A Shortcut to Paradise

by Teresa Solana

  “In fact, I will. Madame Marina bequeathed it to me.” She paused, waiting for us to react. “Well,” she sighed, “the truth will soon be out, so I’d better tell you now, as you’ve taken the trouble to come all this way. Perhaps you might be able to help.” She took out a cigarette. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  “Not at all,” replied Borja, hurrying to light up himself. I joined the party ten seconds later.

  “Madame Dolç, Marina, is my aunt. My name isn’t Maite Bastida, but Teresa Campana, but you can call me Maite. No one calls me Teresa now.” And she added, after a pause: “I’m her brother’s younger daughter. There are twelve years between my aunt and my father.”

  “Now this is a surprise!” Borja acknowledged, taken aback. “Her niece…”

  “That’s right.”

  “So why did everybody think you were her secretary?”

  Maite Bastide – that’s to say, Maite Campana – took a few seconds to answer. She seemed to be weighing her words carefully. I imagine she’d decided to make that confession before we arrived, a story that, as she herself had foreseen, would soon belong to the public domain. It’s difficult to conceal that kind of situation when a murder is involved. However, as far as that particular detail was concerned, she’d obviously decided to wait until she’d seen us. She eyed us silently, thought it over and finally said: “My Aunt Marina once told me I should always trust Mrs Castany’s judgement. They weren’t exactly friends, but Auntie respected her. She said one could depend on her. Mrs Castany told me you were friends of hers.”

  “Indeed, she and my mother (may she rest in peace) both studied in a Swiss finishing school when they were young,” Borja lied. “We do have a very special relationship with Mariona.”

  “And how do I know that if I let you into a secret it won’t be all over the papers tomorrow?” she asked naively.

  “Because, apart from being friends of Mariona, my partner and I are gentlemen,” responded Borja suavely. “Besides, if your story isn’t connected to your aunt’s death and Amadeu Cabestany’s innocence, you have nothing to worry about,” Borja assured her. “I give you my word. Now, if what you are about to tell us is in any way related to the case…”

  At that moment, the maid Guadalupe came into the room and interrupted our conversation. While she poured out the coffee, Marina Dolç’s niece scrutinized my brother’s face in search of guarantees. She’d realized who was boss. My brother returned her gaze and she nodded. Borja may have many defects, but normally when he gives his word he keeps it.

  “Unfortunately, Mr Masdéu, we can choose many things in this life, but not our family,” Maite continued once the maid had left. “The story I’m about to tell you will shock you, and I beg you not to let it go any further.” She paused while we stared at her on tenterhooks. “Anyway, if you are right and that writer didn’t do it, you ought to know about this. I’m doing this for her. For my aunt. In case it helps. As you are detectives…”

  “Treat it like a professional secret. As if you were speaking to a priest,” Borja reassured her.

  Marina Dolç’s niece tried to smile, breathed in and lit another cigarette.

  “Auntie’s parents, my grandparents, had her when they were getting on in years. They were always rather eccentric people, but, as they aged, their eccentricity got worse. They were both orphans, I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. When Auntie was eight years old, her parents joined one of those satanic sects imported from America. I don’t know what lured them in. Perhaps they were drugged, or were promised eternal youth… Nobody knows.”

  “Those sects are the pits,” I ventured.

  “At the age of eleven,” Maite continued, “Auntie had to go and live with her parents in the United States. They forced her to. At the time, my father, who was Auntie’s only brother, was twenty-three, and as he had reached his majority he was able to stay in Barcelona. Auntie, on the other hand, had to spend a number of years in the back of the beyond in the United States with a horde of fanatics and her crazy parents. She managed to escape one day, though I don’t know the details. It was a subject she preferred not to mention.”

  Borja and I were stunned. We’d come to that house looking for some answers and what we’d just been told had made our hair stand on end. Was Maite or Teresa, or whatever the hell her name was, really Marina Dolç’s niece or was she pulling our legs? And was the business of the satanic sect true or did that rather dowdy young woman also write novels in her spare time and had she got her wires crossed? As neither of us said anything, she decided to resume her revelations.

