by Chris Lloyd
'You're sure?'
She pointed at the small ceramic tile hanging from around the neck of the life-size doll in the museum. 'Why else would that be there? Who else would know to do this?'
They were waiting for a Científica team to arrive, requested by Elisenda the moment she saw the tile. The curator stood nearby, anxiously watching the figure hanging above them.
'So what's the story?' Àlex asked her. 'El Tarlà?'
'During the plague, the old town was quarantined and a local man kept people's spirits up by playing the clown. This model is supposed to depict him. It's normally kept here but it's brought out in the summer and at Carnival.'
Àlex looked up at the doll of the jester hanging by his arms from a bar above where they stood and then back at her. 'You think it's going to be the stand-up.'
'It's got to be. Look at the way his appearing here has divided opinion on the website. Our man would see him as a natural target.' She pointed at the doll. 'And this can only mean it's him.'
'So what next?'
'We're going to set a trap. But first, we need some help.'
*
'It's more specifically about the Argenteria part of the old town,' Marsans told them.
The moment he'd ended Elisenda's call, he'd ushered Roser Caselles out of his house and hurried down to the museum. In his eagerness, he'd eschewed his usual wannabe pastel cool and thrown on jeans and a waterproof jacket. Now he, Elisenda and Àlex were standing under El Tarlà, studying the tile.
'May I ask why you needed me to ask me about it? The significance?'
Elisenda considered before she replied, unwilling to tell him more than was necessary. 'It bears a relation to these attacks that have been taking place in the city. We told you we saw a link with local legends, which is why we asked for your help. What we hadn't told you is that the Verge de la Bona Mort has been used as a way of announcing them.'
Marsans looked back at the tile and nodded, surprised.
'I know the basics of the legend,' Elisenda continued, 'but the more we know about it, the greater the chance we have of anticipating what the killer might do.'
The lecturer deliberated before answering. 'As with every legend, versions and variations abound and the celebration and telling of them is refined over time to the point where it's impossible to give a precise description. As I say, we know it centres on Argenteria. The original date it's celebrated is August 28th, but it's also used during Carnival nowadays. That's the problem. The more you try to find the origin of a legend such as this, the more you find divergences between stories and with popular perception.'
'Meaning our man could be using one of any number of interpretations.'
'Precisely. You know the story about the man playing the fool in the plague to cheer the citizens, I take it. Well, as for the tradition, in a nutshell, a treasurer would keep the image of the patron saint in their home and lead the procession on the eve of the celebration through the streets to Sant Feliu church. Then a vote was held, and the fool was announced on a scaffold, who was then adorned grotesquely and led through the neighbourhood, accompanied by a drummer. He was later replaced by this doll, which was hung by the arms outside the treasurer's house and turned loops over the bar while the drummer stood underneath playing.'
Elisenda took it all in. 'Thank you, Professor Marsans, this will help us narrow down how we tackle what we do next.'
'You must understand, Elisenda, that there are so many variants of every part of what I've just told you. It's extremely difficult to pin these legends down with any great accuracy.'
Elisenda thanked Marsans and a uniformed mosso accompanied him out of the museum. When he'd gone, Elisenda turned to Àlex.
'I think we should focus on the most popular perception of the legend to catch this guy.'
'So what's our next move?'
'We're going to have a word with this comedian.'
Chapter Fifty Nine
'Those two do know they're on expenses, I take it?' Elisenda asked Pau, watching Josep and Montse tuck into tapas at a terrace on Plaça Independència.
The rain had finally stopped, giving way to a warm evening, illuminating the buildings with a fading tungsten light. She smelt the air. It had the scent of a late summer storm that washed away the louring humidity and refreshed the streets of the city, sloughing off its damp lethargy.
The stand-up raised his head and appeared to glance in their direction but then turned back to his plate of seafood. He was feeding himself well before his gig in an hour's time.
