We arrived in Barcelona at nightfall, and Germán insisted on driving me right up to the boarding school. He parked the Tucker outside the school gates and shook my hand. Marina stepped out of the car and came in with me. Her presence seemed to burn me. I just wanted to get away.
‘Oscar, if there is anything . . .’
‘No.’
‘Look, Oscar, there are things you don’t understand, but—’
‘That’s obvious,’ I snapped. ‘Goodnight.’
I turned, ready to flee across the garden.
‘Wait,’ said Marina from the gate.
I stopped by the pond.
‘I want you to know that today has been one of the best days of my life,’ she said.
When I turned to respond, Marina had already left.
I climbed the staircase with leaden steps. When I walked past some of my classmates they looked at me sideways as if I were a stranger. Rumours of my mysterious disappearances were doing the rounds of the school. Little did I care. I picked up the day’s newspaper from the table in the hallway and took refuge in my room, then lay down on the bed with the newspaper on my chest. I could hear voices in the corridor. I switched on my bedside light and buried myself in what to me felt like the unreal world of the newspaper. Marina’s name seemed to be written on every line. ‘It will pass,’ I thought. Soon the monotony of the news items calmed me down. Nothing better than reading about other people’s problems to forget your own. Wars, swindles, murders, frauds, anthems, military parades and football. The world remained unchanged. Feeling more relaxed I went on reading. At first I didn’t notice it. It was just a short article, a brief report to fill up space. I folded the newspaper and placed it under the light.
Dead body discovered in a sewer tunnel of the Gothic quarter
Gustavo Berceo, Barcelona
In the early hours of Friday morning the body of 83-year-old Benjamín Sentís, a resident of Barcelona, was discovered inside one of the entrances to the fourth sewer of the Old Town network. It is not clear how the body came to be there, as that section has been closed since 1941. The cause of death seems to have been cardiac arrest. According to our sources, however, the corpse had had both hands amputated. Benjamín Sentís, who was retired, had acquired some notoriety during the 1940s in connection with the scandal of Velo-Granell Industries, of which he was a partner and shareholder. He spent his last years living as a recluse in a small flat on Calle Princesa, with no known relatives and almost bankrupt.
CHAPTER 12
I SPENT A SLEEPLESS NIGHT GOING OVER EVERY piece of the story Sentís had told me. I read the news item on his death again and again, hoping to unearth some secret meaning among the full stops and the commas. The old man had conveniently forgotten to mention that at some point he had actually been Kolvenik’s partner at Velo-Granell Industries. If the rest of his story was to be trusted, Sentís must have been the son of the company’s founder, I concluded: the son who had inherited 50 per cent of the company shares when Kolvenik was named director general. That would alter the position of all the pieces in the jigsaw puzzle. But if Sentís had chosen to omit the key point in his story, he may have lied to me about all the rest. Daylight caught me by surprise as I struggled to understand the significance of it all.
That Tuesday I slipped out during the midday break to meet up with Marina.
As if she’d once again read my thoughts, she was waiting for me in the garden, holding a copy of the newspaper from the day before. Or perhaps I was just becoming predictable. A quick glance was enough for me to know that she’d read about Sentís’s death.
‘That man lied to you . . .’
‘And now he’s dead.’
Marina glanced back at the house as if she were concerned Germán might hear us.
‘We’d better go out for a walk,’ she suggested.
I agreed without argument, although I knew only too well that I had to be back in the classroom in less than half an hour. Our steps took us to Santa Amelia Park, an island of peace on the edge of the Pedralbes district. In the middle of the park stood an imposing mansion that had been recently restored as a civic centre for its lucky neighbours after years of neglect and abandonment. One of its old halls now housed a modest café. We sat at a table next to a large window. Marina read out the news item that I could almost have recited by heart.
‘It doesn’t say anywhere that it was a murder,’ Marina ventured, sounding unconvinced.
‘No need to state the obvious. An old man who has lived as a recluse for twenty years turns up dead in the sewers and to cap it all someone has taken the trouble to remove both his hands before dumping the body. Surely he didn’t just collapse while he was feeding the pigeons.’
‘OK. It’s a murder.’
‘It’s more than a murder,’ I said, my nerves on edge. ‘What was Sentís doing in an abandoned sewer in the middle of the night?’
A waiter, sluggishly drying glasses behind the counter, was listening to us.
‘Lower your voice,’ whispered Marina.
I nodded and tried to calm down.
‘Maybe we should go to the police and tell them everything we know,’ said Marina.
‘But we don’t know anything,’ I objected.
‘We probably know more than they do. A week ago a mysterious woman tells someone to hand you a visiting card with Sentís’s address and the black butterfly symbol. You visit Sentís, who says he doesn’t know anything about it, but recounts a strange story about Mijail Kolvenik and a company called Velo-Granell Industries implicated in some murky affairs over forty years ago. He conveniently forgets to tell you he was part of that story, that in fact he was the son of the founding partner, the man for whom Kolvenik created two artificial hands after an accident in the factory . . . A few days later Sentís is discovered dead in the sewers—’
‘Without his orthopaedic hands,’ I replied, remembering that Sentís had been reluctant to shake hands with me when he asked me in.
