A Shortcut to Paradise (19 page)

“Whatever you wear, you will look divine,” chimed Borja, kissing her sensually on the hand, his eyes transfixed by the large diamond piece she wore as a ring.

“I know, I know,” she said, as she opened the door and bid us farewell. “
Au revoir, mes beaux
. And don't give Maite too hard a time. I think she's very, very frightened.”

18

The next morning was Monday morning, and as Merche's Audi was still in for repair, we had to take the bus to Sant Feliu de Codines. Luckily, it's only forty or so kilometres from Barcelona to the Vallès Oriental, and we arrived in less than hour, even though the bus made several stops. As we were early, we decided to go for a second breakfast. It was hot, and we chose a bar with a terrace surrounded by blackberry bushes that gave shade to the tables. We ordered coffee and pastries and also asked the waiter the way to Marina's house. We clearly weren't the first to do so. Faithful readers from all ends of Catalonia had come to poke their noses around on the excuse that they wanted to leave her some flowers. We also took the precaution of claiming we were fans, even though we carried no book as a talisman and brought no bouquet. The waiter gave us a long-suffering look and told us Marina Dolç's house was near a place by the name of La Font dels Àlbers. It took us ten minutes' brisk walk to get there.

Probably built in the nineteenth century, the house was flanked by an abandoned garden that created a gloomy atmosphere, as if its ivy veneer hid ancient, mosscovered statues that would turn into ghosts at night. It was a two-storey house with attics, and an old wroughtiron gate led from the road to the garden. A South American maid in a ritual grey uniform opened the gate. She ushered us in and said Marina Dolç's secretary would see us straight away. We followed her through the garden, silent and somewhat anxious. Maite Bastida was waiting in the entrance to the mansion, clutching a crumpled handkerchief.

She was a small, thin woman, who did indeed seem to be rather frightened. According to our information, she was thirty-seven and had been living in that house for five years. She wasn't ugly, but wasn't exactly pretty either. She was dressed smartly and comfortably, and her short, wavy hair was combed back. She wore glasses and her eyes looked tearful.

“Come in, please,” she said, beckoning us into a sitting room furnished with antiques and bedecked with a selection of paintings from the Catalan landscape tradition. “Mrs Castany rang me and asked if I would see you. She said you were investigating the death of Mrs Marina…” Her eyes began to stream and she took a handkerchief from her pocket. “Excuse me, but I still haven't got over it.”

“It's only natural. How long had you been living here with Marina Dolç? Was it five years?” I asked, kicking off our conversation. As Borja is sometimes rather shy, we thought it would be best for me to take the initiative.

“Yes, I'd been living here and working for her for five years.”

“Though you're from Barcelona.”

“Yes.”

“I suppose you'll have to find somewhere else to live now,” Borja said softly. “It's been a big blow to you as well.”

“Are you sure you're not journalists?” she asked in a shrill voice. “Mrs Castany said you were detectives…”

“I'll be frank,” confessed Borja. “Strictly speaking, we're not private detectives, but we
are
working on behalf of Amadeu Cabestany.” Borja preferred to err on the safe side and avoid any misunderstanding. “He's the man accused of killing Marina Dolç, and, as you know, he is in prison. Though he is innocent.”

“I see, and you want to find out who really killed Mrs Marina, isn't that so? That's what Mrs Castany said.”

“Precisely. It's what we're trying to do. Unofficially, of course. That's why we'd like to ask you a few questions related to…”

“Would you like a drink?”

All of a sudden, Maite Bastida interrupted our conversation and rang a little bell. Three seconds later, the South American maid who'd let us in appeared.

“Yes, madam?”

“Guadalupe, would you be so kind as to bring us coffee and pastries? Thank you.”

“Right away, madam,” she said, disappearing.

