FERNANDITO STARED AT the door that was slowly closing, pushed by the wind. Darkness solidified around him. The silhouettes of the dummies and the glass cabinets disappeared into the shadows. When the gap in the doorway was just a chink of faint light, he took a deep breath. He’d followed that guy to his hideout with a purpose. Alicia was counting on him. Gripping the revolver firmly, he turned towards the corridor of shadows that plunged into the depths of the workshop.
“I’m not afraid,” he whispered.
A light murmur reached his ears. He could have sworn it was a child’s laughter. Very close. Just a few metres from where he stood. Footsteps dragged quickly towards him in the dark, and he was seized with panic. He raised his weapon and, without knowing quite what he was doing, pulled the trigger. A deafening roar hit his eardrums, and his arms flew up as if someone had hit his wrists with a hammer. A flash of sulphurous light lit up the passageway for a split second, and Fernandito saw him.
The man was advancing towards him, his knife held high and his eyes ablaze. His face was hidden beneath what looked like a leather mask.
Fernandito fired again and again, until the revolver slipped from his hand and he fell on his back. For a moment he thought the demonic silhouette he’d seen looming over him was by his side, and that the cold steel would touch his skin before he could recover his breath. He pushed himself backwards and struggled to his feet. When he’d regained his balance, he hurled himself against the small door. It opened wide, and he fell headlong on the waterlogged street. He scrambled up again and, without looking behind him, ran off as if death were breathing down his neck.
*
They all called him Bernal. That wasn’t his real name, but he hadn’t bothered to correct them. He’d only been in that damned house that made your hair stand on end for a few days, at Hendaya’s orders, but he’d seen enough. Enough to realize that the less that ripper and his team of butchers knew about him, the better. In just under two months he would fade away into retirement with a miserable pension as a reward for his burned-out life in the police force. At this point in the farce, his great dream was to die alone and forgotten in a dark, damp room in some boardinghouse on Calle Joaquín Costa. He’d rather die like an old hooker than as a bogus hero, honouring those pretty kids they were sending from the Ministry of the Interior: the new centurions, all of them cut from the same cloth, ready to clear the streets of Barcelona of poor wretches and third-rate reds who could barely stand up to pee, having spent half their lives hidden or walled up in prisons as crowded as beehives. There are times when it’s more honourable to die forsaken than to live in glory.
The wrongly named Bernal was lost in these thoughts when he opened the door to the kitchen. Hendaya insisted on him making the rounds, and Bernal always followed orders to the letter. That was his speciality.
He only had to take three steps to notice that something was out of place. A gust of fresh air brushed his face, and he looked up towards the far end of the kitchen. A flash of lightning revealed the dented edges of the broken windowpane. He walked over to the corner and knelt down by the pieces of glass that had fallen from the window. A trail of footprints petered out over the dust – a light tread and tiny soles, with matching heel marks. A woman. The false Bernal weighed up the evidence. He stood up and walked over to the pantry room, then pushed the wall at the end and opened the entrance to the tunnel. He took a few steps down, until the reek that came from below advised him to stop. He turned back and was about to close the access when he noticed the torch hanging from the hook. It was swaying gently. The police officer closed the door and returned to the kitchen. He had a quick look around, and after mulling it over for a bit, he rubbed out the footprints with his foot and pushed the bits of glass into a dark corner. He wasn’t going to be the one to tell Hendaya, when he returned, that someone had paid a surprise visit to the house. The last poor soul who gave Hendaya bad news had ended up with a broken jaw. And that was one of his right-hand men. They were not going to get his help. With a bit of luck, he’d be given a little medal in seven weeks’ time, which he was planning to pawn to pay for the services of a classy tart with whom to bid farewell to this rotten world. If he managed to make it through this last assignment, he could still salvage a grey and ill-fated old age in which to forget what he’d witnessed during those last days in El Pinar, and convince himself that everything he’d done in the name of duty belonged to a man named Bernal, someone he’d never been, and never would be.
*
Hiding in the garden on the other side of the window, Alicia watched the policeman roam around the kitchen area, check the entrance to the tunnel, and then, inexplicably, rub out the footprints she’d left behind her. The policeman took one last look and then went back to the door. Making the most of the fact that the rain was still bucketing down, and not knowing for certain whether the officer would tell his superiors what he had discovered, Alicia decided to risk crossing the garden very quickly, going down the hillside and climbing over the wall. For the sixty seconds this took, she kept expecting a shot between her shoulder blades that never came.
After jumping down into the street, she ran back to the square, where the blue tram was starting its descent in the storm, and hopped onto the moving carriage. Ignoring the conductor’s disapproving look, she collapsed onto a seat, soaking wet and trembling either from cold or relief – she wasn’t sure which.
*
She found him sitting in the rain, huddled on the doorstep. Alicia walked through the puddles flooding Calle Aviñón and stopped in front of Fernandito. He raised his head and looked at her with tears in his eyes.
She knew even before he spoke. “Where’s Vargas?” she asked.
Fernandito lowered his head. “Don’t go up,” he whispered.