When I thought of his rigid hand, I felt a shiver.
‘One thing is certain: when we stepped into that greenhouse we must have got in the way of something,’ I said, trying to clear my thoughts. ‘And now we’ve become a part of it. The woman in black came to me with that card—’
‘Oscar, we don’t know if it was you she was after or what her motives were. We don’t even know who she is . . .’
‘But she knows who we are and where to find us. And if she knows . . .’
Marina sighed.
‘Let’s call the police right now and forget about all this as soon as possible,’ she said. ‘I don’t like it and besides, it’s none of our business.’
‘It is, from the moment we decided to follow the lady in the cemetery . . .’
Marina turned her head to look at the park. Two children were playing with a kite, trying to make it catch the wind. Without taking her eyes off them, she murmured slowly, ‘What do you suggest, then?’
She knew perfectly well what I had in mind.
The sun was setting behind the church in Plaza Sarriá as Marina and I headed down Paseo de la Bonanova on our way to the greenhouse. This time we had taken the precaution of bringing a torch and a box of matches with us. We turned into Calle Iradier and entered the lonely side streets bordering the railway line. The sound of the trains making their way up to Vallvidrera echoed through the woodland. It didn’t take us long to find the alleyway where we’d lost sight of the lady, and the gate concealing the greenhouse at the back.
A blanket of dry leaves covered the paving. As we penetrated the undergrowth gelatinous shadows spread around us, the grass whistled in the wind and the moon’s face smiled through chinks in the sky. In the twilight the ivy covering the glasshouse looked like a thick tangle of snakes. We walked round the building and found the back door. The flame from a match revealed the symbol used by Kolvenik and Velo-Granell tarnished with moss. I swallowed hard and looked at Marina. Her face had a deathly glow.
‘It was
your idea to come back . . .’ she said.
I turned on the torch and its reddish light flooded the entrance to the greenhouse. I took a quick look before entering. In daylight the place had seemed sinister enough. Now, in the dark, it was like a nightmare come true. The torch’s beam disclosed sinuous shapes among the debris as I walked in, followed by Marina. The damp floor crunched beneath our steps. We heard the spine-chilling hiss of the wooden figures as they rubbed against one another. For a moment, as I peered into the mass of shadows in the heart of the greenhouse, I couldn’t remember whether we’d left the piece of stage machinery with the suspended figures hoisted up or fallen down when we’d abandoned the place. I looked at Marina and saw that she was thinking the same.
‘Someone has been here since the last time . . .’ she said, pointing at the silhouettes hanging halfway down from the ceiling.
A sea of feet undulated in mid-air. I felt a cold sensation on the back of my neck as I realised that someone had lowered the figures again. Not wanting to lose any more time, I walked over to the desk and handed the torch to Marina.
‘What are we looking for?’ she whispered.
I pointed to the album of old photographs on the table. I picked it up and slipped it into my rucksack.
‘This album isn’t ours, Oscar, I don’t know if . . .’
Ignoring her objections I knelt down to inspect the drawers under the desk. The first one contained all sorts of rusty tools, blades, spikes and blunt saws. The second was empty. Small black spiders ran around the bottom, looking for shelter in the cracks of the wood. I closed it and tried my luck with the third drawer. It was locked.
‘What’s the matter?’ I heard Marina whisper, her voice full of anxiety.
I took one of the blades from the top drawer and tried to force the lock. Marina, standing behind me, held the torch up high, her eyes on the dancing shadows gliding along the glasshouse walls.
‘Will you be long?’
‘Don’t worry. It won’t take a minute.’
I could feel the top of the lock with the blade. I worked my way round it, piercing the wood, which was dry and rotten and yielded easily under the pressure. As the wood splintered it made a loud rasping sound. Marina crouched down beside me and placed the torch on the floor.
‘What’s that noise?’ she asked all of a sudden.
‘It’s nothing. It’s the wood in the drawer cracking . . .’
She placed her hands on mine, stopping me. For a moment silence enveloped us. I could feel Marina’s pulse racing. Then I too heard the sound: the snap of the wooden planks above us. Something was moving between those figures anchored in the dark. I strained my eyes just in time to perceive the outline of what looked like a sinuously moving arm. One of the figures was being unfastened. It moved like an asp sliding through the branches of a tree. Other shapes started to move at the same time. I grabbed the blade and stood up, trembling. At that very moment someone or something moved the torch lying at our feet. It rolled down to a corner and we were left in total darkness. Then we heard that whistling sound, getting closer.
I grasped my friend’s hand and we ran towards the exit. As we fled, the machinery holding the figures was slowly descending, arms and legs brushing against our heads, trying to grab hold of our clothes. I felt metallic nails rub the back of my neck. Marina screamed and I pushed her forward through that tunnel of hellish creatures descending from the darkness. The moonbeams filtering through the gaps in the ivy threw up visions of broken faces, glass eyes and enamel teeth.
