Mario Leme is a low-ranking detective in the Sao Paulo civil police. Every day on the way to work he sets off early and drives through the favela known as Paraisopolis - Paradise City. It's a pilgrimage: his wife Renata was gunned down at an intersection here a year ago, the victim of a stray bullet in a conflict between drug dealers.
One morning, parked near the place where Renata died, he sees an SUV careen out of control and flip over. The driver Leo is killed, but before his body is removed, Leme is sure he sees bullet wounds.
Leo's death wasn't an accident, he was murdered. Soon, his girlfriend turns up dead too. And if they were killed deliberately, perhaps Renata was too . . .
Leme finds himself immersed further and further in the dark underbelly of Brazilian society, as corruption seeps from the highest to the lowest echelons, and the devastating truth about Renata begins to
PRAISE FOR JOE THOMAS
'Brilliant' The Times 'Feverish energy' Guardian 'Wonderfully vivid' Mail on Sunday 'Sophisticated, dizzying' GQ 'Vivid and visceral' The Times 'Superbly realised vivid and atmospheric' Guardian 'Original' Mail on Sunday 'A stylish, atmospheric treat an inspired blend of David Peace and early Pinter' Irish Times 'Sparse, energetic, fragmented prose' The Spectator 'Vibrant, colourful, and complex' Irish Independent 'Stylish, sharp-witted, taut. A must for modern noir fans' NB Magazine 'Definitive confident and energetic' Crime Time 'Brilliant manic energy' Jake Arnott 'Wildly stylish and hugely entertaining' Lucy Caldwell 'Vivid, stylish, funny' Mick Herron 'Gripping, fast-paced, darkly atmospheric' Susanna Jones 'Snappy, thoughtful, moving' John King 'Exciting, fresh, incredibly assured' Stav Sherez 'Happy days!' Mark Timlin 'Utterly brilliant' Cathi Unsworth 'Had James Ellroy and David Peace collaborated on a novel they'd have written something like this' Paul Willets
Release date:
December 19, 2016
Publisher:
Quercus Publishing
Print pages:
300
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Paraisópolis, Paradise City, the largest favela in central São Paulo — November 2011
The streets pounded with Baile funk, and flip-flopped men in dark glasses stood around the car, watching the five dirt roads that joined at the junction. The sun slipped down out of sight of the favela crater, below the line of the city. Naked bulbs were scattered about the rooftops of the surrounding houses, each illuminating a few circular feet. Rusted tin doors squeaked, opened into the gloom and faint rectangles spilled on to the street, were still for a moment and then vanished.
Renata left her legal aid office an hour later than normal. She’d been helping a man with a dispute over land. He was expecting another child and wanted to extend the rough house his family lived in. But a bar owner and a tyre shop were unhappy with the plans. Renata had slipped easily into the space of the disagreement, fluid, empathic, and negotiated a compromise. The man had just visited her office to bless her and offer his respects. He’d talked for a long time.
She didn’t like leaving after dark.
She scanned the street. A cockroach zipped out from the back of the por kilo restaurant where she ate her lunch every day. The owner — a large woman — stepped out from behind the counter and in three steps had crunched it under her plastic sandals. She smiled at Renata, who waved and dug her keys out of her bag.
Fireworks spat and crackled, and the men standing by the car turned, recognising the warning from the top end of the favela. Police. Renata tensed, struggled with the padlock to her office, dropped it. She glanced nervously at the restaurant owner who stood with her arms crossed, shaking her head, clicking and sucking her teeth, before stepping back behind the counter and pulling down the metal grille. Renata looked over her shoulder, watched as the men skirted around the cars across the road, crouched. Someone was shouting instructions to one of the younger boys. The Military Police would be here soon. These invasions were becoming commonplace, but this one was earlier in the evening than normal. Should she go back inside or try to get to her car? She told herself not to panic, that she had a little more time. The door was locked now. But better to get back inside, she thought. Surprised by a single siren-wail and blue-red flash she fumbled her key, watched it fall into the gutter and bounce towards the uncovered drain. The men drinking at the bar flinched then ducked under the tables.
She pulled at the padlock.
The maids and nannies walking home carrying their céstas of rice and beans started and scattered down the side roads.
