* * *
The service elevator opened onto a small hidden passage next to the cleaners’ cupboards and laundry rooms. Alicia hurried down the passage to the door that led into the main corridor, which went around the entire floor. She opened it cautiously. Leandro’s suite was on one of the corners hanging over Plaza de Neptuno. She stepped into the corridor and walked toward the suite. On the way she passed a guest who was returning to his room, probably after having had his breakfast. He smiled politely. Alicia smiled back. When she rounded the bend in the corridor, she saw the door to Leandro’s suite. There were no bodyguards posted outside the entrance. Leandro hated that type of display; he’d always advocated discretion and an absence of melodrama. But Alicia knew that at least two of his men must be nearby, either in a neighboring room or going through the hotel, at that very moment. She reckoned she had, at best, five to ten minutes.
Pausing in front of the door to the suite, she looked right and left, then quietly put the key in the lock and turned it gently. The door opened, and Alicia slipped inside. She locked the door behind her and stood there for a few seconds, leaning her back against it. A small entrance hall led to a corridor at the end of which was the oval room, set beneath the dome of one of the towers. Leandro had been living there as far back as she could remember. She crept toward the room, her hand resting on the weapon in her belt. The room was in semidarkness. The door to the suite’s bedroom was ajar, projecting a shaft of light. Alicia heard water running and a whistling she knew well. She walked across the oval room to the door and opened it wide. At the far end was the bed, empty and unmade. To the left was the bathroom door, which was open, letting out a delicate vapor scented with soap. Alicia stopped in the doorway.
His back to her, Leandro was shaving meticulously in front of the mirror. He wore a scarlet bathrobe and matching slippers. The bath, full of steaming water, waited on one side. A radio murmured a tune that Leandro was whistling. Alicia met his eyes in the mirror, and he smiled warmly, without a hint of surprise.
“I’ve been expecting you for days. You will have noticed that I told the boys to get out of the way.”
“Thanks.”
Leandro turned and wiped the foam off his face with a towel. “I was thinking of them. I know you’ve never liked teamwork. Have you had breakfast? Shall I order something for you?”
Alicia shook her head. She pulled out the pistol and pointed it at his belly. Leandro poured a bit of aftershave on his hands and massaged his face.
“I take it that’s poor Hendaya’s weapon. Good thinking. I suppose it’s pointless to ask you where we can find him. I’m only saying this because he had a wife and children.”
“Have a look in a tin of cat food.”
“That’s my girl. Shall we sit down?”
“We’re fine here.”
Leandro leaned against the dressing table. “As you wish. What’s up?”
Alicia hesitated for a moment. The easiest thing would be to shoot now. Empty the gun and try to get out of there alive. With luck she would reach the service stairs. Who knows, perhaps she would make it to the lobby before being shot down.
Leandro, as usual, read her thoughts. He gave her a look of compassion and paternal affection as he slowly shook his head. “You should never have left me. You don’t know how much your betrayal has hurt me.”
“I have never betrayed you.”
“Please, Alicia. You know perfectly well that you’ve always been my favorite. My masterpiece. You and I are made for one another. We’re the perfect team.”
“Is that why you sent that vermin to kill me?”
“Rovira?”
“Was that his name?”
“Sometimes. He was meant to be your substitute. I only sent him so he could learn from you and watch you. He admired you a lot. He’d been studying you for two years. Every dossier. Every case. He said you were the best. My mistake was to think that perhaps he could take your place. Now I’ve come to accept that nobody can replace you.”
“Not even Lomana?”
“Ricardo never really understood his role. He would volunteer uncalled-for judgments and poke his nose where he shouldn’t, when all that was required of him was brute force. He confused his loyalties. Nobody can survive in this business without being clear about where those lie.”
“And where do yours lie?”
Leandro shook his head.
“Why don’t you come back to me, Alicia? Who will take care of you like me? I know you as if you were my flesh and blood. I just have to look at you to know that right now pain is eating you raw, but you haven’t taken anything because you want to stay alert. I look into your eyes, and I see you’re afraid. Afraid of me. And that hurts. It hurts so much . . .”
“If you want a pill, or even the entire bottle, it’s all yours.”
Leandro smiled sadly, muttering under his breath. “I admit that I was wrong. And I apologize. Is that what you want? Because if you like, I’ll go down on my knees. I’m not embarrassed. Your betrayal hurt me a great deal—it blinded me. Me, the one who’s always taught you that one should never make decisions in anger, pain, or fear. You see, I’m human too, Alicia.”
“You’re going to make me cry.”
Leandro’s smile now betrayed malice. “Do you see how, deep down, we’re the same? Where will you be better off than by my side? I have grand plans for us. I’ve been thinking a lot these past few weeks, and I’ve understood why you want to leave this. Moreover, I’ve realized that I want to leave it too. I’m sick and tired of cleaning up after incompetent idiots. You and I are made for other things.”
“Oh, are we?”
