A RING OF clouds was sliding down the hillside. The taxi’s headlights revealed the outlines of grand mansions peeking through the trees along the road up to Vallvidrera.
“I can’t go into Carretera de las Aguas,” said the taxi driver. “Since last year access has been restricted to residents and municipal vehicles. You just have to stick your nose in, and one of them ticket fairies hidden between those bushes will jump out with his notebook and hand you a prescription. But I can leave you at the entrance . . .”
Vargas showed him a fifty-peseta note. The taxi driver’s eyes rested on the vision like flies on honey. “Listen, I don’t have change for that . . .”
“If you wait for us, we won’t need it. And the city council can go suck themselves.”
The taxi driver grumbled but concurred with the monetary logic. “I guess I see your point,” he concluded.
When they reached the entrance to the road – just a narrow unpaved ribbon that bordered the amphitheatre of hills guarding Barcelona – the taxi driver drove on with care. “Are you sure it’s this way?”
“Just keep going a bit further.”
The old house of the Mataixes stood about three hundred meters from the start of the Carretera de las Aguas. Soon the taxi’s headlights fell on a half-open spiked gate on one side of the dirt road. Farther in, one could just about make out the jagged outline of dormer windows and towers peering through the ruins of a garden that had been abandoned for far too long.
“It’s here,” said Alicia.
The taxi driver glanced quickly at the place and then looked at them unenthusiastically in the rearview mirror. “You sure this is the place? Looks abandoned to me . . .”
Alicia ignored his words and got out of the car.
“You wouldn’t have a torch on you, by any chance?” asked Vargas.
“Extras aren’t included in the initial fare. Are we still talking ten duros?”
Vargas pulled out the fifty-peseta note again and showed it to him. “What’s your name?”
The hypnotic effect of the dough in all its glory dazzled the taxi driver. “Cipriano Ridruejo Cabezas, at your service.”
“Cipriano, this is your lucky night. Could we find a torch for the young lady? We wouldn’t want her to trip over and twist her ankle.”
The man bent down and delved into his glove compartment, emerging with a sizable long torch. Vargas grabbed it and got out of the taxi, but first he tore the note in two and handed the driver one half. “The other half when we return.”
Cipriano sighed, examining the half note as if he were staring at an expired lottery ticket. “If you return, that is,” he mumbled.
Alicia had already slipped through the narrow opening in the gate. Her silhouette could be seen gliding along a moonlit passage through the undergrowth. Vargas, who was double her size, had to struggle with the rusty bars to follow. Beyond the gate a paved path wound its way around the house up to the main entrance, which was on the other side. The cobblestones under his feet were covered in dry leaves.
Vargas followed Alicia up to a balustrade perched on the edge of the hillside, from where the whole of Barcelona could be contemplated. In the distance, the sea glowed beneath the moonlight, forming a pool of red-hot silver.
*
Alicia examined the facade of the large house. The images she had conjured up while she listened to Vilajuana’s account now materialized before her eyes. She imagined the house in better days, the sun caressing the ochre stone of the walls and speckling the pond below the fountain that now lay dry and full of cracks. She imagined Mataix’s daughters in that garden and the writer and his wife watching them from the French windows in the sitting room. The home of the Mataix family had been reduced to an abandoned mausoleum, its shutters swaying in the breeze.
“A crate of the best white wine if we leave this for tomorrow and return in the daylight,” proposed Vargas. “Two, if need be.”
Alicia snatched the torch from his hands and walked over to the entrance. The door was open, and the remains of a rusty padlock lay on the threshold. Alicia pointed the torch at the bits of metal and knelt down to examine them. She picked up a piece that looked as if it had been part of the main lock and peered at it. It seemed to have burst from the inside.
“A shot in the piston,” Vargas said, behind her. “High-calibre burglars.”
“If they were burglars, that is.” Alicia dropped the piece of metal and stood up.
“Can you smell what I’m smelling?” the policeman asked.
Alicia answered with a nod and, walking into the entrance hall, paused at the foot of a staircase of pale marble that climbed up in the gloom. The beam of the torch swept across the darkness spreading up the stairs. The skeleton of an old glass lamp dangled from up high.
“I wouldn’t trust that staircase,” warned Vargas.
They went up slowly, one step at a time. The torch dispelled the shadows within a range of four or five metres before blurring into a pale halo that sank into the dark. The stench they had noticed as they came in still hung in the air, but as they walked up the stairs a cold, damp breeze brushed their faces, seeming to come from the floor above.
The first-floor landing formed a hall from which stemmed a wide corridor with a row of skylights that let the moonlight through. Most of the doors had been wrenched off, and the rooms were bare, with no curtains or furniture. Alicia and Vargas walked down the corridor, inspecting those dead spaces. The floor was coated with a film of dust, like a carpet of ashes that creaked under their feet.
Alicia shone the torch at a line of footprints that vanished into the shadows. “It’s recent,” she murmured.
“A beggar, I imagine,” said Vargas, “or some lowlife creature who slipped in to see if there was anything left to pillage.”
