A Not So Perfect Crime (31 page)

“And why did you only poison some of the
marrons glacés
?” asked Borja. “Do you know I ate one by accident?”

“I'm so sorry ...” he said genuinely upset. “But that's why I did it. In case somebody else ate them ...”

“Did you never think you might poison the whole family?” It was obvious that if he'd intended to put an end to Mrs Font, he'd acted rashly.

“I knew Núria wouldn't eat them because she's anorexic. Mr Font, her father, suffers from diabetes and never eats sweets. Besides, Mrs Font was really crazy about them.” He added, “I know all this thanks to Miss Rourell, a teacher who spent a weekend with them in Cadaqués and spent the next month gossiping about them in the staffroom.”

“The poisoned sweets formed a ‘V' in the box,” I recalled. “That was no accident, I suppose?”

“I pledged myself to the goddess of Victory,” he said head bowed. “By way of a small homage to the ancients who'd
inspired me ... That may seem absurd, but, at the time it felt opportune.” Then he insisted again, “What else do you think I could have done? Let her get on with destroying my life?”

“Why didn't you take her to court? ...” my brother retorted.

“It may not seem that way, but I assure you I do believe in the legal system. Don't think I'm one of those people who argue you should take justice into your own hands or anything like that. Quite the contrary. But,” he continued after a pause, “in this case the law couldn't help. Many things fall outside its realm: rumours, insinuations, rank, suspicions ... Perhaps nobody would ever accuse me of anything formally, but you know what people say: where there's smoke ... And I can tell you,” he added conclusively, “Mrs Font was all geared up to ensure there was no shortage of smoke.”

The three of us stayed silent for a moment. My brother and I were reflecting on the implications of his confession, and from time to time Messegué wiped away his tears. What should we do now? Tell the police what the man had confessed and let the law courts deal with him? It was clear that a legal-aid lawyer, the only kind that a modest schoolteacher would get, could never stand up to a practice like Font and Associates. They'd bankrupt him before any judge ever passed sentence.

“You must believe me: I do sometimes have regrets,” he said sorrowfully. “I know what I did was wrong. I'll have to live with it for the rest of my life.”

Borja and I looked at each other without saying anything. We were both in agreement. We wouldn't be the ones to ruin that poor fellow's life. Hunting down Lídia Font's murderer was a task for the police, not for us. At the end of the day, we're just a couple of dreamers trying to survive in a cruel world.

So we informed him our task was to protect Lluís Font, not to discover the identity of his wife's murderer. As long as the police didn't accuse our client or any other innocent, we'd say nothing, we assured him.

Initially Segimon Messegué didn't take in what we'd said. He listened very intently, dried his tears and asked: “You mean you're not going to call the police? You're not going to tell anyone?”

“Our lips are sealed,” Borja assured him. “As long as no innocent soul takes the rap.”

“I'd never allow that to happen. You have my word,” he replied, his eyes welling with tears.

He showered us with thanks, in a trembling voice, and was so overwhelmed that he started to explain about the partition walls his fiancée wanted to pull down in order to extend the kitchen, and gabbled on about a thousand other details that weren't really relevant.

We were almost in darkness when Segimon Messegué switched on the lights in the dining room. The clock had just struck seven and the telephone rang. It was his fiancée. The teacher told her euphorically that he'd ring her back in a while, and that, if she was up for it, they could look at some furniture in the morning. It was if he'd been reborn.

“You're lucky,” Borja said dramatically as we walked towards the lobby, “that God doesn't play dice.”

“Truth be told,” Messegué replied, rather put out by my brother's philosophical comment, “God is a hypothesis I put behind me long ago. But if I had to choose,” he looked at the shelves full of bound classical volumes, “I'd go for the
gods of Rome. They did play dice, and were fortunately too busy to bother about us.” He added, “I expect if the gods of today left us alone a bit more, our lives would be all the better for it.”

“I quite agree,” I nodded. I couldn't have said it better myself.

While we were still on the landing waiting for the lift, Segimon Messegué took Borja's arm and whispered: “There was no alternative, was there?” he asked as if that question was going to torture him for the rest of his life. “Tell me you understand, that I couldn't do anything else. I couldn't allow that woman to destroy my family ...”

One of the disadvantages of not believing in God is not being able to enjoy his forgiveness. After that long conversation, I was sure that doubt, even remorse, would pursue that teacher for the rest of his days. It would be his hell, a hell he'd live with, but a hell all the same. We couldn't absolve him, and although I didn't unreservedly approve of the crime the desperate man had committed, I thought he deserved some sympathy. That's why I finally muttered very softly, though loudly enough for him to be able to hear me: “No, I don't think you could ...” And I pressed the button hoping my brother and I would never regret the difficult decision we had just taken.

25

From time to time I've tried to get Borja to understand that Einstein didn't mean that chance doesn't exist when he said God doesn't play dice. Rather, Einstein was referring to the fact that if there are still dark areas in the theories that try to explain the workings of the universe it is because the theories in question have yet to be refined sufficiently. But he doesn't seem at all convinced by this argument, and in the case of Lídia Font's murder, Borja was convinced both the circumstances by which we discovered her murderer and decided to keep our lips sealed were the culmination of a strange chain of events that in his view wasn't at all random.

“Don't you see, Eduard? If a painter hadn't photographed Lídia Font while she slept and then painted her portrait, and if, as a result of the painting, her jealous husband hadn't decided to contract us because he thought his wife was cheating on him ... Segimon Messegué would have committed the perfect crime!” he tells me when we recall this adventure, adding, excitedly: “And we were the ones no less who tracked him down!”

As I already have something of a reputation as a spoilsport, I decided not to tell my brother that, by definition, the perfect crime does not exist, and that, in any case, perfect crimes are committed day-in day-out.

