbows on the table and picked a plastic bag with the gun inside, “The kind of which you don’t possess.”
Torres didn’t answer to that. At least he didn’t try to pretend he had thought it’s a stun gun.
He pushed the bag aside.
“It’s covered in your fingerprints, as well as Ramos’”, he continued.
“I know”, Torres suddenly cut it, his hair jumping up; like Silva’s, “That’s because he’s been teaching me, because I’ve never got a licence-”
“Required by law.”
“-and after that assassination attempt he thought I needed to be able to protect myself-”
“And that?”, he indicated the plane ticket, unwilling to ponder the assassination yet, “Another attempt to keep you safe? From us maybe? You and Ramos finally decided it’s time to give the slip?”
Torres had been shaking his head throughout his whole speech. In the end, he resorted to hitting the table with the palm of his hand to gain his attention but he did it so weakly it produced no sound.
“It’s not like that at all!”, is eyes bore into Iker’s with a clear intent to plead him to believe him.
“Okay”, he said easily, sighing. Torres glanced at him suspiciously, surprised he wasn’t opposing, “So tell me how it is then.”
...
David awkwardly reached for his jeans, hugging them to himself as Villa expertly zipped himself up and worked out the wrinkles in his shirt, making himself presentable in a matter of seconds. He tilted his face up when the man bent over to give him the last, sloppy kiss and then turned to leave.
This time, he wouldn’t try to stop him.
Only when Villa was already out, he halted uncalled and hovered over the threshold.
“I should’ve never taken you there”, he announced barely audibly, eyes sweeping over him without emotion and then he was gone.
David kept staring at the closed door for a long time. Was that an apology or regret or...?
...
“I think it’ll suffice for now”, Iker interrupted Torres in the middle of some madly feebly story about Ramos being the one to suggest they had the mole. At least he could have fucking tried to come up with something better, “Anything you’d like to add to what you’ve said?”, he prayed the answer would be ‘no’.
For once Heavens had mercy on him because Torres shook his head. His face betrayed no delusions about the effect of his statement. In fact, what was quite worrisome, he looked to be having some serious internal conflict going on.
“Wait”, he called out when Iker had picked himself up, “You may want to look for David Silva. He’s-”
“I know who he is”, he growled, walking out.
He had always thought Torres spineless, but the least he could do after getting caught was not betraying his associates at first occasion. Maybe Villa had promised him protection and he was retaliating by selling out his lover?
...
“Casillas”, he heard Valdés’ voice a moment before the Catalan’s hand grasped his shoulder.
He hid a wince when his wound got subjected to such treatment from a fucking doctor and politely turned to the pathologist, rotating his body so that the other had to let go of him.
“I’ve been waiting for the results”, the Catalan didn’t wait for him to enquire, “Guardiola and I have been comparing the fingerprints samples… Seems that we have a match.”
“Really?”, he smiled, unable to believe this turn of fortune, “Who’s that?”
“You’re not gonna like it”, the pathologist warned with a weird expression, “Besides, both samples were of relatively bad quality and the match is actually only 82% but I think we can safely assume-”
“Of course I’m not gonna like them, they tried to kill me”, he waved at the other to get to the point, “So?”
“The fingerprints belong to David Silva.”
...
It wasn’t hard to find the café, after all he had already been there with Torres - which, once he thought of this, was strange, because while he wasn’t a criminal mastermind he still saw little sense in leading a police officer straight to your boss’ boy - so soon enough, he was standing in front of the ridiculously pink Mestalla. There was a tall blonde waiter attending to a couple sitting in the café’s garden and at the sight of him he automatically discarded his plan to talk with the place’s owner.
“Excuse me”, he fell into step behind the waiter when he was returning inside, “Iker Casillas, Organised Crime Control Bureau”, he flashed his badge and the guy’s eyes widened comically, “I’d like to ask few questions.”
...
After the initial spluttering Mr Alexis Ruano turned out to be quite helpful, not to say too helpful. At first he had seemed prepared for facing the charges himself, which hadn’t exactly warmed Iker up to him but after hearing what, or rather who, had brought a policeman to the café, he jumped to share everything he knew without any restraint. If Iker were to be honest, he would admit that some sort of sick satisfaction had flashed in Ruano’s eyes when he had been asked about Silva’s regular company.
It hadn’t come as a shock to learn that he had been passing his time with what he supposed was Ronaldo’s errand boy. He had almost laughed at the waiter’s naïve assumption that Villa was Silva’s pimp. Okay, so it was highly probably the man was renting the boy out to his associates but to imagine Villa’s reaction if he ever found out that someone had taken him for a common whoremonger… Well, those earrings weren’t exactly helpful to build up a reputation of a respected businessman.
