City of Drowned Souls

by Chris Lloyd

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ‘I grew up on the other side of the village. Over there.’

  Francesc Bofarull pointed out of the window towards the north side of Vulpellac. The mountains beyond were vanishing in the steady fall of rain. It was much heavier now, with dark, thunderous clouds unfurling in the sky, seemingly barely metres above their heads. Elisenda always found the village to be a charming anachronism. Half a dozen restored medieval streets book-ended by new houses made to look ancient, it stood in quiet and timeless splendour to the left of the roundabout by the industrial estate after you left La Bisbal.

  ‘I didn’t expect to find you in,’ she’d told Bofarull truthfully when he’d answered the door.

  He’d quickly invited her and Josep in out of the rain and offered them coffee, leading them up to a room on the third floor, which boasted what would have been wonderful views over the village if the skies hadn’t just opened. The house was seventeenth-century, he’d told them, and had belonged to his mother’s family. His parents still lived in his father’s family home. It was a fairly similar story to Elisenda’s own, although unlike Bofarull, she’d grown up in Girona. Her parents now lived in her grandparents’ old house after years in the city, these days commuting to their jobs there, all to keep the home in the family. And like her parents, Bofarull had modernised his home while still keeping the heart of the old house intact. She had to confess to liking the traditional but new La Bisbal ceramic floor and stair tiles and the light wood throughout. The room they were in now was Bofarull’s home office, a political starship with a bank of top-end electronics on hewn stone shelves and a laptop open on an antique walnut table. A framed newspaper article on the wall featured Bofarull at his desk surrounded by his high-tech domain.

  ‘I work from home a lot,’ he explained. ‘Not so much right now with the elections going on, so you’re lucky to find me in.’

  ‘You were questioned at the time Albert went missing,’ Elisenda stated, watching his reaction. ‘Do you know why?’

  He was taken aback. ‘Everyone who knew the family was, I thought.’

  ‘And do you have any theories about Jaume’s disappearance now?’ She deliberately kept her voice cold.

  The campaign manager sat down at his desk to gather his thoughts. He quickly jumped up to his feet again. ‘Sorry, did you want coffee?’

  ‘Your thoughts on Jaume’s disappearance,’ Elisenda insisted.

  ‘I could really do with a coffee.’

  He led the way to the door out on to the landing and waited there, ushering Elisenda through.

  ‘I’ll be down now,’ Josep told him, lingering by the window.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t allow that,’ Bofarull told him.

  ‘And why’s that?’ Elisenda wanted to know.

  The campaign manager waved his arm around the room. ‘We’re four days from an election and I run the campaign for one of the leading figures in it. You must understand that I have a lot of sensitive information in this room. I can’t allow you to stay here without me being present. Unless you have a warrant.’

  ‘A warrant?’ Elisenda asked. ‘Why would we want a warrant?’

  ‘You wouldn’t. But if you want to search my house, you’ll need one.’

  Elisenda stood in front of him and studied his face. He was as cool and collected as ever, not a hair out of place or any undue colour to his cheeks. ‘There was no question of searching your house. We’re simply here to ask you a few questions about Jaume.’

  ‘Which we can do over coffee. So that’s good, then.’

  He gestured them both out of the door and followed them down the three flights to the ground floor. The same traditional but modern ceramic and wood theme ran through the kitchen, the same state-of-the-art appliances resting in carefully restored niches. Bofarull busied himself pouring water into a stylish, new machine that took the coffee from bean to cup and set out ceramic cups and saucers, a modern design made in traditional La Bisbal green and yellow. Elisenda couldn’t help feeling irritated by the all-singing, all-dancing gadget for making a hot drink.

  Outside, a wide patio with aluminium tables, potted palms and an olive tree was getting a soaking from the downpour as the rain took a firm hold of the village. At a right-angle to the glass door leading out from the kitchen, a wooden door reminded Elisenda of the door in the abandoned house they’d just left. The design of these houses had changed little in centuries.

  Josep tried the door but found it locked. ‘Is this the toilet?’ he asked Bofarull innocently.

