The Angel's Game (41 page)

“What about the woman?”

“What woman?”

“There were two.”

“Two women?”

I sighed, shaking my head.

“Can you help me get up?”

With the guard’s assistance I managed to stand. It was then that I felt a burning sensation and noticed that my shirt was open. There were a number of superficial cuts running in lines across my chest.

“Hey, that doesn’t look good …”

I closed my coat and felt the inside pocket. Marlasca’s photograph had disappeared.

“Do you have a telephone in the booth?”

“Sure, it’s in the room with the Turkish baths.”

“Can you at least help me reach Bellesguard, so that I can call from there?”

The guard swore and held me by the armpits.

“I did tell you to come back another day,” he said, resigned.

A
few minutes before midnight I finally reached the tower house. As soon as I opened the door I knew that Isabella had left. The echo of my footsteps down the corridor sounded different. I didn’t bother to turn on the light. I went farther into the apartment and put my head round the door of what had been her room. Isabella had cleaned and tidied it. The sheets and blankets were neatly folded on a chair and the mattress was bare. Her smell still floated in the air. I went to the gallery and sat at the desk my assistant had used. She had sharpened the pencils and arranged them in a glass. The pile of blank sheets had been carefully stacked on a tray and the pen and nib set I had given her had been left on one side of the table. The house had never seemed so empty.

In the bathroom I removed my wet clothes and put a bandage with surgical spirit on the nape of my neck. The pain had subsided to a mute throb and a general feeling that was not unlike a monumental hangover. In the mirror, the cuts on my chest looked like lines drawn with a pen. They were clean, superficial cuts, but they stung a great deal. I cleaned them with the surgical spirit and hoped they wouldn’t become infected.

I got into bed and covered myself up to the neck with two or three blankets. The only parts of my body that didn’t hurt were those that the cold and the rain had numbed to the point that I couldn’t feel them at all. I lay there slowly warming up, listening to that cold silence, a silence of absence and emptiness that smothered the house. Before leaving, Isabella
had left the pile of Cristina’s letters on the bedside table. I stretched out my hand and took one at random, dated two weeks earlier.

I let the letter fall to the floor, unable to read anymore. Tomorrow would be another day, I told myself. It could hardly be worse than this one. Little did I imagine the delights in store. I must have slept for a couple of hours at the most when, all of a sudden, I awoke. Dawn was far away. Somebody was banging on the door of my apartment. I spent a couple of seconds in a daze, looking for the light switch. Again, the knocking on the door. I must have forgotten to lock the main entrance to the street. I turned on the light, got out of bed, and walked along to the entrance hall. I slid open the peephole. Three faces in the shadows of the landing. Inspector Grandes and, behind him, Marcos and Castelo. All three with their eyes trained on the peephole. I took two deep breaths before opening.

“Good evening, Martín. I’m sorry about the time.”

“And what time is this supposed to be?”

“Time to move your ass, you son of a bitch,” Marcos muttered, drawing from Castelo a smile so cutting I could have shaved with it.

Grandes looked at them disapprovingly and sighed.

“A little after three in the morning,” he said. “May I come in?”

I groaned but let him in. The inspector signaled to his men to wait on the landing. Marcos and Castelo agreed reluctantly, throwing me reptilian looks. I slammed the door in their faces.

“You should be more careful with those two,” said Grandes, wandering up the corridor as if he owned the place.

“Please, make yourself at home …” I said.

I returned to the bedroom and dressed carelessly, putting on the
first things I found—dirty clothes piled on a chair. When I came out, there was no sign of Grandes in the corridor.

I went over to the gallery and found him there, gazing through the windows at the low clouds that crept over the flat roofs.

“Where’s the sweetheart?”

“In her own home.”

Grandes turned round smiling.

“Wise man, you don’t keep them full board,” he said, pointing at the armchair. “Sit down.”

I slumped into the chair. Grandes remained standing, his eyes fixed on me.

“What?” I finally asked.

“You don’t look so good, Martín. Did you get into a fight?”

“I fell.”

“I see. I understand that today you visited the magic shop owned by Señor Damián Roures in Calle Princesa.”

“You saw me coming out of the shop at lunchtime. What’s all this about?”

Grandes was gazing at me coldly.

“Fetch a coat and a scarf or something. It’s cold outside. We’re off to the police station.”

“What for?”

“Do as I say.”

A car from police headquarters was waiting for us in Paseo del Borne. Marcos and Castelo pushed me unceremoniously into the back, positioning themselves on either side.

“Is the gentleman comfortable?” asked Castelo, digging his elbow into my ribs.

The inspector sat in the front, next to the driver. None of them opened their mouths during the five minutes it took to drive up Vía Layetana, deserted and buried in an ocher mist. When we reached the central police station, Grandes got out and went in without waiting. Marcos and Castelo took an arm each, as if they were trying to crush my bones, and dragged me through a maze of stairs, passages, and cells until
we reached a room with no windows that smelled of sweat and urine. In the center stood a worm-eaten table and two dilapidated chairs. A naked bulb hung from the ceiling and there was a grating over a drain in the middle of the room, where the two inclines of the floor met. It was bitterly cold. Before I realized what was happening, the door was shut behind me with a bang. I heard footsteps moving away. I walked round that dungeon a dozen times until I collapsed on one of the shaky chairs. For the next hour, apart from my breathing, the creaking of the chair, and the echo of water dripping, I didn’t hear another sound.