Unfortunately we've become quite accustomed to coexisting with them: doddery grandparents who receive an
extra dose of medicine because the family's at the end of its tether; children starving to death in the Third World while representatives of the world's governments meet around a succulent banqueting table to justify not doing anything; civilians massacred in so-called legal wars or hijacked by governments who believe themselves to be exemplary ... These are the perfect crimes and not the murder of Lídia Font. Conversely, in the case we investigated most of the rules as to what constitutes a would-be perfect crime, where chance should play no role, had been broken. However, as I said, I keep these thoughts to myself. It's always comforting to work with someone who has a more naïve – and hence more optimistic – vision of life. If we both thought the same way, we'd have to shut up shop.

A week after the exchange with Segimon Messegué, Borja and I went to see Lluís Font in his parliamentary office and put to him our interpretation of the facts: his wife had been the unfortunate victim of a macabre role play. Although the police were shuffling a number of suspects, himself included, the business of the poisoned
marrons glacés
and the fact nobody recognized the motorcyclist who'd delivered the parcel meant that Borja and I favoured this hypothesis, which had already been headlined by a couple of newspapers. At first Lluís Font looked at us incredulously, as if we were out of our minds, but he gradually came to appreciate the virtues of our explanation.

“If I were you,” Borja concluded solemnly, not to say threateningly, “I'd forget the whole thing and persuade a journalist to back our analysis and publish a convincing report to that effect. And I'd also try,” he added equally seriously, “to get the police to consider this hypothesis and close the case as soon as is possible.”

“I can only assume there's something you don't want to tell me ...” he responded rather gloomily.

“Do you want us open up a Pandora's box or would you rather become your party's secretary-general?” Borja asked coolly. “You know what these things are like: it's easy enough to crack an egg, but when it comes to getting it back in the shell ...”

Our client hesitated for a few seconds, as he silently weighed up the advantages of a simple, banal explanation that ensured nobody would find any more skeletons in his cupboards. The Right Honourable Lluís Font must have known his wife well enough to anticipate there might be other time-bombs somewhere that might blow up in his face.

“Well, if you really think that's what happened ...” he said finally, acting innocent. “You are the professionals ... Perhaps the police will come to the same conclusion. As I understand it, they've found no other leads.” And he added compliantly: “Luckily, they've left me in peace.”

The searches and questioning had apparently been wound up, and once Mrs Font was six feet under, nobody seemed to be at all interested in finding out what had really happened, with the possible exception of a few sensationalist publications that were still devoting column inches to the most extravagant theories. The rumour that the
marrons glacés
weren't poisoned but past their consumeby-date, had also done the rounds, an idea the patisserie was quick to deny in a thunderous press statement. By that stage, the police must have been aware it would be very difficult to solve the case, while, on the other hand, the presiding judge must have been afraid that if he continued delving he might unearth a scandal that he could end up regretting.

“Best of luck with the secretary-generalship,” Borja wished the MP as he said goodbye and pocketed the final envelope that signalled the end of our investigation.

 

In a variation on Einstein's famous saying, someone wrote that God doesn't play dice with the universe, but a game of his own invention. We are the gamblers and he's the croupier distributing the chips. We're forced to inhabit a room in darkness and play his game for eternity, ignorant of the rules, with a pack of blank cards and an infinite number of calls at our disposition. It's hardly a very optimistic vision of the human condition, but it comes in useful when we need to seek consolation for the idiocies, big or small, that sooner or later we all commit.

I expect some smart guy will think that Borja and I assumed a role of dispensing judgement that wasn't rightfully ours when we decided not to take Lídia Font's murderer to the police, and will be scandalized to think that by the same token some people claim a right to seize arms and take justice into their own hands. I don't think one should take things that far. It may be true that neither my brother nor I had the slightest right to decide who is above human justice and who isn't, and perhaps we'll be reproached because we behaved like those arrogant little gods who see fit to pull the strings of happiness and misfortune from a heaven that does accept wagers, as if life were a game of dice. For my part, if we do find ourselves sitting by a table, in the dark, playing a one-off game we never asked for, under the invisible smile of the croupier who dealt the cards, I prefer to think we'll attempt to play the hands we've been dealt as best we can.

Epilogue

About a month after our last conversation with Lluís Font, a couple of newspapers published extensive reports on roleplays and the murders perpetrated by adolescents addicted to this sinister entertainment. A handful of experts defended the hypothesis that the strange circumstances surrounding the death of Mrs Font made it more than probable it had been such a crime committed by one or more players. One of the specialists, who appeared on various television chat-shows airing the topic, forwarded the thesis that the criminals might be youths connected to gangs of Eastern European mafiosi, who tried their hands at this kind of macabre entertainment as a way of initiating themselves in the criminal business organized by their fathers.

In subsequent months, the newspapers ceased to raise the topic. Given the total, disconcerting lack of evidence, the police finally embraced the hypothesis forwarded in the press as a possible explanation of the murder. And since neither the police nor the courts are what you call overstaffed (and since no doubt they'd received a couple of decisive phone calls), the dossier was left to rot at the bottom of a cupboard and, to all intents and purposes, the case was relegated to the archives.

Lluís Font and Sílvia Font never married. In fact, after her sister's demise, Sílvia Vilalta lost all interest in her brother-in-law, to the extent that they never spoke another word to each other after the day of the funeral. Mrs Vilalta cut
her hair very short, bought loose-fitting clothes and came out as a lesbian. Needless to say, quite soon after that, she grew back her hair and married a slick Madrid businessman whose bank accounts were infested with red digits. Mrs Vilalta, now Mrs Perales, has become a fan of bullfights, white
orujo
and Holy Week Processions. She spends her summers in Marbella and Majorca, not always accompanied by her husband, with what remains of the jet set.