  ‘It leads down to the cellar.’ He pointed to a door just outside the kitchen in the hall. ‘That’s the toilet if you need it.’

  ‘It can wait.’

  Josep wasn’t stooping for once. He always stood more upright, less self-conscious about his height, when he was feeling confident or in control. Elisenda had to stifle a smile.

  ‘What do you keep down there?’ she asked Bofarull.

  He glanced at the door. ‘Down there? Wine. It’s my vice. It keeps perfectly in the cellar, just at the right temperature.’ He poured out three cups of coffee and set them down on the kitchen table. ‘You asked me what my thoughts about Jaume’s disappearance were. To me, it’s quite clear. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a politically-motivated act to throw Susanna’s campaign off course.’

  Elisenda let the contents of the cellar off for the time being. ‘And who do you suspect of being responsible for it? One of her political competitors?’

  He shook his head emphatically. ‘No. Someone in the political arena simply wouldn’t do anything like this, it would be too high-risk a ploy. It would backfire too easily. No, this is someone outside politics but who is opposed to Susanna’s high set of values regarding the right way our country should be moving forward.’

  Elisenda took a sip from the coffee on the table, hating to admit that it tasted very good. ‘There will be a lot of people who disagree with her stance. The majority, in fact, I should imagine. Can you narrow it down to any particular group? Or person?’

  ‘The more radical anti-austerity or pro-independence groups.’

  Elisenda shook her head. ‘Unfortunately, that’s still the majority.’

  Bofarull bristled at her reply. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Come Sunday, we’ll see where the wishes of the majority lie.’

  ‘No doubt. The problem is we can’t wait until Sunday to make sure that Jaume is safe. We need something more specific to go on now if we’re going to find him soon.’

  Bofarull held both hands up. ‘That’s how I see it. I couldn’t say who specifically would do it, but I do believe it’s to do with the elections. An attempt to subvert democracy.’

  Trying to tease answers out of him, and wanting but not wanting to engage in political debate, Elisenda glanced again at the cellar door. It was possibly irrational, but after the scene at the abandoned house in the Gavarres, she needed to know for sure what lay downstairs.

  ‘Would you permit us to take a look at your cellars?’ she asked him.

  He shook his head. ‘It’s wine, I told you. And I’m sorry, but I really am very busy. We go to the polls in four days’ time and Jaume disappearing like this is causing us any amount of headaches. I have a lot of work I need to be doing.’

  ‘Headaches?’ Josep barked. ‘A child is missing.’

  Elisenda hushed him and he turned away in disgust. ‘Headaches?’ she echoed. ‘An odd way to describe it.’

  ‘You know what I mean. It’s an extra cross for us to bear at this time.’

  ‘The extra scrutiny in the press,’ Elisenda agreed. She watched his face closely as she made her next comment. ‘And all the extra air time your party’s getting.’

  His look stayed calm. ‘You imagine a woman with the deep faith that Susanna has would use a situation like this for political gain?’

  ‘I’m sure Susanna’s faith would mean she wouldn’t contemplate using her own son like this. Are you also a member of Opus Dei?’r />
  As Bofarull searched for the words to say, Elisenda heard her phone ring in her bag. She ignored it, waiting for the self-assured man opposite her to answer. The moment her phone stopped ringing, Josep’s started. He answered it. She tried to ignore his conversation, but the interruption had given Bofarull the breathing space not to say anything rash. It was Josep who spoke instead.

  ‘Elisenda,’ he said after hanging up. ‘That was Àlex. There’s been another house robbery.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘I want a warrant to search Bofarull’s house,’ Elisenda told Josep. ‘There’s something about him.’

  Josep nodded. It was the third time she’d said it since they’d left his house in Vulpellac.

  ‘Do you think the boy’s in his cellar?’ he asked her now.

  ‘No. If he was holding him, I don’t think he’d be that stupid. But I’d like to know what is down there. Who keeps a locked door in their own house?’