…

An eternity later I heard footsteps approaching and shortly afterwards the door opened. Marcos stuck his head round and peered into the cell with a smile. He held the door open for Grandes, who came in without looking at me and sat on the chair on the other side of the table. Grandes nodded to Marcos and Marcos closed the door, but not without first blowing me a silent kiss. The inspector took a good thirty seconds before deigning to look me in the eye.

“If you were trying to impress me, you’ve done so, Inspector.”

He ignored my irony and fixed his eyes on me as if he’d never seen me before in his life.

“What do you know about Damián Roures?” he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Not much. He owns a magic shop. In fact, I knew nothing about him until a few days ago, when Ricardo Salvador mentioned him. Today, or yesterday—I’ve lost track of time—I went to see him in search of information about the previous occupier of the house I live in. Salvador told me that Roures and the owner—”

“Marlasca.”

“Yes, Diego Marlasca. As I was saying, Salvador told me that Roures had had dealings with him some years ago. I asked Roures a few questions and he replied as best he could. There’s little else.”

Grandes inclined his head.

“Is that your story?”

“I don’t know. What’s yours? Let’s compare and perhaps I’ll finally understand what the hell I’m doing here in the middle of the night, freezing to death in a basement that smells of shit.”

“Don’t raise your voice to me, Martín.”

“I’m sorry, Inspector, but I think you could at least have the courtesy to tell me why I’m here.”

“I’ll tell you why you’re here. About three hours ago, one of the residents of the apartment block in which Señor Roures’s shop is located was returning home late when he found that the door of the shop was open and the lights were on. He was surprised, so he went in, and when he did not see the owner or hear him reply to his calls, he went into the back room, where he found Roures bound hands and feet with wire to a chair, over a pool of blood.”

Grandes paused, his eyes boring into me. I imagined there was more to come. Grandes always liked to end on something dramatic.

“Dead?” I asked.

Grandes nodded.

“Quite dead. Someone had amused himself by pulling out the man’s eyes and cutting out his tongue with a pair of scissors. The pathologist believes he died by choking on his own blood about half an hour later.”

I felt I needed air. Grandes was walking around. He stopped behind my back and I heard him light a cigarette.

“How did you get that bruise? It looks recent.”

“I slipped in the rain and hit the back of my neck.”

“Don’t treat me like an idiot, Martín. It’s not advisable. Would you rather I left you for a while with Marcos and Castelo, to see if they can teach you some manners?”

“All right. Someone hit me.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“This conversation is beginning to bore me, Martín.”

“Well, just imagine what it’s doing to me.”

Grandes sat down in front of me again and offered a conciliatory smile.

“Surely you don’t believe I had anything to do with the death of that man?”

“No, Martín, I don’t. What I do believe is that you’re not telling me the truth and that somehow the death of that poor wretch is related to your visit. Like the death of Barrido and Escobillas.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Call it a hunch.”

“I’ve already told you I don’t know anything.”

“And I’ve already warned you not to take me for an idiot, Martín. Marcos and Castelo are out there waiting for an opportunity to have a private conversation with you. Is that what you want?”

“No.”

“Then help me get you out of this so that I can send you home before your sheets get cold.”

“What do you want to hear?”

“The truth, for example.”

I pushed the chair back and stood up, exasperated. I was cold and my head felt as if it were going to burst. I began to walk round the table in circles, spitting out the words as if they were stones.

“The truth? I’ll tell you the truth. The truth is I don’t know what the truth is. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know why I went to see Roures or Salvador, I don’t know what I’m looking for or what is happening to me. That’s the truth.”

Grandes watched me stoically.

“Stop walking in circles and sit down. You’re making me dizzy.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Martín, you’re not telling me anything. All I’m asking you to do is to help me so that I can help you.”

“You wouldn’t be able to help me even if you wanted to.”

“Then who can?”

I dropped back into the chair.

“I don’t know …” I murmured.

I thought I saw a hint of pity, or perhaps it was just tiredness, in the inspector’s eyes.

“Look, Martín. Let’s begin again. Let’s do it your way. Tell me a story, and start at the beginning.”

I stared at him in silence.

“Martín. Don’t think that because I like you I’m not going to do my work.”

“Do whatever you have to do. Call Hansel and Gretel, if you like.”

At that moment I noticed a touch of anxiety on his face. Footsteps were advancing along the corridor and something told me the inspector wasn’t expecting them. I heard voices and nervously Grandes went up to the door. He tapped three times with his knuckles and Marcos, who was on guard, opened up. A man dressed in a camel hair coat and a matching suit came into the room, looked around him in disgust, and then gave me a sweet smile while he calmly removed his gloves. I watched him in astonishment. It was Valera, the lawyer.