Southern Seas (20 page)

‘But my Nuria was never involved in politics. Her father was a real right-winger: one of those judges who came to Barcelona with the
nacionales
. My God, the things they did! So why should this guy bother my wife? I’m not interested in politics either. Politics doesn’t butter your bread.’

‘Right. You know where your wife’s gone, and who she’s gone with. So what do you want me to do?’

‘Go and see her, and make her see that she’s acted wrongly. She’s abandoned the kids. Two little girls.’

More tears.

‘I can’t do anything for you for the next couple of days. They should be left alone …’

‘But if we wait too long …’

‘What?’

‘It’s immoral.’

‘The immoral bit has happened already. It’ll take time to bring the morality back.’

‘I’ll pay whatever’s necessary.’

‘I should hope so.’

‘Here’s my card. I hope you’ll look on me as a friend rather than a client. What should I tell my daughters?’

‘What have you said so far?’

‘That their mother’s gone to Saragossa.’

‘Why to Saragossa?’

‘She goes there sometimes.’

‘What for?’

‘One of our flour suppliers is there, and we do a lot of business with them. I don’t know. I even thought of telling them … At times like this, you think of the wildest things …’

‘What did you want to tell them?’

‘That she was dead.’

He looked at him with watery eyes—resolute, almost heroic, as if holding forth the dagger with which he had slain the adulteress.

‘She’ll come back one of these days, and that would give the kids a fine shock! Affairs with pelota players never last long.’

‘This one doesn’t just play matches here and there. I think he’s on a fixed contract with a Barcelona team.’

‘That kind of person is not to be trusted. Did you say they’re living locally?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He moved out two months ago, and Nuria started coming
home late. One day, I couldn’t stand it any longer, and followed her. She met him in one of the streets near here, and they went into a rundown boarding house nearby. They went up the stairs. I asked the caretaker if the Basque was living there. He was. I suppose they’re living there together now. I’ll leave you the address. I’m asking you to take on the case—you’ve only got to name your price. I know the value of good work. Shall I give you a cheque? What’ll it be? Ten thousand? Twenty?’

‘It’ll be fifty thousand.’

‘Fifty thousand,’ the man repeated, as he registered the amount and reached for his wallet.

‘Don’t pay me now. In a week, when Nuria’s back home—that’ll be the time to pay.’

The man was as profuse in his gratitude as he had been in his depression. As Carvalho closed the door behind him, he said to himself: ‘Nuria, I’ll give you a few more days to let off steam. You need a break from matrimony.’ He noted in his diary the day on which he would free the unhappily married woman from the arms of her terrorist. He took the tie from its gibbet and sniffed to check that the smell had subsided. Biscuter arrived just as Carvalho was attempting to wrap the tie around his neck.

‘Biscuter, I can’t manage it.’

‘Careful, boss. Don’t destroy it.’

Biscuter tied a knot with the delicacy of a viola player.

‘Look in the mirror, boss. It suits you.’

The tsar was not there, but the place had been decorated as if to please the tsar of (nearly) all the Russias. Two or three hundred smartly dressed men were gathered there, all wearing ties, and
their features seemingly moulded by some sculptor specializing in company directors. There were also fifty women evidently dedicated to a fierce, daily struggle against cellulitis, varicose veins and traffic wardens. And thirty or so waiters, carrying trays of assorted delicacies that reminded him of mushy one-for-mummy-one-for-baby spoonfuls served up to children when they have no appetite. Fingers with no appetite, but insatiable jaws devouring little corners of heaven at two hundred pesetas a square centimetre: Russian caviare, Asturian salmon, dates wrapped in Parma ham, potato tortilla with prawns crawling in a field of mayonnaise, minced Russian crab with French dressing, Kalamata olives, rolls of Cumbres Mayores ham. And most of them ordered their drinks without alcohol, as they patted waists that had been mauled by masseurs full of class hatred. Alcohol-free beer, alcohol-free vermouth, alcohol-free wine, alcohol-free sherry, and alcohol-free whisky.

‘A whisky with alcohol,’ said Carvalho, and the waiter went to seek out a bottle of whisky with alcohol.

‘This is a whisky with alcohol,’ he said to the widow by way of presenting himself. She was wearing a turban of mauve silk that gave her a striking resemblance to Maria Montez and Jeanne Moreau.

‘I needed to talk to you, and there was no other opportunity.’

‘Fine. I’ll be able to congratulate Señor Planas while I’m here.’

‘My problem is that I’ve been waiting for you to ring and tell me how things are going, but there has been no call.’

‘Things are still more or less where they were. I can’t be expected in a few hours to solve a mystery that is over a year old.’

‘Who have you spoken to?’

He told her nothing about the San Magín connection. Her face registered no emotion when he mentioned the names of Lita Vilardell and Nisa Pascual.

‘Sergio Beser? Who’s Sergio Beser?’

‘An expert on Clarín’s novel
The Regent
. But he’s also very well up on Italian literature.’

‘Why did you have to go to him?’

‘I don’t know everything, you know. Poetry isn’t my forte, and your husband was very keen on verse.’

‘So, what progress has there been?’

‘None, and quite a lot.’

‘When will you know something? I presume that I shall be the first to hear. And by the way, you can forget about certain other people that seem to have become involved. My daughter, for one. Yes didn’t hire you—I did.’

‘The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.’

It was at this point that Planas joined the conversation.

‘Does that mean that Señor Carvalho is expecting to find his man here?’

‘It was I who asked him to come. There was no other way of talking to him.’

‘I haven’t congratulated you yet.’

‘Thank you. As I said when I was sworn in, it’s the kind of position which makes you its servant, not one that you use to serve yourself.’