What he couldn’t understand, on his way to the building Silva had given as his address according to Ruano, was why the Canarian was even working at the café. Surly he didn’t need money, he was being well taken care of. Did Villa want him to work? If so, couldn’t he have secured him a more prestigious job, in one of the clubs he had recently sold to people he had most likely chosen and put up as potential buyers himself? Did the boy want to work there? He didn’t strike him as an overly hard-working person who’d insist on working while being kept by Villa anyway? The sole explanation he had been able to come up with was that it was a place where Torres had been passing the information on, but it sounded feeble even to his own ears.
Roberto Mancini. Let’s give him a chance to shed some light on his would-be murderer.
...
An hour later he was fully regretting he had ever sought the man out. Mancini was… Well, Mancini was Italian and that was an explanation in itself, and that was something coming from a representative of a nation about which there were about just as many stereotypes as about the Italians.
The man had treated him to a coffee, a warmed-up leftover pizza (or rather several parts of various leftover pizzas, he felt the stomach ache coming his way), a beer (which he politely declined) and sung praises of Silva, his gentle, caring nature, his sweet shyness, his adorable clumsiness, his cute naïveté, only to conclude his story with how he had to kick the boy out after he had apparently thrown a hard-core drug-involving party in his absence, and poisoned his fish. He had also completely ruined his flat, and at taking a glance around Iker had suspected the man still hadn’t gotten over that particular part of the incident.
He had finally managed to steer the conversation away from the mess around them and onto Silva’s boyfriend. Unfortunately, the man had turned out deeply unhelpful: namely, he absolutely adored Villa, who apparently constituted a perfect balance for Silva with his collected, calm demeanour (did they know the same David Villa?) and experience that only came with age. Actually, Mancini had been behaving like a teenage girl fawning over a gay couple. Oh, plus Villa was his greatest pal because he too supported Milan. Or Juventus. Iker hadn’t been really listening after the first fifteen minutes of discussing football.
What had roused his interest had been when Mancini had mentioned something about Silva coming to move out, with a funny blonde friend to help him, but his excitement had promptly died when the Italian had admitted he hadn’t asked for the boy’s new address.
When he had been leaving, a sheepish-looking Mancini had emerged from the kitchen asking: “What was that he had come for again?” and Iker had wondered why he hadn’t become an accountant.
...
Then, his mood improved significantly with the arrival of an e-mail from Alba.
...
He had met up with Suárez and Busquets and they had been waiting in the car in front of Villa’s house in La Moraleja for over three hours before the man finally graced them with his presence.
Iker got out the moment a black Mercedes pulled off in front of a high gate of the driveway. He was halfway to the vehicle when the passenger’s door opened and the Asturian stepped out, narrowing his eyes against the sun.
“You’re a difficult man to find, Mr Villa”, he flashed a fake smile, now almost shoulder to shoulder with the criminal.
“I wasn’t aware you were looking for me”, Villa said gruffly, sending a minuscule nod to someone in the car, “What do you want, Casillas?”, he lost all the pretence of a joking mood.
“For you to accompany us to the Bureau. There are some things we need you to clarify”, he caught with the corner of his eye that Suárez and Busquets had got out too, “And Villa”, he noted with satisfaction that the sergeants had been spotted by the Asturian as well, “It’s not a request.”
Characters: Iker Casillas, Víctor Valdés, David Silva, Jordi Alba, David Villa, Fernando Torres, Isco, Gerard Piqué, Olalla Domínguez, Alexis Ruano, Roberto Mancini (this part of the chapter)
Rating: R (?)
Warnings: AU
Disclaimer: I don't claim it has ever happened.
A/N penny_jordan has done an awesome manip illustrating the previous part :) Check it out, it has Xavier in a uniform in it! http://penny-jordan.livejournal.com/7482.html
Chapter 30
The line went dead but Iker still didn’t hang the phone back, stuck in a weird limbo.
“And?”, Alba’s face appeared on the other side of the plastic cabin of the hospital public phone, “What’s up? They’re bringing him in-”
“They’ve lost him”, he growled, all but throwing the receiver. It bounced off the wall and then hung limply on the frail cord, swinging back and forth.
“What?”, Alba began to jog after him when he simply set off, several displeased glares from various nurses focused on his retreating back, “How could two trained officers-”
“Who won’t see themselves promoted till the end of their pitiful careers lost a fucking boy they’d been explicitly told to watch?”, he pushed a door of the ward open.
It would’ve banged loudly was it not made of plastic. Alba managed to scurry past, avoiding getting hit by it.
“They apparently lost him in a McDonald’s”, he continued through clenched teeth, “In a restroom”, this time, he kept the door open for the photographer, feeling stupid for making him chase him through the whole building.
“There are those storage rooms in every McDonald just next to the restrooms…”, Alba didn’t seem to have even noticed aynthing unusual about their way downstairs. His eyes were a bit harder and eyebrows drawn together as he reached the conclusion his sergeant with 10 years of practice hadn’t taken under account.