Borja and I looked at each other askance. Something didn't quite square. Maite Bastida had behaved as if she were the mistress of the house and the maid acted as if that were the case. She wasn't arrogant, indeed was rather timid, but she did act as the lady of the house, not as a servant. According to our information, this Maite was a salaried employee. Super efficient, but merely a secretary at the end of the day. I remember I then jumped to the conclusion (Borja as well, I think) that they might have had something going on. This would explain Maite's behaviour and also why Marina Dolç's only known boyfriend was the mysterious Italian lover nobody had ever seen.

“I was saying,” Borja tried to pick up the thread of the conversation, “that you won't be able to live in this house any more…”

“In fact, I will. Madame Marina bequeathed it to me.” She paused, waiting for us to react. “Well,” she sighed, “the truth will soon be out, so I'd better tell you now, as you've taken the trouble to come all this way. Perhaps you might be able to help.” She took out a cigarette. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Not at all,” replied Borja, hurrying to light up himself. I joined the party ten seconds later.

“Madame Dolç, Marina, is my aunt. My name isn't Maite Bastida, but Teresa Campana, but you can call me Maite. No one calls me Teresa now.” And she added, after a pause: “I'm her brother's younger daughter. There are twelve years between my aunt and my father.”

“Now this is a surprise!” Borja acknowledged, taken aback. “Her niece…”

“That's right.”

“So why did everybody think you were her secretary?”

Maite Bastide – that's to say, Maite Campana – took a few seconds to answer. She seemed to be weighing her words carefully. I imagine she'd decided to make that confession before we arrived, a story that, as she herself had foreseen, would soon belong to the public domain. It's difficult to conceal that kind of situation when a murder is involved. However, as far as that particular detail was concerned, she'd obviously decided to wait until she'd seen us. She eyed us silently, thought it over and finally said: “My Aunt Marina once told me I should always trust Mrs Castany's judgement. They weren't exactly friends, but Auntie respected her. She said one could depend on her. Mrs Castany told me you were friends of hers.”

“Indeed, she and my mother (may she rest in peace) both studied in a Swiss finishing school when they were young,” Borja lied. “We do have a very special relationship with Mariona.”

“And how do I know that if I let you into a secret it won't be all over the papers tomorrow?” she asked naively.

“Because, apart from being friends of Mariona, my partner and I are gentlemen,” responded Borja suavely. “Besides, if your story isn't connected to your aunt's death and Amadeu Cabestany's innocence, you have nothing to worry about,” Borja assured her. “I give you my word. Now, if what you are about to tell us
is
in any way related to the case…”

At that moment, the maid Guadalupe came into the room and interrupted our conversation. While she poured out the coffee, Marina Dolç's niece scrutinized my brother's face in search of guarantees. She'd realized who was boss. My brother returned her gaze and she nodded. Borja may have many defects, but normally when he gives his word he keeps it.

“Unfortunately, Mr Masdéu, we can choose many things in this life, but not our family,” Maite continued once the maid had left. “The story I'm about to tell you will shock you, and I beg you not to let it go any further.” She paused while we stared at her on tenterhooks. “Anyway, if you are right and that writer didn't do it, you ought to know about this. I'm doing this for her. For my aunt. In case it helps. As you are detectives…”

“Treat it like a professional secret. As if you were speaking to a priest,” Borja reassured her.

Marina Dolç's niece tried to smile, breathed in and lit another cigarette.

“Auntie's parents, my grandparents, had her when they were getting on in years. They were always rather eccentric people, but, as they aged, their eccentricity got worse. They were both orphans, I don't know if that has anything to do with it. When Auntie was eight years old, her parents joined one of those satanic sects imported from America. I don't know what lured them in. Perhaps they were drugged, or were promised eternal youth… Nobody knows.”

“Those sects are the pits,” I ventured.

“At the age of eleven,” Maite continued, “Auntie had to go and live with her parents in the United States. They forced her to. At the time, my father, who was Auntie's only brother, was twenty-three, and as he had reached his majority he was able to stay in Barcelona. Auntie, on the other hand, had to spend a number of years in the back of the beyond in the United States with a horde of fanatics and her crazy parents. She managed to escape one day, though I don't know the details. It was a subject she preferred not to mention.”