The heat pulsed like a heartbeat, the clouds thickened and cracked. More shouts. Running. Renata froze. She looked across the road. The Military Police were advancing. Men in flip-flops ran from shadow to shadow. One was carrying a pistol, arm lowered.
Then, an unholy rattle. Renata took a step towards her car, limbs pushing though water. This is happening.
Gunfire. Strobing light.
And Renata glimpsed him — the last thing she ever saw. A teenager with gold teeth grinning, his rifle too powerful for him to control, police moving towards him from all sides.
One year later
Leme sat in his car on the edge of Paraisópolis, sweating in the fattening sun. Workers gathered by the bus stop, forming a queue that stretched up beyond the tyre shops and burnt-out cars, sipping at coffee they’d bought from the usual woman. Leme watched her drag the table up the hill from her home every day.
He traced the dust in the car window with his fingertip. He drew a heart and then smudged it, glanced in the wing mirror. His sunglasses hid his hollowed eyes. He stared at the street and shut everything else down. He’d sat here, or close, almost every morning for a year. No one knew. It was his own routine, part of his own struggle: automatic now, a way of not forgetting, not giving up. Anything he had got in life was in part down to his persistence, his wife, Renata, included.
And so here he was.
Again.
The stink of rubbish drifted up the road, but he left his windows open at the top. Slum-happy dogs nosed about in the mess, pulling out scraps. This was Morumbi, only a five-minute drive to Leme's own apartment block, with its swimming pool and tennis court, its sauna and its restaurant. Renata's apartment.
He’d moved in with her and now it was his, alone.
Across Avenida Giovanni Gronchi, the school gates opened and security shifts changed over. Cars crawled up the hill from the other side, turning left towards the city. Morumbi was empty once. São Paulo crept out from its centre like a stain.
Trucks rattled past. On the forecourt of a garage on the corner to Leme's left, a temporary Military Police post was manned by two officers standing next to motorbikes, lights flashing, hands on the guns at their sides. He hadn’t told them he’d be there. This was theirs, the favela, not his. It was foreign, frightening. He did not belong. He did not want to be there. He had no choice.
The queue thickened. Men and women greeted each other, slapped hands, shuffled forwards, chatting. Leme only half-listened; he’d heard the conversations time and again. ‘Another day, ne? Fazer o que?’ they said, laughing about the night before. ‘Porra, meu. Que bacana, eh?
Once, Leme had pitied them, knowing that they would travel hours to a menial job to earn a laughable wage.
Now he envied the sense of community that he didn’t feel at home.
He blamed the favela for what happened to Renata, killed by a bala perdida one year before. ‘It's just bricks and mortar,’ his partner Lisboa always said. ‘It's people who are to blame, not the place they’re from.’ Leme disagreed with that. He went silent whenever Lisboa brought it up. Lisboa, Leme knew, thought his silence meant he agreed, would do nothing more and try to move on. But for Leme, Paraisópolis was alive. Toothed brick walls and jagged roofs: uneven, unregulated shapes diced, chopped and left where they fell. Most people who lived there were honest and diligent and Renata had worked hard to protect them. But not all.
A group of young men walked past the car, flip-flops slapping on the road. Leme raised his hand to his face, but the boys didn’t notice. They looked harmless enough, none of the posture and entitlement of the dealers who worked the bocas de fumo. They laughed and one of them kicked at a rubbish bag.
Leme looked straight ahead as the cars zipped past, lines of grey and black.
There were shouts coming from behind him.
The noise of a car backfiring.
Leme swivelled in his seat, looked over his shoulder but saw nothing. Another bang. Fireworks? No, too early. And then again, this time three cracks in succession.
Gunfire. He knew.
More shouting. The queue for the bus rippled with fear and a number of people walked quickly away towards the main road. Leme stuck his head out of his window and sensed the tension. He made to start his car. He should leave. It didn’t start first time.
Another engine growled. Leme looked again in the mirror: the boys scattered and swore, waved their arms, middle fingers. ‘Vai tomar uma, eh!’ A black SUV careened up the road in a drunk stagger. Leme flinched and pulled at the door. It powered past, taking his wing mirror with it, and shot across the junction, into the traffic. Moments later a Military Police vehicle followed. An arm hung from the passenger window, gripping a revolver. This was the sound Leme had heard. He’d been to the firing range enough times to know.
