Thankfully there were a couple of Band-Aids in a pocket of my suitcase, so I stuck them over my blisters, eased my sneakers back on and went downstairs, killer sandals dangling from one hand. As I left the hostel, I dumped them in the nearest bin. Good riddance.
My stomach growled at the delectable smells that emanated from numerous tapas bars as I wandered up the road. People spilled out of the bars and gathered around little tables on the footpath, talking and laughing with a casual enjoyment that seemed all the more festive for not being Melbourne. Not a mason jar or man bun in sight. When my belly could no longer withstand the temptations, I perched on a stool in one of the bars and feasted from the many plates that lined the counter in front of me. Deep-fried anchovies, fried potatoes with hot tomato sauce, tiny slices of bread topped with all manner of delicious morsels, all washed down with glasses of refreshing beer.
The guy behind the bar didn’t speak much English, but I communicated by pointing in turn to each item I wanted, miming a drinking action to have my beer glass refilled, and rubbing my belly with exaggerated appreciation when I’d eaten my fill.
As I walked back to the hostel, the warm evening breeze caressing my bare arms, I made myself a promise. Sometime in the future, when I could afford it, I’d return to Barcelona and spend a week wandering the streets, eating tapas and drinking sangria.
Back in my room, I saw that I’d missed a call from Katrina. Shit. I hadn’t even heard my phone ring in the bar. I hit her number to call her back and waited nervously for her to answer.
‘Burrowes!’ she boomed, and I flinched even though she was on the other side of the world. ‘How’d you go?’
I twisted the corner of the quilt. Perhaps I should focus on the positives and hope she didn’t notice how crap I was at this. ‘Well, I saw him today—’ I began.
‘Yes?’ Her voice was raised and hopeful.
‘His sister lives here in Barcelona and I tracked her down. It was obvious she’d spoken to him. I got a few hints out of her and we found him at this big public park.’
‘Spare me the details. Did you get my story or not?’
I grimaced. I’d wanted to get in a few more examples of my awesomeness before I revealed the failure part of it.
‘Well, he kind of disappeared,’ I said.
There was a short silence, then I had to hold the phone away from my ear as she bellowed into it.
‘What do you mean, he kind of disappeared? Are you telling me you just let him get away?’
‘We saw him from the lookout, but by the time I got down he’d gone.’
‘Any photos?’
‘None of his face.’
Katrina spat out every swear word I’d ever heard and a few that I suspected she’d invented.
‘I’m sure he was going to hide there tonight,’ I said. ‘We looked everywhere, but then the park closed for the night and we had to leave. I tried to bribe the park official to let us look in the museum but he didn’t go for it.’
Unexpectedly, Katrina laughed. ‘That’s the spirit, Burrowes! I didn’t think you had it in you. Keep it up, but don’t get arrested, OK? I can’t afford to bail you out if you get yourself in trouble. Keep me updated.’
‘OK—’ I said, but she’d already hung up.
I stared at the phone for a second. Well, that hadn’t gone as badly as I’d expected.
My whole body felt like a brick when I woke up the following morning. I sat up for a second, then fell back onto the pillow and stared up at the cracks in the ceiling, struggling to reconstruct the last two days in my head.
I switched on the television and cycled through the channels. They were all in Spanish, which did nothing to get my foggy jet-lagged brain into gear. Just as I was about to turn the TV off and drag myself out of bed, the image of the triangular staircase and enormous columns of Park Güell’s entrance jumped out at me from one of the news channels. A tall reporter with bleached-blonde hair and an impeccable navy skirt suit spoke to the camera in Spanish. I half fell out of the bed and searched under my clothes for the phrasebook Nick had given me, but by the time I found it and flicked to the Spanish section, I couldn’t make head nor tail of what she was saying. The report could’ve been about anything, but she’d looked too serious for it to be a fluff piece. I had a feeling my hunch about Ford had proven correct. The reporter’s name was at the bottom of the screen and I wrote it down in my notebook along with the name of the television network.
When the program moved on to other news, I had a quick shower, got dressed and headed out. My feet were still sore and the muscles in my thighs and buttocks screeched with pain as I descended the staircase. Man, that walk up the hill to Park Güell had really done me in.
I sat down at a computer in the internet lounge next to the reception area and googled the reporter’s name. There were no numbers listed for her, only a paragraph in Spanish that I ran through Google Translate to find was her biography. My only option was to go to the television network and hope I could get her to speak to me.
I set out along the footpath, shivering a little in the brisk morning air. My stomach grumbled, so I took a detour into a small cafe and ordered coffee and a serve of churros con chocolate. I didn’t work well on an empty stomach, and there was nothing like fat and
