The Whispering City

by Sara Moliner

  ‘A magnificent skull.’

  That was what morbid César Sevilla would say to Isidro several hours later. He was the officer who had accompanied her to Castro’s office door. Sevilla bragged about his ‘x-ray’ eyes and he never missed an opportunity to make a comment about someone’s bone structure.

  ‘Long femurs, short humeri,’ he said about Commissioner Goyanes.

  ‘Asymmetrical clavicles,’ he might comment about a new arrest.

  ‘Holy Mother of God! That was some slap… you dislocated his inferior maxillary!’ he said about another after an interrogation.

  The first thing he admired about Ana Martí was her skull.

  ‘So, Señorita Martí, you’re covering Señora Mariona Sobrerroca’s death for the newspaper.’

  He invited her into his office.

  6

  This was Inspector Isidro Castro of the CIB? The man who extended his hand to her wore a poorly cut suit. It wasn’t a terrible fit, but it seemed too big and made him appear rectangular and stumpy. Legs too short, head too small, further reduced by his black, firmly pomaded hair, torso too big… but all her first impressions were erased as soon as he extended his hand and greeted her without smiling, ‘So, Señorita Martí, you’re covering Señora Mariona Sobrerroca’s death for the newspaper.’

  She had rarely heard a male voice as smooth, and as unsettling. It sounded restrained, with a deep tone, yet not low; a baritone in which half of the air expelled from his lungs didn’t vibrate his vocal cords, instead passing like a sigh along with the other sonorous half.

  The word ‘newspaper’ had emerged from his mouth loaded with disdain. She wasn’t welcome. Had Carlos Belda been?

  ‘My colleague, Señor Belda, is ill and that’s why…’

  Castro made a face that drew two wrinkles between his brows. It seemed that Carlos wasn’t received there with a warm round of applause either.

  ‘Do you have experience in violent cases, señorita?’

  His tone left no room for doubt: Don’t lie to me, or… Or what? Or our first conversation is over, and the whole case with it.

  ‘No,’ Ana replied.

  ‘Are you at all familiar with police work?’

  ‘Yes. From the newspaper.’

  If Castro didn’t ask her what her experience consisted of, she wouldn’t have to tell him that all she had done was write and correct countless crime articles for colleagues at the paper. She particularly didn’t want to have to tell him that she worked for the society pages at La Vanguardia and several women’s magazines, writing about debutante balls, receptions and weddings. If it hadn’t been her first day working with the inspector, she would have already known that merely thinking it and hoping he wouldn’t ask her awakened in him the hunting instinct of a natural-born interrogator. But that was their first conversation, and she was still unaware of Castro’s ability to hit on precisely what others didn’t want to reveal. As a result, he asked her, ‘What does your job entail?’

  And she, of course, told him the truth, adding at the end, ‘But I also have knowledge of criminology and police work…’

  ‘You do? And where did you learn it? Did you take a correspondence course from the CCC Academy?’

  Her pride wounded, she couldn’t keep from replying, ‘Reading. Did you know what Chandler said, for example? He said that the easiest murder case in the world is the one somebody tried to get cute with; the one that really bothers police is the murder somebody thought of only two minutes before he pulled it off.’

  ‘Very nice. Excuse me.’

  Castro stood, opened the door and shouted into the hallway, ‘Sevilla! Can you come here for a second?’

  Almost instantly the officer appeared, grumbling. He was about Ana’s age, thin, with pale white skin from his forehead to his nose and the rest of his face darkened by the shadow of an incipient beard that emerged just hours after he shaved.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘If I tell you that the easiest murder to solve is one where somebody tries to be too cute, and that what really bothers us is the murder that somebody thought up two minutes before doing it, what would you think?’

  ‘What would I think? Well, that’s stupid.’

  ‘You see? Señorita, don’t read so many foreign writers. We’re in Spain.’

