A Shortcut to Paradise (26 page)

“Perhaps he was a handsome stranger,” I suggested.

“Yes, and one of these days they'll make me a Sir. Do me a favour!”

I didn't know the title of Sir played a role in my brother's fantasies, but it seemed a bad sign that he was making fun of himself. I couldn't think how to cheer him up, and bit my tongue. I'd sworn I wouldn't come out with an “I told you so”, but I must say I'd never been convinced by that brilliant idea spawned in an alcoholic post-lunch haze in the Barceloneta.

“What went wrong, Eduard? What went wrong?” he asked.

“I expect we relied too much on Lluís Arquer and assumed…”

“Of course, Lluís Arquer!” My brother gave a start in his chair. “Why didn't I think of that before?”

Without more ado, he took his black notebook from his pocket and dialled a number. He was looking uneasy again.

“Arquer? It's Borja Masdéu. I know it's late but we must see you. (…) Yes, today. It's urgent. (…) No, preferably today (…) OK. We'll be there in half an hour.”

“Borja, how in the hell can Lluís Arquer help? You don't suspect that he…”

“Let's be on our way,” he said, jumping to his feet. “I've agreed to met him in the Plaça Reial, at the Pipa Club. It would be better not to keep him waiting.”

“The Plaça Reial? At this time of night? It's gone eleven!”

“Eduard,” retorted my brother, a glint in his eyes and a hint of hope in his voice, “if anyone can help us understand what went wrong tonight, it's Lluís Arquer. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced the murderer pulled the wool over our eyes.”

“But Lluís Arquer…”

“I know he's on the crude side as well as being a showoff,” my brother agreed, “but he has the advantage that he's looking at it from the outside and is strong on intuition. He was spot on when he told us that Amadeu Cabestany was innocent.”

“True enough.”

I sighed. That old detective had really impressed my brother. I couldn't see how he could help us, since, apart from Clàudia, Lluís Arquer knew none of the individuals involved in this business, but I know only too well that you can't reason with Borja when he's fixated on something.

“I'll ring Montse and tell her I'll be late home!” I exclaimed in a tone of deep resignation.

The Pipa Club is a bar with plenty of character on the first floor of one of those cloistered buildings around the Plaça Reial. There was no illuminated sign outside, and we had to ring a bell and go up the only staircase. It wasn't a clandestine dive but it seemed that way. In fact, it was a distinguished, old building that didn't have any large open spaces because it had maintained the original room layout. As its name indicated, it was a pipe-smokers' club, but you didn't have to be a smoker or a member to get in. The decor was deliberately English, with predictable homages to Sherlock Holmes and his pipe, and jazz music playing in the background. When we arrived, Lluís Arquer was already sitting at a table holding a glass of whisky.

“What the fuck
is
going on?” he asked, showing his annoyance at being dragged out of bed at that time of
night. Nonetheless, it was evident that he was flattered someone might require his services so urgently. He was a bird of the night and must mostly have been grounded of late.

My brother cut straight to the quick and briefly explained the situation. He told him about the call from the mugger that corroborated Amadeu Cabestany's alibi, the reconstruction we'd tried to enact at the Ritz and the ensuing shambles. Lluís Arquer listened attentively and silently.

“I thought you might be able to help us understand what went on,” he concluded. “I'm sure you are right and that the murderer was one of the guests at the party,” and he added, “naturally we will pay you for your time.”

“You can be sure of that,” the detective came back at him. “For the moment, let's just order another round.”

While the waiter was serving our three Four Roses, Lluís Arquer remained quiet, as if deep in thought.

“We've missed something, Arquer,” said Borja dejectedly. “We went wrong somewhere.”

“So,” the detective recapitulated, concentrating hard, “on the one hand, we know that only one person was out of the bar when the novelist was killed. But the guy has a witness who corroborates that he was on the phone in the lobby the whole time.”

“Exactly right.”

“And, on the other, three people went out for a leak between two and two twenty as well as that fellow on the phone. Four all told, right?”