Borja and I were stunned. We'd come to that house looking for some answers and what we'd just been told had made our hair stand on end. Was Maite or Teresa, or whatever the hell her name was, really Marina Dolç's niece or was she pulling our legs? And was the business of the satanic sect true or did that rather dowdy young woman also write novels in her spare time and had she got her wires crossed? As neither of us said anything, she decided to resume her revelations.

“Auntie managed to return to Barcelona when she was seventeen and went to live with her brother – that is, my father. I still hadn't been born, though my older sister had. At the time both my father and mother had
turned very religious, possibly on the rebound from my grandparents' peculiarities. They spent entire days going to mass, praying and exorcizing their sins. It reminded Auntie too painfully of what she'd experienced in the United States and she could stand it for only a few months. She left a note saying that she was going abroad and disappeared. She spent a couple of years in Italy before finally coming back to Barcelona.”

“I presume not very many people know about all this,” my brother responded, deadpan. Maite nodded. “So tell me, were you forced to escape as well? Considering you acted as if you were her secretary.”

“To an extent, but my case was different. My parents are very Catholic. Catholic and conservative. They pray to God rather than to Satan and practise chastity rather than sex…” She sighed. “There's obviously a branch of the family that has a real weakness for the life of the spirit!… I don't mean to offend you,” she added suddenly, realizing she was holding forth though she hadn't the slightest idea what our beliefs were.

“No way; unfortunately, communication between the next world and us was suspended a long time ago. I assume Heaven isn't receiving our signals…” responded Borja, trying to be affable.

Maite smiled. She seemed more relaxed.

“I had to follow Auntie's example and make my escape. I was married to a husband who beat me and I had parents who said it was God's will and I should accept my lot. I didn't have any girlfriends outside the congregation, or anyone else I could have recourse to… So I thought of Auntie.”

“In other words, you and her were on very good terms,” I chimed in, trying to be nice.

Maite shook her head.

“Not at all. I discovered Marina Dolç was my Auntie quite by chance, one day when I was eavesdropping behind a door listening to my parents talk. They were both ashamed of my grandparents, who were now dead, and also of Auntie and her novels. They said they were pornographic and inspired by the Devil. That's why they never mentioned them or her at home.”

She went quiet. She seemed tired. If her fantastic confession was true, it was an extraordinary story that could turn the case on its head. As far as we knew, Marina Dolç had never said a word about these things, in her novels or her interviews. It was as if she'd decided to shield herself behind a humdrum biography and build herself a new life, away from her dark, tortured past.

“It's a horrific story,” I said, very moved. “How did you track down your Auntie?”

“According to her books, which I read on the sly, this is where she lived, and it turned out to be true. When I told her who I was and what was happening, she took me in immediately,” she answered, wiping her tears away.

“And why did you decide to hide the fact that you were her niece?” asked Borja.

“Because I wanted a quiet life. I wanted my family and my ex-husband to disappear from my life and me from theirs,” she said with apparent sincerity. “When I arrived in Sant Feliu, Auntie's secretary had just left and we decided I'd assume that role. I took charge of her diary, booked her hotel rooms, in a word, saw to the practical side of her life… I also accompanied her on her travels. I've seen a lot of the world in the last five years,” she said sadly.

“You're a rich woman now,” Borja interjected.

“I'm a lonely woman now, Mr Masdéu,” she said, wiping another tear away. “I start shaking whenever I think my parents and my ex-husband will soon find out and come after me. Auntie would have known how to see them off, but I…”

She started to cry. I have to confess I felt sorry for her and that's why I decided to chance my arm. When we left Marina's mansion, my brother would probably be very annoyed, since her entangled story might be a string of lies, but for one reason or another, I believed her. That young woman was probably mad, or even a cold-blooded murderer. Or perhaps not. I had to make a choice and I did: I backed her.