A Shortcut to Paradise (21 page)

“What about the hotel staff?”

“I'd discount them straight away. Most are foreigners, people who are here to earn a living.”

“But it could have been a robbery that went wrong? I mean that maybe the murderer was a thief who lost his nerve and left before he found anything. Maybe someone working at the hotel or a guest? They killed her, heard footsteps in the corridor and fled emptyhanded,” I suggested, perhaps over-hastily.

“It's a five-star hotel,” he responded. “The corridor is carpeted, precisely in order to muffle the sound of the footsteps of guests who are prowling around at night. Have you never been to the Ritz?” It was obvious Lluís Arquer took us for a couple of amateurs. “Besides, according to the police, the victim opened the door and turned her back on her murderer. And the door
to the minibar was open: that's important. Clearly she was going to serve some liquid refreshment.”

“So she knew him,” rejoined Borja.

“Or knew
her
,” I pointed out.

“Elementary, my dear friend, but I don't think that deduction will get you your detective's card,” Lluís Arquer responded sarcastically.

“So that reduces the list of suspects to the group of Marina's friends in the bar,” my brother conjectured aloud.

“You've finally got there!” It was obvious he was the master and we were his apprentices. “We've gone from six million suspects to twenty or thirty in five minutes. Not bad, I'd say… Hey, lad, let's be having another round! And bring us some olives while you're at it!” he shouted to the waiter.

“And we can shorten this list,” my brother continued, glancing at the file and studying the names of those invited to the party.

There were twenty names. They were the people drinking in the bar at around 2 a.m., when Marina Dolç announced she was going upstairs.

“It's odd the police haven't questioned you yet…” remarked the detective, looking at Borja. “There's a question mark by your name on the list and a note that says ‘still to be interviewed'. But you're lucky: there are lots of witnesses who've stated you didn't leave the bar the whole night. And then you just disappeared.”

“True enough… It's a long story…”

“A bit of skirt?”

My brother raised his eyebrows, smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

“I thought as much,” added the detective. Though this time he'd got it wrong…

“Well,” began Borja, prudently resuming the conversation, “we can discount Clàudia Agulló, Mariona Castany and myself. The dentist and his wife didn't move from the bar either, I was there talking to them… The Russian model didn't either (by the way, she had great legs). I suppose we can also discount Josefina Peña, who found the body and looks like a maiden aunt… And we ought to eliminate the town councillor and his wife,” he added confidently.

“I'd like to know why you discount those two so readily,” I stuck my oar in.

“Well,” said Borja, as if he knew what he was talking about, “if that couple had wanted to take revenge on Marina or make her life difficult, they only had to invent some tax she'd not paid, or a bureaucratic oversight. The Town Hall is good at messing people's lives up. No, that couple was there to get in on the photo. Oh, and we should discount the publisher and his wife. Why the hell would they want to bump off their most successful author? It wouldn't make any sense.”

“Perhaps Marina was having an affair with her publisher and his wife was jealous…” I suggested.

“Eduard, Marina Dolç paid for her minks and facelifts. Nobody kills the goose that lays the golden eggs.” Arquer nodded.

“Maybe not. There are still a good few suspects left,” I pointed out.

“Ten or a dozen,” Borja counted. “Not that many.”

“Well, lads, I've done my bit. Now the ball's in your court,” said Lluís Arquer, getting up.

The detective had more than earned his money and Borja quickly extracted an envelope from his pocket and handed it over.

“Seven hundred and twenty euros. What we settled for,” said my brother.

The detective counted the money, smiled and put the envelope away. Before he left, I remembered our conversation with Marina Dolç's niece and decided to test him out.

“How would you fancy a short stay in the countryside to put some fresh air into your lungs? We know someone who…”

“Is this to do with Clàudia or what?” he cut me short. “I don't need any charity…” he said proudly.

“With Clàudia? I really don't know what you mean…” I said, acting as if I was surprised. “No, it's to do with a satanic sect, a very peculiar family and a husband who likes persecuting his ex,” I said, hoping to intrigue him.

