Barcelona 03 - The Sound of One Hand Killing (29 page)

In principle, Mr Charles Slothman was personally going to travel to Barcelona to pick up the statue. Mr Slothman and the man acting as postman didn't know each other and neither knew what the package contained. “That is confidential information” was all Lord Ashtray would let on. Mr Slothman, whose alternative job offers had included home deliverer of pizzas or call-centre operator in India, had decided to ask no questions and obediently do as he was told.

However, a few hours before boarding his flight, an untimely attack of gastroenteritis had left Mr Slothman a prisoner of his toilet bowl. Even so, Mr Slothman was nothing if not resourceful, and, when he saw he couldn't go to Barcelona in person to pick up the package, he grabbed his mobile, and, without budging from that bowl, rang Emily, an old girlfriend who'd yet to hear about the miserable
episode in Eton, and invited her to spend the weekend with him in London. The girl worked for a translation and English-teaching agency in Barcelona and earned a pittance giving classes to executives with no gift for languages, and as she had discovered it wasn't as easy as she had imagined to get off with the city's footballers or famous architects, she accepted his invitation straightaway. And she would also be very happy to transport a small package that, according to Mr Slothman, was a present for his mother. The butler's mother had passed away a year ago: the young woman wasn't to know that.

Mr Slothman went to Gatwick to welcome Emily and drove her back to a hotel in Bloomsbury with the promise of an unforgettable weekend. As soon as they reached the hotel, he pretended to get a call on his mobile and apologized, saying that Lord Ashtray needed to see him urgently. Emily in fact felt relieved to see him disappear because Charlie wasn't what he used to be and she happily bid farewell to her ex-boyfriend as he grabbed the package, got into the car and disappeared down the streets of London on his way back to Lifestyle Ends.

While Mr Slothman was eating an egg sandwich and drinking a cup of tea in the kitchen, listening absent-mindedly to the cook's interminable complaints about the ridiculous diets Lady Ashtray forced her to prepare on behalf of her quest for weight loss, Lord Ashtray was in the library opening the sealed envelope and smiling contentedly. However, his smile soon changed to a grimace of disbelief and then rage: all there was inside the envelope was a chrome-metal keyring that had been poorly gift-wrapped. Lord Ashtray's face went as red as the velvet curtains that draped the library's picture windows, and Lady Ashtray, who at that precise moment had come into the room to complain of
the way the gardener had fiddled with her roses, reacted with extreme alarm.

“What's this? We're back on the brandy, are we?” she snapped. “For Christ's sake, one of these days you'll have a stroke that will reduce you to a gibbering idiot!” She turned round and went off to the kitchen to prepare him an infusion of chestnut buds. The fourth Lady Ashtray's grandmother, who was Welsh, had learnt from Dr Bach in person how to prepare his floral cures and had spent half her life pouring these infusions into her husband.

While his wife stirred in the kitchen, Lord Ashtray's brain slowly flickered back to life. That pathetic Slothman couldn't possibly have betrayed him, he decided: in the first place, because he thought he was a fool, and, in the second, because Lord Ashtray knew his secretary was a coward and wouldn't have dared disobey his instructions. As Lord Ashtray was unaware of Emily's existence because Mr Slothman had failed to mention the fact he personally hadn't gone to Barcelona to collect the package, Lord Ashtray's thoughts turned to the gang of mercenaries he'd contracted to carry out the theft. Those men, nevertheless, were professionals and must be aware that it would be impossible to place such a valuable statue on the black market without him finding out sooner or later. Besides, they knew who they were dealing with, and eight million euros was too much money to risk being chased by another gang of hit men hired by a furious English aristocrat. No, he could swear they weren't behind this. There could be only one other possibility: the man who had transported the statue from Arles to Barcelona and had had it in his possession for three weeks. What was his name now? No matter, he would ask his antiquarian friend in Amsterdam and would have him dealt with.

While he pondered his plan to wreak revenge and recover the Lioness, Lord Ashtray started playing with the keyring and found the small spring. He was intrigued, pressed it and the ring opened halfway down. Lord Ashtray found a tiny metal object inside he was hard-put to identify. Finally, after taking a long look, he realized it was a memory stick and went straight to his computer. Perhaps it wasn't a theft, but a case of kidnapping, Lord Ashtray ruminated, and he would find instructions in the stick on how to salvage his lioness.

