As a false trail, to hint at revenge, jealousy, or was it another queer affair? Who can tell…? Now what did he have left? Perhaps he should try his luck with a loose cannon, like Adrian Riveron, suspected of the heinous crime of being a closet smoker, Miriam’s friend and ex-fiance and now perhaps her confidant; or go back to talk to the dead man’s mother, who didn’t seem to have the slightest idea of what world she was living in. And old Forcade? he wondered, as his consciousness felt certain all paths had been blocked. After all, everybody insisted Miguel had returned to Cuba to see his father and that apparent lie might be the one and only truth.
“So he came to see his father?”
“I’ve told you so at least ten times. Why won’t you believe me?”
“No, I believe you, Miriam, but tell me just one thing, what’s your father-in-law’s mental state?”
She seemed surprised by the question that dragged her from the circle of denials and rejections behind which she had fenced herself.
“He’s been slightly mad ever since I’ve known him. And now he’s eighty-six I think he’s gone even crazier…”
“But he’s not ga-ga, is he?” he asked tightening the rope, and the rope twanged.
“He is as far as I’m concerned. The poor guy doesn’t know which planet he’s on…” she replied, after hesitating briefly, and the Count knew he’d hit the bull’s-eye. Smiling, the policeman seized his moment.
“You must forgive me, Miriam, but I have to ask you to stay here at Headquarters. Only for an hour or so. I’ll soon be back and we can continue our conversation. OK?”
“Do I have any choice in the matter?”
The Count’s smile broadened a little: he tried to appear charming, even relaxed and cheerful, as he told her: “I don’t think so,” and went out into the corridor before she could batter him with appeals to civil, consular and democratic rights that she’d no doubt take to the UN Security Council. Manolo, who’d followed him at a speed accelerated by his fear of being left alone with Miriam, asked him on tenterhooks. “But what are you going to do, Conde?”
“Head with you to the Forcade household. But first of all find two guys to stay and keep a watch on her. Tell them to put her in another office, not to leave her by herself and not to talk to her… And get a move on, because El Zorro rides again,” he said, taking out the avenging sword of the defender of the poor, and slicing through the air three times, zas, zas, zas, engraving there the indelible
Miguel’s mother welcomed them with a confused smile and the usual accumulation of magnesia at the corners of her mouth. She was perhaps glad to see them, as they might be bearers of the faintly good tidings of the capture of her son’s murderer. Nervously the aged lady asked them in and the Count took advantage of a possible confusion to touch on a matter he’d not yet broached.
“What beautiful lamps, senora,” and he walked over to the genuine Tiffanys and trailed his fingers over the lead veins on the standard lamp whose glass panes imitated a fruit tree till he found the authenticating signature: yes, it was. “I’d never seen one of these…”
She nodded proudly, and also walked over to the lamp.
“The fact is, that Tiffany is a rare object. They only made five of this model. Can you imagine? I know because we’ve had several visitors wanting to buy them. My husband knows all about it, but has always refused to sell anything without Miguel’s permission, because my son asked him to try to preserve everything…”
“Because it all belonged to Miguel, didn’t it?”
“Yes, he brought it all here.”
“I really don’t understand how he could give up so many beautiful pieces…” the Count let drop, in case the hare jumped.
The old lady rubbed her hands, perhaps wet with perspiration, and confessed: “I don’t either.”
The Count gazed on her as benignly as he could, and dived in at the deep end: “Caruca, we still don’t know what happened to your son. We have an inkling, and need a little help from you…”
“But in what way?”
“We need to speak to your husband right away.”
She rubbed her hands again, surprised by the kind of help sought. Her eyes had now moistened, as if irritated by an unexpected cloud of smoke.
“But he’s an invalid and hasn’t been out of the house for ages. He lives in his own world, what can he know…?”
“That doesn’t matter. I spoke to him yesterday and it’s clear his mind is in good working order, and we want to talk about things that happened some years ago. May we?”
“The fact is he was very influenced by Miguel’s…” she whispered, trying to erect a final parapet to protect her husband from the interminable shadow produced by her son’s death.
“Caruca, it can only be worse if he never knows who the savage was that killed Miguel, and worse still if they go unpunished. Tell Dr Forcade that my mind has exhausted all possibilities and my only option is to exchange opinions with him. Tell him in those words.”
The old lady hesitated a few seconds, but the Count knew her defences were vulnerable, like the digestive system that could return that white paste to her lips. The policeman was ready to reopen the wound, but she nodded.
“Wait a minute. I’ll get him in a fit state and tell him you want to see him, because your mind has exhausted all possibilities and your only option is to exchange opinions with him.”
She didn’t wait for a reply but headed for the stairs. She took short, visibly confident steps.
“Hey, Conde, what’s a lamp like that worth?” asked Manolo when the old lady had vanished from sight.
The policeman lit a cigarette and lamented, as always, that he couldn’t find an earthenware or metal ashtray. He only saw objects that should be on display in a museum: bone china, sculpted glass, rococo style pieces that ran the risk of dying at the clumsy hands of a Mario Conde.
“I don’t know, Manolo, but it could run to several thousand… What would you do with a lamp like that, you could sell for fifty thousand dollars?”
“Me…?” came the surprised response, and he smiled. “Well I’d sell it and and paint the town and nobody’d stop me – not even by tying me up. What about you?”
“I’m an artist, Manolo, remember… But I’d also sell up and they’d have to tie me up with you. I swear on the sliver of liver I’ve got left…”
The two policemen devoted almost ten minutes to improving or destroying their lives with the fifty thousand dollars they had earned so easily, until Caruca peered over the rail to the top floor to say: “You can come up now.”
When he was by her side, the Count asked quietly: “How is he today?”
“I don’t know, quite tired, but he says it’s fine, he wants to speak to you.”
Thank you, Caruca, you’ll see how important it is,” the Count reassured her before going into the bedroom.
The Count found the weary old man seated on a wood and willow armchair, looking more brittle and vulnerable now he was away from his plants. Behind him the Count contemplated an altar built into the wall, where he saw the central dominating image of a crowned Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, flanked by a bleeding St Lazarus escorted by his dogs and a jet-black Virgin from Regla. That altar, the Count recalled, immediately cursing his memory, was almost a replica of the one that had always been in his parents’ house, on the wall where they placed the cradle of the newly born. A Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre like theirs, wearing a blue robe and golden crown, floating on a choppy sea from which three small men in a boat were praying to her, could well be the first image the eyes of the Count and his sister had retained, the same sister who, in order to accede to her red Communist Youth card, persuaded her mother it would be better to dismantle the altar that had always been there, on the finest wall in that room where they were conceived and received their first notions of love. The Count felt his anger rise and took another look at the Virgen de la Caridad before returning alarmed to real time; old Forcade must have spoken to his wife in the ten minutes she’d taken to come back, because the old man’s face, almost always motionless, was now wet with tears streaming from his bright-red bloodshot eyes, as if his weary skin were hurrying them on their way. The pyjamas he wore, elegant and buttoned to the neck, helped emphasize that image of an end as desired as it was nigh, and completely accepted.