“Fucking hell! You two do pick them, don't you?”

Borja and I smiled. We'd just earned some brownie points.

“It turns out that Marina Dolç's secretary is really her niece and one of the heirs to her fortune,” my brother explained. “It's a long and complicated story. She lives alone in a big house in Sant Feliu de Codines, and may require someone to protect her from her ex who's a psychopath and her rather lunatic family. Here's her number.”

“A rich heir? Hmm…” He put the number in his pocket. “I could do with a change of air. It gets hotter and hotter here in the summer…”

“That's true enough. You do have a licence to carry arms, don't you?” I answered.

It was a foolish question, because he clearly didn't. Lluís Arquer belonged to another era, greyer but less bureaucratic, and he'd obviously decided not to adapt to modern times. He smiled, put his hat and sunglasses back on, and left as leisurely as he'd arrived, sauntering off into the crowd who were strolling on the Ramblas at that time of day with nothing better to do.

20

Montse was furious on Friday and didn't say a word to me during lunch. She had good reason. We'd bought tickets weeks ago to see some play or other at the Teatre Grec and I'd organized for Joana, my mother-in-law, to spend the night with Arnau. As the twins were almost fifteen, I'd arranged for them to stay over with some girlfriends, so we'd have the whole night to ourselves. But Borja had now agreed to spend that evening at Mariona Castany's fabulous mansion on Bonanova where she was planning a homage to Marina Dolç and we simply
had
to be there. We would no doubt meet some of the guests – perhaps even the murderer – who'd accompanied Marina on the night of the prize-giving, and it was a good opportunity to talk to everyone and see if we could uncover a lead the police hadn't spotted.

“You could at least have given me prior warning!” snorted Montse as she went into the kitchen. “Now I'll have to go with Lola!”

“But you always have a good time with Lola…” I remarked, trying to cheer her up.

“The one time that you and I were going out together by ourselves!…”

The fact is I'd have much preferred to go to the theatre with my wife than have to hobnob with a load of vain, embittered writers. But I'd committed myself with Borja, and, however annoying, work is work.

“I'm really sorry, darling. I know I've been very busy recently,” I made my apologies. “We don't seem to be getting on the right track in the case of the writer at the Ritz.”

“You don't say! Now you and Borja are into defending perverted criminals!” she shouted as I finished clearing the table.

This row had been dragging on for three days, from Wednesday when the newspapers published the item about the police suspecting that Amadeu Cabestany was both a serial killer and a depraved cannibal. Although the same papers had retracted the day after, it was a disturbing story. How come the rumour had started if it had no base in reality? Maybe someone among the powers-that-be was protecting Amadeu Cabestany, the prodigy of Catalan literature, and we weren't in the know? On the other hand, thanks to the police file Lluís Arquer had given us, Borja and I had lots to do. We'd been shut up in our office for nigh on three days minutely studying that heap of paper, page by page. As we didn't dare to go to a photocopying shop and ask them to copy the police file relating to a case that was still in the headlines, we'd had to share out the material and work on it in shifts. We spent Thursday evening comparing notes while having a drink at Harry's and the result of all our labour was most dispiriting: Borja and I were none the wiser.

Marina Dolç didn't seem to have any public enemies, apart from Amadeu Cabestany, and he had a more or less
good alibi for that night. Her ex was being operated on for appendicitis at the Clinic, and Maite Campana (the police knew she was the victim's niece) had indeed been in bed with flu, as confirmed by Guadalupe and by the Sant Feliu de Codines doctor who visited her a few hours before the murder was committed. As for Marina Dolç's family (who the police had also investigated), her big brother and sister-in-law were on a pilgrimage to Rome to receive the Holy Father's blessing, whilst Maite's ex was in an Andalusian prison accused of physical abuse. Roberto, the famous Italian lover, a Mascarpone, was on a trip to Cairo buying antiques. The
mossos
had done a thorough job and had also investigated the guests and staff at the Ritz one by one: nobody seemed to have the slightest connection to Marina Dolç. So as things stood it looked as if Lluís Arquer was right, and if Cabestany was innocent – something Borja and I were beginning to doubt – the killer was to be found among the twenty people drinking in the bar on the night of the prize ceremony. The problem was that, apart from Amadeu Cabestany, none of the others seemed to have a single motive to drive them to bump off Marina Dolç, let alone to do it so melodramatically.

