“She must be a strange lady,” I said, thinking aloud, referring to her profession. “Devoting her days to writing about murder…”
As I’d discovered from a Google search, Teresa Solana wrote noir novels, but neither Borja nor myself had read any. Mariona Castany, who acted as Borja’s guardian angel in Barcelona high society, didn’t know who she was either, so that meant she was neither rich nor a member of the most select circles in the city. Nevertheless, as business was bad and we were in no position to be snooty, we’d decided to give her a go and see if we couldn’t lean on her for an advance. We expected that any assignment commissioned by Teresa Solana would be routine and wouldn’t involve deaths or murders.
Borja paid and we lit our respective cigarettes as we walked to the office. Before we got there, we threw our fag ends into a gutter so as not to dirty the part of the pavement Paquita, our concierge, had to sweep and thus avoid hassle from her. As we went in through the lobby, Paquita simply looked at us disapprovingly as we wished her good day and walked to the old wooden lift that was very beautiful and entirely impractical because its motor broke down every other day. Fortunately – because our office is on the third floor, and, with the mezzanine and lobby floor, is actually on the fifth – it was working that morning.
“What the hell?” exclaimed Borja, coming out of the lift onto the landing and seeing our office door unlocked and ajar.
We immediately identified the problem: someone had forced the iffy lock we’d never got round to changing because we kept nothing of value in our office. The burglar, or burglars, had merely levered it open with an iron bar, probably over the weekend, when Paquita isn’t around and the building is almost empty. Borja switched on the light in the tiny lobby and we went into the main room where all our suspicions were confirmed: they had broken in and burgled us, and it was obvious that the thief or thieves who had done the job were no disciples of Arsène Lupin, but had done it more in Terminator or Rambo style.
“Shit!…” growled Borja, clicking his tongue. “Why did they have to do it today!…”
The intruders hadn’t simply rifled through the drawers of the desk belonging to our non-existent secretary and thrown around the empty files that littered the shelves, they’d also gutted the sofa and armchairs and wrenched the mahogany doors of our fake respective offices off the wall.
“I suppose they must have lost it completely when they saw we had nothing of value…” I said with a sigh, realizing we couldn’t ring the mossos and initiate an investigation.
Borja surveyed the scene and shook his head.
“What a disaster! It will cost us a fortune to put this lot right!”
“And in the meantime, Mrs Solana will be here any minute,” I said, looking at my watch.
“We have to think of something.”
“We can’t see her here. An office that is supposed to pride itself on confidentiality, but that thieves can break into so easily, is hardly good publicity in our line of business,” I argued.
“Quite right. Besides, she’d see the doors are fake and that there’s only wall behind them.” He shook his head again. “Pity about the doors. They cost a fortune.”
“But you never paid for them!” I protested. I knew the carpenter was still waiting to be paid for the two mahogany doors that simulated two luxury offices, the one belonging to the company’s chief exec – that is, Borja – and his deputy – namely, yours truly.
“That’s neither here nor there!” yelped Borja. “In any case, we’ll have to find a different carpenter to make replacements.”
“We should call Mrs Solana immediately and cancel our meeting on some pretext or other,” I said, making a move as if to take my mobile from my pocket.
Borja gently took my arm and stopped me.
“We need this assignment,” he retorted. “It’ll be some time before I’m paid for that other business I mentioned. And, in the meantime, we need a cash injection. I’m as broke as you are.”
“We can call her and arrange to meet somewhere else,” I suggested. “We can say our office has been flooded.”
“There’s a slight problem. I left my mobile at home and don’t have her number,” he replied.
“We could go downstairs and wait for her in the street…”
“And then what? Take her to a bar and ask her to recount her life story surrounded by total strangers?”
“Well, you tell me…” I said, glancing around our office. “There’s nothing doing here.”
“Don’t you worry,” Borja replied, grinning at me like a Cheshire cat. “I’ve just had a brilliant idea.”
I fear my brother’s bright ideas more than the plague, because they have a mysterious tendency to introduce chaos into our lives. I was about to tell him to forget it, which would have been the most sensible move in view of what happened later, but, instead of that, I simply listened to what he suggested.
“Our upstairs neighbour is away and I’ve got the keys to his flat,” said Borja. “We can tell Mrs Solana we’ve had a burst pipe and that a friend let us have his flat for the meeting.”
“You’ve got the keys to a neighbour’s flat?” I asked, trying to hide my amazement.
“Yes, that’s right, the American who lives in the flat upstairs…” responded Borja in his most matter-of-fact tone.
“You have the keys to the American’s place?” I repeated, even more perplexed. “What was his name? Something Morgan, right?”
“Brian. Brian Morgan.” And he added, as if the information was vital, “He’s from Philadelphia.”
“Oh!”
I had no idea my brother was on good terms with any neighbour on our staircase, let alone that he was so close he had the keys to his flat. All I knew about the said Brian was that he spent very little time in his flat; according to Paquita, who likes a good gossip, he was always off and about with his suitcases. He was younger than us, though I’d say he was nearer forty than thirty-five, spoke Spanish with a strong American accent and was as tall as Paul. That was all I remembered, because we had passed each other on the stairs a couple of times at most.
