THE CURIOUS CASEBOOK OF OSCAR GARCIA



By Martin Sowery



Copyright 2013 Martin Sowery



Smashwords Edition



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Chapter One – The Windmill (El Molino)

 As usual, José drove faster than was necessary. Oscar wasn´t prepared to talk about it anymore, but there was a note of exasperation in his voice as he told José to park at the foot of the small hill that led up to the house. He wanted time to get the feel of the place before they went in.
By the time they had walked up the steep road as far as the iron gates, the big man was wheezing heavily. He was strong, but he needed to lose some weight: Oscar had told him often enough.
There was an intercom system at the gate. It seemed to be working, from the buzzing, but no-one answered. It turned out the gate was not locked. They passed through and started up the gravel drive.
-I wouldn´t mind owning a house like this someday, José commented.
-You´ll wait a long time, on a policeman´s pay, Oscar told him.
The house stood at an angle to the path, the better to catch the sunlight. There was an expanse of lawn in front, sloping down to the road, with sprinklers buried at regular intervals. At the sides and back, the house was ringed closely by the trees of a small wood that extended away up the hill as far as they could see.
They rang the doorbell, but again no answer. Seeing that the shutters were not lowered, Oscar peered through the windows of the front ground floor elevation. He noted that the rooms were as immaculate as the house itself: polished wooden floors, expensive pieces of furniture, a clock in a tall cabinet. But no people.
-That´s strange, José told him. The door isn´t locked.
He pushed it gently open with his huge paw of a hand. They exchanged glances and stepped inside cautiously.
The owner was waiting for them in a drawing room on the ground floor, in the cooler part of the house that was partly shaded by the trees. She was standing perfectly still in front of a full length window, looking away from them; watching the rays of sunlight that gave the leaves of the trees a dappled effect which constantly shifted as the breeze moved them. Sunbeams shone through the glass, lighting up specks of dust that floated sparkling in the gloomy interior. When the lady turned to face them, she was framed in sunlight.
José apologized for their walking in unannounced and explained who they were. Oscar observed a woman in late middle age: quite elegant. She might have been beautiful when she was younger: thin, erect, medium height, dressed well. Her eyes seemed older than the rest of her and the skin of her face was quite grey, as if she´d always used too much make-up or never been outside enough. She wore her hair longer than was usual for her age, but it was still thick and straight, though strands of white and grey suggested that she´d given up dyeing it recently. Her mouth was quite small and the lips were too thin. Oscar, who frequently accused himself of having too much imagination, would have said that it was a mouth that was not cruel, but had experienced suffering.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the woman was that she had not seemed in any way shocked or surprised to see them. She asked them to sit down, but herself remained standing by the window.
-It´s about your husband, señora, José explained. He hasn´t been seen at his office for a few days and they haven´t heard from him. He´s been reported missing.
-These days my husband doesn´t need to take much interest in his business, she told them. It practically runs itself.
- His secretary told us that he always calls in by phone, even when he´s away.
-Why don´t you ask that bitch where he is? the lady snapped. She should know better than me.
José shrugged. He was sitting perched on the edge of an upholstered chair that had carved wooden arms which squeezed his fat sides. The effect was comical.
-That´s none of our business, señora, he explained. We only want to check his whereabouts.
-I´m sorry. That was rude and uncalled for. The fact is, I haven´t seen my husband for days. He´s often away. When he is here he spends the time in his observatory, looking at the stars. We hardly speak to each other.
-He has an observatory? Oscar asked.
-That´s what he calls it. It´s in the ruin of the windmill, behind the house. Maybe you didn´t see it from the path. But anyway there´s no-one there now.
-Even so, said Oscar, I should like to see it. Would you mind? My colleague will stay here and have a look round, if that´s alright. Nothing obtrusive. We won´t touch anything. Just so that we can say we have made the official visit, you understand.
-Oh dear, I suppose I don´t have any choice.
The señora led him to the back door of the house and pointed to a large key that was hanging from a hook on the wall; suspended on an old frayed string. Oscar took the key and held the door open for the lady. The back door wasn´t locked either. Oscar followed her along a path that wound through the dense trees until they came to a little space, where rising above them he saw the round tower of a genuine old-fashioned windmill. The vanes and mechanism were gone, but the rough old stone looked sound.
-He might as well live here, the lady told Oscar.
Oscar fitted the key into the lock of a heavy wooden door that was studded with iron nails. He pushed the door open and stood aside for the woman to enter first.
Inside it was almost dark. They were standing at the foot of a stone staircase that had been set into the circular walls. There was a wooden floor some metres below them, with no obvious way down to it. In the half-light from the narrow slit windows high above, the wood looked rotted and there was a smell of damp. Looking up, the stairs wound upward to an upper floor of fresh boards laid on heavy timbers.
-There´s another door at the top, she told him, but it´s never locked. My husband is always saying he´ll get it fixed up down here. It´s disgusting and not even any electric light. The truth is, as soon as he had everything to his liking up there, he lost interest in the rest. That´s the kind of man he is. Maybe he wanted to leave it like this to put off unwanted visitors.
-Can we go upstairs?
-Follow me. Be careful. Remember there´s no rail.
The lady began to climb the staircase in quick confident steps, like she´d done it many times. There was just enough light to see by. Oscar supposed that they used lanterns in the night times. Looking down, he noticed a dark gap in the floor below where something heavy had crashed through it. The wood was certainly rotten below, though above it looked fine. Now he could see that the stairs ended at a wooden platform, which had been hidden in shadow. There was a door there that separated this part of the building from the observatory.
He was looking at that when he suddenly realized that he had put down the weight of his foot into empty air. One of the steps was missing. Oscar went sprawling down and the momentum of his stride made him roll sideways, over the edge of the narrow staircase. His fingers clawed at something to hold onto and for a moment he tottered, feeling that most of his body was hanging in the void. When he found balance again, he saw that he was clutching at the stone with one hand, while the other maintained a fingertip grip on the heavy duty power cable that was bolted to the wall along the line of the staircase.
The lady stood above him, watching calmly.
-I warned you to be careful, she said.
Behind the door was a bachelor´s den. There was a large telescope with a confusing array of attachments, mounted on a substantial tripod and pointing upward at a large window that was set high above the floor and seemed to be fitted with electric motors for opening and closing. There was electric lighting and a music system, but no television. Just now the room was flooded with natural sunlight.
The place was furnished with a pair of worn but comfortable-looking armchairs, a well stocked drinks cabinet with glasses (no empty or half-filled glasses on the oak coffee table) and a tall bookcase filled with hard backed and battered paperback editions of varying shapes and sizes. The only book on the table was a translation of the second volume of Burton´s Anatomy of Melancholy: it had a scrap of newspaper marking a page about one third of the way through. Oscar sniffed at the binding then replaced the book on the table.
-Nothing here, as you can see, she told him.
-You´ll have to leave this place, you know, Oscar said gently. You won´t be able to stay here.
-You understand then.
-Yes.
-I wasn´t ready to leave this place. It´s been my home for so long.
-The house is very beautiful.
-Won´t you try some scotch? My husband has always insisted on the finest quality.
-Thank you, but not while I´m on duty.
-I suppose not.
She walked across to the big window. It was just low enough so that you could look out and see the house if you were standing close. She spoke to him without taking her eyes off it.
-It was bad enough that he did what he did, but then he was planning to get rid of me. I heard him talking aloud to himself. “Dispose of the old woman” was what he said. But I couldn´t go. He couldn´t make me.
-It must have been hard for you.
-He drank too much sometimes when he was up here you know. He never was a drinker before and it made him unsteady.
-Those steps could be dangerous if you´re startled by something.
The lady still hadn´t taken her gaze off the house.
-I suppose your man is conducting a thorough search?
-He´s discreet, Oscar told her. I know he looks clumsy, but he won´t make a mess or break anything.
-When did you know? she asked him.
-About you? From the first moment. But then on the stairs you confirmed it for me. A second before I almost fell, I watched you climb a step, only when I put my foot on it, the same step wasn´t there.
Finally, she turned to face him.
-And that smell downstairs, he said. It´s not just damp, is it?
Oscar went back to the house alone. José was waiting for him.
-Where´s the lady, he asked.
-She´s gone.
José didn´t reply. He knew better than to ask what his boss meant. When Oscar said something that sounded impossible, you had to wait until he was ready to explain it to you.
-I think she´s crazy, José said. Everything in the fridge is rotten. No wonder she didn´t offer us a drink or anything. The house is neat, but too neat, like no-one´s living here, or it´s the home of an obsessive. If you ask me, we should be looking for a body.
-I already found it, Oscar told him; up at the windmill, in the basement. But it´s not one body, it´s two, and they´ve been there for a while. You´d better warn forensics it´s not going to be a pleasant job.

