A Not So Perfect Crime

by Teresa Solana

  The fact is that between the Saturday night party, Sunday hangover and Monday’s spot of bother, Borja and I had had little time to prepare the case we’d been contracted to solve. We still thought this was an investigation that would be as easy as pie. If Lídia Font did have a lover, we’d nail him sooner or later. Our strategy would be the one we always use in such cases, although on this occasion we might have to be more prudent since Lluís Font was a politician in the limelight and his pocket could provide our livelihood for a good while yet. We’d tail his wife, try to muster maximum info on one Pau Ferrer and subsequently, relaxing by three shots of Cardhu, (in the Dry Martini or Gimlet on Santaló, I expect), relate to the MP the results of our enquiries, before suggesting a new line of investigation to be accompanied by a similar brown envelope stuffed with the readies.

  We parked the Smart a couple of streets up from where our client lived, and waited in silence. As it’s a one-way street, if Lídia Font were driving, we’d see her pass by. If she came out and walked in the other direction we’d have time to drive round and catch her on Bonanova. We didn’t wait very long. At five past ten, the garage door opened and out came a small, spotlessly white Mercedes. Although the windows were tinted, we knew that the striking Mrs Font was behind the wheel.

  We followed her along the Diagonal as far as the plaça Francesc Macià. After leaving her car in a parking lot, Lídia Font walked towards carrer Calvet and went into a furniture and interior design shop. It was one of those expensive establishments typical of the area, brimming with objects I found to be in particularly bad taste. After parking our car, and in order not to catch her attention by standing and waiting for her in the middle of the street, we went into a small bar almost opposite the shop and ordered a couple of black coffees with a spot of milk.

  “The woman’s got class,” said Borja referring to Lídia Font. “You can’t deny that. Whatever Mariona says, it’s something you either do or don’t have.”

  “Yes, like an open cheque book in your handbag,” I retorted. “That’s what decides it.”

  “Hey, forget your prejudices.” Borja knew only too well what my opinion was of most of our clients. “What’s more, she’s good-looking.”

  “I don’t deny that. But I tell you she’s not my sort.”

  Half a minute earlier, trailing her along the street, we’d been able to scrutinize her. It was the first time we’d seen her in the flesh and Borja was right: Lídia Font had class, or style, or God knows what. At any rate, qualities most women in her position didn’t have. Being who she was and having what she had, I recognized she seemed fairly sober, at least as far as her dress-sense went.

  She was of slender build and walked confidently, like someone who knows she is somebody. Beneath the threequarter, off-white coat she wore unbuttoned we glimpsed a flecked dark grey trouser-suit and high-necked black sweater. She also wore black high-heeled bootees and was clutching one of those huge handbags that can hold half a lifetime. A mauve foulard reaching down to her knees and blonde hair added a touch of colour. It looked as if she was wearing everything for the first time. Borja and I agreed her appearance was both elegant and unobtrusive, as befits the wife of a future candidate for the Presidency. She had gathered her hair into a ponytail and wore enormous Hollywood-star style sunglasses.

  She lingered more than an hour in this shop that sold expensive, horrific adornments. While we waited, neither Borja nor I mentioned the small matter of Lola. I’d no idea how I could fix things so as not to get on the wrong side of Montse and her sister. Apart from being my brother, Borja was my business partner, and I wanted to avoid at all costs having to suffer any fall-out from his fling with Lola.

  Just after midday, Lídia Font left the shop with another woman and they both went into a cafeteria a few metres from the spot where we’d lodged. Borja and I left our bar, now immersed in a thick smoky haze, and found a table in the same cafeteria. When Lídia Font took her coat off, we both could testify that she wasn’t a gram overweight and that Newton’s law didn’t seem to affect her. Everything was absolutely in its rightful place.

  The woman accompanying her was in all probability the owner or manager of the interior design shop and she too wore expensive designer clothes, but her manner was more deferential. She ordered a coffee and gobbled down a croissant, while Lídia Font left her bottle of mineral water half-drunk and smoked a couple of cigarettes. They both talked about a wedding, we deduced of a mutual friend, and issues relating to some patterned cloth from a well-known Italian company. Nothing caught our attention, although it was difficult to catch what they said when they started to whisper.

