Doña Mariana blushed. “In March 1948, Don Mauricio asked me to organize an informal meeting with the successor in his post as governor of the prison in Montjuïc Castle, Luis Bolea.”
“For what purpose?”
“I gathered it was an informal get-together, a courtesy meeting.”
“And were you present during that courtesy meeting, as you call it?”
“Only every now and then. It was a private conversation.”
“But perhaps you were able to catch the occasional fragment. Accidentally. As you went in and out of the room . . . taking in the coffee . . . Perhaps from your desk at the entrance to Don Mauricio’s office . . .”
“I don’t like what you’re insinuating, young woman.”
“Anything you can tell us will help us find the minister, Doña Mariana,” Vargas put in. “Please.”
The secretary hesitated. “Don Mauricio asked Señor Bolea about some of the prisoners who had been under his charge. He wanted to find out details, such as whether they were still in the prison or had been released, moved to another prison, or died. He didn’t say why.”
“Do you remember any of the names that were mentioned?”
“There were lots of names. And that was many years ago.”
“Was Salgado one of them?”
“Yes, I think it was.”
“Any other name?”
“The only name I remember well is Martín. David Martín.”
Alicia and Vargas looked at one another. He wrote the name down in his notebook.
“Any more?”
“Perhaps a surname that sounded more like French, or foreign. I can’t remember. As I said, it was years ago. How can that be important now?”
“We don’t know, Doña Mariana. Our duty is to explore all the possibilities. Going back to the letters . . . When he showed you the first one, can you remember his reaction? Did the minister say anything that struck you as unusual?”
The secretary shook her head. “He didn’t say anything in particular. He didn’t seem to think it was important. He put it in a drawer and told me that if any more letters like that one arrived, I should hand them to him personally.”
“Unopened?”
Doña Mariana nodded.
“Did Don Mauricio ask you not to mention the existence of those letters to anyone?”
“There was no need. I’m not in the habit of talking about Don Mauricio’s business to those whom it doesn’t concern.”
“Does the minister usually ask you to keep secrets, Doña Mariana?” asked Alicia.
Valls’s secretary pressed her lips together but didn’t reply. Instead she turned impatiently to Vargas. “Do you have any more questions, Captain?”
Disregarding Doña Mariana’s attempt to avoid her, Alicia leaned forward to place herself directly in the secretary’s line of vision. “Did you know that Don Mauricio was planning to ask the head of state for Sebastián Salgado’s pardon?”
The secretary looked Alicia up and down, no longer making any effort to hide her disdain and hostility. Then she looked at Vargas for support, but he had his eyes fixed on his notebook. “Of course I knew,” she said.
“Didn’t it surprise you?”
“Why should it have surprised me?”
“Did he say why he’d decided to do that?”
“For humanitarian reasons. He’d heard that Sebastián Salgado was very ill and did not have long to live. He didn’t want him to die in prison. He wanted him to be able to see his loved ones and die with his family around him.”
“According to the police report,” Alicia objected, “after almost twenty years in prison Sebastián Salgado no longer had any living relatives or close friends.”
“Don Mauricio is an ardent defender of national reconciliation, of healing the wounds of the past. Perhaps you find that hard to understand, but there are some people who are blessed with Christian charity and generosity of spirit.”
“That being so, do you know whether Don Mauricio has requested other similar pardons during the years you’ve worked for him? Perhaps for some of the hundreds or thousands of political prisoners who passed through the prison when he was in charge?”
Doña Mariana wielded a frosty smile, sharp as a poisoned knife. “No.”
Alicia and Vargas glanced briefly at one another. Give up, Vargas’s look said. It was clear they weren’t getting anywhere pursuing that line of inquiry.
Alicia leaned forward once more and again caught Doña Mariana’s uncooperative gaze. “We’re almost done, Doña Mariana. Thank you for your patience. The minister’s appointment you mentioned earlier, with the sales representative of Editorial Ariadna—”
“Señor Cascos.”
“Señor Cascos, thank you. Do you know what was going to be discussed?”
Doña Mariana stared at her as if making an effort to ignore how absurd the question seemed to her. “Matters concerning the publishing house, of course.”
“Of course. Does the minister usually meet up with members of staff from his private businesses, here, in his home?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Do you remember the last time it happened?”
“Quite frankly, no.”
“What about the meeting with Señor Cascos. Did you arrange it?”
Doña Mariana shook her head. “As I said, he himself put it down in his datebook, in his own handwriting.”
“Is it usual for Don Mauricio to fix appointments or meetings without telling you, ‘in his own handwriting’?”
The secretary glared at Alicia.
“No.”
“And yet in your statement to the police you didn’t mention this fact.”
“I’ve already said that at first it seemed irrelevant to me. Señor Cascos is one of Don Mauricio’s employees. I didn’t think there was anything unusual about the fact that they’d agreed to meet. It wasn’t the first time.”
“Oh, wasn’t it?”
“No. They’d met before a number of times.”
“In this house?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did you arrange those meetings, or did Don Mauricio arrange them himself?”
“I can’t remember. I’d have to go through my notes. Why does it matter either way?”
