The Whispering City Read Free

the founder of the fascist Falange party – the martyr, as many called him – was considered less an act of vandalism than one of patriotism. Which was why no one had dared to complain about it. They were too afraid of drawing attention to themselves. Since there were no trams heading towards the Plaza de la Universidad, she chose to walk rather than wait. She walked so briskly to Pelayo Street that soon her legs didn’t feel the cold. At the newspaper office she waited for Sanvisens to answer her questions. Maybe he’d even tell her why he’d called her instead of Carlos Belda, who always handled the crime news.
    ‘Carlos is off sick. He’ll be out for at least a week, if not two,’ Sanvisens said after greeting her and looking at his watch, as if he had timed her progress since the call.
    Out of courtesy, she asked, ‘What does he have?’
    ‘The clap. They treated it with penicillin and he had a reaction.’
    ‘Maybe the penicillin was bad.’
    It wouldn’t have been surprising. There had been more than one case of adulterated medication that had left a trail of the dead and chronically ill. Adulterating penicillin was a crime punishable by death. So was tampering with bread or milk. But it was still done.
    ‘Maybe,’ said the editor-in-chief.
    Mateo Sanvisens wasn’t particularly fond of small talk. He was a man of few words; curt, some said, like his gaunt build, the sinewy body of a veteran mountain climber, with hands covered in ridges as if they’d been carved with a chisel. In his youth he had scaled several high peaks in the Alps and he knew the Pyrenees, where he was from, better than the smugglers did. In his office he had pictures of some of the highest peaks in the world, including Everest.
    ‘The tallest mountain, though not necessarily the most difficult. That’s something you often find out when you’re already on your way up. I’ll get there soon,’ he would say frequently.
    Beside it was the marked page of
La Vanguardia
that had announced, two years earlier, in 1950, that the French expedition had reached the summit of Annapurna.
    As soon as Ana had settled in front of his desk, Sanvisens immediately started in on the details of the case.
    ‘Mariona Sobrerroca’s maid found her dead at her home yesterday.’
    ‘How was she killed?’
    ‘She was beaten and then strangled.’
    ‘With what?’
    She was embarrassed by the thin little voice that asked the question, but a growing excitement had seized her throat.
    ‘By hand.’ Sanvisens mimed strangulation.
    The how, where and part of the when had been resolved in few words.
    ‘Is this news really going to be covered?’ she asked.
    News of murders wasn’t well received by the censors. In a country where peace and order supposedly reigned, local crimes weren’t supposed to bring that image into question. There were clear orders on the matter, but also, as with everything, exceptions. It seemed this case was going to be one of the latter.
    ‘It can’t be swept under the carpet. Mariona Sobrerroca is too well known, and her family, particularly her brother, is very well connected, both here and in Madrid; so the authorities have decided it is better to report on the investigation and use it to demonstrate the effectiveness of the forces of order.’
    The last few words sounded as if they were in quotation marks. Ana caught the sarcasm.
    ‘What if it turns out she was killed by someone close to her, a top society person?’
    A series of photos of Mariona Sobrerroca in the society pages paraded through Ana’s mind, as if she were turning the pages of an album: in evening wear at the Liceo Opera House beside the wives of the city’s high-ranking politicians; delivering armfuls of Christmas presents to the children of the Welfare Service, along with several leaders of the Women’s Section of the Falange; at a debutante ball; with a group of ladies at a fundraiser for the Red Cross; at dances, concerts, High Mass…
    ‘Well, it would