The Flanders Panel

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  She put her hand in her bag and cocked the derringer. Very calmly, César put his umbrella under his arm, went over to one of the stalls and, as if he were selecting a walking stick, grabbed a huge iron poker.

  "May I?" he said, pressing the first note he found in his wallet into the astonished stallholder's hand. He then looked serenely at Julia again and said: "Just this once, my dear, allow me to go first."

  They set off towards the car, using stalls as cover. Julia's heart was beating hard when she at last got a glimpse of the numberplate. There was no doubt about it: a blue Ford, smoked-glass windows and the letters TH. Her mouth was dry, and she had an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach as if it had contracted in upon itself. That, she said to herself quickly, was what Captain Peter Blood used to feel before boarding an enemy ship.

  They reached the corner, and everything happened fast. Someone inside the car lowered the driver's window to toss out a cigarette. César dropped his umbrella and his hat, raised the poker and walked round to the left side of the car, prepared, if necessary, to kill the pirates or whoever was inside. Julia, her teeth gritted and the blood pounding in her temples, started to run. She took the pistol out and stuck it through the window before the driver had time to wind it up again. In front of her pistol appeared an unknown face: a young man with a beard, who was staring at the gun with terrified eyes. The man in the passenger seat jumped when César wrenched opened the door, the iron poker raised threateningly above his head.

  "Get out! Out!" shouted Julia, almost beside herself.

  His face deathly pale, the man with the beard raised his hands with his fingers wide, in a gesture of supplication.

  "Calm down, Señorita!" he stammered. "For God's sake, calm down! We're the police."

  "I recognise," said Inspector Feijoo, clasping his hands together on his office desk, "that so far we haven't been terribly efficient in this matter..."

  He smiled placidly at César, as if the police's lack of efficiency was justified. Since we're in sophisticated company, his look seemed to say, we can allow ourselves a certain amount of constructive self-criticism.

  But César seemed ill-disposed to accept this.

  "That," he said disdainfully, "is one way of describing what others would call sheer incompetence."

  It was clear from Feijoo's crumbling smile that César's remark was the last straw. His teeth appeared beneath the thick moustache, biting his lower lip and he began an impatient drumming on the desk with the end of his cheap ballpoint. César's presence meant that he had no option but to tread carefully, and all three of them knew why.

  "The police have their methods."

  These were empty words, and César grew impatient, cruel. The fact that he had dealings with Feijoo didn't mean that he had to be nice to him, still less when he'd caught him in some funny business.

  "If those methods consist of having Julia followed while some madman out there is on the loose, sending anonymous messages, I would rather not say what I think of such methods." He turned towards Julia, then back to the policeman. "I can't believe that you consider her to be a suspect in the death of Professor Ortega. Why haven't you investigated me?"

  "We have." Feijoo was piqued by César's impertinence, and had to bite back his anger. "The fact is, we investigated everyone." He turned up his palms, accepting responsibility for what he was prepared to acknowledge had been a monumental blunder. "Unfortunately, these things do happen in this job."

  "And have you found out anything?"

  "I'm afraid not." Feijoo reached inside his jacket to scratch an armpit and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "To be perfectly honest, we're back at square one. The pathologists can't agree on the cause of Álvaro Ortega's death. If there really is a murderer at large, our only hope is that at some point he makes a mistake."

  "Is that why you've been following me?" asked Julia, still furious. She was clutching her bag in her lap. "To see if I make a mistake?"

  The Inspector looked at her grimly.

  "You shouldn't take it so personally. It's purely routine. Just police tactics."

  César arched an eyebrow.

  "As a tactic it doesn't strike me as being either particularly promising or particularly efficient."

  Feijoo gulped down the sarcasm. At that moment, thought Julia with wicked delight, he must be deeply regretting any illicit dealings he'd had with César. All it needed was for César to open his mouth in a few opportune places and, with no direct accusations being made and with no official paperwork involved, in the discreet way that things tend to be done at a certain level, the Inspector would find himself ending his career in a gloomy office in some far-flung police department, as a pen-pusher with no prospect of extra income.

