Barcelona Shadows Read Free Page B

wound, and it wasn’t made by a firearm either, Moisès,” Juan says, stating his fears out loud. He senses what made that wound, but he doesn’t want to believe it.
    “The cut is semicircular, but not precise. As if it had been made with a small saw. But a saw would have been more destructive, and there would be signs of struggle. The body has no other visible blows. In any case, we’ll have to wait for the autopsy…”
    “Do you think it’s possible?”
    Moisès turns the cadaver upside down, as if he were hauling a sack. And, in fact, that was what it was for him. Just a sack, nothing more than work. He takes off the corpse’s jacket and, with a small knife, strips the shirt off its back. A screech from the crowd gets Asensi worked up again and he is about to pull out his truncheon. But he’s curious too. Moisès carefully looksover the arms. He asks for a lantern, which the other municipal brings him. On his upper right arm there are four small bruises in the shape of a crescent moon. On the left arm, there are three.
    “They got him from the front. The aggressor grabbed him from the front… and bit him.”
    A woman faints. Moisès turns when he hears the uproar.
    “It’s a mouthful,” continues Juan looking at One Eye. “They pulled out that piece of flesh with a bite.”
    A reporter arrives, equipped with a notebook and pencil.
    “Inspector Corvo!” he shouts.
    “Not now, Quim.”
    “Come on, man, it’s still warm!”
    Juan stands up and addresses the journalist.
    “Do you want to feel how warm my fists can get?”
    He shakes his head.
    “Then shut up.”
    From the Ronda de Sant Pau to Ciutadella Park, the rumour spreads that the monster is hungry.
    While Judge Fernando de Prat is arriving, a couple of babies cry for their mothers’ attention. As if it were a factory whistle, the spectators begin to file out. Some of them want to make sure their children are at home, sleeping beneath the blankets, even if they’re full of lice. Others would rather not meet up with the magistrate face to face, in case he reminds them that they’re due in court one of these days, that they owe a fine or have a sentence to serve. There are those who suspect that it’s now questioning time, that the police will start interrogating anyone who has a mouth and eyes and, in this neighbourhood, it’s best to be mute and blind. Surely better than being one-eyed like the poor stiff, which is starting to stink, if it didn’t stink to begin with.
    When he sees Don Fernando de Prat step out of his Hispano Suiza car into the commotion on Sant Pau Street, with an inhospitable expression, smoking jacket over his pyjamas and a pipe at his lips, Blackmouth turns tail and heads down Om Street towards Drassanes, where One Eye’s carriage sits, still carrying the body they dug up in Montjuïc. He takes it to the port, where the topmasts sway to the slow, deliberate rhythm of the sea breeze and, making sure there are no prying eyes around, gets rid of the body by dumping it into the water, with a crashing noise like a rock falling from a mountain. Blackmouth runs off, leaving One Eye’s carriage. He won’t need it now, he says to himself, and he heads home, to the pigeon loft on Lluna Street, wary of the dark, which is where vampires hide.
    Don Fernando de Prat looks obliquely at the body, without much interest, and starts up the usual shop talk with Moisès and Malsano. He acts as if he wants to know what happened, but he’s only thinking about going back to bed once this damn on-call shift is over.
    “If we at least had cameras,” laments Corvo when de Prat asks him to prepare a report on what happened for the next day.
    “Draw, like you’ve done your whole life.”
    “Sometimes life ends, Your Honour, and we move on to a better one. I would recommend you ask our guest for tonight, but I think his reply would be too cold.”
    The magistrate ignores Corvo’s sarcasm because the doctor has just arrived.
    “Tell me he’s