‘I see you haven’t lost your talent for making friends,’ offered Don Basilio.

Brotons rubbed his chin.

‘Let’s not worry too much. I think I might be able to find another way in that will not arouse suspicion.’

‘If you find Salvador for me, I’ll sacrifice whatever you want, even a pig.’

‘With my gout I’ve given up pork, but I wouldn’t say no to a good cigar,’ Brotons said.

‘Make it two,’ added Don Basilio.

While I rushed off to a tobacconist’s on Calle Tallers in search of two specimens of the most exquisite and expensive Havana cigars, Brotons made a few discreet calls to police headquarters and confirmed that Salvador had left the police force, or rather that he had been made to leave, and had gone on to work as a corporate bodyguard as well as doing investigative work for various law firms in the city. When I returned to the newspaper offices to present my benefactors with their two cigars, the archivist handed me a note with an address:

Ricardo Salvador

Calle de la Lleona, 21. Top floor.

‘May the publisher-in-chief of La Vanguardia bless you,’ I said.

‘And may you live to see it.’

29

Calle de la Lleona, better known to locals as the Street of the Three Beds in honour of the notorious brothel it harboured, was an alleyway almost as dark as its reputation. It started in the shadowy arches of Plaza Real and extended into a damp crevice, far from sunlight, between old buildings piled on top of one another and sewn together by a perpetual web of clothes lines. The crumbling, ochre facades were dilapidated, and the slabs of stone covering the ground had been bathed in blood during the years when the city had been ruled by the gun. More than once I’d used the setting as a backdrop to my stories in City of the Damned and even now, deserted and forgotten, it still smelled of crime and gunpowder. The grim surroundings seemed to indicate that Superintendent Salvador’s early retirement package from the police force had not been a generous one.

Number 21 was a modest property squeezed between two buildings that held it together like pincers. The main door was open, revealing a pool of shadows from which a steep, narrow staircase rose in a spiral. The floor was flooded with a dark, slimy liquid oozing from the cracks in the tiles. I climbed the steps as best I could, without letting go of the handrail, but not trusting it either. There was only one door on every landing. Judging by the appearance of the building I didn’t think that any of the apartments could be larger than forty square metres. A small skylight crowned the stairwell and bathed the upper floors in a tenuous light. The door to the top-floor apartment was at the end of a short corridor and I was surprised to find it open. I rapped with my knuckles, but got no reply. The door opened onto a small sitting room containing an armchair, a table and a bookshelf filled with books and brass boxes. A sort of kitchen-cum-washing area occupied the adjoining room. The saving grace in that cell was a terrace that led to the flat roof. The door to the terrace was also open and a fresh breeze blew through it, bringing with it the smell of cooking and laundry from the rooftops of the old town.

‘Is anyone home?’ I called out.

Nobody answered, so I walked over to the terrace door and stepped outside. A jungle of roofs, towers, water tanks, lightning conductors and chimneys spread out in every direction. Before I was able to take another step, I felt the touch of cold metal on the back of my neck and heard the metallic click of a revolver as the hammer was cocked. All I could think to do was raise my hands and not move even an eyebrow.

‘My name is David Martín. I got your address from police headquarters. I wanted to speak to you about a case you handled.’

‘Do you usually go into people’s homes uninvited, Señor David Martín?’

‘The door was open. I called out but you can’t have heard me. Can I put my hands down?’

‘I didn’t tell you to put them up. Which case?’

‘The death of Diego Marlasca. I rent the house that was his last home. The tower house in Calle Flassaders.’

He said nothing. I could still feel the revolver pressing against my back.

‘Señor Salvador?’ I asked.

‘I’m wondering whether it wouldn’t be better to blow your head off right now.’

‘Don’t you want to hear my story first?’

The pressure from the revolver seemed to lessen and I heard the hammer being uncocked. I slowly turned round. Ricardo Salvador was an imposing figure, with grey hair and pale blue eyes that penetrated like needles. I guessed that he must have been about fifty but it would have been difficult to find men half his age who would dare get in his way. I gulped. Salvador lowered the revolver and turned his back to me, returning to the apartment.

‘I apologise for the welcome,’ he mumbled.

I followed him to the minute kitchen and stopped in the doorway. Salvador left the pistol on the sink and lit the stove with bits of paper and cardboard. He pulled out a coffee pot and looked at me questioningly.

‘No, thanks.’

‘It’s the only good thing I have, I warn you,’ he said.

‘Then I’ll have one with you.’

Salvador put a couple of generous spoonfuls of coffee into the pot, filled it with water and put it on the flames.

‘Who has spoken to you about me?’

‘A few days ago I visited Señora Marlasca, the widow. She’s the one who told me about you. She said you were the only person who had tried to discover the truth and it had cost you your job.’

‘That’s one way of describing it, I suppose,’ he said.

I noticed that at my mention of the widow his expression darkened, and I wondered what might have happened between them during those unfortunate days.

‘How is she?’ he asked. ‘Señora Marlasca.’

‘I think she misses you.’

Salvador nodded, his fierce manner crumbling.

‘I haven’t been to see her for a long time.’

‘She thinks you blame her for what happened. I think she’d like to see you again, even though so much time has gone by.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. Maybe I should go and pay her a visit…’

‘Can you talk to me about what happened?’

Salvador recovered his severe expression.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Marlasca’s widow told me that you never accepted the official line that her husband took his own life. She said you had suspicions.’

‘More than suspicions. Has anyone told you how Marlasca died?’

‘All I know is that people said it was an accident.’

‘Marlasca died by drowning. At least, that’s what the police report said.’

‘How did he drown?’

‘There’s only one way of drowning, but I’ll come back to that later. The curious thing is where he drowned.’

‘In the sea?’

Salvador smiled. It was a dark, bitter smile, like the coffee that was brewing.

‘Are you sure you want to hear this?’

‘I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.’

He handed me a cup and looked me up and down, assessing me.

‘I assume you’ve visited that son-of-a-bitch Valera.’

‘If you mean Marlasca’s partner, he’s dead. The one I spoke to was his son.’

‘Another son-of-a-bitch, except he has fewer guts. I don’t know what he told you, but I’m sure he didn’t say that between them they managed to get me thrown out of the police force and turned me into a pariah who couldn’t even beg for money in the streets.’

‘I’m afraid he forgot to include that in his version of events,’ I conceded.

‘It doesn’t surprise me.’

‘You were going to tell me how Marlasca drowned.’

‘That’s where it gets interesting,’ said Salvador. ‘Did you know that Señor Marlasca, apart from being a lawyer, a scholar and a writer, had, as a young man, won the annual Christmas swim across the port organised by the Barcelona Swimming Club?’