“Yes, we were slightly off the beaten track, and I’d left my charger at home. You know, these rural retreats are a great invention,” I said, remembering the terrific impact wrought on Montse.
“You must be kidding! Give me a good five-star hotel, with room service, sauna, massage, Jacuzzi…”
“The countryside isn’t like that. You just like your creature comforts.”
“Haven’t you read the newspapers? Or watched TV?” he came back at me.
“No, to tell you the truth, no papers or TV. The countryside, fresh air, first-class food, a good wine with dinner…”
“Well, we’ve got work to do,” he added as he got up to fetch the parcel he’d left on the table, which he literally threw into my hands.
I took one glance. It contained around a hundred and fifty typed, double-spaced, unbound folios, held together by one of those brown elastic ribbons used to truss chickens. It looked like a novel, a door-stopper at that, and I didn’t know what to say. Someone had underlined what must be the title, A Shortcut to Paradise, above what I imagined must be the writer’s name on the front page. I hadn’t read anything by her, but I was very familiar with the name Marina Dolç. She was one of those famous writers who were always appearing on the TV, and I tried to remember what she looked like. If my memory wasn’t playing tricks on me, Marina Dolç was in her fifties, dark-haired, self-confident and attractive. She wasn’t thin or tall, and I recalled her as being elegant, although always too made-up for my taste. I couldn’t dredge up any other details, and I’m not at all convinced that the image in my head that day had any connection with reality.
“So what are we supposed to do with this?” I asked, rather taken aback. “I know we’re not on a case at the moment, but is it so drastic that we’ve got to start reading novels?”
“Eduard,” replied Borja, about to lose his patience, “Marina Dolç has been murdered.”
Since my brother and I joined forces, some three years ago, we’ve only once been involved in a murder case. In fact we are consultants, not gumshoes, although the work that comes our way means we often almost are. We don’t have a detective’s licence and so don’t spend time solving violent crime; that’s what the police are for. True, we work for the upper classes, but usually the commissions we get have to do with the underhand buying or selling of properties, dealing with what we might call delicate matters and, from time to time, corroborating or refuting suspected infidelities. If on one occasion (that we might describe as exceptional) we did agree to investigate a murder case, it was only because of those coincidences that often happen to Borja and that meant my brother and I found ourselves in the middle of a great big mess really quite by chance. But at the time Borja solemnly promised me it would be the last time, and I believed him. What was the likelihood we would encounter a corpse again, given the select circles we move in? For the second time in three years, the word “murder” lit up the little red alarm light inside my head.
“Borja, I thought we’d agreed…”
“I know we did, but when I tell you about this one, you won’t believe me.”
My brother was quite wrong. If I’ve found out one thing since we’ve been partners, it is Borja’s innate ability to get into tight corners. It’s not that he doesn’t know how to extricate himself, which is another of his specialities, but I’m always terrified that one day he’ll be stuck for good.
“It’s a rather strange case, but there’s no need for you to worry,” he began in that cocky manner he sometimes adopts and that really puts the wind up me. “On Friday night I accompanied Mariona to that literary party held at the Ritz.”
“I know. You were dressed up to the nines. Lola told Montse.”
“That’s right. But what you don’t know is that after dinner I had to spend six hours hiding under one of the dinner tables, surrounded by police. From three to eight a.m., and I kid you not. My back’s still hurting.”
I started to feel alarmed. Ever since we’ve been working in this phantom firm that doesn’t exist for tax purposes and renting an office on Muntaner that’s more like a theatre set, whenever I hear the word “police” my body goes into a cold sweat and I feel the need to put my head into a bag to breathe.
“Borja, you must be kidding? The police? What the hell have you done now?”
“Nothing whatsoever. When the mossos d’esquadra turned up, I just thought that they might ask for our ID cards, and obviously…”
“But what the fuck were the mossos doing there? Weren’t you and Mariona going to some fucking prize-giving?” I was still confused.
