Authors: Marc Pastor
“Do you sell tallows, salves, oils, pomades?” He cuts him off.
Silence is the first response, the orangish light licking Malsano’s and Pujaló’s faces.
“No.”
It was the least convincing in the history of “no”s, the policeman will later explain to Moisès Corvo, even less than the three from Saint Peter.
“I’d been led to believe that you do.”
“No. Well, I don’t sell them,” Pujaló gets up again, this time without a clear objective. “I’m the middleman.”
“What do you mean?”
“I get them from the slaughterhouses, under the table, and I resell them at a good price.” He had done that a few times, but years ago, so it’s not exactly a lie. “I don’t make much, but it’s enough to get by. You won’t arrest me for that will you?”
“What slaughterhouses?”
“None in particular.”
“And your wife?”
“What?”
“She in the same business?”
“Oof.” Quick, quick, quick, think quick, Juanitu! “It’s just that I haven’t seen Enriqueta in a while.”
“Where does she live?”
“Nearby, but she doesn’t do that any more. She’s more fickle. I set her up with a herbalist’s shop and it didn’t last long.”
“Do you two have knowledge of natural medicines?”
“Yes, yes, that we do. She knows a ton, about making up those mixtures.”
“And where did you say she lives?”
Juan Malsano knows, somehow, that his spade has hit the coffin. The first spadeful is always the worst, but the last few are exhaustingly exciting.
“Picalquers Street, three A,” he lies.
Joan Pujaló breathes deeply. They won’t find her there. She only goes there when she wants to get rid of bones and clothes and little shoes, and she hides it all in a secret compartment in the wall over the stove, which her father build some years earlier. But no one will look there. No one will ever suspect Joan Pujaló and Enriqueta Martí.
“Does your daughter live there, too, on Picalquers?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“You have a daughter.”
“Yes.” He almost chokes.
“And she lives there, too?”
“She’s very pretty. Lovely. A little angel. That’s why we named her Angelina.”
“And she lives with her mother?”
“Yes. Yes. I haven’t seen them in some time, but yes.”
“Thank you, Mr Pujaló.”
Juan Malsano can’t wait to speak to his partner.
For those who are looking for some sort of message in every story, here you have it: there are always mistakes made, and they are paid for dearly.
Enriqueta’s pressing desire is so irresistible, so much larger than she, that she throws caution to the wind. She becomes too visible as a starved predator, and obsession pushes her to lose her discipline.
The night of 10th February, after several days in bed with sweats, palpitations and tremors typical of withdrawal, Enriqueta Martí goes out on the hunt. Alone. Fragile. And she makes a mistake.
Her legs are wobbly, her knees knock against each other and she doesn’t feel capable of going very far. She turns down Ferlandina and finds the street empty, but when she reaches Sant Vicenç she stops: a woman chats in a doorway with someone she can’t see, while her daughter jumps about absent-mindedly a few metres on.
Enriqueta is aware that she is taking a risk, but she doesn’t care. She is covered in a black cape, the one she wears when she goes to the Liceu, or to the orgies Mr Carner organizes at the chalet in Collserola, and the hood covers part of her face. She breathes deeply, excited, and gets the girl’s attention with sweet words. The little one looks at her with some reluctance but Enriqueta smiles in the shadows and invites her to come closer. The girl does.
Five years old, too skinny, in a little white dress with reddish trim and a headband keeping her hair out of her face. Her large eyes wait for Enriqueta to say something.
“What’s your name?” Sweet, almost musical voice.
“Teresina.”
“Do you like presents, Teresina?”
Her mother keeps talking, not looking at her daughter. The girl nods her head.
“Do you want a little present?” seduces Enriqueta, and Teresina looks at her mother as if asking for permission, but she finds her with her back turned. “You can show her afterwards.” Don’t yell, don’t yell, don’t yell. “You’ll see, she’ll love it too.”
“What is it?” she asks.
“It’s a surprise. Come.” She holds out her hand. Teresina takes it and goes to the corner with her.
Then Enriqueta Martí covers her mouth with her skeletal claws and picks her up in a swoop and places her on her hips. Teresina tries to scream and kick but she’s just a slight little thing.
“If you don’t stop I’ll break your neck,” whispers Enriqueta Martí, all sweetness and light.