“Absolutely: Agustí Planer, who was in the lobby, Oriol Sureda, Lluïsa Carbó and the councillor,” agreed Borja. “Josefina left the bar after two twenty, according to the waiter's calculations, and by that time everyone was back in the bar. I mean, everyone except for Agustí was in the lobby when Marina was murdered. No doubts whatsoever on that front.”

“Hmm…”

Lluís Arquer retreated back into silence, deep in thought. He kept smoking and knocking back the whisky, but said nothing. Borja looked at him, half expectantly, half anxiously, and kept shifting in his chair. Until he could stand it no longer and interrupted him…

“Arquer…” Borja began.

“Shut up, for fuck's sake!” he snapped. “I'm thinking!”

Borja obeyed, and for a good few minutes Lluís Arquer smoked, drank and thought while my brother and I glanced at each other, at a loss. We didn't say anything either. I was beginning to feel sleepy and was afraid the two whiskies the detective had knocked back would send him to sleep right there.

“There can be only one explanation,” he finally declared. “Marina Dolç didn't die at twenty-seven minutes past two.”

“But the police…”

“The police,” he thundered in his gravelly voice, “established a very exact time for the crime basing themselves on the fact that Marina Dolç's watch stopped. They took it that the victim smashed it herself when she fell to the floor and that it broke, signalling the exact time she was brained.”

“Well, that does seem reasonable enough,” I added.

“But in fact,” continued Lluís Arquer, ignoring my interruption, “if you'd read the forensic's report you'd have seen that he wasn't so precise. That would be impossible.” He drained his glass and ordered another.
“When the forensic examined the body, it was still warm. According to the report” – it was true Borja and I had skimmed over it because we'd found it rather upsetting – “pale patches had started to appear on her neck, and that happens, if my memory isn't failing me, twenty minutes after death, sometimes slightly later. In fact, the forensic examined the body at 3 a.m., and, according to his report, death occurred between two o'clock and twenty to three, the time we know the body was found. This twenty-seven minutes past two is a deduction made by
mossos
who no doubt have a university training…”

The man had a really staggering memory for detail, even after he'd downed a couple of whiskies. It was also obvious to us that he'd studied the file seriously. There are pensioners who devote themselves to playing dominoes or watching others toil, and then there was Lluís Arquer, who had studied in depth a report that mean nothing to him really.

“This indicates that it could have been her friend who found the body,” deduced Borja.

“Her or any of the quartet who left the bar! Ten or fifteen minutes would have been enough for the killer to go to her room, do her in and come back down.”

“Yes, my partner timed it,” Borja explained. “Twelve minutes at most. But seven or eight would have been enough.”

“There's something else too,” added Lluís Arquer. “The victim was still dressed and wearing her jewels. She had only removed her shoes. This means she was killed immediately after she entered her bedroom. So, we can discount the woman who found the corpse, who left the bar after two twenty.”

“Josefina? Why? I don't see that all…” I interjected.

Lluís Arquer sprawled back in his chair and smiled. He was undoubtedly kingpin and relishing his moment of glory.

“The victim had been in her room twenty minutes,” he said. “According to the police, she didn't receive or make any calls, in other words she wasn't at all busy with anything. You'd expect her to have stripped off or at least to have taken her jewels off. Then she'd have realized she'd lost an earring and gone downstairs to look for it.”

“Four suspects remain,” Borja reminded him. “Lluïsa, Oriol Sureda, Agustí Planer and the councillor.”

Lluís Arquer smiled and continued his breakdown of what had happened.

“As these suspects were out of the bar between two and two twenty, this means the killer didn't turn the watch back, but forwarded it to give himself an alibi. We have two points of reference: the moment Marina left the bar and the moment one of the waiters looked at his watch when a guest asked him for the time. Don't you think it slightly suspicious the guy's battery runs out precisely that night so that, most opportunely, he was forced to ask a waiter what the time was?” asked Lluís Arquer, arching his eyebrows. His breath was like a dragon's about to burst into flame. “In fact, he's the only one with a good alibi.”

