The Altogether Unexpected Disappearance of Atticus Craftsman (18 page)

“What, you didn't tell them we were coming?”

“No, it's better not to tell them anything. More natural.”

Atticus thought about his mother, Moira, and the state she would be in if a guest decided to turn up at her house unannounced. It would throw her entirely, it would drive her up the wall, she would spend months harping on about such a lack of decorum. She would be disoriented, like when you put a twig in the path of an ant and it doesn't know whether to go around it, climb over it, or turn around and give up. Bewildered, with nothing firm left to cling to.

But Manuela Heredia, Soleá's mother, turned out to be so unlike Moira Craftsman that Atticus found it very difficult to classify them both as part of the same species: mothers. After hugging and covering her daughter with kisses as if she had been away at war and they had given her up for dead, Manuela set to work on Atticus. Her plump arms wrapped around his neck, her mouth grazed the corners of his lips. It was the closest Atticus had come to rape in his whole life. His own mother would never have smothered him like that, not even when he was a baby.

“Oh, what a joy, what a joy!” Manuela shouted so the whole neighborhood would know that Soleá was home.

Granny Remedios came to the door, intrigued by all the commotion. She was dressed in black, with some teeth missing and others shining with pure gold, and she repeated and intensified the effusive welcome, adding a few pinches and caresses. She was wearing a white apron speckled with oil and she smelled of flour, onions, and woodsmoke.

“What did you say your name was? Tico, was it?” She christened him as soon as she released him from her welcoming hug.

They went through to the courtyard garden and got tangled
in the vines and branches of lemon trees, tripped over the potted geraniums, and met a gray cat and a yellow canary, before climbing up tiled steps to a door flanked by two huge old terra-cotta jars, like a pair of riot police armed to the teeth.

Inside, in the bustling half-light, there were more people: three cousins, two uncles, a drunk, Soleá's sisters, her brother Tomás, Arcángel's mother who had come to borrow some salt and ended up staying for lunch, three or four noisy and quarrelsome children, and another old woman identical to Remedios who was called Dolores. The table was already laid with ceramic plates and laden with a big pot of food, roast goat, tomatoes with olive oil, potatoes with olive oil; these people even put olive oil on the olives—fat, green wild olives—and they drank wine with fizzy pop: “Why would you want water? Water's for toads, or there's Coca-Cola, if you prefer, because you're a gringo, if you'll pardon the expression. But you are really gringo. I hope the salt cod doesn't disagree with your gringo stomach,
míster.
”

And the television was on, turned up loud in one corner of the room, like a painting no one looks at but that exists and its simply existing is enough. What's a house without a TV? And a sofa. And a narrow staircase leading to a room with an iron bedstead with a wire base, covered with a crocheted blanket—“My mother made that”—and photos stuck to the walls, a pine window frame, dolls in frilly dresses lined up on the bench, the grandmother's wardrobe, a collection of fans. “You'll sleep up here,
míster
, get out of here,
niño
, go on, or you'll get a clip around the ear, this is
Míster Crasman's
room.”

“Rest awhile,
Míster Crasman
, because tonight there's
jarana
.”

“What's
jarana
?”

•  •  •

Soleá had stayed downstairs, sitting at the table, where she was laughing more than Atticus had seen any girl laugh in a long time, telling her sisters the latest news from Madrid. Her Madrid was merely an extension of El Albaicín, with the same names and the same faces, because many young people had left Granada and now lived on the outskirts of Madrid.

“But if your mother and your grandmother didn't know we were coming,” Atticus had protested at the door, “they probably haven't made food for us, and they won't have got a room ready for me. We should find a little hotel instead . . .”

“Look,
Míster Crasman
,” Soleá had replied with her hands on her hips, “I don't know how you do things in England, but here in Granada we don't put too much thought into laying the table. We bring out the stew, the pot of noodles, the meat or whatever there is, and if there are ten people, then ten, if there are fifteen, then fifteen, and we eat. And there's always enough to go around.”

•  •  •

Atticus made himself a cup of tea with water from the tap, drank it in one gulp, lay on the bed, and thought that he would be home very soon. As soon as he managed to persuade Granny Remedios that what she kept hidden in a drawer was a treasure, a find worthy of being declared World Heritage.

He would have to choose his words extremely carefully, he said to himself, and then he fell asleep and dreamed that a tribe of cannibals were lowering him into a pot of boiling water.

•  •  •

A while later, Soleá tiptoed upstairs and pressed her ear against the door behind which Atticus was snoring like a bear. When she felt confident that he was sleeping deeply enough for her to call Berta without him hearing, she dialed the number for
Librarte.

“Berta?” she said quietly, pressing the cell phone to her ear. “It's Soleá. Just to let you know that so far, everything's going according to plan. We're at my mom's house.”

“Well done, darling!” whispered her boss in response. “Go on, tell me everything.”

