City of Drowned Souls

by Chris Lloyd

  ‘The smell from that baker’s,’ she murmured.

  Montse looked at the window display and shrugged. ‘Bread. Never touch it.’

  ‘And that’s one more reason why running’s just so wrong,’ Elisenda told her.

  They walked in silence the short distance to the apartment block in the narrow and affluent canyon of Carrer Migdia. Oddly, Elisenda felt her reaction to the smells coming from the shop was a small victory. A return to an older, more sensuous and sybaritic version of herself that had been in abeyance for so many years. She wondered for a moment if the sessions with Doctora Puyals maybe were doing her some good. That was something she’d never admit.

  Inside the block they wanted, they climbed a dingy stairwell to the fourth floor, the timer on the landing lights ticking down loudly. Unfortunately, there was no porter in the block, so no one to have a key to open the door for them should they need it. It was nearly lunchtime, and cooking smells pervaded each landing, some enticing, some not. On the third floor, they heard the rhythmic beating of a metal spoon on a ceramic bowl coming from inside one of the apartments.

  ‘Someone’s having omelette for lunch,’ Montse commented.

  ‘Go nicely with that bread,’ Elisenda teased her.

  No one answered the door to Pere Vergés’s apartment. Elisenda rang for the fourth time, but she couldn’t hear a bell inside, so she also banged on the ornate wooden door, realising it was pointless. Crossing the landing, she knocked on the door opposite and waited until footsteps shuffled up to the door and someone evidently examined her through the spyhole.

  ‘Mossos d’Esquadra,’ she said in a loud voice. ‘We’d like to ask you about your neighbour, Pere Vergés.’

  The door chain rattled and it was opened by an elderly woman wearing canvas sandals and a blue cotton housecoat. She held herself up with the aid of a stick.

  ‘He’s not here,’ she told them. She looked down the stairwell to her left and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. ‘He’s been in prison, you know.’

  ‘Yes, we did know that. Might we come in?’

  Elisenda and Montse showed the woman their ID and she led them into a flat that had last been decorated in the late 1970s. Chunky wooden furniture on light brown terrazzo tiles flecked with dark brown and grey. She went to the kitchen to make coffee while they sat themselves down in a living room cluttered with framed photographs and fading memories. The woman’s husband was sitting in an armchair, the sofas and chairs perhaps the only pieces of furniture in the room that were younger than Montse. He greeted them and apologised for not getting up.

  ‘Not very gallant,’ he told them, ‘but I’m old and buggered and I don’t move so easily anymore.’

  ‘Not a worry,’ Elisenda reassured him, a laugh in her voice.

  The wife came in and set a tray down with steaming cups of coffee. ‘Language,’ she warned her husband. He pulled a face at Elisenda but smiled a toothless devotion at his wife and squeezed her hand when she sat down next to him.

  ‘It’s Pere Vergés you’re after?’ the husband asked them.

  ‘He was at home all weekend,’ the wife added. ‘He came back on Friday after he came out of prison.’ Again, she whispered the last word.

  ‘But we heard him go out on Monday and he hasn’t been back since.’ The husband’s turn to speak.

  As witnesses, Elisenda realised, they were gold.

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘First time was in the morning,’ the wife told her. ‘About ten o’clock. He was wearing a suit. I saw him through the spyhole when he left.’

  That was most likely when he was going to see his lawyer, Elisenda realised.

  ‘He came back at noon,’ the husband continued. ‘She saw that, too. Through her spyhole.’

  The wife slapped his thigh in rebuke.

  ‘And the second time?’ Elisenda asked.

  ‘Twenty to five,’ the husband told them, no shadow of doubt in his voice.

  ‘La Riera was just finishing,’ the wife explained, a home-grown soap on television that had all the daytime crowd talking.

  ‘Load of bollocks, but she loves it.’

  ‘Language,’ the wife told him, but without any conviction. If anything, Elisenda saw an indulgent smile on her face.

  ‘You wouldn’t know where he was going?’ she asked them. ‘Or what he was wearing?’