Leme saw the two Militars by the motorbikes exchange a look. The SUV veered left, the wheels locked, there was a screech and it hit something on the road. It flipped and slid, crashed hard into the wall on the other side, buckling on impact. A group from the queue ran past Leme, shouting. The two Military Police were next, radios out. Traffic slowed and commuters climbed out of their cars and looked on from behind the open doors. Shaking of heads, looking at watches. ‘Babaca. Driving like that? Filho da puta.’ In moments, a widening bottleneck. The three Military Police in the vehicle jumped out, hands on their weapons, surrounding the SUV.
Leme stayed where he was. A couple of cars swerved around the SUV and drove off quickly. One of the officers blocked the traffic and the other tried to open the vehicle, rattling the door handles. More shouting. Questions. ‘Who was inside?’ ‘What were they doing in the favela?’ ‘An SUV, porra.’
Leme waited. When he heard the sound of sirens — police and ambulance — he climbed slowly from his car and walked over. He nodded at the Militars, the hint of a smile the pretence he belonged there. He flashed his badge: detective, Polícia Civil.
They examined the car as the engine steamed. The windows were blacked out and bulletproof, the doors securely locked. People paid well for this impregnability.
They couldn’t get inside.
Leme hung back. The fire brigade arrived. They cut into the side of the car with a circular saw. He edged closer. When the door came off, he flashed his badge again, and leaned in as close as he could.
The young man in the car was dead.
Two spreading bloodstains, one on his right shoulder, one on his left thigh.
One of the Militars pushed Leme back, eyed him, noted him, it felt, and threw a blanket across the man's body.
He looked at Leme again. ‘Nasty crash,’ he said.
Leme nodded slowly and backed away. He wasn’t supposed to be there.
The driver wasn’t killed in the collision, he was sure of that.
There was a dark nucleus at the centre of each bloodstain. Whatever the Militar wanted him to believe, he’d investigated enough murders to know gunshot wounds when he saw them.
Mid-morning. Leme sat at his desk, distracted. He didn’t want to have to answer any questions as to why he’d been in the favela, why he’d left the moment the body was recovered. He could explain it as a shortcut on his way to work if need be, but he didn’t know if anyone had seen him sitting stationary in his car in the half-hour or so before the incident. Or any other morning, in fact. News of the young man's death would come through soon enough. He’d have to think about how he’d play that.
He struggled to put it out of his mind. He didn’t have a capacity for distraction when something bothered him. ‘Batendo na mesma tecla,’ Renata always said. ‘The same question again and again and again.’ He envied those friends of his who could compartmentalise, let the hours tick by immersed in work without the angst.
He logged into the secure archive and clicked the link to the case he was working on: The Gabriel Murder. Time to look over the transcripts of his interviews with the two suspects he had brought in. Two lowlifes. Real pieces of work. Not a great deal of contrition — they’d shrugged, smiled even: what were we supposed to do? they seemed to be saying.
The story was: robbery gone wrong. Familiar enough. The victim was Sergio Moreira, a man in his late fifties who lived alone in a smart, low-rise house on Rua Gabriel Monteiro. No security, no alarms — it was a smart neighbourhood with little history of crime. It wasn’t late at night and the house had appeared empty, according to the statements from the accused. They’d broken in through a side door and were stripping the place of valuables when Moreira had surprised them in the living room. They struck him over the head with a heavy table lamp and he died later that night in hospital. The suspects called the ambulance themselves, after they had fled. They claimed self-defence — Moreira was, they said, carrying a baseball bat. The guy was almost seventy. It was his house.
Fucking self-defence —
It hadn’t been too hard to pick them up. There were fingerprints all over the place and the two had a history of robbery. Leme brought them in and they confessed. Straightforward. Not something a detective of his experience needed to agonise over, perhaps. But he lingered.
Where the fuck was Lisboa?
They’d been partners for fifteen years and school friends before that. They joined up and were promoted together. Lisboa's father had been a detective in the Polícia Civil, and it was his influence that led to their recruitment. ‘It's a worthy and rewarding profession,’ he always told them as they were growing up. ‘You use your head, you think, but you’re out and about, doing. Not many careers offer that combination. Solving other people's problems is a fine way to live.’ Both Leme and Lisboa were sold. Neither had designs to go to college and neither of them wanted to spend their days behind a desk. And the Polícia Civil didn’t have the danger of the Military Police. They wouldn’t be fighting battles with traficantes in the favela and they wouldn’t be spat at in the street. They’d worked hard and had built up a reputation as both competent and fair. What they had discovered, though, after their last promotion, was that competence and fairness meant there was a ceiling on how far you could rise.
