Cipriano sighed, examining the half note as if he was staring at an expired lottery ticket. “If you return, that is,” he mumbled.
Alicia had already slipped through the narrow opening in the gate. Her silhouette could be seen gliding along a moonlit passage through the undergrowth. Vargas, who was double her size, had to struggle with the rusty bars to follow. Beyond the gate a paved path wound its way around the house up to the main entrance, which was on the other side. The cobblestones under his feet were covered in dry leaves.
Vargas followed Alicia up to a balustrade perched on the edge of the hillside, from where the whole of Barcelona could be contemplated. In the distance, the sea glowed beneath the moonlight, forming a pool of red-hot silver.
* * *
Alicia examined the facade of the large house. The images she had conjured up while she listened to Vilajuana’s account now materialized before her eyes. She imagined the house in better days, the sun caressing the ocher stone of the walls and speckling the pond below the fountain that now lay dry and full of cracks. She imagined Mataix’s daughters in that garden and the writer and his wife watching them from the French windows in the sitting room. The home of the Mataix family had been reduced to an abandoned mausoleum, its shutters swaying in the breeze.
“A crate of the best white wine if we leave this for tomorrow and return in the daylight,” proposed Vargas. “Two, if need be.”
Alicia snatched the flashlight from his hands and walked over to the entrance. The door was open, and the remains of a rusty padlock lay on the threshold. Alicia pointed the flashlight at the bits of metal and knelt down to examine them. She picked up a piece that looked as if it had been part of the main lock and examined it. It seemed to have been burst from the inside.
“A shot in the piston,” Vargas said, behind her. “High-caliber burglars.”
“If they were burglars, that is.” Alicia dropped the piece of metal and stood up.
“Can you smell what I’m smelling?” the policeman asked.
Alicia answered with a nod and, walking into the entrance hall, paused at the foot of a staircase of pale marble that climbed up in the gloom. The beam of the flashlight swept across the darkness spreading up the stairs. The skeleton of an old glass lamp dangled from up high.
“I wouldn’t trust that staircase,” warned Vargas.
They went up slowly, one step at a time. The flashlight dispelled the shadows within a range of four or five meters before blurring into a pale halo that sank into the dark. The stench they had noticed as they came in still hung in the air, but as they walked up the stairs a cold, damp breeze brushed their faces, seeming to come from the floor above.
The first-floor landing formed a hall from which stemmed a wide corridor with a row of skylights that let the moonlight through. Most of the doors had been wrenched off, and the rooms were bare, with no curtains or furniture. Alicia and Vargas walked down the corridor, inspecting those dead spaces. The floor was coated with a film of dust, like a carpet of ashes that creaked under their feet.
Alicia shone the flashlight at a line of footprints that vanished into the shadows. “It’s recent,” she murmured.
“A beggar, I imagine,” said Vargas, “or some lowlife creature who slipped in to see if there was anything left to pillage.”
Alicia paid no attention to his words as she followed the trail. The two made their way through the house, following the footprints until they came to the southeast corner. There the trail faded. Alicia stopped in the doorway of what clearly must have been the master bedroom. There was barely any furniture left, and the pillagers had even pulled the paper off the walls. The ceiling had started to collapse, and part of its old paneling hung like an open bellows, creating a false perspective that made the room seem deeper than it really was. The black hole of the cupboard where Mataix’s wife had hidden in vain to protect her daughters was visible at the far end. Alicia felt a pang of nausea.
“There’s nothing left here,” said Vargas.
Alicia walked back to the hall at the top of the stairs from which they’d explored the floor. The stench they’d noticed upon entering was more noticeable there, a putrid aroma that seemed to rise from the very depths of the house. She walked slowly down the stairs, Vargas’s footsteps behind her. As she was making her way to the exit, she noticed a movement on her right and stopped. She approached a doorway to a sitting room with large windows. Some of the wooden floorboards had been pulled up, and among the remains of an improvised fire were burned pieces of chairs and charred, blackened book spines.
