Southern Seas Read online

  ‘The usual.’

  ‘The tins of pork loin and butifarras in sauce have arrived.’

  ‘I’ll take two of each.’

  The assistant went through the rest of the order with routine precision.

  ‘This Salamanca ham isn’t what it used to be.’

  ‘They call everything Salamanca ham these days. If ham isn’t Jabugo or Trevélez, then it’s Salamanca. You’ve got to be so careful. But even then you can’t be sure whether the ham you’re eating is Salamanca or Totana.’

  ‘Yes you can.’

  ‘You can tell, because you know about these things. But I’ve seen people selling Granollers as if it were Jabugo. You see what I mean?’

  Carvalho left with a bag containing Casar, Cabrales and Ideazábal cheeses, Jabugo chorizos, Salamanca ham for everyday eating, and a small portion of the Jabugo for when he was feeling fed up.

  He was in a better mood by the time he reached the pet shop again. The owner was just shutting for the day.

  ‘That dog …’

  ‘What dog?’

  ‘The one that was in the window.’

  ‘It was full of dogs.’

  ‘The little wolf one.’

  ‘It was a bitch. I’ve got them all inside. I put them in cages for the night, so that no one comes smashing the window and taking them off to torture them. There’s a lot of sick minds around these days.’

  ‘I’d like to buy her.’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘It’ll cost you eight thousand pesetas,’ answered the owner, without reopening the door.

  ‘Can’t be much of a shepherd dog at a price like that …’

  ‘She’s got no pedigree. But she’s a very healthy dog. You’ll see for yourself. Very brave. I know the father, and the mother belongs to one of my brothers-in-law.’

  ‘I’m not worried about pedigree.’

  ‘Fine.’

  The dog wriggled as Carvalho tucked her under his arm. In his other hand, he was holding a bag full of cheese, sausage, tins of dogfood, rubber bones, insecticide, disinfectant and a brush—everything a man and a dog could need to be happy. Biscuter was surprised at the dignity of the little dog. It planted itself solidly on its hind paws, sticking out half a yard of tongue. Its huge ears looked like the swept-back wings of a plane going into a nosedive.

  ‘Looks like a rabbit, boss. Shall I keep her here?’

  ‘I’ll take her up to Vallvidrera. She’ll shit over everything here.’

  ‘By the way—there was a call for you. I jotted his name down in the office book.’

  Jaime Viladecans Riutorts. Lawyer. As Carvalho dialled the number, he called for Biscuter to heat up some food. He heard him moving around in the kitchenette that he had built next to the toilet. Biscuter was humming a tune, happy in his work, and the little dog was chewing the telephone wire. Two secretaries testified to the importance of the man he was calling. Finally the voice of an English lord, speaking with the accent of a Catalan dandy, came onto the line.

  ‘It’s a very delicate matter. We’ll need to speak in private.’

  Carvalho noted the details of a rendezvous, hung up, and leaned back in his swivel armchair with a certain air of satisfaction. Biscuter laid before him a steaming portion of wild rabbit with vegetable stew. The dog was trying to get a share of his meat, so Carvalho gently put her on the ground and tossed her a little piece of the rabbit.

  ‘It’s true what they say. Children do sometimes arrive with a loaf of bread under their arms.’

  Viladecans was wearing a gold tiepin and platinum cufflinks. He was impeccable from head to foot, starting from his balding pate which shone like a dry riverbed confined between two banks of white hair. Judging by the care with which the lawyer periodically brushed his hand back over the surviving undergrowth, it had recently been trimmed by the best hairdresser in the city. At the same time, a diminutive tongue moved with relish across a pair of almost closed lips.

  ‘Does the name Stuart Pedrell mean anything to you?’

  ‘Rings a bell.’

  ‘It may ring several. It’s a remarkable family. The mother was a distinguished concert pianist, although she retired when she married and subsequently only performed for charity. The father was of Scottish origin, and was an important industrialist before the war. Each of the sons is a public figure in his own right. You may have heard of the journalist, the biochemist, the educationalist, or the building contractor.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘I want to tell you about the building contractor.’

