Alicia gave him an icy look.
“This is not going to be a problem, is it?” asked the policeman.
“A problem?”
“You and me.”
“I see no reason why it should be.”
He looked at her with more curiosity than suspicion. Alicia gave him one of those sweet, catlike smiles that irritated Leandro so much. Vargas chuckled and started the car, mumbling under his breath.
“Nice car,” Alicia remarked after a while.
“Courtesy of police headquarters. Consider it a sign that they’re taking this matter seriously. Do you drive?”
“I can barely open a bank account in this country without permission from a husband or father.”
“I see.”
“Allow me to doubt that.”
They drove on in silence for the next few minutes. Vargas kept looking at Alicia out of the corner of his eye. She pretended not to notice as through this methodical and intermittent observation the policeman x-rayed her by installments, making the most of red lights and pedestrian crossings. When they came to a halt in the middle of a traffic jam on Gran Via, Vargas pulled out an elegant silver cigarette case, opened it, and handed it to her. Virginia tobacco, imported. She declined. He put a cigarette to his lips and lit it with a gold-plated lighter, which Alicia could have sworn had the Dupont logo on it. Vargas liked beautiful, expensive things. While he lit his cigarette, Alicia noticed him glancing at her hands, clasped over her lap, perhaps searching for a wedding ring. Vargas himself sported a rather large one.
“Family?” asked the policeman.
Alicia shook her head. “You?”
“Married to Spain.”
“Very exemplary. And the ring?”
“Other times.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what someone like me is doing working for Leandro?”
“Is it any business of mine?”
“No.”
“Well, then.”
As they left the city’s traffic behind them and headed toward Casa de Campo Park, the awkward silence returned. Vargas’s eyes continued to scrutinize her bit by bit. He had a cold, metallic gaze, his gray irises shining like freshly cut diamonds. Alicia wondered whether, before falling out of favor, her enforced partner had been an acolyte or merely a mercenary. The first of these infested every layer of the regime and multiplied like infected warts, safeguarded by flags and proclamations; the second remained silent and merely kept the machinery working. She wondered how many people he’d rubbed out throughout his career in the Force, whether he lived with the guilt or whether he’d already lost count. Perhaps, with his gray hair, his conscience had also grown, and this had ruined his ambitions.
“What are you thinking?” asked Vargas.
“I was wondering whether you like your job.”
Vargas chuckled again.
“Aren’t you going to ask me whether I like mine?”
“Is that any business of mine?”
“I suppose it isn’t.”
“Well, then.”
Realizing that the conversation had no future, Alicia pulled out the dossier supplied by Gil de Partera and started looking through it. At first glance there wasn’t much there. Notes from the police officers. The statement of the minister’s personal secretary. A couple of pages devoted to the supposed frustrated attack against Valls; procedural guidelines from the two inspectors who opened the case; and excerpts from records relating to Vicente Carmona, Valls’s bodyguard. Either Gil de Partera trusted them even less than Leandro had suggested, or the top men in his department had been twiddling their thumbs for the past week.
“Were you expecting more?” asked Vargas, reading her thoughts.
Alicia fixed her attention on the trees of Casa de Campo Park.
“I didn’t expect anything less,” she mumbled. “Who are we going to see?”
“Mariana Sedó, Valls’s personal secretary for the last twenty years. She’s the person who reported the minister’s disappearance.”
“That’s a lot of years for a secretary.”
“According to gossip she’s much more than that.”
“Lover?”
Vargas shook his head. “I think Doña Mariana’s tastes lie more on the other shore. What people say is that she’s the one who steers the ship, and that nothing was done or decided in Valls’s office without her consent.”
“Behind every bad man there’s always a worse woman. People also say that.”
Vargas smiled. “Well, I’d never heard that. I’d been warned that you were somewhat irreverent.”
“What else have you been warned about?”
Vargas turned toward her and winked.
“Who is Hendaya?” asked Alicia.
“Excuse me?”
“Hendaya. Who is he?”
“Rodrigo Hendaya?”
“I suppose.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“One can never know too much.”
“Has Montalvo mentioned Hendaya in connection with this matter?”
“The name came up in the conversation. Who is he?”
Vargas sighed. “Hendaya is a butcher. The less you know about him, the better.”
“Do you know him?”
Vargas ignored her question. They made the rest of the journey without exchanging a single word.
7
They’d been driving for almost fifteen minutes through avenues speckled with armies of uniformed gardeners when a boulevard of cypress trees opened up before them, leading to the spiked gates of Villa Mercedes. The sky had acquired a leaden color; fine drops of rain spattered on the windshield. A porter, waiting by the entrance to the estate, opened the door to let them in. On one side stood a sentry box, where a guard holding a rifle responded with a nod to Vargas’s greeting.
“Have you been here before?” asked Alicia.
“A couple of times since last Monday. You’re going to love it.”
The car glided along the fine-gravel path, winding around groves and ponds. Alicia gazed at the parade of statues, pools, and fountains, and the faded rose gardens, disintegrating in the autumn wind. A narrow railway track could be glimpsed here and there among bushes and dead flowers, while farther away, on the far edge of the property, Alicia noticed the outline of what looked like a miniature station. A steam locomotive bearing two cars waited by the platform under the drizzle.
