It is mid morning, the 1^st of November 2013, and I’m taking you down the avenue of cypresses that lead to the gates of the cemetery of Figueras. The wind is blowing in our faces from the north – La Tramontana – with something of a bite. At the gates a crowd of perhaps a few hundred people is gathered, dressed in somber attire. They talk quietly amongst themselves and wring their hands as they await the arrival of the mayor, her entourage and a few counselors. Presently a few dark cars arrive and spill their dignitaries into an open semi-circle of deference punctured only by the priest who greets them. He exchanges a few words with them and then turns, parting the crowd behind him like the waters of the Red Sea, to lead them all, in order of precedence, through the gates and into the cemetery. They are here, ceremoniously on All Saints Day, to inaugurate a monument that honours the fallen of the civil war.

The procession, extruded by the narrow gates, follows the priest in turn, about four abreast, down the main avenue of the cemetery and past the ostentatious mausoleums that line it. Behind these edifices the more sober tombs and graves of the have-nots, the also-rans and the unpretentious; quietly being tended to – on this day –by those who still care to remember and who are quite unrelated to the pomp of this retinue. From them you hear nothing but the occasional murmur. The priest and the dignitaries arrive at the monument and give the others a few minutes to gather around as best they can. As the mayor opens her mouth to begin her speech two shots are heard, from not fifty meters away to the east and startling everyone present, followed by another four in rapid succession which sends everyone to the ground as a shrieking herd of hysterical mourners – darting around and over tombs – moves towards them and tramples people like a lot of stampeding cattle.

The story made it to the national broadsheets and seems to have involved two rival, but related, clans of Roma and the settling of accounts between them regarding a woman. One man – shot six times – was pronounced dead at the scene. Last I heard, someone has come forward and admitted his guilt.

Popeye is wealthy and is the patriarch of a clan of gypsies that live predominately around Figueras. I’m told his money comes from apparel that he buys from China by the container-load and that he then sells on to fellow Roma by the kilo, who in turn sell it on to other Roma throughout the Iberian Peninsula, although no one doubts that his fingers must also be plunged knuckle-deep in various other pies. Many years ago he bought a plot of land on the out-skirts of Vilafant which belonged to my contact’s family and by all accounts payment for this was dealt with in bricks of notes of small denominations bound in the green rubber bands you’ll see when buying asparagus in the supermarket. I’m told on good account that he raises prize-winning fighting cocks on this patch. Another one of his sidelines is rearing horses that he raises on land close by. After the shooting some of them were killed and mutilated; their legs being severed and sent as a warning of what might come. A few years back a rather large house on the main square of Vilafant, which had belonged to the village doctor, came up for sale and he paid for it in a similar fashion; wads of cash in rubber bands. Since the shooting incident, Popeye and his lot have been rather scarce and the house is boarded up. I’m told they now live in a Roma township on the other side of Figueras.

Anna is a nurse and paramedic and has been working the night shift for the last seventeen years. One night she and her ambulance crew were called to an address in this township regarding an unconscious male in his early thirties. When they arrived at the scene a hysterical throng of gesticulating gypsies, in various states of excitement, aggression and emotion, greeted them with deafening shrieks and shouts. Cutting through the crowd they found the young man quite unresponsive and looking very pale, having clearly gone into cardiac arrest a good while before Anna and her team had got there. He was obese and by all accounts had been a heavy smoker. They immediately got to work on him and did their best to revive him amidst the shouts and threats of the wide-eyed locals that the strong police presence was having a hard time trying to control. Several times Anna had to go back to the ambulance for more gear and other drugs and each time people tore at her clothes, threatening her and her team if things did not work out well for the victim despite her pleas to be allowed to get on with her job. There came a point where it was clear that there was nothing else they could do for the lad and that he was clinically dead. Her colleague looked up at her to seek her confirmation of the fact. She said nothing but her eyes flashed a catalan, “shut the fuck up and keep working on him!” On they went with CPR as she wondered how the hell they might get out alive. Eventually she managed to speak to a patriarch of some influence and persuaded him that the best thing for the victim would be to get him to hospital as soon as possible for further treatment. They were then permitted to extract themselves, cadaver and all; the ambulance, wailing its siren through the streets of Figueras, trailing a retinue of banged up vans and motorcycles all the way to the hospital where the police did their best to contain a small riot.