  The wife shook her head. ‘We only heard him that time. I did, anyway, this one’s deaf as a doornail.’

  ‘Did anyone come to see him in the meantime?’ Montse asked this time.

  ‘Nothing,’ the husband told her, gesturing with his thumb to his wife. ‘This one would have heard.

  ‘And you haven’t seen him since?’

  They both shook their heads, the pair of them reaching at the same time for their coffee cups and taking a sip. His was a long and noisy gulp, hers a repeated pecking at the rim like an inquisitive bird.

  ‘How did he seem to you over the weekend?’

  ‘Oh, we didn’t talk to him,’ the wife told Elisenda. ‘We never really had much to do with him when he lived here.’

  ‘Bit full of himself,’ the husband explained. ‘We weren’t good enough.’

  ‘Although I saw him coming through the downstairs door on Sunday morning,’ the wife said. ‘He was just coming in as I was leaving. I went out to get bread and cakes for breakfast and the newspaper. He said hello nicely enough. Didn’t seem as sure of himself as he used to.’

  ‘Prison will have done that to him,’ the husband said.

  ‘Language.’

  ‘I understand his mother died earlier this year,’ Elisenda changed tack. ‘Did she speak much about her son?’

  ‘His mother?’ the wife said surprisingly vehemently. ‘Oh no, she never spoke to us.’

  ‘Stuck-up cow,’ the husband added.

  ‘Language. They both thought they were a cut above the rest of us on the staircase, you see. Neither of them ever used to come to the residents’ association meetings. They did everything by letter. Inside the building, can you imagine?’

  ‘Their sort are like that,’ the husband muttered.

  ‘Their sort?’ Elisenda asked.

  He took another gulp of his coffee, his movements painfully slow. ‘You know. Their sort. Think they’re so much better than the rest of us.’

  ‘All the good it did them,’ the wife offered. ‘None of their lot wanted to know them after the son was sent to you-know-where.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,’ Elisenda said, mystified.

  ‘Opus,’ the husband said simply. ‘They were Opus Dei.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ‘Is Bellsolà Opus Dei?’ Montse asked her as they climbed on foot up the cobblestones of the narrow and embracing Carrer de la Força. They’d decided to pay Pere Vergés’s lawyer a visit after all once they’d heard he was Opus like Miravent and Comas.

  Elisenda laughed. ‘No. Our Gerard’s much too worldly and pragmatic for that, although that’s not always a barrier to membership. You have to be careful, or you end up seeing Opus in everyone and everything.’

  Montse mumbled an agreement. ‘I’ve heard more about Opus Dei in the last two days than I have in my life before now. Except in the movies.’

  ‘You see. Girona. We did it first.’

  ‘You sound just like Manel with his beloved Lleida,’ Montse accused her.

  They laughed and sidestepped a string of elderly American tourists emerging from the Jewish history museum, checking their purchases from the gift shop. Gerard Bellsolà had his legal practice a few metres further up the incline and on the left. An unremarkable doorway in a fourteenth-century building led into a tiny and tranquil courtyard. Just one single oblong of light shone down from the open square of sky above and illuminated a potted palm, its fronds still in the quiet air, dust motes floating in suspension around it. A powerful red BMW motorbike stood incongruous on the ancient flagstones, a sleeping modern beast in its medieval
lair. To the right of the patio, a flight of ornate stone steps behind a banister of carved curlicues and mythical animals led along the side wall and continued up the rear to the first floor. They climbed as far as a heavy wooden door into an office and announced themselves to a snooty receptionist with a lacquered helmet of dark blond hair seated behind the protection of a high-fronted desk.

  ‘Senyor Bellsolà will see you,’ she told them after a few moments in which she didn’t appear to have told anyone of their presence.

  ‘I know he will,’ Elisenda replied with a smile. ‘We know the way.’

  The lawyer was sitting behind a huge and old-fashioned mahogany partners’ desk, even though he occupied the splendid oak-panelled room on his own. Probably from his grandfather’s day, Elisenda thought, the first in the dynasty of lawyers to blight the city. Despite the grandeur of the office, she always found it uncomfortable, one of those rooms where no matter how many lights and lamps you put in, it was still dingy. She forever had to fight the urge to look around for more switches to press.

