The Altogether Unexpected Disappearance of Atticus Craftsman (13 page)

“I see.”

“My late husband and I bought it, for our boy, you see.”

“And how did you meet the tenant?” He was about to say Craftsman's name but stopped himself just in time. Doing so would have raised suspicions. He was supposedly there due to the purest coincidence and, as such, he needed to feign ignorance.

“My friend Berta Quiñones recommended him to me,” the housewife replied. “She's a lovely girl who lives next door, at number 9.”

“I see.”

“He's English,” she added. “Tall, blond, very handsome. Seems very young to be Berta's boss.”

“We shall have to inform him of the break-in,” said the inspector in the hope that the woman could put him on the trail of his missing person.

“The thing is, we don't know where he's gone,” she confessed. “Neither Berta nor I have seen him.”

“He didn't give you an address or telephone number?”

“No. He didn't even say goodbye.”

“I see.”

Inspector Manchego spent another hour checking the flat. He went room by room—kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, living room—opening
drawers and closing doors but finding no evidence that could further his investigation. The conclusion he came to was simple: Craftsman had rented it with the intention of staying there for at least six months but had spent only two or three nights. Wherever it was he had gone, he had taken his toiletries and all his clothes with him, with the exception of two pairs of woolen socks and an overcoat that was still on a hanger in the wardrobe, but he had left behind a pile of papers that, as far as Manchego could see, related to
Librarte
magazine's finances.

In other words, Craftsman had gone on a personal trip, since he had taken his cologne but left his work papers behind. This made Manchego think that the Englishman must have been planning on returning to Madrid to carry on with his work before long. And that didn't tally with his having disappeared for more than six months.

So Marlow might be right after all: Atticus Craftsman had been kidnapped, and Manchego had to admit that there was genuinely nothing to connect him to drug trafficking.

“
Not in the house, míster
,” he would say over the phone as soon as it got light. “
Not muerto in the house.
”

CHAPTER 20

B
erta remembered it perfectly clearly: She had taken Atticus to see the flat after work that very Monday, at about half past seven, the same day they had welcomed him with hot chocolate and
churros.

Because it wasn't far from the office to Calle del Alamillo, Atticus said he would rather walk than get a taxi. He took off his jacket and tie, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and undid his top two buttons. He ruffled his blond hair (he sported an English haircut—in other words, a mop seemingly chopped at random), doused himself with cologne, and, when they went out into the street, took a deep breath, then coughed.

Berta walked beside him on the narrow pavement down the tiny streets to the old building where Señora Susana was waiting for them in her Sunday best. She was holding the keys to her son Gabriel's flat, ready to show them around the sweet, welcoming, cool space with two balconies, which was arranged with a grandmother's attention to detail so the Englishman would like it. “Believe me,
Míster Crasman
, it's a real bargain.”

Tiny particles of dust caught the light and danced in the still air in the hallway. Mingled with the smell of boiled vegetables
was the aroma of Mediterranean pine, thanks to an air freshener that Señora Susana had placed on the landing, lest the inevitable stench of cabbage put the foreigner off.

But Atticus appeared immune to anything negative. That afternoon he had a certain something in his gaze, as if stunned or bewitched, and everything seemed fine to him. Fine that the fuses sometimes went and you had to push them back up with a broom handle. Fine that the pipes were made of iron and first thing in the morning the water came out the color of pee. Fine that there was no elevator, no doorman, no garage. Fine that the floorboards creaked and there was only a gas stove. Fine that from time to time you had to order a gas bottle and connect it under the sink. All fine. Even the price.

Berta and Señora Susana decided to celebrate the deal at the bar downstairs. They said goodbye and hailed a taxi for Atticus, who still looked stunned and whose mind was clearly elsewhere: Who knows in which corner of Soleá's undulating geography or the pools of her catlike eyes?

The two women were walking the two hundred meters separating them from their slices of tortilla when Berta stopped dead just as they were passing the El Alamillo taco place.

“What's wrong?” Señora Susana asked when she saw Berta go pale and stop dead in the middle of the pavement.

“Nothing, nothing,” replied Berta.

“You look like you've seen a ghost.”

And in fact Berta had seen something. No more and no less than a couple, a man and a woman, who should not have been there—or anywhere else, for that matter: The woman was María. The man was not her husband.

