A Not So Perfect Crime (11 page)

While we tried to read those women's lips, Borja's mobile rang.

“Why don't you answer?” I asked.

Borja looked at the number and switched his phone off.

“No, I can deal with it later on.”

“It might be another client,” I responded sarcastically.

“I think not ...” he replied, looking down and putting an act on.

“Ah, right you are.”

I presumed it must be Lola and thought how Montse would give me the third-degree treatment that night when she got back. That is, if she'd not invited Lola to dinner as well. I was forced to interrupt the thread of my thoughts because the two women suddenly got up and exchanged icy goodbyes. The woman with the deep tan paid the bill and was the first to leave. She seemed upset and insulted. Her interlocutor, on the other hand, sat down again and stayed in the Sandor for a few minutes more. Whatever they'd been talking about, her barely concealed smile of satisfaction revealed that she'd got her way.

Finally, Lídia Font got up and decided to return to her modest mansion. Her husband had assured us that, when she had no other commitments, his wife always ate at home in order to maintain the spartan diet that enabled her to keep her size thirty-six. Then she'd have a siesta, watch some women's programme and wouldn't normally reappear in the world outside until well gone five.

For our part, we were tired and hungry and decided to eat. Of course it would have been much more professional to take turns to stand guard on the corner by their house, in case Mrs Font changed her mind and decided to invite her lover to lunch, but that way of working was tedious in
the extreme. Besides, we knew from experience that the one left on watch inevitably dozed off. So we looked for a restaurant with a cheap set lunch and trusted what the MP had told us about his wife's eating habits.

After refuelling, though still drowsy, we parked ourselves back outside the Font mansion. At about half past four the MP's wife emerged, this time on foot and in a hurry. She'd changed and was dressed much more informally. She stopped a taxi on Bonanova and we followed her in our Smart: to a beauty parlour.

She spent almost four hours in that hairdresser's, while, squashed and stiff-necked, we got bored and froze to death in our tiny car. I curbed my tongue and made a real effort not to broach the subject of Lola. It was gone eight o'clock when she decided to leave the beautician's. Unfortunately, it was dark by this time and we were in no position to appreciate the results of so many hours of self-sacrifice. We followed her back to her house and waited there till nine o'clock when we saw our client drive his Audi into the garage, and so we decided to call it a day.

The next morning Mrs Font took a taxi to the Corte Inglés. We pursued her though the department store, in case she'd got a date there with her painter friend. She spent a couple of hours trying on blouses and trousers in the boutiques on the women's floor, but looked at lots and bought little. Then she went up to the cafeteria, had a coffee and spent almost an hour smoking while talking on her mobile. Just after one, she went down to the perfume section and purchased, amongst other lotions and liquids, a bottle of Chanel Number 5 (I've always wondered whatever happened to Numbers 2 and 8, say), and thus burdened by several packages, she finally got into a taxi.

As we'd left the Smart in the store car park, we decided to leave it there and hop in a taxi. We ended up outside a well-known restaurant in the carrer París in the heart of the Eixample. Lídia Font strode into the eatery, and Borja, a few seconds later, announced he would take a discreet look inside.

“If she's with a man, we'll try to get a table,” he told me, “if not, we'll eat opposite.”

“Sure, this restaurant doesn't look cheap.”

“With all those bags, I expect she's meeting a lady friend. I'd bet my birthright on it.”

“What makes you think that?” I asked intrigued.

“It's Bags' Law and it's infallible,” he came back at me.

Thanks to my brother, over the last three years I've learned a whole lot of subtle insights that were news to me. For example, that when lunching with a lady friend, women from a certain social class first go shopping in order to appear in the restaurant laden with bags and, so much the better if they're the exclusive designer variety. It's a matter of quality rather than quantity. This way I've learned that a single Loewe or Vuitton bag beats any number from Bulevard Rosa or the Corte Inglés, that Armani and Chanel level peg and that Zara is a no-no. This is Borja's Bags' Law. And it's not the only unwritten code that reigns in particular zones of Barcelona's upper reaches.

