Queta’s buxom charms seemed to fit the scene far better than Teresa’s well-toned but scrawny body. What Carvalho found harder to imagine was the feelings a hairdresser from District Five in Barcelona might have in this sanctuary dedicated to the repose of a social class totally alien to her. All at once Carvalho was transported back to the 1940s, his mind opening in the same miraculous way as had happened when many of the streets of District Five had been cleared to make Plaza Padró. He remembered songs on the radio drifting through the interior courtyards above the background sounds of sewing-machines or plates clinking in earthernware washing-up bowls. Above all he remembered one song sung by all the women who were then the same age as Queta was now:
He arrived on a boat with a foreign name
She met him in the port at nightfall
This was the love with a stranger ‘as bold and blond as beer’, with ‘a heart tattooed on his chest’. For the first time in his life Julio had met a woman who was mentally inferior to him. Someone who did not offer him culture or new experiences, but simply wanted the companionship and solidarity he could give, plus some personal satisfaction and the mystery of youth and far-off lands that had been dead and buried long ago for Señor Ramón. To her, that tattoo had a meaning, it was the meaning of her life. It was like a secret whispered in that four-poster bed that was alien to both of them, a secret into which, on his long journey from poverty to nothingness, the man she was with had poured all his lifetime’s rage: ‘Born to raise hell in hell’. A motto that had not been put there for a theatrical widow in Rotterdam who wanted to save her working-class heroes through culture, nor for the woodpecker Teresa Marsé, pecking away in all sorts of trees, nor for Frenchy or any other love for hire. Carvalho felt an urgent need to wipe away the images he could see in his mind’s eye, to jump out of bed and run with sword in hand to give the whole thing its coup de grâce.
He sat up like a man on the run.
‘Is that it? Is the afternoon over for you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you always buy a single ticket?’
‘That depends on who I’m travelling with.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
When he saw the twinkle of amusement in Teresa’s eye Carvalho wondered whether he should stay where he was and make sure she was not disappointed. Yet he suddenly realised he was not the slightest bit interested in this skinny woman who would probably chat about the experience with her husband or with the group of piranha friends she met in the smart cafés of Calle Tuset.
‘I calculated my time to fit in with yours. I thought you had to go and fetch your son at the usual time, so I made an appointment then as well.’
This seemed to satisfy Teresa. She turned her back on Carvalho to get dressed. She spoke facing away from him.
‘You’re a cop, aren’t you?’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I could tell from the start. You ask questions like a cop.’
‘Actually I’m not.’
‘So why are you so interested in Julio?’
‘I was hired. I’m a private detective.’
Teresa guffawed. She laughed so much she collapsed on the bed half-dressed. When the laughter subsided she had to wipe away the tears.
‘So who have I been sleeping with: Hercule Poirot, Inspector Maigret or Philip Marlowe?’
‘If you prefer you can say you slept with Lemmy Caution or James Bond.’
‘I don’t like James Bond.’
‘You choose, then. I’ve given you the experience of your lifetime.’
‘I have to tell you that the shah’s cousin was more exciting, and he didn’t have to rush off. A real gentleman, the sort you remember for a long time.’
‘You already have a husband for that kind of thing.’
The escape from the tomb of a house, the return to the car and the journey back to Barcelona all took place in silence. Teresa did not even switch the radio on. As Carvalho pulled up outside her boutique, he warned her:
‘Think up a good alibi for the first fortnight in July. Try to remember everything you did. A rational alibi that isn’t too complicated.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s very likely that Julio Chesma was killed then, either in your villa at Caldetas or because of someone he used to meet there. The police could discover that at any moment.’
‘Was it linked to drugs?’
‘That’s what I thought at first. But now I don’t think so. You just think of an alibi.’
Teresa stared hard at him, as if trying to discover an ulterior motive.
‘Am I supposed to thank you?’
‘Don’t bother. Just remember what I said, and if the police question you, don’t so much as mention my name.’
Teresa got out of the car. In the boutique doorway she cast him one last dubious glance.
All Charo said was:
‘It’s the worst possible time.’
‘I’ll leave right away.’
‘I don’t hear from you in days, then you appear at the very worst moment.’
‘Is your Andalusian friend there?’
‘No.’
‘What does her hair look like?’
‘How’s it supposed to look? It’s normal.’
‘I’ll pay her for a hairdo and invite you both to dinner one of these days if she goes to Queta’s again.’
‘But she only went two days ago.’
‘Tell her to mess up her hair.’
Carvalho wrote something on a piece of paper and put it in a small envelope.
‘Here. Give it to your friend. Tell her to go and get her hair done tomorrow, and when she has the chance, to give this to Queta without anyone else seeing.’
‘Now what? Goodbye and good luck?’
‘It’s your peak time. I don’t think you want me to meet your clients.’
‘My clients and you can both take a walk.’
Charo stormed out of her living room and rushed into the kitchen, slamming the door behind her. Carvalho could hear her shouting, as though she were arguing with herself. They’re all such cretins! And you, you’re an idiot! Such an idiot!
