Your Face Tomorrow 3: Poison, Shadow and Farewell

views of someone who felt the same way about the matter.

I phoned her that evening, much to her surprise, for she didn't even know I was in Madrid, but then how could she unless she had spoken to Luisa during the day and Luisa had told her, she asked me how things were going in London, and I was amazed that she actually knew where I was currently living, 'Fine,' I said, without going into detail, after all, it was just a reflex question, and then I asked if we could meet up as soon as possible, 'No,' she said, 'impossible, I'm off on a trip tomorrow and I've got loads of things to do before I go,' 'How long are you away for?' 'A week,' 'It will be too late when you get back, I need to see you before you leave, I'm only here for two weeks, well, less than that now, what time are you leaving?' I asked, 'At lunchtime, but I'm really tied up until then, can't you tell me over the phone? Is it about Luisa?' Yes, it's about Luisa.' Then she fell silent for a few seconds and it seemed to me that she had sat herself down on a chair in readiness. 'What have you got to say, then? Come on, tell me,' 'What? Now?' 'Yes, now. If it's what I think it is, it won't take much time and I imagine we'll be pretty much in agreement on the subject. It's about Custardoy, isn't it?'

'Who?'

'Custardoy, the guy she's going out with. Or didn't you know? Oh, Jaime, don't tell me you didn't know.' She said this not as if she were afraid she had put her foot in it, but as if she couldn't believe I wouldn't know. Perhaps she had always thought of me as rather absentminded, or worse, a fool.

'I've only just got back. I didn't know his name.' Now, however, I did and knew of his existence in Luisa's life, so it wasn't all conjecture on my part. All I needed now was to know what he looked like and find out where he lived. Custardoy. It was an unusual surname, odd, there wouldn't be many in Madrid. 'I've been away for ages, and when you only talk on the phone, it's hard to know what's really going on. Who is he? What does he do?'

'He's a painter, a copyist, or both of those things. Some people say he's a forger too, but at any rate, he's in the art world. I'm glad you phoned actually, I've been really worried-although I'm not sure anything can be done, in this kind of situation there's rarely much you can do.'

Worried? Why? What situation?'

'Tell me first why you phoned. Has Luisa told you anything?'

I wondered if I should pretend to know more than I did, but that seemed unwise, Cristina could be very touchy and, if she caught on to what I was doing, she might refuse to say another word. And that was the last thing I wanted, I was entirely dependent on her for help, and she had, inadvertently, already told me a lot, with no need for me to worm it out of her.

'No, not really,' I said at last. 'According to Luisa, what she does is no longer any of my business, and she's right of course. The thing is, I saw her briefly last night, I'd gone over there to see the kids, and she avoided me and left before I arrived, but I waited until she got back, she was away for several hours, I've no idea where she went, she left me with the babysitter, and I think the reason she was avoiding me was because when I did see her, her face was a real mess, and that was obviously the reason she hadn't wanted to be there. She claims she collided with the garage door, but she's got a black eye and it looks to me as if someone punched her, and I don't just find that worrying, I find it downright alarming, and it is my business, how could it not be? It would be the same if someone had hit you or any female friend. Do you know anything about it?'

'It wouldn't be the same if someone had hit me, Jaime, because you don't give a damn about me.' My sister-in- law's sharp tongue could not resist getting this comment in first. Then her tone changed and she said almost as if to herself: 'Not again. That's dreadful.'

'Again? You mean it's happened before?'

Cristina didn't respond at first. She paused as if she were biting her lip and weighing something up, but her hesitation lasted only a moment.

'According to her, no, nothing has ever happened, not what you suspect now nor what I've suspected in the past. Look, I'm telling you this because I'm worried, and even more so after what you've just told me, I didn't know anything about that, I haven't seen her for a couple of weeks, and she hasn't put any pressure on me to meet up before this trip of mine, presumably because she thinks the mark will have faded by the time I get back and then I won't ask any awkward questions. But I don't think she would be at all pleased if she knew I was talking about this to you. The only reason she hasn't told me not to talk to you is because it would never occur to her that you and I would be in touch. It wouldn't have occurred to me either, to be honest. Did she know you were coming to Madrid?'