  "I can only assure you," he said at last, when he'd managed to digest some of the rancour which, as his face plainly revealed, was still stuck in his gullet, "that we will continue our investigations." He seemed to remember something, reluctantly. "And of course the young lady will be put under special protection."

  "Don't bother," said Julia. Feijoo's humiliation was not enough to make her forget her own. "No more blue cars, please. Enough is enough."

  "It's for your own safety, Señorita."

  "As you see, I can look after myself."

  The policeman looked away. No doubt his throat still hurt from the bawling out he'd given the two policemen for letting themselves be surprised. "Idiots!" he'd screamed at them. "Bloody amateurs! You've really dropped me in the shit this time and, believe me, you're going to suffer for it!" César and Julia had heard it all while they were waiting in the corridor at the police station.

  "As for that..." he began now, after waging what had obviously been a hard battle in his mind between duty and convenience, and crumbling before the weightier demands of the latter. "Given the circumstances, I don't think that ... I mean that the pistol..." He swallowed again before looking at César. "After all, it is an antique, not a modern weapon in the real sense of the word. And you, as an antiques dealer, have the correct licence." He looked down at the desk, doubtless remembering the last piece, an eighteenth-century clock, for which, only weeks before, César had paid him a good price. "For my part, and I'm speaking here for my two men involved as well..." Again he gave that treacherous, conciliatory smile. "I mean that we're prepared to overlook certain details of the matter. You, Don César, may reclaim your derringer as long as you promise to take better care of it in future. As for you, Señorita, keep us informed of any new developments and, of course, phone us at once if you have any problems. As far as we're concerned, there never was any gun. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Perfectly," said César.

  "Good." His concession over the gun seemed to give Feijoo some sort of moral advantage, so he appeared more relaxed when he spoke to Julia. "As for the tyre on your car, I need to know if you want to make a complaint."

  She looked at him, surprised.

  "A complaint? Against whom?"

  The Inspector waited before replying as if hoping that Julia would guess his meaning without recourse to words.

  "Against a person or persons unknown," he said. "On a charge of attempted murder."

  "Álvaro's, you mean?"

  "No, yours." His teeth appeared beneath his moustache again. "Because whoever is sending you those cards has something more serious than chess on his mind. You can buy an aerosol like the one used to fill your tyre, once he'd let the air out, in any shop selling spare parts. Except that this particular aerosol was topped up with a syringeful of, petrol. That, with the gas and the plastic stuff already in the container, becomes highly explosive above certain temperatures. You would only have had to drive a few hundred yards for the tyre to heat up sufficiently to produce an explosion immediately underneath the petrol tank. The car would have burst into flames with both of you inside." He was smiling with evident malice, as if his telling them that was a minor act of revenge. "Isn't that terrible?"

  Muñoz arrived at César's shop an hour
later, his ears sticking out above his raincoat collar and his hair wet. He looked like a scrawny stray dog, Julia thought as she watched him shaking off the rain at the door. He shook Julia's hand, an abrupt handshake, without warmth, a simple contact that committed him to nothing, and greeted César with a nod of the head. Doing his best to keep his wet shoes away from the carpet, he listened unblinkingly to what had happened in the Rastro, moving his head every now and then in a vaguely affirmative gesture, as if the story about the blue Ford and César's poker held no interest for him whatsoever. His dull eyes only lit up when Julia took the card out of her bag and placed it before him. Minutes later he had laid Out his small chess set, which recently he'd never been without, and was intent on studying the latest position of the pieces.

  "What I don't understand," Julia said, looking over Muñoz's shoulder, "is why the empty spray can was left on the bonnet. We were bound to see it there. Unless the person who did it had to leave in a hurry."