“So, I take it you’re the best of friends,” I said to prod him.
“No, not at all,” responded Borja. “It was just that one day when you weren’t around, he came down to the office and asked if I wouldn’t mind keeping a duplicate of his keys in case there was an emergency.”
“An emergency?”
“Well, as he is always on his travels and spends very little time in Barcelona…”
“And why did he ask you? I don’t get it. It would have made more sense to give the keys to the concierge, wouldn’t it?”
“I’ve no idea. The fact is I do have the keys to his flat and he’s not around…” grunted my brother, looking at his watch impatiently and trying to change the subject.
“I hope this isn’t another fine mess you’re going to get us into.”
“Of course not!” he rasped, as if I’d insulted him. “It was just a favour I did a neighbour.”
“Pep, I know you only too well.”
Although I couldn’t imagine what murky machinations were lurking behind that set of keys, I assumed Borja was hiding something.
“Haven’t I told you time and again not to call me Pep?” he grumbled. “One day you’ll let it out in company!”
“I’m sorry.”
Sometimes, when we are by ourselves, I forget to call him Borja and come out with Pep, which is, in fact, his real name. The pompous name of Borja Masdéu-Canals Sáez de Astorga that he decided to adopt when he came back to Barcelona, alongside the aristocratic ascendancy, he invented to help him hobnob with the upper classes of Barcelona as if he were one of them. We don’t look like each other, although we are twins (Borja seems younger, perhaps because he still has all his hair), so nobody apart from Inspector Badia knows we are brothers. Not even Montse and Lola. We tell our clients we are business partners, and our entrepreneurial strategy has worked well so far.
&
nbsp; “Come on, we’re running out of time,” he said, looking at his watch again. “Let’s go up to the American’s flat and make sure it’s fit for our visitor.”
And he walked out of the office and sped upstairs without giving me the right of reply.
2
Unlike our office, which just about has a small lobby, a room where we see clients and a tiny, definitely bijou toilet, our neighbour’s flat was state-of-the-art. The dining room was some twenty square metres and, according to Borja, the flat had a couple of bedrooms, a bathroom, a second toilet, a kitchen and a laundry room that looked over an inner courtyard. Brian had certainly rented it furnished, because, although the furniture was brand new and quite expensive, the final effect was far too impersonal: everything was just so and matching, and nothing was out of place. In fact, the flat was so tidy it didn’t look as if anyone lived there, but Borja and I immediately noticed a strange smell in the air that was coming from the kitchen.
“I expect it’s because the flat has been shut up for so long,” I suggested. “Your friend must have forgotten to put the rubbish out the last time he was here.”
“Phew!” Borja wrinkled his nose, his sense of smell being much more developed than mine, perhaps to make up for his colour blindness. “There’s rotten meat somewhere. We can’t see anyone here with this stench. It’s awful.”
“Perhaps if we shut the kitchen door and open the windows to make a draught…”
“We must do something. Why don’t you go down and get Mariajo’s bottle of perfume. We can use it as an air freshener. In the meantime, I’ll put the rubbish in the laundry room and open all the windows.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said, rushing downstairs.
Mariajo, our secretary, doesn’t exist, even though my brother and I have got into the habit of talking about her as if she were real flesh and blood. Borja thinks we need to give our customers the impression we employ a high-class company secretary, not just a series of temps. When we see clients in the office, we say Mariajo is out on an errand for us, while the classic fragrance of L’Air du Temps, a small pot of red nail varnish from Chanel that’s always on her desk and a Loewe scarf draped over the back of her chair create the illusion of a beautiful crème-de-la-crème secretary who, according to Borja, lends a touch of distinction – what he calls “glamour” – to our company.
I struggled to track down the bottle of perfume among the debris. It had lodged itself under a sofa in one corner of the room, but was fortunately intact. I left the door so it looked shut and not as if it had been broken into and hurried back to the American’s flat. I had to ring the bell twice, and when Borja finally opened the door I could see from the look on his face that something was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
Borja was as white as a sheet.
“I feel a bit queasy…”
“Have you got pains in your chest? Are you finding it difficult to breathe?” I gripped his arm firmly to make sure he didn’t collapse on the floor, if he fainted, and split his head open. “I’ll ring for an ambulance.”
I imagined a worst-case scenario and had diagnosed cardiac arrest. My mind dizzily reviewed the packet of cigarettes he smokes a day, the gin and tonics we sometimes drank at Harry’s, Mariona’s dry martinis and all the crap he eats because he hates cooking. I naturally also thought of the effort and physical wear and tear involved in satisfying two women who are no longer young innocents and know what they want.
“No, nothing like that,” he said, as if he’d read my thoughts. “The truth is… Excuse me, I’m going to be sick…” and he rushed to the toilet.
Luckily, he got there in time to avoid vomiting the croissant and coffee he’d eaten for breakfast in the middle of the hallway. I helped him to wash his face with cold water, and the second I saw the colour coming back to his cheeks, I calmed down.