  “Auntie managed to return to Barcelona when she was seventeen and went to live with her brother – that is, my father. I still hadn’t been born, though my older sister had. At the time both my father and mother had turned very religious, possibly on the rebound from my grandparents’ peculiarities. They spent entire days going to mass, praying and exorcizing their sins. It reminded Auntie too painfully of what she’d experienced in the United States and she could stand it for only a few months. She left a note saying that she was going abroad and disappeared. She spent a couple of years in Italy before finally coming back to Barcelona.”

  “I presume not very many people know about all this,” my brother responded, deadpan. Maite nodded. “So tell me, were you forced to escape as well? Considering you acted as if you were her secretary.”

  “To an extent, but my case was different. My parents are very Catholic. Catholic and conservative. They pray to God rather than to Satan and practise chastity rather than sex…” She sighed. “There’s obviously a branch of the family that has a real weakness for the life of the spirit!… I don’t mean to offend you,” she added suddenly, realizing she was holding forth though she hadn’t the slightest idea what our beliefs were.

  “No way; unfortunately, communication between the next world and us was suspended a long time ago. I assume Heaven isn’t receiving our signals…” responded Borja, trying to be affable.

  Maite smiled. She seemed more relaxed.

  “I had to follow Auntie’s example and make my escape. I was married to a husband who beat me and I had parents who said it was God’s will and I should accept my lot. I didn’t have any girlfriends outside the congregation, or anyone else I could have recourse to… So I thought of Auntie.”

  “In other words, you and her were on very good terms,” I chimed in, trying to be nice.

  Maite shook her head.

  “Not at all. I discovered Marina Dolç was my Auntie quite by chance, one day when I was eavesdropping behind a door listening to my parents talk. They were both ashamed of my grandparents, who were now dead, and also of Auntie and her novels. They said they were pornographic and inspired by the Devil. That’s why they never mentioned them or her at home.”

  She went quiet. She seemed tired. If her fantastic confession was true, it was an extraordinary story that could turn the case on its head. As far as we knew, Marina Dolç had never said a word about these things, in her novels or her interviews. It was as if she’d decided to shield herself behind a humdrum biography and build herself a new life, away from her dark, tortured past.

  “It’s a horrific story,” I said, very moved. “How did you track down your Auntie?”

  “According to her books, which I read on the sly, this is where she lived, and it turned out to be true. When I told her who I was and what was happening, she took me in immediately,” she answered, wiping her tears away.

  “And why did you decide to hide the fact that you were her niece?” asked Borja.

  “Because I wanted a quiet life. I wanted my family and my ex-husband to disappear from my life and me from theirs,” she said with apparent sincerity. “When I arrived in Sant Feliu, Auntie’s secretary had just left and we decided I’d assume that role. I took charge of her diary, booked her hotel rooms, in a word, saw to the practical side of her life… I also accompanied her on her travels. I’ve seen a lot of the world in the last five years,” she said
sadly.

  “You’re a rich woman now,” Borja interjected.

  “I’m a lonely woman now, Mr Masdéu,” she said, wiping another tear away. “I start shaking whenever I think my parents and my ex-husband will soon find out and come after me. Auntie would have known how to see them off, but I…”

  She started to cry. I have to confess I felt sorry for her and that’s why I decided to chance my arm. When we left Marina’s mansion, my brother would probably be very annoyed, since her entangled story might be a string of lies, but for one reason or another, I believed her. That young woman was probably mad, or even a cold-blooded murderer. Or perhaps not. I had to make a choice and I did: I backed her.

  “The fact is that we know someone who can help you,” I suggested, looking at Borja out of the corner of my eye. “Someone who could perhaps spend a period of time protecting you.”

  “You mean a kind of bodyguard?”

  “I mean someone who is used to protecting the goodies and fending off the baddies,” I said, thinking of Lluís Arquer and his pipe.

