The Sound of One Hand Killing E-Book

Teresa Solana

• Herausgeber: Bitter Lemon Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 352

Beschreibung

The director of an exclusive New Age meditation centre in a fancy Barcelona neighborhood is murdered, a case for twin detectives Borja and Eduard. The murder of a CIA agent simultaneously drags them into an international conspiracy that transports them to China and back. This hilarious mystery novel is a remorseless satire of those practicing pseudo-science and pseudo-spirituality.

Leseprobe

Teresa Solana has a degree in Philosophy from the University of Barcelona, where she also studied Classics. She has worked as a literary translator and directed the Spanish National Translation Centre in Tarazona. She has published many essays and articles on translation and written several novels she prefers to keep in her drawer.

The Sound of One Hand Killing is the third in the Barcelona series featuring twin private detectives Eduard Martínez and Borja “Pep” Masdéu. The first, A Not So Perfect Crime, won the 2007 Brigada 21 Prize and was followed by the bestselling A Shortcut to Paradise.

Also available from Bitter Lemon Pressby Teresa Solana:

A Not So Perfect CrimeA Shortcut to Paradise

THE SOUNDOF ONE HANDKILLING

Teresa Solana

Translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush

BITTER LEMON PRESSLONDON

BITTER LEMON PRESS

First published in the United Kingdom in 2013 byBitter Lemon Press, 37 Arundel Gardens, London W11 2LW

www.bitterlemonpress.com

First published in Catalan as L’hora zen byEdicions 62, Barcelona, 2011

Bitter Lemon Press gratefully acknowledgesthe financial assistance of the Arts Council of England

The translation of this work was supported bya grant from the Institut Ramon Llull

© Teresa Solana, 2011English translation © Peter Bush, 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may bereproduced in any form or by any means withoutwritten permission of the publisher

The moral rights of Teresa Solana and Peter Bush have beenasserted in accordance with the Copyright,Designs, and Patents Act 1988

A CIP record for this book is available from the British LibraryISBN 978–1–908524–07–2

Typeset by Tetragon

For my cousin Margarita,in memoriam

“You know the sound of two handsclapping; tell me, what is the sound ofone hand?”

Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku

Contents

PART I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

PART II

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

PART III

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

EPILOGUE

PART I

When the Agency told him his next posting would be to Barcelona, Brian was all smiles. He was ecstatic. Yippee! They were finally sending him to a European city, a city with a more than decent climate and nightlife. Not that he could complain – unlike most of his colleagues, he’d only taken nine years to secure a desirable operating base. His tour of duty in far-flung, exotic spots had started to drag.

First there’d been the four years he’d languished in Singapore, dripping with sweat in the humid heat of its streets and freezing his balls off in its bars and restaurants, not to mention the dire boredom he’d endured while rubbing shoulders with cohorts of business executives, doctors bingeing at lavish congresses and swarms of students of English. As he spoke French they’d then sent him to Dakar, and after that to Marrakesh where he’d been holed up three interminable years, suffering from the stifling heat in a dingy flat where the air conditioning broke down every other week. Nonetheless, his time in Marrakesh had been a big improvement, particularly after he’d got to know Charlotte, who had a smattering of Arabic and knew the bars and dives in the city where you could drink alcohol. However, that bitch had it taped and didn’t live there the whole year; come June, when the city turned into an oven unfit for tourists, she headed back to California and said goodbye until October. Now he’d probably never see her again, not that it really bothered him. The news of his move to Barcelona had exceeded all expectations and amply compensated the need to bid a final farewell to Charlotte and their drunken nights of wild sex. Anyway, she’d made it clear from the start that she wasn’t making any commitments and he’d done the same.

When he got to Barcelona, he was surprised to discover that most people spoke in a language that vaguely reminded him of Italian. Sure, everybody spoke Spanish as well, and most people were considerate and addressed him in that language when they detected his foreign accent, but a few insisted on using that other language he didn’t understand and scolded him for not learning it. After making the effort to learn Spanish at the Cervantes Institute in Marrakesh, Brian had neither the time nor the inclination to start studying Catalan. Even so, within a few months he’d started to grasp enough of the local lingo not to have to ask them to repeat everything in Spanish, and in fact everyone spoke English in the circles in which he moved: he didn’t need either Spanish or Catalan.

