A Shortcut to Paradise Read Free Page B

just opened its doors and that the restaurant next door was full of people dining out. The façade was a hundred per cent glass, as required by the canons of the ersatz modernity Barcelona now aped, which meant too many witnesses and casual onlookers. Three extremely young men, all in black, with small gadgets attached to their ears, were inspecting the people entering Up & Down, and allowing them in or turning them away. Ernest became rather anxious and kept his distance, trying to keep outside their line of vision. He was planning to accost someone who staggered out drunk and then lead him to a cash point, so he was probably in for a wait. It might be hours before he found the right victim for his toy pistol, so he decided to take it easy and go for a drink in an Irish pub on the other side of the road.
    The pub was packed and filled with a smoky haze. The lights were dimmed and a Premier League match was being shown on the screen which some foreigners were enthusiastically watching. Fortunately, his presence went totally unnoticed. Ernest sat at the bar, pretended to watch the football and ordered a beer. He went to the lavatory a couple of times to pee, more a question of nerves than an ailing prostate, and at one thirty exited the pub, thinking he’d snoop discreetly around the disco. He made good use of the darkness and the darkorange low-consumption streetlights installed courtesy of the mayor, as he lurked in the shadows trying not to attract attention while he made sure the place wasn’t bristling with bodyguards or bouncers.
    That beer and the couple of whiskies he’d downed while killing time had been a good idea, like the supply of nicotine in his pocket. It was just what he needed to bring on the Dutch courage required by that turning
point in his life. He noted how every muscle in his neck was taut and how his heart had begun to race and thud. If he’d been a hunter, he’d have recognized that silent injection of adrenaline coursing through his veins, but as he wasn’t, he had a panic attack, thinking it might be a heart attack in the making. He had to calm down, so he took several long, deep breaths as he’d been instructed in the hospital. That night Ernest Fabià, translator of English literature and specialist in the mating rituals of the Tupi-Guarani Indians, was about to become a thief. What he couldn’t imagine, however, was that he was also about to become the alibi for a man who’d be accused of murder the morning after.

3
    As she went up in the lift to her bedroom at the Ritz, Marina Dolç looked into the mirror and sighed. She was ageing. She was surely the only person who could see in that face, now the wrong side of fifty, the shy but determined little twenty-something hungry for new experiences and ready to take on the world she had once been. Though the image in the mirror became increasingly unpleasant by the day, she still believed she had a lifetime ahead of her, as if the now half-visible horizon of old age and death was a distant nightmare that didn’t become either her or the array of projects still bubbling in her head. Marina usually tried to avoid thinking of such things, but mirrors didn’t lie and the years passed relentlessly by, and even more so now. However reluctantly, she had to accept she was mature and menopausal, and that time was taking its toll. And tonight she was exhausted. It was what she most hated about the cruel process of growing old. Not the wrinkles, not the way the years slowly and implacably aged her body, but the exhaustion she’d suddenly feel that prevented her from reliving the razzamatazz twenties she still mentally inhabited. For some time she’d felt her body clock saying enough is enough and
she’d tamely become resigned to taking herself early to bed.
    She stepped out of the lift and rummaged in her bag until she found the key to no. 507, her room. Whenever she came to Barcelona, Marina stayed at