  ‘Pere Vergés,’ Elisenda announced, taking a seat. ‘You were representing him.’

  Bellsolà didn’t make eye contact with the two women, checking something on his computer instead. ‘What of it?’

  ‘I understand it was in relation to compensation.’

  ‘You know perfectly well that client confidentiality means I don’t have to answer that question, Sotsinspectora.’

  ‘Your client has been missing since Monday,’ Elisenda told him patiently. ‘He missed an appointment with you and he missed an appointment with the judge. Does that not concern you?’

  Finally, Bellsolà looked at her to reply. ‘My client has spent nearly four years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. I understand that he may need some time before continuing with his application for compensation.’

  ‘Have you spoken to him since Monday?’

  ‘Client confidentiality, Sotsinspectora.’

  Elisenda sighed, determined to remain calm. ‘He has gone missing, Gerard. His neighbours haven’t seen him since Monday. It may be a cause for concern. Did he say anything to you that might make you think there was something worrying him?’

  ‘I repeat, he had just spent four years in prison and he was innocent. Isn’t that cause enough for worry?’

  ‘Gerard, I am just trying to do my job, protecting your client. Without compromising client confidentiality, you can tell me something that would help me ensure his safety. I need to find him. I need to know his state of mind. You know as well as I do that I could get a judge to order you to release the details of your meetings with him.’

  Bellsolà laughed, a coarse, confident bark. ‘You believe a judge would do that.’ He paused and took a deep breath. ‘Listen, he did ring me on Monday afternoon. He said he wasn’t sure he wanted to go ahead with the application for the time being. Now if you don’t mind, I have other clients, and that’s all I’ll tell you.’

  ‘What about his manner? Did he seem agitated?’

  The lawyer looked for the right words. ‘He seemed distracted. That’s all I can say.’

  Elisenda tried a further few questions, but the lawyer had clammed up. She realised they were going to get nothing more out of him.

  Outside, once the meeting was over, Elisenda and Montse walked back down the narrow cobbled street.

  ‘I always feel I want to scream out loud after talking to Bellsolà,’ Elisenda commented.

  ‘I need to go for a long run,’ Montse agreed.

  ‘Screaming out loud’s better.’

  They crossed the footbridge leading to Plaça Independència. The river below them was flowing faster and deeper than usual, the water swollen by the rainfall in the mountains. Elisenda could just make out a couple of large carp in the muddy, swirling water, their mouths gaping open to catch the flies and insects washed towards them in the low flood. The sun was high in a crystalline sky over the exposed bridge and there was no breeze to soften the high temperature. She took her jacket off and slung it over her shoulder.

  ‘Do you think Vergés could be our guy?’ Montse asked her as they neared the square on the other side.

  ‘I don’t know yet. I think we need to find out a bit more about him, and where he is, before we start seeing him as a suspect.’

  They waited until a group of four businesspeople walked past them, all of them wearing clothes that were too warm for the sunny outside world but that were perfect for the air-conditioned offices where they worked. One of them caught Elisenda’s eye and took off her jacket as she walked, smiling in over-heated sympathy.

  ‘The thing that I find odd,’ Elisenda carried on once they’d passed, ‘is why Vergés decided not to go ahead with seeking compensation. If you’ve just spent four years in prison and you really are innocent, surely the one thing you’d make sure you did was get some recompense for it.’

  ‘Or revenge?’ Montse asked. ‘Maybe that became more important to him.’

  ‘If that’s so, what made him change his mind? He came out of prison and started the ball rolling to get compensation, but then something happened to make him want revenge instead. What would that be?’

  ‘And why not just carry on with the compensation claim, anyway?’

  ‘Could be he thinks he needs to keep a low profile because he’s planning on doing something. We need to talk to him.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Montse asked.

  ‘Now? Now we go and talk to Marc Comas and Susanna Miravent to see if they can tell us anything about Pere Vergés.’