END


Chapter Two The Cat and the Box
(for Giorgio)

Oscar got the message from his boss to call in at the station. The inspector sounded worried, which was not usual.
It was another missing persons case. The subject was a male, in his thirties; no known associates and no obvious reason for him to disappear. His landlord made the call when the subject, name Jorge Lombardi, hadn’t shown up as usual to pay the rent (he always paid promptly and in cash, though the landlord had no idea what he did for a living).
-Unusual name.
-Unusual person, the boss replied.
-But still. People go missing all the time. Why do you need me to look into it?
-Lombardi was working in Estados Unidos when he was younger, in the place where they design all the computers. His landlord thought he’d been some kind of scientific prodigy and that checks out, up to a point. He came home about ten years ago and no-one knows what he’s been doing since.
-That still doesn’t explain.
-There’s some kind of device left in his flat. The officer who took the call got the landlord to let him in. It was a mess inside. Seems Lombardi didn’t let even a cleaner in. There was no sign of our boy, just this thing.
-What kind of thing?
-We don’t know. That’s the point. There’s an ordinary little laptop, connected to a metal ball that’s heavy and a box that seems too light to have anything inside. The officer thought it might be something terrorists would make, so he didn’t touch anything apart from to unplug the electricity at the socket.
-That was brave, but a little foolish. And?
-And nothing. There’s nothing else in the flat but a few sticks of furniture and some old clothes; and a stack of notebooks and papers that takes up most of the spare bedroom. Perhaps I should call the security services, but you know what they said last time. I’d feel like an idiot if we‘re only dealing with a harmless crank once more. You’re the intellectual of the department. I thought you could call round with Jose; have a look, check out the notes. Think about whether it’s something we need to take seriously.
-There are experts for this kind of thing.
-I know, I know: but if it’s something ridiculous we don’t want them laughing at a bunch of ignorant policemen.
Jose met him downstairs, disappointed to hear that there was no need to use the blue light for this journey. The flat was just as the inspector described. The landlord was a short, skinny man wearing only a vest and a pair of greasy black trousers in the heat. He had a thin face contrasting with thick dark hair that stood out at every angle. His front teeth were too prominent and he made the effect worse with a nervous smile that Oscar often saw on the faces of those who were not comfortable around policemen. After he let them in, he excused himself, saying that he lived in the flat downstairs if he should be needed. Oscar could hear the words of the adverts playing on the television in the room below. Not an ideal place for study.
The landlord said that he hoped everything would be well with Snr. Lombardi. He was a good man, even though no-one ever saw him or spoke to him.
-I suppose that means he pays the rent regularly, Jose commented, when the man had gone.
The only thing that stood out in the room was the box and its attachments. The box itself was a cube of about one metre and a half. It seemed metallic, but Oscar could not be sure. The cube and the ball stood on the floor, but the computer sat on a tiny metal frame table. It was an ordinary laptop, not even high spec. The ball was slightly bigger than a football, definitely metal and studded with irregular indentations and what looked like ports that could be opened or else plugged into. The three items were connected by a thick sheath of cables, or possibly flexible pipes, that were bundled together and roughly bound with insulating tape. It all seemed very homemade.
Oscar knelt down and touched the metal football.
-It’s warm.
-What does that mean?
-Perhaps it’s still working, even without a mains connection. There’s no hum. Maybe it has its own power supply.
-Powering what?
Oscar didn’t reply.
A black cat jumped up onto the sill of the half open window and down into the room. The effect was startling, but the creature looked like an ordinary street cat; thin and slightly battered. It ignored them completely and stalked to a corner of the room where a saucer and bowl were set out on the floor. Oscar could see that what remained of the contents of these had been there so long that it had fused with the plate. The cat inspected the situation then padded away in disgust: it remained, watching them from a safe distance.
Jose took a few steps towards the window.
-The fire escape comes down this way, he said. That’s how it gets in. Shall I close the window?
Oscar shrugged.
-Looks like the cat lives here.
Jose left it as it was.
-You know what’s strange, he told Oscar. There’s no router and no telephone connection. A supposed genius and it looks like he doesn’t even have internet.
-It seems he’s cut himself off from the world these last ten years.
The notes in the spare bedroom were even more numerous and disorganized than Oscar had expected.
-It might take months even for an expert to understand any of this, he said. I don’t know what the boss thinks I can do. You see these notebooks on the shelf; that seem to have some kind of order? Yes I thought so. Seems to be some kind of journal. I’ll try to make some sense of that, but I’ll need a couple of hours. Find out what the neighbours can tell us. And he must have bought groceries somewhere nearby. Make the landlord a little less comfortable than he seems to be already.
Jose nodded and ambled away. Oscar busied himself with the endless pages of dense handwritten script. A little less than two hours later, his partner returned. He went straight into the kitchen and returned with a couple of loaded saucers.
-Something for the cat, he explained.
The cat was curled in a corner of the main room. It waited until he’d put down the saucers in the usual place and moved away before stretching and moving to inspect.
-The landlord is a decent enough type, Jose said. He just doesn’t trust policemen.
-Can’t blame him for that.
-The neighbours don’t see our man. He doesn’t make noise: doesn’t come home late.
-What about the local shops?
-They had some churros left over from the morning. Not bad. Jose brushed at his sleeve and licked some sugar off his fingers. I’d have brought you some, but I know you don’t like. The bar has good coffee.
-Nothing then.
-How about you?
After two hours of reading his notes, Oscar knew Lombardi better, but still he wasn’t sure if the man was sane. He’d started out working of ways to make computers faster and more powerful: that had been his job. In the beginning he kept mentioning something called Moore’s Law. Oscar knew that this was the idea that technology doubled the amount of information that could be held in a silicon chip every two years. To most people, that was incredible, if it was true; but to Lombardi this rate of progress seemed feeble and without ambition.
Lombardi’s notes were scornful of rivals who discovered ever more intricate pathways for information. He said that they were only resolving the map into greater detail, when the adventure was to find new territories and make the journey time between them shorter. Electricity was too slow for him (what did he propose to use instead, light?) and he wrote for page after page about the unacceptable limitations of binary code. On or off was all very well, but it was only two variations. If you could add even one other possibility, that he called on and off, that meant there would be three possibilities at every juncture and the speed at which you could express and resolve even the most complicated questions in such a system would be beyond imagining. But how could something be on and off at the same time, Oscar wondered?