 

 

This time we'd agreed I would go and collect Borja at his place, naturally wearing my new suit, and from there we'd go to Mariona's. The homage was invitation only for a hundred or so and began at seven, though we wanted to get there early, and did so at three minutes to. Very few people had arrived. Journalists and television cameras were around, and drinks, though not canapés, were circulating. A small army of waiters stood to attention, ready to do their duty, and Mariona's butler, Marcelo, was supervising proceedings as efficiently as ever. He was a fine figure of a man, and his delicate manners contrasted with an athletic body that was midway between Johnny Weissmuller and Rock Hudson. Mariona had alerted him to our security worries and he'd promised to keep a beady eye out.

The modernist salon, where the event was being held, was dominated by a huge black-and-white photograph of Marina Dolç. It seemed very recent. I stared at her face – in particular, her eyes: they radiated an extraordinary serenity and bore the half lucid half bitter expression of people who've suffered a lot and refrained from speaking out. I thought how she wasn't at all like the extremely ingenuous heroines of her novels. No, Marina Dolç might have been many things in her life, but she'd surely never behaved like a fool. My brother, who'd known her personally, was in agreement.

Next to the portrait of the writer was a huge bunch of red roses and a copy of each of her books, as if it were a kind of altar. They'd also lit candles and a real pianist was playing pieces by Satie in a corner of the room where guests were now beginning to congregate. More people gradually came and the room filled up. Everyone greeted Mariona, whom they treated with deference but as a lifelong friend. Most people were acquainted and were dressed extremely fashionably. One lady had turned up in a long evening dress that jarred slightly and another was resplendent in high heels and baring her belly button above posh, trendily tight jeans. There was some variation among the men as well, but most wore a tie. That evening, Mariona wore white crêpe trousers and a pearl grey, Chinese dress
coat embroidered with green-and-blue silk. I'm sure it was a unique garment and worth a fortune. Her hair was curly and flowing loose, and, as ever, she was only lightly made up. I didn't notice her shoes.

There were a hundred of us tightly packed in that space. Almost everyone had arrived by half-past seven and the waiters started bringing round the canapés that, as Mariona explained, were the creation of none other than Ferran Adrià. I had something of an upset tummy, I expect due to the heat, and was on a compulsory diet of boiled rice. I opted not to take any risks and stuck to the gin-and-tonic Marcelo had prepared for me, which they say is just the thing for an upset stomach. People were drinking, eating, smoking and conversing around us, and the volume of the chitchat was rising in intensity and tone. By eight o'clock you couldn't hear the piano at all, even though the pianist kept moving her fingers unabated. Borja, who had decided to eat and drink freely, pursued the waiters and their trays of canapés and just kept saying: “Out of this world, young man! Out of this world!”

We chatted to Clàudia, who initially seemed rather lacklustre, before sidling towards a little group of people whom Borja knew from the party at the Ritz. They were talking about Marina Dolç and we listened in. Borja told me who they were, and didn't pull his punches: Llibert Celoni, a writer who was fiftyish and swollenheaded; Agustí Planer, a ruthless critic who always raved about his friends; Ferran Fontserè, a poet about the same age as Amadeu Cabestany with a high opinion of himself; Amàlia Vidal, a feminist historian who doubled as a literary critic; and finally Eudald Suñol, a much younger writer of historical and adventure novels who was by far the best-selling author of the pack. They were arguing fiercely, and perhaps it was then that I realized something odd was afoot.

“Come off it, she was a shit author! I can't think why the hell we're celebrating her!…” I heard Llibert Celoni bawl.