“Well, they clearly don’t visit fast foods often”, he snorts dryly, “It was in a shopping centre, they’re consulting the blueprints but I bet the storage led to the corridor for other boutiques’ storage rooms…”
“And outside”, Alba finished, coming to a halt in front of the main entrance, “Shit, I’d honestly like nothing more but to examine in detail just how incompetent you all are”, he trailed off, looking at Iker pointedly and not backing an inch when the DI crossed his arms, daring him to elaborate, “Here, I’ll send you the photos”, he changed the subject, opening his huge bag and taking out a slim pen, “Got anything to write on?”
On first impulse, Iker almost offered him his arm but yeah, it’s not the best choice when one wanted to keep their secrets, so he checked his pockets - of the jeans and of the jacket he really didn’t know why he bothered to take with him - and finally encountered a pretty battered pack of tissues.
“Here”, he presented one with a triumphant expression.
Alba arched an eyebrow in his typical fashion, but didn’t comment. Instead, he slowly took the tissue, as if afraid it had been previously used - Iker jokingly assured he was almost certain it hadn’t been - and handed it back, neatly folded.
“What’s that?”, he took the tissue and for a moment Alba didn’t let go, so that they ended up in a quite awkward pose, looking as if they were holding each other hands.
The Catalan gave out some frustrated noise, quickly snatching his hand back as if Iker’s fingers burnt, prompting him to just see for himself with a sharp jab of the chin.
“SanIker30?”, he’s sure he didn’t get that one right, “What the hell is that?”
“Your new e-mail address”, if Alba wasn’t hissing so venomously he’d have thought he was blushing, “Be glad I didn’t use your real age”, he added snottily, “And use some lesser known server, not gmail…”
Smirking despite himself - and despite his urgent need to kill Llorente and Morata, tampered only by the fact he had allowed Silva to play him as well - he suggested the server.
“Okay”, Alba nodded, once, then walked to the door so Iker followed, wondering what he should do next as he figured he had several options, and of course they both didn’t really pay attention to what the other was doing and decided to walk out at the exactly same time, getting squashed in the doorframe.
“Sorry”, they mumbled in unison, Iker words getting lost somewhere in Alba’s head, and wasn’t it kind of freaky how short he was, in a strange, compact way so unlike Xavi or Andrés.
“I’ll keep in touch”, Iker was surprised how important it suddenly became, with his completely random decision to give his new number only to the photographer.
“You’d better”, Alba called back, already halfway down the parking lot.
...
His heart was still pounding madly as he scurried down the corridor, wishing fervently not to bump into anyone who was actually authorised to be there. He had no idea what the regular procedure concerning people sneaking around shops’ facilities was, but given his current… Hmm, looks, he wouldn’t be that shocked if it involved security.
Oh Virgin, please don’t let him meet any security.
He succeeded to reach the exit without any trouble.
All that remained was to walk the last distance separating him from the outside world through the main aisle. He didn’t know where the officers trailing after him were, if they had realised he was no longer back at the McDonald, if they had called someone for help, or if they were combing through the centre…
He had to lean against the wall because fuck, he was trembling like a leaf. It hadn’t been that difficult to notice that he had been followed, he had expected it after all - prayed that he had been wrong, but expected it nevertheless -, neither had it been too tricky to lose them. He hadn’t been planning to, but he had quickly come to a conclusion he had no choice: it had been either ditching them somehow or trotting around the centre until… Exactly, until what? He wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere, seek out anyone or even change those damn clothes. So when he had been walking down the aisle, frightened as hell and totally helpless, he hadn’t hesitated when he had spotted the familiar yellow-red logo.
There was always all kind of people in McDonalds. No one would be overly scandalised by one scantily clad rent boy ordering a hamburger. He had just wanted to pop in and be able to sit down and think, and try very, very hard not to burst into tears. But then he had caught that conversation at the nearby table, a quarrel really between a girl and her boyfriend, because the guy had lost their receipt with the code and she couldn’t use the toilette. He hadn’t been sure about the storage room yet, but he had had every right to go to the restroom, right? It had been a sign from Heaven that the said room was not only unlocked and unoccupied but also leading to the common back corridor.
A faint swish of an opening door made him jump, glance nervously over his shoulder and, after closing his eyes for a second, push the doorknob down and walk into the light of the aisle.
...
He made it out of the shopping centre without any incident but instead of lifting his spirits, it was only making him wonder what had he got wrong. It wasn’t possible that the cops keeping an eye on him had simply decided to give up, was it? They must be lurking around somewhere, surly it didn’t take a genius to guess where he had disappeared to?
He shook his head, cursing his lingering. If he was to stand there reminiscing his actions from the last hour, he could have as well stayed where he had been.