  He placed before Carvalho a set of local press cuttings mounted on file cards: ‘The body of an unidentified male has been found on a building site in Holy Trinity.’ ‘The body has subsequently been identified as that of Carlos Stuart Pedrell.’ ‘Pedrell had parted from his family a year ago on the pretext of a trip of Polynesia.’

  ‘Why “on the pretext”? Did he need a pretext?’

  ‘You know the language journalists use. The embodiment of impropriety.’

  Carvalho tried to embody impropriety in his mind, but failed. Viladecans launched into a resumé of the situation, peering over folded hands that had been cared for by the finest manicurist.

  ‘This is how things happened. I’ve known my friend—and he was, I must tell you, a really close friend—since we were at a Jesuit school together. Recently he was going through a sort of crisis. Some men, especially men as sensitive as Carlos, find it hard to adjust as they pass forty and see fifty looming up. That’s the only reason that I can find, why he should spend months and months on a plan to abandon everything and head off to some island in the South Pacific. Suddenly the project picked up speed. He let the business side of things drop and disappeared without trace. We all assumed that he’d taken off for Bali or Tahiti or Hawaii, or some such, and that he would soon be back. But the months passed, and everyone had to face up to the fact that he was apparently gone for good. So much so that Señora Stuart Pedrell moved to take charge of the business.

  ‘Then, in January, came the report that Stuart Pedrell had been found dead, here in Barcelona, stabbed, on a building site in Holy Trinity. We now know that he never reached Polynesia. But we’ve no idea where he was and what he was doing for all that time. That’s what we want you to find out.’

  ‘I remember the case. The murderer was never caught. Do you also want to know who killed him?’

  ‘Well, if the murderer comes to light, well and good. But our real concern is to find out what he did during that last year of his life. You must understand, there are a lot of interests at stake.’

  The office intercom announced that Señora Stuart Pedrell had arrived. The door opened almost at once on a forty-five-year-old woman who gave Carvalho an ache deep in his chest. She entered without so much as looking at him, and imposed her slim, mature figure as the only presence worthy of attention. Her face had dark, striking features that were showing the first painful signs of age. Viladecans’s introductions merely allowed her to accentuate the distance between herself and Carvalho by means of a curt ‘How d’you do’. As Carvalho replied, he was staring so intently at her breasts that she felt obliged to check with her hands to make sure there was nothing wrong with her dress.

  ‘I was just filling in Señor Carvalho on the background.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. Viladecans will have told you that I require discretion at all costs.’

  ‘The same discretion with which the case has been reported in the press. I see that none of these stories carries a photo of your husband.’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘My husband went off at the height of a personal crisis. He wasn’t in his right mind. On those rare occasions when he calmed down a bit, he would grab anyone who cared to listen and tell them the life story of Gauguin. He wanted to be a Gauguin too. Leave everything and go off to the South Seas. Leave me, his children, his business and his social world—everythin
g. A man in that state of mind becomes easy prey, and if too much had been said about the case, all kinds of unscrupulous characters could have come out of the woodwork.’

  ‘Did you come to some understanding with the police?’

  ‘They did all they could. So did the Ministry of External Affairs.’

  ‘External Affairs?’

  ‘There was a possibility that he had actually set off for the South Seas.’

  ‘But he hadn’t?’

  ‘No,’ she replied, with a certain satisfaction.

  ‘And you’re pleased about that?’

  ‘Yes I am, a little. I got fed up with the whole business. More than once I told him: “Stop talking about it. If you’re going to go, then go!” He was suffocated by his money, you know.’

  ‘Mima …’

  Viladecans tried to cut her short.

  ‘Everyone round here feels suffocated. Everyone except me. When he went, I was finally able to breathe properly. I’ve worked hard. I’ve done his work as well as he ever did it. Better, in fact. Because I’ve done it without complaining all the time.’