With its streets teeming with tourists, its beaches and endless bars, Barcelona was a different world, where he felt at home; and that was odd, because he hailed from Philadelphia. Obviously he was forced to pull his finger out in Barcelona: unlike Singapore, Dakar or Marrakesh, the city was a hive of activity, and his boss wasn’t happy with second-hand information. In that sense, it was very different from his other postings, where secret agents knew each other and had everything well under control. Barcelona saw a constant turnover of personnel and it was difficult to tell the people you could trust from those who would try to get one past you at the first opportunity. Not that he was complaining. For the first time ever, life was beginning to look like what he’d imagined when, at the age of twenty-eight and armed with a degree in sociology, he’d decided to catch a flight to Langley and knock on the Agency’s door. He’d finally made it to Europe, every secret agent’s dream destination. All he needed now was the Aston Martin and a white tuxedo.

John’s phone call both surprised and delighted Brian. He had no idea John was in Barcelona. When John said he’d come on routine business and suggested going for a beer or two – meaning a night on the tiles – Brian said yes straight away. John had offered to drive by and pick him up, and he’d readily agreed. He arrived punctually, and Brian reflected how highly unusual that was for him. He said he was dying of thirst, and Brian, though famed for his meanness, could be hospitable when he wanted and offered him a beer. He was in the kitchen opening the fridge and touching the bottles to find an ice-cold one when he heard John say, “I’m sorry, lad. Nothing personal.”

Before he could turn round, he knew what was coming, not that he had a clue as to why. What the fuck had he done wrong? It would be futile to try to reason with John: orders are orders and John was a true professional.

“Did they tell you why?” he asked.

“You know they never do. It’s easier this way. I’m very sorry.”

The first shot hit its target between his eyes. The others to his chest were simply to finish the job off properly: it wouldn’t have been the first time someone had survived a shot to the head and lived like a vegetable for the rest of their days. That had never been the case with John’s assignments, but he would have regretted fouling up with his mate Brian. They may not have been the closest of friends, but they’d enjoyed their moments in Singapore.

What a pity, thought John as he left the flat, Brian couldn’t show him Barcelona now and he’d have to put himself into the hands of city cab drivers if he wanted a drink and a quick romp between the sheets before heading off to the airport.

1

“Hey, you still in bed?” I yelled at Borja when he finally picked up the phone, sure he’d say that he was.

“Mmm…” came his sleepy reply.

“Get a move on or we’ll be late. Remember we said twelve.”

“Can’t you go by yourself?” he growled. “I feel dead…”

“Jump to it,” I insisted, trying to sound authoritarian. “I’ll come to collect you in an hour’s time, so get up and under that shower right away.”

I imagined him struggling with his silk sheets and groping his way to the bathroom, like he did when he was a kid, and could only smile. It’s Monday, and on Mondays, when there is no urgent business, Borja and I never go to the office. As far as we are concerned (or rather, as far as Borja is concerned), the week begins on Tuesday, at worst Monday night, if something pressing requires our immediate attention. My brother reckons that Mondays are good for nothing, except rest, which is why he spends Mondays loafing around, while I give a helping hand at home and do a shop.

However, we’d agreed to meet a client in the office at twelve, and that meant Borja had to forgo his Monday day of rest. He might like to grumble, but, as things stood, in the midst of an economic crisis that, in my case, was expressed in distressingly red digits at the bank and threatening calls from the late-payment department, we couldn’t risk my brother’s hedonistic habits losing us a customer.

I’d been up since a quarter to eight and hadn’t stopped in all that time. Luckily, that week I was responsible for preparing the mid-morning snack and taking Arnau to school (I hate it when it’s my turn to wake up the twins, make sure they don’t spend three hours in the bathroom prettifying themselves or watch they don’t hit the street dolled up in some fancy outfit or other), and, on my way back, I had to pop into the supermarket and stock up on packs of water and milk. Right then, I was doing the washing-up in the kitchen while Montse was in and out of the bedrooms, making beds and gathering up the dirty clothes before shooting off to work. Her Alternative Centre for Holistic Well-being was also suffering from the crisis, and that morning she and her partners had a meeting with their bank manager to try to negotiate a loan to avoid the closure of their source of livelihood.

“Don’t raise your hopes. The banks haven’t turned on the tap yet,” I warned her.

