The Whispering City

by Sara Moliner

  As he waited for them to arrive, he wondered what his Aunt Beatriz wanted. She didn’t often visit him, usually quite the opposite – he was the one who normally dropped by her house to chat, or to consult her over some problem. And why was Ana Martí with her? He didn’t think it had to do with the anonymous letter he had pilfered from Pla’s safe. The matter wasn’t completely closed, but he had certainly buried it. Or had she discovered something new? In that case, what could Ana have to do with it?

  Finally the bell rang. He opened the door. The expression on the two women’s faces left no doubt that it was something serious. His aunt’s question alarmed him even further.

  ‘Pablo, can we spend the night at your house?’

  ‘Of course, of course. But, what’s going on?’

  He waved them inside and led them to the sitting room.

  ‘I’m afraid we are in danger, Pablo.’

  His aunt’s use of the plural allowed him to look at Ana openly. He found her even more attractive than he had at the consulate party, but the seriousness in her face left no room for him to expand on his appreciation. He scooped a pile of newspapers from an armchair and offered them seats.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  It was his Aunt Beatriz who began laying out the whole scenario, in which he played a small opening role thanks to their conversation in the Montjuïc cemetery. Then came Ana’s visit and Mariona Sobrerroca’s letters. There Ana intervened and told him about the trip they had made together to Martorell and how they had discovered a love-letter workshop.

  ‘Aunt Beatriz, I didn’t take you for someone so adventurous.’

  ‘I’m not. The situation has turned very ugly.’

  ‘When we discovered the whole business of the letters, it never occurred to us that there were two Mendoza brothers and that Abel had accidentally killed his brother and thrown his body into the river,’ continued Ana.

  The story got darker the longer it went on. The real Abel Mendoza was dead, murdered; the police were looking for them and they had material in their possession that incriminated many of Barcelona’s society figures.

  ‘And you think that one of the people whose names appear in those papers is Mariona Sobrerroca’s and Abel Mendoza’s killer?’

  ‘We don’t think they did it with their own hands, but they ordered their deaths,’ clarified Ana.

  ‘Do you suspect any one of them in particular?’

  ‘Joaquín Grau.’

  He couldn’t have been more shocked.

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘They aren’t powerful enough to have the police doing their dirty work,’ said Beatriz.

  ‘Those would be the ones who paid up religiously,’ added Ana.

  They showed him a few names, almost all of them well known, including a magnate who owned warehouses and wharves down at the port.

  ‘This one,’ commented Pablo, ‘wouldn’t have sent the police, exactly; more like union thugs.’

  Then his eyes fell on a name: ‘Pla! Not Pla too?’

  Ana’s reaction surprised him. ‘Now I understand. The letter in the cemetery. Yes, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. You are the nephew in a sticky situation.’

  ‘Not any more.’ He smiled at Beatriz.

  Then he remembered that she and Ana were there about an infinitely more serious matter.

  ‘Do you think my house is a safe place?’

  ‘For the moment, yes. The police will first look in circles closer to me, but I doubt they’ll think I’m at a nephew’s house. They will look for people my age.’

  His aunt continued to surprise him, not only for her unexpected adventurous side, but also because, as a person he’d always presumed lived more in books than in the real world, she was all of a sudden showing astonishing practicality.

  ‘But we won’t stay long,’ clarified Ana. ‘Just until we know what to do.’

  That phrase plunged all three of them into a vexed silence. They had no idea at all what they should do.

  Every one of the authorities that, even in this country, they could have turned to – the police, the public prosecutor’s office, in a word, the ‘law’ – was implicated in the matter. And who were they? A bookworm and a rookie journalist. And he? A two-bit lawyer. The harshness of these labels proved to Pablo that he was succumbing to low spirits as well.

  Ana was leaning slightly on the arm of the chair and looking towards the window with her chin resting on the back of her right hand. His Aunt Beatriz was sitting very upright with her hands together on her lap. If he didn’t know better, he would have said she was praying. And yet, if it wasn’t prayer, it had to be something similar, because Pablo saw her slowly lift her head and rest her gaze absently on the ceiling. He knew then that she was reverting to her true religion. He imitated her. A minute later Ana also began contemplating the same vague point on the ceiling. Out of the blue Beatriz glumly named the divinity to whom she had appealed.

