In London—in Hyde Park, for example—he would have found some shade, grabbed one of those deck chairs they have all over the place, and settled down for a nice snooze with the background noise of children playing and the quiet company of squirrels. But there was no one dozing peacefully on the grass in El Retiro. The noise was too much for an aching head like his. There were musicians, shouts, races, skates, bicycles, tourists, suspicious-looking vendors, Asian masseurs, tellers of predictable fortunes, mounted police, jugglers, tramps, and countless circus performers, each as astonishing as the next. In the midst of the chaos, Atticus glimpsed the murky water of a lake covered in little rowboats. His rower’s instinct led him to the Municipal Sports Club, where some half-decent-looking sculls were kept. He went to inquire and was told that at this time of day he wouldn’t find anyone except the caretaker’s cat. It was suggested that he come back another day, at another time, when he didn’t reek of alcohol. He was standing with his back to the water and didn’t notice the girls who ran up to the jetty, fleeing from a group of guys who were trying to splash them.
“Out of the way, gringo!” shouted a bare-chested boy when it was too late for Atticus to avoid a shower of dirty water that soaked him from head to foot.
“Get in, blondie!” one of the girls shouted to him.
In the boat were five voluptuous young women with their wet T-shirts clinging to their bodies. Behind them, three or four boats full of eager young men were trying to catch up with them, surround them, besiege them, and splash them again. The girls were laughing, they had wet hair, and they were chattering wildly.
Atticus took control of the small craft. He grabbed the oars, put his hundred thousand hours of training into practice, and was able to row the girls safely to shore to the surprise and disgust of the louts in pursuit. The girls then took the opportunity to mock the other rowers, wring out their hair and T-shirts, share cigarettes and chewing gum, and invite Atticus to spend the rest of an unforgettable afternoon with them.
They were part of a large, carefree group who had decided to set up camp in the Retiro until the police threw them out. They were students who didn’t appear to have homes or families and wanted nothing more than a good time. They had bottles of rum and Coke, guitars and drums, and an exam the next day that none of them planned on turning up for, because, as they explained to Atticus, they belonged to the Complutense University Anti-Exam League, an association created by students from various faculties who were fighting for the complete eradication of all testing because they believed that it bred competitiveness and failure.
“So, in protest, we’ve decided not to take any more exams,” said the very guy who had drenched Atticus in lake water. “We oppose the system because it’s unjust and unequal.”
“The day will come,” added another guy, “when exam rooms are deserted and classrooms are empty. Lecturers will lose their jobs, and the government will be forced to change the law.”
Ignoring the fact that all those dreamers were going to fail comprehensively and get into a whole heap of trouble the following day, Atticus declared that he was absolutely in favor of their revolutionary proposal. This gave him the right to share their drinks, campfire, and fumbles on the grass. Atticus couldn’t remember anything after about nine o’clock that evening. He never knew what police threats chased him and his new friends out of the park at midnight, along with the other drunks, homeless people, and crooks who were lying about on the grass, or what vehicle he got into later, or which dive his friends abandoned him in, or how he found his way back to his hotel.
The next thing Atticus knew, he was waking up naked on the messy bed of his luxury room with a headache that all the Earl Grey in England wouldn’t ease. He had apparently slept alone, because there were no signs of a female visitor. Nor a male visitor, thanks to God and all the saints in heaven. It didn’t appear that either of his kidneys had been removed during the night—there were no stitches down his sides—or that he had been raped, or beaten, or robbed. The most probable scenario was that he had made it back to the hotel under his own steam, although in a truly lamentable state, and that, incredibly, he had been able to remember his room number before passing out on the bed.
After recovering his physical composure and his dignity with a cold shower and plenty of cologne, Atticus, between throbs of pain, slowly remembered where he was (in Madrid), and why (on business), and about the meeting he had arranged with a certain Berta Quiñones at ten o’clock that morning.
He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eleven. He cursed alcohol and swore he would never again touch a drop as long as he lived. In a flash of inspiration, he thought to blame his tardiness on the time difference between Madrid and London. Better to look like an idiot than a drunk, he said to himself, and with typical British foresight he ordered a taxi on the telephone in his room.
CHAPTER 15
A week and two days had passed since Marlow Craftsman’s visit to Manchego’s office, and the inspector had to admit that the investigation had ground to a halt. After ruling out hospitals, prisons, hotels, and all other logical possibilities, the matter was starting to acquire an air of mystery. He had interrogated all five members of Librarte’s editorial team, but this had proved fruitless. They had all corroborated Berta’s version of events. They said they hadn’t heard anything from Atticus Craftsman for three months, and although this was somewhat puzzling, it was a real relief because the company director’s son had apparently come to Spain with the intention of closing the magazine down.
“As I’m sure you’ll understand,” Berta Quiñones had explained, “we’ve kept as quiet as mice these last few months. The truth is, Inspector, that while they’re still paying our salaries we’d rather not investigate Mr. Craftsman’s whereabouts too closely. He’s a grown man, after all, and perfectly free to do what he likes.”
