Southern Seas (30 page)

‘Haven’t you heard of our intelligence network? We know more than the government about anything you care to name. We caught onto this faker when he was still living in your block. We sent one of our people along to live there too.’

‘There’s been no one new. Except for some casual labourers. They’re always coming and going.’

‘There you are.’

‘How do you know he’ll take me back? Will you come with me?’

‘Just give him a ring.’

While she was telephoning, Carvalho finished off the Basque’s half-eaten sandwich. A sausage sandwich. Not even dog-meat. Probably rat-meat. Or lizard. And instead of paprika, they had used minium to stop it oxidizing. She returned with a radiant look and tears in her eyes.

‘I can go back. I’ve got to hurry. He says we’ll go and pick up the girls from school. Thank you. I’m really very grateful.’

‘Tell your husband not to forget me.’

‘We won’t forget you—neither of us. How am I going to get home? I’m afraid to walk alone in this part of town.’

Carvalho walked with her to the Plaza del Arco del Teatro and put her into a taxi. Then he went into the public toilets and pissed out the first streams of alcohol filtered through a body heavy like it was full of sand.

‘I’ve put it all down in writing. I must be getting old. In the old days, I never used to write my reports, I just told my clients what I’d found out, and they were normally satisfied.’

Stuart Pedrell’s widow had the drawers of her desk open. Her eyes were open too, and in one hand she held a pencil with which she was pensively scratching her forehead. A half-length chestnut wig covered her black hair. As she relaxed in her director’s chair, she had the air and dignity of a woman executive with a notion to enjoy one last fling. She leafed through the report without reading it.

‘Too long.’

‘I could give a verbal summary. But I might forget a few details.’

‘I’ll take the risk.’

‘Your husband was killed by knife-gang kids on the streets of San Magín. It was a question of family honour. He had got the sister of one of them pregnant. He tried to redeem the whole family. The whole neighbourhood, in fact. This was a bit much, particularly since he was one of the main people responsible for building that hole in the first place. It’s very likely that the girl in question is bearing Señor Stuart Pedrell’s child. But you don’t need to worry. She’s not making any claims on you. She’s
a modern, left-wing working girl. You’re lucky—you and your children.

‘The story doesn’t end there, though. Your husband was fatally wounded, and sought refuge in the house of a former lover: Señora or Señorita Adela Vilardell. She was in bed. With the lawyer Viladecans. You might say that he died in the arms of Viladecans. The two lovers were extremely worried at having the corpse of your returned husband on their hands: they destroyed his papers, and left only the note “… no more will anyone carry me south” in the hope of throwing people off the track. They dumped his body on a patch of waste land in Holy Trinity. The fact that I have uncovered all this is due mainly to a hunch I had, based on the location of that piece of waste ground. But you can read all about that in the report. Are you crying?’

There was a barely concealed irony in Carvalho’s question. The widow retorted angrily:

‘You’re one of those who think that rich people don’t have feelings.’

‘They do. Only they’re less dramatic than other people’s. When rich people suffer, it costs them less.’

She had regained her composure, and cast an eye over the report as if assessing its worth as a commodity.

‘How much?’

‘There’s an itemized bill on the last page. The total comes to three hundred thousand pesetas. In return, you have the security that no one will touch a cent of your inheritance.’

‘It’s money well spent, particularly if the girl doesn’t cite my husband as the child’s father.’

‘It’s in her interest not to—unless you hand my report over to the police. Then they’d go looking for her brother, and in that case everything would come out.’

‘In other words …’

‘In other words, if you want a quiet life, with your honour and fortune intact, you’ll have to let the crime go unpunished.’

‘Even if this girl hadn’t turned up, I wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help the police find the killer.’

‘You’re no moralist, I gather.’

‘I need a rest. I’ve been a businesswoman for more than a year now. I’ve been working very hard, and it’s gone very well. But now I’m off on a holiday.’

‘Where to?’

The answer came in a quizzical gleam which further dilated the widow’s jet-black pupils.

‘The South Seas.’

‘A sentimental journey? Or making amends?’

‘No. It’s a voyage of personal fulfilment. I understand that you’re on very intimate terms with my daughter. I expect she’ll have told you that my eldest son is in Bali, frittering away all the money I send him. So I’ll take the opportunity to visit him, and then continue on my way.’

‘The route that your husband charted on the map in his study?’

‘Yes. The one he organized with the travel agency. It was all very well planned. I’ve been able to have the booking transferred to my name, so that I don’t have to pay an advance.’