To frustrate two women in one day was too much even for Carvalho. He left the apartment, but then waited out on the landing for Charo’s inevitable attempt to put things right. When she opened her front door and poked her head out, her face was streaked with tears. Her voice was unsteady:
‘Are you going to leave just like that?’
‘You’ve got a busy day.’
‘That doesn’t mean you can just vanish.’
‘I’ve got a lot of work tomorrow. Try to keep the evening free. We could go out somewhere.’
‘Will you come and fetch me?’
‘OK. At nine.’
He walked out to the Rambla and headed down towards the port. When he reached Santa Mónica church he left the central reservation, crossed the pavement on the right-hand side, and slipped into the narrow street on the left of the church. He went into El Pastis bar and ordered an absinthe. The bar owner had the visual memory of an elephant.
‘Haven’t seen you in a long time.’
Carvalho smiled at her, trying to convey the impression that he too was the victim of fate that rules over all encounters.
‘But everyone comes back in the end. Look at that lot over there.’
A group of youngsters was sitting with glasses of pastis. Their faces were flushed, and it was obvious they all had the ultimate quip on the tip of their tongue. One of them suggested they all sang the ‘Internationale’, while another tried to improvise a speech in honour of thirty-three years of peace in Spain.
‘They’ll all be back in a few years, you’ll see. When they’re grown up and respectable. Like this gentleman, this eminence.’
She pointed to a man farther down the bar. He was in his thirties and was staring intently at a candle on the bar counter. He lifted himself on his elbows and stared at Carvalho in an arrogant, challenging way.
‘See
him there? I knew him when he was a student, and now look at him, world famous he is.’
‘Good luck to him.’
The world-famous eminence studied Carvalho through bleary eyes, ready to explode if he thought the detective was questioning him in any way.
‘He’s a university professor.’
The drunken guy looked like a Bourbon prince on his uppers. He was tall and with the kind of features usually described in neoclassical terms as harmonious. The eminent prince started to harangue Carvalho in a language that sounded like Arabic. The bar owner nodded enthusiastically, and pointed at him again.
‘Are you a professor of Arabic?’
‘No, of Spanish history. But what can one know about the history of Spain if one doesn’t speak Arabic?’
‘You’re probably right.’
‘Menéndez Pinal got it all wrong. Do you know who he was?’
‘The name rings a bell.’
‘The man who invented El Cid. An anti-Arab racist. Here, have a pastis. On me.’
The eminent prince started to sing an Arab melody which bit by bit turned into a fandango. He had lifted the lapels of his jacket, and pressed them to him so that it looked as though he were wearing a dancer’s waistcoat. He stared down at his toes, and began an unsteady tap dance. Carvalho paid for his pastis and made to leave, but felt the professor’s hand on his shoulder.
‘Why did you pay? I said I would.’
‘I pay for my own drinks.’
‘Not when I offer you one.’
With that, the professor swept the money Carvalho had left on the counter on to the floor. The bar owner came out from behind the counter, picked it up and handed it to Carvalho, winking at him. Pepe shrugged, took the money and went out into the street. He had almost reached the Rambla when he heard the sound of rapid footsteps behind his back, almost level with him. He turned and found himself face to face with the professor.
‘Did you know that all the studies of Spanish place names are wrong? Wrong? No, that’s the wrong word. Stolen! They’ve been stolen, in order to hide their true identity from everyone! They want us to forget our Arab roots!’
They were walking past heaps of rubble on the pavement outside Santa Mónica church. Overcome by a sudden impulse, Carvalho pushed the professor hard. He stumbled and fell on his side on to a pile of dirt. Carvalho ran off as quickly as he could. It was only when he was by the sentry boxes in front of the navy headquarters that he slowed to walking pace again. He soon thought he could hear the professor shouting close behind him, so as soon as he was beyond the lighted zone of the headquarters he broke into a run once more, and headed into the dark, narrow streets of the Chinese quarter. He had left his car in a car park on Calle Barbará. He was worried that he had not managed to shake the drunken professor off, and in fact met up with him again outside the Cádiz dance hall. The other man had guessed which way he would go and had got ahead of him. He was standing there with legs wide apart, his fists in the air as though he were ready to go fifteen rounds with him.
‘Come and get it, you little squirt. See how you get on with Muhammad Ali.’
There was no one else about. The consumptive, filthy street lights scarcely managed to bring a vague glow to the darkened street. Carvalho felt in his pocket and pulled out his switchblade. He let his opponent lunge at him, then slashed the air only an inch from the professor’s nose. The eminent prince backed off, and stared at Carvalho in bewilderment.
‘Oho, a knife fighter, are we?’
But he did not come forward again. Full of rage, Carvalho charged, knife at the ready. The other man tried to dodge him, but fell flat on his back on the ground. Carvalho kicked him mercilessly. He was trying to get at his face, but the professor lifted his arms to protect himself.
‘Hey, what’s going on there?’ Two whores emerged from the Cádiz. It looked as if one of them was about to call for the police, so Carvalho quickly put away his knife and walked off unhurriedly. He could feel a warm glow in his chest, as if he had drunk a glass of fine French brandy or a Black Label whisky.