Alicia went up, two steps at a time, ignoring the pain that drilled through her hip and fired up her side. When she reached the fourth-floor landing, she stopped in front of the half-open door to Vargas’s rooms. A sickly-sweet smell floated in the air. She pushed the door inwards and saw the body, lying over a shiny, dark sheet. A sudden chill took her breath away, and she held on to the doorframe. Her legs shook as she drew closer to the corpse.
Vargas’s eyes were open. His face was a wax mask, so brutally beaten up she hardly recognized him. She knelt down beside him and stroked his cheek. He was cold. Angry tears clouded her eyes, and she stifled a moan.
Next to the body was a fallen chair. Alicia picked it up and sat down to gaze in silence at the corpse. The searing pain in her hip was raging through her bones. She struck her old wound hard, fist clenched. For a few seconds the pain blinded her, and she almost fell on the floor. She kept on hitting herself until Fernandito, who had been witnessing the scene from the doorway, held her arms and stopped her. He embraced her until he’d steadied her, then let her howl with pain until she could hardly breathe.
“It’s not your fault,” he said, over and over again.
When Alicia had stopped shaking, Fernandito covered the body with a blanket he found on an armchair.
“Look in his pockets,” ordered Alicia.
The boy went through the policeman’s coat and jacket. He found his wallet, a few coins, a piece of paper bearing a list of numbers, and a visiting card that read:
He handed her what he’d found, and Alicia examined it. She kept the list and the card. The rest she returned to Fernandito, telling him to put it all back where he’d found it. Her eyes were riveted on Vargas’s body, its shape visible under the blanket.
Fernandito waited a couple of minutes before walking back to her side. “We can’t stay here,” he said at last.
Alicia looked at him as if she couldn’t understand him, or couldn’t hear him.
“Give me your hand,” he said.
She ignored him, trying to get up on her own. Seeing her wince in pain, Fernandito put his arms around her and helped her up.
Once she was on her feet, she took a few steps, trying to hide the fact that she was limping. “I’m OK on my own.” Her voice was icy, her eyes impenetrable, no longer betraying any emotion, not even when she turned to Vargas for the last time.
She’s closed and bolted all the doors, thought Fernandito.
“Let’s go,” she murmured, limping to the exit.
Fernandito held her arm and led her to the stairs.
*
They sat at a table in the far corner of the Gran Café. Fernandito asked for two large coffees with milk and a glass of brandy, poured the brandy into one of the cups, and handed it to Alicia. “Drink. It will warm you up.”
Alicia accepted the cup and sipped at the coffee slowly. The rain scratched the windowpanes and trickled down, masking the grey blanket that had fallen over Barcelona. Once Alicia had recovered her colour, Fernandito told her the whole story.
“You shouldn’t have followed him to that place,” she said.
“I wasn’t going to let him get away.”
“Are you sure he’s dead?”
“I don’t know. I fired two or three shots with Captain Vargas’s gun. He couldn’t have been more than two metres away. It was very dark . . .”
Alicia put her hand on Fernandito’s and smiled weakly.
“I’m OK,” he lied.
“Do you still have the weapon?”
Fernandito shook his head. “It fell when I was running away. What are we going to do now?”
Alicia was quiet for a few moments, her gaze lost in the windowpane. She could feel the pain in her hip throbbing in time to her pulse.
“Shouldn’t you take one of those pills of yours?” asked Fernandito.
“Afterwards.”
“After what?”
Alicia looked him in the eye. “I need you to do something else for me.”
Fernandito nodded. “Anything.”
She looked in her pockets and handed him a key. “It’s the key to my home. Take it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I want you to go up to the apartment. Make sure there’s nobody there before you go in. If the door is open or the lock looks as if it’s been forced, start running and don’t stop until you get home.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“Once you’re in the dining room, look under the sofa. You’ll find a box of documents and papers. Inside this box there’s an envelope with a notebook inside it. The envelope is marked ‘Isabella’. Have you understood?”
He nodded. “Isabella.”
“I want you to take that box away with you. Hide it. Hide it where nobody can find it. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes. Don’t worry. But—”
“No buts. If anything should happen to me—”
“Don’t say that.”
“If anything should happen to me,” Alicia insisted, “you can’t even go to the police. If I don’t return to collect the documents, let a few days go by, then take them to the Sempere & Sons bookshop on Calle Santa Ana. The place where you picked those books up for me.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Before you go in, make sure nobody is watching the bookshop. If anything makes you the slightest bit suspicious, just walk past and wait for another moment. When you’re there, ask for Fermín Romero de Torres. Repeat the name.”
“Fermín Romero de Torres.”
“Don’t trust anyone else. You can’t trust anyone else.”
“You’re scaring me, Señorita Alicia.”
“If anything happens to me, give him the documents. Tell him I sent you. Tell him what happened. Explain that among these documents is the diary of Isabella Gispert, Daniel’s mother.”
“Who is Daniel?”
“Tell Fermín that he must read it and decide whether or not to give it to Daniel. He’ll be the judge.”
