A Crack in the Wall (25 page)
Read A Crack in the Wall Online
Authors: Claudia Piñeiro
There isn't much action on the neighbouring plot, but there's quite a stockpile of materials, and that reassures him; nobody invests in bricks without pressing ahead with the job in hand.
He returns to his room, opens the suitcase and puts on more comfortable clothes: shorts, a T-shirt and trainers. From an inside pocket he takes out his toolbox, then he returns to the living room. He takes from his folder the most recent sketch, the one incorporating Jara's crack. He leans it against the side wall, as though it were a picture that he has not yet had a chance to hang but will, as soon
as he has properly moved in. He walks towards the other wall, the party wall, the one bordering the plot where Garrido and Associates will soon be excavating a pit and then cementing the foundations of the duplex building they plan to build. He opens the toolbox, takes out a hammer and chisel, runs his hand over the wall, detecting two or three imperfections in the paintwork, and then, as though this were familiar work, he starts to carve a crack. Patiently he chips at the beginning of this fissure, which he knows is going to grow little by little, by dint of the strokes he makes. Day by day he will take photographs as the crack advances, he will note down its progress in inches, he will carry notebooks in which he records the meetings with enemies and with potential allies. He will measure the width and depth of the crack and he will wait.
He strikes and chips at the wall, strikes and chips, strikes and chips once more.
The dust makes him cough, but he doesn't stop, he will stop only when he has chipped away the amount by which the crack is going to grow that day, according to his own plan.
Then he turns his head over his shoulder and looks for him. He knows that he must be there, and indeed there he is, standing behind him, observing his work.
Pablo Simó looks at him, waiting for an opinion, and Nelson Jara, without saying a word, with a clear movement of his head and a barely insinuated smile, nods.
ALL YOURS
Claudia Piñeiro
Infidelity and obsession lead to murderâ¦
Inés is convinced that every wife is bound to be betrayed one day, so she is not surprised to find a note in her husband Ernesto's briefcase with a heart smeared in lipstick crossed by the words “All Yours”. Following him to a park in Buenos Aires on a rainy winter evening, she witnesses a violent quarrel between her husband and another woman. The woman collapses; Ernesto sinks her body in a nearby lake.
When Ernesto becomes a suspect in the case Inés provides him with an alibi. After all, hatred can bring people together as urgently as love. But Ernesto cannot bring his sexual adventures to an end, so Inés concocts a plan for revenge from which there is no return.
“If you read only one crime book in translation this year, make
All Yours
the one, a book that grabs you from the start and whips along at pace. Piñeiro is a best-selling Argentinean author, and unlike many South American books this one doesn't loiter. It screams out to become a film â
The Postman Only Brings Double Indemnity
perhaps”.
CrimeTime
£8.99/$14.95
Crime Paperback Original
ISBN 978 1904738 800
eBook ISBN 978 1904738 817
THURSDAY NIGHT WIDOWS
Claudia Piñeiro
“A nimble novel, a ruthless dissection of a fast-decaying society”âJosé Saramago, winner of the Nobel prize for literature
Three bodies lie at the bottom of a swimming pool in a gated country estate near Buenos Aires. Under the gaze of fifteen security guards, the pampered residents of Cascade Heights lead a charmed life of parties and tennis tournaments, ignoring the poverty outside the perimeter wall. Claudia Piñeiro's novel eerily foreshadowed a criminal case that generated a scandal in the Argentine media. But this is more than a tale about crime, it is a psychological portrait of a middle class living beyond its means and struggling to conceal deadly secrets. Set during the post-9/11 economic meltdown in Argentina, this story will resonate among credit-crunched readers of today.
Winner of the ClarÃn Prize for fiction and now a film by Argentine New Wave director Marcelo Piñeyro.
“A gripping story. The dystopia portrayed is an indictment not solely of an assassin but of Argentina's class structure and the wilful blindness of its petty bourgeoisie.”
Times Literary Supplement
“A fine morality tale which explores the dark places societies enter when they place material comfort before social justice, and security before morality.”
Publishers Weekly
£7.99/$14.95
Crime Paperback Original
ISBN 978 1904738 411
eBook ISBN 978 1904738 589
