The Angel's Game

  “I need to make a call to a law firm. The name of the lawyer is Valera, number 442 Avenida Diagonal.”

  The operator took a couple of minutes to find the number and connect me. I waited, holding the receiver with one hand and blocking my left ear with the other. Finally she confirmed that she was putting my call through and moments later I recognized the voice of Valera’s secretary.

  “I’m sorry, but Señor Valera isn’t here right now.”

  “It’s important. Tell him my name is Martín. David Martín. It’s a matter of life and death.”

  “I know who you are, Señor Martín. I’m sorry, but I can’t put you through because he’s not here. It’s half past nine at night and he left the office a long time ago.”

  “Then give me his home address.”

  “I cannot give you that information, Señor Martín. I do apologize. If you wish, you can phone tomorrow morning and—”

  I hung up and again waited for a line. This time I gave the operator the number Ricardo Salvador had given me. His neighbor answered the phone and told me he would go up to see whether the ex-policeman was in. Salvador was soon on the line.

  “Martín? Are you all right? Are you in Barcelona?”

  “I’ve just arrived.”

  “You must be careful. The police are looking for you. They came round here asking questions about you and Alicia Marlasca.”

  “Víctor Grandes?”

  “I think so. He came with a couple of big guys I didn’t like the look of. I think he wants to pin the deaths of Roures and Marlasca’s widow on you. You’d better keep your eyes peeled—they’re probably watching you. If you like, you could come here.”

  “Thanks, Señor Salvador. I’ll think about it. I don’t want to get you into any more trouble.”

  “Whatever you do, watch out. I think you were right: Jaco is back. I don’t know why, but he’s back. Do you have a plan?”

  “I’m going to try to find Valera, the lawyer. I think the publisher for whom Marlasca worked is at the heart of all this, and I think Valera is the only person who knows the truth.”

  Salvador paused for a moment.

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary. I’ll call you once I’ve spoken to Valera.”

  “As you wish. Are you armed?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Señor Salvador … Roures spoke to me about a woman in the Somorrostro area whom Marlasca had consulted. Someone he had met through Irene Sabino.”

  “The Witch of Somorrostro.”

  “What do you know about her?”

  “There isn’t much to know. I don’t think she even exists, the same as this mysterious publisher. What you need to worry about is Jaco and the police.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “Call me as soon as you know anything, will you?”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  I hung up and as I passed the bar I left a few coins to cover the calls and the glass of brandy, which was still there, untouched.

  Twenty minutes later I was standing outside 442 Avenida Diagonal, looking up at the lights that were on in Valera’s office, at the top of the building. The porter’s lodge was closed, but I banged on the door until the porter peered out with a distinctly unfriendly expression on his face. As soon as he’d opened the door a little to get rid of me, I gave it a push and slipped into the hallway, ignoring his protests. I went straight to the lift. The porter tried to stop me by grabbing hold of my arm, but I threw him a look that quickly dissuaded him.

  When Valera’s secretary opened the door, her expression rapidly changed from surprise to fear, especially when I stuck my foot in the gap to make sure she didn’t slam the door in my face and went in without being invited.

  “Let the lawyer know I’m here,” I said. “Now.”

  The secretary looked at me, her face completely white.

  I took her by the elbow and pushed her into the lawyer’s office. The lights were on, but there was no trace of Valera. The terrified secretary sobbed, and I realized that I was digging my fingers into her arm. I let go and she retreated a few steps. She was shaking. I sighed and tried to make some sort of calming gesture that only served to reveal the gun tucked into the waistband of my trousers.

  “Please, Señor Martín. I swear that Señor Valera isn’t here.”

  “I believe you. Calm down. I only want to talk to him. That’s all.”

  The secretary nodded. I smiled at her.

  “Please be so kind as to pick up the telephone and call him at home,” I said firmly.

  The secretary lifted the receiver and murmured the lawyer’s number to the operator. When she got a reply she handed me the phone.