His headache had started at that point, but he persevered. It seemed that Lombardi had not been content with theory.
-According to his journal, Oscar told his partner; Lombardi was able to develop a new kind of computer: very powerful. But while he was working on it, he became obsessed by probability. There’s a lot in here about that famous experiment that expresses the idea that a closed system can exist in contradictory states simultaneously, until it’s measured. The act of observation causes the uncertainty to collapse and resolve.
-It’s famous, said Jose. Actually I never heard of it before, whatever it was you just said.
-You know, the cat is in the sealed box, with a radioactive source and some cyanide that is triggered if an isotope is released. Until you open the box and look the cat inside is both alive and dead.
Jose looked across at the small black furry creature lapping at the milk he’d put down.
-No-one really put the cat in the box, Oscar told him. It’s only illustrates an idea. Lombardi was trying to explain how he’d built a supercomputer in his room and used it to create what he called a probability generator.
-Ah, so he was mad then, Jose sounded relieved.
-Perhaps, Oscar nodded. And did you notice the strange thing about our box?
-You mean that when you look closely you can see that one side is like a door, that can be opened up and closed?
-You’ll make a good detective yet, Jose. Did you think that maybe the door can be closed from the inside?
-Dios mio. You mean the crazy man could be inside. Trapped maybe. We should open it right now.
-Not so fast. It might be dangerous, for everybody.
-You mean it could be a bomb, after all?
-No.
Oscar was thinking through the confused notes that he’d hurriedly scanned. He believed that Lombardi had always intended to build and go into the box, even before he’d known it. He’d written about probability in terms of parallel worlds that existed side by side and perhaps could be made to converge momentarily. Oscar wasn’t sure if real scientists talked like that: he’d jumped to the last pages, because there wasn’t time to read everything. He’d read passages about the possibility of an individual experiencing the consciousness of divergent realities. The reasoning was hard to follow, but these lines were mixed with reports of experiments that Lombardi had carried out with the box, or imagined that he had, with objects placed in the box and recovered later. Lombardi claimed that some of the objects were different when they came back, but there were no unusual physical objects in the flat, so far as they could see.
Lombardi had cut himself off from the world because he was afraid of the effect he might have if he left it and came back as someone who had been a different person all his life; or if he didn’t come back and it turned out he had never existed. He was prepared to take the chance for himself but concerned about how he might alter the lives of anyone he had touched. The solution was not to allow himself to interact with anyone. Maybe the device was a kind of bomb after all. It might open to a world in which none of them existed.
-Keep thinking boss, Jose said to him. There’s no hurry. Obviously we’re dealing with a lunatic here, but if he sealed himself in that, I don’t see how he could have survived. He should have suffocated or starved by now.
-Perhaps, but I don’t think he meant to kill himself. He intended to enter the probability field so that he could experience multiple probabilities in a single consciousness. He was thinking about alternate universes.
-Maybe he should have thought about how he would get out of the box.
-You’re right, but it could be something went wrong or was interrupted. The officer unplugged the laptop remember. The ball doesn’t need power and the keyboard is only a controller that translates what it should do, but if there wasn’t enough life in the battery to complete the programme, then I don’t know.
-Best get it open then.
-Except that, if he’s inside, it’s possible that he’s alive or dead. At the moment he could be both, but once we take the measurement and open the box, it’s one or the other.
-I suppose you mean we might kill him now. But if we wait longer, it’s inevitable that he’s dead. So we may as well get on with it. What choice do we have?
-I don’t know. We should speak to the landlord again first. He was the first person to see all this. There may be some detail we’ve missed.
Jose went to fetch the man. Oscar was left alone to reflect on Lombardi and what he’d read of the man’s obsessions. Some of what he imagined made him shudder. He was glad when Jose returned with the landlord, who seemed more even more sheepish than before.
-It’s important that you think very carefully, Oscar told him; and tell us every detail of what you found when you first came in the flat. Don’t leave out anything, however insignificant.
-I told you everything already, honest, the poor man insisted. There wasn’t anything else.
-Absolutely sure.
The landlord could not hold Oscar’s stare.
-Certain. Apart from; well I did look in the box of course. But I only looked. I didn’t take nothing. There was nothing to take.
-What do you mean, you looked inside?
-Well, look at the fittings and things on that side. I mean, it was obvious that it was some kind of door. I only thought that the gentleman might have been working on the equipment and got trapped inside, honest.
-Calm down. Tell us exactly what you saw inside.
-Nothing at all, sir. The box was empty. It’s the truth.
There wasn’t anything else he could tell them. When they’d seen the empty chamber for themselves, they reported back to the station. Jorge Lombardi must have left his flat and there were no clues as to where he might have gone. Oscar took the final notebook away with him, guilty that he was removing evidence. It occurred to him afterwards that the strange machine might be giving out some kind of radioactivity, so the team they sent to remove it wore protective suits.
But they reported back that when they went into the flat they found nothing there; only a ragged black cat that hissed at them and took off through the open window and down a fire escape. There was no device of any kind, and no piles of notes that they’d been told to collect. They asked the landlord about it of course, but the poor man said that he had the only key to the flat. He seemed genuinely unable to remember that he’d ever had a tenant called Lombardi.
It was certainly strange; but even more curious was that no-one seemed to mind. More than anything else, the boss hated paperwork that didn’t include a neat conclusion, but he seemed unconcerned about the Lombardi file. Oscar thought that maybe he’d lost it; either deliberately or accidentally.
When he spoke about the case to Jose a day later, he was shocked to realize that his partner had no proper recollection of it. He only listened to Oscar as if he was humouring him; apart from every now and then he’d frown as if he suspected that yes, there was something that they had both seen if only he could remember what it was.
Oscar knew that his own memory of whatever had happened was no longer to be trusted. The thought made him so anxious that he hurried to his office, where he’d secured the journal for a more thorough later examination. He was relieved when he found the book still in his desk drawer, where he thought he’d left it. The book felt solid enough. He opened the first page: it was blank. All the other pages were blank white paper. By the end of the week, neither Oscar nor anyone else remembered Jorge Lombardi: who he had been or where he had been, or even where he might still be.

