Fiction
May 2018
La novia gitana / 1
by Carmen Mola
THE GIPSY BRIDE / Inspector Elena Blanco has to raise every fold of the Gypsy Bride’s veil to get to the truth: who hated Susana so much, who hated her sister and her father? While working on the case she will have to deal with a dangerous murderer, a vengeance, the age-old religion and the revelation of some terrible facts about herself. “In Madrid there are not many murders committed”, deputy inspector Ángel Zárate’s old mentor in the police force used to say, “but when they happen, there is nothing the other cities can be envious of”, would add inspector Elena Blanco, the Head of the Case Analysis Brigade, a police department created for resolving the most complicated and most heinous crimes. Susana Macaya, a Gypsy girl, educated in a non-gypsy environment, disappears after her hen party. Nothing is known about her until two days later when her body turns up in the run-down Quinta de Vista Alegre park with its abandoned gardens in the district of Carabanchel. It might have been just another routine investigation, were it not for the fact that the victim was brutally tortured and that her sister Lara, also about to be married, also a young and beautiful Gypsy girl had been murdered in the same manner seven years before. Lara’s killer is serving a sentence in prison, so there are only two possibilities: it is either a copycat murder or an innocent person has been imprisoned. This is why the Head of Operations, inspector Rentero decides to take the case from young Zárate and give it to the experienced Elena Blanco. She is a peculiar character, a loner, a fan of grappa, of karaoke, of old Soviet cars and of romantic encounters in underground parking bays. A very special police officer who keeps working in the force because she must not forget that there is a case in her life she cannot close. To investigate implies getting to know people, revealing their secrets, their lack of consistency, their life. In the case of Lara and Susana it will be necessary to delve into the life of the Gypsies who have renounced their customs in order to integrate into the society as well as into the life of those who condemn such attitudes and do not forgive. It will also require acknowledging petty displays of racism they face every day…
