Chapter 4

"Tell me, is it because of that amazing love story that you’re locked in here? Did you commit some madness?”

A wrinkled tongued licked Tallent's cheek and didn’t stop until it had accomplished its purpose: to awaken her.

"Oh, Vader... Shit," the girl cursed between babbling with one eye still half closed.

The morning light of that Wednesday was already traversing the fine pistachio-colored curtains in the bedroom. Tallent leaned toward the alarm clock that sat on a wooden bedside table, very vintage. It was 9:45. It was time to wake up, as Vader had reminded her as he jumped out of bed and in a flash went into the dining area, and saw his empty food bowl.

The newly woken woman rubbed her face with both hands and stretched her arms until the muscles of her back creaked. Then she filled Vader's bowl with pellets, put a Paul Simon record in the living room’s record player, and went to look out the window. Oxford had dawned quiet and beautiful. The sun invaded Walton Street and bicycles circled the asphalt, autumn was already beginning to make its appearance falling from the trees. She yawned again, and a lovely moan, like a whimper, came out of her mouth.

She had breakfast only with the company of Hearts and Bones of Simon. Vader, who had already quenched his hunger, had become a ball of sleeping fur on the sofa, and she prepared for a new day of work. Or whatever she did, since playing her favorite classicals for outdoor tourists could not be considered a job. And much less rehearsing with the Oxford Symphony Orchestra, which was what she devoted every morning. She liked it too much to qualify herself as a work slave.

When she went to put on her leather boots, she felt the right ankle with her hand. As every morning, the old injury hurt her, and as every morning, she remembered her Brunet when she felt that pain. Four years had passed and the grief was still there, that her joint sent a reminder daily to her heart to avoid forgetting. As if it were routine, the young woman drew a smile of perfect nostalgia on her face.

She had always been clear: life was not going to give her anything. When she was only fifteen years old, her father, David Tallent's all-terrain vehicle that he was driving in the Swiss Alps, fell downhill during the vacation he enjoyed with his wife, Mary. Both died instantly, leaving an orphaned child. Tallent was able to adapt to the circumstances and wore armor around her soul that forced her to mature. Far from deterrence, she decided to fulfill her dream to become a professional violinist. She found work, as a waitress first and cocktail waitress afterwards, in the Red Lion, one of the most important pubs in Oxford. For several years she had to work seven days a week in order to finance music lessons, and when she had any amount of free time, she would take the violin out to the street and practice her favorite songs in front of the pedestrians. No one ever remembered seeing her with a man, very occasionally she drank a drink of alcohol, and she hated the noise of the nightclubs. Instead she cultivated a taste for the small pleasures of life: scratching the sock mark on her ankles, lying between freshly washed sheets or being surprised by the smell of freshly baked bread. Despite her tragic adolescence, the young woman was one of those who left a mark: sweet, sensible and sure of herself, ultimately resplendent. She always had a kind word or advice for her friends, and especially when she played the violin, she radiated a joy of life that transferred to her melodies. No one played like her; she was a world in herself.

The young British woman met Brunet at the Red Lion bar on a night in September 2001. That evening they exchanged looks and amusing wordplay, and from then on, Brunet began to go to the Red Lion quite often until she invited her to go to the movies.

Tallent was aware that Brunet barely understood her English, having arrived in the city from Spain through an Erasmus scholarship. But that made it even more exciting: they had fun trying to understand each other, and when they didn’t, they played with their imagination, which was exciting. The couple spent almost half a year sinking into what became a kind of prolonged summer romance.

Basically, she was the best, Tallent recalled from her room. They went on picnics, went out for beer, and, on a couple of occasions, escaped to Liverpool and Bath all weekend. In short, they had a great time. When they drove through the streets of Oxford, in an old green Peugeot that the natives call Minifalcon, they talked about everything except what they would do with their relationship in the future. Tallent's music encompassed everything surrounding the couple. If the violinist liked a genre, she would bring it up over and over again. On one occasion, remembered the British woman, she interpreted the classic of the sixties, Eleanor Rigby, for her love during a whole month. Brunet was fascinated by her music. Once, the snow began to fall hard as they drove through the Headington neighborhood. Then a local radio station punched out a ballad of Roy Orbison, and Brunet, aware of her predilection for the singer, stepped on the brakes in the middle of the storm, took her lover by the hand and dragged her tenderly toward the street. There she danced with her, singing in her ear You Got It, while the snow fell through the streetlights. It was as if the world belonged to them.