He crossed the street, repeating over and over again that he had done the better thing, only he still didn’t know how to proceed, it’s not as if Villa had ever told him what to do in such situation, whether to stay put or go back home, or maybe go to some other place and wait there until someone collected him…
He stopped before the next street as the light changed to red. A black Subaru passed him and then slowed down, pulling off some ten metres away.
The back door opened.
He pursed his lips. Subtle, very subtle. When Villa had been dating him, hell, even after, like, all the time, he had only been using a Mercedes and now, when he supposed discretion was needed, he was sending a Subaru?
He got in anyway, trying not to show anything as Piqué kept watching him in a rear mirror. He’d like to ask why the Catalan was there since he was responsible for Villa’s safety, why he had left his Boss to pick him up, there were others who could do it, but he stayed silent.
Piqué didn’t speak up either, only rolled the car back onto the street.
...
A building the bodyguard led him to is of the sort that would normally make David seriously consider changing the side of the road he was walking. It wasn’t run-down, strictly speaking, but it was dark and obviously hadn’t constituted an object of interest of the authorities for a very long time. There were three or two people in an alley on its left, conversing in hushed voices that suddenly grew silent when Piqué’s shadow fell on them. Nevertheless, the Catalan didn’t react to their presence, so it was either expected or of no importance, and David scampered off after him, feeling their eyes on him leaving a slimy trail down to his arse.
Piqué introduced a code that opened the door of a musty staircase. The intercom looked recently-installed, still silver-black without any rust and the code turned out to be quite complicated given the quality of the abode. One of the figures from the alley worked up the nerve to approach the front pavement and leer at him suggestively, and David didn’t manage to restrain his lips before their curled in utter disgust.
Before the man could respond, Piqué’s giant arm hoarded him inside. Then, he got pulled towards the stairs before he could take notice of two doors on the ground floor.
As they ascended, it occurred to David that he may be very well being led to his death but he discarded that motion almost immediately. While he was sadly aware that his worth had been steadily decreasing over the course of the last few hours he also doubted that getting rid of him would require such elaborate schemes.
He desperately tried to come up with something that would disabuse that motion completely.
“In”, Piqué finally found his voice back, only to bark at him impatiently as they were nearing a door left slightly ajar.
Swallowing, he advanced as instructed, unnerved by the unlit interior of the flat. He hadn’t seen many gangster films, but it was still rousing unwanted memories. He was already several steps inside when he realised Piqué was no longer behind him.
Oh Virgin.
He began to creep even more slowly, peeking around without any sudden movements, just in case. It appeared to be a small bedsit… No, wait, there was another room on his right, and the one he was, judging by the shape of the ceiling, divided into two separate parts, the one ahead maybe serving as a kitchenette? He stalled unsure which direction should he choose, but in the end he settled for moving forwards. It was probably better to keep the closed door closed.
He had been right, it was a kitchenette with a mini-stove and two cabinets, and there was a window on the opposite wall, with the curtains drawn-
One of them moved suddenly, as if it was emerging from the wall and he froze, watching with wide eyes as it took a shape of a man.
“Hello, pet”, Villa’s low voice rumbled through the kitchen and for a second, David sagged with relief.
Then, he stiffened again.
“Do you like your new place?”, Villa continued, abandoning his spot in the corner.
“My… New place?”, David breathed out when the man was so close that they could touch, he could practically feel Villa’s warmth, “What’s happened to my… Old place?”, his fingers curled uselessly over his thigh.
Villa loved touching him, in fact he’d always seemed to see physical contact as a sort of claiming. That he wasn’t initiating it now didn’t bode well.
“What happened?”, he couldn’t see in this darkness, but he could swear the man was smirking, “Sweetheart, you got kicked out by your Italiano after you’d demolished his flat with your drug disturbances, does it ring a bell?”, then, the tone grew more sombre, sterner, “And you have realised that you can’t return to my flat, haven’t you? Not since you’re now a prostitute I’ve only met once.”
No, David hadn’t realised that, he hadn’t thought about coming home, wherever it was if he even had a home anymore. It was so painfully obvious once Villa had said it that he couldn’t breathe around that obviousness.
Villa made as if to bypass him and that was when his breath decided to hitch, to give out that choked sound of a man drowning with no hope of rescue.
The man stopped, with his back still to David, and his head dropped a little.
“You have to disappear”, it sounded almost wistful and David shuddered all over, because what if he’d miscalculated everything and Villa would take out a gun now?, “They…”, he paused and shifted, so that he was looking at David over his shoulder, “They have your fingerprints.”
It should mean something. It should mean something to him, because Villa was staring at him solemnly as if he was waiting for a reply-
“I don’t-”, he was barely able to form words. Why wasn’t Villa saying anything, damn it! Why did he always have to leave him hanging, scraping for any hint that would help him piece the details together?
