The Frozen Heart (108 page)

‘If you would like to wait here,’ the secretary said, gesturing to an armchair, ‘Don Julio will see you right away.’

Raquel realised that these offices were utterly unlike the rest of the building, with its modern glass-and-steel façade, but she did not have much time to ponder the difference.

‘If you’d like to go in ...’ A moment later Raquel found herself in a room so vast that she had to walk a certain distance to make sure that the man behind the desk was really him. She felt no different to how she did when faced with a new client, and her host did nothing to change that impression. Julio Carrion González did not get up from his seat to greet her, and she responded to this discourtesy by remaining standing, looking down at him. She remembered her grandmother’s description, something that had been borne out by the photo on the website; Julio Carrion was old, but he was an attractive man. He still had the same shock of hair he had had as a young man, though it was white now, the same fierce intensity in his expression, the same sparkling eyes.

‘You look at lot like your Aunt Paloma.’ He was the first to speak and his remark caught her off guard. ‘I’m sure people are always telling you that. Her hair was a little darker than yours and her eyes were a brilliant blue, but the shape of your face, the chin, the neck, that elegant jawline ... You’re very like her ...’

Raquel said nothing; she went on staring down at him, a sharp metallic taste in her mouth.

‘Please take a seat, Raquel.’ Julio Carrion yielded to politeness. ‘Tell me, what can I do for you?’

‘You can start by not calling me Raquel, I have no desire to be on first-name terms with you.’ She listened to this voice as though it were not her own, and drew strength from her words.

The old man laughed and his face looked like a child’s drawing of the sun, a big yellow ball with sunbeams streaming out from it. Raquel did not know that Julio Carrion had always been attracted to brave women, she didn’t yet know that she would be the last, and that she would be the exception.

‘I didn’t mean to offend you,’ he said, ‘but you are considerably younger than I am. So, Señora Perea, would you like to tell me why you’re here?’ Though he had just turned eighty-three, he was still a charming man and seemed to revel in that fact. ‘I’m guessing you wish to tell me that the price of your apartment has just gone up considerably, am I right?’

‘No.’ His face was suddenly serious. ‘Not exactly. I don’t know if you remember me, I’m the little girl who came to your house with Ignacio Fernández Muñoz one Saturday afternoon in May 1977.’ She paused to study the effect of her words and saw him nod. ‘He had this briefcase with him.’ She picked up the briefcase and showed it to him. ‘I’m sure you recognise it. It’s the same briefcase and it contains the same documents. I want you to tell me what you and my grandfather talked about that afternoon. That’s why I’m here.’

‘And why should I tell you?’ Raquel noticed the tone of this question was markedly different from his previous remarks. She saw him stiffen, he was bolt upright in his chair now, and there was a hardness in his expression, but far from inhibiting her, his manner spurred her on.

‘For a start, because if you don’t tell me, I won’t sell you my apartment.’

‘Now listen to me, señorita.’ His lips curled into a sarcastic smile underscoring the contempt in his voice. ‘Don’t you threaten me. I don’t give a shit about your apartment. I can buy a hundred buildings like yours ...’

‘Fine.’ Raquel Fernández Perea felt much better now, and the blood in her veins began to thaw. ‘In that case I’ll contact Señor López Parra and let him know that my apartment is no longer for sale. He’ll be terribly upset, because he’s put a lot of work into negotiating this deal, but you’re the boss. Don’t worry, I won’t tell him why, I’ll leave that to you. I think that would be best, don’t you?’

She let the question hang in the air and saw that although the contempt on his face had not entirely faded, it had dissolved into something more complex.

‘I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but if you think you can frighten me, I can assure you, you’re sadly mistaken ... But I’m loath to ruin the hard work of one of my best employees or run the risk of bringing something as ambitious as the Tetuán project to a standstill. I have no intention, however, of wasting all day with you, so just name your price and I’ll pay it.’

‘I want to know what you and my grandfather talked about that afternoon. That’s my price.’

Julio Carrion González clenched his fists, making no attempt to disguise his irritation.

‘Your grandfather is dead,’ he said, after a moment. ‘How will you know whether I’m telling you the truth? That I’m not conning you?’

‘Go ahead, try,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you can fool me, Señor Carrion. I knew my grandfather extremely well, so well, in fact, that having spoken to you only for a minute, I’m fairly sure I know what happened that afternoon.’