Alicia paid no attention to his words as she followed the trail. The two made their way through the house, following the footprints until they came to the southeast corner. There the trail faded. Alicia stopped in the doorway of what clearly must have been the master bedroom. There was barely any furniture left, and the pillagers had even pulled the paper off the walls. The ceiling had started to collapse, and part of its old panelling hung like an open bellows, creating a false perspective that made the room seem deeper than it really was. The black hole of the cupboard where Mataix’s wife had hidden in vain to protect her daughters was visible at the far end. Alicia felt a pang of nausea.
“There’s nothing left here,” said Vargas.
Alicia walked back to the hall at the top of the stairs from which they’d explored the floor. The stench they’d noticed upon entering was more noticeable there, a putrid aroma that seemed to rise from the very depths of the house. She walked slowly down the stairs, Vargas’s footsteps behind her. As she was making her way to the exit, she noticed a movement on her right and stopped. She approached a doorway to a sitting room with large windows. Some of the wooden floorboards had been pulled up, and among the remains of an improvised fire were burned pieces of chairs and charred, blackened book spines.
A wooden panel swayed gently at the far end of the room: behind it lay a well of darkness. Vargas stopped next to Alicia and pulled out his revolver. They moved very slowly towards the opening, keeping a safe distance between them. When they reached the wall, Vargas opened the door, which was encased within the wall panelling, and gave a nod. Alicia pointed the torch’s beam into the darkness. A long staircase descended into the basement. A draught rose from below, reeking with the smell of carrion. She covered her mouth and nose. Vargas nodded once more, and led the way. They went down slowly, feeling the walls on either side and testing each step in case they missed their footing and fell into the void.
At the bottom of the stairs they found themselves in what at first glance looked like a huge room with a vaulted ceiling, occupying the entire structure of the house. The room was flanked by a row of horizontal windows through which shafts of light shone dimly, caught in a misty miasma rising from the floor. She was about to take a step forward when Vargas stopped her. Only then did she realize that what she had thought was a tiled floor was in fact water. The rich colonial’s underground swimming pool had lost its emerald green and was now a black mirror. They moved closer to the edge, and Alicia swept the surface with her beam of light. A web of greenish algae swayed beneath the water. The stench came from there.
Alicia pointed to the bottom of the pool. “There’s something down there.”
She brought the torch closer to the surface. The water took on a ghostly clarity.
“Do you see it?” asked Alicia.
A dark mass swayed at the bottom of the pool, slithering slowly. Vargas looked around and found the pole of what looked like a brush for cleaning the pool. All the fibres had come off it years ago, but the metal head was still stuck to the end. Vargas plunged the pole into the water and tried to reach the dark shape. When he touched it, it turned upon itself and seemed to unfurl bit by bit.
“Careful,” warned Vargas.
He felt the metal end touch something firm and tugged at it energetically. The shadow began its ascent from the bottom of the pool. Alicia took a few steps back.
Vargas was the first to realize what was happening. “Move away,” he murmured.
Alicia recognized the suit instantly: she’d gone with him to a tailor’s on Gran Vía the day he bought it. The face that emerged on the water’s surface was as white as chalk, the eyes like two ovals of polished marble, a dark web of capillaries around the irises. The scar on his cheek, which she herself had left on him, had become a purple mark that looked as if it had been seared with a branding iron. The head fell to one side, exposing the deep cut that had sliced his throat.
Alicia closed her eyes and let out a sob. She felt Vargas’s hand on her shoulder.
“It’s Lomana,” she managed to say.
When she opened her eyes again, the body was sinking, until it was finally left suspended underwater, turning upon itself, arms outstretched.
Alicia turned to Vargas, who was looking at her anxiously. “Vilajuana told me he’d sent him here. Someone must have followed him.”
“Or perhaps he came across something he wasn’t expecting to find.”
“We can’t leave him in this place. Like this.”
Vargas shook his head. “I’ll take care of that. For the time being, let’s get out of here.”
The policeman took her arm and guided her gently towards the stairs. “Alicia, that body has been there for at least two or three weeks. Since before you arrived in Barcelona.”
She closed her eyes and nodded in agreement.
“That means,” he said, “that whoever went into your apartment and stole the book, it wasn’t Lomana.”
“I know.”
They were about to climb up again when Vargas suddenly stood still and held her back. The sound of footsteps creaking on the floor above reverberated through the vaulted room. They followed the movement of the footsteps with their eyes. The policeman listened, his expression inscrutable.
“There’s more than one person,” he whispered.
For a moment the footsteps seemed to stop, and then they moved away again. Alicia was going to take a quick look up the stairs when she noticed a noise above them. They heard the stairs creak and the echo of a voice, and glanced at one another. Alicia switched off the torch and they positioned themselves one on either side of the doorway at the bottom of the stairs, hiding in the shadows. Vargas pointed his gun at the staircase and cocked the hammer. The footsteps were getting closer. Seconds later a figure emerged. Before the stranger could take another step, Vargas had placed the barrel of his revolver on the newcomer’s temple, ready to blow his head to pieces.