  Ana couldn’t help but admire the inspector’s memory, seeing how he repeated her words almost like a tape recorder. Castro laughed half-heartedly, then waved the young officer away. Sevilla disappeared without another word. He seemed accustomed to jumping when his boss ordered him to.

  Once Sevilla was gone, Castro recovered his seriousness. He perfunctorily pulled some papers out of a file and, before even glancing at them, started to give her information about the case.

  ‘The victim was discovered dead this morning by her maid, Carmen Alonso, at her home on Tibidabo Avenue. The body was found in the office of her late husband, who had a private medical practice in the house. The maid was returning from Manresa, where, according to her statement, she had spent Sunday with relatives. The information was confirmed, although I haven’t personally verified it.’

  She didn’t understand what he meant by that last bit. Ana had pulled a notepad out of her bag and was taking notes on what Inspector Castro said, though avoiding the policeman’s abuse of the passive voice; like her father, she was a sworn enemy of the passive, that ‘barbaric Anglicism’.

  ‘The body of the victim was lying in a supine position with the head turned somewhat to the right. Like this.’

  A photo was placed between her eyes and her notepad. It showed Mariona Sobrerroca on the floor, wrapped in what could be a nightgown or a sheer dress. It wasn’t the first time she’d been shown an image of a murder victim, but it was the first time she’d seen one of someone she had met. Her habit of always focusing on people’s hands and feet was a big help. She saw that one foot wore a high-heeled shoe. So the garment wrapped around the right leg had to be a dress.

  ‘And the other shoe?’

  ‘We found it on the other side of the desk.’

  ‘So there was a struggle?’

  ‘Señorita Martí, don’t get ahead of yourself. I’ll give you the information.’

  ‘Of course.’

  The tone with which she said those words didn’t entirely match their deferential content. Castro noticed because he gave her a severe look before continuing.

  ‘The messy room and the loss of one shoe reveal that the victim fought with her aggressor or aggressors. We are conjecturing that she surprised someone who had entered her house to burgle it.’

  Ana’s hand holding her pencil came to a stop. She wanted to ask if they knew how many people it could have been, but she didn’t dare, at least not so soon. Castro, although he had perhaps guessed her unspoken question, didn’t reply to it. Instead he answered one she hadn’t yet formulated.

  ‘The white ball is an eyeball.’

  He had put the photo so close to her that she hadn’t realised it was an eye until he’d said it.

  ‘It belonged to a skull that decorated, shall we say, the office of the victim’s husband, Dr Jerónimo Garmendia, who died more than two years ago, in January 1950.’

  She already knew that. Dr Garmendia had been the preferred doctor of a certain class of Barcelonian. He had died in a car accident on the Garraf coast. Ana remembered it well. His car had skidded on a curve and plunged into a rocky cove. She wasn’t yet writing for La Vanguardia then. She had only recently started publishing brief, uncredited articles and writing photo captions for women’s magazines.

  ‘According to the forensic assessment, her death was caused by manual strangulation, but first the victim was persistently beaten on both the face and body.’

  Another photo.

  Mariona Sobrerroca’s plump, cherubic face showed several haematomas, her lower lip was swollen and darkened by blood and her right earlobe was split. Ana pointed to it with her pencil and looked at the inspector. This time he was willing
to respond.

  ‘Probably the victim’s earring got caught on something in the struggle and tore her ear.’

  Ana tempted fate with another question: ‘Did they find the lost earring?’

  Castro looked at her condescendingly. He responded as he showed her another image, ‘Yes, with a piece of the ear.’

  Another photo. She glanced away, but only for a second. She forced herself to look at the small strip of flesh with irregular edges that hung from the golden clasp of a bunch of small white and black pearls.

  She started to take notes again. Castro stopped her in her tracks.

  ‘Don’t bother with so many notes, señorita, we’ll give you everything in writing.’

  He hadn’t sunk her with that comment, but he’d left her clinging to the lifeboat.

