The Angel's Game (The Cemetery of Forgotten 2)

“My apologies for any trouble I may be causing, Señor Valera, but I urgently need to locate your client Señor Andreas Corelli, and you’re the only person who can help me.”

A long silence.

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Señor Martín. I cannot help you.”

“I was hoping to resolve this amicably, Señor Valera.”

“You don’t understand, Martín. I don’t know Señor Corelli.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve never seen him or spoken to him, and I certainly don’t know where to find him.”

“Let me remind you that he hired you to get me out of police headquarters.”

“A couple of weeks before that, we received a check with a letter explaining that you were an associate of his, that Inspector Grandes was harassing you, and that we should take care of your defense if it became necessary to do so. With the letter came the envelope that he asked us to hand to you personally. All I did was deposit the check and ask my contact at police headquarters to let me know if you were ever taken there. That’s what happened, and you’ll remember that I got you out by threatening Grandes with a whole storm of trouble if he didn’t agree to expedite your release. I don’t think you can complain about our services.”

At that point the silence was mine.

“If you don’t believe me, ask Señorita Margarita to show you the letter,” Valera added.

“What about your father?” I asked.

“My father?”

“Your father and Marlasca had dealings with Corelli. He must have known something …”

“I can assure you that my father was never directly in touch with this Señor Corelli. All his correspondence, if indeed there was any—because there is absolutely nothing in the files at the office—was dealt with personally by the deceased Señor Marlasca. In fact, and since you ask, I can tell you that my father even doubted the existence of this Señor Corelli, especially during the final months of Señor Marlasca’s life, when he began to—how shall I say it—have contact with that woman.”

“What woman?”

“The chorus girl.”

“Irene Sabino?”

I heard him give an irritated sigh.

“Before he died, Señor Marlasca arranged a fund, administered and managed by our firm, from which a series of payments were to be made to an account in the name of some people called Juan Corbera and María Antonia Sanahuja.”

Jaco and Irene Sabino, I thought.

“What was the size of the fund?”

“It was a deposit in foreign currency. I seem to remember it was something like a hundred thousand French francs.”

“Did Marlasca say where he’d obtained that money?”

“We’re a law firm, not a detective agency. Our company merely followed the instructions stipulated in Señor Marlasca’s last wishes; we did not question them.”

“What other instructions did he leave?”

“Nothing special. Simple pa

yments to third parties that had nothing to do with the office or with his family.”

“Do you remember any one in particular?”

“My father took charge of these matters himself, to avoid any of the office employees having access to information that might be, let us say, awkward.”