Four long years later, the violinist continued to revive her romance. Since she left without being able to say goodbye because of the untimely ankle injury suffered during the last morning, she had never heard from Brunet again. Nevertheless, she had set fire to her soul. It was as if she had the dark suspicion that she would never love anyone as purely as Brunet. Her thoughts discouraged her every morning, making her a prey to a fleeting love that was doomed from the beginning.

It was the drop of a tear from her cheek to the parquet, which made her stop daydreaming and finished with her boots. She wiped her eyes with her palms, wished her cat good morning, and went out the door of the apartment with her inseparable violin on her back.

At one-quarter past noon, in Ámber, police chief Julian Barreneche and his young companion, Marcos Tena, entered through the door of the Sensations bar. They had visited Charley’s house just before, not without a certain stupor, even though it didn’t seem worthy of such denomination. The dust made it almost impossible to breathe, and the mess of the place, even though it barely had furniture, was absolute. Both police officers agreed that it met all the requirements of an abandoned place. And yet it was where Charley lived. "That crazy suicidal must have been an absolute character," were the exact words of Barreneche, who showed in his tone that he still couldn’t understand what the hell he was doing there.

Apart from confirming the peculiarity of the deceased, they didn’t find in the house any clue that could be useful to them. They also went back to reviewing his Land Rover though it was the first thing the police found next to the cliff on the day of the incident, and again unsuccessfully: only the dry patches of some cheap whiskey scattered on the hood. The Sensations, that dump that Rubial had in his name, was their last option to discover any connecting thread. Barreneche hoped for the same success. He wished he could find nothing of interest, go home, and that Judge Callejo would file the case once and for all.

The Sensations door was open, so they entered without knocking. The drawn curtains plunged the room in gloom, even though the sun shone outside. A huge mass of flesh and blubber snored grotesquely inside the bar, lying on the wooden bench. Barreneche gestured to his deputy, untied the button of his jean jacket and accessed the inside of the bar from one end to the other end. He picked up a pitcher of beer and then poured half a bottle of vodka into it, which he found among the shelves. When he had finished, he tossed the contents of the jug over the giant's head without the least bit of regard. He awoke between spasms and clumsily shoved his back against the cash register when he stepped back. The youngest of the policemen couldn’t suppress a timid laugh.

"I'm a cop, you idiot," said Barreneche, scathingly, showing his plaque with an air of superiority.

The fat man's eyes widened. His first reaction was to look toward the exit, and then he said,

"No... no drugs here, guys," he said frightened. “You can check it out if you want!”

The commissary drew a half circle with his right hand and gave the giant such a slap that left an imprint of his knuckles on the cheekbone. Visibly pissed, but not moving a single muscle in his face, he grabbed the ponytail and dragged the bartender's huge head up under the brew tap. Then he moved the crank, releasing the alcohol. Tena was alert. Why did his boss have to behave like that?

"Maybe I'd like some beer," the superior said cruelly. “What's your name, chubby?”

"Mahh..." The man could barely breathe with the beer all over his face. Barreneche released him.

"Maximilian!" He cried out in gasps once more. “That’s my name. And I'm going to report you, you fucking sons of...!”

"Don’t make me laugh, Maximilian. You won’t report this if you don’t want anyone to know that you use this rats nest to deal drugs.”

Max hesitated. He certainly had him against a rock. Marcos Tena watched the scene intently.

"You're going to tell me everything you know about Carlos Rubial," Barreneche said.

"Yes, Charley,” cried Marcos Tena. It was the first time he had opened his mouth since entering.

"Well... Charley didn’t tell me much," said the giant. “The weeks before he committed suicide, he came and went, but he almost never stayed. He unattended the bar, as you can see. Something worried him. Charley was a very strange guy.”

"Didn’t you see anything in particular? Any details, maybe?” Barreneche wanted to know.

"Yes, inside a box. But he never used it,” Max said. “It’s no longer here, he took it.”

The agents glanced at each other, wondering if any of them had anything more to add.

"He had no family? Friends?” Asked Marcos Tena, anxious to bring something to the table. “I don’t know, what did he do when he wasn’t here?”

Maximilian froze his repulsive expression for a few seconds, thoughtfully, then added:

The officers looked at each other again. Tena was filled with enthusiasm. His superior, on the other hand, seemed bored.