“Well, of course. Or did you imagine we would always be dealing with other people’s messes? That’s over. I’ve set my sights on something far more important. I’m also leaving all this behind. And I need you to be by my side, I need you to come with me. Without you, I can’t do it. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“I’m talking about politics. This country is going to change. Sooner or later. The General won’t last forever. New blood is needed. People with ideas. People who know how to manage the world out there.”
“Like you.”
“Like you and like me. You and I, together, can do great things for this country.”
“Such as murdering innocent people and stealing their children to sell them?”
Leandro sighed, a look of annoyance spreading over his face. “Don’t be naive, Alicia. Those were other times.”
“Was it your idea, or Valls’s?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
“It was nobody’s idea. It’s simply the way things happened. Ubach and his wife took a fancy to Mataix’s daughters. Valls saw an opportunity. And then came others. It was a time for opportunities. And there’s no supply without demand. I just concentrated on doing what I had to do and making sure the matter didn’t escape Valls’s control.”
“It looks like he didn’t quite pull it off.”
“Valls is a greedy man. Unfortunately greedy people never know when it’s time to stop abusing their position, so they force things until they blow up. That’s why, sooner or later, they fall.”
“Is he still alive, then?”
“Alicia . . . What do you want from me?”
“The truth.”
Leandro laughed to himself. “The truth? You and I know such a thing doesn’t exist. The truth is an agreement that allows innocent people not to have to cope with reality.”
“I haven’t come here to listen to your book of quotations.”
Leandro’s look hardened. “No, you’ve come here to poke around where you know you mustn’t. As you always do. To complicate everything. Because that’s how you do everything. That’s why you left me. That’s why you betrayed me. That’s why you come here now to talk to me about truth. Because you want me to tell you that yes, you’re better than me, better than
all this.”
“I’m not better than anyone else.”
“Of course you are. That’s why you’ve always been my favorite. That’s why I want you back by my side. Because this country needs to have people like you and like me. People who know how to control it. How to keep it in line, and calm, so it doesn’t all turn into a sack full of rats again, living to feed their hatred, their envy, and their spiteful anger, rats who eat one another alive. You know I’m right. You know that even though we’re always being blamed for everything, without us this country would go to hell. What do you say?”
Leandro gazed at her at length and, when he didn’t get a reply, walked over to the bathtub. He turned his back to her and removed his robe. Alicia looked at his naked body, pale like the belly of a fish. He grabbed the golden bar on the marble wall and slowly immersed himself in the bath. Once he was lying in the tub, the steam caressing his face, he opened his eyes with a hint of sadness.
“Everything should have been different, Alicia, but we’re children of our time. Deep down, it’s almost better this way. I always knew it would be you.”
Alicia let the gun drop.
“What are you waiting for?”
“I’m not going to kill you.”
“Then why have you come?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you know.”
“What are you doing?”
Leandro stretched out a hand to the telephone extension hanging from the bathtub wall. Alicia aimed at him again.
“You know what this is like, Alicia. . . . Operator. Yes. Put me through to the Ministry of the Interior. Gil de Partera. Yes. Leandro Montalvo. I’ll wait. Thank you.”
“Put the phone down. Please.”
“I can’t do that. The order never was to save Valls. The order was to find him and silence him, so that none of this sad business would come out in the open. And we were on the point, once again, of crowning the mission with success. But you didn’t listen to me. That’s why now, much against my will, I’m going to have to order the death of all those people you have involved in your adventure. Daniel Sempere, his wife, and all his family, including that fool who works for them, and all those to whom, in your crusade for redemption, you’ve had the ill-fated idea of blurting out what they should never have known. You’ve wanted it this way. Fortunately you’ve led us to them. As usual, even when you don’t try, you’re the best. Operator? Yes, Minister. Same here. That’s right. I have news—”
One shot was enough. The receiver slipped from Leandro’s hand and fell on the floor by the bathtub. His head tilted to one side as he bestowed upon her a look poisoned with affection and longing. A scarlet cloud spread under the water, masking the reflection of his body. Alicia stood there, motionless, watching as he bled with every throb, until his pupils dilated and his smile froze into a mocking grin.
“I’ll wait for you,” he whispered. “Don’t be long.”
A second later the body slid slowly, and Leandro Montalvo’s face sank into the blood-filled water, its eyes still open wide.
5
Alicia picked the receiver up and put it to her ear. The line wasn’t connected. Leandro had not called anyone. She pulled out the bottle of pills and swallowed a couple, chewing them and mixing them with a gulp of expensive brandy Leandro kept in a small cabinet in the sitting room. Before leaving the suite, she cleaned Hendaya’s gun thoroughly and dropped it on the carpet.
The walk down to the staff passage seemed interminable. Two of the elevators were coming up, so she used the stairs, walking down as fast as possible. Once again she made her way through the tangle of corridors around the kitchen area. Finally she was on the last stretch to the exit, convinced that at any moment she would feel the bullet hit her back and fall headlong, to die like a rat in the tunnels of the Gran Hotel Palace basement, the court of the Scarlet Prince.
Out on the street, a gust of sleet brushed her face. She stopped for a moment to recover her breath. The taxi driver was still standing by the cab, in the same place he’d dropped her, waiting anxiously. As soon as Ernesto saw her, he ran toward her and, without saying a word, grabbed her arm and led her to the cab. He sat her in the passenger seat and hurried across to take the wheel.