  My brother nodded silently.

  “Well, I’ll certainly think about it. I’ve got to think over such a lot of things, take so many decisions…”

  Although the sky was beginning to cloud over, it was hotter and Maite went over to the window and shut it and then switched on the air-conditioning.

  “Auntie preferred the garden to look on the wild side, though she didn’t exactly go without,” she said with a smile. “Fortunately I am also the beneficiary to the royalties on half of her books. If I weren’t, I don’t know how I’d be able to maintain this palace!” she sighed as she looked gloomily around the room. “I wouldn’t want to sell this house under any circumstance.”

  Well, it was a welcoming house. I’d realized that the moment I’d stepped inside. It breathed peace as well as activity. It was evident no interior designer had got his claws into its fabric, because although slightly chaotic, it had a warm, strong character. It wasn’t one of those museum houses belonging to the rich people my brother liked to hobnob with, where you can’t find a speck of dust and everything seems sparkling new, even the antiques. Maybe there were ghosts, but they and the inhabitants had made their peace. You could tell.

  “It was because of the sect that your Auntie let it be known that she was from Sant Feliu and changed her name…” said Borja, trying to fit all the pieces together.

  “More or less right… Initially, she told me, it was to ensure her own parents and the people from the sect couldn’t track her down. I imagine she was also in flight from her brother and his religious obsessions. Later, when she became a famous writer with enough money to keep intruders at bay… I don’t know, I expect she preferred to forget her past and not have to enter into explanations about such a dreadful business. Especially as the grandparents died in a kind of collective ritual suicide in the United States. Like what happened in Guyana, but on a small scale.”

  “And why did your auntie choose Sant Feliu?” asked Borja, returning to our interests.

  “She apparently spent a summer here, when she was six, before the grandparents joined the sect. We always end up returning to places from our childhood, she used to say.”

  “Not always…” I said. “Ever since our parents crashed on the Garraf coast when Borja and I were thirteen, neither of us has ever gone near Sitges.”

  “One last thing: do you know if your aunt had any enemies? If anyone had ever threatened her?”

  “You mean apart from our family?” she said, smiling sadly. “No, not that I know of.”

  “And do you think it’s possible someone from the family?… Possibly her ex-husband?…”

  “Perhaps. But I think he lives abroad.”

  “Could it be someone from the sect? Someone wanting revenge?”

  “I don’t think so. What would be the point? These people are only interested in money, and Auntie had money, but it was always well tied up. Besides, why would they wait so long? The grandparents must have committed suicide twenty years ago…”

  “No, it doesn’t seem to make much sense…” I agreed. “On the other hand, they say your aunt had an aristocratic lover. Is that true or is that part of the biography she invented as well?”

  “No, Roberto exists, but he’s not an aristocrat, even though he looks like one. He’s a very wealthy antiquarian who lives in Rome. He and Auntie were an item for twelve years. They loved each other a lot, but preferred not to live in each other’s pockets.” She shrugged her shoulders. “They spent long periods together in her palace in Tuscany, but liked to preserve their independence. He’s a bachelor, and Auntie was divorced, as I expect you know. I found it hard to understand to begin with, but they both seemed happy. Roberto never came to Sant Feliu, and Auntie never went to Rome. Poor Roberto is beside himself with grief!”

  “You said earlier that your aunt had bequeathed you this house and the royalties from half of her books. Where does the other half go? To Roberto?”

  “Yes, he inherits the palace in Tuscany. He’s rich enough to maintain it and I don’t think he will sell it off.”

  “But what about the royalties on the other books? And the rest of her money and properties?” Borja had made some quick calculations. “It must be a tidy sum…”

  “A small fortune. Auntie divided it up between different charity organizations working for children in the Third World. I know, because she insisted I accompany her when she went to draw up her will.”