  “Good evening,” I ventured.

  “Martín, what an unfortunate surprise,” said Valera at the other end of the line. “May I know what you’re doing in my office at this time of night, aside from terrorizing my employees?”

  “My apologies for any trouble I may be causing, Señor Valera, but I urgently need to locate your client Señor Andreas Corelli, and you’re the only person who can help me.”

  A long silence.

  “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Señor Martín. I cannot help you.”

  “I was hoping to resolve this amicably, Señor Valera.”

  “You don’t understand, Martín. I don’t know Señor Corelli.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve never seen him or spoken to him, and I certainly don’t know where to find him.”

  “Let me remind you that he hired you to get me out of police headquarters.”

  “A couple of weeks before that, we received a check with a letter explaining that you were an associate of his, that Inspector Grandes was harassing you, and that we should take care of your defense if it became necessary to do so. With the letter came the envelope that he asked us to hand to you personally. All I did was deposit the check and ask my contact at police headquarters to let me know if you were ever taken there. That’s what happened, and you’ll remember that I got you out by threatening Grandes with a whole storm of trouble if he didn’t agree to expedite your release. I don’t think you can complain about our services.”

  At that point the silence was mine.

  “If you don’t believe me, ask Señorita Margarita to show you the letter,” Valera added.

  “What about your father?” I asked.

  “My father?”

  “Your father and Marlasca had dealings with Corelli. He must have known something …”

  “I can assure you that my father was never directly in touch with this Señor Corelli. All his correspondence, if indeed there was any—because there is absolutely nothing in the files at the office—was dealt with personally by the deceased Señor Marlasca. In fact, and since you ask, I can tell you that my father even doubted the existence of this Señor Corelli, especially during the final months of Señor Marlasca’s life, when he began to—how shall I say it—have contact with that woman.”

  “What woman?”

  “The chorus girl.”

  “Irene Sabino?”

  I heard him give an irritated sigh.

  “Before he died, Señor Marlasca arranged a fund, administered and managed by our firm, from which a series of payments were to be made to an account in the name of some people called Juan Corbera and María Antonia Sanahuja.”

  Jaco and Irene Sabino, I thought.

  “What was the size of the fund?”

  “It was a deposit in foreign currency. I seem to remember it was something like a hundred thousand French francs.”

  “Did Marlasca say where he’d obtained that money?”

  “We’re a law firm, not a detective agency. Our company merely followed the instructions stipulated in Señor Marlasca’s last wishes; we did not question them.”

  “What other instructions did he leave?”

  “Nothing special. Simple pa
yments to third parties that had nothing to do with the office or with his family.”

  “Do you remember any one in particular?”

  “My father took charge of these matters himself, to avoid any of the office employees having access to information that might be, let us say, awkward.”

  “And didn’t your father find it odd that his ex-partner should wish to hand over that sum of money to strangers?”

  “Of course he thought it was odd. A lot of things seemed odd to him.”

  “Do you remember where those payments were sent?”

  “How could I possibly remember? It must have been twenty-five years ago.”

  “Make an effort,” I said. “For Señorita Margarita’s sake.”

  The secretary gave me a terrified look, to which I responded with a wink.

  “Don’t you dare lay a finger on her,” Valera threatened.

  “Don’t give me ideas,” I cut in. “How’s your memory? Is it refreshed?”

  “I could have a look at my father’s private diaries.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Here, among his papers. But it will take a few hours …”

  I put down the phone and looked at Valera’s secretary, who had burst into tears. I offered her a handkerchief and gave her a pat on the shoulder.

  “Come on now, don’t get all worked up. I’m leaving. See? I only wanted to talk to him.”

  She nodded tentatively, her eyes fixed on the revolver. I buttoned my coat and smiled.

  “One last thing.”

  She looked up, fearing the worst.