‘You’re not making a speech now,’ the widow interjected.

‘I have to keep making the point until people believe me.’

He left in the direction from which he had come, carrying a glass of fruit juice. He received a slow, fulsome embrace from the Marquess of Munt, who was dressed like an admiral of the fleet from a country with no ships. With his arm around the shoulder of the successful candidate, the tall old man smiled and exchanged private whispers with Planas. Then Planas looked over his shoulder at Carvalho, and the Marquess’s gaze acquired a critical edge as it came to rest on the detective.

‘They’re watching us.’

‘So what?’

‘In a film, when the hero says to the heroine: “They’re watching us”, she is supposed to blush and give a little laugh. Then she takes him by the hand and pulls him into the garden.’

‘Here everyone looks at everyone.’

‘Yes, but usually without making it so obvious. Your two partners are watching us, and coming our way.’

‘Carvalho, why aren’t you drinking white wine? Don’t they have your brand here?’

‘You’re not drinking it either.’

‘No. I’m drinking an idiosyncracy I discovered in Portugal. Port with a cube of ice and a slice of lemon. It’s better than the best vermouth. His Highness the Count of Barcelona, in whose Council I had the honour of serving, recommended the combination during one of those endless sessions in Estoril. And Motrico agreed that it was excellent. Isidro, you ought to give up your diet, if only for a few minutes, and try a glass. Señor Carvalho, this man is impossible. When he goes on a diet, he doesn’t waver for a second. The same with his gymnastics.’

The marquess stroked Planas’s cheek with the back of his hand, and the cheek slipped away, without wishing to give offence.

‘Mima, you’re superb, and you’re looking younger every day. When I saw you across the room, I thought who can that radiant woman be? But who else could it have been?’

‘Señor Planas, Señor Ferrer Salat is asking after you.’

Insistent hushing sounds enforced quiet. The chairman of the Employers’ Federation expressed his pleasure that he had beside him such an efficient, hard-working and intelligent man as Isidro Planas. Meanwhile, Planas stood at attention, hands crossed over his kidneys, shoulders braced, and head erect, except when he declined modestly, in response to one of Ferrer Salat’s jocular, eulogistic remarks. The first speaker drew an applause that was brief but intense, perfectly in keeping with the time and the place. Planas took the front of the stage, and his head moved with a forceful motion, as if the words were being driven out under the pressure of an internal water pump.

‘I don’t apologize for having been born. We entrepreneurs must stop apologizing for the fact that we exist. Much of the
prosperity around us is due to our efforts—and yet, what a strange time this is, when the fact of being an employer, or of having been one, is seen as something to be ashamed of! I repeat, I do not apologize for the fact of having been born. And I was born a businessman.’

Applause. Munt took the opportunity to bend towards Carvalho and murmur, ‘What a demagogue!’

‘Not only will I not apologize for the fact that I exist, I also intend to fight to rebuild the morale that people are trying to deny us. There are a lot of suicidal types in our society who are woefully ignorant about the facts of life. They don’t realize that if the employers go under, then the country and the working class goes under too. A free society means a society in which the market economy and free enterprise make their law. This is our law, because we believe in a free society. Freedom should only ever be sacrificed in the interests of survival; but surely the best solution is for freedom and survival to combine.

‘You will be aware that this is the first time I have made a bid for office. Was that because it was politically inconvenient to do so previously? My friend the Marquess of Munt would say it was a matter of style. Perhaps so. But I believe that there have been, are, and will continue to be entrepreneurs under any political regime, and that our function is to secure a general prosperity which will be of benefit to all—which will guarantee peace and freedom. I place myself unreservedly under the command of our chairman, and as I take my place beside him, I say: Carlos, if you do not flag, then nor shall I, and nor shall we.’

The applause covered the sarcastic murmur with which the marquess greeted this outpouring.

‘They’re incorrigible. Can we never escape from rhetoric? And what about you, Mima? Why don’t you stand in the elections for the National Association of Businesswomen?’

The widow’s eyes gently rebuked him. Carvalho felt the marquess’s hoary hand on his shoulder. He smelt the sandalwood
perfume and felt confined in a prison of hypocritical confidences and civilities.

‘You’re a man after my own heart, Carvalho. Have you got anywhere with your investigations? I’ve been thinking over what we discussed the other day. Maybe it wasn’t so stupid, what I said about his going to university. I remember that Stuart once spoke of a particular American scholarship that would have allowed him to move around the United States at will. To study anthropology, I believe. The Midwest fascinated him. But that was before the South Seas idea. What do you think, Mima?’

‘Don’t forget that after the scholarship and before the South Seas, there was also a project for going off to Guatemala to study Maya culture.’

‘Every other week, some new scheme. But the South Seas project was on a different level. You were divine, Isidro! Absolutely divine!’

Planas let himself be embraced by the marquess.

‘Pity about the ending, though.
Don’t flag, Carlos!
Is this to be the new theme tune of our nation’s businessmen?’

‘You always treat everything as a joke.’

‘Everything except the survival of my legacy! Don’t flag, Isidro, don’t flag! Shall we eat together? Mima? Señor Carvalho? Should we count you out, Isidro? Presumably you’ll be dining with your new boss.’

‘Indeed. A working supper. Tomorrow we’re off to Madrid. Abril Martorell has invited us round to eat.’

‘Your first steps along the road to Calvary. What about you two?’

‘I already have an appointment.’

‘Mima?’

‘I’ll eat with you if you’ll leave me alone with the detective for a couple of minutes.’

‘That’s a fair deal. I’d be delighted, Mima.’