Elisenda and Àlex had met him off the Barcelona train. He'd looked alarmed at first, but then became interested as they explained their presence. After that, he'd agreed quite readily to help them, eager no doubt for more unusual material to make his stand-up stand out.
'You'll never be out of sight of at least four Mossos the whole time, Carles,' Elisenda had told him. His real name was Carles Pont, but he followed the tradition, new and old, of a stage name, in his case Xarlu.
'Same old rubbish,' Àlex had muttered.
Xarlu paid for his meal and left. Elisenda saw Àlex and a member of Pijaume's team follow him. Two other plain-clothes Mossos were standing on the corner past which he'd walk. She didn't think the time before his performance would be key, but they were taking no chances. It was after his show that she felt the attacker would make his move, if he was going to.
His performance over, the comedian returned to Plaça Independència and crossed the river to Carrer Argenteria, following the route Elisenda had carefully rehearsed with him. Mossos were positioned along the way and in all the bars where he was to take a drink. Seguretat Ciutadana in plain clothes had been drafted in, and Pijaume had offered help from his unit. Micaló was nowhere to be seen.
Xarlu stopped for a glass of wine on Argenteria, giving any would-be attacker an opportunity to spike his drink, and went on from there along Carrer Ballesteries to Carrer Calderers, stopping for a drink in a bar on both streets. Fans stopped him for a chat and to have their photo taken with him. Others offered him drinks. None stood out. He looped round the quieter edge of the old town as the first rumble of thunder tumbled in from the mountains and entered a low-lit bar.
'Now that's interesting,' Elisenda muttered. She knew Pau and one of Pijaume's team would be waiting in there. She phoned Pau and told him to make himself scarce.
'That's Antoni Sunyer and Roser Caselles who've just followed him in,' she told Àlex. 'They're friends of Corominas.'
Àlex left her and went into the bar. They wouldn't recognise him, unlike Pau, and he stood next to them at the bar, where he watched their movements. They were already talking to Xarlu. They'd evidently been to his show and were gushing about some of his routines. Àlex had to admit the stand-up was self-effacing in the onslaught of praise. When they asked him if he wanted to go for a drink with them, the stand-up glanced at Àlex, who shook his head slightly.
Checking his watch, Xarlu left Sunyer and Caselles to go on to the next bar. He was coming to the end of the route. Àlex and the other Mosso stayed in the bar with the two fans, while others in the team took up the shadowing, and when the two friends left the bar, they followed them up into the lanes near the cathedral.
Which is when Elisenda called his mobile.
To ask if the stand-up was with Sunyer and Caselles.
'No,' Àlex told her. 'He left the bar. I assumed the team outside followed him.'
'They did, but he went into Trasfigueres one end and didn't come out the other. I've got Mossos searching there now, but I wondered if he'd hooked up with those two again.'
'No, I've got them in my sights.'
Elisenda told Àlex to stick with them and hung up.
She called the other members of the various teams into the search through the tangle of alleyways and cursed.
The black cloud descended over the city and the skies tore apart, lightning searing the ancient stones, the thunder moments later punching through the narrow streets, cro
wding into the secret corners. The rain fell, pulling Elisenda down into the cobbles beneath her feet.
Chapter Sixty
The sound of drumming.
Unnatural, incessant, echoing a beat under the rain.
It drew a caporal from Pijaume's unit outside the protection of the city walls to the path running along their base, the compass of the drum now deafening over the roar of the rain. He saw a rubbish bin had been pulled away from its stand and placed under a turn in the high walls, a spout of rain pouring off the stones and beating a frenzied attack on the empty plastic. Instinctively, he peered up through the downpour for the source of the water. A sheet of lightning lit the sky and he fell to his knees, scrabbling for his phone.