Yet again my brother was right. Our client's wife was going to lunch with a lady friend, who also had her supporting cast of bags. Four Corte Inglés against two Bulevard Rosa could be rated as a technical draw, perhaps with the MP's wife getting a slight edge. On this occasion, the relationship between both women seemed much more relaxed. According to Borja, who'd spied on them from inside
the restaurant, they'd greeted each other effusively and everything pointed to the other woman being one of her wealthy friends. Conversely, Lídia Font gave the impression she was too intelligent to commit an indiscretion in public with a man who wasn't her husband, particularly in that sort of top-class restaurant. So we left them to get on with it and went to our tapas in the rather more modest bar opposite.

When Lídia Font left the restaurant a couple of hours later, we trailed her on foot to another furniture shop where she stayed for half an hour until she decided to return home with us close on her heels. We waited in our car, which we'd recovered during her long post-lunch chit-chat, but decided to call it a day at seven thirty: Barça was playing and we didn't want to miss the opening minutes of the game.

There were no novelties over the next few days. Shops, lady friends, more shops and the odd social event, sometimes accompanied by her husband. On Thursday afternoon Mrs Font went shopping with her daughter, a pallid, skinny adolescent who didn't seem to have inherited her mother's seductive beauty, and on Friday we visited more interior design shops and dozed off in our tiny car near her elegant mansion. The monotony was beginning to exasperate and it all pointed to a complete lack of anything suspicious in the lady's behaviour. We were mistaken, because very late on Friday afternoon the exemplary Mrs Font had a surprise in store for us.

8

It was just seven o'clock and pitch black. Borja and I were tired, fed up of mounting guard by the MP's mansion, and wanted to go home. We also knew that the Fonts had people coming to dinner that night so imagined we could shut up shop and retire for the night. We were about to drive off when we saw Mrs Font emerge sheathed in luxurious mink, and in a rush. On this occasion, rather than taking the Mercedes, she walked to the Bonanova and hailed a taxi. The vehicle headed into the centre and we had no choice but to point our Smart in the same direction.

“I wonder where the fuck's she's off to at this time of night? With all this traffic!” Borja exclaimed.

The taxi turned down Balmes. We were on our way to the madding crowd.

“I don't know where the hell I'll park! It's nose-to-tail out there!” My brother hated driving in the city-centre. “When she gets out of the taxi, you follow her on foot while I try to park,” he ordered, giving me no opportunity to protest.

“I'll call you on your mobile to let you know where we are. You'd better leave the car in a parking lot. I expect she's off shopping again ...”

“I hope to God she's not!”

The taxi continued down Pelaio and Lídia got out in the plaça de Catalunya where the Ramblas start. She crossed the street and went into the Zurich, a café that once had
a charm of its own but had been refurbished, sanitized and swallowed up by the controversial “golden triangle” alongside Habitat and FNAC. There was no trace of the old café, a meeting-point for left-wingers where the smell of marijuana mingled with the stench of urine from the lavatories. Gone was the old lady that looked after them, an old dear, always incredibly tarted up under a grotesque black wig, who never forgot to demand a tip.

Once inside, Lídia Font acted as if she were looking for someone. A man, in his late fifties, greeted her timidly. He was sitting at an unobtrusive table in a far corner, and I had to reconcile myself to a small table at the other end. The place was packed at that time in the evening, given it was freezing outside.

“Hurry up, Borja,” I appealed into my mobile. “She's got a man with her!”

“Fuck! There's nowhere. Every little space's taken. Don't let her out of your sight! And take good note of what they say.”

Deafened by the other customers' hubbub, I could catch none of their conversation from where I was sitting. All I could do was focus on the man's appearance and see whether what I'd learned from the detectives in the thrillers I'd read was any help.

