The Altogether Unexpected Disappearance of Atticus Craftsman (19 page)

All of a sudden, the case had taken a 180-degree turn. Berta and Manchego stood and each saw their surprise reflected in the other. They were about to hug and jump for joy, but they held back. In the end they simply laughed like two teenagers as they looked each other up and down, trying to see through the image they had in front of them—she, a plumpish mature woman; he, a big stocky man prone to a belly—to a corresponding image from their shared youth. The only thing they could rescue from that time was the same glimmer in the eyes and the same curve of a smile.

“I was sure I knew you from somewhere,” the inspector almost shouted, addressing Berta with the informal
tú
for the first time without realizing it. “You're the girl from the balcony. Across from the telegraph office. With glasses and braids. I went around looking for you for months.”

“Looking for me?”

“Yes. That's why your name seemed familiar: Berta Quiñones, I'd almost forgotten it. The theft from the post office in your village was my first case. I'd just graduated from the police academy and they put me on the case because I was from the area. It turned out that you were the most likely witness to the robbery. You were always watching the house.”

“A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then,” said Berta.

“I never found you,” the inspector went on. “But in the end the case solved itself. With the help of the man who ran the post office, who was, of course, the father of the girl who ran away with her boyfriend and the money—I don't know if you heard about that.”

“I did hear something, yes,” Berta replied. “But it was five years after I'd left home. I was living in Madrid. Studying philology. In the end I wouldn't have been much help.”

The tea was getting cold. Manchego lifted the cup to his lips once more, out of habit and to clear his throat, but now the brew was bitter and disappointing. He screwed up his nose and forced himself to swallow. He coughed.

“Berta . . .” And she was surprised when she heard him say, “What would you say if I invited you to dinner?”

CHAPTER 30

T
he San Miguel market seemed to Berta like the ideal place for a casual dinner. It was the perfect distance away, a short walk from the office, so they wouldn't have to get into the police car that was waiting on the corner with another officer behind the wheel. It would have been awkward to get into the backseat, where you sit when you've been arrested, and explain to Manchego's colleague that instead of taking them to the station he should drop them at a cozy little restaurant for a table for two, candlelight, and giggling conversation.

What better place than the old market, where you ate standing up, picking at morsels like sparrows, moving from table to table. Some Serrano ham here, some
croquetas de cocido
there, some mussels au gratin here, half a bottle of red wine there.

Berta and Manchego sat down on tall stools in front of a bar covered with tapas, their feet on the brass footrest as if they were ready to dine and dash at any moment.

Neither of them ate out much. They both liked the odd drink with friends or a game of cards after work, and then it was home, alone, to their pajamas and slippers, TV or a book, a toasted
sandwich, cold sheets, a pee, the Lord's Prayer, and a touch of insomnia in the middle of the night.

“I solved a mystery once as well,” boasted Berta between laughs. “It was terrifying. Shall I tell you about it?”

“Go on.”

“Well, I must have been ten or twelve. I was at home alone. It was completely dark out and I was in bed, waiting for my parents to come home so I could stop worrying and go to sleep, when all of a sudden I heard someone at the door. I went to the window but couldn't see anyone, so I went back to bed. But a few seconds later there was another knock. This time I got out of bed and threw myself down on the floor. I crawled to the attic window and stayed very still, waiting for someone to knock again. Then, petrified, I saw the knocker lift on its own and hit the door without anyone touching it.”

“How strange.”

“Of course I thought it was a ghost. What else could it be? It couldn't be the wind because the knocker was made of iron. My heart was in my mouth. I was young, and I was all alone . . . So I grabbed an old porcelain jug, the kind people used to use for washing, with its dish and everything, and when the knocker lifted, I threw it out the window to see if I could hit the head of the ghost or the invisible man or whatever joker was trying to scare me.”

“You were a very brave girl.”

“Not at all. I was a real coward, I wouldn't even dare run in front of the fire bull at the village fiestas. I used to go up to the club's balcony to watch it from safety and the other kids called me a chicken.”

“Let me guess,” interrupted the inspector, instinctively grabbing her by the arm. “Say no more. May I solve the case using deduction and logic?”

“Like Sherlock Holmes?”

“Or like Agent Grissom, from
CSI.
”

“Go on, then.”

