MARCELINO WAS STILL watching her from afar, mixing his morbid fascination with quick glances to the street in search of her mysterious follower. Alicia winked at him and made a sign with her forefinger. “Another quick call, and that’s it . . .”
She dialled the direct number of the hotel suite. The phone didn’t even ring once. He must have been sitting next to the phone, waiting, thought Alicia.
“It’s me,” she murmured.
“Alicia, Alicia, Alicia,” Leandro’s voice intoned sweetly. “I don’t like you to avoid me. You know that.”
“I was going to call you right now. There was no need to send a chaperone after me.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Somebody is. Haven’t you set someone up to shadow me?”
“If I had, it wouldn’t have been someone you could detect that easily on your first morning. Who is it?”
“I don’t know yet. I was hoping it was one of yours.”
“Well, it isn’t. Unless it’s something to do with our friends at the central police station in Barcelona.”
“The local supply must have dried up, for them to have sent me this whiz kid.”
“It’s not easy to find good people. I should know. Would you like me to make a call and get him off your back?”
Alicia thought about it. “Maybe not. I just had an idea.”
“Don’t be cruel to him. I don’t know who they’ve assigned to you, but it might have been the most inexperienced guy they’ve found.”
“Am I that easy?”
“On the contrary. What I’m thinking is that nobody would have wanted the job.”
“Are you suggesting that I left a bad impression?”
“I’ve always told you it’s important to mind your manners. If you don’t, this is what happens. Have you spoken to Vargas?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re up to date about the car? Everything all right in your flat?”
“Yes. Señora Jesusa left everything spotless. She even ironed my first communion dress. Thanks for organizing that.”
“I want you to have everything you need.”
“Is that why you’re sending Vargas?”
“That must have been on his own initiative. Or Gil de Partera’s. I told you they didn’t trust us.”
“I wonder why?”
“What are your plans for today?”
“I’ve been going around the bookshops, and this afternoon I have an appointment with someone who will be able to clarify a few things about Víctor Mataix.”
“So you’re still on about that book . . .”
“Even if only to rule it out.”
“Do I know him? The person you’re meeting?”
“I don’t know. He’s a bookseller. Gustavo Barceló?”
The pause was almost imperceptible, but Alicia noticed it.
“It doesn’t ring a bell. Call me if you find out anything. And if you don’t.”
Alicia was trying to think of a sharp reply when she heard Leandro hang up. She left a few coins on the bar to cover the drinks and the two phone calls and blew Marcelino a kiss goodbye.
“We keep all this between us, eh, Marcelino?”
The waiter nodded enthusiastically and accompanied Alicia to the back door, which led to an open patio. From there, through a maze of corridors between various buildings in the block, she came to one of those gloomy alleyways, trademark of Barcelona’s old town, that are as tight and narrow as the space between a seminarist’s buttocks.
The alley went uphill from Calle Canuda to Calle Santa Ana. Alicia walked around the block, and at the corner stopped to take in the scene. A lady was pushing a shopping cart with one hand and with the other trying to drag a child who seemed to have his shoes glued to the ground. A young man wearing a suit and a scarf was standing in front of a shoe-shop window, throwing sidelong glances at two pretty young girls with seamed stockings who laughed as they walked past him. A local policeman ambled down the middle of the street, casting suspicious looks here and there. And farther on, stuck to the side of a doorway like a poster, Alicia noticed a short man of such unremarkable appearance that he bordered on invisibility. This specimen was smoking a cigarette and watching the café door nervously while he checked his watch. He wasn’t a bad choice, thought Alicia. He looked so insignificant that even boredom wouldn’t have noticed him passing by.
She walked up to him and stopped just a few centimetres from the pale nape of his neck. Then she formed an O with her lips and blew.
He jumped and almost lost his balance. When he turned around and saw Alicia, he lost what little colour he had left.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” she asked.
If the little man had a voice, he didn’t find it. His eyes swivelled around a hundred times before settling on Alicia.