It was this realisation that left Lisboa disillusioned. He had a family now, two children, and the job had been shunted into second place. Leme tried to understand. And while Lisboa was content to simply do, Leme had begun to find that he was spending more and more time with his own thoughts.
After Renata's death, Lisboa had looked after Leme. In the first paralysing weeks, he saw him every day, slept over at Leme's flat, neglected his family to take care of his friend. Perhaps now he was simply making amends at home? Leme knew he was being selfish, but it had only been in the last few months that he had settled back into the job, and it was through hard work that he was starting to feel like he could function again. He wished Lisboa had the same attitude.
He studied the transcripts. Procedure was that once up in the secure system, the audio recordings were archived and took time to get hold of, so Leme had no choice but to read the transcript instead. His head ached, his eyes were tired; he shook from caffeine and lack of sleep. The problem with reading rather than listening was gauging tone. He’d mentioned this before to Superintendent Lagnado but he’d been waved away. ‘Nothing I can do,’ Lagnado had said, which was pretty much his stock response to any query. Blindly following directives from Magalhães, the Delegado Geral, was one way of securing your position. And salary. And, most importantly, benefits. Despite his hangover, there was a line that jumped out every time Leme read it.
We’d been told he was there. I mean, wasn’t there, entendeu? You know, rumours. Easy mark, we heard. Yeah, it was a surprise, sabe? Faz o que, ne?
This bothered Leme. He remembered the way the guy had glanced at the door, as if needing corroboration. That perhaps it hadn’t, in fact, been a surprise. There was no way of proving this; it was intuition.
He leant back in his chair, scratched at his chin. If he didn’t act now, it would be too late. Confessions were in — he had to tell Lagnado what he was thinking before the case was signed off and passed on to the legal departments.
Leme left his office, crossed the open plan space, ignoring the greetings of a couple of colleagues, and took the lift up to Lagnado's floor. He had long ago realised that there was never any point in ringing first to check his availability — according to Lagnado's secretary, he was never available.
He walked past her, knocked on Lagnado's door and went straight in.
Lagnado was sitting behind his vast, oak desk, examining his reflection in a small mirror, picking at a piece of tissue on his chin. He didn’t bother to see who it was.
Lagnado looked up. ‘Oh, it's you. Thanks for the advice. Rich though, ne?’ He paused. Smiled — snide. ‘You look like shit, Leme. Your skin's the same colour as your fucking hair.’
Leme said nothing but thought this a bit unfair. He was only greying at the sides. Lagnado was dressed in his usual dark-blue three-piece suit. Wiry black hair cut short. Eyebrows low and thick. Aftershave stink.
‘Fuck do you want anyway?’ Lagnado said. ‘I told Moira I was busy.’
‘I never asked.’
‘I’m sure you didn’t. Let's make this quick.’
Leme didn’t sit down. Lagnado wasn’t going to invite him to, and he decided he might have antagonised him enough.
‘Those confessions,’ Leme said, ‘for the Gabriel murder. Something I’m not sure about. I want to talk to them again.’
Lagnado breathed out heavily. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. Not sure I trust what they’ve said.’
‘Well, they’re criminals. That's the whole point.’
‘So you’ll let me?’
‘No, I won’t. It's done. Acabou.’
‘What do you mean?’
Lagnado grimaced, then smiled. He was a squat, square-shaped man, and his upper body strained against the suit so that it seemed he was always slightly uncomfortable, as if suffering from backache. It always looked to Leme like it was difficult for him to move.
‘Exactly that,’ he said. ‘It's done. You’re off it. Been passed on. We’ve got the confessions. Então. Chega.’
‘But I think they knew he’d be there.’
‘Think what you like. It's done.’
Leme took this in. ‘Since when?’
‘This morning.’
‘So that's it?’
‘Yep. Nothing I can do.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘None of your fucking business.’ He stood awkwardly.
Leme sighed.
‘Talk to Alvarenga when you can about that dentist robbery in Alta do Pinheiros. It's murder now. Both of them died of the burn wounds. He's going to need some help, OK? You and Lisboa can be it.’
