“WHAT DAY IS it today?”
“Tuesday.”
“It was also Tuesday yesterday.”
“That was a different Tuesday. Tell me about your escape with David Martín.”
“David had a car. He’d stolen it, and he kept it hidden in a garage in the Carabanchel district. That day he told me that the following Saturday he’d drive it around to one of the gates of the park at noon. When Doña Manuela fell asleep, I had to start running and meet him in the entrance opposite Puerta de Alcalá.”
“And did you?”
“We got into the car and hid in the garage until it was dark.”
“The police accused your tutor of having been an accomplice in your kidnapping. They interrogated her for forty-eight hours, and then she was found in a ditch on the road to Burgos. They’d broken her legs and arms, and then shot her in the back of the neck.”
“Don’t expect me to feel sorry for her.”
“Did she know that Ubach abused you?”
“She was the only person I ever told.”
“And what did she say?”
“To keep quiet. She said important men had their needs, and that in time I’d realize that Ubach loved me very much.”
“What happened that night?”
“David and I left the garage with the car and spent the whole night on the road.”
“Where were you going?”
“We travelled for about two days. We would wait until it was dark, and then we’d take byroads or country lanes. David made me lie down in the back seat, covered with blankets so no one could see me when we stopped at petrol stations. Sometimes I’d fall asleep, and the moment I woke up I could hear him talking, as if there was someone with him, sitting in the passenger seat.”
“That Corelli individual?”
“Yes.”
“And didn’t that scare you?”
“It made me feel sorry.”
“Where did he take you?”
“To a place in the Pyrenees where he’d hidden for a few days after returning to Spain at the end of the war. Bolvir, that was the name. It was very close to a small town called Puigcerdá, almost on the border with France. There was a large abandoned house there that had been a hospital during the war. I think it was called La Torre del Remei. We spent a few weeks in that place.”
“Did he tell you why he was taking you there?”
“He said it was a safe place. There was an old friend of David’s there, someone he’d met when he crossed the frontier, a local writer named Alfons Brosel. He brought us food and clothes. Without him we would have starved or died of cold.”
“Martín must have chosen that place for some other reason.”
“The village brought back memories. David never told me what had happened there, but I know it had a special meaning for him. David lived in the past. When the worst of the winter came, Alfons advised us to leave and gave us a bit of money with which to continue the journey. The people in the town had started to gossip. David knew of an enclave on the coast where another old friend of his – a rich man called Pedro Vidal – had a house he thought would make a good hiding place, at least until the summer. David knew the house well. I think he’d stayed there before.”
“Was that the village where you were found a few months later? San Feliu de Guíxols?”
“The house was about two kilometres outside the village, in a place called S’Agaró, next to the bay of San Pol.”
“I know it.”
“The house was among the rocks, in a place called Camino de Ronda. Nobody lived there in the winter. It was a sort of housing development, with big summer mansions belonging to wealthy families from Barcelona and Gerona.”
“Is that where you spent the winter?”
“Yes. Until spring.”
“When they found you, you were alone. Martín wasn’t with you. What happened to him?”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“If you like, we can have a break. I can ask the doctor to give you something.”
“I want to leave this place.”
“We’ve talked about this before, Ariadna. You’re safe here. Protected.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Leandro. You know that. Your friend.”
“I don’t have friends.”
“You’re nervous. I think we’d better leave it for today. Have a rest. I’ll tell the doctor to come.”
It was always Tuesday in the suite of the Gran Hotel Palace.
“You’re looking very well this morning, Ariadna.”
“I have a bad headache.”
“It’s the weather. The pressure’s very low today. It happens to me too. Take this, and it will pass.”
“What is it?”
“Just aspirin. Nothing else. By the way, we’ve been checking what you told me about the house in S’Agaró. You were right, it was owned by Don Pedro Vidal, a member of one of the wealthiest families in Barcelona. From what we’ve been able to find out, he was a sort of mentor to David Martín. The police report specifies that David Martín murdered him in his Pedralbes residence in 1930, because Vidal had married the woman he loved, someone called Cristina.”
“That’s a lie. Vidal committed suicide.”
“Is that what David Martín told you? It seems that deep down he was a very vindictive man. Valls, Vidal . . . People do crazy things because of jealousy.”
“The person David loved was Isabella.”
“You’ve already told me that. But it doesn’t quite fit in with the information we have. What linked him to Isabella?”
“She’d been his apprentice.”
“I didn’t know novelists had apprentices.”
“Isabella was very stubborn.”
“Is that what Martín told you?”
“David talked about her a lot. It’s what kept him alive.”
“But Isabella had been dead for almost ten years.”
“Sometimes he forgot. That’s why he’d gone back there.”
“To the house in S’Agaró?”
“David had been there before. With her.”
“Do you know when that was?”
“Just before the start of the war. Before he had to flee to France.”
“Is that why he came back to Spain, even though he knew they were looking for him? Because of Isabella?”
“I think so.”
“Tell me about your time there. What did you do?”
“David was already very ill. By the time we got to the house, he could barely tell the difference between reality and what he thought he saw and heard. The house brought back a whole lot of memories. I believe that deep down he went back there to die.”
“So David Martín is dead?”
“What do you think?”
“Tell me the truth. What did you do during those months?”
“Look after him.”
“I thought he was the one who was meant to look after you.”
“David could no longer take care of anyone, much less himself.”
“Ariadna, did you kill David Martín?”