I brandished the blade fiercely from side to side and suddenly felt it pierce a hard surface. A thick fluid soaked my fingers. I pulled my hand away. Something was dragging Marina into the shadows. She screamed with terror and I saw the sightless face of the wooden ballerina with its black empty eye sockets as it circled her throat with fingers sharp as razors. The figure’s face was covered with a mask of dead skin. I threw myself against it with all the power I could muster and knocked it down. Keeping close together, we ran to the door while the now headless figure of the dancer rose again, a puppet on invisible strings wielding claws that snapped like scissors.
When we were out in the open I made out a number of shadowy forms blocking our way to the garden gate. We ran in the opposite direction, towards a shed standing next to the wall that separated the property from the railway line. The shed’s glass doors were blurred with decades of dirt. They were locked. I broke the glass with my elbow and groped around the lock inside the door. A handle gave way and the door opened inwards. We rushed in. The back windows formed two stains of pale milky light, with the mesh of the train’s power lines just visible on the other side. Marina turned for a moment to look behind her. Angular shapes could be seen outlined against the door of the shed.
‘Quick,’ she shouted.
I looked desperately around me, searching for something with which to break the window. The carcass of an old car was rotting away in the dark. The crank handle lay on the bonnet. I grabbed it and used it to bang at the window repeatedly while protecting myself against the showers of glass. The night air blew on my face and I could smell the stuffy air emerging from the mouth of the railway tunnel.
‘This way!’
Marina clambered up onto the window frame while I kept an eye on the figures, which were slowly creeping into the garage. I brandished the crank handle with both hands. Suddenly the figures stopped and took a step back. I looked without understanding and then I heard that mechanical breathing above me. Instinctively I jumped out of the way towards the window just as a body dropped from the ceiling. I recognised the shape of the armless policeman. Its face seemed covered with a mask of dead skin, roughly sewn together. The seams were bleeding.
‘Oscar!’ Marina shouted from the other side of the window.
I hurled myself through the jaws of the splintered windowpane. A tongue of glass cut through my trouser leg: I felt it slice my skin cleanly. As I landed on the other side the pain hit me instantly and I felt the warm flow of blood under my clothes. Marina helped me up and we struggled across the railway lines to the other side. At that very moment something gripped my ankle and I fell flat on my face. I turned around in a daze: the hand of a monstrous puppet was closing around my foot. I leaned on a rail and felt the metal vibrating as the faraway light of a train hit the tunnel walls. Then came the screech of wheels and the ground trembled under my body.
Marina cried out when she realised a train was approaching at full speed. She knelt down by my feet and struggled to free me from the grip of those wooden fingers. The lights of the train fell on her. The whistle howled. The puppet lay there motionless, holding on to its prey, unshakeable. Marina was wrestling with both hands, trying to release me. When at last one of the puppet’s fingers yielded, she let out a sigh. But half a second later the body of that being stood up and grabbed Marina’s arm with its other hand. Using the crank handle I was still holding, I hit the face of the inert figure with all my strength, until I cracked its skull, realising with horror that what I had thought of as wood was in fact bone. There was life in that creature.
By now the roar of the train was deafening, drowning our screams. The stones on the railway line shook and the beam of light from the locomotive cloaked us in its halo. I closed my eyes and went on hitting the ghastly creature with all my might until I felt the head become unhinged from the body. Only then did its claws let go of us. We rolled over the stones, blinded by the light. Tons of steel sped by only centimetres from our bodies, showering us with sparks. The broken fragments of the creature were thrown outwards like smoking embers leaping from a bonfire.
When the train had passed, we opened our eyes. I turned towards Marina and nodded to let her know I was all right. Slowly we got to our feet. Then I felt a sharp pain in my leg. Marina put my arm around her shoulders and that way I was able to reach the other side of the rails. Once we’d crossed the track we turned to look back. Something was moving between the rails, shining in the moonlight. It was
a wooden hand, severed by the wheels of the train. The hand shook in spasms, each spasm further apart, until it stopped completely. Without saying a word, we walked through the undergrowth towards a narrow lane that led to Calle Anglí. In the distance church bells were ringing.
Luckily Germán was dozing in his studio when we arrived. Marina led me quietly to one of the bathrooms to clean the wound on my leg by candlelight. The walls and floors were covered in glazed tiles, reflecting the glow of the flames. In the middle of the room stood a large bathtub resting on four iron legs.
‘Take your trousers off,’ said Marina with her back to me, as she looked for the first-aid kit.
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
I did as I was told and stretched my leg over the edge of the tub. The cut was deeper than I’d thought and the surrounding area had acquired a purplish tone. I felt nauseous just looking at it. Marina knelt down next to me and examined it carefully.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Only when I laugh.’
My impromptu nurse took a piece of cotton wool soaked in surgical spirit and held it near the cut.
‘This is going to sting . . .’
When the liquid bit the wound, I grabbed the edge of the bathtub so hard I must have left my fingerprints engraved on it.
‘Was that very painful?’ murmured Marina, blowing on the cut.
‘Barely felt it.’
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes while she continued to clean the wound meticulously. Finally she took a bandage from the first-aid kit and placed it over the cut. She secured the plaster with an expert hand, never taking her eyes off what she was doing.
‘They weren’t after us,’ said Marina.
I wasn’t sure what she was referring to.