END


Chapter Three – The Widow (La Viuda)

 Of the fact that Enrique Fernandez, missing for six weeks now, was dead, there was little doubt. The police were also reasonably comfortable with the assumption that he had been the victim of violent crime, since suicides and accident victims tended not to distribute their assorted body parts across sundry locations in the city. Bits of Enrique Fernandez had been turning up all over, since shortly after the first severed limbs were discovered at a city refuse dump and quickly identified as those previously attaching to the missing property magnate; but they still hadn’t recovered enough of Enrique to fill even a small sized coffin.
Jose knew that this was just the sort of case that would normally fascinate his boss, but at the moment Oscar was off work with a head cold; and all of his attention was directed on it. The pair of them had been trapped out in the rain on one of those meaningless surveillance operations that was one of the worst parts of the job: and they always seemed to come up at this time of year, as the last of the hot weather finally ended and the weather turned suddenly. It didn’t really matter though, if Oscar hadn’t been soaked through that day he would still have caught a head cold in the autumn: it happened every year.
For Jose, it was a sorrowful thing to see a full-grown intelligent man brought down to such abject self-pity by something so trivial. Oscar always took to his bed for a fortnight at the first sign of a temperature and a runny nose, or ‘flu, as he insisted on calling it in spite of the medical diagnosis. In his current state even a problem like the Fernandez case aroused only mild interest.
-It’s now officially a homicide investigation, Jose told him. Are you going to try those grapes I brought, or not?
-Help yourself. I’ve no sense of taste just now anyway. What does Gomez say about it?
-He thinks it’s clear that either the widow is responsible or else Fernandez was involved with shady people we don’t know about yet. Either way it was a contract killing and now someone is making a point. The inspector says I shouldn’t make a move until you are up and about again.
-That’s harsh.
-He thinks of me more as your bodyguard than a proper detective.
It was true that Jose was so enormous that it was easy to imagine that his function in life should be to move things or crack heads. In fact, like others of his size, he’d never felt the need or inclination to develop an aggressive streak. The occasional small man in a bar might insist on taking a swing at him now and then, but the results were more comical than threatening. Violent behaviour was always a puzzle to Jose, even now that he was a professional student of it, so to speak.
But it was frustrating when his superiors assumed that because he was big, he didn’t have a brain, even though it was true that Oscar did need looking after from time to time.
-Gomez may be right just now, even if it’s for the wrong reasons, Oscar told him. Maybe it’s the time to wait rather than act. But keep your eye on the case: something about it is not typical.
Jose wanted to tell his boss that it did no good to wrap himself in so many blankets, but it was useless trying to tell Oscar anything about his health when he was like this.
The surveillance job was going on, regardless of the heavy rain that never seemed to stop just now. It was a full time job and without his partner it was even more boring than normal for Jose. They were supposed to stake out a restaurant. The tax inspectors had already worked out that the owners served about three times the number of diners that their IVA return declared; and it was certain they had the evidence they needed, but the official view was that further police surveillance was needed because there was a suspicion that the cheats might be involved in other forms of crime.
Jose hadn’t seen any indications of that: he was more than sure that the suspicions were nothing more than an excuse for using police officers to help the tax collectors with their snooping.  So far as Jose was concerned, he’d signed up to catch criminals, not to be a stooge for the tax authorities. In fact the cost of food in restaurants was high enough without the government taking more and what choice did single men like him have? If some of the customers wanted to pay cash and maybe get a discount, and some invoices didn’t get submitted, it was difficult for him to believe that there was anything so wrong about this. The boys who supplied Jose with cheap cigarettes and DVDs were doing a public service as far as he could see. The robbers were the companies who set the official price.
But what could he do? Only what he was told, as usual.
On Tuesday another hand and part of a ribcage turned up, wrapped in newspaper and deposited in a waste bin in a quiet part of the Retiro. They were discovered by an excited Labrador, out for a walk, who must have felt cheated of her snack afterwards. Forensics confirmed that this was another instalment of Snr. Fernandez, but the newspaper told them nothing and the distribution of body parts was not making any sense.
By Tuesday evening, Jose was completely fed up of the stakeout and the rain. He switched on the siren and the blue light and headed for the lawyer’s office. Oscar would have been appalled as he weaved through the traffic at speed in response to an imaginary emergency; but Oscar didn’t understand that sometimes you just needed to enjoy life in the moment.
Jose had been thinking about talking to the Fernandez lawyer for a while. There was nothing he could do about the physical evidence. Every uniformed officer was on the lookout for new finds and making sense of them was a job for the lab. Jose had considered what Oscar would do and decided that the answer was to investigate motivations: find out who had something to gain.
The lawyer was a dried up old stick who seemed like he was going to cause problems at first, but when Jose explained the reasons for his interest in a more direct way, the old boy was more than willing to help.
-I suppose, regrettably, the will is likely to come into effect shortly. My client provided that his widow should receive the full interest in his estate for her lifetime. On her death it should pass to the only child, Ernesto. Quite simple really; there are no other close relatives.
-So the widow gets everything?
-For the duration of her lifetime. My client was not a young man remember. I understand that Dona Ana has more than eighty years.
-But Fernandez wasn’t so old that he didn’t have enemies? Jose asked.
-So it seems; but about that I know nothing.
-Who knew about the will?
-I’m certain that Ana knew. They were never what you would call close; but both of them are rather formal people and Don Enrique would have considered it proper to inform her.
-And the son?
The lawyer coughed; too polite and professional for it to be spontaneous, rather than a signal that he was about to share something of a confidential nature.
-I shouldn’t say really, but I’m sure that Ernesto knows as well. Don Enrique’s actual words to me were, if I remember correctly, “I’ve told my pig of a son that it all comes to him when the woman is dead, if only he can remember to wipe his backside until then and not disgrace the family name. I wish there was another who could take the estate, but he is all the flesh I have”.
-He didn’t get on with his son?
-He felt that Ernesto wanted only to enjoy the fine things in life without working for them first. I can see where your mind is going, but I can tell you, because we are an old-fashioned firm, we know our clients. I first met Ernesto when he was a boy who came to the office with his father. His character is weak but not vicious. Anyway, if he was impatient for his inheritance what good would it do to kill the father? The widow is still alive and everyone knows the women last longer than men.
Jose felt like he’d done something at least, even if he wasn’t sure what to make of the information he had. He told Oscar about it when he went to visit the convalescent. Oscar wanted to know if he’d reported the conversation to Gomez and what the inspector had said about it.
-He told me I should back off, Jose admitted. Even though I’m supposed to be the officer heading the investigation in your absence. He said the wife or the son were clearly guilty, or maybe both of them together, but whoever it was would slip up, because they were making too many clues, with these body parts left all over Madrid. Forensics would be able to put all the pieces together eventually.
-How gruesome.
-I don’t think he meant it literally. He warned me not to try to solve the case using reasoning and intuition. He said that was your department. Never try to outshine the master: he said I should always remember that.
-I remember him telling me that when I got my start as a detective. I was assigned as his partner.
-Maybe you’re getting better if you are remembering old stories like that, Jose told him. Anyway, your nose wouldn’t run so much if you didn’t wrap yourself in quite so many blankets.
On Thursday, the tax officers finally moved in on the restaurant: no more mind-numbing observation detail. Now Jose was sure that Oscar would be completely recovered in a matter of a few days. But before that, Friday brought a new development in the Fernandez case: Senora Fernandez went missing. The family was rich and lived in a good neighbourhood, so this was a serious matter. It seemed unlikely she was trying to flee the country, given her age, but there was a chance she’d become confused and wandered out into the city. She might turn up anywhere.
Since the Senora’s habits were so fixed, it was easy to establish her movements. She hated to spend money and her principal occupation seemed to be travelling on her free bus pass accompanied by her wheeled shopping bag. She’d visit the markets and supermarkets where food could be got cheaply, always the same places each weekday; week in week out: but nobody could say if anything unusual had happened at any of her regular stops.
