Barcelona 03 - The Sound of One Hand Killing

by Teresa Solana

  Cecília lived in a small, dingy, stale-smelling flat in a poor neighbourhood. Her mother opened the door and told us her daughter had just slipped out to the supermarket, but would soon be back. The lady, whose name was Dolores, invited us in for a coffee without taking the minimal precautions necessary with total strangers.

  It was a small flat, and while Dolores boiled up the coffee in the kitchen and we waited in the dining room, she informed us without raising her voice that she was a widow and deeply grateful to her daughter, because her widow’s pension didn’t cover the rent. Cecília was a good girl, she said. She’d been lucky to find that job in Barcelona, where she earned almost double what she was paid when she worked on a supermarket checkout. Pity she’d not got a steady boyfriend, she added, because she was over thirty and, if she didn’t watch it, she’d be left on the shelf.

  “Don’t you worry, Cecília is a pleasant, attractive girl. I’m sure she has lots of suitors,” said Borja.

  Dolores had just poured our coffees when Cecília walked in, dragging her shopping trolley behind her. She was wearing tracksuit bottoms and a long-sleeved, faded T-shirt. She must have left her silk saris and garments at the meditation centre together with a good deal of her beauty. Though she wasn’t spectacularly pretty, the Cecília I’d seen at Zen Moments was an attractive girl who had little in common with the tired, dreary woman now standing opposite us.

  “Mum, how could you let two complete strangers into your house? Don’t feel offended, please!” she added for our benefit. “What if they’d been a couple of thieves? You are too trusting!”

  “Look, dear, they seemed honest enough…”

  “Your daughter’s right, Dolores,” I said. “You shouldn’t open your door to strangers. Appearances can be deceptive sometimes.”

  Dolores sighed and offered to take the trolley into the kitchen and leave us alone with Cecília.

  “We’ll have a nasty shock one of these days!” the girl lamented.

  “I’m very sorry. We had your address but not your number,” Borja apologized.

  “How can I be of help?” she asked, intrigued by our visit.

  Borja told her Horaci’s brother had involved us in the investigation and that we wanted to ask her a few questions.

  “I suppose the police think I’m a suspect as I don’t have an alibi?…” she asked, sounding frightened.

  “I don’t think you have a motive either,” said Borja soothingly. “We’ve not come here to talk to you as a suspect, but because you’ve been working at Zen Moments for some time and have first-hand knowledge of how the place works. You might have your own theory about what happened to Horaci.”

  “You mean about who killed him? I don’t know. Horaci was a good person,” said Cecília, shrugging her shoulders. “Although he flirted with women too much, particularly the mature sort…”

  “Did he flirt with you?” asked Borja.

  “No, he didn’t,” she answered, turning bright red.

  “Can you think of anyone who might have a reason to want him dead?”

  Cecília hesitated for a moment before she replied.

  “Things between him and Sònia were in a bad state,” she said. “They had frequent quarrels. Usually work-related. But that’s as much as I know.”

  Cecília explained that after everything that had happened, Sònia had decided to ring the changes at Zen Moments, and that was why she was on holiday. However, she couldn’t help us track down Horaci’s murderer because she really didn’t have a clue. Borja and I politely drank our coffees and said we had to go.

  We weren’t so lucky with Edith Kaufmann. She lived on the Diagonal, level with Tuset, but according to her maid, she was away from Barcelona for the time being. As she refused to give us further details, once we were back in the street we rang Edith on the mobile number the Inspector had given us. She was in Sant Sebastià and apologized when we said we were ringing on behalf of Horaci’s brother and she wouldn’t be back until Sunday night. We agreed to drop by her place on Monday morning.

  “It’s almost eight o’clock,” I said, looking at my watch. “I’d like to be home early.”

  “I’ll drive you there,” Borja offered. “I’m meeting Merche at nine.”

  “So you’re not seeing so much of Lola these days?”

  “She’s annoyed with me. But I’ll solve that this weekend,” he replied.

