The Altogether Unexpected Disappearance of Atticus Craftsman (2 page)

“What are you talking about?” said Bestman, astonished. “We mean DNA samples, photographs, bank details, pager, the registration number of the car he was driving when he was last seen . . .”

The inspector cleared his throat. He turned in his chair. He counterattacked.

“So you were concealing the fact that
Míster Crasman
was driving a vehicle when he was last seen.”

“We weren't concealing anything,” protested Bestman. “You're the one who didn't ask.”

“You wouldn't be insinuating that I don't know how to do my job, would you?”

Dominant position
, Manchego reminded himself,
dominant position.

“Of course not.”

“Then tell me
everything
you know about the case. And I warn you that if I find that you're hiding any important information from me, you'll both become objects of investigation yourselves.”

The Englishmen exchanged a few words under their breath. Then they opened their briefcases simultaneously and each took out a folder and placed it in front of Manchego's computer. It would be a long night, thought the inspector, groaning inwardly; he would have to read all this to be able to write the report.

“This folder contains all the information in English, and this
one has everything translated into Spanish,” explained the interpreter.

“Very well.”

“Since we don't have a DNA sample from the young Mr. Craftsman,” added the Englishman, “perhaps it would be of use to take a sample from my employer, his father.”

Manchego scratched the back of his neck. He had never been in a situation like this in his life.

“You'll have to wait a moment,” he announced.

He got up and hurried out of the office. He went out into the street, crossed at the lights, entered the Adelina pharmacy, and asked for some cotton swabs. He paid in cash. He returned to the station, went into the cubicle where the two men were waiting for him, intrigued, and said:

“Right, then,
Míster Crasman
, open wide.”

CHAPTER 2

A
tticus Craftsman vividly remembered the sound that the tendon in his knee made when it snapped, right in the middle of the boat race against Cambridge, and the noise of the oar hitting the water. For the seventh year running, thanks to his injury, Oxford University took second place in the competition, where second meant last. The rivalry with the light blues was just one of hundreds of ancient traditions at Oxford, along with the striped ties they wore, the oath—sworn on the Bible—not to chew gum in the Bodleian Library, strawberries and champagne on Christ Church Meadow, and the fact that students were not allowed to walk on the grass in the college's central quad, with the resulting inconvenience of having to walk all the way around the outside simply to get from one side to the other.

All those rules had seemed shocking to begin with, but after surviving the first year, the students not only devoutly adhered to them but also ultimately perpetuated them, as the rules came to form part of the collective spirit of the student flock.

Nor had Atticus forgotten what he felt when he first saw the commemorative plaque that hung on his bedroom door:
HERE RESIDED THE FAMOUS AUTHOR J.R.R. TOLKIEN
.

It was no coincidence. Marlow Craftsman had made it very clear to the rector of the college that his son Atticus must be allocated the room in which
The Lord of the Rings—
in his eyes one of the most representative works of universal literature—was conceived. His wish had been granted without delay, in view of his status as patron of the college and benefactor of the library. Before Atticus, the room had been occupied by his elder brother, Holden, who had conceived his first son, Oliver, there. This displeased their mother, who would have preferred a white wedding and no baby on the way. Marlow himself, his father, Dorian, and his grandfather Sherlock, a founding member of the Apolaustics, had also lived in that room, and it had come to be as sacred to the Craftsmans as the old custom of naming their children after the lead characters of great novels.

As Atticus stood forlornly at the door to his new life, however, he felt none of the pride his father had spoken so much about. Instead, he felt an unbearable tightness in his stomach because he knew the plaque demanded of him an intelligence and creativity that he lacked—utterly.

So, after a few days of worrying about not being able to do Tolkien justice, he put a Chelsea sticker—his favorite team—over the silver rectangle and signed up for soccer, punting, and rowing, sports in which he excelled.

He also got a job as a guide at the university museum, even though he didn't need the money and the uniform was a kind of ridiculous medieval costume, because the girl of his dreams, who did need the money, worked at the ticket desk. This was the best way he could think of to get close to her without arousing suspicion.

The girl's name was Lisbeth, and that day, the day of the snapped tendon, she was watching the boat race from the bridge with a dark blue scarf tied around her neck. When Atticus's boat
lost its rhythm, she walked away from the river, disappointed, with her arm around a boy from Lincoln College.