Sirens could already be heard in the distance when the engine started and the taxi glided off toward Carrera de San Jerónimo. As they drove past the main entrance to the Palace, at least three black cars were parked outside the hotel doors. A number of men were running inside, pushing aside anyone they met on their way. The taxi driver continued calmly, pressed the indicator, and melted into the traffic driving downhill toward Recoletos. Once they were there, hidden in a swarm of cars, buses, and trams creeping along in the fog, he let out a sigh of relief and for the first time dared to look at Alicia. Tears ran down her face, and her lips were trembling.
“Thanks for waiting for me,” she said.
“Are you feeling all right?”
Alicia didn’t reply.
“Shall we go home?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. I must make one last stop . . .”
6
The taxi came to a halt in front of the spiked gates. Ernesto turned off the engine and gazed at the profile of Villa Mercedes peeping through the trees. Alicia was also examining the house, not saying a word. They stayed there for about a minute, allowing the silence that enveloped that place to seep in slowly.
“It looks like there’s nobody here,” said the taxi driver finally.
Alicia opened the car door.
“Shall I accompany you?” asked Ernesto.
“Wait for me here.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Alicia stepped out of the taxi and walked up to the gates. Before going in, she turned to look at Ernesto, who smiled weakly and raised a hand. He looked petrified with fear.
She slipped through the bars and set off toward the house through the gardens, passing statues, and at one point catching sight of the steam engine through the trees. Only her own footsteps over fallen leaves broke the silence, and there were no signs of life other than a tide of black spiders, scuttling around her feet and dangling from chrysalises stuck to branches on the trees.
At the top of the main staircase, the door to the house stood open. She paused and looked around. The garages were empty. Villa Mercedes gave off a menacing air of devastation and abandonment, as if all its inhabitants had left in the middle of the night, fleeing from a curse. She walked slowly up the steps to the doorway and stepped into the hall.
“Mercedes?”
The echo of her voice vanished into a litany of empty rooms and corridors. Somber passages fanned out on either side. Alicia walked over to the entrance of a grand ballroom into which dead leaves had been blown by the wind. The curtains fluttered in the draft. The blanket of spiders had crept up from the garden and now spread over the white marble tiles.
“Mercedes?” she called again.
Once more her voice became lost in the bowels of the house. A sickly sweet smell was coming from the top of the stairs. She began to walk up, following the trail of scent, which led her to the room at the end of the corridor. She stepped into the room but stopped midway. A cloak of black spiders covered the corpse of Señora Valls. They had begun to devour her.
Alicia ran back into the corridor, opening one of the windows facing the inside patio to let in the fresh air. As she did so, she noticed that all the windows overlooking the atrium were closed, except for one in a corner of the third floor. She walked back to the main staircase and climbed the stairs to the third floor. A long corridor ran off into the gloom. A double white door was visible at the end of the passage. It was ajar.
“Mercedes, it’s Alicia. Are you there?”
She approached slowly, scanning for shapes behind curtains, or among the shadows outlined between doorways on either side of the corridor. When she came to the end of the passage, she placed her hands on the door and waited.
“Mercedes?”
She pushed the door inward.
The walls were pale blue, and displayed a constellation of pictures inspired by stories and legends. A castle, a carriage, a princess, and all kinds of fantastic creatures flew across a sky studded with silver stars over the vaulted ceiling. Alicia realized that this was a nursery, a paradise for privileged children, with as many toys as a child could dream of. The two sisters were waiting at the far end of the room.
The bed was white. It was crowned by a wooden headboard carved into the shape of an angel with its wings outstretched, gazing at the room with infinite devotion. Ariadna and Mercedes were dressed in white. They lay on the bed, holding hands, each clasping a red rose against her chest with the other hand. A box holding a syringe and glass phials rested on the bedside table, next to Ariadna.
Alicia could feel her legs trembling, and she had to cling to a chair. She never knew how long she remained there, whether it was barely a minute or an hour. All she remembered was that when she went down the stairs and reached the ground floor, her feet took her to the ballroom. There she went to the fireplace. A box of long matches sat on the mantelpiece. She lit one and began to circle the entire perimeter of the mansion, setting fire to curtains and other fabrics. When she felt the flames raging behind her, she left that house of death. She crossed the garden again without looking back, while Villa Mercedes burned, a black pyre rising to the heavens.
In Paradisum
Barcelona
February 1960
1
As he’d done every Sunday since he became a widower, over twenty years before, Juan Sempere rose early, made himself a strong cup of coffee, and put on his Barcelona gentleman’s suit and hat to go down to the church of Santa Ana. The bookseller had never been a religious man, unless Alexandre Dumas could be considered an ex cathedra addition to the list of saints. He liked to park himself in the last pew and witness the ceremony in silence. He stood up and sat down out of respect at the priest’s indications, but he didn’t take part in the chanting, the prayers, or the communion. Since Isabella’s death, he and the heavens, not the greatest communicators at the best of times, had little to say to one another.
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 73