  Just before one o’clock Lídia Font paid the bill and both women walked out of the cafeteria, kissed and bid farewell to each other. We were getting ready to fetch the Smart when Mrs Font passed by on her way to plaça Francesc Macià. At that time of day, the Diagonal was packed with cars, pedestrians and a few rash cyclists. Lídia Font made her way through the crowds and went into the Sandor that was just beginning to fill up. She took off her coat and sat at one of the small tables by the window. Apparently, she had a rendezvous.

  The Sandor is an elegant bar that existed when the square was still named after the fascist Calvo Sotelo. It’s the kind of establishment that posh folk frequent for aperitifs or pre-dinner drinks, and our client didn’t stand out at all. As we were certain Mrs Font had yet to notice us, we went in engrossed in a discreet business conversation and stationed ourselves at one of the tables at the back. That corner gave us a good view of the whole place, and the bodies of the customers at the bar gave us cover. Lídia ordered a beer and, fed up of coffee, we followed suit.

  Mrs Font removed her glasses and the slide holding her hair in place. We could gaze at her against the light and didn’t have to worry about being noticed. We didn’t need to speak, because both Borja and I then understood why her lover, if that is what he was, had tried to immortalize her in oils although, as we could now appreciate, he hadn’t done her justice.

  Lídia Font was much more beautiful and sensual than the woman the painter had captured on canvas. When she loosened her hair to remake her ponytail, the Sandor was transformed for a few seconds by her splendidly mature beauty. She was probably not a natural blonde, but her hair shone like gold, or at least I thought so. She was wearing pearl earrings and a diamond ring that would have served her well at the prince’s wedding: I became convinced that what Mariona Castany had hinted about her cousin’s would-be frigidity was the mischievous comment of a jealous female. Lídia Font emanated the kind of sensuality most women hate in another representative of their own sex: the one that drives men mad. All things considered, she had the feline air of a Fifties Hollywood goddess, the kind to whom I professed perpetual fidelity.

  She had large, dark bright eyes, a gaze trained to seduce and a smile that could leave nobody untouched. That look was nothing like the dull expression the painter had created. She used make-up sparingly as befits naturally beautiful women, and didn’t flaunt the sun-baked lizard shade of brown that is the fashion in these localities. She took an interior design magazine from her handbag and began to leaf through it and didn’t bother to sip her drink.

  A few minutes past one o’clock we saw a tall, slim woman come in who must have been in her fifties. She greeted Lídia Font aloofly (downright coldly, I thought) and sat down next to her. The newcomer took her coat off, a mink she’d just bought apparently, ordered a vermouth and glanced around. She seemed relieved to find no one who recognized her.

  Her long smooth hair was dyed an unnatural bluish black, and she wore lots of make-up around her small, gimlet eyes and on her lips, which were a strident shade of pumpkin orange. She had a deep tan but the cardboard quality of her skin and grin was typical of women who’ve had a facelift. Her lips also looked as if they’d been modified, and though she was thin, her body wasn’t exactly svelte. A short, tight-fitting dress emphasised her bony frame. She wore brown knee-length boots with a matching handba
g embossed with the letters YSL. Her display of jewellery was far more ostentatious than anything the MP’s wife wore. Despite the time she spent every morning in front of the mirror, she was ugly and doomed to wither prematurely.

  From our vantage point, Borja and I could hear little of their conversation. They whispered very quietly in Spanish. The dark-haired woman seemed to get angrier and angrier and more distressed, and gesticulated as she spoke. In contrast, Lídia Font remained cold and aloof. My brother and I then began to understand what Mariona had told us about her cousin. She was a beautiful but scheming bitch and we saw how skilled she was at infuriating the other woman. Her attitude revealed a Mrs Font who wasn’t the ingenuous goddess with golden tresses whose epiphany we’d just witnessed.

  Borja and I deduced a negotiation was under way and that Mrs Font had the upper hand. The other woman gulped down her vermouth and asked for a second. Lídia Font had barely sipped the beer she had ordered when she sat down.

