What Diana Gallard needed seemed simple: she wanted me to protect a woman from a possible threat. Twenty years ago, this woman’s husband had discovered she had a lover, had gone to look for him, and then shot him twice in front of a good number of people and a foul-mouthed parrot. Now he was getting out of jail, and the woman’s niece — that is, this riot of curls — was afraid he would come for her. It was a well-founded suspicion, given the man had lost half his life due to that infidelity.
“Give me more details,” I said.
“My aunt’s husband was very jealous, and he’d already spent a good deal of time following her movements. Every afternoon, she’d go to a little house on Fernando Poo Street, where a couple, who they were both friends with, used to live. I think he also found some of her love letters and poems. One Sunday morning, he got his hunting rifle, went to La Licorería on Taulat Street, and... you know the rest.”
La Licorería on Taulat Street, of course, I thought at once, but I was less struck by the coincidence than by the fact that the clerk had so quickly shared the story about the streetcar while keeping mum about this one. In any event, the story had finally reached me, and I needed to decide now whether I was going to deal with it or not. It was more of a case for a bodyguard than a detective. Still, I didn’t think I could say no to my first case and, to be honest, I thought it would be stupendous to work for so fantastic a woman.
“So it’s just keeping an eye on her?” I asked to confirm. “I only say this because sometimes I have very complicated cases and every once in a while it’s good to get a simple one.”
I had to make her think the agency worked at full tilt, and the truth is when I was on the force I did have very complicated cases.
I think it was when she responded that I noticed something for the first time. “Yes, just watch her,” she said in a very low voice, so much so that I understood it only because of the body language that went with it. Of course, I didn’t give it any importance then.
Before heading back to the office, I decided to take a walk along the seafront, between the beaches of Bogatell and Mar Bella. A stroll by the ocean always helps me concentrate, going over the facts in my head and coming up with a strategy. I ended up at Chiringuito del Moncho’s and decided to have some chipirones and patatas bravas.
Diana Gallard had insisted she didn’t want me to do anything about the man, just to keep my eye on the woman. “Don’t lose sight of her,” she’d pressed. And her voice was so quiet this time, I had to ask her to repeat it. And her insistence bothered me. I don’t like to take orders, and when it comes to my cases, I like to figure out the tactics myself. But keeping in mind that I didn’t want to get too tied up, and that I wanted to keep my client happy, I decided to follow her instructions. Although I didn’t simply give in either. I called my friend and former assistant, Dos Emes (Two Ms — a pseudonym I gave her out of discretion, because she was still on the force), and asked her for details about the incident from twenty years ago.
“I’ll look up the files,” she assured me.
The next day, I posted myself in front of one of the buildings on Paseo Calvell at eight in the morning — it was the second building just off La Rambla de Poble Nou. At nine-thirty I went up to see the woman I was protecting, armed with a solid excuse.
“Good morning, ma’am. Acoustic inspection.”
When you enter a home early in the morning, you usually find the wife in a robe or wearing an apron. But this woman was dressed to leave and was even lightly made up. She was in her late sixties and in good shape, though her expression was a little hostile.
She was suspicious from the go but I was convincing: “We’re testing the levels of noise pollution in the neighborhood.” I showed her a multiuse ID which I’d made myself. “If the noise in your home is greater than sixty-five decibels, the city has resources to assist with soundproofing. You know... double-glazed windows, cork reinforcement for the walls. May I come in to measure the sound?”
My purpose was simple: to see the woman up close so I’d recognize her and be able to follow her, and to get any kind of clue about her life. I also wanted to gain her trust, just in case I had to intervene later. A city inspector roaming the neighborhood can pop up anywhere without raising questions.
I pulled a walkie-talkie out of my bag and went through the whole apartment, focusing it this way and that, making it emit occasional sounds. It was a small apartment, probably no more than fifty square meters, with two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, and bathroom; each room was miniscule. The terrace was square and overlooked the sea.
“You’ve done well since the cleanup, haven’t you?” I said, trying to connect with her. “Have you lived here long?”
“All my life,” she answered drily.
I knew those apartments had been built in the ’50s by the city’s housing department. Back then, Mar Bella beach was full of outdoor bars and, when the weather was pleasant, the neighborhood residents would gather there. But little by little, the space between the kiosks and the train tracks was taken over by little shanties that were washed out to sea on more than one occasion. During the next few decades, the beach became a great dump, with equal parts garbage and seashells. It was a black-and-white landscape in which only flames from the burning trash could be distinguished. It was the perfect place for metal scavengers, the homeless, and lonesome souls. The human and urban panorama eventually changed the way it always has in this city: with an extraordinary event. The ’92 Olympic games brought color back to the neighborhood. It was completely transformed. Where factories had idled, parks and luxury apartments were built; some were turned into civic centers, like Can Felipa. They buried the tracks, cleaned the beaches, and built a sea walk; the day they opened La Rambla down to the water, people came down in a mad rush, like a procession, as if the way to illumination had been revealed. What had been a nest of shanties facing a gray ocean and isolated by the train tracks became a high-end neighborhood. And the modest building in which this woman had lived her entire life quintupled in value.
The interior of the home, however, did not appear to have gone through any modifications and still had the rancid air of the ’60s; there was a deer scene overlooking the dining room, flowered wallpaper, faded tiles, and Formica furniture in the kitchen... as if time had stood still. There were also several ancient photos, but none showed a masculine presence that might be her jailed husband. I wasn’t surprised.
The inspection completed, I said goodbye to the woman, headed out to the stairwell, and went up the last leg to the roof where I found the perfect watchtower. I pulled out a book, something light, and began to read: The Intersection of Law and Desire by J.M. Redmann.
Midmorning, the elevator stopped on the top floor and someone knocked on the door of the woman I was protecting. She was approximately the same age, and was dressed very simply in dark slacks and a linen jacket; she had gray-streaked hair that had been styled at a beauty salon. She went in and neither of them reemerged until the first hour of evening. I began to think this was going to be a very dull case.
At around four-thirty, a little after the end of the afterlunch soap on the Catalan network, they finally left the apartment. They strolled down La Rambla casually, arm in arm, looking like widows of a certain age who keep each other company. I followed them to El Surtidor bakery, well known for its coca de forner bread. During the stroll, they’d greeted several people along the way with a slight nod of the head and a cursory “buenas tardes.” Soon they emerged from the bakery with pieces of coca de forner in their hands and I watched as they retraced their route until they got to the first rotunda, where they said goodbye with kisses on both cheeks. My protected woman did not go out again.