Out in the street the sun was shining brightly, but after the fright Inspector Badia had just given us I’d have thought the weather was wonderful even if thunder and lightning had been booming and flashing overhead. We hadn’t been arrested, and, despite that statement from the neighbour who’d said she’d seen Borja opening and closing the windows of Brian’s flat, it was evident the Inspector didn’t seriously suspect we were involved in the murder. Still shaking with fear, Borja and I lit up and started to stroll silently down the road, crossing Les Corts. We needed to exercise our legs and release the adrenalin that had accumulated in our veins.
“That bastard Badia!” Borja exclaimed after a while. “He gave me a real shock! I thought he was on to us!”
“Perhaps we should have told him the truth. If he finds out we’ve been lying, he won’t let us off lightly.”
“He’ll never find out. That’s quite impossible.”
“What about the neighbour opposite?”
“Bah, the Inspector accepted she simply got the wrong flat. Besides, don’t you ever forget we are in no way involved in Brian’s death. We simply happened to find him – by chance.”
“Well, by chance, because you’ve got the keys to his flat. And I recall we interfered with the scene of the crime…”
“Forget it. I bet even those CSI guys would never notice. I gave everything a good clean.”
“That is precisely what most worries me,” I groaned.
It was almost two o’clock, so I suggested we catch a taxi to get us on our way. I’d promised Montse I’d be home for lunch and, taking advantage of the fact Joana had gone to a friend’s and that we’d be alone in the flat, we would see if we couldn’t find a solution to the bank’s refusal to give them the loan they needed to keep their business on the road. The crisis meant many of Montse’s leftist clients were unemployed, and that had forced them to give up the treatment they were getting at her Alternative Centre (that was entirely dispensable, in my view). Without a cash handout to see them through until the situation improved, she and her two partners would go bankrupt. Usually a spirited, optimistic woman, Montse had been depressed for the last two days, as I told Borja.
“Change of plan,” he now told the taxi driver. “Let’s go to the market on València.”
“To the market?”
“We’ll take her a bunch of flowers. I’ve yet to meet the woman who doesn’t cheer up when she’s given a bouquet of flowers. But don’t worry, I’ll only drop by for a moment and then I’ll leave you to have your lunch in peace.”
“Pep, we’re in no state to spend money on flowers…”
“Don’t you worry, this one is on me. Or rather, on Merche,” he replied with a wink.
I sighed and let him get on with it. Once in the market, Borja scrutinized the different varieties of flower and finally chose five sprays of red, crimson, pumpkin, pink and yellow African daisies that made up a spectacular bouquet that cost him forty euros.
“Don’t be so mean,” he reproached me. “Do things well or don’t do them at all!”
Montse’s face lit up when she saw us walk in with that colourful bouquet. She wasn’t expecting it and I’m sure she immediately guessed it had been Borja’s idea. When I went into the dining room, I was surprised to see Joana and Lola setting the table. I discreetly asked my wife what they were doing there.
“My mother’s friend is ill and they had to cancel lunch. And you know Lola, she came to the Centre this morning to cheer me up, and then invited herself to lunch,” she whispered.
“Now I’ll have to ask Borja if he wants to stay and eat a bite with us…” I growled.
“What do you bet he says yes?”
So there would be five of us for lunch, and Joana had decided on a menu of Cuban rice followed by sausages. While the women were busy in the kitchen, Borja and I finished setting the table and opened a couple of cans of beer. I still hadn’t got over our big scare.
“We’ll go to Dr Bou’s centre this afternoon,” Borja declared. “It’s best if we can keep to the schedule we planned.”
“You mean in terms of the Inspector?”
“No, I mean in general. After all, we were not involved in Brian’s death.”
“That’s quite a coup to have a CIA spy for a neighbour.”
“Merche, who is a friend of the British consul, tells me Barcelona is teeming with them. It’s all to do with al-Qaeda.”
“Wonderful! What with the spies and the tourists, we’ll never get a look-in!”
“In any case, his death wasn’t connected with the statue I hid in his flat,” he reminded me.
“I suppose not,” I had to agree. “But if the guy was a CIA agent, that might make things a bit livelier. And if they ever find out we were in his flat…”
“They never will! You saw how the Inspector didn’t suspect us.”
Over the course of lunch, we explained that a man had been murdered in the building where we rented our office, but avoided mentioning the episode of our conversation with the Inspector and, naturally, the fact that we had found Brian’s corpse. On the other hand, as it was no secret, we made the most of the curious assignment from Teresa Solana and how we intended enrolling at a Zen centre.
“The peculiar things you two get up to!” said Joana, who still hadn’t digested the fact I’d left a secure job at the bank to work with Borja and that Montse had abandoned her job as a school counsellor to set up an Alternative Centre in Gràcia.
“But the place we are going to investigate is not at all like Montse’s,” Borja made clear.
“You mean it’s an establishment for the well-to-do, don’t you?” asked Montse.
“I hope so,” said Borja with a smile. Lola grimaced.
“Homeopathy is a much more natural form of medicine,” my sister-in-law suddenly declared, even though she was immediately on the defensive. “All chemists sell it. I take it too.”
Borja said nothing and Montse and I simply goggled at Lola. We were surprised because if Lola is a fan of one thing it is antibiotics, ibuprofen and paracetamol, which I knew she hadn’t given up because I’d caught her swallowing a pill just before lunch.
“Well, it’s all yours,” interjected Joana. “I reckon all those things are a lot of tosh.”
“But lots of people believe in it. So I reckon it must work.”
“The fact that a huge number of individuals believe something to be so doesn’t imply that it is so,” I suggested tentatively.
“Doesn’t it? Well, if people believe in it, it must be for a good reason,” came her defiant response.
“Come on, Lola, lots of people believe in horoscopes, in kidnappings by beings from other planets or in UFOs, but that’s no proof that they actually exist.”
“People believe in UFOs because so many have been sighted.”
“So if people have seen them, how come there is no definite proof they exist? At the end of the day, all we have as evidence is what the people who claim to have seen one say,” I replied.
“That’s because governments keep it from us, just like they do with alternative therapies. They would rather people stuffed themselves with medicines that damage their livers or kidneys, so that pharmaceutical companies can make a bomb.”
“Oh, that’s all we needed! The famous conspiracy theory!” I retorted sarcastically. But Montse kicked me under the table. “The problem, Lola, is that before antibiotics were discovered, people simply died, if you remember.”
“Many illnesses can be cured by homeopathy, without antibiotics,” she countered. “That’s a well-established fact.”
To be frank, as far I was concerned, the jury was still out on homeopathic medicine, and I decided to end the discussion right there and let Lola have the last word. Borja very deftly channelled the conversation to noir novels and Teresa Solana, whom only Montse had read, on the recommendation of one of her customers. After coffee, Joana said she was going to stretch out and disappeared into her bedroom. Montse and Lola also got up and slumped on the sofa, but not before they had subtly invited us to clean the kitchen. Borja and I obediently donned our aprons and started washing up.
“The next present you get from me will be a dishwasher,” grumbled Borja. “I’ve a friend down in the port who—”
“No thank you very much! I don’t want to hear another word about any of your friends! I bet it’s illegal!”
“Shush! Not so loud, or the girls will hear you…”
“And talking of risky business, have you heard from your statue friend?”
“Not yet. But he said it would be at least a fortnight…”
“You know I’m not keen on hiding it here,” I carped.
“Take it easy, kid. I said it’s only a matter of days.”
We finished the washing-up in silence, dried our hands and went into the dining room to say goodbye to Montse and Lola and announce that we were going to Zen Moments to meditate a while and purge our sins.