A wooden panel swayed gently at the far end of the room: behind it lay a well of darkness. Vargas stopped next to Alicia and pulled out his revolver. They moved very slowly toward the opening, keeping a safe distance between them. When they reached the wall, Vargas opened the door, which was encased within the wall paneling, and gave a nod. Alicia pointed the flashlight’s beam into the darkness. A long staircase descended into the basement. A draft rose from below, reeking with the smell of carrion. She covered her mouth and nose. Vargas nodded once more, and led the way. They went down slowly, feeling the walls on either side and testing each step in case they missed their footing and fell into the void.
At the bottom of the stairs they found themselves in what at first glance looked like a huge room with a vaulted ceiling, occupying the entire structure of the house. The room was flanked by a row of horizontal windows through which shafts of light shone dimly, caught in a misty miasma rising from the floor. She was about to take a step forward when Vargas stopped her. Only then did she realize that what she had thought was a tiled floor was in fact water. The rich colonial’s underground swimming pool had lost its emerald green and was now a black mirror. They moved closer to the edge, and Alicia swept the surface with her beam of light. A web of greenish algae swayed beneath the water. The stench came from there.
Alicia pointed to the bottom of the pool. “There’s something down there.”
She brought the flashlight closer to the surface. The water took on a ghostly clarity.
“Do you see it?” asked Alicia.
A dark mass swayed at the bottom of the pool, slithering slowly. Vargas looked around and found the pole of what looked like a brush for cleaning the pool. All the fibers had come off it years ago, but the metal head was still stuck to the end. Vargas plunged the pole into the water and tried to reach the dark shape. When he touched it, it turned upon itself and seemed to unfurl bit by bit.
“Careful,” warned Vargas.
He felt the metal end touch something firm and tugged at it energetically. The shadow began its ascent from the bottom of the pool. Alicia took a few steps back.
Vargas was the first to realize what was happening. “Move away,” he murmured.
Alicia recognized the suit instantly: she’d gone with him to a tailor’s on Gran Vía the day he bought it. The face that emerged on the water’s surface was as white as chalk, the eyes like two ovals of polished marble, a dark web of capillaries around the irises. The scar on his cheek, which she herself had left on him, had become a purple mark that looked as if it had been seared with a branding iron. The head fell to one side, exposing the deep cut that had sliced his throat.
Alicia closed her eyes and let out a sob. She felt Vargas’s hand on her shoulder.
“It’s Lomana,” she managed to say.
When she opened her eyes again, the body was sinking, until it was finally left suspended underwater, turning upon itself, arms outstretched.
Alicia turned to Vargas, who was looking at her anxiously. “Vilajuana told me he’d sent him here. Someone must have followed him.”
“Or perhaps he came across something he wasn’t expecting to find.”
“We can’t leave him in this place. Like this.”
Vargas shook his head. “I’ll take care of that. For the time being, let’s get out of here.”
The policeman took her arm and guided her gently toward the stairs. “Alicia, that body
has been there for at least two or three weeks. Since before you arrived in Barcelona.”
She closed her eyes and nodded in agreement.
“That means,” he said, “that whoever went into your apartment and stole the book, it wasn’t Lomana.”
“I know.”
They were about to climb up again when Vargas suddenly stood still and held her back. The sound of footsteps creaking on the floor above reverberated through the vaulted room. They followed the movement of the footsteps with their eyes. The policeman listened, his expression inscrutable.
“There’s more than one person,” he whispered.
For a moment the footsteps seemed to stop, and then they moved away again. Alicia was going to take a quick look up the stairs when she noticed a noise above them. They heard the stairs creak and the echo of a voice, and glanced at one another. Alicia switched off the flashlight and they positioned themselves one on either side of the doorway at the bottom of the stairs, hiding in the shadows. Vargas pointed his gun at the staircase and cocked the hammer. The footsteps were getting closer. Seconds later a figure emerged. Before the stranger could take another step, Vargas had placed the barrel of his revolver on the newcomer’s temple, ready to blow his head to pieces.