  I got home and found that Joana had set the table, and made a salad and a couple of potato omelettes.

  “How come dinner is so early?” I asked.

  “They’re showing Titanic at half past nine,” my mother-in-law explained.

  “Titanic? But didn’t you see that the other day?” I asked, remembering how Montse had said she thought she’d watch it while I spiritually exercised at Zen Moments.

  “In the end they showed Cleopatra, with Elizabeth Taylor. Montse stayed up to see it, but I felt sleepy and went to bed. I hope they don’t change it tonight as well!” my mother-in-law muttered.

  When we were having supper I asked Montse if she was sure they didn’t show Titanic on TV the night Horaci was killed.

  “Of course I’m sure,” she said, not understanding why I was asking the question. “Solé wanted us to go out for dinner, but I preferred to stay at home and be company for my mother who wanted to see the film.”

  I smiled. I had just caught Sònia Claramunt out lying. She had said she’d stayed at home watching Titanic the night of Horaci’s murder, and that was clearly untrue.

  “Do you know what?” I told her. “I think your mother has just helped me solve the case of the murdered homeopath.”

  “Really?”

  “Shush, will you, the film’s starting!” growled my mother-in-law.

  “Well, you can tell me all about it later, OK?” said Montse, sitting on the sofa.

  I left them glued to the screen and went to my bedroom to read.

  20

  When I told Borja the following morning what I’d discovered thanks to my mother-in-law, we both agreed the widow had gone up several rungs on our list of suspects. Her lie about the film she’d seen on television the night her husband was killed at the very least showed she’d not been straight with the police. All the same, before we told Inspector Badia, we decided to continue our round of questioning in case we discovered anything else related to the events on the night of the murder or to any other motives that might exist. It was the turn of the married couple, Xavier and Carme, and we thought we’d speak to Xavier first, and then to his wife.

  As Carme had mentioned during the introductions at Zen Moments, Xavier was an entrepreneur, if a quite modest specimen. He ran a small firm that refurbished houses, work he subcontracted to other firms of self-employed workers who did the grind, and with the crisis it was experiencing a lean time of it. Xavier’s firm had premises in a basement on Balmes, down past plaça Molina, and, as on previous occasions, Borja and I turned up mid-morning without warning. Xavier gave us a warm welcome that seemed genuine enough and invited us to coffee in the bar next door.

  “Luckily we were able to save something when the going was good and now we can manage until things start to pick up,” he explained. “Even though Carme sometimes has dreams of grandeur that make it difficult to keep any money in the bank!” he added, sighing like a husband resigned to satisfying his wife’s extravagant whims. “If she’d had her way, we’d have a yacht in hock and a house in the Ampurdan that the bank would have repossessed by now.”

  “At times it is difficult to make the ladies see sense,” agreed Borja, who is fond of these chauvinist clichés. “I expect Carme spent a fortune at Zen Moments?”

  “To tell you the truth, it was cheaper if she meditated and did yoga at the centre than if she spent a day in the operating theatre,” he continued. “What with getting new lips, firming up her breasts, butt and belly, removing her varicose veins and having operations on her nose and ears, Carme has spent a fortune on plastic surgery. Luckily, at the time we
could afford…”

  “It’s not easy for women at the moment,” I suggested. “They’re bombarded on all sides with the idea that they’re duty-bound to be eternally young. It must be difficult to resist the onslaught.”

  “Well, you know, it’s true that after she’d given birth twice the operations improved her a bit,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Particularly her tits, which were really drooping for her age… Though I don’t like what they did to her nose. I preferred it the way it was.”

  “The fact is, Carme is a sight for sore eyes,” Borja soft-soaped him. “Some people think you were jealous of Horaci!…”

  “Jealous of Horaci? Come off it!” Xavier started laughing, as if that was an absurd idea. “I was more concerned about his wife,” he added.

  “Sònia? You mean…” Borja didn’t finish his sentence.

  Xavier wrinkled his eyebrows, as if he didn’t understand what Borja was hinting at, and then he burst out laughing again.