  ‘Lope. Fuenteovejuna. The people cry out for justice against the Commander and, in the end, the King and Queen deliver it. Something similar happens in Peribáñez. Also in Calderón’s The Mayor of Zalamea. In the face of a powerful person’s injustice, the villagers appeal to a higher authority. What a utopia! Not to mention that it’s a sad irony of the times, in which we have to run away from those who should protect us from abuses.’

  It wasn’t exactly a comforting or encouraging comment.

  ‘A higher authority,’ said Ana, who was still looking up at the ceiling. Pablo searched for the point her eyes were fixed on. It wasn’t a higher authority, but rather a five-petalled flower that decorated the moulding. He and his aunt looked at each other, then back up at the ceiling and then at Ana. ‘We have to go to a higher authority.’

  ‘Who do you want us to go to, Ana? They’re all involved, from Castro to the public prosecutor.’

  Beatriz’s voice sounded so hopeless that Pablo was quick to defend Ana’s idea, even if only to have the feeling that he was doing something.

  ‘Don’t write it off so fast. Let’s think about it. Really, what we need is someone who would take care of this matter for us so we could stay out of it. Isn’t that right, Ana?’

  ‘You know the police structures, Pablo. The commissioner in charge of the section where Castro works doesn’t come from the CIB but from Social, right?’

  ‘Yes, Commissioner Goyanes. He is a hardliner, a son of…’ he restrained himself after a glare from his aunt, ‘… his mother. They put him there to control the guys in the CIB, who some believe are too modern in their methods and their contacts with foreign police.’

  ‘Yes, and so?’ asked Beatriz.

  ‘Well, he and Castro don’t get on, I’ve noticed when I’ve worked at the headquarters.’

  ‘Of course, they have different ideas. Castro is one of Grau’s men. The prosecutor didn’t look favourably on the Civil Government putting Goyanes at the head of the CIB. The Commissioner has never been a real member of the CIB, nor will he ever be. He’s Social all the way. I don’t think he’s mixed up in this.’

  ‘You don’t think he would take advantage of the opportunity to strip the CIB of its prestige, even if he is now one of its commissioners? If we gave him information that he can use against Grau…’

  ‘And how are we going to do that, Ana?’ asked Beatriz. ‘We can’t turn up at headquarters and tell him all this.’

  ‘You can’t, but I can,’ said Pablo.

  ‘How would you do it?’

  ‘First of all, by feeling out the territory. I will tell him that I’ve got information that’s so juicy, I find myself forced to break partly with professional confidentiality in order to set him on the trail of some serious accusations against people in his Brigade. I’ll tell him what we know about Mariona and Mendoza’s business and about the blackmailing and…’

  ‘And what if he wants to know where you got all that information?’

  ‘Simple, Tieta; I’ll tell him that Abel Mendoza came to m
e to see if I could help get him out of the country, and ended up telling me much more because he was desperate and he trusted my confidentiality.’

  ‘And how did Mendoza find you? Your firm isn’t exactly the first one a poor wretch like him would think to turn to,’ objected Beatriz.

  ‘He met me the same way Goyanes did: a spell of court duty. For your information, I have quite a good reputation, although only in certain circles.’

  He seemed to be convincing them. Ana had laughed at his last comment, and his Aunt Beatriz had given him a look of admiration. Then she grabbed one of Garmendia’s papers. ‘You’ll have better luck convincing him if you show him this.’

  ‘But, Tieta, surely you don’t want to hand them over? Even though they are after you for them, these papers are, unfortunately, your life insurance policy.’

  ‘Just this one.’

  ‘And what do we expect him to do?’ asked Ana.

  ‘What you and Pablo said. He’ll take down Castro, and Grau will fall with him.’

  ‘If he does accept, we’ll only give him the material relating to Grau. We can’t give him the rest. Goyanes would have a lot of people in his power. What do you think someone like him will do with the information about the abortions, for example?’

  ‘It’s true.’