'No, I phoned her when I arrived yesterday. I wanted it to be a surprise for the children.'

'She won't have had time to prepare herself,' she said, 'nor to worry about you finding out. She probably doesn't even want you to know she's going out with the guy'

'What is it that you suspected?'

'Well, according to her, a couple of months ago or so she fell over in the street and hit her face on one of those metal posts the council have put up everywhere, which is perfectly possible, because the city's full of the things, bollards I think they call them, you have to make a real point of avoiding them if you don't want to fracture your kneecap. Did she mention anything to you about falling over?'

'No, nothing. And we talk at least once a week.'

'Well, I'm surprised she didn't. It was a really nasty cut, a superficial one, but it went from one side of her nose to halfway across her cheek, you couldn't miss it.'-'Uno sfregio,' I thought, that recently learned word sprang immediately into my mind, 'a gash.'-'And she had a graze on her chin. From the way she talked about it, I just didn't believe her, and it looked more like a scratch or a welt or as if someone had slapped her, I know a bit about these things because a woman I was vaguely friendly with some years ago used to get beaten up by her husband; in fact, he killed her in the end, after I'd stopped seeing her luckily, which is something.' I instinctively knocked on wood. 'So I asked her straight out if Custardoy had hit her, if he'd beaten her up. She denied it, of course, and said I must be mad, how could I even think such a thing. But she blushed when she said it, and I can tell when my sister is lying from years of watching her face whenever she lied as a child. And I've heard other things since.'

What things? Do you know the guy?'

I realized that I preferred not to mention his name, although I had it stored away in my memory, as if it were a find, a treasure. It was a valuable piece of information.

'Yes, by sight. And by hearsay too. A few years ago, he was often to be seen drinking in smart bars like the Chicote, the Cock, or the Del Diego, or in others, he's an arty type, a nocturnal womanizer, although apparently he didn't restrict his activities to the nighttime only, he's the kind of man who can tell at once who wants to be chatted up and for what purpose, the kind who's capable of creating the necessary willingness and purpose in someone else, that is, in women. At least so I've heard. I don't know if he still goes to those places, because I don't go any more myself. You probably saw him once or twice there yourself, in the eighties or nineties.'

'What does he look like? Has he got a ponytail?' I asked, I couldn't help myself. I was burning to know this.

'Yes, how did you guess?'

'Oh, it was just something someone said. But in that case, no, I've never seen him. I mean, I can't remember anyone in particular with a ponytail. Then again, I pretty much stopped going out at night when Guillermo was born, and the guy probably didn't have a ponytail before that. And of course the surname doesn't mean anything to me either. What things have you heard?'

'Well, after seeing that cut on Luisa's face-which left me with a really bad feeling-I asked an acquaintance of mine, Juan Ranz, about Custardoy, who he's known since they were children. They never got on well and have had hardly any contact for years, but their parents were friends and used to leave them together to play and entertain each other, so he had to put up with his company quite often. He says Custardoy was one of those very grown-up kids, impatient to enter the adult world, as if he wanted to climb out of his as yet unformed body. Then, when he was older, Custardoy used to make copies of paintings for Ranz's father, who's an art expert (apparently, Custardoy's a brilliant copyist and can make a perfect copy of anything from any period, in fact, it's hard to tell them from the originals, which, of course, is where his reputation as a forger comes in), and so he still used to see him from time to time, through his father. Juan is an interpreter at the United Nations, and, as a matter of fact, his wife's name is Luisa too.'

'What else did he tell you?'

'The most notable or perhaps the most troubling fact, and the one that most concerns us, is that, although he's a great success with the ladies, there's obviously something slightly sinister about the way he treats them because