When she gets home, twenty-nine Ponent, she locks Teresina in the room with the sliding door. She gags her and strips her clothes off, and tells her that if she tries to escape she’ll kill her. She studies her carefully, and curses under her breath: she’s a bag of bones, with no nourishing fat or flesh. If she drank her blood right now, it would be as if she hadn’t had anything. Best to keep her there at home, fatten her up so she can get more benefit out of her. Besides, now that she has her in the pantry, she can better control the need that sent her out on the street. She grabs some scissors and with a few stabs cuts her hair, black as Enriqueta’s soul, to boil up later with garlic and thyme and drink the broth. While she’s fattening her up she can trim her nails, grind them up well and make some mush, or scrub her and use the dried skin she gets off to make some infusions. Yes, she’ll keep her at
home for a few days, she’ll take care of her like she takes care of Angelina, she’ll feed her… Enriqueta licks her lips, eager.
Two days later, for Santa Eulàlia, the city’s annual festival has a dark edge to it. The Guitarts’ daughter has been snatched, and word has spread. The monster is back and has taken away little Teresina. In the processions people ask the priests to please bless their children, they don’t want the devil to drag them down to hell one night. In the parties, few people dance and the rumours grow to a widespread protest. The Guitarts are a modest family but well loved on their street, they have the poultry shop where Teresina always played with her older brother, Lluïset, and they’ve been searching door to door for the girl since Saturday night.
When Buenaventura Sánchez took over the investigation, by express order of José Millán Astray, he headed to the port with a group of agents and municipals to make sure that no one could bundle the girl onto a ship and take her far away.
“That’s how the foreigners usually do it,” he reasoned with the mother. “They abduct girls to sell them in their countries. The best way to find her is to keep a close watch on all the city’s points of exit, especially by sea.”
But the police don’t have an easy job, because as much as they show people the picture of the disappeared little girl, the only answers they get are angry shouts. You knew that this would happen sooner or later and you did nothing. It’s all your fault, you’ve been lying to us. You’re only good for stifling demonstrations and controlling meetings, but where were you, eh? Where were you when they snatched little Teresina?
*
“This imposter lies more than he talks,” curses Malsano.
“But we haven’t got anything on him.”
They haven’t got an answer any of the times they’ve gone to the flat on Picalquers. They have definitely ruled out the possibility that anyone is living in the abandoned flat on Muntaner Street, the property of Salvador Vaquer.
They have been watching Joan Pujaló. He has settled back into his flat. He leads an apparently normal life, since the idle lifestyle is normal for him. The police have followed up on it, but they haven’t found any indication that he is linked to the kidnapping, or any suspicious movements. Joan Pujaló hasn’t gone to Enriqueta’s flat while they’ve been keeping an eye on him. Now that she’s got the girl in her house, and the whole neighbourhood is talking about it and searching for her, she’s afraid, she doesn’t want to get caught with her. It’s one thing to take a child no one will miss and quite another to make off with one who is very beloved in the area where you live. Joan Pujaló doesn’t want to talk to the police again, he had a bad enough time the other day and has no desire for them to come asking after Teresina.
Juan Malsano managed to get a photograph of the girl because José Asens, the staff sergeant of the Hospital district with whom he has a good relationship, gave him his. The police chief didn’t want Malsano involved in the investigation in any way, you guys have already given me too many headaches, can’t have you spreading unfounded rumours and getting people all scared and worked up. Keep Corvo out of this or I’ll have you put on leave too, Inspector.
Please don’t be upset that I’ve taken so long to inform you of the
fact that Doctor Isaac von Baumgarten is not only not a doctor, but he’s also insane. After all, I’m sure you noticed his behaviour was at least peculiar, with ups and downs and a certain tendency to surround himself with dismembered bodies. Everything he knows about medicine he learnt from the doctor who treated him and the copious readings on vampires that were all the rage during the years he spent locked up in the Linz bedlam. His reasoning hasn’t been that off track.
“He can’t control his impulses,” says the Austrian.
“But you told us that he could, that he was cold, and he knew how to pace himself,” responds Corvo.
“For some reason he’s been… hibernating. He must have felt threatened, or pursued, or perhaps someone discovered him, even though it’s unlikely. He’s been in hiding or repressing his nature.”