  ‘May I remind you, Mima, that we’re here for a very special purpose.’

  But Carvalho and the widow were looking each other up and down, as if to gauge each other’s capacity for aggression.

  ‘In other words, you have a certain attachment to the job.’

  ‘Laugh if you like. A certain attachment, yes. But not a very great attachment. This business has shown me that no one is indispensable. But then we are all usurpers in the positions we hold.’

  Carvalho was troubled by the dark passion emanating from those black eyes, from the two lines that curved round a mature and knowing mouth.

  ‘What exactly do you want to know?’

  ‘What exactly did my husband do during that year? A year when we all thought that he was in the South Seas, but when he was God knows where, doing God knows what. I have an eldest son who’s turned out like his father—and, what is worse, who is going to inherit even more money. Another two are probably at this minute doing motorbike trials on one of the hills around here. I have a daughter whose nerves have never recovered since her father’s body was found. And a young son whom the Jesuits have expelled from school. I have a great many things that I need to keep an eye on.’

  ‘What do you know so far?’

  Viladecans and the widow looked at each other. It was the lawyer who replied.

  ‘The same as you.’

  ‘Wasn’t there anything on the dead man that might give us a lead?’

  ‘They’d emptied his pockets.’

  ‘This is all they found.’

  The widow took from her bag a crumpled page from a diary. Someone had written on it with a felt-tip pen: più nessuno mi porterà nel sud.

  ‘I don’t even know you.’

  He had short hair and was wearing a brown suit and no tie. A pair of very dark sunglasses threw into even sharper relief the gleaming pallor of an adolescent face. Despite the lightness of his figure, there was something oily in his manner, as if his joints had been greased.

  ‘If they find out that I’m giving you this information, they’ll run me out of the force.’

  ‘Señor Viladecans is a very influential person.’

  ‘All his influence wouldn’t save me. Besides, they’ve got their eye on me. For political reasons. This place is full of hypocrites. Everyone talks about how terrible things are, but they won’t do anything. They’re all too worried about promotion and not losing their cushy jobs.’

  ‘Are you a socialist?’

  ‘No way! I’m a patriotic policeman.’

  ‘I see. Were you involved on the Stuart Pedrell case? Tell me everything you know.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell. At first we thought it had something to do with queers. It’s not very often that a rich guy disappears and turns up stabbed, a year later. It looked like a clear case of buggery. But then the forensic people told us that he had a virgin arse, and none of the male prostitutes had heard of him. Then there were the clothes. They weren’t his own. He’d been dressed in a set of shabby old clothes, second or third hand. Obviously they didn’t want to leave any clues.’

  ‘But why did they leave that note?’

  ‘To keep us chasing around, I guess. Do you understand it?’

  ‘No more will anyone carry me south.’

  ‘Yes. We found that much out. But what was he trying to say?’

  ‘He’d been planning a trip to the South Seas, to some place in the Pacific.’

  ‘But look at the note carefully. No more … will anyone … carry me … me … me … south. It refers to someone who might have taken him, but didn’t. That’s where we got stuck. And why in Italian?’

  ‘Was it his handwriting?’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘Conclusion …?’

  ‘He must have been suffering from amnesia or something. He got caught up with the underworld, and they stuck a knife in him. Unless he was kidnapped and the family kept very quiet about it. Maybe they didn’t want to hand over the bread and left him to croak. Another idea is that it was something to do with business, but that’s been more or less discarded. The roughest business he was involved in was construction, and there he always used front men. Anyway, here’s a list of all the people we’ve been chasing: partners, friends, associates and rivals. I’ve already told Viladecans that we’re not taking it any further.’

  ‘The police have dropped it?’

  ‘Yes. The family did everything they could to stop us continuing. They waited a reasonable time and then moved in to close down the inquiries. For the good of the family, and all that …’

  The young policeman made a strange sound with his tongue against the inside wall of his cheek, which Carvalho took to be a sign of departure. He stood up to walk to the door, but the dog waylaid him and started snapping at his heels.