Then they found the fingers in a neatly sealed envelope that was left on a bench by one of the bus stops in Cibelles. They weren’t from a man’s hand and after that there could be little doubt. Jose waited until the lab confirmed that the fingers had belonged on the left hand of Ana Fernandez (the wedding band that remained on the ring finger was a good clue) before he arrested Ernesto on suspicion of murder.
With the case apparently cracked and nothing else of interest to detain him, Oscar had decided to clear some of his mountain of accrued leave by visiting his sister in the south, where the weather would still be warm. Jose gave him a lift to Atocha. He was always slightly envious of anyone who was about to use the AVE train.
-Don’t close the book on Fernandez yet, Oscar told him as they parted. There’s more to come out.
-What makes you say that?
-Just a feeling.
The son didn’t confess to anything. He was one of those stuck-up rich kids who never grow up and feel entitled to everything. It turned out he had bank accounts all over town and all of them were drawn to the limit. Jose did not like the man at all, but it was surprising that someone like that even had enough about him to arrange for his parents to be disposed of.
Late Monday morning, Jose was at his desk when they directed a call through to him from someone he’d never heard of; a Senor Munoz, who would say only that he knew something about the case and wanted to meet Jose that afternoon in the Parque Juan Carlos by a certain fountain. He gave a description of himself that sounded like it could be anybody, but said that he’d be wearing a red ski jacket.
The park was quite new and Jose had never been there before. He was shocked at what a lot of space it took up and how ugly it was; like something an idiot child would make with a toy construction set in the land of the giants. At least there were plenty of car parking spaces.
-Well, the rain has stopped finally, Jose commented to the man in the red jacket. Mind if I smoke?
The stranger shook his head. Jose parked his frame on the creaking bench, not too close; and started to roll a cigarette.
-Helps me smoke less and it’s cheaper, he explained.
He introduced himself. The stranger nodded. He didn’t seem to know how to begin.
-I’m Juan Munoz, he said finally. I’m the other son of Ana Fernandez.
Jose was good at listening patiently and Munoz was in the mood for talking. His story began right back in the thirties, when Ana had been a young girl in love with Hector Munoz, who was unacceptable to her parents as a known atheist and suspected republican. Ana’s official suitor at that time was an upstanding youth named Enrique, who didn’t have any fortune of his own, but knew enough about making his way in the world to join the Falangists just before the outbreak of hostilities.
After Hector disappeared, Ana was broken-hearted and finally unable to resist the pressure on her to accept Enrique’s longstanding offer. She bore him one son and she never suspected over the years that it was Enrique who had denounced Hector to the authorities, until he boasted of it at the climax of one of their increasingly frequent arguments. She in turn never confessed that the reason that her parents were so insistent that she accept the attentions of an unprepossessing boy like Enrique was the fear that the truth about the long summer spent away from home not long after Hector disappeared, and the baby given up for adoption, might become known.
-That’s a sad story, but it’s old news finally, Jose said. I still don’t understand what you are trying to tell me.
Juan had to explain it all his way: he went on.
The day that Ana found out the truth about Hector was the day she became an old woman. She planned her revenge carefully. Ana took no enjoyment from the wealth of the family; that should all have been hers, because Enrique had only married into wealth. There were no family heirs apart from the legitimate son who she hated because every day he reminded her more of Enrique. She knew that she would outlive her husband. She was determined that after her death, the estate would pass to Hector’s son, who she finally managed to trace after years of secret searching.
-Then she found out about the provisions of Enrique’s will, and a few weeks later she went to his room one morning and found him dead as a stone. They never slept together. It enraged her beyond measure to think that he should pass away so quietly with a look on his face that suggested he was completely at peace, knowing that everything would pass to his useless son.
-I could see that she might be upset, but how did she think that cutting Enrique into pieces would help?
-At first she only wanted to hide the body to buy time. Then she realized that if he was missing instead of dead, then under Spanish law it should take at least three years for his death to become official. She knew the financial situation that Ernesto is in and she didn’t believe he could wait three years. Apparently there’s an extra provision in the will that if Ernesto is made bankrupt before he inherits, then he gets nothing. The father knew what the son was like and he didn’t want the estate to pass to his creditors.
-So then everything goes back to the old lady?
-She knew that Ernesto had people after him for money from every part of Madrid. If Enrique wasn’t pronounced legally dead for three years, he’d have been made bankrupt long before and then the gift to him would fail.
-It’s true. Ernesto hasn’t a bean.
Juan explained that somehow, Ana had managed to hack up the body enough to fit it into her freezer, apart from some bits that she’d got rid of at the local dump, thinking they’d not be noticed, let alone identified. When she heard about the discovery, she panicked.
-And that’s when she came to see me, Juan concluded.
-You helped her remove all traces of the body from the house before the police arrived.
Juan nodded.
-You know that was a serious crime?
-She’s my mother, who I never even met before all this started. She’s told me so much that I never knew about her, about my father, about my life.
-Did you dispose of the other body parts?
Juan nodded again.
-Ana, I mean my mother, couldn’t do it. She’s too frail. I thought if I spread them around it would throw you off the scent. The first site was too near to her home.
-Too complicated, Jose told him. Always keep things as simple as possible.
-But mother was spending more time in my house, telling me about the past and reliving it herself. I wanted to know, but it made her more distressed the more she talked about it. And the idea that now it was known that her husband was dead, Ernesto would inherit, made her crazier than anything.
-We found two of your mother’s fingers in an envelope with her wedding ring still attached.
Juan put his head in his hands.
-I didn’t have anything to do with that. She asked me to help and I told her she was mad. No-one can understand how implacable that old woman can be.
Jose rested a big hand on his shoulder, gently.
-I remember my grandmother, he said. Go on.
Juan described his mother coming to the house looking very pale and saying that now she had disappeared like her husband. She wouldn’t be leaving his house again and no-one would look for her there. She’d bandaged the hand as best she could, but she’d still lost quite a lot of blood. She depended on him now, she said. The police would think that Ernesto had killed both parents because he needed the money.  He would be tried for murder and never inherit. The property would pass under the terms of her own will, which she’d made a year ago with her own lawyer, leaving everything to Juan.
-Please understand, Juan told Jose. None of this part has anything to do with me. I have my own business and I’m doing fine. I don’t need or want anyone else’s money.
-What did you think you would do?
-Well I couldn’t turn in my own mother. But then you did arrest Ernesto; and I couldn’t see an innocent man convicted.
-Where is Ana now?
-She’s resting at my house. It’s one of the new ones, not far from the big gate. I’m not sure she knows where she is. The wound seems clean, but everything has been too much for her. When she talks, she’s in the past as much as the present. I can’t leave her alone for too long.
-You did the right thing, Jose told him
-You mean, calling you?
-I don’t know what I mean. Don’t ask.
Ernesto Fernandez was released without charge that evening, when Jose explained that there was no real evidence against him. Inspector Gomez shouted at him for a while about the department’s reputation being in tatters and the risk of a claim against them for wrongful arrest, but Jose let it wash over him. The inspector took him for an idiot anyway and that probably wouldn’t change even if he had known that Jose had solved the case.
It was more difficult to explain how he’d come across the old lady alone and wandering round the Parque Juan Carlos, although everyone could understand how being in that place might have a disorienting effect on the dear old thing. Poor Ana Fernandez was too confused now to help anyone with questions of that sort, so the explanation of coincidence had to stand.
As for Juan Munoz, Jose didn’t say anything about him to anyone, not even Oscar. In Jose’s view, there was no way that Juan could have acted any differently, but he knew that his partner would tell him that was for a court to decide, not a policeman. Everything had to be done in the right way with Oscar. He’d insist they make an arrest, even while he was hoping that the court would throw the case out. It was best to say nothing at all. Of course, Oscar read the case reports and wrinkled his nose and knew that something was wrong, but what did he actually think of it? You never knew quite where you were with Oscar; he even claimed to like the new park.