  “Good heavens, how generous! She must have liked children a lot…”

  “Not really. She couldn’t stand them, in fact. She wanted to leave me everything but I persuaded her.” And she added, as if by way of an excuse, “I don’t need so much money.”

  “A curious point of view,” rejoined my brother. “Just one last question. Why didn’t you go to the Ritz with her? I understood you accompanied her everywhere.”

  “I caught one of those silly summer flu bugs. I was in bed with a temperature of thirty-eight and a half, and Auntie wouldn’t let me go. I shall never forgive myself. If I’d been with her that night…”

  “I expect you couldn’t have done anything to help. Destiny…”

  “Destiny is totally irrelevant.” She shook her head. “Auntie didn’t deserve that from anyone. Perhaps she wasn’t the good writer she thought she was” – she attempted to smile – “but I can assure you she was a good person. If it’s true that that writer is innocent, you must find the guilty party and put him behind bars.” And she added, this time looking extremely serious, “I’m a very grateful person, as you shall see. I learned that from Auntie as well.”

  I suppose it is statistically very unlikely you will get parents who are so screwed up they join a satanic sect, but Marina Dolç had had that misfortune. She took to the grave the key to the mystery as to why the brainwashing didn’t work on her, but at least she’d survived without feeling the need to write her memoirs or flaunt her personal drama in some television studio. Marina Dolç had built a life for herself beyond the tragedy of her childhood and had invented a biography that someone had inexplicably decided to cut short the night she’d received her most important prize ever. Yes, good and bad luck exist, and Marina Dolç tasted equal amounts of both.

  We realized the sun had suddenly disappeared under thick, grey, storm-threatening clouds, and decided to leave. As we were saying goodbye, Borja reiterated to Maite that we would be extremely discreet but also warned her to be on the alert. It was on the cards that police or journalists would start digging the dirt and would uncover her aunt’s murky past. Maite nodded silently and thanked us.

  Big drops of rain began to fall as we left the house. To avoid arousing the curiosity of the locals and having to answer their questions, we decided to return to Barcelona immediately, since the local bus had just stopped in Sant Feliu. My brother and I were quiet and thoughtful on the journey. It wasn’t as if we could talk about the case and the revelations of Marina Dolç’s niece inside a
packed bus, however loudly the Top 40 Hits were blaring away. On the other hand, if Lluís Arquer came up with the goods, we would soon know whether the business of the family and the inheritance were true. When we were on the outskirts of Barcelona, Borja broke our tacit vow of silence.

  “Just imagine giving up all that cash for an NGO…” he said, unable to come to terms with such an idea.

  “Well, that’s what she said. Though she seemed sincere enough. Loads of money brings loads of headaches!”

  “Right, Eduard, it’s what Mother always used to say,” Borja recalled.

  “So it must be true.”

  Back in Barcelona, we decided to wait until we had the documentation Lluís Arquer had promised us before taking another step. Borja spent the Monday evening finishing Amadeu Cabestany’s novel and I took Arnau to the cinema as promised to see a terrible computer-animated film. At nine, when I was cooking the spaghetti, my brother rang sounding desperate.

  “Hell, I don’t understand one word.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This Cabestany guy’s novel. I don’t have a clue about what’s going on… Though it’s great for putting you to sleep.”

  “Tell me about it! I did my bit getting to the end of Marina’s doorstop,” I reminded him.

  “And couldn’t you?…”

  “No. And goodbye, it’s time for supper. See you tomorrow.” And I hung up.

  19

  As agreed at our previous meeting, my brother and I were waiting for Lluís Arquer at one o’clock at the Ambos Mundos, drinking a beer, naturally. On this occasion we’d come with enough cash to cover the detective’s fee and our drinks, and my brother had let me wear jeans. He was also dressed casually, though he looked much more stylish in his Ralph Lauren sweatshirt and Lloyd trousers. He’d arranged to meet Merche for lunch at half-past two in the Port Olímpic and was worried he might be late.

  “So what is the state of play with Lola?” I asked in an act of solidarity with my sister-in-law.