“You and Borja better get some work, right?” she retaliated. And while she grabbed her bag and painted her lips red in front of the hallway mirror, she added with a deep sigh, “But this time, make sure you don’t get yourselves into deep water!”

“Of course we won’t!” I retorted in an offended tone. “I give you my word.”

I kissed her on the cheek so as not to smudge her lipstick and wished her the best of luck, though I was sure the guys at the bank would act ruthlessly and refuse any help that wasn’t accompanied by a lengthy list of draconian conditions in the purest Merchant of Venice fashion. While I was thinking about what we’d do to survive the crisis started by those very same institutions that were now sinking us, and deriving sad consolation from the fact that many were worse off than ourselves, I warmed up my second cup of coffee in the microwave and idled in front of the TV until it was time to go and meet my fraternal business partner.

In recent months I’d become hooked on the political debates on a channel called Inter-Economy that I watched now and then as if it were a weird kind of comedy show. The opinions and comments of the participants – representatives of an antediluvian Spain I’d thought extinct before I latched onto that channel – never ceased to shock me and bring tears of laughter to my eyes. They were like characters out of an Almodóvar film, though no caricature could ever emulate their chauvinist, homophobic attitudes, their xenophobia masquerading as paternalism, their grandiloquent language with fascist overtones, all orchestrated to express the nostalgia they felt for a Spain of surplices and death sentences, the good old days of Generalísimo Franco. Right then, they were dissecting a murderer with a taste for necrophilia (a wretched guy who didn’t look totally with it) and establishing parallels with Judge Garzón, who they were also dubbing a necrophile because he’d given permission for mass graves of Republicans murdered during the civil war to be opened. The participants thought the analogy so witty they were splitting their sides. Text messages sent by viewers were no less bizarre. After a while, when I realized the pearls of wisdom dropping from the lips of that array of troglodytes in suits and ties no longer seemed funny and were putting me in a bad mood, I switched off the TV and got up from the sofa. As it was still early, I thought it would be sensible to go for a stroll before catching the bus and meeting my brother. The doctor had recommended that I should stretch my legs, and before lethargy won out I said goodbye to Joana (that is, my mother-in-law) and headed downstairs.

The moment I stepped out onto the pavement, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the sky had turned a sunny, postcard blue and that there was a warm breeze. The day that was cold and cloudy when I woke up had become one of those gloriously sunny mornings in Barcelona at the beginning of April, when at last you feel that spring is here not because some calendar has been saying so for a couple of weeks, but because the sun feels hot for the first time in months. Winter had been especially cold, and the prospect of switching off the central heating and giving the rickety state of our savings some respite helped restore my good spirits.

In fact, my good mood was also down to the great weekend we’d spent at home, which had been unusually quiet. The twins had disappeared to Begur, to a chalet belonging to a girlfriend’s parents. My mother-in-law, who’s been staying with us for months, ever since she gave in to the company that owned the flat where she lived on an ancient pepper-corn rent and that had been trying to evict her, had gone on a pensioners’ outing to Andorra and hadn’t come back until Sunday night. Borja, for his part, had taken Lola off for a weekend in Cadaqués (I don’t know whether she was paying), and that spared us my sister-in-law’s moans about my brother’s comings and goings. Lola was smitten and Borja gave her a nibble, or rather, led her a “now I love you, now I don’t” dance that meant Lola, a woman prone to violent ups and downs who loved making a drama out of everything, lived on a rollercoaster of emotions we were all forced to ride. The problem was straightforward enough: my brother continued to be the official lover of Merche, a rich, married lady of leisure, who played a central role in Borja’s finances and, on the rebound, in ours.

When I reached Borja’s flat, just before eleven, my brother was already showered, shaved and dressed. He welcomed me with a broad grin that underlined the fact that, although I’d dragged him out of bed on a sacrosanct Monday morning, he too was in an excellent frame of mind: no doubt the weekend with Lola had paid dividends. Nonetheless, he screwed up his nose when he saw I’d decided to dispense with the Armani tie and suit he’d forced me to buy for work purposes (he footed the bill).

“Hey, you ought to have smartened yourself up a bit!” he growled, suggesting he didn’t think the new jeans, leather blouson and short-sleeved cotton shirt I’d selected were ideal apparel for welcoming a client. On the other hand, he was sporting one of his elegant spring jackets and a brand-new lilac tie.

