The Prisoner of Heaven (The Cemetery of Forgotten 3)

‘Do you think he’s forgotten where he hid the booty?’ I asked.

‘Of course he hasn’t. He’s been waiting twenty years for this moment. He’s simply savouring it.’

‘If you say so … But he’s forgotten, if you ask me.’

We remained there, watching and waiting.

‘Fermín, you never really told me where you hid the key when you escaped from the castle …’

Fermín threw me a hostile glance.

‘Forget it,’ I conceded.

The wait continued a few minutes longer.

‘Perhaps he has an accomplice …’ I said, ‘and he’s waiting for him.’

‘Salgado isn’t the sharing sort.’

‘Perhaps there’s someone else who …’

‘Shhh,’ Fermín hushed me, pointing at Salgado, who had moved at last.

The old man walked over to one of the lockers and placed his hand on the metal door. He pulled out the key, inserted it in the lock, opened the door and looked inside. At that precise moment a pair of Civil Guards doing their rounds turned into the entrance hall from the station platforms and walked over to where Salgado was standing, trying to pull something out of the locker.

‘Oh dear, oh dear …’ I murmured.

Salgado turned and greeted the two officers. They exchanged a few words and one of them pulled a case out of the locker and left it on the floor by Salgado’s feet. The thief thanked them effusively for their help and the Civil Guards touched their three-cornered hats and continued on their beat.

‘God bless Spain,’ murmured Fermín.

Salgado grabbed the case and dragged it along to another bench, at the opposite end from where we were sitting.

‘He’s not going to open it here, is he?’ I asked.

‘He has to make sure it’s all there,’ replied Fermín. ‘That nasty piece of work has put up with years of misery to recover his treasure.’

Salgado looked around him a few times to make sure there was nobody nearby, and finally decided to take action. We saw him open the suitcase just a few centimetres and peer inside.

He remained like that for almost a minute, motionless. Fermín and I looked at one another without understanding. Suddenly Salgado closed the suitcase and got up, then walked off towards the exit, leaving the suitcase behind him in front of the open locker.

‘But what’s he doing?’ I asked.

Fermín stood up and signalled to me.

‘You get the suitcase, and I’ll follow him …’

Without giving me time to reply, Fermín hastened towards the exit. I hurried over to the place where Salgado had abandoned the case. A smart alec, who was reading a newspaper on a nearby bench, had also set eyes on it and, looking both ways first to check that nobody was watching, got up and was preparing to swoop on it like a bird of prey. I quickened my pace. The stranger was about to grab the case when, by the miracle of a split second, I managed to snatch it from him.

‘That suitcase isn’t yours,’ I said.

The individual fixed me with a hostile look and clutched the handle.

‘Shall I call the Civil Guards?’ I asked.

Looking flustered, the scamp let go of the case and moved swiftly away in the direction of the platforms. I took it over to the bench and, after making sure no one was looking, opened it.

It was empty. Salgado’s treasure was gone.