What could I deduce from his appearance? In the first place, the man didn't seem to belong to the Fonts' circle of acquaintances. Although he was well dressed, suffice it to say he was more in my line than Borja's. He was wearing a dark green sweater over a white shirt, and sported bifocals. Their metal frames were very antiquated, the kind you rarely see nowadays. His was a traditional balding pate, not a shaven affair, and the scant hair he did have was neatly combed and he was clean-shaven. He seemed modest, polite and restrained. Ordinary looking, I'd have said, not someone wanting to attract attention, except for the fact he was rather dowdy. On the empty seat next to him I could see a brown blouson and a shabby black motor-cycle helmet. He was drinking an infusion of tea, and Lídia Font, as ever, had ordered mineral water.

They chatted for some twenty minutes. The man looked on intently as she explained something sourly. I felt he was getting angry and agitated. The MP's wife was steering the conversation and he seemed to be answering back in a way she found unsatisfactory. I wasn't sure what Borja would make of it – he understands more about these things than I do – but from my perspective, they weren't lovers. The stranger was clearly getting increasingly agitated and I also started to get anxious seeing that my brother wasn't putting in an appearance. I knew when we did finally meet up, Borja would give me a third-degree and I wasn't sure I was up to the task. I prayed he'd turn up quickly and take back the reins on this case.

It wasn't to be, because Lídia Font jumped to her feet and slipped on her mink coat with a minimum of fuss and in a manner that was an accomplished display of power. Haughty and overbearing, she said goodbye to the man while her face expressed her complete contempt. This time she didn't pay the bill and left the bar without looking over her shoulder.

The stranger looked worried and despondent. He sat there in dismay and I saw him ask the waiter for a cognac. I didn't know what to do. I had to decide whether to spy on him or follow her, and opted, rather rashly perhaps, to go after her while I tried desperately to communicate with
Borja. He must have been underground as there was no reaction from his mobile.

Mrs Font crossed the street and went into a perfume shop opposite the Zurich, on the other side of the square, and I did the same. She spent a quarter of an hour smelling and scrutinizing various little bottles. She bought some bath salts and brightly coloured soap using her credit card and finally took a taxi home.

I followed her in another taxi, and when I did manage to speak to my brother, I found he was still trying to park the Smart in the centre of the city. As it was still early we agreed to go for a drink. He was anxious and wanted to hear what had happened as soon as possible.

“You know driving in the centre of Barcelona the week before Christmas is a fool's game,” he told me over the mobile. “I need a drop of Cardhu. Get into a taxi and see you in Harry's in twenty minutes.”

Harry's is an old-fashioned cocktail bar in the Eixample. It's normally frequented by middle-aged couples that don't look as if they're married. The men are usually wearing ties, as they've just left the office, and the women are done up like secretaries or whores who own their own perfume shops. Long, yellowish hair, swooping necklines, mini-skirts and gold Duponts are the order of the day. But it's a pleasant, quiet enough place when nobody's playing boleros or Julio Iglesias songs on the piano. At that day at that time, it was agreeably dingy and low-key.

Three couples were there who were past the fifty mark and jazz was being played over the loudspeakers. Borja hadn't arrived. I sat down, ordered a gin and tonic and lit a cigarette while I started to put together mentally the report I'd give my brother. I wasn't feeling very bright. I was worried about other matters as well and the first sips of my G and T began to go to my head. Quite spontaneously I started to think about the marks the twins were getting at school, Montse's threat to become a vegetarian and the dinner Lola and my brother had planned for tomorrow night.

The fact is, Lídia's mysterious date wasn't the only surprise that afternoon. While we were parked by the MP's house, just before our client's wife went to her date in the Zurich, Borja had admitted he'd agreed to dine with Lola on Saturday night.

“I thought it was best to accept her invitation, have dinner with her and put the record straight ...” he explained as if it weren't at all important. “Elegantly, of course,” he sighed. “I don't want to throw it in her face but, you know, the other day I drank too much and really put my foot in it.”

“Not just your foot, by all accounts ...”

“You know what I mean. And please don't be so coarse,” he rasped.