It was four p.m. After all that sweat, I calculated we’d been kidnapped for just four hours. Borja and I started walking briskly through Poblenou to get away from the mossos and, luckily, we hit on a very busy street. My brother suggested we took a taxi and that I should shower and clean up in his flat before going home: I looked dreadful, or so he said. In fact, we were both in a bad state. We were exactly what we looked like: a couple of dirty, dishevelled and bruised fugitives. Borja told the cab driver to park in front of a Chinese restaurant and, while I waited in the taxi, he got out to buy some lunch (ironically, we both fancied fodder from the Orient) because we were hungry. I phoned Montse to make sure everything was all right at home.
“Everything is OK here. Why shouldn’t it be?” she asked, disconcerted.
We reached Borja’s flat without further mishap. We showered and my brother let me have a clean shirt that was big on him, but I couldn’t change my trousers because all of his were too small. As soon as he was out of the shower, Borja put an ice pack on his nose, which was swollen, though not broken, and on his eye, which had started to turn purple; his jaw had also been punched hard. As his face was hurting a lot, he took a painkiller. My whole body ached, so I followed suit.
While we had lunch and waited for the paracetamol to take effect, we switched on the TV to see if they were reporting the shoot-out we’d seen with our own eyes. And, it turned out, the TV3 twenty-four-hour news service was reporting the news that the mossos had arrested a dangerous gang of mafiosi comprising ex-members of the disbanded security forces of the former Soviet Union that they’d been tracking for some time. The criminals had resisted and opened fire on the police, and only two mafiosi were in hospital because the other three members of the gang had died in the shoot-out. Two mossos had been wounded, but none killed.
“I don’t get it,” Borja muttered, switching the TV off.
“You sure you’ve told me everything?”
“I swear I have, Eduard,” he said, sounding distressed. “You know as much as I do.”
I knew he wasn’t lying and that he felt guilty he’d involved me in risky business that could have turned out badly for both of us. However, we were too tired to talk or think, and, after lunch, I suggested we ought to stretch out and have a siesta. Borja took the phone off the hook, lowered the shutters and, good brothers that we are, we shared his king-size bed. As we’d drunk cognac for dessert, I fell asleep immediately.
It was eight o’clock when we woke up. I’d slept like a log. Borja was already up and in the dining room, sitting on the sofa, silently contemplating the small statue that was wreaking such havoc in our lives. I sat next to him and took another look at it. The statue’s head was twisted to one side, and the muscles on its body, which was human, stood out. Its front legs started off as arms but turned into legs, claw on claw, like a wrestler preparing for a fight. Its eyes were open and its expression was at once determined and tranquil. It was beautiful in a disturbing kind of way.
“It’s got a cat’s face, don’t you think?” Borja asked, training his eyes on it.
“More like a lion. Or a lioness, because it doesn’t have a mane. It’s got the body of a wrestler. And is very small…”
“Maybe the problem is that its hind legs are missing…” speculated Borja. “I expect those guys got angry because the statue is broken. But I swear it was like that when they handed it over.”
“I don’t think so. By the look on the face of the bastard who was the leader of that pack of wild animals I reckon it wasn’t what they were after. Remember how he threw it to the other side of the room…”
“Perhaps it’s a fake and he could see that…” surmised Borja.
“I’m not so sure,” I responded. “The guy didn’t look much like an expert. And I think this item is a genuine antique.”
“The TV news said it was a dangerous gang of Russian mafiosi. They didn’t say it was a gang of art thieves.”
“That’s what I don’t get: since when did the police engage in shoot-outs with art thieves? Maybe with drugs or arms dealers, but not with crooks who thieve or deal in stolen antiques… And I reckon the mossos weren’t looking for us. I don’t think they even knew we’d been kidnapped.”
“You’re right. If they’d known, they’d have kept an eye on my flat and would have seen us come in,” argued Borja.
We sat in silence for a while, staring at the statue until finally Borja got up and said, “I don’t know about you, but I need a drink.”
“And what are we going to with the statue? Leave it in your flat?”
“No, I’ll take it with me. I’ll think of something.”
Harry’s had just opened. Borja and I sat at the back of the bar and ordered a couple of gin and tonics. The waiter, who knew us, stared at Borja’s battered face but brought our drinks without making a single comment.
“Let’s suppose for a moment that the men who grabbed us weren’t after the statue,” I said. “What else might they have been looking for?”
“I haven’t a clue.” Borja gulped on his gin and tonic and suddenly burst out laughing, “Hey, you do get some bright ideas, don’t you? So we were in China…”
“Well, I could see the Great Wall through the window…”
“That was a diorama,” he chuckled. “We were in a film studio.”
“And how was I supposed to know? Remember they put us to sleep for the journey, and, to begin with, you thought we were in China too,” I growled, feeling upset. “By the way, how did you know there was a door that led to that back street and that the mossos weren’t lying in wait on the other side?”