END


Chapter Four - The Wasps (Las Avispas)

Carlos Molina enjoyed taking a coffee each afternoon in the Bar Leon. He considered it a part of his business to see and be seen there; and Carlos had many business interests to occupy his time. In fact, to someone from outside the barrio, it might seem strange that a big shot like Carlos, who was doing so well that everyone could see it, would waste his time showing up every day at a place like the Bar Leon.
In spite of the grand name, the place was a dive, but in spite or because of this, it was where the people of the neighbourhood of a certain type came together. And if the Bar Leon was a small and murky pond, everyone knew that Carlos was the biggest fish who swam in it.
In the mornings, Carlos had to make arrangements for the movement of certain shipments of goods. It was a dull necessity that took up much of his working day; but he was a good organizer. Normally he’d be finished in time to make his entry at the Leon not long after two in the afternoon. Brushing his hair back with one hand and pulling at the cuffs of his latest suit, he’d exchange a few words with the barman and then proceed to the favoured table at the rear of the house where there was always a space for him. Most days, he’d be accompanied by one or more of his associates, but often he’d graciously invite one or other of the locals to sit with them for a while.
It wasn’t a big place and usually it was neither full nor completely empty. In the course of a day, you saw most of the same faces there at one time or another. It had always been that way at the Leon.
Naturally it was an honour to be invited to sit at the table of Carlos, but at the same time it made you nervous. His moods were not always predictable; and often you’d have the impression that he was after some piece of information though he never came out and asked for it directly. He was handsome, in a brutal way; and rather young to be so obviously needing to dye his hair black. Perhaps he dressed a little too smart for this neighbourhood, but at the same time Carlos commanded the respect of everyone.
The afternoon sun was hot and the day outside was bright. The air in the Bar Leon was older than the air in the street; dustier and heavier. It wasn’t easy for the light to penetrate the thick ancient glazing of the two small windows that faced onto the calle. The single public room was much deeper than it was wide and the rear of the bar backed onto the wall of another property. The table where Carlos held court was in permanent shadow; deep enough so that you couldn’t distinguish the features on the old framed photographs of long dead bullfighters that had hung on the smoke stained walls for as long as anyone living could remember.
The Leon wasn’t a place where policemen were welcome. Most of the local cops understood that, even though the clientele of the Bar Leon included several persons of interest to them. It was only right that each side of the criminal divide should have their own private places; and in any case the bar was quiet and strangers were not welcome. It was impossible that any informer would overhear something of use in this place.
This being so, Carlos could have resented the visit of Detective Oscar Garcia and the big bearlike sidekick who went everywhere with him as an intrusion on his privacy. There was tension in the air when these two walked into the bar. Everyone waited for Carlos to react. The two men might as well have been wearing uniform; it was so obvious that they were policemen. But on this day, Carlos chose to regard their presence as an amusing diversion laid on for his entertainment. In fact he believed that he had good reason not to take Oscar and the other seriously.
Carlos didn’t stand up to greet the policemen, but he called them over to his table and snapped his fingers for Diego to take their order. The two associates he was with looked a little nervous at being in such close proximity to a detective, but they knew better than to interfere with Carlos’s show.
-Detective Garcia, so good to see you again. You haven’t made inspector just yet then? Your bosses don’t appreciate real talent. And you Jose, hombre. Still following this one around. You’re getting bigger around the middle. You need to look after yourself more.
-Too much work to do Carlos, Jose replied amiably; chasing after snotnoses like you.
Carlos laughed. Diego brought fresh coffee. Carlos took his in a glass. He carefully unwrapped one of the sugar cubes that came with it and dipped the cube in the coffee for a brief time before dropping the remainder into his saucer. He tasted his coffee and put it down again.
-Mm. Not the best maybe; but I’m at home here and this is just how I like it. I remember you telling me once Oscar, that this place was a nest of wasps. Have you got over the sting from the last time you came here yet?
-We become accustomed to the occasional prick in our line of work, Oscar replied.
Carlos turned to his companions.
-The detective has been following me around for a few years now. I don’t even remember how it started. He has this fixed idea that my business interests may not be entirely legitimate. You know it’s always the same when someone from humble origins succeeds; for some people there will always be doubt. We shouldn’t blame the detective. He comes from a good family and he’s never wanted for anything. It’s hard for him to imagine an honest man getting on by hard work and enterprise.
-My father was a policeman, Oscar reminded him.
-Oh yes, a policeman. I think he was third or fourth in line after the city Chief. And yet you are still just a detective. But I remember now, gentlemen, when we first met, he told me that he preferred to work where he could catch men like me. He didn’t want to be an administrator. And yet, some years on, here I am and there he is.
-You were just a cheap crook moving stolen goods in those days.
-I wasn’t so cheap that you didn’t waste your time trying to link me to those warehouse raids. He even persuaded the prosecutor that there was enough evidence to charge me. But you couldn’t make anything stick, remember?
-You had an alibi for each of the jobs and it stood up every time, Oscar admitted.
-Rather embarrassing for you, Detective, when your case fell apart. I’d say you were stung quite badly on that visit to the wasp’s nest.
-So it seems.
Oscar had barely sipped his coffee, but continued to stir it patiently. The waiter set down a small dish at their table, filled with large green olives and garlic cloves. Carlos was warming to his theme and his smile was broader than ever. His friends grinned at his cutting remarks. The atmosphere was becoming more relaxed.
-I don’t bear grudges, everyone knows; Carlos shrugged his shoulders. It seems that we are always having misunderstandings of this kind. It must be that I am an innocent man, in spite of all this suspicion; or maybe I’m just too clever for him. The last time wasn’t so many months ago, no? Remember that business with Juanita?
-You don’t need to be clever to beat up a woman.
Carlos shrugged his shoulders again.
-What can I say? We are poor people and our natures are passionate. Not so restrained as the ricos like you Oscar, who don’t have blood in their veins. I was in love with the girl and she knew it. She took back the whole story after you charged me again, didn’t she?
-She wasn’t your girlfriend. Juanita only worked for you. And she changed her story after you threatened her.
Carlos turned to his friends with an expression of appeal.
-You see how it is boys? I would be within my rights to get upset about slanders like this that have no proof attached, if I wasn’t so easy going. And in the end it was just one more case that Oscar started but couldn’t finish. That isn’t good for your career you know.
-So where is this love of yours now? Jose asked him.
-We found her a job working in one of my packaging businesses, Carlos replied.
-I suppose she couldn’t go back to the other work, Jose said; after what you did to her face.
Carlos frowned: these comments were beyond the limits of civilised conversation and they didn’t make him look good with his friends. He put his hands on the table top and looked directly at Oscar.
-I think you need to remember, he said in a changed tone; that this is a wasp’s nest, not a beehive. You said it yourself. A bee can sting you only once, but a wasp will go on stinging if you don’t leave it alone. You’ve been stung twice already now.
Having regained dominance in the conversation, Carlos could afford to relax again. Neither Oscar nor Jose made any response to his comments. When he spoke again it was in the previous friendly way.
-In any case Detective, he continued; I hear that you’ve moved on. Now you’re specializing in missing persons and homicides. It’s true?
Oscar nodded.
-Although you don’t seem to come across many actual murderers.
-That’s a fact, Oscar admitted.
-But at least you won’t have the time to chase after men like me, whose activities are purely business related. So we can be friends at last. I’m glad. We’ll have a little digestif to celebrate. Diego, three glasses of pacharan. I won’t insult you by asking you to drink with us while you’re on duty, but you can accept the sentiment, I’m sure.
-I’m not a sentimental man, Carlos.
-But you are, or else why would you be here?
Oscar showed him the briefest of smiles.
-Do you remember Paco Jimenez? he asked.
Carlos frowned.
-That was a long time ago, he said. There was a young kid round here by that name once upon a time.
-He disappeared, Oscar reminded Carlos. He was a young kid as you say. Didn’t even have a record so we don’t have his fingerprints; just a smudgy photograph that his family gave the police when they reported him missing. It could be anybody on that photo. But when I looked into the case, the records showed that just before Paco went missing the local police had built up quite a file of evidence that showed he was the brains behind a string of robberies, some of them with guns involved. The other men involved were all much older but it was clear that Paco was the organizer even so. In fact the way they did it was very like those warehouse raids that you were talking about just now. Paco was looking at some serious jail time in the days when he went missing.
-Paco Jimenez is dead, Carlos said flatly.
-That’s right. He was murdered. The police never found a body, but they found his car, in a remote place. And they found some spent shells from the murder weapon. Eventually they found the gun. It was a classic organized crime hit. Clearly Paco was only the front for the real brains of the operation. He was only a kid after all. He must have got too greedy or let the others down in some way.
-A tragic story, Carlos nodded; but you are getting desperate already if you are digging up ancient history like that. And I don’t see what any of this has to do with me.
-I’ll get to that, Oscar told him. As I said, I’ve been looking at the records and it’s true we have no fingerprints of the murder victim. But there were clear fingerprints on the car and on the steering wheel. There was even a reasonable print on the gun that the killer had tried to rub off but without being careful enough. And of course we have your prints Carlos from the times you’ve been arrested and charged. Guess what? Those two sets of prints are a perfect match.
-This is bullshit.
-And we’ve been talking to some of your old friends. We have some statements. Jose remind me.
Jose stared into his empty coffee cup for a moment. Then he began:
-We know that two nights after the murder, you were in here bragging that you had killed Paco Jimenez and no-one would ever find his body. You weren’t so careful about what you said back in those days. One of the witnesses said you were just a loud mouthed kid who he didn’t take seriously.
Now Carlos’s face bore a hunted expression.
-This is so wrong, he complained. You can’t be serious. If you try to frame me for the murder of Paco you’ll get nowhere. You’ll make yourselves look more foolish than ever.
-I’m used to being proved wrong by you Carlos, Oscar replied. Do you have an alibi this time?
-No but, I’ll tell you now confidentially and just between us, to save you shaming yourselves. Everyone knows that I didn’t kill Paco Jimenez, because I am Paco; I mean I was. I just needed to make him disappear. What are you going to charge me with; wasting police time?
-Well, well, Oscar said, leaning back in his chair. You’re not under formal caution yet, so we can’t use that confession. And it’s true that the city records don’t show any trace of Carlos Molina before Paco Jimenez dropped out of sight. Maybe you’ll be able to persuade the judge or even the prosecutor that you don’t have a case to answer. We’ll see once you’re charged.
-That’s it, Carlos nodded. Everybody in the neighbourhood knows it.
-An unusual defence, Oscar said. There was no crime because the murder victim is in fact the accused. But while we are just chatting, I should warn you.
-Warn me of what?
-If you did turn out to be the person formerly known as Paco Jimenez; and only you can prove that I suppose; then you will probably know, but you might have forgotten, that there’s still a warrant for his arrest and enough evidence on file about that string of robberies to put him away for eight years minimum. Plus we have the confessions of the men who already served their sentences for those crimes linking Paco to them
-I don’t believe it. You can’t prove anything from what happened so long ago.
Oscar shook his head and tutted.
-Well, the evidence is kept you see. But you’re right. It might be hard to prove that you were ever Paco Jimenez, the wanted criminal. I’m only confident that we can prove that unless you are that man, you must have killed him. That’s why we are here today to charge you with the murder of Paco. As a friend, I’d suggest you think carefully about how you plead. Jose, would you make the arrest and remind the subject of his rights?

