Southern Seas Read Free Page A

of an unidentified male has been found on a building site in Holy Trinity.’ ‘The body has subsequently been identified as that of Carlos Stuart Pedrell.’ ‘Pedrell had parted from his family a year ago on the pretext of a trip of Polynesia.’
    ‘Why “on the pretext”? Did he need a pretext?’
    ‘You know the language journalists use. The embodiment of impropriety.’
    Carvalho tried to embody impropriety in his mind, but failed. Viladecans launched into a resumé of the situation, peering over folded hands that had been cared for by the finest manicurist.
    ‘This is how things happened. I’ve known my friend—and he was, I must tell you, a really close friend—since we were at a Jesuit school together. Recently he was going through a sort of crisis. Some men, especially men as sensitive as Carlos, find it hard to adjust as they pass forty and see fifty looming up. That’s the only reason that I can find, why he should spend months and months on a plan to abandon everything and head off to some island in the South Pacific. Suddenly the project picked up speed. He let the business side of things drop and disappeared without trace. We all assumed that he’d taken off for Bali or Tahiti or Hawaii, or some such, and that he would soon be back. But the months passed, and everyone had to face up to the fact that he was apparently gone for good. So much so that Señora Stuart Pedrell moved to take charge of the business.
    ‘Then, in January, came the report that Stuart Pedrell had been found dead, here in Barcelona, stabbed, on a building site in Holy Trinity. We now know that he never reached Polynesia. But we’ve no idea where he was and what he was doing for all that time. That’s what we want you to find out.’
    ‘I remember the case. The murderer was never caught. Do you also want to know who killed him?’
    ‘Well, if the murderer comes to light, well and good. But our real concern is to find out what he did during that last year of his life. You must understand, there are a lot of interests at stake.’
    The office intercom announced that Señora Stuart Pedrell had arrived. The door opened almost at once on a forty-five-year-old woman who gave Carvalho an ache deep in his chest. She entered without so much as looking at him, and imposed her slim, mature figure as the only presence worthy of attention. Her face had dark, striking features that were showing the first painful signs of age. Viladecans’s introductions merely allowed her to accentuate the distance between herself and Carvalho by means of a curt ‘How d’you do’. As Carvalho replied, he was staring so intently at her breasts that she felt obliged to check with her hands to make sure there was nothing wrong with her dress.
    ‘I was just filling in Señor Carvalho on the background.’
    ‘I’m glad to hear it. Viladecans will have told you that I require discretion at all costs.’
    ‘The same discretion with which the case has been reported in the press. I see that none of these stories carries a photo of your husband.’
    ‘That is correct.’
    ‘Why is that?’
    ‘My husband went off at the height of a personal crisis. He wasn’t in his right mind. On those rare occasions when he calmed down a bit, he would grab anyone who cared to listen and tell them the life story of Gauguin. He wanted to be a Gauguin too. Leave everything and go off to the South Seas. Leave me, his children, his business and his social world—everything. A man in that state of mind becomes easy prey, and if too much had been said about the case, all kinds of unscrupulous characters could have come out of the woodwork.’
    ‘Did you come to some understanding with the police?’
    ‘They did all they could. So did the Ministry of External Affairs.’
    ‘External Affairs?’
    ‘There was a possibility that he had actually set off for the South Seas.’
    ‘But he hadn’t?’
    ‘No,’ she replied, with a certain satisfaction.
    ‘And you’re pleased