Lord Ashtray opened the only document it held and understood nothing. No rescue message showed on the screen, only a series of numbers and peculiar letters that made no sense at all. In a fury, Lord Ashtray extracted the memory stick and threw it furiously at the waste-paper basket along with the keyring, letting out blood-curdling curses and profanities that must have made the cheeks of Lord Ashtray in the portrait blush. The fifth lord didn't like computers or mobiles, or the Internet for that matter; he reckoned all that technology made life far too complicated. Computers also left traces on the net that it was best to avoid in his line of business. Grim-faced, he selected another cigar, poured himself a third balloon of brandy, lolled back in his wing armchair and fumed.

His wife walked into the library with his chestnut-bud tisane, but, when she saw the murderous look her husband gave her, she opted to make a discreet exit and retrace her steps without saying a word. Lord Ashtray didn't budge. An imbecile had enjoyed a laugh at his expense and now possessed a small stone statue that was five thousand years old and didn't belong to him. Under the severe gaze of his great-great-grandfather, Lord Ashtray took another swig of brandy and swore he would not rest until the item was restored to his family. Yes, Lord Ashtray speculated
with an evil grin, he would recover the Baghdad Lioness, and, as soon as it was back in his grasp, he would ensure that the fool who had dared to steal what was rightfully his suffered a death as slow as it was painful.

All the situations and characters in this novel are fictitious.

The “Baghdad Lioness” is inspired by the small sculpture known as the “Guennol Lioness” that was discovered in the 1920s by the British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley while excavating near Baghdad. It bears that name after the name of the mansion, Guennol, the property of its last owner, the American collector Alastair Bradley Martin. “Guennol” is Welsh for “martin” in English. Sotheby's auctioned it at the end of 2007 and the statue was purchased by an English collector, who remains anonymous, for the sum of $57.16 million, a figure that was, at the time, the highest sum ever paid for a sculpture at auction.

A NOT SO PERFECT CRIME

Teresa Solana

Murder and Mayhem in Barcelona

Another day in Barcelona, another politician's wife is
suspected of infidelity. A portrait of his wife in an exhibition
leads Lluís Font to conclude he is being cuckolded by the artist.
Concerned only about the potential political fallout, he hires
twins Eduard and Borja, private detectives with a knack for
helping the wealthy with their “dirty laundry”. Their office is
adorned with false doors leading to non-existent private rooms
and a mysterious secretary who is always away. The case turns
ugly when Font's wife is found poisoned by a marron glacé
from a box of sweets delivered anonymously.

PRAISE FOR
A NOT SO PERFECT CRIME

“The Catalan novelist Teresa Solana has come up
with a delightful mystery set in Barcelona…
Clever, funny and utterly unpretentious.”
Sunday Times

“Solana's stylish and witty debut makes entertaining reading, and
her two characters, the suave, quick-thinking Borja and anxious,
law-abiding Eduard, make a good contrast as they weave their
way through an increasingly murky mystery.”
The Telegraph

“She paints a glorious picture of an urbane and lubricious
Hispanic lifestyle as the brothers gumshoe their way through
cocktail bars and tapas joints.”
Times Literary Supplement

This deftly plotted, bitingly funny mystery novel and satire
of Catalan politics won the 2007 Brigada 21 Prize.

£8.99/$14.95
Crime Paperback Original
ISBN 978-1904738-343

eBook
ISBN 978-1904738-787

www.bitterlemonpress.com

A SHORTCUT TO PARADISE

Teresa Solana

The shady, accident-prone private detective twins
Eduard Martínez and Borja “Pep” Masdéu are back.
Another murder beckons, and this time the victim
is one of Barcelona's literary glitterati.

Marina Dolç, media figure and writer of bestsellers, is murdered
in the Ritz Hotel in Barcelona on the night she wins an important
literary prize. The killer has battered her to death with the
trophy she has just won, an end identical to that of the heroine
in her prize-winning novel.

The same night the Catalan police arrest their chief suspect,
Amadeu Cabestany, runner-up for the prize. Borja and Eduard
are hired to prove his innocence. The unlikely duo is plunged
into the murky waters of the Barcelona publishing scene and
need all their wit and skills of improvisation to solve this case of
truncated literary lives.

PRAISE FOR
A SHORTCUT TO PARADISE

“Solana's second novel made me laugh so much
the tears soon rolled. She shoots from the hip
at the guardians of culture…”
El Pais

“Solana's Barcelona is exciting, sexy and louche, the city's
literary scene and the people who inhabit it portrayed with
satirical gusto. Charming and great fun.”
The Times

“A delightfully droll double-barreled denouement
provides a perfect ending to this romp, which should
earn its author consideration for the kind of award
she so cleverly lampoons.”
Publishers Weekly

£8.99/$14.95
Crime Paperback Original
ISBN 978-1904738-558

eBook
ISBN 978-1904738-794

www.bitterlemonpress.com