END


Chapter Five - The Piano Player (el Pianista)

Jorge Mendoza had reported his wife missing. The department was obliged to treat the report seriously. Oscar and Jose drove out to his club to take a statement
The club was quite an impressive place, from the outside at least: not far from Castellana and close to the football stadium. There were signs outside promising salsa with authentic Cuban rhythms, all the way from Habana, but everyone knew the place was just another tourist trap, even when the coaches that you’d see parked up outside every night weren’t around.
In the daytime at least, the interior was not as impressive as the façade. Any place that comes to life in the night has a bleached out dirty look when the sun is up, especially in the mornings. There was a stale reek of alcohol that a solitary lady with a mop was attacking with forlorn determination. On the low stage at the far end of the club, only the piano was still standing. The other musicians had taken their instruments with them, even the drums. The piano looked lonely and battered; its lacquer scratched and peeling.
-It still plays well, Jorge assured them.
He’d come out from behind the bar and was observing as Oscar peered closely at the instrument.
-Feel free to try it, if you play.
-No thanks, Oscar replied; we’ve come about your wife.
When they’d finished, Jose read the statement back to Mendoza and he confirmed that it was true. After that they left the club. Oscar said that it was the time for a coffee. Jose knew a place nearby.
-What did you think of what he said? Oscar asked.
-I wouldn’t say he’s lying exactly, Jose replied, but there was something he’s not telling us.
-Agreed.
Oscar seemed more inclined to stir his coffee than drink it.
-This reminds me of a very old case I read about once, he ventured.
Jose sighed.
-I suppose you’re going to tell me all about it?
Leopold Gottfried was a free spirit as well as a brilliant composer. In every age there are some whose genius leaves behind an enduring legacy that enhances their reputation as the years pass. Then there are others, equally talented perhaps, who make barely a ripple: their work sinks from obscurity to oblivion through no fault of their own. Leo was one of those.
It was an age when composers were no longer content to hang around court churning out melodies to order. They had discovered self expression and all become idealists. Of course, given the price of sheet music and rehearsal space, they still needed sponsors to bring their ideals to life. Leo did not suffer any false modesty regarding his gift; and in due course the brash, abrasive youth came to the attention of certain Bavarian patron of the arts.
The Count of X was a genuine nobleman with his own family seat in the mountains. He lavished praise and support on artists of all kinds, but architects and musicians were his obsessions. It was assumed by everyone that the Count was fabulously rich, although after his death, it turned out that he’d squandered the family wealth and near ruined himself adding ever more grandiose extensions to the ancestral Schloss and seeking out new music fit to be heard in its booming halls.
Leo was more than happy to move into the palace; and pleased rather than dismayed when the Count seemed to forget about his existence almost as soon as he arrived. He had everything he needed. There was even a competent string quartet in residence and its bored members were willing enough to test Leo’s compositional ideas.
The problems started when Leo fell in love with the Count’s sister.
By all accounts she was no longer a young girl when they met and she was rather stout, but there is no reason to suppose that the couple’s affection was not genuine. Leo lived in his head and the Countess was a strong, independent minded lady with a ready wit and her feet firmly planted on the ground, unlike her brother. It seemed clear to Eugenie that she was not likely to marry anyone else. She’d long ago tired of her brother’s talk of finding a prince with a bloodline worthy to be joined to their own family.
There seemed no possibility of the Count producing an heir. The artists he invited to the Schloss were invariably male and physically handsome. Eugenie was the only lady of any rank in the castle and it was hinted that the tenderness which the Count showed for his sister was something beyond normal fraternal love.
The Count would never agree to give his beloved sister away to a low born penniless musician, however much he adored the arts. He was terribly conventional in his attitudes even though he liked to dress in uniform like the monarch of a bygone age and sometimes behaved quite outrageously.
Of course, the liaison was discovered and the Count reacted like a mediaeval tyrant. He announced to everyone that Leo was moving into the tower of the Schloss so as to remain undisturbed while he worked on a very special commission. The Count was all smiles as he told them that he’d dreamed of a melody that was the most soothing, consoling and perfect piece of music that had ever existed. It had been a supernatural vision and Leo had agreed to help him recover the sound of it. Until further notice, Leo would be staying in the tiny conservatory at the very top of the tower, taking his meals and sleeping in the small adjoining bedroom. The rooms were directly above the Count’s own private chambers that were always kept locked from the inside every night (another of the Count’s peculiarities). There was a piano in the top room and a speaker tube device that would allow the Count and no-one else to eavesdrop on Leo’s progress.
In spite of the smiles and the kid words, everyone knew what it meant. There was no way down from that tower except through the Count’s apartment, unless you learned to fly over the decorative battlement and down the sheer face of the wall. Leo was a prisoner.
No-one heard any more about Leo for more than two months and no-one dared to ask after him. Meals were carried up the steps and it was assumed that empty plates and full chamber pots came down. In those days and in that place, commoners could still disappear without undue worry for persons of nobility who had been inconvenienced by them. As for the other guests, the Count was unpredictable and no-one wanted to end in the same condition as Leo.
Then one morning in November, the Count failed to open his door to let in the family retainer who delivered his breakfast. Whenever he was at the Schloss, the Count had dined on the same food, brought at the same time, by the same servant, every morning since his childhood. Clearly this was a serious matter.
When the servant went to alert the Countess, Eugenie was missing from her chambers. The domestic staff were thrown into panic. When they eventually broke down the main door to the Count’s room, all the other entrances and windows were locked and secure as he’d always insisted. The Count was lying where he’d fallen, by the great fireplace, with the speaker tube cupped to his ear and a serene expression on his face.
Jose had been sitting still for a long time. He shifted uncomfortably to relieve the ache in his buttocks.
-The musician killed him, I suppose.
-All the doors and windows were barred.
Jose thought about it for a moment.
-He poured poison down the tube and into the Count’s ear.
-Like Hamlet’s uncle, Oscar laughed; I never knew you were so cultured Jose. But no. The Count was an eminent man and the death was unusual. There was a proper autopsy of course. Poison was ruled out.
-Then what?
Here the story becomes uncertain. No-one in that part of Bavaria heard from Leo or the Countess ever again. The story is that Leo did exactly what the Count demanded. He produced a composition of such transcendent beauty and harmony that a susceptible listener like the Count became captivated by hearing it. Savants have theorised that the body’s heart and vital functions quickly became attuned to the music, so that the Count’s life was synchronised with it. It was quite a simple piece, supposedly, with no real beginning or end. You could play it over and over indefinitely. The final cadences give the impression that the tempo is slowing, although really it stays the same; but the pulse and breathing and the brain activity of the hearer do slow down. The listener becomes more and more relaxed, more and more adagio, until eventually he stops.
-If you don’t mind me saying so, Jose commented; that sounds like the sort of fairy tale that gets invented to cover up a family scandal.
-There were no other explanations.
-What happened to the music? It should be famous.
-There was sheet music left behind in the conservatory. All anyone could remember was that it was a piano score in D minor. The manuscript was at the keyboard and there was an open window where a rope had been lowered. Leo must have had help. None of the servants wanted to touch the music score: they imagined it must contain witchcraft.
There was another musician staying at the castle at that time; a tall, bony-fingered man with long hair and a wild expression. People said there was something devilish about him, except that in fact he had been ordained as a priest. Anyway, this man went to the tower and spent some hours alone in the room with the piano. When he emerged, he said that he’d had to burn the manuscript. It was the only copy.
-Very convenient, Jose snorted. If you’re finished, we have to go. Or would you like another coffee?
-I was hoping you might have picked up something about our present case, Oscar told him
Jose looked puzzled.
-Back at the club, Oscar prompted him; the piano.
-No Paco.
-And no cigarette butts overflowing in Paco’s ashtray, even though the cleaning woman hadn’t been near the stage when we were there.
-I’ve never been in that place when Paco’s not been sitting at the piano, day or night, Jose admitted. Always with a cigarette burning and a finger of the best whisky in front of him that he never seems to touch. I thought he was a fixture.
-Me too. If he wasn’t working he was picking at some obscure chord or working out the parts for some tune that he’d be humming. But now no Paco and no Mrs Mendoza.
-So maybe?
-You saw Jorge. He was more sad than worried. Marilou is young enough to be his daughter and he always claims Paco is like a son to him. What do you think?
-I think we shouldn’t waste too much time looking for the missing wife.
Oscar nodded.
-Musicians you see. Even if the tune that lulls you to death isn’t genuine, the musicians are always the same. And they’re unreliable. The women seem to like them though, better than policemen anyway.
Jose returned their empty cups to the counter. Oscar stood up.
-Come on, he said; let’s go and find ourselves some real police work.