Max's eyes widened to look like two marbles. Apparently, he had just come up with the name.

"Alyssa!" He exclaimed. “Alyssa Grifero I think it was her full name. Find it and you’ll get the answers you are looking for.”

"Alyssa Grifero," Tena whispered as he scribbled it in his notebook. “What did she have to do with Charley?”

"Alyssa was a child.” Max's face darkened as he shook his head. “But she had something with Charley that I never understood, guys. He wouldn’t allow her into the bar,” he said with a stern tone of voice. “I insist, she was just a girl.”

The interrogation had ended for Julian Barreneche, and therefore also for his young assistant. After the policeman dried his hands with a dry cloth, they left Max caring for the inflammation on his cheekbone with an ice cube and left the Sensations.

"How did you know they're dealing drugs there?" Tena asked in a sudden good humor.

"I've been at this for a long time, kid.” The eldest sketched a vain smile as he answered.

"Do it if you want," the chief said wearily. “That's the job of the incompetent Drug Unit. I won’t waste my time on things that aren’t for me.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he turned to Tena, put his hand on his left shoulder, and said his last words of the day:

"Listen to me: Alyssa Grifero will be your first assignment as my trainee. Find her.”

The next day, Barreneche met with Judge Callejo in his office to review the case. It was lunchtime. The judge had been informed of the dismaying aspect of the suicide's home. He was also informed in detail of the "quiet" conversation with Max (as described by Barreneche, who wanted to avoid the issue of backhanding his cheek and the beer shower).

He asked, "have you collected any information about that Alyssa?" and the policeman told him about the girl.

"We're on it," Barreneche said. “I have ordered Tena to investigate. I spoke to him a moment ago on the phone and he told me that he has tracked the last calls made or received with her cell phone.”

"The last calls are from a couple days ago, and they came from Ámber. I don’t think she’s very far,” said the policeman, who wanted to finish as soon as possible to go eat.

Callejo frowned and sighed. Then he asked the question he had been wanting to ask for the last few minutes:

"Why did you send Tena to investigate her alone? For me it's a very serious matter, Julian.”

“No, I trust you!” He lifted the tone of his voice and the reply echoed in the room.

An uncomfortable silence prevailed in the room. The ring tone of Barreneche's cell phone sounded. He picked it up and held it to his ear while still watching the judge. It was Tena.

"I know where Alyssa Grifero is, sir!" Shouted the young man, more than he spoke, from the other side of the connection.

"Great, Tena, good job," he said, and immediately gave some orders. "Listen, tell me the exact address and go on there. I'll join you as soon as I get there.”

"Impossible, sir!" Marcos Tena continued to scream. “The girl just took a plane to London! And she has made a reservation at an Oxford hostel!”

Alyssa Grifero came down the flight of stairs with a backpack dangling from her shoulder and dragging a small blue suitcase. The blizzard that had risen that morning made her hair fly in all directions, so she decided that when it was all over and she went home, she would cut her hair. She tensed as she entered the terminal and felt the difference in temperature. Without stopping to glance in any store or even for a quick coffee, she went outside, where a car was waiting for her. With only a breath of fresh air, she climbed into the vehicle.

"Long time, Dorian. I'm glad to see you," she said as she bent to give the man in the driver's seat a kiss on each cheek. The ten-day beard stubble was as usual, and his hair was longer than she remembered. The arrogant gesture wasn’t lost on her either.

The vehicle started and left the airport lanes dedicated to the collection of passengers.

"You've grown up since the last time I saw you," the driver said with a sharp English accent and still looking at the road.

"It's more than that, but yes," Dorian said with a tense gesture. “Right now I have nothing on my hands, so if you know about anything...”

Dorian let out a snort that broke the tension that was just building inside the car.

A little more than half an hour later, they arrived at their destination. Dorian pulled Alyssa up to the door of her hostel, where they said goodbye with a hug. They promised to keep sending messages, where they both felt more comfortable.

That evening, Sara Mora sat down to dinner with her new British family and, as usual in that house; a slight disorder reigned from appetizers to dessert. Claire Connor, who was the one who did as she pleased at home, had prepared a spinach, corn and pea salad that Sara struggled to finish. For the main course, they had an overly fried fish, chips, broccoli and carrots. The doctor had forgotten the industrial flavor of fish & chips. The dessert was the best. Kurt, the Buddhist, forensic and second husband of Claire who was not eating with them because of work, had bought a tray of different flavored cupcakes that morning. Sara would have been delighted to try the carrot cake, her favorite, but Nick lunged at it even before the tray touched the table. That impossible boy had gotten ahead of her.