  We thought we caught the stranger mouthing the words “party”, “shitty” and “fuck”, but, to tell the truth, neither Borja nor I are expert lip-readers, so that was all we could pick up from where we were sitting. Lídia Font continued unperturbed. We regretted not taking a table nearer to them, but we’d be trailing her for a good few days yet and didn’t want to risk arousing her suspicions by bumping into her every five minutes.

  While we tried to read those women’s lips, Borja’s mobile rang.

  “Why don’t you answer?” I asked.

  Borja looked at the number and switched his phone off.

  “No, I can deal with it later on.”

  “It might be another client,” I responded sarcastically.

  “I think not ...” he replied, looking down and putting an act on.

  “Ah, right you are.”

  I presumed it must be Lola and thought how Montse would give me the third-degree treatment that night when she got back. That is, if she’d not invited Lola to dinner as well. I was forced to interrupt the thread of my thoughts because the two women suddenly got up and exchanged icy goodbyes. The woman with the deep tan paid the bill and was the first to leave. She seemed upset and insulted. Her interlocutor, on the other hand, sat down again and stayed in the Sandor for a few minutes more. Whatever they’d been talking about, her barely concealed smile of satisfaction revealed that she’d got her way.

  Finally, Lídia Font got up and decided to return to her modest mansion. Her husband had assured us that, when she had no other commitments, his wife always ate at home in order to maintain the spartan diet that enabled her to keep her size thirty-six. Then she’d have a siesta, watch some women’s programme and wouldn’t normally reappear in the world outside until well gone five.

  For our part, we were tired and hungry and decided to eat. Of course it would have been much more professional to take turns to stand guard on the corner by their house, in case Mrs Font changed her mind and decided to invite her lover to lunch, but that way of working was tedious in the extreme. Besides, we knew from experience that the one left on watch inevitably dozed off. So we looked for a restaurant with a cheap set lunch and trusted what the MP had told us about his wife’s eating habits.

  After refuelling, though still drowsy, we parked ourselves back outside the Font mansion. At about half past four the MP’s wife emerged, this time on foot and in a hurry. She’d changed and was dressed much more informally. She stopped a taxi on Bonanova and we followed her in our Smart: to a beauty parlour.

  She spent almost four hours in that hairdresser’s, while, squashed and stiff-necked, we got bored and froze to death in our tiny car. I curbed my tongue and made a real effort not to broach the subject of Lola. It was gone eight o’clock when she decided to leave the beautician’s. Unfortunately, it was dark by this time and we were in no position to appreciate the results of so many hours of self-sacrifice. We followed her back to her house and waited there till nine o’clock when we saw our client drive his Audi into the garage, and so we decided to call it a day.

  The next morning Mrs Font took a taxi to the Corte Inglés. We pursued her though the department store, in case she’d got a date there with her painter friend. She spent a couple of hours trying on blouses and trousers in the boutiques on the women’s floor, but looked at lots and bought little. Then she went up to the cafeteria, had a coffee and spent almost an hour smoking while talking on her mobile. Just after one, she went down to the perfume section and purchased, amongst other lotions and liquids, a bottle of Chanel Number 5 (I’ve always wondered whatever happened to Numbers 2 and 8, say), and thus burdened by several packages, she finally got into a taxi.

  As we’d left the Smart in the store car park, we decided to leave it there and hop in a taxi. We ended up outside a well-known restaurant in the carrer París in the heart of the Eixample. Lídia Font strode into the eatery, and Borja, a few seconds later, announced he would take a discreet look inside.

  “If she’s with a man, we’ll try to get a table,” he told me, “if not, we’ll eat opposite.”

  “Sure, this restaurant doesn’t look cheap.”

  “With all those bags, I expect she’s meeting a lady friend. I’d bet my birthright on it.”

  “What makes you think that?” I asked intrigued.

  “It’s Bags’ Law and it’s infallible,” he came back at me.