END


Chapter Six - The Shop of Curiosities

Oscar knows the ending perfectly. It will be a day just like today, when the stifling heat of high summer is pressing down on the city as if the force of gravity had suddenly increased; when the colour of the overhanging sky is so concentrated that it can no longer be described as merely blue – it´s more like the ideal of blue. It can make you feel dizzy; as if things are upside down and you could fall into the sky, but perhaps you wouldn´t sink as it´s so solid. The light is so intense that the streets have a look about them that goes beyond real. The never ending clamour of the city is at the same time louder and harsher than usual and yet unnaturally distant; as if the sound were passing through some denser medium that slows but amplifies its effect.
It´s going to be one of those days when there´s paperwork to be completed at the station and although it´s a responsibility of both, Oscar leaves Jose alone to make sense of the official records as best he can. He needs to clear his head and he tells himself that, in any case, he´s still on duty. He´s always on duty when he´s moving through this city.
On days like this, he prefers to walk. It can take hours, following the trail of some thought, unconscious of any plan or destination. His feet know the way after so many years of patrolling the streets. If he starts in Gran Via he´ll naturally head up Fuencarral with the tourists and shoppers. There´s much for an alert policeman to observe on these busy streets, but Oscar is leaving the street crime to the boys in uniform. His shoes are taking him right, towards Chueca and then looping back along the narrow streets off the Calle del Pez. He´ll probably end up at the Sabatini Gardens and then on past the Palace and into La Latina.
Where he is now, the streets are narrow and not so baked and it´s quiet; almost deserted at this time of day. For most people, in August it´s too hot to do anything in Madrid except leave it if you can. 
Oscar doesn´t mind heat and he enjoys being in the city when it´s not so full, even if sometimes it´s hard to breathe properly. And again, he knows what is going to happen. He feels a weight in the chest pocket of his suit jacket that reminds him. It´s only a fountain pen, that he was given some time ago. It has an old fashioned design that is so big and clumsy, it feels heavier than any pen has a right to be. It´s a gift that he always carries, even though he doesn´t like the look of the thing and he has no real use for such a pen.
Still, the feel of the pen against his chest recalls to him what is going to happen on a day exactly like this one. 
He´ll wander in the quiet streets, unknowingly seeking the thread of an idea that he needs to follow even though he can´t describe even to himself what it is. He passes so many shops selling clothing and footwear; so many bars and restaurants; passes the doorways of cheap hostels with unpromising signs hanging above. How can they all survive; the good and the unspeakable packed in so tightly together?
The streets are washed down often enough, but there´s always something grubby about these blocks even so. The paving is broken up and there´s barely enough room for the dusty scooters parked up behind the cracked bollards. Most of the walls and any window that doesn´t currently have a display are made ugly by graffiti or else peeling faded posters that announce events on dates that have already passed: concerts, demonstrations, club nights and others that are hard to place. 
Oscar feels comfortable here and often he takes the time to notice the odd shops that are squeezed in between all the rest. He assumes that most of them will have been in the same place for generations; defying the commercial imperative of modern cities. He has his favourites: there´s a supplier of traditional rope soled shoes that sometimes has people queuing outside to take up its limited production, a seller of antiquarian maps, a shop offering orthopaedic supplies that unfeasibly extends across two full shop fronts, a guitar maker, a dispenser of cotton threads of every imaginable shade and thickness.
One day, in just such a place, at one of these almost invisible interstices between the joined parts of the modern world, he´ll come across a shop he´s never seen before, on a street he thought he knew well. It´s clear that the shop has been there as long as anyone can remember, although its function is uncertain. The tiny plate glass window is dust obscured and there´s a sign above the narrow frontage that has inset lettering picked out in gold on a faded black background. When he´s close enough to peer through at it, he´ll see that the window display is a curiosity; a collection of items of various shapes and sizes and doubtful utility, from various ages, crowded together so tightly that it seems they must have lain undisturbed for years. 
When he pauses to inspect the display and even before he´s aware that he´s made up his mind to go inside, Oscar will already know in some way he can´t define that it´s a place he may only visit once; and if he passes now and returns later it´s likely the location will elude him.
Still he will lean his weight against the stiff unwelcoming door and go inside. 
He expects a jumble inside comparable to what he saw in the window, but even so there´ll be more space than seemed possible from the outside. Some of the stock is large, standing freely on the ancient grey flooring that was manufactured by some long defunct process that Oscar doesn´t recognize (is it cellulose?). Smaller items are arranged in heavy cabinets of dark wood that might have once graced the homes of prosperous local residents. Not everything is old. Some of the items Oscar will vaguely recall from what they had at home when he was a child. 
He notices a chess set with the pieces arranged on a solid board as if the game has been half played; tobacco pipes, some entire others in parts; an upright vacuum cleaner that must have been one of the first, with a tiny cylinder and parts made of brass and what looks like tin. 
Though a mechanical bell will sound his entry, there won´t be anyone attending in the shop  at first. She´ll come in from somewhere at the back, eventually; unhurried and without saying anything.
She doesn´t look much like a shop assistant, though she´s dressed in that old fashioned style that doesn´t really belong to any time. She´s tall and slender and very straight backed. Her dress is plain and grey and her hair is grey as well although she doesn´t look old enough. Oscar can´t make up his mind about her age. At least, he imagines, her smile will not be unkind, though it´s a quiet, tight-lipped smile that offers little and suggests she knows something he doesn´t. 
Oscar won´t know what to say, but the woman will seem to have more awareness than he does of why he came. 
-I don´t know what I´m looking for, or if I´m looking for anything, he admits.
-Here, you can leave things behind as well as take them away, she offers. 
As he looks round at the junk and tries to imagine what she might mean; that´s when he remembers the pen in his breast pocket. 
And now it will feel even heavier than before, so much that he´ll doubt he can take it out to show her. He´ll feel a strange reluctance at that point, as if maybe he shouldn´t have come inside this shop after all.
The woman waits patiently for him to say something; as if she can wait forever. He asks if the shop has many visitors. He´s never noticed it before. How is business? She looks at him as if that´s a strange question. Oscar notices there is no cash register. 
It´s clear that the woman has been studying his face.
-You spend your time looking for things, she suggests; either to recover what has been lost or discover something new. Isn´t it so?
-That´s true. But he reminds himself there is nothing remarkable about such an insight. Perhaps you could say the same of everyone. 
-Sometimes, it´s more important to let go of what you have been carrying for too long than to chase after more.
That´s when he´ll show her the pen. She´ll take it from him and examine it with an expert´s eye, looking at it from odd angles and trying the mechanism for characteristics that are invisible to Oscar. Then she´ll hand it back. 
-I don´t know where it came from, he concedes. It was a gift from someone I know; an old man. Not the type of person who deals in stolen goods. I´m sure it was his to give. 
-And yet this object is old enough to have a history of its own. I´m sure that your friend acquired it honestly; paid for it at least. But how can any of us say of such things that we own them?
-I don´t understand.
-There are items that owe a debt to the past, or even to the future. If they end up where they don´t belong, that disturbs a balance. Some people, like yourself, are sensitive to the loss of equilibrium. An item that is misplaced, not because it is lost but because it is in the wrong place, makes such people anxious. To possess such an item can be a burden for them. The weight of it may even cause them to feel dizzy. Was the man who gave you this a close friend or relative?
-Not really.
-I can tell you that it´s quite valuable. And yet you may suppose that your friend was quite glad to be rid of it; to pass on that burden.
-Do you know it´s history?
-To tell the story is not why this shop is needed. Here we only provide the space for our customers to find release by leaving behind what they should not have. Maybe after that the objects can find their own time and space. 
Oscar knows that this conversation will make him feel uncomfortable and slightly ridiculous, as if he is falling for a trick. Nevertheless he´ll hold out the pen, offering that the woman should take it back. But then she shakes her head and points to a space one a shelf of one of the old cabinets, where there is a small wooden tray on which some small items rest: a silver chain with an old pocket watch attached, a pendant brooch, a curiously shaped object that looks very modern although Oscar has no idea what it is for. 
At that moment he´ll understand where he needs to set down the fountain pen, in the precise spot where it belongs. Although his fingers linger over it, he knows that as soon as he steps back from the cabinet and turns his eyes from the tray he will feel a lifting of his spirits; maybe even a small sense of freedom. 
-Do I owe you anything? He´ll ask the woman. A stupid question. 
She´ll smile and he´ll put his wallet away and then there´s really nothing more to be said. 
And there´s no way to know why Oscar knows all of this in advance, in such detail, but it will happen, unexpectedly but exactly as he has imagined, on a day exactly like this one. He´s completely sure of it. 
Then he looks up and notices the shop. 

END
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