The Altogether Unexpected Disappearance of Atticus Craftsman

by Mamen Sánchez

  “Yes, I knew that.”

  “So the Pirate, by the looks of it, had an idea: He told María to forge Berta’s signature and send off an invoice for a nonexistent piece of work, to see if they’d pay it. The next month, like clockwork, the money arrived from England. María had sent the invoice direct to London and, of course, she hadn’t kept a copy or left any trace of it in Madrid.”

  “Because it was fake.”

  “Right. Then, when they saw the trick had worked, they did the same again, this time with a larger amount. And so, all year, María and Barbosa have been splitting the money, which has gone into different accounts in different banks.”

  “I don’t believe it! That’s why the magazine was hemorrhaging money! And poor Berta slaving away, unable to understand why we were going under when she’d been so careful with all the expenses!”

  “Berta’s a wreck. She hasn’t stopped crying. Put yourself in her shoes. Everything she’s done for María, how much she’s cared for and protected her, and now she discovers this.”

  “Poor Berta.”

  “But that’s not the worst of it. Do you remember María’s black eyes and bruises? And we thought that the disgusting chauvinist pig was abusing her? Well no, love, it wasn’t just domestic violence, he was threatening her, trying to get her to keep her mouth shut. Because when Míster Crasman showed up in Madrid, María wanted to tell Berta what they’d done. She wanted to confess everything, beg forgiveness, pay the money back. She was ready to sell the little house and piece of land that her father left her in a village near Valencia to repay the losses, but she realized that the amount was huge, it’d got out of hand and something of that scale counted as a serious crime. She was afraid she’d end up in prison and, what’s more, would end up separated from Bernabé without custody of the kids, her life in ruins.”

  “And she was scared.”

  “She told Barbosa that Míster Crasman had taken the account books home to study them in detail. The whole thing was going to come out as soon as he looked at the books and saw the fake invoices, the payments to Barbosa, the accounts in different names, the fake businesses they used to receive payments, et cetera.”

  “So the Pirate broke into the flat!”

  “So it seems. He found out which police officer was in charge of tracking down Mr. Craftsman—who, as you know, is still in Granada, under Soleá’s watchful eye—because he was scared that once the police got involved, the case would be solved immediately. He figured there was no time to lose, so he won Inspector Manchego over, told him he was a locksmith and that he could help him get into the flat on Calle del Alamillo; that way he managed to kill two birds with one stone.”

  “Get into the house, steal the account books, and slip out through the door without fear of Manchego arresting him.”

  “Because at that moment they were accomplices. If the inspector arrested him, he’d look like a corrupt officer and, what’s more, a real idiot.”

  “Right.”

  “He said his name was Lucas and then covered all the tracks that might connect him to the Craftsman case. Manchego thought that the so-called Lucas, surely a drug addict, had gone to burgle the Alamillo flat and, of course, he’d had the wool pulled right over his eyes. He suspected it wasn’t the first time Barbosa had done something like that, probably other officers had fallen into the same trap and kept quiet so as not to look like idiots. But he never imagined that the locksmith was really after the accounts.”

  “So César Barbosa managed to steal the books and threatened María and beat her up so she wouldn’t talk.”

  “Things were getting ugly. María’s life was at risk. Sooner or later, César Barbosa would’ve made a fatal decision so as not to end up in prison.”

  “He almost killed her yesterday.”

  “Exactly. He wasn’t far off. María hid out at Berta’s house, fell asleep on the sofa and, while she was sleeping, got a message from Barbosa saying she’d better keep her mouth shut or he’d kill them both.”

  “Oh my God! What did Berta do?”

  “She called Inspector Manchego. Then, apparently, he came with four friends and they spent the night on guard, waiting for Barbosa to show up.”

  “And did he?”

  “Did he show up? At three in the morning, ready to kill them both, for sure, but when he saw that the police were there, he ran off.”