  “No, no way! Come off it! The fact is that when Carme got her monthly ticket to Zen Moments, she stopped going to her plastic surgeon for a time, and that came as a relief because she’d become quite obsessed with him. And it wasn’t just the money, you know? I was worried about her health: going in and out of operating theatres so much can’t do you any good.”

  “So what’s that got to do with Sònia?” I asked.

  “Can’t you see? That woman’s got nothing natural left on her!” exclaimed Xavier. “The fact is when Carme got to know her, she was crazy about plastic surgery. She even had her small toes amputated so she could wear some shoes or other… Can you imagine?”

  “Do you mean Sònia voluntarily lost some toes? Why on earth would she want to do that?” I asked, recalling how I’d noticed that detail quite by chance.

  “Apparently, some shoes are the fashion now that you can wear only if you have your small toes amputated. But I had to dig my heels in and threaten Carme. I told her if she cut any toes off, I would divorce her.”

  “Ah, so you mean Carme and Sònia became good friends through Zen Moments…”

  “Not likely! Sònia is only interested in people who are loaded. I earn a decent amount (or rather, I used to), but Carme and I aren’t rich. Besides, we’re both from Sants, and it shows, however much cash you have. Sònia is too much of a snob to forget that.”

  “You told the police you spent the night Horaci was killed together in Carme’s room…”

  “Yes,” he replied, as if he didn’t grasp what we were after. “It would have been the last straw if I couldn’t sleep with my wife!”

  “But, if I remember correctly, you spent both days arguing,” I added.

  “It’s the way we are,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “If we argue, it doesn’t mean we don’t love each other. On the contrary, the day Carme and I stop fighting like cat and dog, I’ll start to be worried.”

  “Do you have a theory about who killed Horaci?”

  “I hardly knew him, but Carme is convinced it was Sònia. Obviously, Carme isn’t entirely impartial, because she envies her. However much she denies it. She’d like to have Sònia’s class and savoir-faire.”

  “We’d like to speak to Carme,” said Borja. “Do you think we will find her at home now?”

  “No, she’s not in Barcelona. She’s gone to spend a few days with a friend who has a house in Pals. But she’ll be back next week, if not before, if she gets bored.” He added with a smile, “In any case, I can tell you that you are wasting your time if you think Carme or I are suspects.”

  We said goodbye to Xavier and went to see Marta in the belief that Mònica was much more of a suspect because she has a monthly ticket to Zen Moments and had known Horaci for some time. If one of the pair was covering up for the other, it was Marta for Mònica. We phoned her and, as she worked in Gràcia, we agreed to meet her on a café terrace in the plaça del Sol at half past one.

  “You are quite wrong if you think I’m covering up for Mònica,” she told us after we explained why we were paying her a visit. “I thought Mònica was really worried about me, but she only wanted me to go with her to Zen Moments so she could try to get off with Bernat.”

  “Did she tell you as much?” asked Borja.

  “Yes. She came to my room that night and we talked and talked. I wanted to let it all hang out, because I was going through a really bad patch,” she said, looking down.

  “So you chatted until two a.m.?”

  “It might even have been later. In the end, we quarrelled, because when she told me about her infatuation with Bernat and the real point of our stay at the centre, I asked her to return the two thousand euros I’d paid out. And naturally she couldn’t because she didn’t have them. No, Mònica didn’t kill Horaci.” And she suddenly added, as if she’d just remembered she might be a suspect as well, “And nor did I either, obviously!”

  Marta had a short lunch break, and Borja and I bade her farewell, assuring her the police didn’t think she was a suspect either.

  We went home for lunch as we were in Gràcia. At around four we decided to visit Isabel, who seemed quite dotty and had no alibi, though I had heard her snoring at some point in the night. We knew she was off work on sick leave, and turned up at her place on spec though we realized she would probably send us packing when she heard why we’d called. But she didn’t. Even though she was surprised to see us and hear that we were detectives, she invited us in for a cup of tea.