As soon as he saw I was so angry, Borja realized it would be better to start at the beginning and give a strictly chronological account of the facts. He got up from the sofa and took the precaution of closing a window, which was open because our office was like a furnace. He sat down again, lit a cigarette and offered me one. I accepted it right away. Clearly my pledge to stop smoking after a weekend in the country was worth fuck all.
“Indeed we were,” said Borja solemnly. “Mariona and I went to the Ritz, to the award ceremony for the Golden Apple Prize. You know, the one worth thousands.”
“A hundred thousand, if I’m not mistaken.”
“There were lots of people in attendance. Lots dressed for a party, lots of arse-lickers, a bunch of envious writers and the odd well-known politician… The chair of the jury announced the name of the winner around midnight, after a dinner that left much to be desired. A winner who was none other than Marina Dolç. Even you must have heard of her…”
“Course I have! She wrote a very famous novel, didn’t she? Love’s Not My Thing was the title, I think… I’ve seen it lying around the house.”
“You mean Love Is Not For Me. I’ve not read it yet, but Lola gave it to me on St George’s Day,” he sighed. “I think it was a subtle hint.”
“Very subtle.”
“The fact is Marina Dolç is a famous writer, as well as being filthy rich. She’s sold an amazing number of copies, particularly abroad.”
“And this novel?” I asked, glancing at the manuscript Borja had just handed me.
“Obviously, it’s the novel that won the prize,” he said, as if it were self-evident.
“Really!…” I felt that things were beginning to get knotted. “Don’t tell me you stole it?”
My brother looked at me as if he were deeply offended. I didn’t think he was in the business of stealing the manuscripts of prize novels written by writers who get murdered in five-star hotels, but it was the only logical explanation that came to mind given the evidence before my eyes.
“Don’t be such a fool! What on earth would be the point of stealing this manuscript? There must be loads of copies…”
I felt slightly guilty for harbouring evil thoughts, muttered an apology and asked him to go on unravelling what I assumed would be an entangled yarn. I promised not to interrupt him again.
“It turns out,” he took a deep breath, “that after dinner and the usual thanksgiving speeches, the usual blather, people started to leave. However, as usually happens on these occasions, a small group headed by Marina went down to the bar in the basement of the Ritz to prolong the party. In fact, there were about forty of us at the start, including Mariona and me. She wanted to show off the Versace she’d bought in New York, naturally enough…”
Mariona Castany is a very wealthy friend of my brother, who treats her as if she were an auntie. As she’s bored, she’s decided to write her memoirs and hobnob in literary circles. She’s around sixty-five, a widow and a wily old weasel. She lives alone, with her domestic staff, in one of the very few Modernist mansions still standing on Bonanova. From time to time, when her long-standing lover is otherwise engaged, Borja keeps her company.
“As you can imagine,” he continued, “the plonk kept flowing and we were all rather the worse for wear. But, of course, Marina had lots of commitments the day after, press interviews and so on, and announced she would be going to bed just bef
ore two. She was staying at the Ritz. Apparently she always stayed there when she came down to Barcelona.”
“Very sensible too.”
“Lots of people had gone by that time and there were about twenty of us still at the bar: the publisher and his wife, a few friends, a few critics, a close friend of Marina’s in a tight-fitting flowery dress that looked like a curtain…”
“Get to the point, Borja.”
“So we said goodnight to Marina and Mariona insisted on ordering another round.” Borja sighed yet again.
“Life’s hard, right?”
“The fact is,” he continued, ignoring my sarcasm. “I’d been introduced to a stinking-rich, rather dumb dentist and was trying to persuade him we could do good business together. You know the kind of thing, investments using black money… His wife wasn’t so sure and I set about giving her the hard sell. Then, at about half-past two, the woman in the flowery dress noticed Marina had lost an earring. She’d found it on the floor, under a chair, and, as it was a diamond-andpearl affair worth a fortune, she offered to take it up to her room.”
“How very considerate of her. But it’s odd Marina hadn’t noticed.”