  She was distracted by a reflection of flashing blue and red lights skating across the windscreen. The strands of colour were caught in the raindrops lashing down on the glass, the wipers struggling to push one lot away before the next onslaught hid the outside world from view. Josep was forced to drive slowly through the torrential downpour, peering through the rain at the jumble of cars ahead of him. A uniformed Mosso, miserable and drenched in his waterproofs, flagged them down, but signalled them through when he saw Elisenda in the passenger seat. It was still daytime, but the dark clouds and sheets of water had turned the scene before them into a crepuscular chaos. None of it was helped by the rain churning up the dirt track leading up to a house they couldn’t yet see, sending their car skittering across the mud.

  ‘This is useless,’ Elisenda told him. ‘We’ll have to walk from here.’

  Luckily, the ground was less treacherous when walking than in the car, and they hurried towards the flashing lights outside the house, the sound of the rain on their waterproof hoods making any further conversation until they were under cover impossible. Àlex was waiting for them on the porch.

  ‘It’s a bad one, Elisenda.’ He pointed to an ambulance behind them. ‘One of the members of the family has a head injury. The paramedics are looking at him now, but it’s not looking good.’

  As he spoke, the ambulance siren was turned on and it began to pick its way carefully down the track towards the main road. They watched it emerge onto the asphalt and pick up speed immediately. A Seguretat Ciutadana patrol car followed behind.

  ‘Where are they taking him? Girona?’ Elisenda asked.

  Àlex nodded. They were at an isolated house just off the winding road from La Bisbal to Cassà de la Selva, at the other end of the Gavarres mountains, not that far from one of the houses that Àlex and Manel had checked out the day before.

  ‘These attacks are getting more frequent,’ Àlex told her, leading her and Josep into the house, past a team of Científica scouring the floor. They’d marked out a path for them to follow. ‘Counting the failed attempt on Monday, this is the third one in less than a week.’

  Elisenda scanned the rooms in the house as Àlex explained what had happened. The story, like the house, was the same one they’d been getting used to since before the summer. A restored house out in the sticks, the family at home, terrorised until they’d transferred money and handed over anything else of value in the house, including the car.

  ‘Where are the other family members now?’ she asked him.

  ‘Gone to the hospital. It’s just a husband and wife living here. The wife has gone with Montse to the hospital in a Seguretat Ciutadana car. She wasn’t hurt, but she’s obviously concerned about her husband’s injuries. Montse was taking a statement in the car while they were waiting for the ambulance to go. The wife didn’t want to stay in the house.’

  ‘OK. Montse will call if there’s anything we need to know straight away. Anything turn up to shed light on who’s doing it?’

  Àlex shook his head. ‘Nothing. And with this weather, Científica can’t do very much outside.’

  They watched as two forensic officers in white coveralls dusted a table where a television set had once stood. One looked at the other and shook her head. Elisenda didn’t expect them to find much that would be of any use.

  Àlex’s phone rang and he answered it. ‘You can’t be serious,’ he muttered into it. ‘OK, I’ll be there now.’

  ‘Problem?’

  ‘Manel. He wants me to go outside and look at something. In this rain.’

  Elisenda and Josep followed him outside, walking gingerly past the parked cars and through the mud towards the end of the drive. The ground underfoot was getting steadily more slippery, and they struggled to keep their feet.

  ‘Better be worth it,’ Josep shouted above the deafening noise.

  At the end of the track, where they’d watched the ambulance join the main road, they saw a torchlight sweeping the area, the light from it reflecting against the thick rain back onto Manel, swatting about in the downpour.

  ‘Never rains like this in Lleida,’ he yelled at them as they arrived.

  ‘You got me out here to tell me that?’ Àlex called back.

  Manel shook his head, his face swivelling comically from side to side inside the hood while the waterproof material stayed in the same position. Elisenda could see a laugh reach the corners of Josep’s mouth. Manel shone the torch at a point over her right shoulder and, with his free hand, gestured to them to follow him back along the track. Grumbling over the roar of the rain, they turned and gingerly retraced their steps a short distance. He suddenly stopped and turned back to face them, shouting something, but his words were snatched away. Pointing again, this time behind them, he directed his torch at something.

