The Prisoner of Heaven (The Cemetery of Forgotten 3)

‘Forgive me,’ he whispered.

I held my father’s gaze. Sometimes he seemed to grow a little older just by looking at me and remembering. I stood up and hugged him quietly. He held me tight and when he burst into tears the anger and the pain he’d buried in his soul all those years gushed out like blood. I knew then, without being able to explain clearly why, that slowly, inexorably, my father had begun to die.

Part Four

Suspicion

1

Barcelona, 1957

The first glint of daybreak found me in the doorway of little Julián’s bedroom. For once he was sound asleep, far from everything and everyone, with a smile on his lips. I heard Bea’s footsteps approaching and felt her hands on my back.

‘How long have you been standing here?’ she asked.

‘A while.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m looking at him.’

Bea walked up to Julián’s cot and leaned over to kiss his forehead.

‘What time did you come in last night?’

I didn’t reply.

‘How is Fermín?’

‘Not too bad.’

‘And you?’ I tried to smile. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she insisted.

‘Some other day.’

‘I thought there were no secrets between us,’ said Bea.

‘So did I.’

She looked at me in surprise.

‘What do you mean, Daniel?’

‘Nothing. I don’t mean anything. I’m very tired. Shall we go back to bed?’

Bea took my hand and led me to the bedroom.

We lay down on the bed and I embraced her.

‘I dreamed about your mother tonight,’ said Bea. ‘About Isabella.’

The rain began to pelt against the windowpanes.

‘I was a little girl, and she was holding my hand. We were in a large and very old house, with huge rooms and a grand piano, and a glass-covered balcony that looked on to a garden with a pond. There was a little boy by the pond. He looked just like Julián, but I knew that it was really you, don’t ask me why. Isabella knelt down by my side and asked me whether I could see you. You were playing by the water with a paper boat. I said I could. Then she told me to look after you. To look after you for ever because she had to go far away.’

We lay there without speaking for a long time, listening to the patter of the rain.

‘What did Fermín tell you last night?’