“And he’s been building up a containment wall,” Malsano continues the logic.
“Which has finally burst,” underscores von Baumgarten.
All three are drinking together, at the Aigua d’Or, while the barman, Miquel, cleans a glass with a rag, his gaze lost in the distance. Corvo feels a stab in his right forearm where the bullet hit, and he grimaces with pain. Malsano continues, “And now it’s a runaway river.”
“Exactly. Our vampire will act compulsively, until he can restrain himself again. We have to seize the moment, because this is when he will slip up and leave a trail. It is an open door into his soul, and we have to find the way in.”
“Has he…”—Malsano hesitates over the right words—“killed the girl?”
“It’s very likely. He would have to have a very high level of
self-control not to.” He scrubs the damp wood of the table with the fleshy tips of his fingers, absent-mindedly. “There are still two possibilities.”
“Which are?”
“One, that he’s killed her and he’s… devoured her. In that case I’m almost positive that his desire will grow, and he’ll need to up the dose to satisfy himself. That means he’ll have to act more often, and we will catch him if we keep a closer watch on the area where the disappearances are taking place. He can’t live far from the last victim.”
Pujaló, think the policemen, but he’s clean.
“The official investigation is taking other paths,” reflects Corvo. “We can’t count on the force, only on favours we’re owed. What’s the other possibility?”
“That of self-control. That he hasn’t killed Teresina and he’s keeping her alive. That would denote a strong, dominating personality.”
“We’ll never find the girl at this rate.”
“This type of character is usually tied to a certain egocentricity. They are so powerful that they feel they need to show it. Up until now he’s stayed silent, but perhaps if we provoke him we can make him come out of his lair.”
“Provoke him?”
Malsano heads to the toilets with his stomach wrenching. Corvo and von Baumgarten are left alone.
“We have to get the vampire into the light of day, we have to set out some bait. Do you know
Hamlet?
”
“The prince of Denmark.”
“The twisted prince of Denmark.”
“What’s he got to do with the kidnapper?”
“There is a passage in
Hamlet
where he hires some comedians. His father’s been killed by his mother’s new husband, and even though he is sure, he wants to show it. He pays some actors, as I said, to stage the death of his father so he can see the killer’s reaction.”
“Doctor, we don’t know who kidnapped the king of Denmark.”
“Talk to Teresina’s parents. Organize an event for the girl. The monster will attend. He will be revealed.”
“It’s too elaborate.”
“Do you have any alternative? If the girl is dead, we have to sit and wait for another one to disappear, and another, and another. If she’s alive we have this chance.”
Malsano returns, buttoning his pants.
“Did I miss something?”
“We have to talk to the Guitarts,” Moisès Corvo informs him. “And also with that master of the vanishing act and artist of the mind.”
Enriqueta lives locked away. She doesn’t want to leave Teresina’s side so she hasn’t been out on the street in the last week. Meanwhile the girl isn’t gaining weight, despite all the food she’s been giving her. She changed the girl’s name to Felicitat, and she repeats over and over that her parents are dead, and that she’s her new mother now. She punishes her with pinches and smacks on the bum when she refuses to eat the vegetables and meats that Salvador Vaquer lifts from the Boqueria. Salvador always watches out to make sure that lad who beat him up isn’t following him. Now that the woman is back at home, the risk has returned as well. And he is convinced that another thrashing like the one he got will
leave him right ready for the pine box. Blackmouth, on the other hand, lives for Enriqueta. He’s become obsessed with keeping her happy, even though she treats him somewhat shabbily, always so distant. He sees in her some sort of mother figure and he believes he can glimpse love in any small gesture towards him; the lad is so hopelessly doomed that he can’t even interpret emotions. He will do whatever he has to for her, blindly, now that he has mistaken fear for love. He will kill again, without hesitation, if someone wants to hurt her.
Teresina and Angelina have become friends. They share a straw mattress, and at night they curl up together to stave off the cold. Angelina treats her like a doll, like a new toy she isn’t sure how long will last. She strokes her and calms her, she dries her tears and sings her lullabies. One evening when they don’t hear any noise in the flat, they go out into the hallway and tiptoe to the velvety bedroom, where the wardrobes are of fine wood and the mirrors have the most elegant golden frames.