*
Two Mossos finally moved the rubbish bin and the thrumming in Elisenda's head subsided. They'd found the stand-up. He'd been left hanging by his feet from a rusted iron bar projecting from the city walls at their highest, loneliest point. The water that had beaten the plastic bin had beaten Xarlu too. A torrent spewing out through a gap in the walls onto where he was hanging, the surge of water relentlessly hitting his upturned face, his hobbled hands and feet giving him no respite from the flow. He'd drowned like that. In terror and panic and despair.
The rain running harshly down Elisenda's face were the tears her anger was able to stem. She watched as two Mossos pulled the body up, supervised by Albert Riera. The victim's face was bloodied and bruised from his struggle against the stones to escape the rainwater. He'd trusted Elisenda and she'd failed him. She knew that would never leave her. Only Pau and Josep stood close to her, Àlex and Montse back at Vista Alegre, the other Mossos keeping a distance.
When Xarlu left, she left too, to return to the station and the scrutiny.
'I am not relinquishing this investigation,' she told Puigventós in his office. 'I will catch this person and I will make them pay.'
'I can't support you indefinitely, Elisenda. An innocent man has died because of us, because of you.' His anger was growing colder, more political.
Elisenda refused to bow her head. 'You think I don't know that?'
'One more chance, Elisenda, that's all I will give you.'
'That's all I want.'
Àlex met her in her room. 'They've got the perfect alibi,' he told her. Antoni Sunyer and Roser Caselles. 'Watched by two Mossos the whole time the victim was being abducted and murdered. At no point did they manage to put anything in his drink. I don't see how they could be a part of this.' Àlex had brought them in straight away when he'd got news of the stand-up's murder and he and Montse had questioned them turn and turn about until dawn, but his own evidence and their answers seemed to take them out of the equation. They were simply fans.
'They know Corominas. They study or have studied history. They spoke to Xarlu.' She stared at her desk, knowing there was nothing they could keep them on. 'Let them go.'
'They also know Marsans.'
'Check that out. And keep an eye on them.'
She was relentlessly drawn to the website. News had broken of Xarlu's murder, creating the greatest divide they'd seen since the killings had started. She and Àlex read the threads that were battling for supremacy. The ones taking a stance against cultural imperialism but drawing the line at killing for it against the ones who didn't. The ones who loved Xarlu against those who hated what he stood for and, between those, the ones who stood for or against his fate. The young against the old, the traditionalists against the progressive, the reasonable against the righteous and every shade in between. Those whom people chose to protect and those to threaten.
The online edition of the newspaper had also got the story, the print one too late. But it also carried some notion of a Mossos operation gone wrong. 'Someone's talking,' Elisenda muttered. She got out of the site.
'I think we're seeing a shift,' she told Àlex. He looked surprised at the sudden shift in her. She gestured at the computer. 'Not in this. In the killer. I think perhaps we're looking too closely at the individual victims. The first ones, Masó and the muggers, I think who they actually were is important. Viladrau too. And Mònica Ferrer. But Foday Saio? He was a victim of civil war, an exile. We of all people should understand that. The attacker chose Foday Saio, but he could have chosen anyone who's moved into Girona from outside.'
'And the stand-up?'
'That's even more discordant. He's done nothing. He symbolises change, but he doesn't symbolise any great evil, he doesn't know anyone in Girona for them to hold a personal grudge. He simply reflects the El Tarlà legend. The jester on the scaffold, the hanging overhead, the drummer below. All the elements of the story are there, just wrapped around the crime to suit the killer.'
'What are you trying to say? The victims themselves aren't what matters anymore?'
'In a way. It seems to be moving away from the personal to the political. The victims are simply the vehicle. The message is the legends and the Verge de la Bona Mort.'
'So where does that leave us?'
'I don't know. But we have to use it to help us find this person and stop them.'
Àlex knew to leave her and to get on with his job of being her sergent, but first he needed a coffee. He'd been awake for twenty-four hours. Crossing the front desk, he ran into Micaló, who turned when Àlex approached.