  “Write down the lawyer’s address for me. And don’t try to trick me, because if you lie I’ll come back and you can be quite sure that I’ll leave all my inherent good nature downstairs in the porter’s lodge.”

  Before I left I asked Margarita to show me where the telephone cable was and I cut it, saving her from the temptation of warning Valera that I was on my way or of calling the police to inform them about our small disagreement.

  14

  Señor Valera lived in a palatial building situated on the corner of Calle Girona and Calle Ausiàs March that seemed to have pretensions to being a Norman castle. I imagined he must have inherited the monstrosity from his father, together with the firm, and that every stone in its structure derived from the blood and sweat of entire generations of Barcelona’s inhabitants who could never have dreamed of even entering such a palace. I told the porter I was delivering some documents from the lawyer’s office on behalf of Señorita Margarita. After a moment’s hesitation, he allowed me to go up. I climbed the wide staircase at a leisurely pace, under the porter’s attentive gaze. The first-floor landing was larger than most of the homes I remembered from my childhood days in the old Ribera quarter, which was only a short distance away. The door knocker was shaped like a bronze fist. I grasped it but the door was already open. I pushed it gently and looked inside. The entrance hall led to a long passageway, about three meters wide, its walls lined with blue velvet and covered with pictures. I closed the door behind me and scanned the warm half-light that was coming from the other end. Faint music floated in the air, a piano lament in a melancholic and elegant style: Granados.

  “Señor Valera?” I called out. “It’s Martín.”

  As there was no reply, I ventured down the passage, following the trace of that sad music. I passed paintings and recesses containing statuettes of Madonnas and saints and went through a series of arches, each one veiled by net curtains, until I came to the end of the corridor, where a large dark room spread out before me. The room was rectangular, its walls lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling. At the far end I could make out a half-open door and, through it, the flickering orange shadows of an open fire.

  “Valera?” I called again, raising my voice.

  A silhouette appeared in the light projected through the door by the flames. Two shining eyes examined me suspiciously. A dog that looked like an Alsatian but whose fur was white padded toward me. I stood still, unbuttoning my coat and looking for the revolver. The animal stopped at my feet and peered up at me, then let out a whine. I stroked its head and it licked my fingers. Then it turned, walked back to the doorway, stopped again and looked back at me. I followed it.

  On the other side of the door I discovered a reading room dominated by a large fireplace. The only light came from the flames, casting a dance of flickering shadows over the walls and ceiling. In the middle of the room there was a table with a large gramophone from which the music emanated. Opposite the fire, with its back to the door, stood a large leather armchair. The dog went over to the chair and turned to look at me again. I went closer, close enough to see a hand resting on the arm of the chair. The hand held a burning cigar from which rose a plume of blue smoke.

  “Valera? It’s Martín. The door was open …”

  The dog lay down at the foot of the armchair, never taking its eyes off me. Slowly, I walked round in front of the chair. Señor Valera was sitting there, facing the fire, his eyes open and a faint smile on his lips. He was wearing a three-piece suit and his other hand rested on a leather-bound notebook. I drew closer and searched his face. He didn’t blink. Then I noticed a red tear, a tear of blood, gliding down his cheek. I knelt down and removed the notebook from his hand. The dog gave me a distraught look. I stroked its head.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  The book seemed to be some sort of diary, with its entries, each handwritten and dated, separated by a short line. Valera had it open at the middle. The first entry on the page was dated 23 November 1904:

  Payment note (356 on 23/11/04), 7,500 pesetas, from the account of D.M. trust. Sent with Marcel (in person) to the address supplied by D.M. Alleyway behind old cemetery—stonemason’s workshop Sanabre & Sons.

  I reread the entry a few times, trying to scratch some meaning out of it. I knew the alleyway from my days at The Voice of Industry. It was a miserable, narrow street, sunk behind the walls of the Pueblo Nuevo cemetery, with a jumble of workshops where headstones and memorials were produced. It ended by one of the riverbeds that crossed Bogatell beach and the cluster of shacks stretching down to the sea: the Somorrostro. For some reason, Marlasca had given instructions to pay a considerable amount of money to one of those workshops.