  “And he’s still on the loose—” They were interrupted by someone banging on the office door. It made Asunción and Gaby jump out of their skins. They hugged each other like two terrified schoolgirls, thinking it was César Barbosa, crazed and out of control, come to take them hostage, threaten to kill them, gag them, and hold them at gunpoint, until the police promised immunity and a plane ticket to some secluded Caribbean island.

  Whoever it was banged on the door again.

  “Who is it?” Asunción managed to stammer.

  “Open the door!” someone in the hallway said in perfect English. “This is Marlow Craftsman.”

  “Míster Crasman?”

  Asunción and Gaby looked at each other in astonishment. They pulled themselves together as best they could and hurried to open the door to the man who owned not only that office but Librarte magazine itself and the entire Craftsman publishing house. Mr. Marlow Craftsman, whom they had only ever seen in photos, had arrived, unannounced, at the worst moment in the history of the magazine.

  Asunción was trembling as she opened the door.

  On the photocopier was a crocheted blanket, and on the blanket sat a flask of hot chocolate, sugary churros, and two cups. The computers were all switched off, the phones were unplugged, only two of the five staff had turned up to work, Gaby’s chair was still rocking, it was almost ten o’clock on a Friday, and that man was not only very important, he was also English.

  “Welcome to Librarte” was all Asunción could think to say when she saw the disbelief on the boss’s face.

  Just then, they heard voices on the stairs. The voices of three small children. And coughs.

  From behind Craftsman appeared the flushed faces of María’s three children, who all had fevers—Bernabé had left them at the door, they could find their way from there—and, without a word, they came into the office and launched themselves at the churros and chocolate.

  “Want you breakfast, Míster Crasman?” asked Asunción in her rusty English.

  CHAPTER 41

  Moira Craftsman couldn’t make up her mind whether or not to unpack the suitcase that she had crammed with items she considered strictly necessary for the rescue mission. Everything fitted so perfectly inside the Louis Vuitton case that she was afraid she wouldn’t manage to get it all back in once she unpacked and spread her belongings out on the bed at the Ritz. She was a sensible woman. She decided to wait and see what Marlow said once he had spoken to Inspector Manchego again and interrogated each of the Librarte employees. If they were going to stay awhile in Madrid, then it would be better to tidy her things away in the chest of drawers, arranged, as usual, according to color. If, on the other hand, this garlic-scented city wasn’t to be their final destination—how right Victoria Beckham had been; it smelled of garlic and onions, of fried squid and other unidentifiable fatty substances—and they were to continue along the winding roads into deepest, darkest Spain, then she should leave everything as it was: shoes in their covers, hats in their boxes, and underwear neatly folded inside the Liberty bags she had kept so carefully for years.

  So she put the closed suitcases in a corner and went down to the dining room for breakfast. She sat at a round table next to a window that looked out onto the garden. The bare branches of chestnut trees greeted her. The night had been cold and damp, and Spain’s famous sun was startling in its absence.

  It had been her idea to stay at the Ritz, of course. Marlow wouldn’t have minded where he stayed; he was immune to strange smells and noises in the night. Moira, on the other hand, trusted only well-known hotels, the kind that look as if they’ve come off
a production line. The Mandarin Oriental, for example, with its silk-lined corridors, its exotic fruits, and its unmistakable scent, was exactly the same in London or New York or Bangkok. What a shame that Spain’s only Mandarin Oriental was in Barcelona—although it was no surprise, because that city was much more cosmopolitan, if she was to judge by the Woody Allen film she had seen with her film club, in which a reckless foreigner got mixed up with a crazy Spanish couple.

  In Madrid they had to make do with the Ritz, with its air of aristocratic nostalgia, its grand piano and its chandeliers, its uniformed porters, its maids in caps and aprons, and eggs Benedict for breakfast. As Moira well knew, it’s better to play it safe than take a gamble with local food. Would madam like to try migas? It’s a typical Spanish dish, with bread fried in garlic and olive oil accompanied by rashers of bacon . . . No, thank you, bring me a cup of tea and some eggs Benedict, please, and a copy of the Times, if you’d be so kind.

