The Whispering City Read online

  * * *

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Abacus

  978-0-3491-3994-4

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Rosa Ribas and Sabine Hofmann 2013

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Translation copyright © Mara Faye Lethem 2015

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  ABACUS

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  The Whispering City

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  Dedication

  Note

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  To you, Celia, forever in my memory

  Note

  This book has been selected to receive financial assistance from English PEN’s Writers in Translation programme supported by Bloomberg and Arts Council England. English PEN exists to promote literature and its understanding, uphold writers’ freedoms around the world, campaign against the persecution and imprisonment of writers for stating their views, and promote the friendly co-operation of writers and free exchange of ideas.

  Each year, a dedicated committee of professionals selects books that are translated into English from a wide variety of foreign languages. We award grants to UK publishers to help translate, promote, market and champion these titles. Our aim is to celebrate books of outstanding literary quality, which have a clear link to the PEN charter and promote free speech and intercultural understanding.

  In 2011, Writers in Translation’s outstanding work and contribution to diversity in the UK literary scene was recognised by Arts Council England. English PEN was awarded a threefold increase in funding to develop its support for world writing in translation.

  www.englishpen.org

  There she lay. Mariona. Pale, blonde, voluptuous, and… dead.

  Abel Mendoza paced from one side of the massive desk to the other like a caged ferret, raising small clouds of dust as he shuffled piles of papers that hadn’t been touched in months. He turned towards shelves filled with medical reference works. His hands seemed to have taken on a life of their own and moved wildly, pulling out books and picking up others that had fallen to the floor, closing open drawers and opening closed ones.

  Finally he found what he was looking for. Just at that moment, with the back of his left hand, he inadvertently knocked a plastic skull to the floor. Half of it was covered in muscles and had an eye; the other half was bare bones. Skulls wear a permanent smile, even when they’ve fallen to the floor. The impact sent an eyeball flying, bouncing like a ping-pong ball towards the recumbent body.

  He picked up the skull and, despite his nervousness, or perhaps because of it, couldn’t resist returning its smile. Then the rolling plastic eye hit the heel of the dead woman’s single shoe. The hollow thud it made sent him over the edge into real panic.

  Abel Mendoza fled the room, running out through the door he had opened just minutes earlier with a picklock.

  1

  ‘Mariona Sobrerroca’s been murdered.’

  As always, Goyanes sounded neutral, professional. Joaquín Grau switched the heavy black receiver into his other hand so that he could rub his right temple. The headache he’d had since getting out of bed that morning flared up when the Commissioner gave him the news. Yet the voice at the other end of the line kept talking, oblivious to the effect it was having.

  ‘Her maid found the body this morning, when she came back from a weekend with relatives in Manresa. The house was turned upside down; must have been a break-in.’

  His headache intensified still further. Grau reached out for the glass of water his secretary had left for him on the table, grabbed a little packet of powdered painkiller, stuck it between his teeth and ripped it open. He poured its contents into the water and stirred it silently with a teaspoon. He drank it down in a single gulp before interrupting the Commissioner.

  ‘Who’s assigned to the case?’

  ‘I gave it to Burguillos.’

  ‘No. I’m not so sure about him.’

  A snort was heard at the other end of the line. Grau ignored it. ‘I want Castro on this case,’ he ordered.

  ‘Castro?’

  ‘Yes, Castro. He’s the best you have.’

  Goyanes could only nod.

  ‘OK,’ he conceded, but he sounded displeased.

  The public prosecutor responded irritably. ‘And I expect results soon. The Eucharistic Congress is going to be held here in a month, and I want the city clean. Is that clear?’

  ‘Crystal clear.’

  After hanging up, Grau analysed the conversation. He had made the right choice. Castro was one of the most capable inspectors in the Criminal Investigation Brigade, if not the most capable. And he knew him to be absolutely loyal. He wasn’t as convinced about Goyanes, despite the fact that the CIB’s Commissioner had, once again, just shown him the necessary degree of deference. For some time now, Grau hadn’t been sure he could trust Goyanes and his closest men, including Inspector Burguillos.

  For the moment, his position in the public prosecutor’s office was secure. For the moment. But he was aware that he had many enemies, and their number was growing. He knew too that they were clever, and capable of hiding in the shadows until the opportune moment arrived. He had to stay sharp. Goyanes had followed orders, but Grau had noticed that he was even more distant than usual. Or was it just his imagination? He had to stay focused, on guard, as always. The lion who takes the first swipe is usually victorious.