  Pablo interjected, ‘For the moment I think the important thing is that we see how Goyanes reacts.’

  He shot a look up at the ceiling stucco, at the flower with five petals. It was a preposterous, desperate plan, but it was the only one they had.

  The next day he would go and talk to Goyanes.

  58

  Carlos Belda was already putting on his freshly pressed suit jacket when Mateo Sanvisens came into the dry cleaner’s.

  ‘Are you alone?’ he asked.

  ‘I came with Roig, but he’s going to stay for at least another hour. He really needed it. His suit was covered in big grease stains and he needed the company.’

  Sanvisens didn’t get the joke.

  ‘Have you paid?’

  ‘Wait.’

  Carlos paid for the services rendered. The owner of the dry cleaner’s and brothel gave him his change while he kept shooting looks at the gaunt man who hadn’t taken his hands out of his trouser pockets. He must have been worried he was a cop. Carlos tried to take the fellow’s mind off it.

  ‘If my friend asks for some extra service, put it on my tab and I’ll pay for it next time, Adriano.’

  ‘Whatever you say. Are you satisfied?’

  Carlos patted the trousers of the perfectly pressed suit and gave a couple of little tugs on his jacket sleeves.

  ‘Impeccable. As always.’

  Sanvisens was growing impatient. He opened the door to the dry cleaner’s. Carlos followed him out.

  ‘Is it something urgent?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s something serious. Let’s go somewhere where we can talk.’

  Santa Ana Street was already crowded at that hour of the morning. They passed the Jorba department store. Carlos searched for something or someone that would give him the chance to break Sanvisens’s silence. Maybe a funny crack about the Latin motto that decorated the sculpture on the department store’s facade, Labor omnia vincit, work conquers all; but considering that Sanvisens had come to find him at an illegal brothel, it seemed counterproductive. How had he located him? Who had told him where he was? Had he called his house? Carlos had told his wife that he was heading to the newspaper early because he had a long feature to write. He’d have a scene when he got home, but the ticking off that might be waiting for him weighed less on his mind than Sanvisens’s silence, which he found more unbearable with each step. He was searching for some topic to break it with: an eccentric pedestrian, an odd hat, a little lapdog wearing a bow, the weather. The weather!

  ‘Did you know they want to put a giant thermometer at the bottom of Portal del Ángel Street? It’ll be the largest thermometer in the world, more than twenty metres high. It’ll go along the entire front of Cottet Optician’s, and will work with lights. Each degree of temperature is a red lamp that lights up.’

  Sanvisens acknowledged receipt of the information with a nod of his head.

  They continued in silence, dodging passers-by and beggars, more common in that part of town with its shops and churches. They took Los Arcos Street on the left, which led them to the cathedral square. Carlos filled the silence with recollections of his old aversion to the facade of Barcelona’s cathedral, its neo-Gothic arches, its neo-Gothic columns, all fake. They headed towards it.

  The beggars became more numerous. The entrance was completely surrounded. He counted and classified them so that he could go past them without feeling as afflicted. Seven in total. Three old women swathed in clothes from head to toe, a man with only one hand, a man without legs, a girl and an ambiguous bundle coiled over itself and leaning against a wall.

  Inside, the air was heavy with wax, incense and the sweat of the faithful who’d filed out only ten minutes earlier. He trailed Sanvisens, passing several chapels on their right. In the middle of the nave Sanvisens pointed him to a pew. They sat down. The rest of the people remaining in the cathedral were a fair distance off, absorbed in their devotions. No one turned to look at them.

  ‘Why did you bring me here?’

  ‘So I could talk to you,’ he responded in a whisper.

  ‘We could have talked on the street.’

  ‘But I want you to tell me the truth,’ he replied, as his gaze flickered around the cathedral nave. You wouldn’t lie to me here, would you? said his movements.

  Sanvisens was projecting his ethical code onto others, which was, in Carlos’s opinion, sometimes his greatest defect or, in this case, his greatest virtue.

  ‘Carlos, have you interfered in any way in the Sobrerroca case?’

  He wasn’t looking at him; he kept his eyes straight ahead, and his expression left no room for doubt: he knew something, and there was no point in lying to him. He would never forgive him for it.