  ‘This had better be good,’ Àlex shouted.

  Elisenda already knew it would be.

  Carved into the gnarled bark of a pine tree by the side of the main road next to the track leading to the house was a small triangle. It looked freshly made and was meant to be visible only if you knew what you were looking for. Projecting from the apex, two further cuts had been made, two lines sticking out of the top. It resembled the cairn of stones that Àlex had found on the ground near the house on Saturday night. Another cut had been made in the bark. A horizontal line scything through the middle of the triangle.

  Manel shouted again, his voice barely audible.

  ‘There’s your symbol,’ was all Elisenda heard.

  He reached for the sleeping bag to pull it up and an intense, raw pain surged the length of his arm. Tears sprang instantly to his eyes and he gasped for breath. He tried moving his right arm again, more gingerly this time, and something cut into his wrist. More by touch than by sight, he discovered there was a thin metal ring clasped tightly around it.

  He pulled it again, but it was attached to another ring. He felt it. A thick iron hoop set into the wall he recalled seeing when he’d first descended the ladder into the cellar. He had no idea how long ago that was now. Two days? Three? Without letting the thin metal ring move on his wrist, he tugged at the hoop. Gently at first, then more frantically, pushing it hopelessly first one way then the other. It was as solid as the wall holding it.

  It was only as he leaned his head against the wall in despair that he registered the dull ache behind his eyes. When he closed them, the darkness behind the lids rushed in and out, making him feel he wanted to be sick. He quickly opened them again and the dizziness abated.

  The water, he remembered.

  He found the bottle with his right foot and lashed out at it, sending it skittering across the stone floor. He recalled feeling drowsy just a few minutes after gulping down great mouthfuls. He remembered it had tasted odd, but he’d thought that must have been because of the plastic. He knew now that his captor had drugged the water. In the darkness, he could make out the pedestal of crumbled steps and immediately knew why. He’d been getting closer and closer with his leaps to the bottom of the door. It must have worried hi
s captor, who’d drugged him so that he could come down into the cellar and manacle him to the wall.

  In his anger, he tugged with his whole arm at the ring, the thin metal cutting into the raw flesh of his wrist. Wincing with the pain, he leaned his head down to lick away the blood he could feel welling up around the metal. It tasted sharp but comforting. It soothed the wound.

  ‘What is it you want with me?’ he shouted in anger, but this time, no one came to look at him through the door.

  He leant his face against the wall. He could feel a trickle of water running down it. The river beyond began its murmuring.

  He closed his eyes again, ignoring the nausea, and cried.

  Thursday

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘And how does that make you feel?’

  Elisenda had no idea how any of it made her feel. What she did know was that if she stayed on the couch a moment longer, she’d be asleep, in spite of the studied discomfort of Doctora Puyals’ torture furniture. Unwillingly, she closed her eyes for a moment and opened them immediately. She’d seen Lina again in that brief instant.

  ‘You saw your daughter last night?’ Puyals asked her. ‘Your visions of her are becoming more distinct.’

  Elisenda looked at the wall opposite her, at the jumble of the doctor’s framed certificates dancing in front of her. She was dazed and replied without thinking.

  ‘And this morning.’

  ‘You saw her in your apartment this morning?’

  Elisenda shook her head.

  ‘Out. By the city walls when I was running. I stumbled on the rocks by the Torre Gironella and she was standing by the wall. She was just looking at me.’

  ‘Did you hear her say anything?’

  ‘She never says anything. I only hear her when I can’t see her. When she sings.’

  ‘How well did you sleep last night?’

  Elisenda cast her mind back to the hours of darkness in her still unfamiliar redecorated flat. She’d spent the night on the sofa, wrapped in a sheet, watching out for the shadows flitting behind the paper screens. Looking one way when the sound of a lullaby suddenly floated at her from another. Softly crying in a way she never would in public.