“It’s so hot, and the Armani suit makes me sweat,” I countered. “Besides, writers aren’t so fussy about these things,” I added, making a reference to the profession of our latest customer.

“But we are, and don’t you ever forget that. That’s exactly the impression we want to give our customers, whatever their line of business: they should think they are dealing with serious, respectable professionals.” And while he looked me up and down yet again, raising his left eyebrow in a sign of disapproval, he added, “Luckily they’re designer jeans, and your blouson is almost new!…”

“Bah! I reckon you are the only one who notices these things.”

Borja rolled his eyes and sighed loudly.

“Kid brother, will you never learn?”

As he’d been away the whole weekend, we’d not had an opportunity to discuss the peculiar call he’d received on Friday afternoon before leaving for Cadaqués. Borja had been at pains to say it was from a novelist by the name of Teresa Solana, without going into details, although after our unpleasant experience in that Hotel Ritz case I wasn’t at all sure I was in favour of more dealings with the city’s pen-pushers.

“God knows what she can want!” I snarled.

“Bah! I expect she will ask us to keep an eye on her husband in case he’s having a bit on the side. That’s what women are always worrying about. You just see, it will be a doddle,” Borja said, seemingly quite sure of that. “A few hours spent trailing a guy, and money in the bank.”

“It would be a good idea to come out of the meeting with a cheque,” I had to admit. “I’m cleaned out.”

“Well, in terms of money, I’ve got involved in an activity that will sort our problems for a good while. I’d not said anything because I wanted to give you a surprise.”

“I hope it’s nothing illegal.”

“Of course not!” After musing for a few moments, he added, “Well, that is, not entirely, from what I’ve seen so far. But, anyway, I’m a mere go-between.”

“So, I should start to get worried…”

“In no way.” Borja put his jacket on, looked in the mirror and ran his hand through his hair. “Let’s get going. I’ve not had any breakfast yet.”

As it had been weeks since we’d had any clients and we’d hardly been to the office, we’d thought it would be a good idea to arrive well in advance, ventilate the space and spray some of our non-existent secretary’s perfume around, as we always do before meeting someone. Our office, which is on Muntaner, near plaça Bonanova, is very close to Merche’s flat on Balmes that has become Borja’s pad, so we walked it. En route we stopped in a café and Borja stuffed his stomach while I had a quick coffee with a spot of milk.

“She must be a strange lady,” I said, thinking aloud, referring to her profession. “Devoting her days to writing about murder…”

As I’d discovered from a Google search, Teresa Solana wrote noir novels, but neither Borja nor myself had read any. Mariona Castany, who acted as Borja’s guardian angel in Barcelona high society, didn’t know who she was either, so that meant she was neither rich nor a member of the most select circles in the city. Nevertheless, as business was bad and we were in no position to be snooty, we’d decided to give her a go and see if we couldn’t lean on her for an advance. We expected that any assignment commissioned by Teresa Solana would be routine and wouldn’t involve deaths or murders.

Borja paid and we lit our respective cigarettes as we walked to the office. Before we got there, we threw our fag ends into a gutter so as not to dirty the part of the pavement Paquita, our concierge, had to sweep and thus avoid hassle from her. As we went in through the lobby, Paquita simply looked at us disapprovingly as we wished her good day and walked to the old wooden lift that was very beautiful and entirely impractical because its motor broke down every other day. Fortunately – because our office is on the third floor, and, with the mezzanine and lobby floor, is actually on the fifth – it was working that morning.

“What the hell?” exclaimed Borja, coming out of the lift onto the landing and seeing our office door unlocked and ajar.

We immediately identified the problem: someone had forced the iffy lock we’d never got round to changing because we kept nothing of value in our office. The burglar, or burglars, had merely levered it open with an iron bar, probably over the weekend, when Paquita isn’t around and the building is almost empty. Borja switched on the light in the tiny lobby and we went into the main room where all our suspicions were confirmed: they had broken in and burgled us, and it was obvious that the thief or thieves who had done the job were no disciples of Arsène Lupin, but had done it more in Terminator or Rambo style.

“Shit!…” growled Borja, clicking his tongue. “Why did they have to do it today!…”

The intruders hadn’t simply rifled through the drawers of the desk belonging to our non-existent secretary and thrown around the empty files that littered the shelves, they’d also gutted the sofa and armchairs and wrenched the mahogany doors of our fake respective offices off the wall.