“I suppose she didn’t have time, maybe the murderer bumped her off the moment she got back to her room,” he speculated. “Whatever. Two minutes later this woman, who went by the name of Josefina something or other, rushed back to the bar in a highly agitated state. She couldn’t stop crying. She was so distraught she couldn’t get a word out. We finally calmed her down slightly and she told us why she was so upset. Get this: she had just discovered her friend prostrate on the floor in her bedroom, in a pool of blood, her head all smashed up.”
“Fucking hell! These writers don’t do things by halves!”
“Too true. Just imagine. The party was suddenly over. Josefina couldn’t stop shaking and crying… Nobody had a clue about what had happened. People were talking about robbery and revenge… Anyway, the police had been informed and Mariona wanted to stay. I suppose she’d decided to include the episode in her memoirs…” he paused and looked at me askance. “The minutes were ticking by and I was worried in case the police decided to question us and asked for my ID card.”
“Quite,” I commented sarcastically.
“It was no joke.”
“I know,” I said even more sarcastically.
“In the end,” Borja went on, ignoring my grin, “I tried to excuse myself and scarper, but when I was in the lobby and about to exit, the place was suddenly awash with cops. I got cold feet and decided to hide in one of the rooms where we’d been wined and dined. That wasn’t a good idea, because the police chose that exact place to use as a kind of operations centre, and it was soon packed with mossos.”
“My God, what a mess!…” The mere idea cracked me up.
“I didn’t know what to do, but I’d already found a hiding place when I saw them come marching in…” he sighed. “I’d slipped under one of the tables there, not suspecting I’d be there until eight on Saturday morning. Luckily the tablecloths reached almost to the floor, which was spotlessly clean…” he added, attempting to smile.
“Pep, don’t try to soft-soap me. I’ve told you more than once that this Borja saga would land you in it one of these days,” I rasped in his direction, upset rather than angry.
My brother’s problem is that his name isn’t Borja Masdéu Canals Sáez de Astorga, as he introduces himself and as it says on the elegant visiting cards he cheerfully hands out in Barcelona to his rich acquaintances, but Pep, or rather, Josep Martínez Estivill. It’s not true either that he was born in Santander, as he often likes to claim grandiosely; in fact, he came into this world in the district of Gràcia, as I did; we are twins for a good reason. Obviously, nobody is aware of that little nugget, that we’re twins as well as partners, absolutely nobody, not even my wife. By one of those strange quirks of nature, Borja and I don’t look at all alike and that helps our subterfuge. Indeed, he’s rather handsome, after our mother, and I turned out on the plain side.
“So how did you manage to leave without the police catching you?” I asked, intrigued. “Or did they?”
“No way! What with the racket made by guests coming down for breakfast, the waiters, journalists and police coming in and out, I was able to beat a discreet retreat!”
And he added, shrugging his shoulders, “What did you expect me to do? To risk the police revealing that I’m not Borja Masdéu in front of Mariona and all those people? If they found out I’m a common or garden Martínez, our business would be done for, Eduard. What would we do then?” he exclaimed, raising his eyebrows and snarling.
I swallowed. It’s not that Trau Consultants – that is our company name – is the most prosperous business on the planet, but we can’t complain. Being the trusted butler to the rich brings in more than you’d think. In my case, if we were forced to shut up shop for some reason I’d be hard put to find another line of work, and as for Borja… True, he has no family responsibilities, and between Merche, his rich girlfriend, Lola and that friend of his in the Barceloneta (who I’m positive deals in stolen goods), he’d no doubt get by. As for me, who’s going to employ a forty-five-year-old ex-bank employee with no special talents? And in the improbable likelihood that I ever did find a job, how would we manage to survive at home on the minimum wage that is surely all I could aspire to with things as they are at the moment? Not that I’ve ever regretted the decision to leave my old position, but, unlike Borja, I find it difficult to keep cool and collected in moments of crisis.