“From Calle Ecuador, you little sniper”, there was a growl and an undercurrent of… Something echoing in the small room, “They have the samples from there and now from your visit to the Bureau, do I have to spell it out for you?”
He was sure Villa would lounge at him, his face was so fucking dark and scary, eyes blazing with fury and hands clenching as if they longed to clasp on his neck.
David took a step back, totally on autopilot, his insides turning to ice and then inside out as he tried to make his lips move, to work out any words to say.
“You can’t do anything”, it was the most idiotic thing to say, because if he could, he wouldn’t be telling you all of that, you moron.
Villa sent him a furious glance.
“No, I can’t, my man learnt too late that they were comparing the samples. It wasn’t authorised”, he gritted out, turning back again.
“You’re leaving?”, David hugged himself, rocking on his heels.
The man carried on his way out of the kitchenette as if he hadn’t said anything and maybe he didn’t, maybe that small, desperate voice was just a cry for help of his mind. He didn’t know what to do, if he was expected to stay… Yes, it was most likely that, but what use was it going to be, he couldn’t spend the rest of his life in that ratty hole…
“And what else would you have me do?”, he didn’t need to see Villa’s face to catch his amusement, “Stay until Piqué barges in, thinking you’ve stabbed me with a butter knife? I bet you’d try, after all, if one has already taken a shot at Casillas…”
An electric current ran down David’s spine. He wouldn’t have fucking missed then if Cesc hadn’t thrown himself at the DI.
“Besides, what’s to do here? I can’t leave my fingerprints all over the place”, he stressed the word ‘my’ infuriatingly.
He didn’t want to listen to it, he couldn’t stand listening to it, to that patronising, mocking voice that had once caressed his skin with the softest of names, the most alluring of promises and was now leaving, leaving the flat and him, while not so long ago he couldn’t bring himself to let go of his body.
He didn’t know what he’d do if Villa left him.
“You don’t have to touch anything”, he didn’t even realise when he made his way to the man, looking at him pleadingly from behind a veil of lowered eyelashes, “You could touch just me…”, boldly, he grabbed Villa’s hand and brought it up to his hip when he could spot to reaction to his words.
The man’s eyes clouded even more so he smiled invitingly, coquettishly, pushing his leg between Villa’s, rubbing his thigh against his crotch. Their flesh made contact and then, Villa’s hand tightened on his hipbone.
“That’s what you’re going to do now? Act like a whore to make me stay five minutes more?”, the hold was well past the bruising strength as Villa leaned over, so that his cheek was almost touching David’s.
He didn’t answer, just used the momentum to push his mouth against Villa’s neck, kissing hungrily, bitingly, because even if Villa was planning to move over, to leave him, he would never forget that and maybe, just maybe, it would result impossible to leave too…
He yelped when instantly their bodies got rotated and his back and head hit a wall with a sickening thud.
“But that comes naturally to you, doesn’t it”, Villa carried on, having forced his lips away from his neck. Quick as a snake, he fisted his hand in David’s hair, pulling until he had his entire throat exposed and could do nothing more but gaze up onto Villa’s face, “That’s what you do when you want your men to dance to your tune: you give them your body”, his teeth scraped over David’s Adam’s apple, “Like how you were planning to do with your Englishman…”, the words got muffled as Villa sank his teeth into his neck.
He twisted the skin between the teeth, causing David’s knees to buckle and his muscle to strain in order to keep himself up for the duration of the languid kiss that had, in fact, little in common with a real kiss.
Finally, he was let go with one last hard pull on his hair and when he could at last see straight over the colourful dots of pain, he got a perfect view of Villa’s satisfied face above his. He felt that the hands on him loosened their hold, so he sagged back and Villa’s body didn’t follow, leaving some space between them.
And then, when he was sure the man’s guard was momentarily down, he sprang forward, throwing his arms around Villa’s neck and crushing their lips together.
“I’m not a whore, I’ve never been a whore”, he kept on murmuring, worrying at Villa’s bottom lip leisurely, “I just want you”, sensing no protest, he once again pushed his thigh against the man’s crotch. He liked very much what he felt there, so he grinned widely in the kiss he had no wish to end, “And you want me”, he plastered his body as close as he could to Villa’s hot chest.
A hand sneaked under his t-shirt and started to pull it up, then paused to twist his nipple as he was once more rearranged in the man’s arms, this time landing arse to Villa’s front, so he wriggled, reaching behind him and dragging Villa’s head lower so that it rested in the crook between his neck and shoulder.
“I’m not giving you what you want”, despite his previous excitement, Villa’s voice returned to its cold steeliness, “I have some things to attend to-”
He didn’t get to finish before David gracefully turned in his grasp, stood on his toes and whispered, his tongue trailing over the shell of Villa’s ear.
“I know who your mole is”, he playfully lapped at the crystal stud his tongue encountered.