“Forgive my insistence, but when Señor Cascos turned up for the meeting that morning, did he tell you that the minister wanted to talk to him?”
Dona Mariana thought about it for a few seconds. “No. At that moment our main concern was to establish the whereabouts of Don Mauricio, and it didn’t occur to me that whatever he had to discuss with a mid-level employee could be a priority.”
“Is Señor Cascos a mid-level employee?” asked Alicia.
“Yes.”
“Just to clarify, and for reference only, what would your level be, Doña Mariana?”
Vargas gave Alicia a discreet kick. The secretary stood up, her face assuming a severe expression to indicate that the meeting had concluded. “If you’ll excuse me, and there’s nothing else I can help you with . . .” She pointed to the door, a polite but firm invitation to depart. “Even in his absence, Don Mauricio’s affairs require my attention.”
Vargas nodded and stood up, ready to follow Doña Mariana toward the exit. He’d already begun leaving when he noticed that Alicia was still seated on the sofa, sipping the cup of tea that she hadn’t even noticed during the conversation. Vargas and the secretary turned toward her.
“In fact, yes, there is one more thing you can do to help us, Doña Mariana,” she said.
* * *
They followed Doña Mariana through a maze of corridors until they reached the staircase leading up to the tower. Valls’s secretary showed them the way mutely, without looking back, an almost tangible shadow of hostility trailing her. The sheets of rain licking the facade cast a somber atmosphere through curtains and windowpanes, creating the impression that Villa Mercedes was submerged under the waters of a lake. On their way t
hey passed an entire army of servants and other staff members of Valls’s small empire, who bowed their heads when they saw Doña Mariana, more than one stopping and moving to one side to bend over in obeisance. Observing this ritual of hierarchies, Vargas and Alicia exchanged an occasional bewildered glance.
At the foot of the spiral staircase leading up to the office in the tower, Doña Mariana took an oil lamp hanging on the wall and adjusted the intensity of the flame. They ascended, enveloped in a bubble of amber light that dragged their shadows along the walls. When they reached the office door, the secretary turned, for once ignoring Vargas as she fixed Alicia with her poisonous stare. Smiling calmly, Alicia stretched out an open palm.
Doña Mariana handed her the key, her lips tightly pressed together. “Don’t touch anything. Leave everything just as you found it. And when you’ve finished, return the key to the butler before you leave.”
“Thank you so much, Doña—” said Vargas.
Doña Mariana turned and set off down the stairs without replying, taking the lamp with her and leaving them in the semidarkness of the landing.
“It couldn’t have gone better,” Vargas said dryly. “Let’s see how long it takes Doña Mariana to get on the phone to García Novales and tear us to pieces. Especially you.”
“Under a minute,” Alicia agreed.
“Something tells me that working with you is going to be a treat.”
“Light?”
Vargas pulled out his lighter and brought the flame to the keyhole so that Alicia could insert the key. The doorknob let out a metallic groan as it turned.
“It sounds like a rat trap,” Vargas said.
Alicia gave him a cunning smile in the light of the flame, which Vargas would have preferred not to see.
Vargas blew out the flame and pushed the door inward. “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”
8
Alicia and Vargas stepped into what felt like the main cabin in a luxury yacht. An aura of gray light hovered in the air. Leaden skies and tears of rain sealed the windows.
The office was oval in shape. A large desk of fine wood stood at its center. Around it, most of the wall space was lined with spiraling bookshelves that seemed to form a bow as they rose toward the glass lantern at the top of the tower. Only one section was clear of books: it resembled a mural but was made up of dozens of small framed photographs packed together on the wall directly across from the desk. Alicia and Vargas walked over to examine it. All the images were of the same face and traced a photographic biography. A pale-faced girl with fair hair grew up before the eyes of the observer, from childhood to adolescence and first youth—the trail of a life in a hundred snapshots.
“It looks like the minister loves someone even more than he loves himself,” said Alicia.
Vargas stayed on another moment or two, gazing at the portrait gallery, while Alicia went over to Valls’s desk. She pulled out the admiral’s chair and sat down on it, then placed her hands on the sheet of leather covering the table and glanced around the room.
“How does the world look from there?” asked Vargas.
“Small.”
Alicia turned on the desk lamp. A warm, powdery light filled the room. She opened the first drawer in the desk and found a carved wooden box.
Vargas walked over and sat on a corner of the table. “If it’s a humidor, I want the first Montecristo,” he said.
Alicia opened the box. The inside was lined with blue velvet and seemed shaped to hold a revolver, but now it was empty. Vargas leaned over and stroked the edge of the box. He smelled his fingers, then nodded.
She pulled open the next drawer. It contained a collection of cases, all neatly lined up as if they were part of an exhibition. “They seem like little coffins,” she said.
“Show me the corpse,” said Vargas.
Alicia opened one of the cases. It contained a black-lacquered fountain pen with a white star on the tip of its cap. She pulled it out and smiled as she felt its weight, then pulled off the cap and slowly twisted one of the ends. A gold and platinum nib that seemed wrought by a cabal of wise men and goldsmiths shone in her hands.