At seven-thirty Sara's cell phone rang. She got up from the table in a rush and almost missed her call before getting the phone out of her corduroy jacket, which Mrs. Connor had most assuredly put on the hook at the entrance because it was proper. It was Mike Lennard.

The cell phone sounded, "ding", and Alyssa opened her eyes in a reflex act. It took her less than a second to orient herself and remember where she was. She sat up, and settled herself on the sheet with her legs crossed, and inspected her Blackberry. She had a new email, which caused a crooked smile to be drawn on her face.

From «Jasper» to «A.G.»

Hi,

Remember. Cowley Road. Number 219.

Tell me everything in detail when you're done. And be careful.

Jasper

Sigh. Then she locked her phone and went to the dresser, where she had left her wristwatch. It was 6:35 pm. She had plenty of time.

She spent the next hour and a half eating something (she had bought a vegetable sandwich and yogurt with raisins that didn’t look too bad at Tesco) and she enjoyed a hot, foamy bath.

As she massaged her soap-bubbled thighs, she came to the firm conclusion that she was more nervous than she had imagined at first. She had nothing to fear, but traveling alone in a foreign country where the language that was spoken was so alien to her, added to the uncertainty of not knowing what was going to happen in the following hours, it caused annoying butterflies in her stomach. Alyssa became more nervous after Jasper’s cautious e-mail he had just sent her. "Fuck! Jasper, always so brilliant and careful."

She wanted to remove the dark thoughts from her mind by playing with the foam that billowed around her knees. About ten minutes later, when the water began to cool, she decided that she was relaxed enough to come out of the tub. She dried herself off and put on black jeans, boots of the same color, and a hooded gray sweatshirt big enough to conceal most of her face. Before leaving the room, she looked out through the window. From the ground floor of the poor hostel, the stamp of the Rawlinson Road could not be more depressing: the small parking lot of the building looked empty, wet and covered largely by dead leaves falling from the trees in the street bordering the area, an old stonewall invaded by moss. When the first drops of what would eventually be a dense storm started falling onto the glass, Alyssa threw an airborne scowl. No matter, I’ll walk anyway. It didn’t matter that she had to cross the city while the sky fell on her head; catching a bus was not an option. The last years of her life had forced her to adopt the irritating habit of letting herself be seen in public as little as possible, regardless of whether she was in another country, let alone in such a degree of excitement. She hung her backpack on her right shoulder and slammed the door.

“Hi, Sara, did I call you at a bad time?” He said, listening to the background noise.

“Hi Mike!” She greeted him, happily surprised. “Not really, I'm having dinner with my lunatic host family. How are you?”

"Just two things. I want to invite you to have a drink tonight at my house. I promise we'll have a good time.”

"Mike..." Sarah, indecisive between what she should and what she wanted to do, pondered her words well. “I told you I couldn’t today.”

"No, that was two days ago. You told me you couldn’t because you were visiting Cambridge yesterday. What's up today?”

"Mike, I just don’t think we should see each other at your home for now. We just met. It's too soon, don’t you think?”

"There are some things I haven’t told you, though I will, don’t worry," he said. “But it must be in person. That's why I wanted to see you today.”

Sara didn’t answer. This time she was more furious than intrigued, so she hung up without saying goodbye. Completely disgruntled, she returned to the living room, where she apologized to Claire and Nick, she refused a cup of tea with milk the woman was preparing, and escaped to her room.

She paced the room from side to side with no apparent sense, trying to focus her thoughts. She was having a little anxiety attack, another one in a few days.

"Let's see, Sarah, focus," she ordered sternly. “What was the meaning of the call?”

Still walking in circles, the young woman thought of different possibilities, reasonable problems that Charley’s twin wanted to share with her.

Sara gritted her teeth. She couldn’t believe that she was again involved in an affair with...