“I suppose they must have lost it completely when they saw we had nothing of value…” I said with a sigh, realizing we couldn’t ring the mossos and initiate an investigation.

Borja surveyed the scene and shook his head.

“What a disaster! It will cost us a fortune to put this lot right!”

“And in the meantime, Mrs Solana will be here any minute,” I said, looking at my watch.

“We have to think of something.”

“We can’t see her here. An office that is supposed to pride itself on confidentiality, but that thieves can break into so easily, is hardly good publicity in our line of business,” I argued.

“Quite right. Besides, she’d see the doors are fake and that there’s only wall behind them.” He shook his head again. “Pity about the doors. They cost a fortune.”

“But you never paid for them!” I protested. I knew the carpenter was still waiting to be paid for the two mahogany doors that simulated two luxury offices, the one belonging to the company’s chief exec – that is, Borja – and his deputy – namely, yours truly.

“That’s neither here nor there!” yelped Borja. “In any case, we’ll have to find a different carpenter to make replacements.”

“We should call Mrs Solana immediately and cancel our meeting on some pretext or other,” I said, making a move as if to take my mobile from my pocket.

Borja gently took my arm and stopped me.

“We need this assignment,” he retorted. “It’ll be some time before I’m paid for that other business I mentioned. And, in the meantime, we need a cash injection. I’m as broke as you are.”

“We can call her and arrange to meet somewhere else,” I suggested. “We can say our office has been flooded.”

“There’s a slight problem. I left my mobile at home and don’t have her number,” he replied.

“We could go downstairs and wait for her in the street…”

“And then what? Take her to a bar and ask her to recount her life story surrounded by total strangers?”

“Well, you tell me…” I said, glancing around our office. “There’s nothing doing here.”

“Don’t you worry,” Borja replied, grinning at me like a Cheshire cat. “I’ve just had a brilliant idea.”

I fear my brother’s bright ideas more than the plague, because they have a mysterious tendency to introduce chaos into our lives. I was about to tell him to forget it, which would have been the most sensible move in view of what happened later, but, instead of that, I simply listened to what he suggested.

“Our upstairs neighbour is away and I’ve got the keys to his flat,” said Borja. “We can tell Mrs Solana we’ve had a burst pipe and that a friend let us have his flat for the meeting.”

“You’ve got the keys to a neighbour’s flat?” I asked, trying to hide my amazement.

“Yes, that’s right, the American who lives in the flat upstairs…” responded Borja in his most matter-of-fact tone.

“You have the keys to the American’s place?” I repeated, even more perplexed. “What was his name? Something Morgan, right?”

“Brian. Brian Morgan.” And he added, as if the information was vital, “He’s from Philadelphia.”

“Oh!”

I had no idea my brother was on good terms with any neighbour on our staircase, let alone that he was so close he had the keys to his flat. All I knew about the said Brian was that he spent very little time in his flat; according to Paquita, who likes a good gossip, he was always off and about with his suitcases. He was younger than us, though I’d say he was nearer forty than thirty-five, spoke Spanish with a strong American accent and was as tall as Paul. That was all I remembered, because we had passed each other on the stairs a couple of times at most.

“So, I take it you’re the best of friends,” I said to prod him.

“No, not at all,” responded Borja. “It was just that one day when you weren’t around, he came down to the office and asked if I wouldn’t mind keeping a duplicate of his keys in case there was an emergency.”

“An emergency?”

“Well, as he is always on his travels and spends very little time in Barcelona…”

“And why did he ask you? I don’t get it. It would have made more sense to give the keys to the concierge, wouldn’t it?”

“I’ve no idea. The fact is I do have the keys to his flat and he’s not around…” grunted my brother, looking at his watch impatiently and trying to change the subject.

“I hope this isn’t another fine mess you’re going to get us into.”

“Of course not!” he rasped, as if I’d insulted him. “It was just a favour I did a neighbour.”

“Pep, I know you only too well.”

Although I couldn’t imagine what murky machinations were lurking behind that set of keys, I assumed Borja was hiding something.

“Haven’t I told you time and again not to call me Pep?” he grumbled. “One day you’ll let it out in company!”

“I’m sorry.”