Fernandito nodded. Alicia smiled sadly. She held the boy’s hand and pressed it hard. He took her hand to his lips and kissed it.
“I’m sorry I got you mixed up in this, Fernandito. And that I’ve left you with that responsibility . . . I had no right.”
“I’m glad you did. I won’t fail you.”
“I know . . . One last thing. If I don’t return . . .”
“You’ll return.”
“If I don’t return, don’t ask after me in hospitals, or in police stations, or anywhere else. Imagine that you’ve never known me. Forget me.”
“I’m never going to forget you, Señorita Alicia. I’m that stupid . . . ”
She stood up. It was obvious that the pain was devouring her, but she smiled at Fernandito as if it were just a passing discomfort.
“You’re going to look for that man, aren’t you?” he said.
Alicia didn’t reply.
“Who is he?” asked Fernandito.
Alicia visualized the description Fernandito had given her of Vargas’s murderer. “He calls himself Rovira,” she said. “But I don’t know who he is.”
“Whoever he is, if he’s still alive, he’s very dangerous.” Fernandito stood up, ready to accompany her.
Alicia stopped him, shaking her head. “What I need is for you to go to my house and do as I asked.”
“But . . .”
“Don’t argue. And swear you’ll do exactly as I said.”
Fernandito sighed. “I swear.”
Alicia gave him one of her conquering smiles, the sort that had so often clouded what little sense God had given the boy, and limped away to the door. He watched her walk off in the rain, more fragile than ever, until he lost sight of her up the street. Then, after leaving a few coins on the table, he crossed the street to Alicia’s building. In the hallway he bumped into the caretaker, his aunt Jesusa, who was trying to mop up the rain flooding the floor with a rag wrapped around the end of a broom. When she saw him walk past with a key in his hand, Jesusa frowned disapprovingly. Fernandito realized that the caretaker, who had a sharp eye for gossip and a hawk’s eye for everything that didn’t concern her, must have witnessed the scene in the Gran Café on the other side of the street, hand-kissing included.
“Haven’t you learned your lesson yet, Fernandito?”
“It’s not what it looks like, Auntie.”
“I’d rather not say what it looks like, but as I’m your aunt, and the only member of the family who seems to have any common sense, I must tell you what I’ve told you a thousand times.”
“That Señorita Alicia is not the right woman for me,” Fernandito recited from memory.
“And that one day she’ll break your heart, as they say on the radio,” Jesusa completed.
That day had been left behind years ago, but Fernandito preferred not to stir things up. Jesusa went up to him and smiled tenderly, pinching his cheeks as if he were still ten years old. “I don’t want you to suffer, that’s all. Señorita Alicia – and you know how fond I am of her, as if she were family – she’s a ticking bomb waiting to go off: when we least expect it, she’ll explode and take everyone in her path with her, and may God forgive me for saying so.”
“I know, Auntie. I know. Don’t you worry, I know what I’m doing.”
“That’s what your uncle said the day he drowned.”
Fernandito stooped down to kiss her on her forehead and charged up the stairs. He walked into Alicia’s apartment, leaving the door ajar as he followed her instructions. The box she’d described was under the sitting-room sofa. He opened it, had a quick look at the pile of documents, and noticed, among them, the envelope marked “Isabella.” He didn’t dare open it.
He closed the box and wondered who this Fermín Romero de Torres was, who merited all Alicia’s confidence, the person to whom she entrusted herself as her last salvation. He supposed that, in the great scheme of things, there were many other characters in Alicia’s life about whom he knew nothing, and who played an infinitely more important role than his.
Perhaps you thought you were the only one . . .
He picked up the box and walked back to the door. Before stepping out and closing it, he took one last look at Alicia’s apartment, convinced that he would never again set foot in it. When he reached the entrance hall, he saw his aunt Jesusa, armed with her large broom, still trying to hold back the rain filtering in through the main door. He stopped for a moment.
“You coward,” he murmured to himself. “You shouldn’t have let her go.”
Jesusa interrupted her efforts and looked at him, intrigued. “What are you saying, sweetheart?”
Fernandito sighed. “Auntie, can I ask you a favour?”
“But of course.”
“I need you to hide this box where nobody can find it. It’s very important. Don’t tell anyone you’ve got it. Not even the police, if they come around asking. No one.”
Jesusa’s face darkened. The caretaker took a quick look at the box and made the sign of the cross. “Oh dear, oh dear . . . What mess have you two got yourselves into?”
“Nothing that can’t be fixed.”
“That’s what your uncle always said.”
“I know. Will you do me this favour? It’s very important.”
Jesusa nodded solemnly.
“I’ll be back soon.”
“Do you swear?”
“Of course.”
He went out into the rainy street, fleeing Jesusa’s anxious look. There was so much fear in his body that he barely noticed the cold that chilled him to the marrow. On his way to what might well be the last day in his short life, he told himself that, thanks to Alicia, he had at least learned two things that would serve him forever – if he lived to tell the story, that is. The first was how to lie. The second, and this he was still smarting from, was that promises were a bit like hearts: once the first was broken, breaking the rest was a piece of cake.