She paused for a moment, took a deep breath and forced herself to see everything from a more optimistic perspective. And if what Mike had to tell her wasn’t bad, she wondered. Had she noticed if his tone was cheerful or worried? Remember, Sara, remember. Her inner dilemma shifted toward a more disturbing thought: And if... she asked again, what if this man was not really Charley's twin? Is that what happened? On the driver's license, he was identified by the name of Mike Lennard, not Rubial. He had assured her that he had changed his name, but what if he had lied about it? Impossible, concluded Sara, whose brain was overcoming anxiety in favor of her own performance, he was identical to Charley! She cried aloud now. They have to be brothers! So what now?

She sat on the bed and hugged her teddy bear, Golden tightly. She wanted to cry. She missed Ámber and Diana. She couldn’t believe that she had left her home to flee her past, and in three days she was already living with four lunatics, showering in the company of spiders, and making plans with the twin brother of her almost rapist who, to cap it off, was lying and stalking her.

Mike was a nice man, with good conversation, and he also respected her. It wasn’t fair to judge him for being his brother. He just wanted to see her one evening and tell her something more intimate. What was wrong with that? She relaxed and opened her laptop in order to think of something else. She had not used it since the bus trip that brought her to Oxford, so the news in "PDF" of the Diario Montañés news remained on the monitor as it had been left on that day. Sara stared at the screen for a while, staring blankly, not thinking about anything concrete.

Wait a minute! She was just coming to a conclusion, and it was alarming. Mike said that he had read the news of this newspaper and it spoke about Alfonso, Verónica and her pregnancy. However, she moved the cursor from the top to the bottom of the news, looking for words that she knew she wouldn’t find, for in the news there was no mention of the pregnancy anywhere.

She was absorbed. That man knows more things than he told me. She got up suddenly and began to dress. She didn’t like the situation at all. Why would he hide something like that? On second thought, she told herself as she pulled on a white cotton sweater, it had all been very strange from the first moment. Coincidentally we’re in the same country, same city and same bar. And who recognizes someone that he hasn’t seen in his life except for a simple photograph published in a small space of digital news? The reality was that nothing made sense; everything seemed improbable.

Before leaving her room, she looked out the window and noticed that the dark sky threatened rain. She grabbed the umbrella and left the house without saying anything to anyone else.

The first thing that Alyssa did as soon as she headed south on Banbury Road was check the time: 8:35 pm. The storm had already fully awakened, and within fifteen minutes, the young woman was soaking wet.

With every step she took, the fluttering in her stomach grew and rose to her chest. She insulted herself for being so stupid, but in the depths of her being she knew that she was in some way facing the moment that would determine her future and would make her, perhaps, a totally different person. She urgently needed a change of course in her life, to define herself, to eliminate her inner ghosts and to cling to some sign that would make her reconcile with the planet.

She reached the historical center, and as she passed St. Giles, her teeth clenched, not only because of her nerves, but because the cold had already reached her bones and made her teeth chatter. She sped up, for she was less than a fifteen-minute walk away.

Cowley Road became eternal. As she progressed, single-family brick houses with billiard roofs were being replaced by foreign businesses of all kinds, mainly fast food. The number 219 was a dark brick townhouse a few square meters built next to a liquor store. It was an exact, if rather coquettish, replica of the houses that stood next to it along the avenue. From the other end of the street, Alyssa saw no sign of life inside. She looked at the clock again. 09:37 pm. In fact, she had arrived a few minutes in advance. She smoked a couple of cigarettes to make time. Then, with her clothes dripping, she bought a kebab in the Turk store behind her and ate it there, standing on the sidewalk. The awning of the premises sheltered her from the rain.

Suddenly a light went on in one of the rooms of the house. Alyssa shuddered as she identified the silhouette of a person behind the window. A strong feeling awakened within her.

She dropped half of the kebab in a garbage can, and, illuminated by the warm light of street lamps, she crossed the street. She did not reach the door, however, for halfway there she discovered a dubious alley less than a meter wide separating the number 219 from the liquor store. She decided to spend a couple of minutes inspecting it. She found a small window in the sidewall of the building, possibly the bathroom, which Alyssa thought would be perfect for information on what was happening inside.

At that moment another light turned on inside the building that partially illuminated the alley. The young woman lunged to the side praying softly that she had not been discovered. Once she recovered her breathing rhythm, she crouched in the rain and found an angle of vision from where she could see through the window everything that was mirrored in the mirror of the bathroom.

A few minutes later, the dry sound of a gunshot sounded like thunder at 219 Cowley Road, breaking the night's calm and alarming the entire neighborhood.