‘Really?’ He paused and looked at her with disdain. ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

‘You offered him money, didn’t you? And he wouldn’t take it.’

She knew she had hit the mark when Julio Carrion looked away, his eyes moving slowly around the room as though seeing it for the first time.

‘I’m going to tell you something that may surprise you,’ he said at length, ‘Señorita ...’

‘Raquel.’

‘Fine, I’m going to tell you something that may surprise you, Raquel. I had a lot of respect for your grandfather. Ignacio was a good man, honest and generous.’ He looked at her and saw that her expression had not changed. ‘I’ve met few men like him in my life, and I genuinely admired him. The fact that we weren’t alike, that we didn’t think or feel or believe in the same things, never stopped me from respecting him.’

‘I didn’t ask you what you thought of my grandfather’ - and I’m not going to get angry until I’m good and ready — ’and I have no interest in your opinion.’

‘Yes, but...’ Julio Carrion tried to smile but it faded under the forbidding glare of the woman sitting opposite him. ‘I just wanted you to know ... that afternoon ...’ He paused, and rubbed his forehead before continuing. ‘Ignacio came to tell me he’d come back to live in Spain, in Madrid, and he still had all the documents relating to his parents’ properties. That’s all he wanted to do, as far as I know. And you’re right, I did offer him money, a lot of money, but he wouldn’t sell me the briefcase. “I’d rather rob you of your sleep,” he said to me, “I’d rather you spent every day worrying about what I might be doing, what I might be planning to do. I’m going to ruin you, Julio, but you’ll never know how or when or where I’ll strike. I just wanted you to know that.” And that was it. He got up and walked out without saying goodbye. Oh, he called me all the names under the sun, and I’m probably paraphrasing a little, but I swear that was all he said.’

Now it was Raquel’s turn to be silent. She had been caught off guard by what he said, even more so by her conviction that Julio was not lying to her. It had to be the truth. It was the only thing that fitted with what her grandfather had told her, but she needed time to take it in.

Julio Carrion watched her. A moment later, he made a mistake.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me what I did?’ His tone was sarcastic again, mocking.

Had he not asked that question, Raquel Fernández Perea would have had time to remember the advice her grandfather had given her, his example in forgoing his revenge, reducing it to a threat he had no intention of ever carrying out. When she had opened his desk drawer, his granddaughter had found a gun and a case of bullets, one of which had had Julio Carrion González’s name on it for thirty years, but her grandfather had elected never to use it. Raquel understood Ignacio, she understood his reasons, and suddenly she felt a terrible surge of grief, pride, and love.
‘To live here there are some things it is better not to know. Things it is better not to understand.’
Maybe he was right, and she was about to accept this fact when she heard his question and looked up and her resolve was shattered by Julio Carrion González’s condescending smile.

‘I never took Ignacio seriously,’ he said, ‘I never felt the slightest fear, believe me. Oh, I offered him money, because at the time things in Spain were complicated, and I didn’t know who was advising him. Back then, we didn’t know whether the courts might intervene in these matters. That was what worried me, not him. Because I knew Ignacio, maybe not as well as you did, but I knew that he was too good, too sensible, to ruin his life simply in order to ruin mine. Back in 1947, he would have killed me, there’s no doubt about it, but in 1977 ... Even courageous men grow soft in old age, even the communists were prattling on about national reconciliation. Your grandfather is dead, and here I am chatting to you. That’s the way life goes. So why don’t we call a halt to these fantasies and talk business, because the only place the good guys win is in films, señorita.’

Bastard. You vile bastard. You vile fucking bastard.

Raquel got up, took her handbag and the briefcase and headed towards the door.

‘I don’t ... Where are you going?’

She stopped halfway and turned. Julio Carrion González was finally on his feet, leaning over the desk and staring at her.

‘I need to think things through,’ she said in the clipped, professional tone she used with her clients. ‘As you can imagine, I’m not about to make a decision right now, but don’t worry, I’ll get back to you.’ Then she walked quickly out of the office, closing the door behind her. The secretary looked up from her computer.

‘Excuse me,’ Raquel asked with a smile, ‘could you tell me where the toilets are?’