Sometimes, when we are by ourselves, I forget to call him Borja and come out with Pep, which is, in fact, his real name. The pompous name of Borja Masdéu-Canals Sáez de Astorga that he decided to adopt when he came back to Barcelona, alongside the aristocratic ascendancy, he invented to help him hobnob with the upper classes of Barcelona as if he were one of them. We don’t look like each other, although we are twins (Borja seems younger, perhaps because he still has all his hair), so nobody apart from Inspector Badia knows we are brothers. Not even Montse and Lola. We tell our clients we are business partners, and our entrepreneurial strategy has worked well so far.

“Come on, we’re running out of time,” he said, looking at his watch again. “Let’s go up to the American’s flat and make sure it’s fit for our visitor.”

And he walked out of the office and sped upstairs without giving me the right of reply.

2

Unlike our office, which just about has a small lobby, a room where we see clients and a tiny, definitely bijou toilet, our neighbour’s flat was state-of-the-art. The dining room was some twenty square metres and, according to Borja, the flat had a couple of bedrooms, a bathroom, a second toilet, a kitchen and a laundry room that looked over an inner courtyard. Brian had certainly rented it furnished, because, although the furniture was brand new and quite expensive, the final effect was far too impersonal: everything was just so and matching, and nothing was out of place. In fact, the flat was so tidy it didn’t look as if anyone lived there, but Borja and I immediately noticed a strange smell in the air that was coming from the kitchen.

“I expect it’s because the flat has been shut up for so long,” I suggested. “Your friend must have forgotten to put the rubbish out the last time he was here.”

“Phew!” Borja wrinkled his nose, his sense of smell being much more developed than mine, perhaps to make up for his colour blindness. “There’s rotten meat somewhere. We can’t see anyone here with this stench. It’s awful.”

“Perhaps if we shut the kitchen door and open the windows to make a draught…”

“We must do something. Why don’t you go down and get Mariajo’s bottle of perfume. We can use it as an air freshener. In the meantime, I’ll put the rubbish in the laundry room and open all the windows.”

“I’ll be right back,” I said, rushing downstairs.

Mariajo, our secretary, doesn’t exist, even though my brother and I have got into the habit of talking about her as if she were real flesh and blood. Borja thinks we need to give our customers the impression we employ a high-class company secretary, not just a series of temps. When we see clients in the office, we say Mariajo is out on an errand for us, while the classic fragrance of L’Air du Temps, a small pot of red nail varnish from Chanel that’s always on her desk and a Loewe scarf draped over the back of her chair create the illusion of a beautiful crème-de-la-crème secretary who, according to Borja, lends a touch of distinction – what he calls “glamour” – to our company.

I struggled to track down the bottle of perfume among the debris. It had lodged itself under a sofa in one corner of the room, but was fortunately intact. I left the door so it looked shut and not as if it had been broken into and hurried back to the American’s flat. I had to ring the bell twice, and when Borja finally opened the door I could see from the look on his face that something was wrong.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

Borja was as white as a sheet.

“I feel a bit queasy…”

“Have you got pains in your chest? Are you finding it difficult to breathe?” I gripped his arm firmly to make sure he didn’t collapse on the floor, if he fainted, and split his head open. “I’ll ring for an ambulance.”

I imagined a worst-case scenario and had diagnosed cardiac arrest. My mind dizzily reviewed the packet of cigarettes he smokes a day, the gin and tonics we sometimes drank at Harry’s, Mariona’s dry martinis and all the crap he eats because he hates cooking. I naturally also thought of the effort and physical wear and tear involved in satisfying two women who are no longer young innocents and know what they want.

“No, nothing like that,” he said, as if he’d read my thoughts. “The truth is… Excuse me, I’m going to be sick…” and he rushed to the toilet.

Luckily, he got there in time to avoid vomiting the croissant and coffee he’d eaten for breakfast in the middle of the hallway. I helped him to wash his face with cold water, and the second I saw the colour coming back to his cheeks, I calmed down.

“I need a brandy. Let’s go into the lounge. It’s got a minibar,” he whispered.

“A doctor is what you need,” I replied. “We ought to go to a hospital.”

“I’m fine.” His voice was still shaky. “It was the scare. I’ll tell you later.”

“The scare? What scare?”

“There’s no time for that now. Did you find the perfume?”

“Yes.”