  “I know who killed Horaci,” she declared. “It was the pharmaceutical transnationals.”

  “What on earth do you mean?” asked Borja ingenuously.

  “Well, Horaci taught us to mistrust the prescriptions and diagnoses of conventional medicine. He said – and quite rightly too – that it was big business. That’s why I decided to cure my cancer using natural therapies.”

  “Isabel, cancer isn’t an illness you can diagnose light-heartedly. If you are ill, you should go to a proper doctor. It may not be cancer, but anaemia.” I couldn’t stop myself from saying that when I noticed how underweight she was.

  “Yes, I could see at Zen Moments that you were one of them,” she counter-attacked warily.

  “I’m not saying medicines aren’t big business or that doctors don’t often make a big mess of it and prescribe more medication than is really necessary,” I retorted. “But doctors and medications do save people’s lives.”

  “Medicine makes people sick,” she declared categorically. “That’s why I never take any.”

  “But if you don’t take any, and now have cancer, what does that imply?” My reasoning was ruthless in its logic and Isabel was nonplussed for a few seconds.

  “You can say what you like, but you’re not going to trap me.” Then her expression suddenly changed. “I see it all now… I expect you were the people who killed Horaci.” I realized she had just entered a spiral of paranoia.

  “No we didn’t, we are only —”

  Isabel got up and stepped back from her chair, a look of terror spreading across her face.

  “So now you have come to kill me, haven’t you?” That being a statement of fact rather than a question.

  “We’d better be going before we get into real trouble,” I whispered to Borja.

  Borja and I got up and tiptoed quickly out of Isabel’s flat, leaving her convinced that my brother and I were a couple of killers hired by a pharmaceutical company to send her to the other side.

  “You are quite right: that woman’s not all there,” was Borja’s comment as we beat a retreat from her neighbourhood.

  As I’d listened to Isabel, I’d realized to what extent we live in a world still under the sway of superstition, irrational beliefs, misunderstandings and magic. Isabel was sure that scientific research and advances were merely a plot, organized at planetary level by the powers that be, and that the noble profession of doctors was simply evil commerce orchestrated by the pharmaceutical companies. The idea that real knowledge resided in antiquity and that the anc
ients, by dint of being ancient, were necessarily wiser, more disinterested and purer than present-day mortals was another of the misunderstandings that many so-called alternative therapies used in order to manipulate the ignorance of individuals of good faith, like Isabel now.

  “In any case,” I told Borja, “one has to recognize that doctors themselves are to blame if there are so many people who think like Isabel. A large section of the scientific community has surrendered to the interests of the pharmaceutical and food conglomerates; too many studies with a ‘scientific’ label produce results suspiciously favourable to the people who commissioned them. On the other hand, there are issues scientists can’t agree on, like, for example, whether transgenic food is good or bad for you. I myself don’t know what to think on that subject…”

  “So what you are saying, then, is that Isabel is right…”

  “No, not at all. At the very least, scientific studies are there to be compared and refuted and, in effect, that is what scientists do all the time. The problem with homeopathy and Bach flower remedies is that their therapies are based on faith rather than scientific method. You have to believe in them if you want to be cured. The advantage of conventional medicine is that you don’t have to be a believer for them to take effect. Their abuse is another issue entirely.”

  “Anyway, I think we can discount Isabel!…” sighed Borja. “Horaci was her hero.”

  “So what do we do now? It’s very early,” I asked.

  “I think it’s time to pay Sebastià a visit.”

  Sebastià lived in Sant Joan Despí, and, as it was Friday, and he might have decided to go away for the weekend, we decided to ring him to avoid going on a wild goose chase. Borja dialled Sebastià’s number and he immediately picked up the phone and seemed pleased to hear Borja’s voice. He said he was busy that afternoon, but suggested we should go and have dinner with him. Borja was free, because Merche was going to the Liceo with her husband and some friends, and Lola had a working dinner, while I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home with the family. After I’d sighed and nodded in agreement, my brother accepted his invitation.