“If you run off, I’ll stick a bodkin in your guts. Are we clear?”
“Yes,” said the guy.
“That was a joke.” Alicia smiled. “I don’t do that sort of thing.”
The poor wretch was wearing a coat that could have been found in a trash bin, and looked like a cornered rodent. Some spy she’d been assigned. She grabbed him by his lapel and led him quietly to the street corner. “What’s your name?”
“Rovira,” he muttered.
“Were you the one standing in the doorway of the espadrille shop last night?”
“How do you know?”
“Never smoke against the light of a streetlamp.”
Rovira nodded, cursing under his breath.
“Tell me, Rovira, how long have you been in the Force?”
“It would have been two months tomorrow, but if they find out at the police station that you spotted me—”
“There’s no need for them to find out.”
“No?”
“No. Because you and I, Rovira, are going to help one another. Do you know how?”
“I don’t follow, miss.”
“Yes, that’s the idea, but call me Alicia. We’re on the same side, after all.”
Alicia searched Rovira’s coat pockets and found a packet of cigarettes, the sort they sold in cheap bars and that went well with a carajillo coffee. She lit one and put it in the man’s mouth. She let him take a couple of puffs and gave him a friendly smile. “A bit calmer now?”
He nodded.
“Tell me, Rovira, why exactly have they chosen you to follow me?”
The man hesitated. “Don’t take this the wrong way, miss, but nobody else wanted the job.”
“And why’s that?”
Rovira shrugged.
“Come on, don’t be shy, now that we’ve been introduced. Spill it out.”
“They say you screw people up, and you’re bad news.”
“I see. Obviously that didn’t deter you.”
“I tried, but I wasn’t given a choice.”
“Poor baby. And what does your mission consist of, exactly?”
“I’m to follow you from afar and inform on your whereabouts and what you’re doing without you noticing. I told them this wasn’t my kind of thing.”
“Clearly. So why did you join the police?”
“I wanted to go into the printing business, but my father-in-law is a captain at the central police station.”
“I see. And the missus likes uniforms, right?” Alicia placed a maternal hand on Rovira’s shoulder. “Rovira, there are times when a man has to have some balls, and if you’ll forgive my French, show the world that he was born to pee standing up. And just so you know that you’re far more capable than you think, I’m going to give you the chance to prove it: to me, to the police force, to your father-in-law, and to the little wife. Once she sees the stud she has at home, she’s going to need to sniff some smelling salts to keep her undies on.”
Rovira stared at her, on the verge of a seizure.
“From now on, you’ll follow me as you’ve been ordered to do, but never less than a hundred metres away and trying your best not to let me see you. And when they ask you where I’ve been and what I’ve done, you’ll tell them what I ask you to tell them.”
“Rovira, you’re a cop now. Legal is whatever you say is legal.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Of course you know. You’re a connoisseur of the policing arts. What you’re lacking is self-confidence.”
Rovira looked dazed. He blinked a few times. “What if I say no?”
“Don’t be like that, just when we’d started to become friends. Because if you refuse, I’m going to have to go and see your father-in-law the captain and tell him I saw you climbing up the wall of the Teresian mothers’ school and jerking off during the break.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
Alicia fixed her eyes on his.
“Rovira, you haven’t a fucking idea of what I might do.”
The man let out a moan. “You’re evil.”
Alicia pressed her lips together, pretending to sulk. “When I decide to be evil with you, you’ll notice it immediately. Tomorrow, first thing, you’ll be waiting for me opposite the Gran Café, and I’ll tell you what the plan is for the day. Are we clear?”
Rovira seemed to have shrunk a few centimetres during the conversation. He looked at her with pleading eyes. “All this is a joke, isn’t it? You’re laughing at me because I’m new at the job . . .”
Alicia did her best impression of Leandro’s icy look. She shook her head slowly. “It’s not a joke, it’s an order. Don’t fail me. Spain and I are counting on you.”