Leme nodded. This was a nasty case. The dentists tied up and all their equipment and drugs stolen and the room torched. It was the second time it had happened in a month. Dentists both times. Why dentists?
‘I’ll talk to him,’ Leme said. ‘Soon as I can.’
‘Oh, one other thing,’ Lagnado said. ‘You live near Paraisópolis, ne?’
‘You know I do.’
‘Rich kid called Leonardo Alencar died in a car crash there this morning.’
Leme tensed. Fuck. He picked at his lip. Did Lagnado know he was there? So it was a rich kid. Car accident, Leme thought. Right. How much might Lagnado know?
Leme said nothing.
‘Best you keep out,’ Lagnado said. He leaned forward. ‘For your own good, actually. I hear you were there this morning. We all know why you have this ... fascination with the favela. It's not healthy. Leave it, certo?’
Leme nodded. ‘You say it was an accident?’ he said. ‘Nothing suspicious?’
Lagnado waved his arms in exasperation. ‘Drunk kid in a crash. Nada, entendeu?’
The room was cool, spacious, wood-lined, in complete contrast to his own cupboard on the lower floor. Lagnado was a stooge, always had been.
And this is what it got him.
‘Certo, Sr Superintendente,’ he said. ‘Valeu, eh?’
‘It is what it is, porra. Nothing I can do.’
But there was a violence contained in that Neanderthal body and Leme knew better than to push it too far.
He turned to go.
‘Don’t be a cunt,’ Lagnado muttered as he left.
Back in his office, Leme logged into the archive but couldn’t access the transcripts this time. He tried again. Nothing. Denied. Odd, he thought. Clicked again. Still nothing. Maybe there's a system error. He rang the IT department and spoke to a technician. No error, apparently, the level of classification changed, that was all. You know how it is. Leme didn’t.
He hiked up the stairs to the central archive and rapped on the desk. A harassed-looking man came from out of the back office.
‘I need the transcripts and tapes for the Gabriel murder,’ Leme said.
The archive guy whistled. ‘No can do. Sorry.’
‘Eh?’
‘Restricted.’
‘Since when?’
‘About ten minutes.’
Leme said again. ‘I need the transcripts and tapes. Do your fucking job.’
The guy said nothing and looked down at his desk. ‘I don’t make the rules,’ he said.
Leme nodded. ‘You want to do me a favour? Who can access them?’
The guy smiled. He looked up at the ceiling and made a face. ‘Who do you think?’
Leme raised his eyebrows in thanks. ‘Valeu.’
He took the lift back to his own floor. It had happened quickly. Almost as if Lagnado was expecting him. Like he was prepared. Could be nothing, the suspects had confessed after all, but as the lead detective, he should have been able to get to the transcripts. It didn’t make sense. But that wasn’t what he was thinking about: he was wondering why this rich kid Leonardo Alencar was in the favela. And why no one seemed to be mentioning the fact that he’d been shot.
Lisboa showed up around lunchtime. ‘You ready?’ he asked Leme.
‘Fuck have you been?’
‘You know.’
‘No, I don’t. Ready for what?’
‘Lunch, porra.’
Leme laughed. ‘That why you come to work now, is it? Lunch?’
Lisboa sat heavily on his chair. He’d put on weight and was irritable. His wife was making him diet, exercise. He was a man of appetites, liked to live well, enjoy himself. He liked to laugh, was always sociable. One of those people who innately understood that if something was beyond his control then there was no point worrying about it. Having children was testing that philosophy. And physically it was showing. He’d never been vain and had always been perversely proud of his softening belly. And he dressed and moved elegantly, so it didn’t seem to matter. Not today. Today he looked like he’d been drinking too much on an overnight flight. Crumpled and exhausted, like the suit that slipped off him as he sat down.
‘Don’t fucking start, certo?’ he said. ‘Been a tough night. I’ve slept about two hours. Teething and fucking night terror.’
‘Aren’t you a bit old for that?’
Lisboa ignored him.
He eyed Leme for a moment. Leme knew that he was aware they’d reached the limit of their potential in the department and while it didn’t bother him so much any more in a professional sense now he had a family, he needed the money to support them. Not that he ever said anything. And Leme understood that.
Probably best he didn’t mention what had happened in the favela.
Leme didn’t feel like having an argument. He’d stop by at the lanchonete on the edge . . .
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