Atticus spent the six weeks after the operation on his knee recuperating at the family home in Kent. Although his father insisted on calling it a “farm,” it was really an expanse of land where they grew nothing but grass, and more of a country retreat with its Victorian mansion, gardens, lake, and ducks.

They had a mahogany library that held more than eight thousand leather-bound volumes, some of which were genuine treasures. It was Atticus's favorite place to spend the lonely afternoons of his confinement, watching the rain on the windowpanes, remembering Lisbeth, stoking the fire, and dipping into those books that, until then, had seemed like nothing more than decoration. He discovered ancient philosophies, avant-garde ideas, priceless etchings, black-and-white postcards from places that no longer existed, shocking perversions, saintly lives, Byron, Keats, and Beckett—all these mixed together in both the library and his mind as a sweet-and-sour concoction.

Weekends at the house were lively. His parents returned from London, their friends came to visit, Holden brought little Oliver in a sling on his back, and the library became a lounge where they drank tea and talked loudly.

On Sunday afternoons, Atticus would feel strangely anxious as he waited for them all to bundle back into their cars and disappear down the chestnut-tree-lined drive. Only then, finally, could he regain control of his army of stories and poems.

•  •  •

While his knee healed, his mind expanded, and his spirit absorbed feelings that belonged to other people but became his own.

He returned to Oxford a different man. A braver one.

He went to find Lisbeth at the museum, whisked her away from the ticket desk, and led her through the cobbled streets of the city center to his college's small chapel, which was always empty. Inside, he closed the door, lifted the cover on the piano, played “Bridge Over Troubled Water” in memory of the fateful day of the boat race, played “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” stroked the soft skin of her hand, touched her hair and her face, and asked, “Do you want to see my room?”

They slept in each other's arms in the narrow bed. Female visitors were not allowed in Exeter College, but the porter, Mr. Shortsight, was inclined to turn a blind eye—he knew how to feign deep sleep in the armchair in the porters' lodge and, what's more, enjoyed hearing the nocturnal sighs of forbidden lovers. The only condition, and all the students knew this, was that they had to make sure their clandestine visitors left before dawn. The head porter came on duty at seven o'clock sharp, with his reading glasses on and a list of infractions in hand.

Lisbeth was a light sleeper. She woke up before Atticus. She was sitting up against the pillow, waiting for him to open his eyes, when she found herself face-to-face with a man who looked about eighty, smoked a pipe, and was accompanied by a tiny Hobbit. He said good morning, walked from one side of the room to the other, buttoned up his vest, and vanished.

“I think I just saw Tolkien's ghost,” she whispered to Atticus.

He silenced her with kisses.

Anyway, it must have been true that the ghosts of old professors wandered through those rooms. There were inexplicable gusts of air, whispers in the night, and stifled bursts of laughter, and on some mornings the grass in the quad was covered in footprints.

•  •  •

The graduation ceremony was solemn and formal, with students in caps and gowns, tourists convinced they had jumped back in time, and bells pealing wildly and joyfully.

Saying goodbye was heartbreaking. Many friendships, many projects, many loves would come to an end now that they were graduating.

Lisbeth returned to the small island of Guernsey, lost in the English Channel. Atticus set off with a backpack on his back to travel the world: He visited Europe, Saudi Arabia, India, Istanbul. He then settled in London, near Knightsbridge, two blocks from the offices of Craftsman & Co., where he started working for his father. Little by little he left behind the sweet memories of his first love and swapped them for ones with different flavors: sharp, spicy, rich, and exotic. He bought a classic Aston Martin, just like James Bond's, in order to return punctually, every Sunday, to the library at home in Kent, where his thousands of alphabetically arranged books and a roaring fire awaited him. He needed nothing more.

Until one day Marlow Craftsman called him into his office.

CHAPTER 3

A
tticus, son, we have an unpleasant issue that requires an urgent solution. I need your help.”

By that point, young Mr. Craftsman had turned thirty. He had his life laid out: solid friendships, a healthy sum in the bank, an enviable physique, and the freedom to go where he liked without a care in the world, with no other duties than attending to his pleasant work at the publishing house from Monday to Friday, his lovers on Saturday, and his books on Sunday.