‘You did that in the weeks following your husband’s reappearance?’

‘Yes. I put in a claim, and the agency gave me full satisfaction.’

The widow stood up and went to a safe embedded in the wall behind a María Girona painting. She opened it, wrote out a cheque, tore it from its book and handed it to Carvalho.

‘There’s a fifty thousand bonus.’

Carvalho whistled in the manner of a private detective being paid in dollars by a capricious client on the Rambla de Santa Mónica.

‘Don’t forget that all this is just between you and me.’

‘You’ll have to broaden that to include Viladecans, Señorita or Señora Adela, the girl from San Magín, her family …’

‘I hope you haven’t said anything to my daughter.’

‘No. And I’m not likely to be saying anything, because I won’t be seeing her again.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘I thought you would be.’

‘I’m not a possessive mother, but Yes is still traumatized by the business with her father. She’s looking for a father figure.’

‘I’m getting old, but I haven’t yet reached the age where I indulge in paedophilia under the guise of a wish to be young again, or vice versa.’

Carvalho was on his feet and he raised a half-opened hand as a token of farewell.

‘Wouldn’t you like to come with me to the South Seas?’

The widow’s question stopped Carvalho at the door.

‘All expenses paid?’

‘With that cheque, I think you could afford the trip. But money wouldn’t be a problem.’

Across the room, she suddenly seemed smaller and frailer. For some time, Carvalho had been practising detecting in adults the facial expressions and gestures they must have had in childhood and adolescence. As a young girl, Stuart Pedrell’s widow must have been full
of joie de vivre
. And her soft features called to mind the hope on the face of a young girl as yet unaware of the brevity of that illness that comes between birth and old age and death.

‘I’m too old to be a gigolo.’

‘Why do you see everything in such a sordid light: either paedophile or gigolo.’

‘It’s an occupational hazard. I’d gladly go with you. But I’m afraid.’

‘Afraid? Of me?’

‘No. Of the South Seas. I have obligations: a dog that’s only a few months old, and two people who, at the moment, need me, or think they do.’

‘It’ll be a short trip.’

‘Some time ago, I used to read books. And someone wrote
in one of them: “I’d like to reach a place from which I wouldn’t want to return.” Everyone looks for that place. I’m looking too. Some have the vocabulary to express that need, and some have the money to satisfy it. But there are millions and millions of people who would like to go south.’

‘Goodbye, Señor Carvalho.’

Carvalho raised his hand again, and left without turning to look back.

He lit the fire, sank his feet into slippers that were worn virtually threadbare, and went into the kitchen. He was already on the trail of an as yet undefined meal when he realized that Bleda had not run out to meet him. He warmed a little boiled rice with liver and vegetables, tipped it into the dog’s dish, and took it into the garden. Bleda did not answer his call. At first he thought that she might have run out after the cleaning lady. Or jumped over the garden wall. Or been shut in a room. But a nagging and increasingly painful sense of anxiety drove him to look in every corner of the garden, until he found her. Lying like a floppy toy in a pool of her own blood. Her throat had been slit, and her head hung loose when Carvalho tried to lift it. The blood had dried on Bleda’s fur, giving her the appearance of a cardboard dummy. Her almond eyes were still half open and her muzzle wrinkled in a puppyish attempt at ferocity. Her flesh was cardboard now, and her bark and howl would be for ever silent. The gash opened by the razor was long and deep, as if they had meant to sever her head from her body.

Carvalho saw the city glittering in the distance, but its lights were swimming before his eyes. He took a spade from the cellar
and began digging a hole beside Bleda, with all the reverence of a man performing the last rites. He placed the little cardboard body in the dark, damp soil, and beside it he laid her plastic dish, her bottle of shampoo, her brush, and the disinfectant spray that could do nothing to save her now. He tossed earth into the hole, leaving Bleda’s profiled head and the deep sparkle of her tiny, half-closed eye uncovered until the time came for the last spadefuls. He topped off the grave with a layer of gravel. Then he flung the spade away, sat on the wall, and gripped the edge of the brickwork to prevent his chest from bursting with sobs. His eyes were burning, but he felt a sudden clarity in his head and chest. Looking towards the illuminated city, he said:

‘You bastards …! You dirty, filthy bastards!’

He drank a bottle of ice-cold orujo, and was awakened again at five in the morning by the combined pangs of hunger and thirst.