Read Online Or the Bull Kills You by Jason Webster - Free Book Online

against that carpet. But they’re there. Then he carries the body out to the centre of the bullring along with a matador’s sword and a couple of banderillas .’
    â€˜Puts the body in place,’ Cámara continued, ‘mutilates it, and then disappears.’
    â€˜Mutilation certainly didn’t happen in here,’ Huerta said. ‘Not a single bloodstain or spatter. Even though he was already dead when it happened, he was still fresh enough to ooze blood, even a small amount.’
    â€˜What about his point of exit?’
    â€˜Still a mystery,’ Huerta said. ‘As I said, no sign of any forced gates or locks. Our man must have climbed out somewhere.’
    â€˜Carrying the traje de luces with him,’ Cámara said. ‘I take it there’s no sign of it here.’
    Huerta shook his head.
    â€˜Of course,’ he said, ‘if half my team hadn’t taken time off for fucking Fallas I could have someone working on finding that as we speak.’
    Cámara waved a hand as he turned to leave.
    â€˜Forget it,’ he said.
    Â 
    A dayglo-orange tour bus was circling around the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, the top deck brushing against palm tree fronds, as the driver explained to the bemused tourists why the large paved open space in the middle was fenced off at this time of year. Preparations for the lunchtime mascletà – the ear-splitting firecracker display – were at an advanced stage, and already some of the noise junkies were hovering around the entrance to the post office on the other side of the square, hogging the best places next to the Red Cross van in case the excess of decibels made them faint, or their eardrums burst. The usual TV truck from Canal 9 was there to televise the event, but so too were a couple from international news channels. They were clearly not here for Fallas , but for the high-profile murder that had put the city unexpectedly in the public eye.
    Cámara dodged the traffic to cross the road and stepped inside the Town Hall, where he was directed upstairs to the mayoress’s assistant.
    The girl behind the desk was no more than twenty-five, and very pretty, he couldn’t help noticing, with dark brown hair curled behind her ears, large gold earrings and thickly painted full lips.
    Cámara introduced himself.
    â€˜Chief Inspector Cámara. The mayoress wants to see me.’ He placed his hands on the desk and leaned in.
    â€˜I know it’s a Sunday, and it’s Fallas , but I’ve got rather a lot to do today.’
    â€˜Mayoress Delgado is busy,’ the girl said. ‘You’ll have to wait.’
    Cámara glanced at the clock on the wall, then over again at the girl behind the desk. Back straight, head down, she seemed strangely lifeless.
    A text message came through on his mobile. Cámara fished it out of his pocket; it was from Torres: the prints on Blanco’s body had been confirmed as Aguado’s. He sniffed and flipped the phone shut.
    Pacing over to some of the noticeboards on the far side of the hall, he tried not to think of the time that was being wasted, or of what was probably happening back at the Jefatura. A photograph of a bull on one of the posters caught his eye. It was black, with magnificent white horns curling up from its head: a toro de lidia , a bullfighting bull.
    The text underneath explained a policy that was now so familiar to everyone that he could almost recite it with his eyes closed. Mayoress Delgado’s regionalist party was proposing a ban on all bullfights within the municipal boundaries, hoping to beat the hated Barcelona to the north to become the first city in Spain to do so. Valencia, host to the America’s Cup, and now the Formula 1 European Grand Prix, was reinventing itself as a venue for international sporting events. There was no place in this grand scheme for archaic and barbaric activities such as bullfighting. The age of cruelty to animals must