I bolted down the food on my plate, mopped it up with bread, and let out a sigh of satisfaction.
“What’s for dessert?”
…
After dinner I left a pensive Isabella mulling over her doubts and anxieties in the reading room and went up to the study in the tower. I pulled out the photograph of Diego Marlasca lent to me by Salvador and left it by the base of the table lamp. Then I looked through the small citadel of writing pads, notes, and sheets of paper I had been accumulating for the boss. Still feeling the chill of Diego Marlasca’s cutlery in my hands, I did not find it hard to imagine him sitting there gazing at the same view over the rooftops of the Ribera quarter. I took one of my pages at random and began to read. I recognized the words and sentences because I’d composed them, but the troubled spirit that fed them felt more remote than ever. I let the sheet of paper fall to the floor and looked up only to meet my own reflection in the windowpane, a stranger in the blue darkness burying the city. I knew I was not going to be able to work that night, that I would be incapable of putting together a single paragraph for the boss. I turned off the lamp and stayed there in the dark, listening to the wind scratching at the windows and imagining Diego Marlasca in flames, throwing himself into the water of the reservoir, while the last bubbles of air left his lips and the freezing liquid filled his lungs.
I awoke at dawn, my body aching from being encased in the armchair. As I got up I heard the grinding of two or three cogs in my anatomy. I dragged myself to the window and opened it wide. The flat rooftops in the old town shone with frost and a purple sky wreathed itself around Barcelona. At the sound of the bells of Santa María del Mar, a cloud of black wings took to the air from a dovecote. The smell of the docks and the coal ash issuing from neighboring chimneys was borne on a biting, cold wind.
I went down to the kitchen to make some coffee. I glanced at the larder and was astonished. Since Isabella’s arrival in the house, it looked more like the Quílez grocer’s in Rambla de Cataluña. Among the parade of exotic delicacies imported by Isabella’s father, I found a tin of English chocolate biscuits and decided to have some. Half an hour later, my veins pumping with sugar and caffeine, my brain started to work and I had the brilliant idea of beginning the day by complicating my existence even further, if that was possible. As soon as the shops opened, I’d pay a visit to the one selling items for conjurers and magicians in Calle Princesa.
“What are you doing up so early?”
Isabella, the voice of my conscience, was observing me from the doorway.
“Eating biscuits.”
Isabella sat at the table and poured herself a cup of coffee. She looked as if she hadn’t slept all night.
“My father says this was the Queen Mother’s favorite brand.”
“No wonder she looked so strapping.”
Isabella took one of the biscuits and bit into it distractedly.
“Have you thought about what you’re going to do? About Sempere, I mean.”
She threw me a venomous look.
“And what are you going to do today? Nothing good, I’m sure.”
“A couple of errands.”
“Right.”
“Right, right? Or ‘Right, I don’t believe you’?”
Isabella set the cup on the table.
“Why do you never talk about whatever it is you’re involved in with that man, the boss?”
“Among other things, for your own good.”
“For my own good. Of course. How stupid could I be? By the way, I forgot to mention that your friend the inspector came by yesterday.”
“Grandes? Was he on his own?”
“No. He came with two thugs as large as wardrobes with faces like pointers.”
The thought of Marcos and Castelo at my door tied my stomach in knots.
“And what did Grandes want?”
“He didn’t say.”
“What did he say, then?”
“He asked me who I was.” “And what did you reply?” “I said I was your lover.” “Outstanding.”