“Spray it around the flat. And then go down and wait for Mrs Solana. But don’t go into the kitchen,” he whined as he gulped down his cognac.

“Why not?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“What’s in the kitchen?” I insisted, heading down the passage, not giving it a second thought, determined to find out what had upset him so.

“Eduard, please, don’t go in…”

“But, what on—”

I should have listened to him. As soon as I opened the door, I too started retching and puking. There was no sack full of rotting organic waste, as I’d imagined, but the corpse of a man crawling with insects and beginning to stink in the middle of a pool of congealed blood. I shut the door, leaving my vomit behind me, and tottered queasily back to the lounge.

“Pep, on the kitchen floor there’s a…” I didn’t finish my sentence. My legs were giving way and I had to sit down.

“I did tell you not to go in. Here, have a shot,” he said, pouring me one.

“But there’s a corpse in there!” I shouted.

“My hunch is that he’s been there for a good long time.”

“Is it your American friend?”

“I think so, although I didn’t get a proper look at his face.”

“His face was covered in blood and insects…” I responded, still shaking.

“I know. I think he was shot in the head.”

“We must tell the police immediately. The best thing would be to ring the mossos,” I suggested.

“Wait, take it easy,” said Borja, recovering his sangfroid. “Remember that Mrs Solana is about to arrive any moment now.”

“And you want me to sit back and relax?”

“I mean we should just wait a bit before we inform the police. First we must speak to her.”

“But you’re not intending to talk to her here, are you?” I shouted. “With this stench and that corpse covered in creepy-crawlies in the kitchen! Not to mention that this must be the scene of the crime!”

“Here’s our plan of action. I’ll spray Mariajo’s perfume around the flat while you go down and wait for her in the street,” he said, getting up from the sofa and ignoring my protests.

“Borja, I don’t think it’s a good idea…”

“You just do what you’re told,” he said, looking at his watch. “We don’t have much time.”

My stomach was still churning and I didn’t feel strong enough to argue with him, although I couldn’t help thinking through the consequences of using the scene of a crime as a place to welcome a client who, to boot, was a writer of crime fiction. I didn’t want to imagine what might happen if the police found out, but, on the other hand, I supposed that by virtue of her profession Teresa Solana must be used to visiting morgues and, thus, only too familiar with the reek of death stinking out the flat. Despite Mariajo’s perfume I was afraid she’d soon realize that there was a corpse decomposing in the room next door, and for a moment I was tempted to turn round and tell Borja this was complete madness. At the end of the day, it wasn’t such a blow to lose a client, I told myself, and then I recalled that our company wasn’t enjoying its best moment and that Montse’s business was also looking shaky, thought how it wouldn’t be the first time Borja and I had managed to survive a dodgy situation and decided to put on a brave face.

Fortunately, Teresa Solana arrived a quarter of an hour late. While I was waiting for her in the street, I had time to smoke a cigarette and get over my scare. Borja was right: it seemed our neighbour (if it really was him) had been shot dead. The puddle of congealed blood around him indicated he had hardly died from natural causes, and that meant the police would begin an investigation and we’d have to answer a pile of questions, like what we were doing in the flat and why Borja possessed duplicate keys.

Over the weekend I’d done a Google search on Teresa Solana, as I do with all our clients, and I had seen the odd photo of her online, so I recognized her the moment I saw a woman with short dark hair walking quickly towards me and anxiously glancing at her watch. The way she was dressed reminded me of Lola’s showy style, and I assumed they must both frequent the same boutiques, far from that neighbourhood. Unlike Lola, however, Teresa wasn’t wearing high heels but flat, red shoes. Nor was she heavily made up.

“Mrs Solana? I am Eduard Martínez, Mr Masdéu’s partner,” I cheerily greeted her when I saw her stop in front of the entrance to our building and scrutinize an address in a notebook.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, looking sincerely repentant as she shook my hand. “I had a devil of a time finding a taxi…”

“Don’t worry,” I smiled. “We’ve had a hectic morning and that’s why I came downstairs to welcome you.”

“Are you leaving already? Good heavens, I am sorry…”

“No, not at all,” I hastened to reassure her. “We’ve had a burst pipe and the office is flooded. We’re waiting for the plumber.”

“That’s really unlucky!”