  Relentless, that was how he liked to think of himself. Just like during the war, when he had been a military judge known for his ability to pass death sentences without wavering. That was why, after the war, when the Regime appointed trusted people for the new Justice Administration, they’d named him public prosecutor of Barcelona. The work they’d begun during t
he war wasn’t over, there was still a lot to do. And he was still relentless.

  He leaned back in his seat and looked at the pile of letters on his desk. He had never allowed his secretary to open them, just as he hadn’t invited any familiarity between them. He always made sure to check out his staff thoroughly, but his secretary didn’t know a single thing about her boss that wasn’t strictly necessary. Not his secretary, not anyone. He would never understand some people’s need to tell others their personal stories, to open flanks of attack to the enemy gratuitously.

  His gaze remained fixed on the unopened envelopes. It still made him feel slightly uneasy to see the day’s correspondence on his desk. For several weeks after the commuters’ strike last spring, he had opened the post with some trepidation. The popular public transportation boycott over the increase in fares and the ensuing general strike had caused many heads to roll. The first to go was Barcelona’s prefect, followed immediately by the mayor. Two Falange officers ended up in jail because they didn’t show sufficient enthusiasm for sending their units to fill the tramcars and break the strike. Other old-guard Falangists had also lost their posts. No one could be sure of holding onto their position.

  He grabbed one of the letters at random, an envelope of fine paper that he tore with a sharp thrust of his steel-handled letter opener. It was an invitation to an official reception. Of course he would go, if only to avoid giving them the opportunity to whisper and plot behind his back. Yes, he was on his guard.

  And now the Sobrerroca murder. Mariona Sobrerroca, dead. He had known her; he’d had social dealings with both her and her husband, the late Jerónimo Garmendia. Life takes so many twists and turns! Their magnificent mansion on Tibidabo had emptied over the course of just two years. In that brief stretch of time, the Grim Reaper had caught up with them both. ‘I’m becoming morose,’ he thought. ‘And that’s no good; that and this headache are a bad combination.’ There was only one solution for both things, and that was to keep a cool head. Mariona Sobrerroca’s death was just work – it was a case, a police investigation. One that involved sniffing around among the Barcelona bourgeoisie. On the one hand, that could be complicated. Who knew what they were going to turn up? Every investigation, no matter where, aired dirty laundry. It was like digging for wells: go deep enough and you always find shit. And those people didn’t want you looking into their sewers any more than anyone else did. The difference was that they were well connected, so he had to treat them with kid gloves. They were quick to complain, and they knew exactly whom to address their complaints to. Later, he’d have to hope that the results of the investigation were satisfactory. Perhaps, as on other occasions, he’d have to hide some things. And he wasn’t sure whether this case would distinguish him in the public eye.

  And then again maybe it would.

  He picked up the phone and dialled Goyanes’s number.

  He got straight to the point. ‘I want this case to get priority treatment in the press.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s important to show the world that this country pursues its criminals and punishes them efficiently.’

  He didn’t care whether Goyanes believed those words, lifted from official speeches, or not. Grau knew they were incontestable.

  ‘What does “priority” mean?’ the Commissioner wanted to know.

  ‘That we’re going to give one newspaper the exclusive: La Vanguardia.’

  ‘La Vanguardia? Why them? Remember what they did with the information in the Broto case…’

  ‘That’s exactly why. This time, as the only official source, they won’t be able to start speculating.’

  That conversation was even briefer than the first one.

  Afterwards, he tipped his head back and closed his eyes, in the hope of mitigating the pain, which was now making itself felt as a throbbing in his ears.

  On the other hand, he told himself, returning to the train of thought he’d interrupted in order to call the Commissioner, it was very likely that these enquiries would yield some interesting information, which he’d make sure to file away for future use. Maybe he’d even get some material that could help him solve a few of his own little problems.

  He began to notice his headache easing slightly.

  2

  At nine that morning, as she contemplated her half-empty cup of coffee with sleepy eyes, Ana Martí heard the telephone in the stairway. It was kept in a nook beneath the first set of stairs, inside a box with a shutter door that closed with a lock. Only Teresina Sauret, the doorkeeper and the Serrahimas, the building’s owners, who lived on the main floor, had the key. When the telephone rang, the doorkeeper picked it up and told whomever it was for that they had a call. If she felt like it; sometimes she wasn’t in the mood. Tips or Christmas bonuses, either the expectation of receiving them or the generosity of their presentation, spurred her on to climb the stairs.

  That day, it was the possibility of claiming the two months of back rent Ana owed that made her legs swifter, and soon after the shrill ringing had got her out of her flat, the doorkeeper had already reached the third floor – which was really the fourth, when you counted the unnumbered main floor – and was banging on the door.

