The Serpent Papers (13 page)

Fabregat used to love the area when he was younger. In the summer the square is full of encounters: students lounging around bollards, tourists red-skinned and fresh from the beach, salt-haired and sticky, rubbing against each other in the half-light. The foreigners who flock to the palm-filled square, with its shaded cafés and outdoor tables, will feel that they have entered a pervasive Mediterranean sensuality worth every penny of their airfare or bus ticket or hostel bed. People’s cameras are stolen, their wallets and, in the later hours of the night, their sense of dignity. But love is also born here, exaltations and warm kisses drifting up from the square to fill the palm fronds.

It was in this environment that a young man approached a famous and remarkably beautiful woman on the second-floor bar hidden behind shuttered windows in an east-facing corner of the square. The general feeling of the public that observed them was that the young man had no right to be speaking to the woman and that their encounter was furtive and private.

‘It had the look of
mala suerte
,’ the barman said.

Bad luck.

‘I think he spoke to her first.’

But others in the crowd contradicted him.

‘She seemed to be expecting him.’

‘Expecting him? Was she frightened?’ Fabregat asked the witnesses.

No
, they said.

Unanimously.

Everybody cross-examined.

No.

She did not seem afraid.

She seemed confident.

In control.

‘Sad. She was sad,’ said one young woman with a piercing in her nose. Perhaps ‘sad’ was another word for frightened?

No. Not that either.
The crowd agreed that, were it not for her beauty and that flavour of familiarity which afflicts the famous, no one would have noticed them. But there she was, the face of the moment: Natalia Hernández.

Speaking to a surly young man who had no right to be speaking to her, and something deep – something uncomfortable – passed between them. So that people
noticed
. And what they noticed seemed to be an exchange of packets. Of money? Of drugs? And also a flirtation no one could understand or overhear. But when the Beautiful Actress kissed the Stranger, everybody
noticed
. Everyone in that crowd could remember that precise moment, because they were watching a famous face with curiosity, as they drank
cervesas
and
cañas
at two in the morning on the night of Sant Joan, and felt rather pleased with themselves that an actress had chosen to frequent the same bar as they did and that their taste was so precise, so
on the pulse!
The crowd remembered the dancing and the talking that happened near the window, and they remembered the moment the actress left the bar with that Surly Young Man.

‘Around three thirty . . . maybe?’

‘I’d put it closer to four . . .’

And they described him well.

‘He looked like a wraith.’

‘An addict.’

‘A hot mess.’

His clothes were dirty. His shirt was torn at the collar, hanging open on his chest.

‘He had hair on the back of his hands.’

‘He was ugly as a dog.’

This was unkind – Fabregat does not think Adrià or dogs are ugly.

‘I saw her drink with him. Very happy. Beautiful.’

The bartender’s face crumpled. Hair cut close to his ears, arms covered in ornate ink – the Virgin of Guadalupe, a dancing skeleton, a rosary. The bartender is thin and long and lean. No older than twenty-five.

‘
No lo puedo creer
.’
I can’t believe it
.

Sancho the doorman stands with his hands in his pockets, looking sour. He is rotund in the classic sense, with a belly that bulges over his belt in a slight, wobbling curl – but strong: upper body well-extended before the mirrors of his home, weights in each hand, biceps balanced.

‘They came out to drink a few times at the back – both of them . . . He offered me a cigarette – they were happy – early on –
bailando 
–
bailando
, dancing –
o sea
 – Yeah. Just there, both of them. I smoked with them, before they went back in – don’t usually do that, but I mean . . . Natalia Hernández – Well, I just said yes. Because she was there with –
Sí tío – Sí! Sí!
’

The Cleaner of the Bathrooms pitches in a confirmation.

‘She went into the bathroom to put mascara on. She was a little drunk. But nothing else. No funny business in the toilets. Clean – yeah – from what I saw. Some kid? Yeah, I came up and saw him. Black hair – beard – not a regular. New face here.’

Smacks lips. ‘Cute. He was cute.
Pero loco
.’ The cleaner has skin that flakes like chalk. Too much foundation.

‘
Ay, macho
 – spend enough time working down here and you can see the crazy in their eyes.’

More mundane details follow.

‘He was wearing grubby Converse.’

‘He stank of sweat and marijuana.’

Other adjectives spilt forth.

Shifty
,
uncomfortable
,
haggard
,
harried
 . . . and then the crueller names.

Hijo de puta. Asesino. Diablo. Cabrón. Monstro.

At 8 a.m. on the Feast Day of Sant Joan,
the youthful fury that greets de la Fuente at the door to Adrià Sorra’s apartment is not what that good fellow had expected. He coughs loudly, rights his stance, moves his chest forward, and states, clear and concise as possible:

‘
Policia! Sergeant de la Fuente.
Can you please confirm that this is the residence of Sr Adrià Daedalus Sorra? Señorita . . . ?’ De la Fuente’s confidence wilts under the eyes of an irate woman.