  ‘To avoid unwanted errors and speculation,’ added Castro. ‘What you need to do is to pretty it all up.’

  ‘Then what you want is for me to take the official communiqué, fix a couple of commas, smooth out a few passives and decorate it with adjectives?’

  ‘The improvements in style are up to you.’

  That would be like taking dictation. She’d be better off writing her articles for the society pages.

  ‘No,’ she heard herself say before thinking of the consequences.

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘No, I’m not going to do that. You can find yourself a copy editor. I’m a journalist.’

  They were both silent, regarding each other carefully. Ana was already saying goodbye to the case, to La Vanguardia and to a career in journalism that was over before it had even begun. Why couldn’t she have accepted the conditions the policeman had given her and then work out how to get round them? But it was ‘her’ first article. Or it would have been, since her eagerness to finally write something of her own had brought on this absurd refusal and now, if Sanvisens didn’t fire her for being an idiot, he would leave her for ever stuck in the glittering dungeon of society parties. But, at that moment, it was Sanvisens himself who came to her aid.

  ‘My boss told me that it is very important our readers see the efficiency with which you work to solve this case.’

  Castro observed her with a neutral expression. Instinctively, she resorted to adjectives. ‘In a delicate case such as this one, it is crucial to highlight the extensive police work, the noble spirit with which a diligent and efficient investigation is carried out, to find the perpetrators of such a horrendous crime.’

  ‘Of course. And?’

  ‘And my articles could be of great help to you. Which is why I dare to suggest that you allow me to follow your work closely and present it in my newspaper. Based, of course, on the information you provide me with.’

  She noticed a slight lift at the left corner of Castro’s mouth. It seemed that her efforts to keep the job had at least amused him. She saw the ‘yes’ timidly rising to the policeman’s lips while a ‘no’ kept it tightly shut. The ‘yes’ bounced against his teeth and fell back, but took a running start… It tried twice more and both times the inspector stifled a smile.

  Then the door opened and Officer Sevilla came in.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Castro, and Ana saw the ‘yes’ squashed in the inspector’s annoyed expression.

  ‘Carmen Alonso is already here.’

  ‘Mariona Sobrerroca’s maid,’ said Ana.

  Castro looked at her and she felt compelled to add, in an attempt to impress him, ‘I have a very good memory for names, and you mentioned her a moment ago.’

  She hadn’t given up completely, and she was trying to earn points, even fractions of points, to nudge him in her favour.

  Sevilla stood in the doorway awaiting orders from his boss.

  ‘Bring her here.’

  Ana understood that her arguments hadn’t convinced him. She accepted defeat, closed her notebook and got up to leave the office. But Castro stopped her.

  ‘What? Don’t you want to see the extensive police work and noble spirit with which we carry out a diligent and efficient investigation? Well, now’s your chance.’

  She didn’t miss Castro’s satisfaction when he saw the astonishment he had caused by repeating her words almost verbatim. They were like two cocksure gunslingers in a western. That the policeman in turn wanted to impress her with another display of his memory could be a good sign. It also meant she had to be careful with what she said.

  Castro addressed his subordinate. ‘Sevilla, put the lady from La Vanguardia in a chair there, in the corner, so she can see well.’

  The officer obeyed the order. He placed a chair behind Castro’s desk. From there, Ana would be able to see the woman’s face. She settled in her place with a gesture from the inspector.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Sevilla told her in a joking tone, ‘the blood splatters won’t reach you there.’

  ‘Sevilla!’ reprimanded Castro.

  ‘But she’s a witness, isn’t she?’ said Ana timidly.

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ Castro replied.

  The officer went out to look for the woman.