  Thanks to my brother, over the last three years I’ve learned a whole lot of subtle insights that were news to me. For example, that when lunching with a lady friend, women from a certain social class first go shopping in order to appear in the restaurant laden with bags and, so much the better if they’re the exclusive designer variety. It’s a matter of quality rather than quantity. This way I’ve learned that a single Loewe or Vuitton bag beats any number from Bulevard Rosa or the Corte Inglés, that Armani and Chanel level peg and that Zara is a no-no. This is Borja’s Bags’ Law. And it’s not the only unwritten code that reigns in particular zones of Barcelona’s upper reaches.

  Yet again my brother was right. Our client’s wife was going to lunch with a lady friend, who also had her supporting cast of bags. Four Corte Inglés against two Bulevard Rosa could be rated as a technical draw, perhaps with the MP’s wife getting a slight edge. On this occasion, the relationship between both women seemed much more relaxed. According to Borja, who’d spied on them from inside the restaurant, they’d greeted each other effusively and everything pointed to the other woman being one of her wealthy friends. Conversely, Lídia Font gave the impression she was too intelligent to commit an indiscretion in public with a man who wasn’t her husband, particularly in that sort of top-class restaurant. So we left them to get on with it and went to our tapas in the rather more modest bar opposite.

  When Lídia Font left the restaurant a couple of hours later, we trailed her on foot to another furniture shop where she stayed for half an hour until she decided to return home with us close on her heels. We waited in our car, which we’d recovered during her long post-lunch chit-chat, but decided to call it a day at seven thirty: Barça was playing and we didn’t want to miss the opening minutes of the game.

  There were no novelties over the next few days. Shops, lady friends, more shops and the odd social event, sometimes accompanied by her husband. On Thursday afternoon Mrs Font went shopping with her daughter, a pallid, skinny adolescent who didn’t seem to have inherited her mother’s seductive beauty, and on Friday we visited more interior design shops and dozed off in our tiny car near her elegant mansion. The monotony was beginning to exasperate and it all pointed to a complete lack of anything suspicious in the lady’s behaviour. We were mistaken, because very late on Friday afternoon the exemplary Mrs Font had a surprise in store for us.

  8

  It was just seven o’clock and pitch black. Borja and I were tired, fed up of mounting guard by the MP’s mansion, and wanted to go home. We also knew that the Fonts had people coming to dinner that night so imagined we could shut up shop and retire for the night. We were
about to drive off when we saw Mrs Font emerge sheathed in luxurious mink, and in a rush. On this occasion, rather than taking the Mercedes, she walked to the Bonanova and hailed a taxi. The vehicle headed into the centre and we had no choice but to point our Smart in the same direction.

  “I wonder where the fuck’s she’s off to at this time of night? With all this traffic!” Borja exclaimed.

  The taxi turned down Balmes. We were on our way to the madding crowd.

  “I don’t know where the hell I’ll park! It’s nose-to-tail out there!” My brother hated driving in the city-centre. “When she gets out of the taxi, you follow her on foot while I try to park,” he ordered, giving me no opportunity to protest.

  “I’ll call you on your mobile to let you know where we are. You’d better leave the car in a parking lot. I expect she’s off shopping again ...”

  “I hope to God she’s not!”

  The taxi continued down Pelaio and Lídia got out in the plaça de Catalunya where the Ramblas start. She crossed the street and went into the Zurich, a café that once had a charm of its own but had been refurbished, sanitized and swallowed up by the controversial “golden triangle” alongside Habitat and FNAC. There was no trace of the old café, a meeting-point for left-wingers where the smell of marijuana mingled with the stench of urine from the lavatories. Gone was the old lady that looked after them, an old dear, always incredibly tarted up under a grotesque black wig, who never forgot to demand a tip.

  Once inside, Lídia Font acted as if she were looking for someone. A man, in his late fifties, greeted her timidly. He was sitting at an unobtrusive table in a far corner, and I had to reconcile myself to a small table at the other end. The place was packed at that time in the evening, given it was freezing outside.

  “Hurry up, Borja,” I appealed into my mobile. “She’s got a man with her!”

  “Fuck! There’s nowhere. Every little space’s taken. Don’t let her out of your sight! And take good note of what they say.”