After throwing up her breakfast, she felt slightly better. When she stepped out on to the street, the icy stab of the wind from the mountains felt like a caress, and she took a deep breath. She wasn’t afraid any more, her legs felt strong, but what she had just experienced had left her in a curious state of detachment, a sort of spontaneous anaesthesia which made it possible for her to go back to work, sit at her desk and deal with the business of the day as efficiently as a well-programmed machine. She felt as though she were outside her own body, but her mind was working perfectly and could deal with anything, anything other than the office she had visited that morning. Perhaps this was why, when she left the bank, she did not go home but to her grandparents’ apartment. There, sitting on the sofa, she slowly regained control of her nerve endings and wondered whether she truly was Ignacio Fernández Muñoz’s granddaughter.

Even the most straightforward negotiations could be stressful but she dealt with them every day at work. She had never learned to play poker, but she knew how to bluff, knew how to bet on nothing more than a hunch. Sometimes she managed to make a great deal of money for her clients, and she was rarely wrong. So she decided to wait. She analysed the situation carefully, and concluded that the ball was not in her court. Carrion would do something. Quickly.

 

‘Hey, Sebastián.’ Raquel greeted him as though his call — less than forty-eight hours after her meeting with his boss — was a complete surprise. ‘Good to hear from you.’

‘Thanks ...’ he said, sounding uncertain. ‘Listen, are you at work?’

‘Of course ... aren’t you? It was still Friday the last time I checked...’

‘Yes, no ... That’s not what I meant. Are you in the office right now? I’d like to come up and talk to you for a few minutes.’

‘You’re here?’ Raquel was surprised. ‘Plaza de las Descalzas?’

‘Yes, that’s why I’m asking ... I mean, if you have a minute ...’

Raquel checked her diary, then her watch, then repeated the operation a second time.

‘I have a meeting at one o’clock, but I can spare you a few minutes ...’

Six minutes passed before Sebastián López Parra knocked on her office door. Raquel could not guess why he had come, but she was certain that this new development worked to her advantage.

‘Come in, come in.’ She got up to greet him and saw that he was nervous. ‘Please, take a seat ... So, then ... it’s strange you being on my patch.’

‘Yes, it is, I suppose. But actually, I’m just a delivery boy ...’

He was carrying a white envelope, which he now put on the table, together with a key. Then he looked at her and frowned, as though unsure of what the words he was about to say actually meant.

‘Don Julio Carrion asked me to bring you this. He insisted I deliver it to you in person, and said it couldn’t wait. He’s obviously decided to deal with your apartment himself. He didn’t explain what he was doing and I wasn’t about to ask, but I have to say ...’ He took off his glasses, looked at them, and decided against cleaning them. ‘Listen, Raquel, I don’t know who you are, or what’s going on, or why everything is suddenly so urgent, but...’

His words trailed off again, as though he couldn’t bring himself to say them aloud.

‘That envelope contains a contract proposing an exchange. Don Julio gets your seventy-square-metre apartment overlooking the Calle Avila and in exchange you get a hundred-and-eighty-square-metre penthouse with a sixty-square-metre terrace, in a luxury development on Calle Jorge Juan, within walking distance of the Retiro. And as if that wasn’t enough, he’ll also pay the taxes and conveyancing charges, yours and his. These are the papers and I’ve brought you a key because Don Julio thought you might like to look at it first, though personally I don’t think you even need to see it ...’

‘Really?’ Raquel smiled. ‘You’ve seen the place ...?’

‘The apartment? Of course ...’ He relaxed now, like a student who has just finished his oral exam. ‘Look, Raquel, this is the weirdest, most unbelievable thing that’s ever happened at Promociones del Noreste, take my word for it. I’ve been working there for ten years and I’ve never seen anything like it. You know yourself that Don Julio Carrion is no saint, and his son Rafa is worse, he’s a shark. Of course, he and his brother know nothing about this, that was the first thing Don Julio said, “the most important thing is that no one else finds out”. Just so you know, it’s not a simple swap, it’s much more complicated. He’s giving you the apartment and you’re giving him yours, then he’s selling yours back to the company for the same price everyone else in the building is getting. Why? So there’s no paper trail, obviously, so no one can ever find out he gave you this fabulous apartment in exchange for a shitty little apartment and start asking questions. Look, I’m going to tell you something, because I really like you ...’ He looked at her and laughed. ‘You’re about to make a killing on this, Raquel, you’re going to make an absolute fucking killing on it.’