Berta felt feverish, as if she had the flu, and the back of her neck
was throbbing. Señora Susana was discreet in her own way and, despite being a lonely old lady, decided not to ask any questions. Instead, when they got to the bar she started nattering about other things in the hope of soothing Berta's obvious agitation. All Berta wanted was to finish the tumbler of wine and run home to her books, where true love was still possible.

•  •  •

Four months earlier, on January 6, Three Kings Day, a day she would never forget, Berta had gone out for a stroll around Plaza Mayor. The square was still full of Christmas stalls, and Berta had stopped to look at the ones that sold expensive, but exquisite, little earthenware figurines of shepherds and sheep. Her mind was set on finally buying another Melchior, because the little gold box that hers carried had broken ages ago, and even though she had fixed it with superglue, you could clearly see the join. In spite of the cold, the square was full of families—the kids trying out their new bikes—and street musicians were playing carols on their accordions. There were also a few loved-up couples making the most of other people's boisterous happiness to enhance their own, wandering around the square holding hands and kissing under the colonnades.

Berta was leaning over a counter, struggling to decide whether she wanted a figurine with a red or blue cape, when she heard María's distinctive voice, high in the middle of a sentence and dropping at the end, right next to her, calling a man “my love.” The man had his arm around her waist and his back to Berta. María was facing Berta but was blind to everything but that unknown man's lips.

After a sloppy kiss complete with tongues and noisy slurps,
María pulled away from her lover's embrace and found herself face-to-face with her boss's shocked expression. She jumped, raised her hand to her mouth, lowered her gaze, and knew that the next day she would have some serious explaining to do. It would be as bad as if her own mother had discovered that, instead of spending Three Kings Day around the hearth with her family, María had slipped out in search of the wild adventure of a clandestine affair.

Indeed, the next day, at exactly 7:00 p.m., Berta Quiñones, the same woman who had greeted each of them that morning with a little present wrapped in tissue paper—perfume, a hair clip, a makeup bag, “which the Three Kings left by my fireplace for you because you've been so good”—asked them all to finish their work and go home.

“Except you, María,” she said, pointing at her with an accusatory finger. “I want you to stay a bit longer, please, because I really can't get the accounts to add up. Let's see if you can explain them to me.”

María walked into Berta's office with her head down.

She was the first one to speak.

“Look, Berta,” she defended herself, avoiding Berta's questioning gaze, “marriage, contrary to what you might think, because you've never been married, so you haven't been through these things, isn't a bed of roses, you know? In fact, it's the opposite: It's a bramble patch perched on top of a cliff. You've no idea how hard it is not to end up plunging to the bottom.”

“Sure,” said her boss as quick as lightning, “and you've just smashed your head right open.”

“True, I have, but not just now,” acknowledged María. “I've been living at the bottom of an abyss for a long time. What you
saw yesterday, contrary to what you think, is probably the thing that'll save my marriage in the long run. I was dead, Berta, and now I've come back to life. Even my kids have noticed the difference: I'm the cheerful woman I once was, the woman who felt wanted and loved, who still believed she could be happy.”

“Cheating on your husband?” Berta threw at her.

“I'm not cheating on him,” said María, defending herself tooth and nail, “quite the opposite. Whenever I sleep with my lover, I imagine I'm with Bernabé.”

CHAPTER 21

S
ometimes María regretted having married so young. If she'd been more patient and less desperate to get out of Urda, she wouldn't have fled her parents' house at nineteen with the first outsider who happened to pass through the village. But she was fed up with her life, and that's what she told Bernabé on the riverbank—fed up with doing the chores at home, looking after her younger siblings, obeying her father's tyrannical orders, and prodding her zombielike mother. Every day was spent rushing about, working like a slave, never stopping to wonder whether somewhere, not far away, there might be a better future.

“I'd like to move to Madrid, get any old job to start with, study accounting, because that's what really interests me, and then get a proper job, buy a flat, and be independent.”

“Well, guess what, I've got a flat and a job,” replied Bernabé, “but I feel lonely. I miss my family, my friends in Zamora, and I miss having someone who cares about me.”

The deal was simple: cheap board and lodging in return for hot food and clean clothes. Feelings were put to one side: I'll work, you'll study. If I need privacy, you'll go and stay at a friend's house. We'll share the bathroom and split the electricity bill.