  ‘Señorita Martí, telephone.’

  Ana opened the door. Teresina Sauret, planted in the middle of the doorway, blocked her exit. Cold, damp air came in through the spaces not filled by her plump body, which was squeezed into a plush robe. Ana grabbed her coat, in case the call was long, and the keys to lock up against the doorkeeper’s prying eyes. Teresina must have thought she was looking for the money, and she moved aside. Ana slipped through the gap to exit her flat and closed the door, leaving Teresina’s face a few centimetres from the wood, at the height of the bronze peephole, round like a porthole. The peepholes on the other three doors shone in the light of the bare bulb that hung from the landing ceiling. There were no lamps in the hallways of the floors for let, only in the entryway and the main floor, for the Serrahimas’ visitors. The owners seemed completely unconcerned by this fact, or what the tenants might think about it.

  The doorkeeper muttered something; it was unlikely to have been anything nice or pleasant, but Teresina Sauret took the precaution of not saying it too loudly. That way, Ana, the layabout, would get the message just from her tone, yet anyone overhearing it would fail to understand.

  Meanwhile, Ana ran down the stairs, reached the nook and picked up the heavy Bakelite receiver Teresina had left resting on the box.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Aneta?’

  It was Mateo Sanvisens, editor-in-chief at La Vanguardia.

  ‘Do you know Mariona Sobrerroca?’

  How could she not? She had been writing for the society pages for almost two years; there was no way she could have escaped knowing who she was. The widow of a posh doctor and heiress to an old Catalan lineage, she was part of the fixed cast at all the city’s important parties.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied.

  Moving away from the door to Ana’s flat, Teresina Sauret had begun her descent, slackening her pace to be able to catch part of the phone conversation. Her feet drew closer with exasperating slowness.

  ‘Well, now you don’t know her, you knew her.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘And you need the obituary for tomorrow…’ she started to say.

  The lines of text were already writing themselves in her head: ‘Illustrious Mariona Sobrerroca i Salvat is no longer with us. Garmendia’s widow, generous benefactor of…’ Sanvisens’s next remark snatched the mental typewriter right out of her head.

  ‘Aneta, dear, are you daft, or has watching too much opera made you feeble-minded? You think I would call you for an obituary?’

  She had been ghostwriting for the newspaper long enough to know when she should leave Sanvisens’s questions unanswered. She took advantage of the silence to nod goodbye to the doorkeeper, who had finally reached the last stair. Teresina
Sauret went into her flat. The sound of her slippers against the floor stopped, as was to be expected, just behind the door.

  ‘She’s been murdered.’

  She must have startled the doorkeeper with the exclamation that slipped out when she heard those words, because there was a bang against the door. I hope she hit her head good and hard, thought Ana.

  ‘I’d like you to follow up on the matter. Will you do it?’

  She had a lot of questions. Why me? Why isn’t Carlos Belda doing it? What are the police saying? What do you want me to do? Why me? She had so many questions that she simply said, ‘Yes.’

  Mateo Sanvisens asked her to come into the office immediately.

  She hung up, then raced up to her flat with long strides, put on some shoes, grabbed her bag and headed down the stairs. Teresina Sauret was closing the little door to the telephone.

  ‘Such manners! What’s the rush?’ Ana heard as she went running out onto the street and headed towards the Ronda.

  She passed, without a glance, the graffiti of José Antonio’s face over block letters that read ‘HERE WITH US!’ Stencilling the founder of the fascist Falange party – the martyr, as many called him – was considered less an act of vandalism than one of patriotism. Which was why no one had dared to complain about it. They were too afraid of drawing attention to themselves. Since there were no trams heading towards the Plaza de la Universidad, she chose to walk rather than wait. She walked so briskly to Pelayo Street that soon her legs didn’t feel the cold. At the newspaper office she waited for Sanvisens to answer her questions. Maybe he’d even tell her why he’d called her instead of Carlos Belda, who always handled the crime news.

  ‘Carlos is off sick. He’ll be out for at least a week, if not two,’ Sanvisens said after greeting her and looking at his watch, as if he had timed her progress since the call.

  Out of courtesy, she asked, ‘What does he have?’

  ‘The clap. They treated it with penicillin and he had a reaction.’

  ‘Maybe the penicillin was bad.’

  It wouldn’t have been surprising. There had been more than one case of adulterated medication that had left a trail of the dead and chronically ill. Adulterating penicillin was a crime punishable by death. So was tampering with bread or milk. But it was still done.