  The dining room slowly emptied of businessmen and filled with newlywed couples, rich tourists, and lone guests like her. She had the morning ahead of her and nothing better to do than dwell on her reason for being there: her poor Atticus, missing in combat in a hostile land, surrounded by savages capable of eating garlicky bacon for breakfast, swallowed up by the heart of darkness, like Kurtz, who ended up cutting off heads and leaving them out to dry.

  She thought about the premonitory nature of her husband’s name. After living a peaceful life for sixty years, the time had come for Marlow to undertake the mission he had been destined for since the beginning: He would have to go into the jungle and save his son from the clutches of the natives who were about to devour him in a cauldron full of Twinings Earl Grey.

  As for her, she felt just like Mary Livingstone, the ideal partner for an explorer. She kept her feet on the ground, acting as his guide and compass, because she understood that the greatest danger on a mission like this, far away from civilization, was losing one’s own identity and ending up adopting the barbarous customs of the natives: renouncing good manners, scruples, and social differences, giving oneself over to the pleasures of the flesh, letting oneself be swept up in their magic rituals and forgetting, for example, to always ask for bottled water and absolutely no ice. With the pressure of such a responsibility resting on her shoulders, Moira felt weak. She went back to her room, slumped fully dressed onto the bed, and placed a cold, damp flannel on her forehead. She decided she would stay in that position until she received instructions from Marlow about whether to unpack or not. The uncertainty was killing her: Should she hang her shirts in the wardrobe or fold them neatly in the top drawer?

  CHAPTER 42

  At first light the next day, Carretero, Macita, Míguel, and Josi set off for their jobs in the suburbs, and Berta’s house was finally left in silence. María, exhausted from crying and the weight of her conscience, got into the only bed in the house, took a Valium, and swore to herself that tomorrow she would grab the bull by the horns—turn Barbosa in and make her shameful confession to the rest of her workmates.

  With María so deeply asleep, Berta called Asunción to bring her up to speed on everything. “Tell Gaby as soon as she gets to the office,” she said, not expecting that Mr. Craftsman himself would turn up in Madrid that very day, denying them the time they needed to invent a story that would be more palatable than that of theft, adultery, and his son’s secret journey to Granada in search of García Lorca’s poems.

  Berta had no time to think of something that would justify her betrayal of Manchego’s trust, either. So far, the inspector had believed every word of her version: “While they’re still paying our salaries, we’d rather not delve too deeply into where Mr. Craftsman might be; he’s a grown man, after all, and free to do what he wants with his life.” But sooner or later the time would come to tell him the truth. And it would hurt.

  Perhaps they could find a way to make Manchego understand that they hadn’t acted out of spite and hadn’t had the least intention of harming anyone, that Soleá’s plan wasn’t dangerous, Atticus was fit and well in Granada, and all that remained was to put Barbosa behind bars, make him pay back the money he had stolen, and refill Librarte’s safes. After that they would call Marlow Craftsman to explain the real reasons behind the economic damage, bring Atticus back to Madrid, and plead with him to trust them and give them a second chance—well, not María, she would have to find another job, unfortunately, one in which she didn’t have access to anyone’s bank account. “But have pity on the four of us, Míster Crasman, can’t you see it wasn’t our fault? We were victims of the theft just like you.”

  It was difficult to predict how Manchego would take the news of Berta’s deception. He might get angry, or he might start sobbing hopelessly. “I trusted you,” he would tell her with tears in his eyes. “I even thought I felt something for you, Berta, despite your frumpy figure. At this late stage of life I was ready to believe I’d found my soul mate.” It would be heart-wrenching.

  Berta’s mind went blank when she tried to think of an alibi that wasn’t an even bigger lie. Because one thing was clear: The day they spoke for the first time, that cold November morning in the office, when Manchego asked if she knew where Atticus Craftsman was, she had said no. A resounding “no,” unsoftened by any nuance or excuse. And to make things worse, more than a month had gone by since that first interrogation and, although she received regular updates from Soleá about every step Atticus Craftsman took around the Sacromonte hillsides, she had never told Manchego the truth.