  On the same page under the same date was another entry relating to Marlasca, showing the start of the payments to Jaco and Irene Sabino:

  Bank transfer from D.M. trust to account in Banco Hispano Colonial (Calle Fernando branch) no. 008965-2564-1. Juan Corbera–María Antonia Sanahuja. First monthly payment of 7,000 pesetas. Establish payment plan.

  I went on leafing through the notebook. Most annotations concerned expenses and minor operations pertaining to the firm. I had to look over a number of pages full of cryptic reminders before I found another mention of Marlasca. Again, it referred to a cash payment made through a person called Marcel, who was probably one of the articled clerks in the office:

  Payment note (379 on 29/12/04), 15,000 pesetas from D.M. trust account. Paid via Marcel. Bogatell beach, next to level crossing. 9 a.m. Contact will give name.

  The Witch of Somorrostro, I thought. After his death, Diego Marlasca had been doling out large amounts of money through his partner. This contradicted Salvador’s suspicion that Jaco had fled with the money. Marlasca had ordered the payments to be made in person and had left the money in a trust managed by the law firm. The other two payments suggested that shortly before his death Marlasca had been in touch with a stonemason’s workshop and with some murky character from the Somorrostro neighborhood; the dealings had translated into a large amount of money changing hands. I closed the notebook feeling more confused than ever.

  As I turned to leave, I noticed that one of the walls of the reading room was covered with neatly framed portraits set against a wine-colored velvet background. I went closer and recognized the dour and imposing face of Valera the elder, whose portrait still presided over his son’s office. In most of the pic
tures the lawyer appeared in the company of the great and the good of Barcelona, at what seemed to be different social occasions and civic events. It was enough to examine a dozen or so of those pictures and identify the array of celebrities who posed, smiling, next to the old lawyer to understand that the firm of Valera, Marlasca & Sentís was a vital cog in the machinery of the city. Valera’s son, much younger but still recognizable, also appeared in some of the photographs, always in the background, always with his eyes buried in the shadow of the patriarch.

  I sensed it before I saw him. In the photograph were both Valeras, father and son. The picture had been taken by the door of the law firm, at 442 Avenida Diagonal. Next to them stood a tall, distinguished-looking man. His face had also been in many of the other photographs in the collection, always close to Valera. Diego Marlasca. I concentrated on those turbulent eyes, that sharp and serene profile staring at me from a picture taken twenty-five years ago. Just like the boss, he had not aged a single day. I smiled bitterly when I understood how easily he’d fooled me. That face was not the one that appeared in the photograph given to me by my friend the ex-policeman.

  The man I knew as Ricardo Salvador was none other than Diego Marlasca.

  15

  The staircase was in darkness when I left the Valera family mansion. I groped my way toward the entrance and, as I opened the door, the street-lamps cast a rectangle of blue light back across the hall, at the end of which I spotted the stern eyes of the porter. I hurried away toward Calle Trafalgar, where the tram set out on its journey down to the gates of Pueblo Nuevo cemetery—the same tram I used to take with my father when I accompanied him on his night shifts at The Voice of Industry.

  The tram was almost empty and I sat at the front. As we approached Pueblo Nuevo we entered a network of shadowy streets covered in large puddles. There were hardly any streetlamps and the tram’s headlights revealed the contours of the buildings like a torch shining through a tunnel. At last I sighted the gates of the cemetery, its crosses and sculptures set against an endless horizon of factories and chimneys injecting red and black into the vault of the sky. A group of emaciated dogs prowled around the foot of the two large angels guarding the graveyard. For a moment they stood still, staring into the lights of the tram, their eyes lit up like the eyes of jackals, before they scattered into the shadows.