“You can say that again! If you don’t mind, we’ll have our meeting in the flat of a friend who’s away on holiday and has let us borrow his flat. It’s in this same building. My partner’s up there already.”

“That’s fine.”

“This way, please,” I replied, opening the door and letting her go in first, like a true gentleman, as Borja had taught me.

We walked towards the lift and the concierge was quick to peer out of her cubbyhole and eye us suspiciously, as she did whenever strangers passed through her lobby. Although it was a stylish old building, most of the flats had been split up, and their owners had converted them into offices or flats for visiting executives, which meant there were few long-standing occupants, lots of strange faces and, according to Paquita, the occasional tart who went up on the sly to service an executive. As most of the offices were usually empty, Borja and I suspected they were only used as fiscal addresses to receive correspondence and sidestep the claws of the Inland Revenue. As for our office, the owner was a friend of my brother’s, who owed him a favour and let us have it for a ridiculously low rent. Although I’d asked Borja more than once what kind of favour was involved, I’d never got a straight answer.

When we reached the landing, I rang the bell and Borja quickly opened the door and welcomed Teresa Solana with one of his seductive smiles.

“Mrs Solana. I am so pleased to meet you at last,” he gushed, shaking her hand. “I imagine my partner has told you about the little problem we have in our office this morning.” Borja signalled to her to come in. “Don’t you worry. This flat belongs to a friend who’s away for the moment. We can talk here. I assure you everything will be as confidential here as it would have been in our office.”

“Well, it’s not as if I’m going to tell you any state secrets,” she replied with a smile. “Although I expect you already know quite a few…”

“Yes, and will take them to the grave,” my brother assured her in his best jocular tone as he looked her up and down.

The three of us walked down the passage to the lounge, with Borja leading the way. Although the windows were wide open and there was a through breeze, I still caught a whiff of the stench that was now blending with the smell of our vomit and Mariajo’s sophisticated perfume.

“Would you mind closing the window?” asked Teresa Solana. “I know it’s hot, but I’ve got a cold, or perhaps it’s an allergy, I’m not sure. I’ve been sneezing the whole morning.”

The truth is that the breeze was quite unpleasant and Borja rushed to shut the dining-room window. Quite unconsciously, my eyes turned to the kitchen and the swarm of flies that was flying over our heads. For the moment, Teresa Solana didn’t seem to have noticed anything.

“I am really grateful you found the time to see me,” she began. “As I told Mr Masdéu on the phone,” she continued, staring at me, “I am off on my travels tomorrow and will be away for almost a month.”

“Holidays or promotional tour?” I asked, trying to ingratiate myself.

“A bit of everything. I’ll do a little tourism between talks,” she replied.

“And while you are away, there’s a little matter you’d like us to look into in Barcelona, I believe?” Borja prompted her.

“Yes. Last week a friend suggested I should contract your services,” she confessed, crossing her legs. “Frankly, the idea would never have occurred to me.”

“Well, be assured you have come to the right place,” said Borja with a knowing smile, egging her on.

“First of all, you should tell me your rates,” she sighed. “I don’t have limitless funds, unfortunately.”

“I am sure we can agree a fee, don’t worry on that front,” my brother replied, adopting the stance of a man without a financial care in the world. “Now do tell us what’s on your mind. And do rest assured: discretion is the hallmark of our company. Not a word will leave our lips.”

“Well, there’s nothing really top secret…” responded Teresa Solana, rather taken aback.

“You take your time. We know it’s not easy to explain whatever it might be to complete strangers. Might I enquire which friend of ours recommended us?”

“Inspector Badia, of course. You do know him, don’t you? We were shooting the breeze and he mentioned you, and said you could definitely help.”

Borja and I froze there and then. The last thing we could have imagined was Inspector Jaume Badia personally advising that writer of thrillers to have recourse to our services, a woman who didn’t at all look as if she was familiar with Barcelona’s criminal underworld. The Inspector knows perfectly well that we aren’t professional detectives and are unlicensed, and is too clever by half to think our kind of endeavours are at all legal.

“The Inspector is right,” Borja reacted after a short pause. “There are certain matters where it’s best to keep the police at arm’s length.”

“You’ll perhaps think what I’m after is rather strange. I mean, I don’t know if it is the kind of work you normally undertake,” said Teresa Solana, who, despite her apparently naive, innocuous manner, was making a mental note of everything around her, us included.