13
Although he’d experienced it on countless occasions, the touch of a gun’s barrel on his skin—like the consistency of crème brûlée—was something to which Fermín had never grown accustomed.
“It goes without saying that we come in peace,” he uttered, closing his eyes and raising his hands to signal unconditional surrender.
“Fermín, is that you?” asked an astonished Alicia.
Before Fermín could reply, Daniel poked his head around the doorframe, freezing when he saw the weapon that Vargas was still pointing at his friend’s head.
The policeman breathed out and lowered the revolver. Fermín gave an anxious sigh.
“Can you tell me what the hell you’re doing here?”
“You just stole my line,” said Fermín.
Alicia faced the accusing looks of Daniel and Fermín and weighed her options.
“Just as I was telling you, Daniel,” said Fermín. “Look at her, ever the evil schemer, like the treacherous lamia she is.”
“What’s a lamia?” asked Vargas.
“Don’t be offended, musketeer, but if you traded the firearm for the dictionary, it would work wonders for your vocabulary.”
Vargas took one step forward, and Fermín five back. Alicia raised a hand to signal a truce.
“I think you owe us an explanation, Alicia,” said Daniel.
She looked him straight in the eye and nodded, producing a smile that was enough to dispel all suspicion from the world.
Fermín nudged Daniel. “Daniel, keep your blood flow above the belt and don’t let yourself be taken in.”
“No one wants to take anyone in here, Fermín,” said Alicia.
“Perhaps that’s what you should tell the bathing beauty,” murmured Fermín, pointing at the murky pool water. “An acquaintance of yours?”
“There’s an explanation for this,” Alicia began.
“Alicia . . . ,” Vargas warned.
She made an appeasing gesture and moved closer to Fermín and Daniel. “Unfortunately, it’s not a simple one.”
“Try us. We’re far less stupid than we look. I speak for myself, because my friend here, Daniel, may be still struggling with some growing pains.”
“Let her speak, Fermín,” Daniel snapped.
“I’ve seen less poisonous tongues in the cobras they keep in the zoo.”
“Why don’t we get out of here first,” Alicia proposed, “and go somewhere where we can talk calmly?”
Vargas muttered under his breath, clearly disapproving.
“How do we know it’s not a trap?” asked Fermín.
“Because I’ll let you choose the place,” said Alicia.
Daniel and Fermín swapped glances.
* * *
They walked across the garden and returned to the taxi to find Cipriano at the mercy of a dark cloud of tobacco and a momentous radio chat show pounding on about questions of vital concern to the public: the soccer league and the potential impact of Kubala’s left-foot bunion in the run-up to the Madrid-Barcelona match the next Sunday. Size dictated that Vargas should sit in the passenger seat and the other three squeeze together, as best they could, in the back seat.
“Weren’t there just two of you?” asked the driver, wondering, perhaps, whether he hadn’t smoked one too many Celtas.
Vargas replied with a grunt. Alicia was engrossed in her mysteries, perhaps plotting the formidable lie she was surely going to try to shove down their throats, Fermín suspected. His friend Daniel seemed too dazzled by the contact between the crafty vamp’s thigh and his right leg to articulate a single word or thought.
Realizing that he was the only adult in full command of his senses, Fermín decided to call the shots. “Look, boss,” he said, “kindly drive us to the Raval quarter and leave us by the door of Can Lluís.” The very mention of his favorite restaurant in the known universe, a spiritual refuge of sorts in trying times, restored his vitality. A brush with law-enforcement officers likely to blow his brains out always kindled his appetite.