He barely avoided pulling at it with his teeth as he got pushed away, hard.
“Stop joking around”, Villa readjusted his shirt but didn’t move.
He couldn’t tell if he was joking. David fought down an urge to grin brightly. Instead, he just ran the tongue over his bottom lip.
Villa interpreted that correctly.
“I should kill you, then.”
He should have probably done it months ago.
David brought a hand up to his neck, where he knew he bore a mark of Villa’s passion, and then let it fall lower, over his chest, and lower, lower, to the waist of his jeans.
He let himself be pushed forwards and then down, onto a carpet of the room - he could never dream of fighting Villa off anyway - and lifted his hips helpfully when the man tugged at his waistband.
“Tell me”, a low growl vibrated in his ear.
Villa wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.
...
“I’m terribly sorry for how it turned out”, Isco repeated for the fourth time just when Miss Domínguez threw her still slightly wet hair over her shoulder, stalking towards the exit and paying him absolutely no mind, “However, it’s my duty too-”
“I did say I understand, didn’t I?”, she finally stopped, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him when he almost walked into her.
Yeah, she might have mentioned that, some two minutes or so earlier.
“Yes”, he admitted sheepishly. It would do him absolutely no good to start to explain how he really preferred he hadn’t had to drag her out of her flat after allowing her only a moment to take care of her hair and to put something on. And especially how he wished he’d never ambushed her in her nightgown. In her bathroom. In her own flat, “But as I was saying-”
“Do you actually have something other than that to tell me…?”, she interrupted him at once, not ceasing the glaring.
“Isco”, he supplied immediately and felt like the last idiot when her eyebrows jumped up. She obviously wasn’t looking for his name, “I mean, Francisco Suárez”, he tried to salvage the situation.
“Yes, I know”, she said, very slowly and even more flatly, “You’ve introduced yourself, Sergeant Suárez, once when you arrested me and then when you were interrogating me”, clearly those weren’t ones of her fondest memories, “I actually meant if there’s some reason you’re escorting me to the door.”
Why was it even happening to him, wasn’t Casillas the one traditionally filling the quota of them making fools of themselves?
“Yeah”, he cleared his throat, “I’m afraid I have to ask you not to leave the city in the near future. Until we tell you the investigation’s over, actually”, he forced himself to stay professional and not apologise again.
“Thank you”, it was all she said when he opened the door for her. But she didn’t go out, instead, she turned to him, her eyes skipping down to his shoes, “What’s…”, her voice came out nothing more than a whisper, “Is Fernando going to prison?”
“I don’t know”, he replied truthfully, opening his arms, “There are good chances he is, but as for now nothing’s really certain about his case.”
She nodded curtly, as if to give herself courage or chase away depressing thoughts.
“Could you, perhaps, inform me about that?”, she clearly couldn’t force herself to repeat the ‘p’ word, “You are going to inform his family, aren’t you?”
Isco couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked something like that. Well, they weren’t strictly obliged to inform anybody’s relatives that they were locking someone up, culprits or accused usually took it upon themselves to contact their families or friends.
“I”, he was unsure how to phrase it, “Even if I really knew what’s going to happen with him… I couldn’t disclose it”, he made an apologetic face, but she wasn’t looking anyway, “And even if I could, I still have no idea…”
“I see”, she glanced up, sending him a small smile. He couldn’t tell if she believed him.
Then, she began to head down the street.
“Wait!”, he called out before his brain could point out that it wasn’t the best course of action, “Would you like a ride, Miss Domínguez?”, he hadn’t even taken the fucking keys with him.
“Thanks for the offer”, she tucked some loose hair behind her ear, “But I’d rather take a bus.”
...
“Ah, Casillas!”, Valdés was standing in the hall, having been apparently pacing, “Finally, I was beginning to worry you fainted at the sight of your blood in that hospital or something”, his tone was light but Iker had no doubts the pathologist had been honestly worrying how he’d react to seeing Cesc.
It was nice to know everyone thought him mentally frail, probably unstable and therefore a hazard to them all.
“No, jams are a bitch”, he didn’t care about the credibility of his excuse, “So, what has he said?”, he rolled his eyes when he noticed all the three technicians eavesdropping from behind a plastic panel.
“Suárez just finished with him, I guess you want to ask him that”, Valdés quickly followed his line of sight, “He’s gone downstairs I think”, he pointed to the lift and started towards the interrogation room, smoothly providing a reason to leave the unwanted public behind.
Shooting him a grim grin, Iker followed, just in time to see the lift door open and reveal the seemingly perturbed sergeant.
“Suárez!”, he called out when the other blindly turned in the wrong direction, “Update.”
The malagueño blinked and hurriedly joined them, again looking all business like usual.