“A toy for the girl,” Vargas explained.
Soon the profile of the main residence rose before them, an overlarge mansion that seemed to have been conceived to dwarf and frighten visitors. Two large houses, one on either side of it, stood at a distance of about a hundred meters from the mansion. Vargas stopped the car opposite the wide staircase leading to the main entrance. A butler in uniform, waiting with an umbrella at the foot of the stairs, instructed them to drive over to a nearby building. As Vargas drove down the path to the garage, Alicia was able to take in the whole outline of the mansion.
“Who pays for all this?” she asked.
Vargas shrugged.
“You and I, I suppose. And perhaps Valls’s wife, who inherited a fortune from her father, Enrique Sarmiento.”
“The banker?”
“One of the bankers of the Crusade, as the papers called it,” Vargas specified.
Alicia remembered having heard Leandro mention Sarmiento. How he and a group of bankers had financed the Nacionales during the civil war, lending them in large measure funds looted from the defeated side, in a mutually beneficial agreement. “I’ve heard that the minister’s wife is ill,” she said.
“That’s one way of putting it.”
The garage attendant opened one of the doors and signaled for them to park the car inside. Vargas lowered the window, and the guard recognized him. “Leave it wherever you like, boss. And the keys in the ignition, please . . .”
Vargas gave him a nod and drove into the garage, a structure consisting of a succession of vaults supported by wrought-iron colu
mns stretching away into an impenetrable darkness. A string of luxury cars was lined up along the walls, the shine of their chromium plating vanishing into the distance. Vargas found a gap between a Hispano-Suiza and a Mercedes-Benz.
The garage attendant had followed them and gave him the thumbs-up. “Nice one you’re driving today, chief,” he remarked as they got out of the car.
“As the young lady was coming today, the bosses let me take the Ford,” said Vargas.
The attendant looked like a cross between a homunculus and a mouse. He appeared to be held upright inside his blue overalls thanks to a jumble of dirty rags hanging from his belt and a film of grease that preserved him from the elements. After staring at Alicia from head to toe, the attendant bowed ostentatiously and, when he thought she didn’t notice, gave Vargas a conspiratorial wink.
“Great guy, Luis,” Vargas said to Alicia. “I think he lives here, in the garage itself, in a shed behind the repair shop.”
They walked toward the exit, passing Valls’s museum pieces on wheels, while Luis, behind them, busied himself polishing the Ford energetically with rag and spit while enjoying Alicia’s gentle swaying and the shape of her ankles.
Vargas covered Alicia with the umbrella they’d been offered as the butler came over to meet them.
“I hope you’ve had a good journey from Madrid,” said the butler solemnly. “Doña Mariana is expecting you.” He bore that cold and vaguely condescending smile of career servants who, as the years go by, start to believe that their masters’ lineage has tinged their own blood blue and granted them the privilege of looking down on others. As they walked the distance separating them from the main house, Alicia noticed that he kept glancing at her surreptitiously, trying to make out from her gestures and clothes what her role was in the show.
“Is the young lady your secretary?” he asked, fixing his eyes on Alicia.
“The young lady is my boss,” replied Vargas.
The servant dropped his arrogant manner, which was replaced with a stiff expression worthy of being framed. His lips remained sealed and his eyes glued to his shoes the rest of the way.
The main door led to a large entrance hall with a marble floor, from which staircases, corridors, and galleries branched out. They followed the butler to the reading room, where a middle-aged woman was waiting with her back to the door, facing the view of the garden under the rain.
The woman turned as soon as she heard them come in, giving them an icy smile. “I’m Mariana Sedó,” she said as the butler closed the door behind him and retired to enjoy his momentary bewilderment. “Don Mauricio’s personal secretary.”
“Vargas, from Central Police Headquarters, and this is my partner, Señorita Gris.”
The secretary took her time conducting the inevitable inspection. She began with Alicia’s face, registering the color of her lips, then the cut of her dress, and finally the style of her shoes with a grimace of intolerance and contempt, quickly buried in the serene and sorrowful expression the circumstances demanded. Motioning them to sit down on a leather sofa, Mariana chose a chair, which she placed near a small table bearing a tray with a steaming teapot and three cups. As the secretary proceeded to fill the cups, Alicia assessed the feigned smile behind which Doña Mariana took cover and concluded that Valls’s eternal guardian exuded a malicious aura, midway between that of a fairy godmother and a voracious praying mantis.
“How may I help you?” asked Doña Mariana. “I’ve spoken to so many of your colleagues these last few days that I’m not sure there’s anything left to say.”
“We’re grateful for your patience, Doña Mariana,” said Alicia. “We’re well aware that these are difficult moments for the family and for you.”
The secretary nodded with an air of patience, exhibiting the studied demeanor of the faithful servant to perfection. Her eyes, however, betrayed irritation at having to deal with second-rate subordinates. The way in which she focused on Vargas and avoided acknowledging Alicia added another layer of contempt. Alicia could see that Vargas hadn’t missed the slightest detail: she decided let him take the lead while she listened.
