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

“Is that what you’re trying to do, Inspector? Help me?”

“Yes.”

“Then check out everything I’ve said. Find Marlasca and Irene Sabino.”

“My superiors have given me twenty-four hours to question you. If after that I don’t hand them Cristina Sagnier safe and sound, or at least alive, I’ll be removed from the case and it will be passed on to Marcos and Castelo, who have been looking forward to a chance to prove themselves and are certainly not going to waste it.”

“Then don’t lose any time.”

Grandes snorted.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Martín.”

19

I worked out that it must have been nine o’clock in the morning when Inspector Víctor Grandes left me locked up in that room with no other company than a thermos flask of cold coffee and his packet of cigarettes. He posted one of his men by the door and I heard him ordering the man not to let anyone in under any circumstances. Five minutes after his departure I heard someone knocking and recognized Sergeant Marcos’s face through the glass. I couldn’t hear his words, but the movement of his lips made his meaning crystal clear:

Get ready, you bastard.

I spent the rest of the morning sitting on the windowsill watching people who thought themselves free walking past the iron bars, smoking, even eating sugar lumps with the same relish I’d seen the boss exhibit on more than one occasion. Tiredness, or perhaps it was just the final wave of despair, hit me by noon and I lay down on the floor, my face to the wall. I fell asleep in less than a minute. When I woke up, the room was in darkness. Night had fallen and the streetlamps along Vía Layetana cast shadows of cars and trams on the ceiling. I stood up, feeling the cold of the floor in every muscle, and walked over to a radiator in a corner of the room. It was even icier than my hands.

At that moment, I heard the door open behind me and I turned to find the inspector watching me. At a signal from Grandes, one of his men turned on the light and closed the door. The harsh metallic light blinded me for a moment. When I opened my eyes again, I saw that the inspector looked almost as bad as I did.

“Do you need to go to the bathroom?” he asked.

“No. Taking advantage of the circumstances, I decided to wet myself and practice for when you send me off to the chamber of horrors with those inquisitors Marcos and Castelo.”

“I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor. You’re going to need it. Sit down.”

We resumed our earlier positions.

“I’ve been checking the details of your story.”

“And?”

“Where would you like me to begin?”

“You’re the policeman.”

“My first visit was to Dr. Trías’s office in Calle Muntaner. It was brief. Dr. Trías died twelve years ago and the office has belonged to a dentist called Bernat Llofriu for eight. Needless to say, he’s never heard of you.”

“Impossible.”

“Wait, it gets better. On my way from there I went by the main offices of Banco Hispano Colonial. Impressive décor and impeccable service. I felt like opening a savings account. There, I was able to find out that you’ve never had an account with that bank, that they’ve never heard of anyone called Andreas Corelli, and that there is no customer who at this time has a foreign currency account with them to the tune of one hundred thousand French francs. Shall I continue?”

I pressed my lips together but let him go on.

“My next stop was the law firm of the deceased, Señor Valera. There I discovered that you do have a bank account, not with the Hispano Colonial but with Banco de Sabadell, from which you transferred two thousand pesetas to the lawyer’s account about six months ago.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Very simple. You hired Valera anonymously, or that’s what you thought, because banks have total recall and once they’ve seen a penny fly away they never forget it. I confess that by this point I was beginning to enjoy myself and decided to pay a visit to the stonemasons’ workshop, Sanabre & Sons.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t see the angel …”

“I saw it. Impressive. Like the letter signed in your own handwriting, dated three months ago, when you commissioned the work, and the receipt for the advance payment, which good old Sanabre has kept in his account books. A charming man, very proud of his work. He told me it was his masterpiece. He said he’d received divine inspiration.”

“Didn’t you ask about the money Marlasca paid him twenty-five years ago?”