“Well”, he started bleakly, after Valdés opened the door to the back room behind the two-way mirror of the interrogation room, “Supposedly, he and Ramos had an affair”, he related with a big amount of incredulity in his voice, “Or rather, Ramos has been courting him…”
“Courting him?”, yes, because that’s exactly what came to mind when one was picturing the pimp.
“His words”, Suárez shrugged, “They had a deal that involved ‘no mentioning work’”, he drew citation marks with his fingers, “So they kept it strictly professional.”
“A Mafioso and a cop dating each other”, Iker had snatched up the objects that were lying on the desk and was already pushing the door handle down, “That’s what I call the epitome of ‘professional’.”
...
“Torres”, he greeted, closing the door behind him.
The psychologist was sitting across from him, dejected, staring at a point somewhere in the centre of the table.
“I’ve talked to Suárez”, he took a chair himself.
“Did he explain-”
“He informed me of the content of your statement”, he interrupted, “Which in itself warrants your disciplinary dismissal, if not banning you from ever working on the force again.”
Torres bit his bottom lip, nodding miserably and Iker was unpleasantly reminded of another delincuent singing exactly the same tune there in the morning.
“And although your love story is extremely convincing”, he levelled the blonde with a look, “I’d still like you to explain this.”
With that, he put on the table the parking tickets from Torres’ office and a gun and a plane ticket they Busquets’s team had found in his flat. Then, he leaned away to study the psychologist’s reaction.
Torres opened his mouth as if completely shocked, then closed it, threw Iker a panicked look, then sagged in his seat with an expression that said ‘I fucking knew it’. Interesting.
“He gave me those”, he mumbled, pointing to the gun and the ticket.
“I hope I don’t have to remind a fellow officer that firearms in our country are only allowed for individuals with appropriate licences”, he rested his elbows on the table and picked a plastic bag with the gun inside, “The kind of which you don’t possess.”
Torres didn’t answer to that. At least he didn’t try to pretend he had thought it’s a stun gun.
He pushed the bag aside.
“It’s covered in your fingerprints, as well as Ramos’”, he continued.
“I know”, Torres suddenly cut it, his hair jumping up; like Silva’s, “That’s because he’s been teaching me, because I’ve never got a licence-”
“Required by law.”
“-and after that assassination attempt he thought I needed to be able to protect myself-”
“And that?”, he indicated the plane ticket, unwilling to ponder the assassination yet, “Another attempt to keep you safe? From us maybe? You and Ramos finally decided it’s time to give the slip?”
Torres had been shaking his head throughout his whole speech. In the end, he resorted to hitting the table with the palm of his hand to gain his attention but he did it so weakly it produced no sound.
“It’s not like that at all!”, is eyes bore into Iker’s with a clear intent to plead him to believe him.
“Okay”, he said easily, sighing. Torres glanced at him suspiciously, surprised he wasn’t opposing, “So tell me how it is then.”
...
David awkwardly reached for his jeans, hugging them to himself as Villa expertly zipped himself up and worked out the wrinkles in his shirt, making himself presentable in a matter of seconds. He tilted his face up when the man bent over to give him the last, sloppy kiss and then turned to leave.
This time, he wouldn’t try to stop him.
Only when Villa was already out, he halted uncalled and hovered over the threshold.
“I should’ve never taken you there”, he announced barely audibly, eyes sweeping over him without emotion and then he was gone.
David kept staring at the closed door for a long time. Was that an apology or regret or...?
...
“I think it’ll suffice for now”, Iker interrupted Torres in the middle of some madly feebly story about Ramos being the one to suggest they had the mole. At least he could have fucking tried to come up with something better, “Anything you’d like to add to what you’ve said?”, he prayed the answer would be ‘no’.
For once Heavens had mercy on him because Torres shook his head. His face betrayed no delusions about the effect of his statement. In fact, what was quite worrisome, he looked to be having some serious internal conflict going on.
“Wait”, he called out when Iker had picked himself up, “You may want to look for David Silva. He’s-”
“I know who he is”, he growled, walking out.
He had always thought Torres spineless, but the least he could do after getting caught was not betraying his associates at first occasion. Maybe Villa had promised him protection and he was retaliating by selling out his lover?
...
“Casillas”, he heard Valdés’ voice a moment before the Catalan’s hand grasped his shoulder.
He hid a wince when his wound got subjected to such treatment from a fucking doctor and politely turned to the pathologist, rotating his body so that the other had to let go of him.
“I’ve been waiting for the results”, the Catalan didn’t wait for him to enquire, “Guardiola and I have been comparing the fingerprints samples… Seems that we have a match.”
“Really?”, he smiled, unable to believe this turn of fortune, “Who’s that?”
“You’re not gonna like it”, the pathologist warned with a weird expression, “Besides, both samples were of relatively bad quality and the match is actually only 82% but I think we can safely assume-”
“Of course I’m not gonna like them, they tried to kill me”, he waved at the other to get to the point, “So?”