Cipriano reversed the car as far as the Vallvidrera road and initiated the descent back to Barcelona. As they slid down the hillside, Fermín discreetly studied the character sitting in the passenger seat, scooped up by Alicia from God knows where to play the forbidding strongman. His entire persona smelled of police—the heavyweight variety. Vargas must have sensed Fermín’s eyes boring into the back of his neck, because he turned around and gave him one of his searing looks, the sort that would stir up the guts of any miscreant and leave him in a state of severe constipation. The little man Alicia called Fermín seemed to him like a creature escaped from the pages of a picaresque epic.
“Don’t get overconfident on account of my wimpish appearance,” Fermín said, eying him defiantly. “All you see here is ironclad muscle and killing instinct. Think of me as a plainclothes ninja.”
You think you’ve seen everything in this line of work, Vargas thought, and then the Good Lord sees fit to send you a golden nugget as a farewell present.
“Fermín, isn’t it?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Call me Vargas.”
“Lieutenant?”
“Captain.”
“I hope Your Excellency holds no conscientious objection to fine dining and gourmet Catalan cuisine.”
“None whatsoever. To tell you the truth, I’m starving. Is this Can Lluís good?”
“Sublime,” replied Fermín. “Like one of Rita Hayworth’s thighs in net stockings.”
Vargas smiled.
“Those two have already made friends,” said Alicia. “What brings men together are the urges of their stomachs and their loins.”
“Pay no attention to her, Fermín,” said Vargas. “Alicia never eats, at least not solids. She feeds herself by sucking from the souls of the innocent.”
Fermín and Vargas reluctantly exchanged a conspiratorial smile.
“Did you hear that, Daniel?” said Fermín. “Confirmed by a captain of the police department, no less.”
Alicia turned to Daniel, who was looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “Foolish words fall on deaf ears.”
“Don’t worry,” said Fermín. “I don’t think he’s registered anything after the word sucking.”
“Why don’t you all shut up so we can ride in peace?” Daniel suggested.
“It’s the hormones,” said Fermín. “The boy is still growing.”
And so, each in their own silence, accompanied by the drone of the radio’s grandiose account of the soccer league, they arrived at the doors of Can Lluís.
14
Fermín disembarked from the taxi like a famished castaway making land after weeks clinging to a plank of wood. The owner of Can Lluís, an old friend of F
ermín’s, received him with an embrace and greeted Daniel warmly. He eyed Vargas and Alicia uncertainly, but after Fermín whispered something in his ear, he nodded, inviting them in. “Only today we were talking about you with Professor Alburquerque, who had lunch here, and wondering what adventures you might be caught up in.”
“Nothing of note,” said Fermín, “just small domestic intrigues. I’m not the sleuth I used to be.”
“If you like, you can have the table at the far end. It will be more peaceful there . . .”
They settled in a corner of the dining room, Vargas instinctively taking a seat facing the entrance.
“What would you like?” asked the manager.
“Surprise us, my friend,” said Fermín. “I’ve already had a preliminary dinner, but with all this excitement I wouldn’t say no to a late-night snack, and our captain here could eat a bull and requires a crash course on the local cuisine. Kindly bring the young ones a couple of lemonades and let them sip that, to see if they come out of their apathy.”
“A glass of white wine for me, please,” said Alicia.
“I have a very good Penedès.”
She nodded.
“So, why don’t I bring you a few tapas to start with and we take it from there?”
“Motion approved unanimously,” Fermín declared.
The manager set off to the kitchen with the order, leaving them with no more company than a heavy silence.
“You were saying, Alicia?” Fermín asked encouragingly.
“What I’m going to tell you must remain between us,” she warned.
Daniel and Fermín looked straight at her.
“You’re going to have to give me your word,” Alicia insisted.
“One gives one’s word to someone who has one,” said Fermín. “And for the moment you, with all due respect, have not shown us any proof at all that this may be the case.”
“Well, you’re going to have to trust me.”
Fermín exchanged glances with Vargas. The policeman shrugged. “Don’t look at me. That’s what she told me a few days ago, and look where I am now.”
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 47