  ‘Down, boy!’

  ‘It’s a she.’

  ‘That means trouble! You having her neutered?’

  Carvalho frowned, and the policeman departed. Feeling hurt by the snub, the dog bent her head to left and to right, as if to work out which way lay good and evil in the world.

  ‘You’re very soft.’

  ‘A bleda.’ Biscuter used the Catalan word as he appeared from behind the curtain.

  ‘That’s right. We’ll call you Bleda because you’re a real softy.’

  ‘And she shits wherever it takes her fancy,’ added Biscuter. Reproachfully.

  The difference between Biscuter and Bleda was that, more or less, and for better or worse, Bleda had a certain breeding, and Biscuter did not. In Carvalho’s old prison companion nature had produced the miracle of an innocent ugliness: a fair-haired and nervous ugly duckling condemned to premature baldness.

  He heard Charo’s footsteps on the staircase. The landing door opened.

  ‘So you’re still in the land of the living! Don’t tell me you were just about to ring.’

  ‘All right, I won’t.’

  Carvalho took a bottle of wine from a metal bucket, dried it with a napkin, and filled the three glasses that Biscuter had laid on the table.

  ‘Try it, Charo. The Catalans are learning to make wine. It’s a blanc de blancs. Excellent. Particularly at this time of day.’

  ‘Which time?’

  ‘This time. Between lunchtime dessert and the first course of dinner.’

  Charo fell into the trap. Sitting with her knees together and her feet apart, she drank the wine, taking her rhythm from Carvalho. Biscuter tried to do the same.

  ‘Ugh! What’s that?’

  ‘A dog. Or rather, a bitch.’

  Charo rose to her feet, alarmed by Bleda’s insistent sniffing.

  ‘Is this your new girlfriend?’

  ‘Brand new. I bought her yesterday.’

  ‘Bit scruffy, isn’t she? What’s her name?’

  ‘Bleda.’

  ‘Sleepy?’

  ‘In Catalan,
bleda doesn’t just mean sleepy. It also means softy.’

  Having contributed his expert knowledge, Biscuter disappeared into the kitchen. As the dog sat on her lap and tried to lick her face, Charo directed a string of accusations at Carvalho. His mind was on something else, but he refilled the glasses, and they drank with thirsty boredom. The fresh, acidic flavour of the wine caused a tingling sensation behind his ears, and the whole of his mouth worked to counteract it. He felt somehow authenticated, as if he had recovered a little corner of his homeland within himself.

  ‘I’m sorry, Charo, but I’ve been very tired. I still am. How’s business?’

  ‘Bad. The competition is getting out of hand. The economic crisis has got even nuns screwing for money.’

  ‘Don’t be so vulgar, Charo. Anyway, I thought your clients were pretty select.’

  ‘Why don’t we talk about something else, darling?’

  Pepe had forgotten that she didn’t like discussing her work with him. Or maybe he hadn’t forgotten? He wanted Charo to leave, but didn’t want to offend her. He looked at her as she raised the glass to her lips. Sitting there with her legs apart, she had the awkwardness of a visitor. Carvalho gave an enigmatic smile that puzzled her. He had suddenly realized that, for all his efforts not to get involved, he was now morally and emotionally responsible for three people and a dog: himself, Charo, Biscuter and Bleda.

  ‘Come on, Charo, let’s go out for a meal.’ He went over to where Biscuter was bustling about behind the door.

  ‘You too, Biscuter. It’s on the firm.’

  They ate at the Túnel restaurant. Biscuter was surprised at the dish of haricot beans and shellfish that Carvalho decided to order.

  ‘What will they think of next, boss?’

  ‘The recipe’s as old as the hills. Before the potato reached Europe, people had to find something to eat with their meat and fish.’

  ‘You’re a mine of information, boss.’

  Charo decided on a vegetable casserole and grilled tuna. Carvalho was still obsessively absorbed with his wine, as if performing a transfusion of chilled white blood.