‘Sharp. Emily Sharp.’

The policemen and forensic specialists congregate behind de la Fuente expectantly. Can it be that de la Fuente has lost his nerve? But de la Fuente is made of stronger stuff than that. He rights himself, continues, stepping further into the hallway; the squad fans out around him.

‘Have you been in contact with Sr Sorra in the last twenty-four hours?’ De la Fuente holds Emily’s gaze.

‘No.’

Unconvincing
. De la Fuente twitches. His team moves further into the apartment. If he’s there, they’ll want to get him fast – if he’s asleep in his bed with his knife – they’ll grab him.
Keep her distracted.

He clears his throat again, sticking his chest further into the air.

‘Sr Adrià Sorra. Is he here?’

‘No,’ the American says, trying to hide her increasing annoyance. ‘No, he is not here.’

‘But this is his residence?’

‘Yes.’

‘And, Miss . . . you are his . . .’ De la Fuente’s bald forehead wrinkles into lewd suggestions. Emily switches deftly to Catalan. Disgust at the idea evident.

‘Absolutely not,’ Emily says. ‘I live with his sister too – we all live together. The apartment is theirs.’

An American Catalanista! And an attractive one at that! De la Fuente’s resolve softens.
Or a murderer’s accomplice.
Pull yourself together, man!

‘When was the last time you saw Sr Sorra?’

‘I spent the weekend with him and his family.’

‘Where did you see him last?’

‘At the Girona train station. We left him there to catch the train back to Barcelona Sunday morning.’

‘Two days ago?’

‘Yes.’ She falters.

‘What time?’

‘Around eleven.’

‘And you saw Sr Sorra when you arrived home?’

‘No. He can’t get in at the moment . . .’ Emily stops herself.

‘What do you mean by that, Miss Sharp?’

She looks down at her feet.

‘He lost his keys.’

‘You didn’t let him up?’

Emily shakes her head.

De la Fuente’s eyes rest on the honey-coloured interior door. ‘You’ve had a forced entry here.’ He points to the shattered glass by the handle.

‘Adrià broke it four days ago.’

‘Is he very violent, Miss Sharp?’

‘No . . . well . . . Yes. He has been lately.’

‘Perfectly understandable, Miss Sharp. Is Mr Sorra’s sister here?’

‘No. She is still with her family. In Girona.’

‘Thank you, Miss Sharp.’ De la Fuente snaps into business: ‘We will be conducting a search of your apartment and holding you for questioning. I apologize for any inconvenience.’

Sergeant de la Fuente is not impressed by what he discovers. Adrià’s room is a slovenly dive. The place reeks. The windows to the outer balcony have been closed for days. Plates of food not cleared to the kitchen. On one wall, a collection of antique blades and a Swiss Army knife. A large double bed with unmade sheets, a battered desk pushed to the side and . . . revolting . . . De la Fuente shudders . . . the most obscene drawings covering the walls. Repeated portraits of a man’s face with electric rods emerging from his nose. Wild eyes with many lashes. Bitter monsters and genitalia. Beside a shelf containing two university files, the boy has cut a message into the floral wallpaper paper:
La Topografía del Dolor
. ‘The Topography of Pain’
.
His writing scattered, angry, a terrifying scrawl. Followed by a series of barely legible lines from the Communist Manifesto.

‘
Jefe!
’ Caporal Gómez calls. De la Fuente treads on the path the team have laid out. He crosses to the centre of the living room, and places his hand on Gómez’s shoulder. ‘Take a look at this.’

De la Fuente’s jaw locks.

There, on the walls of the living room, across from a decapitated doll’s head and strewn peacock feathers, is a cabinet which the sergeant has opened to reveal a dragon’s hoard of vials and bottles and medical capsules, barbiturates – amobarbital, pentobarbital,
then lithium and benzodiazepine, more innocuous ibuprofen and paracetamol, along with other names he does not recognize: Zyprexa, Lamictal, Symbyax.

A terrible cold settles in the marrow of de la Fuente’s bones.

It is a journalist who inadvertently finds the last clues of Adrià Sorra’s life. As the heat presses into his shoulders and the sand sneaks behind his heels, Pepe Calderon regrets the decision to humour his grandmother – a ninety-seven-year-old woman with a beach-front apartment who claimed she had seen a man drown in the sea that morning. Even at the water’s edge it is sweltering –
hot hot hot
 – so hot his curiosity wanes, dips back down to the blasé state of contentment which has become his norm. He approaches the boulders of the sea break.

Big porous black stones, the home of rats and the animals that hunt them. At the far end – twenty metres out into the sea – two fishermen have erected a parasol and look for crabs.