Manchego opted to call Bestman this time, instead of Marlow, so he could speak in Spanish. Explaining the disappointing results of his search was going to be rather complicated and would require a good deal of diplomacy.
He got through to Bestman at his London office, where he was sheltered behind several bilingual receptionists, to all of whom Manchego informed who he was, what he was investigating, and the difficulties he was having in tracking down Mr. Craftsman.
“Mr. Manchego,” said Bestman finally.
“Inspector.”
“As you like.”
Bestman didn’t seem to be in a good mood.
“I’m sure I don’t need to reiterate how crucial it is that our conversations remain confidential. The fact that we are unsure of the whereabouts of one of Mr. Craftsman’s sons is a delicate matter that we must handle with the utmost discretion.”
“Of course,” replied Manchego. “My lips are sealed.”
“In that case,” Bestman clenched his jaw slightly, “I would appreciate it if you would refrain from sharing your professional concerns with all of Craftsman & Co.’s receptionists. It would not be entirely advantageous for this matter to become the talk of the office or to go beyond its walls and enter the public arena. It would not be good for the business.”
“I understand,” said the inspector, backing down.
There followed his ineloquent presentation of the facts: no news, no leads, no line of investigation . . .
“Trying to find Crasman in Spain is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” concluded Manchego. “That’s what it is.”
On the other end of the line, Bestman was cringing at the mere thought of having to pass on that information to Marlow. He made a mental note of the phrase “a needle in a haystack.”
• • •
When he hung up, Manchego acknowledged that he was at a dead end. The next stage should be to look for evidence in the flat on Calle del Alamillo. He would ask for a warrant, but he knew that the judge was unlikely to give him permission to bash the door down without a weighty reason. Not to mention that with Christmas, New Year, and Three Kings Day coming u
p, there was little chance of his request being dealt with until the middle of January.
Perhaps the moment had come to skirt around the edges of legality, he said to himself. In films, when the state machine moves too slowly and danger is imminent, the hero usually takes justice into his own hands.
The greatest danger, he understood, was precisely that he might get taken off the case. Christ on a bike, if Bestman and Craftsman’s patience ran out, they might take the case out of his hands and hire a firm of private detectives instead.
He couldn’t let that happen. He hadn’t waited half his life for a case like this to come his way only to screw up now thanks to a sluggish, overloaded legal system and the haste of a couple of Brits who lacked the requisite stiff upper lip.
While he was contemplating this, adrenaline set his mind racing and merged the nebulous image of Bestman with that of a stranger, a flimsy tree, and a couple of cigarettes. He remembered having had an odd conversation about the Craftsman case with a man who claimed to be a locksmith. He put his hand in his pocket. He still had the scrap of paper with a phone number and a name: Lucas.
He dialed the number.
“Hello?”
“Lucas,” he said authoritatively. “We need to meet.”
CHAPTER 16
When Soleá wanted to make someone fall for her, she wore her short floral skirt, her close-fitting shirt, and her high-heeled espadrilles. She let her black hair hang long and smooth down her back, with a natural wave on either side of her face. She put lengthening mascara on her eyelashes and applied lipstick that was midway between the color of blood and red wine.
She knew her assets and defects like the back of her hand: She would have liked to have been taller, with wider hips and a fuller bust, and been able to dance like her grandmother Remedios and sing like her brother Tomás. But she recognized that her blue eyes and her plump lips, inherited from her mother, and the golden skin of the Montoya family mixed with the perfect oval of her Heredia face were God’s gift to her. Soleá knew that she could dance and sing well, at least well enough to attract attention outside Granada’s El Albaicín neighborhood.
In the past, women like Soleá used to get married very young, then have a handful of beautiful children and spend their lives surrounded by cooking pots and guitars. That was enough to make them happy. Now, however, thanks to television, the Internet, and the foreign students who had moved into the new part of the city, with their sandals and hairy legs, their accents and modern ideas, things had changed significantly. Girls went to school, had dreams, wanted to see the world.
Grandmothers crossed themselves when one of their granddaughters started talking about university and languages, career opportunities and economic independence.
“And when are you going to get married?” they would invariably ask.
That said, the women were still more understanding than the men. Most of the men tried to squeeze girls’ desire for freedom out of them with kisses and promises of undying love. A lot of young women succumbed to the onslaught, fell in love, capitulated, and delegated the fulfillment of their own dreams to their daughters.
However, it was Soleá’s father, Pedro Abad, who had most encouraged her to fly the nest.
“Study. Train. Get out into the world.”
He knew from the start that his daughter had itchy feet and had set her sights high. He walked her to school every day, then to the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, and then he accompanied her to Madrid, for her MA in journalism. They looked for a nice place for her to live, in an old neighborhood with steep narrow streets. They rented a tiny flat, filled it with geraniums, assured themselves that it was a respectable area, and parted with floods of tears.
When Soleá got her first job as staff writer for an arts magazine, Pedro Abad went back to Granada and told everyone. Grandmothers fanned and crossed themselves, but that night, by way of a celebration, the youngest women in El Albaicín doubled the ingredients in their stews.