  "Perhaps it was just a warning," suggested César from his leather armchair beneath the stained-glass window. "A warning in the worst possible taste."

  "It was a lot of trouble to go to though, wasn't it? Preparing the aerosol, letting the air out of the tyre and then pumping it up again. Not to mention the fact that she risked being seen while she was doing it ... It's pretty ridiculous," she added, "but have you noticed how I'm referring to our invisible player in the feminine? I can't stop thinking about the mystery woman in the raincoat."

  "Perhaps we're going too far," said César. "When you think about it, there must have been dozens of blonde women in raincoats in the Rastro this morning. Some might have been wearing dark glasses. But you're right about that empty can. Leaving it right there on the car, in full view. Really grotesque."

  "Not so grotesque perhaps," said Muñoz, and they both looked at him. Sitting on a stool, with the small chessboard laid out on a low table, he was in his shirtsleeves, which had been shortened with a tuck just above the elbow. He'd spoken without raising his head from the chess pieces. And Julia, who was by his side, saw at one corner of his mouth that indefinable expression she'd come to know well, halfway between silent reflection and the suggestion of a smile, and she knew he'd managed to decipher the latest move.

  He reached out a finger to the pawn on square a 7, without touching it.

  "The black pawn that was on square a7 takes the white rook on b6," he said, showing them the situation on the board. "That's what our opponent says on the card." "And what does that mean?" asked Julia.

  "It means that he's declined to make another move which, in a way, we were afraid he might. I mean, taking the white queen on el with the black rook on cl. That move would inevitably have involved an exchange of queens." He glanced up from the pieces and gave Julia a worried look. "With all that that would imply."

  Julia opened her eyes wide.

  "Do you mean he's declined to take me?"

  Muñoz's face remained ambivalent.

  "You could interpret it like that." He studied the piece representing the white queen. "And, if that's the case, what he's saying to us is: 'I'm quite capable of killing, but I'll only do it when I want to.'"

  "Like a cat playing with a mouse," murmured César, striking the arm of his chair. "The man's an utter villain!"

  "The man or woman," Julia said.

  César clicked his tongue.

  "No one's saying that the woman in the raincoat, if she was the one in the alley, acted on her own. She might be someone's accomplice."

  "Yes, but whose?"

  "That's what I'd like to know, my dear."

  "Anyway," said Muñoz, "if you forget the woman in the raincoat and concentrate on the card, you might reach a different conclusion about the personality of our opponent." He looked at each of them in turn before pointing to the board, as if he considered it a waste of time to seek answers anywhere but there. "We know he has a twisted mind, but it turns out that he's also extremely smug. He, or she, is also arrogant. He's playing with us." He indicated the board again, urging them to study the position of the pieces. "Look, in practical terms, in pure chess terms, taking the white queen would have been a bad move. White would have had no option but to accept the exchange of queens, taking the black queen with the white rook on b2, and that would leave Black in a very bad position. Black's only way out then would have been to move the black rook from el to e4, threatening the white king. But the latter would have protected himself simply by moving the white pawn from d2 to d4. Then, seeing the black king surrounded by enemy pieces, with no possible help, checkmate would have been inevitable. Black would lose the game."

  "Do you mean," asked Julia, "that all that business with the can left on the car and the threat to the white queen is just a bluff?"

  "It wouldn't surprise me in the least."

  "But why?"

  "Because our enemy has chosen the move I would have made in his place: taking the white rook on b6 with the pawn that was on a7. That eases White's pressure on the black king, who was in an extremely difficult position." He shook his head admiringly. "I told you he was a good player."

  "And now?" asked César.

  Muñoz passed a hand across his forehead and looked at the board thoughtfully.

  "Now we have two options. Perhaps we should take the black queen, but that would force our opponent to carry out an exchange of queens," he said, looking at Julia, "and I don't like that. We don't want to force him to do something he's already decided against." He shook his head again as if the black and white pieces confirmed his thoughts. "The odd thing is that he knows that's how we'll think, which has its advantages, because I see the moves he makes and sends to us, whereas he can only imagine mine. Yet he can still influence them. Up until now, we've been doing what he wants us to do."