“The bastard!” erupted Borja. “He killed Marina, turned her watch forward and made us think he was at the bar.”

“Yes, a bastard and a half,” agreed Lluís Arquer. “What the fuck was the guy's name?”

“Sureda. Oriol Sureda,” replied my brother. “He's the critic who liked to rubbish Marina Dolç's novels. A strange character.”

“But what could his motive have been?” I asked. “OK, he had it in for her as a writer, but they didn't have any kind of relationship, be it good or bad.”

Lluís Arquer shrugged his shoulders. That wasn't his concern.

“I'll leave you to work out the whys and wherefores,” he said as he got up. “You know, I think I've done what was expected of me. I'm off to get some shut-eye.”

“Thanks, Arquer. You solved the case. I don't know how to thank you…” My brother was being very emotional.

“No need to send a Christmas hamper. An envelope will do me fine.”

“We don't have any cash on us at the moment, but we'll get you a cheque soon enough,” my brother assured him. “You won't have cause to complain.”

“Forget the cheque, that's fodder for the taxman! Bring me banknotes. And before Saturday. Didn't I tell you? I'm going to spend summer in Sant Feliu de Codines. I'm sure it will be much cooler there…”

25

Early next morning, we rang Clàudia Agulló and told her of our big discovery. Our deductions were faultless, she agreed, but there was a slight problem: we didn't have any evidence. No DNA or fingerprints of Oriol Sureda had been found in Marina Dolç's bedroom, and without a confession or any incriminating material proof we were going nowhere fast. We had no choice but to speak to the
mossos
and tell them of our theory. Perhaps if the police searched Oriol Sureda's flat, they'd find evidence or the critic would take fright and confess to all.

We were going straight to the police station and that stressed my brother out. He was aware his identity game wasn't a good introduction. It was very odd the police hadn't made any moves to question him, a witness who'd mysteriously disappeared from the scene of the crime the moment they showed up. We hoped, rather ingenuously, that it was a simple oversight.

“The Borja Masdéu business is only an alias, like an artistic pseudonym,” Borja muttered nervously as we headed towards the Gran Via. “It's no crime.”

“I suppose you're right…” I tried to gee him up though I was quite lukewarm about our prospects.

We stood in front of the police station on the Gran Via, on the corner with Rocafort, and, before going in, Borja and I took a deep breath. We told the
mosso
in the entrance that we wanted to speak to one of the policemen leading the investigation of the Marina Dolç case, but he said that was totally out of the question and asked us whether we really thought it worked like in the TV series. Borja persisted and threatened that we wouldn't move until we'd spoken to someone in charge, and the cop finally relented and picked up the phone. He spoke to someone, gave us a withering look and told us to wait. After telling the person on the phone who we were and making us wait more than an hour, he finally announced that Inspector Jaume Badia would see us in person. Borja and I glanced at each other, presuming that this was not good news.

He was a tall, pale, thin man in his forties, and we'd never have identified him as a policeman if we saw him in the street. His hair wasn't white but completely grey, and he wore rimless spectacles. A severe fellow in plain clothes, though you couldn't say he was frightening, as frightening as police are supposed to be, nevertheless he was intimidating. His beady blue eyes had an icy stare that made me swallow. I began to think we hadn't made the right decision.

“Inspector Badia, we're very grateful you've agreed to see us,” Borja began after shaking his hand.

“Please do be seated, Messrs Martínez. Or would you rather I also called you Mr Masdéu?” he purred at my brother. His manner was polite but distant.

Borja wasn't expecting that blow and turned bright red. He was also struck dumb. The two men looked each other up and down for a few seconds, as if they were about to pull out pistols and fight a duel. Inspector Badia's gaze was really icy and not a muscle flexed on his face. He didn't seem angry or agitated, but simply looked at my brother like a bold chess player trying to guess his opponent's next move. It was Borja's turn and he finally reacted.