“And what about this novel?” I asked, weighing it in my hand. “What are you intending to do with it? You haven’t got sucked into the business of the murder of Marina Dolç…”
“Well, on that front… As I’d stood Mariona up in the middle of all that hassle, and as Mariona is a lady one cannot stand up… I naturally phoned her the following morning to apologize.”
“How thoughtful.”
“I logically needed a good excuse. So I told her…” – he paused, I expect in order to give me time to prepare psychologically for what I was about to hear – “that I had disappeared because the police had asked me to lend them a hand in the investigation. Unofficially, of course. As Mariona thinks you and I are proper detectives…”
I was speechless. While I was taking all this in, I was trying to imagine what the connection could be between the story my brother had spun Mariona in order to save face and the fact I was now holding the novel of a prize-winning, if murdered, author.
“In fact,” he added rather nervously, seeing that I wasn’t reacting at all, “as I was hiding so long, amid so many mossos, I found out lots. Time of death, murder weapon, suspects, eyewitness statements… I doubt there is anyone better informed.”
“Borja, I still don’t see what all that has to do with this novel,” I said, waiting for him to give me a good reason why I should be holding that stack of paper.
“It’s quite simple. Through Mariona’s mediation, Clàudia Agulló, who is Amadeu Cabestany’s agent, as well as Mariona’s, we’ve been contracted to prove her protégé is innocent. He’s in the clink at the moment.”
“It’s as clear as mud…”
As I’d still not read the newspapers, I hadn’t the slightest idea who Amadeu Cabestany was or what Mariona Castany’s literary agent’s role was in all that mess. Nor could I see what the hell we were doing getting involved in what seemed to be a literary spat with a writer’s corpse thrown in for good measure.
“Eduard, writers have literary agents” – Borja seemed unenthused about stating the obvious – “and Clàudia Agulló is the agent for the writer who was runner-up for the prize, this Amadeu Cabestany. According to Clàudia (who is really good-looking, by the way) he is one of these brilliant, misunderstood writers, who has surrendered himself to literature body and soul… All the same, the police believe he did in the Dolç woman out of resentment. And also because he’d had one too many. What’s more, they were staying in adja
cent rooms. What’s more, Amadeu went up to his room a few minutes before she followed suit.”
“That could be pure coincidence…”
“A bunch of eyewitnesses, including yours truly, saw the sour-grapes look on his face when the winner’s name was announced. Not to mention the little speech he then delivered!… He was scathing about Marina, and, while he was at it, about the members of the jury. They’re not so pretty, and he shat on them.”
“People say these things when they’re in a temper,” I reasoned.
“True, but some guests heard him tell Dolç she’d live to regret the prize, and that can be read as quite a threat, in the light of what then happened.”
“Yes, that is more damning,” I allowed.
“In short, the police arrested him on the spot, after concluding that everything pointed to him as the main murder suspect.”
“Yes, it certainly looks that way. And if he threatened her…”
“Yes, but Clàudia is convinced he is innocent. Obviously if Cabestany could back up his alibi, we’d be out of a job.” The prospect seemed to dampen his spirits slightly. “He says he left the hotel five minutes after leaving the bar. He also says he took a taxi and went to the Up & Down club, and was held up at gunpoint when he left. The porter at the Ritz doesn’t remember seeing him leave, but at that time of night lots of people were going in and out… For the moment none of the taxi drivers have been tracked down, and no eyewitnesses have appeared from the disco. And no news of the mugger either, who took all his cash but nothing else. Not his ID, credit cards or watch. And, according to Cabestany, he even gave him money for a taxi.”
“That all sounds pretty implausible. Perhaps he is really guilty and made up the whole story. You did say he is a writer, didn’t you? He can’t be short of imagination…” I suggested.
“In any case, I have an envelope containing six thousand euros to encourage us to prove he is innocent. Courtesy of his agent.” He took the envelope from his pocket and showed it to me. “What do you reckon?”
A Shortcut to Paradise Page 5