Carvalho’s note read: ‘I’d like to talk to you about Julio. Just the two of us. Meet me at four in the Luna bar, on the corner of the Rambla and Plaza Catalunya’. At five to four he saw Queta crossing the Rambla. She was wearing a loose-fitting sleeveless dress with sandals, and carried a red bag. Carvalho acknowledged that she was a woman worth looking at. The erotic effect of her still-fresh body was somehow enhanced by the suffering, anxious look on her face. She found Carvalho and came and stood in front of his table. He got up and pointed her to a metal chair. She did not want anything, but he forced her to accept a coffee. She sat down defensively, as though ready to double her usual efforts to hide her vulnerability.
‘Let’s have our drinks then get in my car. It’s always better to be sure our talk stays private.’
‘I’ve no idea what you and I have to talk about. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know what your note meant.’
‘Why did you come, then?’
She had no answer. Her defences were crumbling, and she could not even look Carvalho in the face.
‘Look. I know all about your relations with Julio Chesma. Your husband hired me to discover the identity of a drowned man washed up on the beach at Vilasar a few weeks ago. His face had been devoured by fish, but he had a tattoo with a motto on his back.’
Carvalho did not go on. Queta was sobbing into a handkerchief, and was on the verge of collapsing into complete hysteria. Carvalho hurriedly took out some money, paid the bill and led her out by the arm. He almost dragged her to the car park opposite the Coliseum cinema. The car park attendant looked at the sobbing woman with alarm. Carvalho shrugged as if to show how impossible it was for men to fathom the absurd psychology of females.
He came out on to Gran Vía and headed for the coastal motorway. Queta seemed to have got over the shock. Her breathing was back to normal, and she seemed to be enjoying looking out of the car window at the countryside. But when they reached Masnou and the sea appeared, shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight, she turned nervously to Carvalho.
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘To Caldetas.’
‘I don’t want to go there!’
‘Perhaps it won’t be necessary.’
‘I don’t want to go! I’ll jump out of the car! You have no right to kidnap me like this!’
‘Perhaps it won’t be necessary. I know almost everything that happened. I just need to fill in a few details.’
Queta was staring at the road as though with each passing kilometre she was losing something more.
‘How did you meet Julio?’
‘Which Julio?’
‘The one in my note. I wrote his name there, and you knew who I meant.’
‘I only found out he was called Julio when you told Ramón.’
‘How did you meet him?’
‘What does it matter? What do you care? Please. I don’t want to go back to that place. Please.’
‘We could drive around until you’ve told me what I want to know.’
‘I met him in a cinema. Ramón doesn’t like films, so sometimes I go to local ones in the early evenings when there aren’t many clients left.’
‘Was this a long time ago?’
‘A little more than a year. Maybe a year and a half. I don’t know why I was such a fool. Now God has punished us. All of us.’
‘What did he say his name was?’
‘Alejandro.’
‘Did you start going to the Caldetas villa right from the beginning?’
‘No, at first he took me to places he knew.’
‘What kind of places?’
‘That kind of place.’
‘Motels?’
She did not answer. She was staring down into her lap.
‘Weren’t you surprised he didn’t take you back to where he lived?’
‘He said he had a landlady. Then we started going to the villa. He said it belonged to some
cousins of his.’
‘Did he look like the sort of person who would have cousins owning a place like that?’
‘He was very classy. Very well educated. Very knowledgeable.’
‘Did your husband know about it?’
‘No.’
‘But in the end he found out.’
‘No.’
‘So why did he ask me to identify a body when he already knew perfectly well who it was?’
‘He didn’t know his real name.’
‘Which means you admit he knew the existence of your little friend.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
Carvalho leaned over towards her and shouted:
‘Don’t be so stupid! The cops wouldn’t be as polite as I am, and then you’d sing like a canary in ten seconds flat.’
‘Don’t shout at me. Who are you to shout at me? Let me out.’
‘When did your husband find out?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I want to know how he died.’
‘He drowned.’
‘No, he didn’t drown. Or if he did, your husband was watching. The newspapers made no link between the drowned man and the police raids, but your husband linked the two immediately.’
‘You know what our neighbourhood is like. There are lots of informers. Not all of Ramón’s business deals are above board. Why fool ourselves? He has connections.’
‘Obviously not good enough ones if he has to hire me to discover or confirm the identity of a drowned man. Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes, or I’ll stop at the first police station.’
‘So what? So I had a friend. Or a lover, if you prefer. Ramón already knows that, so what could happen to me?’
‘It’s not every lover who appears drowned in such mysterious circumstances and with all that happened afterwards. Let me complete the story. Your husband finds out. He kills your lover. Throws him into the sea. Then he hears that the cops are after a gang of drug traffickers who might be connected to the dead man. It all gets more complicated than he thought, and he’s in the middle of it. He hires me to see if there is any other possible link besides drugs. By the time I get back from Holland, everything has gone perfectly for your Ramón. The cops are convinced the death is all about drugs, and neither of you two has been brought into it. He acted too hastily by getting me involved, so he wanted to wrap everything up once and for all. Job done and paid for. But that wasn’t the end of it: by now, I was too interested in the case.’
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