  * * *

  The house in Palau was guarded by two bored-looking Mossos and besieged by a hard core of journalists and TV crews growing impatient with the relative lack of movement.

  ‘Can you tell us if it’s paedophile-related, inspectora?’ one of the press shouted from the other side of the road.

  Elisenda grimaced at the mosso who had called through to the house for the gate to be opened and got out of the car for a brief moment. She knew she had to say something to quell any easy backlash.

  ‘We feel that that line of enquiry is unlikely,’ she told the gathered reporters, who had all stood up and were craning forward on the opposite pavement, ‘and the Mossos are grateful to you all for your professionalism at this time.’

  Ignoring a barrage of questions lobbed over the road at her, she got back in the car and Montse sped into the drive.

  ‘But how long that will last is anybody’s guess,’ Elisenda muttered to her caporal.

  They found Miravent in the living room in discussion with Bofarull. They were talking about the election and a live televised debate she was scheduled to take part in that evening.

  ‘Do you think that’s wise?’ Elisenda asked her.

  ‘We live in a democracy,’ the politician replied when they were shown into the room by the maid. ‘I would be failing in my duty if I allowed this matter to prevent democracy being served.’

  ‘This matter?’

  ‘Do you have any news for us, Sotsinspectora?’ Miravent asked them. Without waiting for a reply, she spoke to the maid without looking at her. ‘Coffee for everyone, please, Encarna.’

  Elisenda introduced her to Montse, as it was the first time the caporal had met the politician. ‘We have some,’ she told Miravent. ‘Might we ask where your husband is?’

  ‘He’s in his study.’ She turned to Bofarull. ‘Would you go and get him, please, Francesc?’

  ‘And if you’d care to return also,’ Elisenda added as he left.

  The three women sat down on the sofas, the silence uneasy between Elisenda and Miravent since their last conversation.

  ‘I presume no one has contacted you about Jaume,’ Montse said, more to break the impasse while they waited than out of any real enquiry.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Besides the two Mossos at the gate and a third one inside the house, there were two Científica set up in a spare bedroom with recording equipment, monitoring incoming calls
and there to alert Elisenda the moment anyone did make contact to say they were holding Jaume. She knew they’d heard nothing. What the Mossos didn’t have was any access to Miravent or Comas’s mobile phones, her request to monitor them turned down by both the couple and Jutgessa Roca. She had to take it on faith, Miravent’s magic word, that they would tell her of any phone call to their mobiles that they received about their missing son. There were days she grew tired of the people supposedly there to help her proving to be the greatest hindrance.

  Comas came into the room, followed by Bofarull, and sat down on the same sofa as his wife but at the opposite end. The campaign manager remained standing, with the window behind him. Comas was more composed than he had been the previous day and much of his self-confidence was back.

  ‘How are your fingers?’ Elisenda asked him, gesturing to his splinted and heavily-bandaged hand.

  He looked at it before answering. ‘Sore. And itching like hell.’

  Miravent bristled at his last word. Not for the first time, Elisenda got the impression that where the wife’s faith was more genuine, if rather intense and distasteful to Elisenda’s view of life, the husband’s appeared to be a lot more pragmatic.

  ‘Have you had any more thoughts about the attack on you?’ Montse asked him.

  He shrugged. His self-deprecating smile was almost boyish, one that he evidently knew from experience usually won people over. ‘A mugging. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘I see you’ve replaced your phone,’ Elisenda commented. In reply, Comas waved a new mobile at her. ‘I presume it’s the same number.’ He nodded and she continued. ‘Really we’re here about what we see as a development in Jaume’s disappearance. A man called Pere Vergés has come to our attention.’

  As she spoke, Elisenda watched Comas closely for his reaction. She knew that Montse would be studying Miravent. It was the husband who spoke first.

  ‘Vergés? Why would he have anything to do with this?’

  ‘You know him, then?’ Elisenda asked.

  ‘Of course. It was quite a scandal. He worked in computers at the city council. I never really had much to do with him at work because I’m in a different department, but he seemed all right. It came as a bit of a shock when he was found stealing.’