I lowered the revolver, my hands still shaking, and edged closer. I bent over the grotesque puppet and tentatively stretched my hand towards its face. For a moment I feared that those glass eyes would suddenly move or those hands with long fingernails would hurl themselves round my neck. I touched the cheek with my fingertips. Enamelled wood. I couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh – one wouldn’t expect anything less from the boss. Once again I confronted that mocking grin and I hit the puppet so hard with the gun that it collapsed to the ground and I started kicking it. The wooden frame began to lose its shape until arms and legs were twisted together in an impossible position. I moved back a few steps and looked around me. The large canvas with the figure of the angel was still on the walclass="underline" I tore it down with one great tug. Behind the picture was the door that led into the basement – I remembered it from the night I’d fallen asleep there. I tried the handle. It was open. I looked down the staircase, which led into a well of darkness, then went back to the sitting room, to the chest of drawers from which I’d seen Corelli take the hundred thousand francs during our first meeting in that house. In one of the drawers I found a tin with candles and matches. For a moment I wavered, wondering whether the boss had also left those things there on purpose, hoping I would find them just as I had found the dummy. I lit one of the candles and crossed the sitting room to the door. I glanced at the fallen doll one last time and, holding the candle up high, my right hand firmly gripping the revolver, I prepared to go down.
I descended step by step, stopping each time to look back over my shoulder. When I reached the basement I held the candle as far away from me as I could and moved it around in a semicircle. Everything was still there: the operating table, the gas lamps and the tray with surgical instruments. Everything covered with a patina of dust and cobwebs. But there was something else. Other dummies could be seen leaning against the wall, as immobile as the puppet of the boss. I left the candle on the operating table and walked over to the inert bodies. Among them, I recognised the butler who had served us that night and the chauffeur who had driven me home after my dinner with Corelli in the garden. There were other figures I was unable to identify. One of them was turned against the wall, its face hidden. I poked it with the end of the gun, making it spin round, and a second later found myself staring at my own image. I felt a shiver down my spine. The doll that looked like me had only half a face. The other half was unfinished. I was about to crush it with my foot when I heard a child’s laughter coming from the top of the steps.
I held my breath. Then came a few dry, clicking sounds. I ran back up the stairs, and when I reached the sitting room the figure of the boss was no longer where I’d left it. Footprints trailed off towards the corridor that led to the exit. I cocked the gun and followed the tracks, pausing at the entrance to the corridor. The footprints stopped halfway down. I searched for the hidden shape of the boss among the shadows, but saw no sign of him. At the end, the main door was still open. I advanced cautiously towards the point where the trail ran out. It took me a few seconds to notice that the gap I remembered between the portraits on the wall was no longer there. Instead there was a new frame, and in that frame, in a photograph that looked as if it had been taken with the same camera as the rest of the macabre collection, I saw Cristina dressed in white, her gaze lost in the eye of the lens. She was not alone. Two arms enveloped her, holding her up. Their owner smiled for the camera: Andreas Corelli.
13
I set off down the hill towards the tangle of dark streets that formed the Gracia district. There I found a café in which a large group of locals had assembled and were angrily discussing politics or football – it was hard to tell which. I dodged in and out of the crowd, through a cloud of smoke and noise, until I reached the bar. The bartender gave me a vaguely hostile look with which I imagined he received all strangers – anyone living more than a couple of streets beyond his establishment, that is.
‘I need to use a phone,’ I said.
‘The telephone is for customers only.’
‘Then get me a brandy. And the telephone.’
The bartender picked up a glass and pointed towards a corridor on the other side of the room with a notice above it saying TOILETS. At the end of the passage, opposite the entrance to the toilets, I found what was trying to pass for a telephone booth, exposed to the intense stench of ammonia and the noise that filtered through from the café. I took the receiver off the hook and waited until I had a line. A few seconds later an operator from the exchange replied.
‘I need to make a call to a law firm. The name of the lawyer is Valera, number 442, Avenida Diagonal.’
The operator took a couple of minutes to find the number and connect me. I waited, holding the receiver with one hand and blocking my left ear with the other. Finally she confirmed that she was putting my call through and moments later I recognised the voice of Valera’s secretary.
‘I’m sorry, but Señor Valera isn’t here right now.’
‘It’s important. Tell him my name is Martín. David Martín. It’s a matter of life and death.’
‘I know who you are, Señor Martín. I’m sorry, but I can’t put you through because he’s not here. It’s half past nine at night and he left the office a long time ago.’
‘Then give me his home address.’
‘I cannot give you that information, Señor Martín. I do apologise. If you wish, you can phone tomorrow morning and-’
I hung up and again waited for a line. This time I gave the operator the number Ricardo Salvador had given me. His neighbour answered the phone and told me he would go up to see whether the ex-policeman was in. Salvador was soon on the line.
‘Martín? Are you all right? Are you in Barcelona?’
‘I’ve just arrived.’
‘You must be careful. The police are looking for you. They came round here asking questions about you and Alicia Marlasca.’
‘Víctor Grandes?’
‘I think so. He came with a couple of big guys I didn’t like the look of. I think he wants to dump the deaths of Roures and Marlasca’s widow on you. You’d better keep your eyes peeled – they’re probably watching you. If you like, you could come here.’
‘Thanks, Señor Salvador. I’ll think about it. I don’t want to get you into any more trouble.’
‘Whatever you do, watch out. I think you were right: Jaco is back. I don’t know why, but he’s back. Do you have a plan?’
‘I’m going to try to find Valera, the lawyer. I think the publisher for whom Marlasca worked is at the heart of all this, and I think Valera is the only person who knows the truth.’