“I need a brandy. Let’s go into the lounge. It’s got a minibar,” he whispered.
“A doctor is what you need,” I replied. “We ought to go to a hospital.”
“I’m fine.” His voice was still shaky. “It was the scare. I’ll tell you later.”
“The scare? What scare?”
“There’s no time for that now. Did you find the perfume?”
“Yes.”
“Spray it around the flat. And then go down and wait for Mrs Solana. But don’t go into the kitchen,” he whined as he gulped down his cognac.
“Why not?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“What’s in the kitchen?” I insisted, heading down the passage, not giving it a second thought, determined to find out what had upset him so.
“Eduard, please, don’t go in…”
“But, what on—”
I should have listened to him. As soon as I opened the door, I too started retching and puking. There was no sack full of rotting organic waste, as I’d imagined, but the corpse of a man crawling with insects and beginning to stink in the middle of a pool of congealed blood. I shut the door, leaving my vomit behind me, and tottered queasily back to the lounge.
“Pep, on the kitchen floor there’s a…” I didn’t finish my sentence. My legs were giving way and I had to sit down.
“I did tell you not to go in. Here, have a shot,” he said, pouring me one.
“But there’s a corpse in there!” I shouted.
“My hunch is that he’s been there for a good long time.”
“Is it your American friend?”
“I think so, although I didn’t get a proper look at his face.”
“His face was covered in blood and insects…” I responded, still shaking.
“I know. I think he was shot in the head.”
“We must tell the police immediately. The best thing would be to ring the mossos,” I suggested.
“Wait, take it easy,” said Borja, recovering his sangfroid. “Remember that Mrs Solana is about to arrive any moment now.”
“And you want me to sit back and relax?”
“I mean we should just wait a bit before we inform the police. First we must speak to her.”
“But you’re not intending to talk to her here, are you?” I shouted. “With this stench and that corpse covered in creepy-crawlies in the kitchen! Not to mention that this must be the scene of the crime!”
“Here’s our plan of action. I’ll spray Mariajo’s perfume around the flat while you go down and wait for her in the street,” he said, getting up from the sofa and ignoring my protests.
“Borja, I don’t think it’s a good idea…”
“You just do what you’re told,” he said, looking at his watch. “We don’t have much time.”
My stomach was still churning and I didn’t feel strong enough to argue with him, although I couldn’t help thinking through the consequences of using the scene of a crime as a place to welcome a client who, to boot, was a writer of crime fiction. I didn’t want to imagine what might happen if the police found out, but, on the other hand, I supposed that by virtue of her profession Teresa Solana must be used to visiting morgues and, thus, only too familiar with the reek of death stinking out the flat. Despite Mariajo’s perfume I was afraid she’d soon realize that there was a corpse decomposing in the room next door, and for a moment I was tempted to turn round and tell Borja this was complete madness. At the end of the day, it wasn’t such a blow to lose a client, I told myself, and then I recalled that our company wasn’t enjoying its best moment and that Montse’s business was also looking shaky, thought how it wouldn’t be the first time Borja and I had managed to survive a dodgy situation and decided to put on a brave face.
Fortunately, Teresa Solana arrived a quarter of an hour late. While I was waiting for her in the street, I had time to smoke a cigarette and get over my scare. Borja was right: it seemed our neighbour (if it really was him) had been shot dead. The puddle of congealed blood around him indicated he had hardly died from natural causes, and that meant the police would begin an investigation and we�
��d have to answer a pile of questions, like what we were doing in the flat and why Borja possessed duplicate keys.
Over the weekend I’d done a Google search on Teresa Solana, as I do with all our clients, and I had seen the odd photo of her online, so I recognized her the moment I saw a woman with short dark hair walking quickly towards me and anxiously glancing at her watch. The way she was dressed reminded me of Lola’s showy style, and I assumed they must both frequent the same boutiques, far from that neighbourhood. Unlike Lola, however, Teresa wasn’t wearing high heels but flat, red shoes. Nor was she heavily made up.
“Mrs Solana? I am Eduard Martínez, Mr Masdéu’s partner,” I cheerily greeted her when I saw her stop in front of the entrance to our building and scrutinize an address in a notebook.
“Pleased to meet you. I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, looking sincerely repentant as she shook my hand. “I had a devil of a time finding a taxi…”
“Don’t worry,” I smiled. “We’ve had a hectic morning and that’s why I came downstairs to welcome you.”
“Are you leaving already? Good heavens, I am sorry…”
“No, not at all,” I hastened to reassure her. “We’ve had a burst pipe and the office is flooded. We’re waiting for the plumber.”
“That’s really unlucky!”
“You can say that again! If you don’t mind, we’ll have our meeting in the flat of a friend who’s away on holiday and has let us borrow his flat. It’s in this same building. My partner’s up there already.”
“That’s fine.”
“This way, please,” I replied, opening the door and letting her go in first, like a true gentleman, as Borja had taught me.
Barcelona 03 - The Sound of One Hand Killing Page 2