“The fingerprints belong to David Silva.”
...
It wasn’t hard to find the café, after all he had already been there with Torres - which, once he thought of this, was strange, because while he wasn’t a criminal mastermind he still saw little sense in leading a police officer straight to your boss’ boy - so soon enough, he was standing in front of the ridiculously pink Mestalla. There was a tall blonde waiter attending to a couple sitting in the café’s garden and at the sight of him he automatically discarded his plan to talk with the place’s owner.
“Excuse me”, he fell into step behind the waiter when he was returning inside, “Iker Casillas, Organised Crime Control Bureau”, he flashed his badge and the guy’s eyes widened comically, “I’d like to ask few questions.”
...
After the initial spluttering Mr Alexis Ruano turned out to be quite helpful, not to say too helpful. At first he had seemed prepared for facing the charges himself, which hadn’t exactly warmed Iker up to him but after hearing what, or rather who, had brought a policeman to the café, he jumped to share everything he knew without any restraint. If Iker were to be honest, he would admit that some sort of sick satisfaction had flashed in Ruano’s eyes when he had been asked about Silva’s regular company.
It hadn’t come as a shock to learn that he had been passing his time with what he supposed was Ronaldo’s errand boy. He had almost laughed at the waiter’s naïve assumption that Villa was Silva’s pimp. Okay, so it was highly probably the man was renting the boy out to his associates but to imagine Villa’s reaction if he ever found out that someone had taken him for a common whoremonger… Well, those earrings weren’t exactly helpful to build up a reputation of a respected businessman.
What he couldn’t understand, on his way to the building Silva had given as his address according to Ruano, was why the Canarian was even working at the café. Surly he didn’t need money, he was being well taken care of. Did Villa want him to work? If so, couldn’t he have secured him a more prestigious job, in one of the clubs he had recently sold to people he had most likely chosen and put up as potential buyers himself? Did the boy want to work there? He didn’t strike him as an overly hard-working person who’d insist on working while being kept by Villa anyway? The sole explanation he had been able to come up with was that it was a place where Torres had been passing the information on, but it sounded feeble even to his own ears.
Roberto Mancini. Let’s give him a chance to shed some light on his would-be murderer.
...
An hour later he was fully regretting he had ever sought the man out. Mancini was… Well, Mancini was Italian and that was an explanation in itself, and that was something coming from a representative of a nation about which there were about just as many stereotypes as about the Italians.
The man had treated him to a coffee, a warmed-up leftover pizza (or rather several parts of various leftover pizzas, he felt the stomach ache coming his way), a beer (which he politely declined) and sung praises of Silva, his gentle, caring nature, his sweet shyness, his adorable clumsiness, his cute naïveté, only to conclude his story with how he had to kick the boy out after he had apparently thrown a hard-core drug-involving party in his absence, and poisoned his fish. He had also completely ruined his flat, and at taking a glance around Iker had suspected the man still hadn’t gotten over that particular part of the incident.
He had finally managed to steer the conversation away from the mess around them and onto Silva’s boyfriend. Unfortunately, the man had turned out deeply unhelpful: namely, he absolutely adored Villa, who apparently constituted a perfect balance for Silva with his collected, calm demeanour (did they know the same David Villa?) and experience that only came with age. Actually, Mancini had been behaving like a teenage girl fawning over a gay couple. Oh, plus Villa was his greatest pal because he too supported Milan. Or Juventus. Iker hadn’t been really listening after the first fifteen minutes of discussing football.
What had roused his interest had been when Mancini had mentioned something about Silva coming to move out, with a funny blonde friend to help him, but his excitement had promptly died when the Italian had admitted he hadn’t asked for the boy’s new address.
When he had been leaving, a sheepish-looking Mancini had emerged from the kitchen asking: “What was that he had come for again?” and Iker had wondered why he hadn’t become an accountant.
...
Then, his mood improved significantly with the arrival of an e-mail from Alba.
...
He had met up with Suárez and Busquets and they had been waiting in the car in front of Villa’s house in La Moraleja for over three hours before the man finally graced them with his presence.
Iker got out the moment a black Mercedes pulled off in front of a high gate of the driveway. He was halfway to the vehicle when the passenger’s door opened and the Asturian stepped out, narrowing his eyes against the sun.
“You’re a difficult man to find, Mr Villa”, he flashed a fake smile, now almost shoulder to shoulder with the criminal.
“I wasn’t aware you were looking for me”, Villa said gruffly, sending a minuscule nod to someone in the car, “What do you want, Casillas?”, he lost all the pretence of a joking mood.
“For you to accompany us to the Bureau. There are some things we need you to clarify”, he caught with the corner of his eye that Suárez and Busquets had got out too, “And Villa”, he noted with satisfaction that the sergeants had been spotted by the Asturian as well, “It’s not a request.”