“Doña Mariana,” he began, “from the official report and your statement to the police, we’re assuming that you were the first person to notify the authorities of the absence of Don Mauricio Valls.”
The secretary nodded. “The day of the masked ball,” she explained, “Don Mauricio had given a number of permanent staff the day off. I took advantage of this to go to visit my goddaughter in Madrid. The following day, although Don Mauricio hadn’t told me he would need me, I returned in the early morning, at about eight o’clock, and began to go through his mail and his datebook as I always do. I went up to the office and saw that the minister wasn’t there. A few minutes later, one of the maids informed me that his daughter Mercedes had said her father left by car very early with Vicente Carmona, his chief bodyguard. I found it odd, because when I went through his datebook I noticed that Don Mauricio had added, in his own handwriting, an informal meeting that morning at ten here, in Villa Mercedes, with Pablo Cascos, the sales director of Ariadna.”
“Ariadna?” asked Vargas.
“It’s the name of a publishing company owned by Don Mauricio,” the secretary explained.
“That detail doesn’t appear in your statement to the police,” said Alicia.
“Excuse me?”
“The meeting Don Mauricio had himself set up for that morning. You didn’t mention this to the police. May I ask why?”
Doña Mariana smiled somewhat condescendingly, as if she thought the question were trivial. “Since the meeting never took place, I didn’t think it was relevant. Should I have?”
“You have now, and that’s what matters,” said Vargas amicably. “It’s impossible to remember every detail—that’s why we’re taking advantage of your kindness and insisting so much. Please continue, Doña Mariana.”
Valls’s secretary accepted the apology and went on, although she ignored Alicia, looking only at Vargas.
“As I said, I found it odd that the minister should have left without alerting me beforehand. I asked the servants, and they informed me that apparently the minister hadn’t slept in his room. He’d been in his office all night.”
“Do you spend your nights here, in the main building?” Alicia interrupted.
Doña Mariana looked offended. She shook her head, pressing her lips together. “Of course not.”
“I’m sorry. Do go on, if you’d be so kind.”
Valls’s secretary huffed impatiently. “Shortly afterward, at about nine o’clock, Señor Revuelta, the head of security at the house, told me he wasn’t aware that Vicente Carmona and the minister had planned to be anywhere that morning, and that, furthermore, the fact that they left together without any other escort was highly irregular. At my request, Señor Revuelta consulted first with the staff at Don Mauricio’s ministry and then spoke to the Ministry of the Interior. No one had any news of him, but we were told they’d call us as soon as they could locate him. It was then that Mercedes, Don Mauricio’s daughter, came to see me. She was crying, and when I asked her what the matter was, she told me that her father had left and would never return.”
“Did Mercedes say why she thought that?” asked Vargas.
Doña Mariana only shrugged.
“What did you do then?”
“I called the secretariat at the Ministry of the Interior and spoke first with José Moreno and later with the head of police, Señor Gil de Partera. The rest you already know.”
“That was the point at which you mentioned the anonymous letters the minister had been receiving.”
Doña Mariana gave herself a moment to reply. “That’s right. The subject arose during the conversation with Señor Gil de Partera and his subordinate, someone called García—”
“García Novales,” Vargas completed.
The secretary nodded.
“The police, of course, were already aware of the existence of those let
ters. They’d been supplied with copies for months. It so happens that that morning, when I was going through the minister’s datebook in his office, I found the folder in which he kept them.”
“Did you know he kept them?” asked Alicia.
Doña Mariana shook her head,
“I thought he’d destroyed them after showing them to the police at the time of the investigation, after the incident in the Círculo de Bellas Artes, but I realized I’d been mistaken, and Don Mauricio had been looking at them. I mentioned this to your superiors.”
“Why do you think Don Mauricio took so long to inform the police, or the security staff, of the existence of those letters?” Alicia asked again.
Doña Mariana turned away from Vargas for a moment, her predatory eyes settling on Alicia.
“Young lady, you must understand that the volume of letters received by a man as important as Don Mauricio is vast. A large number of people and associations decide to write to the minister, and quite often there are eccentric or simply crazy letters, which I throw away, so Don Mauricio doesn’t even see them.”
“And yet you didn’t throw those letters away.”
“No.”
“Did you know the person identified by the police as the most likely to have sent them? Sebastián Salgado?”
“No, of course not,” the secretary snapped.
“But you knew of his existence?” Alicia insisted.
“Yes. I remembered him from the time the minister had been processing his pardon, and later from the time the police reported on the result of their investigation into the letters.”
“Of course, but before that, do you remember ever having heard Don Mauricio mention Salgado’s name? Perhaps years ago?”
Doña Mariana remained silent for a while. “I might have,” she said finally. “I’m not sure.”
“Could he have mentioned him?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps he did. I think he did.”
“And this would have been in . . .”
“March 1948.”
Alicia frowned with surprise. “You remember the date clearly, yet you’re not sure he mentioned the name Salgado?”
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 12