  Berta knew, for example, that Atticus Craftsman had stayed at Soleá’s house from his arrival until August 10, the day when Soleá tearfully admitted that his visit to Granada was part of a shady plan dreamed up by the Librarte girls with the sole aim of drawing out their anxious wait until they were laid off. She also knew that that revelation had been like a stab in the back for poor Míster Crasman who, it seemed, had got his hopes up about Soleá and had gone as far as to kiss her on a beach, at sunset. She knew that after that disappointment, Atticus drifted for several days like a soul in limbo through the streets of El Albaicín with only his guitar for company, sleeping rough, drinking too much, getting into plenty of trouble, and finally finding accommodation in a cave run by Soleá’s cousin, where on certain nights he stood in for one of the musicians—to the delight of the tourists, whose understanding of flamenco music left a lot to be desired.

  As for Soleá, she had called a couple of days after the incident on the beach with the fear of death circling. That’s what she told Berta: that death was circling her house, Granny Remedios was gravely ill, the whole family had moved into the house, they had brought the bed down to the living room and put it near the fire, you understand, don’t you, Berta? In such circumstances there was no way she could go back to Madrid, what with all seventeen members of the family sleeping, eating, and living there, she had to look after them, they had left their homes in Antequera, their businesses, their commitments, so they could say goodbye to Remedios properly.

  “It’s not like all seventeen of them are at the foot of the bed all the time,” Soleá explained. “The family comes and goes, but there are always ten or twelve of them, a dozen mouths to feed, and my granny, who’s very old, says she can see Christ, as if he was walking toward the other side and leading her behind him.”

  “Has the doctor been to see her?”

  “Yes. But he can’t find anything serious. He says it’s an illness affecting her spirit more than her body, but it could kill her all the same.”

  The problem was that after four months in bed, Remedios was still firmly in this world, not budging, and the Librarte team was suffering as a result of Soleá’s absence.

  “I can work from home, Berta, if you’ll let me. I can cover the cultural life of Andalusia. I can do ‘on this day in . . .’ lists, articles, profiles, whatever you want, but don’t make me go back to Madrid. I couldn’t bear for my granny to die without me by her side.”

  “And what about Mr
. Craftsman?”

  “Míster Crasman visits every morning. He brings flowers for Granny Remedios, or sweets, things like that. But I always try not to bump into him; it breaks my heart to think how badly I’ve treated him. I peek down the stairs, and if I see he’s in the living room, I hide. One day I even jumped out the window so I wouldn’t have to say hello to him. Do you get what I’m saying, Berta? It would be better if he went back to Madrid, or England, so I could forget about him because, as it stands, seeing him every day, hearing him talk to my granny, singing things to her, playing the guitar, with that accent of his, which cracks me up—an Englishman singing flamenco!—and that walk of his, he looks like he’s about to fall over all the time, well, I think it’s sweet, Berta, what can I say, I think I’m warming to him.”

  Given how things were, Berta thought the time had perhaps come to share this information with Manchego. As awkward as things might turn out, the right thing to do was collaborate with the investigation and allow the inspector to solve the case. Otherwise it would be an obstruction of justice, not to mention a horrible betrayal of trust, which could have nasty consequences for the future of her friendship with the man who was slowly stealing her heart.

  But Manchego, sitting across from her at the kitchen table, couldn’t tear his gaze away from her tired eyes. He was looking at her with a mixture of tenderness and affection that seemed out of place in a large man like him. What’s more, he had been moving his hand across the table until it met Berta’s, and had placed it on top of hers, warm and protective, and now he was stroking her trembling hand, with the obvious intention of squeezing it tight, lifting it to his lips, and kissing it. And then maybe, taking advantage of María’s deep sleep in the other room, Manchego would get up without saying a word, stand behind Berta, wrap his arms around her, stroke her hair, kneel at her side, bring his manly lips close to hers, their mouths would brush together, their souls would meet, and then . . .