“Is that the magic fountain pen of Fantômas?” asked Vargas.
“Almost. This is the first fountain pen produced by Montblanc. It dates back to 1905. A very expensive piece.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Leandro has one exactly like it.”
“It’s more your sort of thing.”
Alicia put the pen back in the case and closed the drawer. “I know. Leandro promised he’d give it to me the day I retired.”
“And that will be?”
“Soon.”
She tugged at the third and last drawer, but it was locked. She glanced at Vargas.
He shook his head. “If you want the key, go down and ask your friend Doña Mariana.”
“I wouldn’t like to bother her when she’s so busy with ‘Don Mauricio’s affairs.’”
“So?”
“I thought at headquarters you were given courses on breaking and entering.”
Vargas sighed. “Move out of the way.”
The policeman knelt down in front of the set of drawers and pulled out of his jacket an ivory handle, from which he then unfolded a double-edged serrated blade. “Don’t think you’re the only one who knows about collectors’ pieces. Pass me that paper knife.”
Alicia handed it to him, and he began to force the lock with the blade, at the same time using the paper knife to push at the gap between the drawer and the desk.
“Something tells me this isn’t the first time you’ve done this,” Alicia observed.
“Some people go to soccer games, and others force locks. You’ve got to have some hobby.”
The operation took a little over two minutes. With a metallic snap, the lock gave way and the paper knife sank into the drawer. Vargas pulled out the blade. There wasn’t a single scratch or dent on it.
“Tempered steel?” asked Alicia.
Vargas folded the knife neatly by pressing the tip of the blade on the floor, and put it back in the inside pocket of his jacket.
“One day you must let me play with that contraption,” said Alicia.
“If you behave yourself,” said Vargas as he opened the drawer.
They both looked expectantly inside. It was empty.
“Don’t tell me I’ve forced open a minister’s desk for nothing.”
Alicia didn’t reply. She knelt down next to Vargas and felt the inside of the drawer, rapping on the base and sides with her knuckles.
“Solid oak,” said the policeman. “They don’t make furniture like this anymore.”
Alicia frowned, puzzled.
Vargas got to his feet. “We’re not going to find anything here. We’d do better going to headquarters to inspect Salgado’s letters.”
Alicia, who was still feeling the inside of the drawer and the base of the one above it, ignored him. There was a space of about three centimeters between the bottom of the second drawer and the end of the side panels of the one below.
“Help me get it out,” she said.
“Not content with breaking the lock, you now want to pull the whole desk to pieces,” Vargas muttered, signaling her to move out of the way and pulling out the drawer. “You see? Nothing.”
Alicia grabbed the drawer and turned it over. Stuck to the back panel of the base with a cross formed of two pieces of insulating tape was what looked like a book. Carefully pulling off the tape, she lifted out the volume.
Vargas felt the adhesive side of the tape. “It’s recent.”
Alicia set the book on the desk, sat down again, and pulled it toward the lamp. Vargas knelt beside her and looked at her with interest.
The volume contained roughly two hundred pages and was bound in black leather. There was no title on the cover or the spine. The only distinctive mark was a golden spiral embossed on the cover, creating a sort of optical illusion: when you held the book, you felt as if yo
u were looking down a spiral staircase descending into the deep.
Alicia opened the book. The first three pages each bore an ink drawing of a chess piece with vaguely human features: a bishop, a pawn, and a queen with black eyes and vertical pupils, like those of a reptile. On the next page was the title of the book:
The Labyrinth of the Spirits VII
Ariadna and the Scarlet Prince
Text and illustrations by Víctor Mataix
Beneath the title, and spilling over the page to its left, was an illustration in black ink, the image of an eerie city with buildings that had faces. Clouds slid through the rooftops like snakes. Bonfires and pyres of smoke rose from the streets, and a large blazing cross presided over the city from a mountaintop. Alicia could make out the landmarks of Barcelona—but it was a different Barcelona, a city that seemed to sketch out a nightmare seen through the eyes of a child. She turned over a few more pages, pausing at an illustration of what was undoubtedly the Temple of the Sagrada Familia. In the drawing the structure seemed to have come to life; the unfinished cathedral crept like a dragon, the four towers of the Nativity door rippling against sulfur-colored skies, ending in heads that spewed out fire.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” asked Vargas.
Alicia shook her head slowly. For about two minutes she immersed herself in the strange universe projected by those pages. Images of a traveling circus populated by creatures who shunned the light; of an endless cemetery standing with its swarm of mausoleums and souls rising up to heaven, passing through clouds; of a ship stranded on a beach strewn with wreckage and a huge tide of corpses trapped beneath the water’s surface. And ruling over that ghostly Barcelona from the top of the cathedral’s lantern tower, gazing at the streets that swirled below, a silhouette clad in a tunic that fluttered in the wind, an angel’s face with wolfish eyes: the Scarlet Prince.
Alicia closed the book, intoxicated by the strange and perverse power it exuded. Only then did she realize that what she was holding in her hands was only a children’s storybook.
9
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 13