  "Have we any choice?" asked Julia.

  "Not so far. But later we might."

  "So what's our next move?"

  "We move our bishop from fl to d3, threatening his queen."

  "And what will he or she do?"

  Muñoz paused before answering. He sat unmoving before the board, as if he hadn't heard the question.

  "In chess too," he said at last, "there's a limit to the forecasts one can make. The best possible move, or the most probable one, is the one that leaves one's opponent in the least advantageous position. That's why one way of estimating the expediency of the next move consists simply in imagining that move has been made and then going on to analyse the game from your opponent's point of view. That means falling back on your own resources, but this time putting yourself in your enemy's shoes. From there, you conjecture another move and then immediately put yourself in the role of your opponent's opponent, in other words, yourself. And so on indefinitely, as far ahead as you can. By that, I mean that I know where I've got to, but I don't know how far he's got."

  "According to that reasoning," Julia said, "isn't he most likely to choose the move that will do most damage to us?"

  Muñoz scratched die back of his neck. Then, very slowly, he moved the white bishop to square d3, placing it near the black queen. He seemed absorbed in deep thought while he analysed the new situation.

  "One thing I'm sure of," he said at last, "is that he's going to take another of our pieces."

  XI

  Analytical Approaches

  Don't be silly. The flag is impossible,

  hence it can't be waving. The wind is waving.

  Douglas R. Hofstadter

  THE SOUND OF THE TELEPHONE made her jump. Unhurriedly, she removed the solvent-soaked plug of cotton from the corner of the painting on which she was working–a stubborn bit of varnish on a tiny area of Ferdinand of Ostenburg's clothing–and put the tweezers between her teeth. Then she looked distrustfully at the telephone by her feet on the carpet, wondering if, when she picked it up, she would once again have to listen to one of those long silences that had become the norm over the last couple of weeks. At first she'd just held the phone to her ear without saying anythin
g, waiting impatiently for some noise, even if only breathing, that would indicate life, a human presence, at the other end, however disquieting that might be. But she found only a void, without even the dubious consolation of hearing the click of the phone being put down. It was always the mystery caller–male or female–who held out longest. Whoever it was simply stayed there, listening, showing no sign of haste or concern about the possibility that the police might be tapping the phone to trace the call. The worst thing was that the person who telephoned her had no idea that he was safe. Julia had told no one about the calls, not even César or Muñoz. Without quite knowing why, she felt ashamed of them, humiliated by the way they invaded her privacy, invaded the night and the silence she had so loved before the nightmare began. It was like a ritual violation, without words or gestures, repeated every day.

  When the phone had rung for the sixth time, she picked it up, and was relieved to hear Menchu's voice at the other end. Her relief lasted only a moment, however, for Menchu was extremely drunk. Perhaps, Julia thought with some concern, she had something stronger than alcohol in her blood. Raising her voice to make herself heard above the buzz of conversation and music, half of her phrases stumbling into incoherence, Menchu told Julia that she was at Stephan's and then recounted some confused story involving Max, the Van Huys and Paco Montegrifo. Julia didn't understand, and when she asked her friend to explain again what had happened, Menchu burst into hysterical laughter. Then she hung up.

  The air was heavy, cold and damp. Shivering inside her cumbersome three-quarter-length leather coat, Julia went down to the street and hailed a taxi. The lights of the city slid across her face in flashes as she nodded now and again in response to the taxi driver's unwanted chatter. She leaned her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. Before leaving, she'd switched on the electronic alarm and locked the security door, turning the key twice in the lock. At the downstairs door she couldn't help casting a suspicious glance at the grid next to her bell, afraid of finding another card there. But she found nothing. The invisible player was still pondering his next move.