  Again Ana felt the anxiety that had seized her when she’d approached the police headquarters. The building was covered in a slick of fear that emanated from its innards, from the basements that were the setting for torture and death. As with so much else, it was something that was known and not talked about. The fear that impregnated the headquarters’ walls was nourished by stories told in hushed voices, by unexplained absences whose causes were nonetheless clear, by the cruel echoes of denunciations. Fear penetrated the building’s walls and spread into those surrounding it, infecting them. It had reached her as far off as Condal Street, and had gradually tightened around her, crushing her a little more with each step. She had almost forgotten it as she spoke with Castro, but now it was back again, the fear.

  She saw the same fear in the face of the woman who was now entering Inspector Castro’s office.

  Carmen Alonso took a few shaky steps and sat down in front of the inspector in a chair indicated to her by Officer Sevilla. She was wearing her Sunday best to make her statement at the station; she was about Ana’s age, but infinitely more tired and afraid.

  Castro didn’t even greet her or say a word as she sat down. As if he didn’t see her, he picked up a piece of paper and started to write briskly. The other three remained in silence, their attention on the sound of the pencil that scraped against the paper as if trying to tear it. Footsteps were heard through the closed door, some muffled voices and the halting tap-tap of a typewriter.

  Carmen Alonso kept her gaze down. Ana hadn’t been able to see her eyes.

  The inspector finished writing, folded the paper and held it out to Sevilla, who was standing behind the maid. The woman shivered at the officer’s arm passing close to her shoulder as he took the paper. She looked around and saw Ana for the first time. Her gaze asked the question ‘Who are you?’, but Castro’s voice giving instructions to Sevilla attracted all of her attention.

  ‘While I take care of this, go to the Ramblas and bring me what I wrote down here.’

  Ana wondered if this exchange was already part of the interrogation. Carmen Alonso had to be aware of Sevilla’s body just a few centimetres from the back of her chair; she had to feel walled in between the two policemen, who seemed to regard her as just another piece of furniture. The woman remained immobile as Castro looked over her head at his subordinate.

  ‘Don’t be long.’

  Sevilla left.

  ‘OK,’ said Castro, and he addressed Carmen Alonso for the first time. ‘Let’s proceed.’

  He picked up another piece of paper where there were some handwritten lines and he began, ‘Your name is Carmen Alonso Ercilla, born on 8 January 1927, in Valencia de Alcántara, Cáceres. Father, Rafael Alonso García; mother, Belén Ercilla Montero?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘How long have you been working for Señora Sobrerroca?’

  ‘Two years, since she was widowed.’

  ‘Did yo
u live in her home?’

  ‘When I first started I did, because Señora Mariona was afraid to be in that big house alone, but for the last six months I’ve been sleeping at my sister’s, in Hostafranchs.’

  She had clearly been living in Barcelona for some time; she already referred to a house with a garden as a torre, thought Ana.

  ‘That night, too?’

  ‘No. I was coming from the house of some relatives in Manresa.’

  ‘What time did you get to Señora Sobrerroca’s home?’

  ‘At seven, like always.’

  ‘And she was no longer afraid?’

  ‘No, she didn’t seem to be.’

  Castro spoke as if he were having a friendly conversation with Carmen Alonso, who seemed less intimidated.

  ‘Tell me what you did on Sunday, and what you saw when you entered Señora Sobrerroca’s house.’

  She recounted the same things that Castro had told Ana. The inspector pretended to be checking her statement against the paper he held with both hands. From her corner, Ana could see the page – there was only the maid’s personal information on it.

  Her story ended with her calling the police after finding her employer’s corpse.

  ‘Very good, very good, Señora Alonso. You studied that perfectly.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You understood me. You repeated word for word what you said to the officer who took your statement.’

  Carmen looked at him with wide eyes.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You are reciting, ma’am. You are smarter than you look, and you know that the best way not to contradict yourself is to repeat exactly the same story from beginning to end.’

  But you also do that when you are telling the truth, thought Ana, though she kept quiet. Perhaps it was just Castro’s strategy for verifying her statement.

  ‘How do you want me to tell it to you?’

  ‘Try the truth.’

  ‘That’s what I did.’

  ‘Well, tell it to me again.’