“Let's see.” Manchego cleared his throat. “First off, yours was the first house in the village, right?”

“Yes.”

“And there were allotments on the opposite side of the road, if I'm not mistaken.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And your parents were out in the square.”

“And I was home alone. Terrified.”

“And you were easily scared.”

“I'll admit to that.”

“And the other kids used to make fun of you.”

“Sometimes.”

“Then, case closed,” said Manchego smugly. “It only took a minute, miss. The conclusion is as follows: Some sneaky little kid had tied a thread to the knocker and was pulling it from where he was hiding in the allotment across the road. Am I right?”

Berta's eyes opened as wide as saucers. She lifted her wineglass and clinked it against the inspector's.

“Congratulations,” she said. “It took me a while to figure out what was going on. I didn't just throw the jug, I threw a bucket of hot water, a wooden stool, and two pairs of shoes. I realized there was a thread only when I threw a blanket and it hung there as if it was on a clothesline.”

They laughed like two schoolchildren at recess. They reminisced about growing up in the shadow of the same hills, eating the same wild strawberries, and dodging the same cows on the same tracks, spending winters frozen to death, slipping down cobbled streets and taking dips in the same river in summer, fishing for tadpoles in freezing-cold ponds and snoozing under the same oak trees, eating fish stew and drinking from a
porrón
, buying warm bread and frothy milk. They had watched the same bus go past and shared the hope of one day climbing aboard and going off to see the world, although the known world extended only as far as Logroño and beyond that there were unimaginable dangers. They used words from their villages without blushing, words that they themselves had censored in their new lives in Madrid, where they were both considered cultured or clever but where in fact no one's provincial roots were judged because there was no one in the whole city who hadn't been born in a village they secretly longed for.

When Inspector Manchego got home, after walking Berta back to her flat on the infamous Calle del Alamillo, he realized that tonight, for the first time in ages, he had gone back to being the boy from Nieva de Cameros who wanted to be a policeman more than anything else.

And that he had managed it.

He flashed a satisfied smile at himself in the mirror and promised that the next time they had dinner he would definitely ask Berta about the locksmith Lucas and his possible connection to the Craftsman case. Then he realized that it would be, unofficially, the third date, and he wondered whether he should perhaps start trying to remember how to kiss a woman.

“Hey, Manchego,” Berta had asked him before they said
goodbye with a firm handshake and a timid good night, “do you remember what the guy who robbed the post office was called?”

“Rubén something,” he'd replied.

“Almost!” she'd shouted without meaning to. “And how about you? What's your name?”

“Alonso.”

“Wow! Like Don Quixote!”

CHAPTER 31

T
he Pirate definitely knew how to kiss.

You could say that César Barbosa had been born for that. For getting just the right kind of kiss for each woman. Shy, brazen, rude, playful . . . He enjoyed getting the ladies going with this God-given gift of his.

In María's case, the first kiss had been the cautious kind, one that tiptoed up to her mouth, gently stroked her lips, and then waited awhile for a response before moving in for the kill. His hands were on her waist, ready to descend to her hips and finally to her buttocks. He worked his legs between the seams of her skirt, leaned the weight of his shoulders against her body, his stubble scraping against her cheek, before checking that the first battle had been won, that she had closed her eyes and was waiting. Then, yes, it was war. His tongue moved like a wild animal freed from a cage, writhing, clawing, ripping, becoming master of space, time, air, and light.

It was a memorable kiss, that first one, against the wall of the San Ginés church, not far from the office. César had left his helmet on the seat of his motorbike: they had been for a spin, as if they were twenty, as if María was even younger and had just
finished school for the day, carrying folders and books, her boyfriend picking her up at the gate then saying goodbye outside her house. But they weren't twenty; they were thirty-five, and she had a husband, three children, a home, a shopping list, and a heavy conscience.

At first, María swore to herself that her fling with Barbosa wouldn't last more than a weekend: the one weekend of the year she wasn't with Bernabé because he went to Zamora to see his mother. His mother couldn't stand the sight of María because she thought she had trapped her son into marriage, when he had such a promising future ahead of him. Well, Sunday went and Monday came and César Barbosa turned up at the
Librarte
office with a new invoice and a new invitation.