CHAPTER 29

F
ollowing the raid at number 5, Calle del Alamillo, Inspector Manchego began to harbor the uncomfortable suspicion that his accomplice, the locksmith, had pulled the wool right over his eyes. After his quick search that night, another one was arranged in which several officers from the theft department participated, and they confirmed that the flat contained no fingerprints apart from Craftsman's, Señora Susana's, and those belonging to Manchego himself. Not a trace of Lucas.

What's more, the inspector had spent a few days trying to get hold of his accomplice on his cell phone, and the only answer he got was from a robot assuring him that the number he had dialed was not in service.

The pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place of their own accord. Everything fitted.

First: The supposed locksmith didn't have a clue how to open a door silently, which indicated that, in all probability, he wasn't a bloody locksmith.

Second: The circumstances in which they had met, casually, in the street, one drunken night, and that scrap of paper with his name and phone number but no other details to link him
to an address or a real identity made Manchego think he wasn't even called Lucas, nor would he have any way to find him once he destroyed the SIM card, which he had probably already done.

Third: The guy was clever. He had got Manchego properly tied up, because now he couldn't investigate the case without dropping himself in it for searching without a warrant and using a standard-issue weapon off duty, as well as making himself look absolutely ridiculous.

When he reached this conclusion, Manchego decided to launch a second line of inquiry, one that would be secret, personal, and probably related to the Craftsman case but would never appear in the file. The issue, which the inspector dubbed Dossier X, would consist of unraveling Lucas's true identity and discovering what connected him with number 5, Calle del Alamillo. For the moment he wouldn't say anything to Marlow Craftsman about this line of investigation because it was entirely possible that Lucas was involved in something unconnected with the Craftsman case—for example, that the flat, which had been empty for months, was being used as a base to store or deal drugs.

Since he couldn't think of any other way to get new information that would put him on the scent, he decided to arrange a second meeting with Berta Quiñones, the editor of
Librarte
, because she was apparently the only element that linked Mr. Craftsman and the Calle del Alamillo flat.

In their first meeting, she had struck him as smarter than she let on. She knew when to keep quiet and spoke with carefully measured words. Such that, at one point during their conversation, the inspector had even suspected that she might have been hiding something.

“So, you have no idea where
Míster Crasman
might be?” he had asked her, his eyes firmly fixed on hers.

Those eyes, as dark as the bottom of a well, like the eyes of a nocturnal bird, and clearly shortsighted, had seemed strangely familiar. They had stuck in his prodigious photographic memory—about which he liked to brag to his friends, “I never forget a face”—and had been saved on the hard disk of his shrewd detective's brain, where his subconscious had decided to store every face he saw on the off chance he needed it to solve a future case.

•  •  •

On this occasion, Berta was alone when she greeted him at her small office on Calle Mayor at eight in the evening.

“I told the girls to go home,” she explained as she served him tea in a porcelain cup. “They're already worked up enough, what with Mr. Craftsman's disappearance and all the questioning. I hope you'll forgive me, Inspector, for saying that your methods are a bit heavy-handed. You've got us all worried, thinking that we're on your list of suspects.”

“For the moment there is no such list, Ms. Quiñones.”

“Please, call me Berta.”

“Berta.”

“I assume you've come to tell me about the break-in at Señora Susana's flat?”

“You already know?”

“Of course, Inspector.”

“Call me Manchego.”

“Manchego.”

They took a sip of the Earl Grey that Atticus Craftsman had left behind in the office kitchen. It was hot, and strong. It proved very comforting for a cold November night.

“Forgive me for saying so, Manchego, but it seems a very odd
coincidence that you happened to be passing by at the exact time of the break-in.”

“I see.”

“The thing is, I don't much believe in coincidences, you know?” Berta went on. “I've always been one of those people who think things happen for a reason. A few years ago I read a book that said just that. For example, it's no coincidence that you've been put on this case, or that we've met, or that we're here drinking tea right now.”

“Oh, really?”

“According to the book, no. Our meeting,” Berta explained, “is part of a universal plan. It's necessary for both of us that this should be happening. Do you understand? Perhaps I've got an important role to play in your destiny, or you in mine.”

Manchego placed his cup back on the saucer and looked up. His eyes met Berta's for a moment. Once again they seemed familiar. Like a long-forgotten dream. Like a lost memory.

“The thing is,” said the inspector, “you remind me of someone.”

“What nonsense!” Berta replied, blushing. “What's happened is you've been influenced by my words. It's like Merton's self-fulfilling prophecy. Do you know what I mean?”

“Um, no.”

For the next few minutes, Berta gave a detailed breakdown of Robert K. Merton's work, and Manchego listened carefully without interrupting, simply so that he could take a couple of sips of tea. He didn't make much of an effort to understand the theory that Berta was so passionately describing, but he did take in a few words and ideas that seemed intriguing.

“It's an interesting theory,” the inspector said finally. “And you're a very knowledgeable woman, Berta.”

“Don't kid yourself,” she replied, flattered. “I'm just a country girl. I come from a small town in the Cameros hills.”

“Me too!” said Manchego in surprise, opening his eyes as wide as dinner plates.

“Ortigosa,” she said.

“Nieva!” he replied.