The mossos took note of all our details and finally gave us permission to leave. What with one thing and another, it was well past midday. On our way out, we passed, on their way in, Sònia Claramunt, Horaci’s widow, and Bernat Comes, the specialist in Bach flower remedies who turned out not to be a real doctor; their sorrowful faces showed they’d heard the dire news. Some participants who knew Sònia Claramunt offered her their condolences, but she strode on imperturbably, not stopping to thank them.
“Poor woman! She must be quite distraught!” said Valèria. “I can remember when I lost my husband…”
My brother and I inelegantly skipped the dramatic story she was about to unfold and, once we were in the street, Borja gave me his mobile so I could tell Montse I was on my way home. I wanted to reassure her, because journalists and TV cameras had begun to arrive at around eleven, and I was afraid she or Joana might hear the news on the radio or TV and get the fright of their lives. Borja then phoned Merche and Lola, who’d taken advantage of our stay at Zen Moments to go to Madrid with some girlfriends to visit the Prado.
“We’ve had a real run of bad luck,” I muttered as we walked along the Bonanova, trying to find a taxi. “Everything we touch goes haywire.”
“We’ll have to think what we’re going to do about Teresa Solana’s assignment. And how we’re going to reclaim our four thousand euros!” sighed Borja.
“Do you think we’ll get a refund?”
“Well, that’s the least they can do.”
“I’d never have said that Alícia woman was a murderer. She must have planned it all from the start.”
“I guess so. Come on, let’s go home, I’m starving!” my brother shouted as he waved at a taxi with a green light.
I was famished too. Even though the mossos had let us into the kitchen in the middle of the morning to get something to eat and drink, as they didn’t even serve decaf at the centre, my stomach was empty. The second we reached our place, I quickly prepared aperitifs with crisps, olives and slices of chorizo and cheese. The crisps disappeared immediately and the twins offered to fetch more from the local corner store run by a couple of Pakistanis.
“Bring us a couple of tins of berberetxus,” said Borja, handing Laia a twenty-euro note.
“Escopinyes, proper Catalan, if you don’t mind!” Laia replied, wincing at his mix of Spanish and Catalan for the word for cockles.
Joana and Montse joined us for aperitifs and insisted we described what had happened in lurid detail. The twins also wanted to be in on how Borja found the corpse of Dr Bou and all the gore he added to spice his story; for the first time in ages they stayed with us for aperitifs rather than disappearing into their bedrooms. Arnau seemed to be the only person who was completely uninterested, and he simply asked, “Daddy, how can Dr Bou be a vegetarian if his name says he’s an ox?”
Borja and I had told them how we’d gone hungry because of the vegetarian menus they served. It was lucky Montse had cooked macaroni and meat and cheese pasties for lunch, and Borja had insisted on buying a cream sponge cake for dessert. Unusually for a weekend, when we usually start lunch after three, that Sunday we were all tucking in well before two.
After lunch, Borja said he was going home to rest, and I was all ready for a long siesta. On this occasion, Montse let me off doing the washing-up, and, discreetly, while she and Joana were busy in the kitchen, I went to our bedroom and extracted from the trunk the small statue Borja had asked me to keep for him.
“Here you are,” I said, putting it into his El Corte Inglés bag. “I’m sure you’ll find a good place to hide it in your flat.”
“Of course, don’t you worry,” said Borja.
“And get some rest, right?”
“You too.”