  ‘I’ve just made a few enquiries, asked some questions…’

  ‘What questions? Who did you ask?’

  Sanvisens sat bolt upright on the bench and, although he was muttering, his voice had an imperative, curt tone. Carlos leaned closer and began his confession, in a reedy whisper: ‘The truth is, one time I followed Ana Martí and saw her talking to a man in the Ciudadela. It was after she’d received some letter that had got her all wound up.’

  ‘You spied on a colleague?’

  ‘I’m not proud of it, if that’s what you want to hear. But it would only have amounted to a less than glorious moment in my career if I hadn’t happened to recognise the same man on a slab in the Montjuïc morgue a few days later.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come to me?’

  ‘Because you would have thought I was jealous of that girl.’

  ‘Would I have been wrong?’

  Carlos was silent.

  ‘Who did you go to with your questions?’

  Belda leaned even closer to Sanvisens. His tone was contrite. ‘I called a contact I have in the police force.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘It’s just that —’

  ‘Who?’ shouted Sanvisens.

  Several people turned to look. One of them got up, surely on her way to tell a priest.

  ‘Commissioner Goyanes, of the CIB.’

  ‘To tell him what?’

  ‘That I knew the dead guy at the morgue because I’d seen him once, talking to somebody who worked at the paper, the one who was writing the articles about the case.’

  ‘Why? To what end? Are you aware that you’ve put Ana Martí in danger? Do you know they came looking for her at the office and that, if it weren’t for the porter, they would have taken her on one of their walks?’

  ‘The retarded bloke?’

  ‘That’s the one. He took care of the thugs all on his own. Those guys were policemen.’

  They both knew what that meant: that someday, when they were
least expecting it, the police would be lying in wait for them around a corner or in a doorway.

  ‘Why did you do it, Carlos?’

  At that moment, Carlos was unable to give a reason beyond his professional spite and how unbearable he found the presence of his mentor Andreu Martí’s daughter in the newsroom. His silence led Sanvisens to a different conclusion. He turned to him with a forlorn expression, and when he spoke, his voice was full of sorrow: ‘Are you an informer, Carlos?’

  Belda rubbed his forehead with his hand several times before saying, ‘No, I’m not an informer. I’m just an imbecile.’

  59

  ‘Isidro.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Jesus, you’re in some mood,’ chided Manzaneque before getting to what had brought him to his colleague’s office. ‘We’ve got a dead lady.’

  ‘Well, how about that! How original! A dead lady! It’s not even nine and we’ve already got our first stiff. Where?’

  ‘In the Ensanche, on the Rambla de Cataluña. Come on, let’s go.’

  They left the office and headed towards the car. No words were exchanged, but it was clear that Manzaneque was going to drive. They got in and drove off.

  ‘Want a smoke?’

  Manzaneque held out a packet he pulled from his shirt pocket without taking his eyes off the traffic. Bisonte brand.

  ‘Black tobacco? No thanks.’

  ‘You smoke blonde now? Are you getting queer on me?’

  ‘I’m trying to give it up.’

  He couldn’t stand how his wife moved her face away involuntarily when he approached to kiss her. But he wasn’t going to tell that to Manzaneque, who continued with his mocking, ‘Oh, fine. I get it. Black, blonde, then you start with menthols and once you end up using a cigarette holder like a showgirl on the Paralelo, your life’s complete.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  ‘Aren’t we touchy! It’s great to see how much you’re enjoying your promotion. If they ever make you Commissioner, you’ll probably blow your brains out with happiness.’

  He couldn’t explain to Manzaneque – he couldn’t explain it to anyone – but his euphoria over his promotion to First Class Inspector had been snuffed out. Ana Martí’s visit hadn’t been a bucket of cold water, but it had prompted an insidious drip-drip in his mind that had eventually extinguished his enthusiasm. The solution to the Sobrerroca case was a fraud; his promotion, nothing more than a bribe, a juicy bit of meat to keep the dog from barking. He wouldn’t bark, he wasn’t that stupid, but he couldn’t stop growling at everyone, starting with Manzaneque.