“I didn’t know the police weren’t there,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders. “But I knew about that door because I once worked as a film extra for a spell in that studio.”
“You worked as an extra? Do tell me more!” I asked, surprised.
“It was a horror film called Perfume and starring Dustin Hoffman. If you remember, they filmed it in Barcelona. I was in the orgy scene at the end.”
“It’s news to me… How come you never told me?”
“Well, it’s a long story. The truth is we spent hours and hours there and I made friends with one of the production assistants. She showed me that door that was so hidden away that few of the people on the shoot knew about it. We sometimes skived off there for a cigarette.”
“I reckon it saved our bacon!”
“I’m sure it did. But I’d like to know what the hell that was all about.”
The two gin and tonics soon disappeared, and Borja ordered another round.
“And I still don’t understand why that woman gave us that mobile phone,” Borja declared after a while.
“Fuck, Borja! Suppose they were after the mobile and not the statue?” I’d had a sudden brainwave.
Borja put his hand in his pocket and took out the mobile and a keyring with the one key.
“Did you change your keyring?” I asked.
“No, it’s the one Brian gave me.”
“It’s only got one key.”
“Obviously, it’s the key to his flat. I’ve already got the key to the front door.”
“The mobile is switched off,” I said, taking the telephone.
“Yes, it needs recharging,” he sighed. “I’ll have to find the charger, but if it’s got a PIN number, God knows how we’ll ever switch it on…”
I put the mobile on the table and stared back at that solitary key.
“Perhaps they were after this key, and not the statue or the phone,” I suggested.
“The key to Brian’s flat?” responded Borja incredulously.
“Remember how we didn’t understand what they were saying and the Inspector insinuated that Brian was working for the CIA. And I’d remind you that those men were Russian and former members of the KGB. It all fits.”
“But the Cold War finished years ago and the Russians and Americans are friends nowadays,” Borja retorted. “Even though…” he left his sentence hanging in mid-air. “But organizing all those shenanigans for a key hardly makes any sense. They could simply have bust the door open like they did ours.”
“Unless this key opens another door,” I said, taking the keyring and scrutinizing the small key.
It looked like an ordinary key. It didn’t even open mortice locks.
“It’s a nice keyring,” said Borja. “I think I’ll keep it.”
It was elegant, chrome metal and oval shaped. But too big for a single key.
“Hey, what have we here? It looks like a small spring…”
I asked the waiter for a ballpoint pen and tried to force the mechanism. The keyring half opened. There was a pen drive inside.
“Shit!” I shouted.
“What the fuck is that?” asked Borja, frowning.
“It’s one of these things you put in your computer to store information. A pen drive. The twins have got one.”
“You mean it’s a kind of chip like the ones spies used for hiding info?”
“I suppose so, the modern version. Now I understand!” I said suddenly. “This is what they were after, that’s why they got so angry when you gave them the statue. That must have put them out no end.”
“What kind of info do you think it’s carrying?” asked Borja.
“I have no idea.”
“Well, we’ll have to find out.”
Borja suggested we went to his place and stuck it in the twins’ computer to see what came up. We rapidly downed our gin and tonics and went out into the street for a taxi. A quarter of an hour later we were in front of Laia’s computer.
“It must be a code, because it makes no sense at all,” I said as I saw what came up on the screen. “It’s just letters and figures.”
“Perhaps one of the twins will be able to decipher it,” rejoined Borja.
“Do you think so?”
“It’s worth a try.”
“Laia! Aina! Come here for a minute,” I shouted.
“What do you want, Dad?” grumbled Laia. Aina pushed me out of the chair and sat down.
“We don’t have the right program to read this document,” she concluded after a while. “And Windows hasn’t been able to identify what program it is either. If you want to read it, you’ll have to take it to a programmer, or better still, to a hacker.”
I sighed and extracted the pen drive from the computer and put it in my pocket. Montse, who’d just arrived, came into the room and had a fright when she saw Borja’s face.
“What the hell’s happened to you?” she asked, her eyes leaping out of their sockets.
“Nothing really. I tripped in the street where there were roadworks, and bashed my face,” he said, trying to laugh it off.
“In the street?” asked Montse, not believing one word. “You sure it wasn’t a jealous husband that did that to you?”
“No, Montse…” said Borja, trying to smile, but his face hurt and the move ended in a grimace of pain.
“Have you been to the doctor?”
“No need. I’ve not broken anything… A little ice pack and I’ll be fine in a couple of days.”
Montse went into the kitchen and came back in nurse mode with a packet of frozen peas. After applying it to Borja’s face, she asked us if we were hungry and offered to cook supper. Borja said he was tired and was going home, but I took up her offer. After accompanying Borja to the door, while Montse went to the kitchen to cook my omelette, I stretched out on the sofa and fell asleep dreaming of Fu Manchu.