They never openly admitted it, but Soleá’s success was the success of all the Heredias and the Montoyas, and the Amayas and the Cortéses; it was shared by their daughters and granddaughters. This was perfectly clear to Soleá when she saw the hope shining in their eyes every time she went home. Which is why the prospect of losing her job filled her with such dread. She wasn’t worried for herself, because she was young and clever and would surely find another job before long, but she felt bad for those girls who would be angry and hurt. Because, as Soleá was only too aware, drama was a permanent resident of El Albaicín. Joys and sorrows were shouted to the four winds. There were no secrets there. They were carried far and wide.
• • •
“Mamá, I’ve got to tell you a big secret.”
Manuela was in the courtyard of her house in Granada when her phone rang that May Sunday. Soleá’s father was a payo, meaning he wasn’t a Gypsy, but the Gypsies thought he was all right. He had been born in Granada and worked his whole life in the fruit business, and made a reasonable living from selling oranges. He had inherited the business and his parents’ house, and had fallen in love with Manuela when he was a boy, playing chase with her and her cousins through the streets and squares.
“Oh, my Soleá!” Manuela replied, covering her face with her hands. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”
Soleá really hated getting her mother and grandmother involved in Librarte’s business. She had always preferred to keep them at a distance from the life she led in Madrid, from her investigative articles and her desire to write a serious novel one day. However, circumstances had changed, and she knew that if she wanted to keep her job, at least for a few months until Berta found a more permanent solution, she had no choice but to tell the two most important women in her life about the idea she’d been pondering for years.
“Do you remember Granny Remedios’s old chest?”
“The one where she keeps your grandfather’s things?”
“That’s the one.”
“Of course.”
“Well, we’re going to have to open it, Mamá. It’s a matter of life or death.”
• • •
Wearing her short floral skirt, her close-fitting shirt, and her high-heeled espadrilles, Soleá looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She took a deep breath and crossed herself. She ran out of the house. The others were waiting for her at the office on Calle Mayor, all shaking with fear.
“Did you speak to your mother?” Berta asked as soon as she opened the door.
“She’s with us,” Soleá replied. “She’s going to help us.”
Relief spread like wildfire through the other women. The plan was in action. All they had to do was wait, feigning innocence, for the unsuspecting Atticus Craftsman, who would arrive any moment with his air of superiority, his leather briefcase, and his termination letters, ready to give them their settlement, their severance pay, a slap on the back, and then, definitively, the boot.
CHAPTER 17
The taxi pulled up in the middle of Calle Mayor, bringing the traffic to a standstill. It deposited Atticus with the same lack of haste as an old lady crossing the street—and with utter indifference to other drivers’ insults and honking horns.
As the crow flies, the building that housed the Librarte office wasn’t too far from his hotel; it should have taken about fifteen minutes to get there. However, as soon as Atticus entered the narrow streets full of old-fashioned shops—with their awnings, wooden signs, and tired appearance—and saw the barbers’ shops, secondhand bookshops, and the bars from whose ceilings pigs’ trotters were hung up to dry like laundry, he felt as if he had fallen down a black hole and gone back fifty years.
He breathed in a heady combination of morning smells: fried food, cigarette smoke, ripe fruit, and the exhaust fumes of buses. He rather liked the mixture of Spanish aromas. Strange. He was hungry.
He rang the bell. The spy hole went from opaque to glassy. The door opened.
On the other side of the door was a
middle-aged, plump, smiling woman who hugged him as if he were a prodigal son returned to the fold.
“Come in, Mr. Craftsman, make yourself at home,” she said genially. “I’m Berta Quiñones. The girls and I have been waiting for you. Have you had breakfast?”
“I haven’t, as it happens,” replied Atticus, somewhat surprised by such a reception.
“Fantastic!” shouted a second older lady, who was fatter than the first and even more cheery. “So you won’t say no to a good cup of hot chocolate with churros and ensaimadas, am I right?”
Her name was Asunción. She told him that the buns were delicious, made with plenty of butter and filled with angel’s hair jam. She showed him how to eat the churros properly, by rolling them in sugar and then dunking them in the hot chocolate several times before eating them.
“Go on, try it.”
The other three women were significantly younger. They surrounded him and observed him attentively while, still holding his briefcase, he ate the gloriously tasty, crispy churro.
The prettiest of them, a tanned beauty with blue eyes, came slightly closer than propriety allowed. “You’ve got chocolate around your mouth, Míster Crasman,” she told him.
And she held out a white handkerchief that she removed from her own pocket.
On top of the photocopier, which was covered with a crocheted cloth, sat the rest of their breakfast. As well as the ensaimadas and churros, there were saint’s bones, marzipan rolls, almond pastries, and aniseed doughnuts.
Atticus let the five women spoil him.
“If you’re too hot, I can put the air-conditioning on,” said María.
After half an hour, he was so full he felt like the Big Bad Wolf with rocks in his belly, and everything Berta was saying was making his head spin. She had already brought him up to speed with the office and everyone who worked there.
The Altogether Unexpected Disappearance of Atticus Craftsman Page 6