'Sergent Albiol. You should possibly inform Sotsinspectora Domènech that a member of the city council has just been assaulted in the street. He's been taken to hospital.' He lowered his voice. 'If your superior had done her job properly, none of this would be happening.'
'I'll be sure to let her know,' Àlex told him, reeling in his anger before the audience Micaló had ensured was there.
He left the building and walked to a café where he'd be sure not to find any Mossos. He wasn't in the mood to have to defend his unit. He looked for somewhere to sit. A man at a table by a pillar was looking up at him and it was a few moments before he recognised him as Senyor Casademont's son. He seemed to have aged disproportionately since Àlex had last seen him. He felt a renewed flare of rage at the memory of the thug who'd attacked Casademont's father lying amid all the resources the health service had to offer while the victim's family had been left largely to fend for themselves. He thought, too, of the latest victim and of the pressure Elisenda was under.
'Take a seat here if you like, Sergent Albiol.'
Àlex sat down at Casademont's table. 'Please, call me Àlex. How are you?'
Casademont simply shrugged. 'I'm selling the business.'
'It's been in your family for years.'
'I've had enough.' His face was pale, the lines sunken and heavy. 'We're getting out of Girona. My family's always had a house in the Baix Empordà. We don't like living here any more, so we're moving out to live there. Me, my wife and my mother.'
'You've lived here all your life.'
'Yes.' He stared at the table in front of him.
'If there's anything I can do,' Àlex said. His words sounded empty even to him, but he could think of little else to say.
'Thank you, Àlex. You've been a good friend to my family.'
Casademont looked at his watch and stood up. 'Time to go.'
Àlex got up from his chair and the two men embraced. Àlex watched Casademont leave the café and took his phone out of his pocket.
'Senyor Pere,' he said when the taxi driver answered his call. 'There's something I want to ask you.'
Chapter Sixty One
David Costa emptied the big bag of croissants from the baker's downstairs onto a plate, the warm oil staining the brown paper with a smooth sheen, and put the cafetera on the stove. He was beginning to know his way around the modern flat in the new white-baked streets encroaching on the tall trees and dark dust of the Devesa. When the coffee was ready, he put everything on a tray and carried it through into the rented anonymity of the living room, where he found Carles Font sitting at the dining table, his crutches leaning against the back of his chair.
Carles Font, Costa thoug
ht. Strange times make for strange bedfellows.
On the table, Font's laptop was open, the screen casting a pallid glow over the journalist's gaunt face. His recovery from the beating he'd received was slow and he was on sick leave from the paper, sending the occasional article to the news room. Besides other things he was working on.
Costa considered the laptop. The story Font had told him. About the guy in Barcelona who'd helped him with a story he'd done some years back. Who'd helped him now, setting up a long trail of servers and accounts and relays that the journalist couldn't begin to understand but was happy to trust to the guy in Barcelona. The very secretive guy in Barcelona who was as interested in protecting his own identity as he was in borrowing other people's.
Costa sat down next to Font and poured the coffee. Font pressed a key on his laptop to bring it out of sleep mode. The social network website that had the whole of Girona yapping at their neighbours and colleagues with petty expectant vengeance shone out of its slumber. Font tapped in a series of commands and got into the administrator page.
'Who do we have?' Costa asked him.
Chapter Sixty Two
Ignasi Perafita was waiting for Elisenda at the front desk. This time without Bellsolà.
'I'm next,' he told her. 'I demand police protection.'
Elisenda sighed, trying to switch back to the present. For the time being, cramming her guilt at Xarlu's death into a corner of her mind that she knew would ambush her for the rest of her life. She placed it carefully next to her daughter.
'Is there anything that makes you think you're next? Have you had any threats?' All Mossos were alert for tiles of the Verge anywhere in the city now that the statue itself was no longer the vehicle. She knew there were no sightings of one at present.
'I just know, Sotsinspectora Domènech. My wife was murdered. I am bound to be on this killer's list.' His aggressive self-centredness bubbled above his fear.
