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“Listen: with a surname like Aldaya, there’s no need for first names, if you see what I mean. I also remember another boy, a bit of a scatterbrain, called Miquel. I think he was also a classmate. But don’t ask me for his surname or what he looked like.”
We seemed to have reached a dead end, and I feared that the caretaker would start losing interest. I decided to follow a hunch. “Is anyone living in the Fortuny apartment now?”
“No. The old man died without leaving a will, and his wife, as far as I know, is still in Buenos Aires and didn’t even come back for the funeral. Can’t blame her.”
“Why Buenos Aires?”
“Because she couldn’t find anywhere farther away, I guess. She left everything in the hands of a lawyer, a very strange man. I’ve never seen him, but my daughter Isabelita, who lives on the fifth floor, right underneath, says that sometimes, since he has the key, he comes at night and spends hours walking around the apartment and then leaves. Once she said that she could even hear what sounded like women’s high heels. What can I say…?”
“Maybe they were stilts,” I suggested.
She looked at me blankly. Obviously this was a serious subject for the caretaker.
“And nobody else has visited the apartment in all these years?”
“Once this very creepy individual came along, one of those people who never stop smiling, a giggler, but you could see him coming a mile off. He said he was in the Crime Squad. He wanted to see the apartment.”
“Did he say why?”
The caretaker shook her head.
“Do you remember his name?”
“Inspector something or other. I didn’t even believe he was a policeman. The whole thing stank, do you know what I mean? It smelled of something personal. I sent him packing and told him I didn’t have the keys to the apartment and if he wanted anything, he should call the lawyer. He said he’d come back, but I haven’t seen him around here anymore. Good riddance.”
“You wouldn’t by any chance have the name and address of the lawyer, would you?”
“You ought to ask the administrator of this building, Mr. Molins. His office is quite close, number twenty-eight, Floridablanca, first floor. Tell him I sent you—Señora Aurora, at your service.”
“I’m really grateful. So, tell me, Doña Aurora, is the Fortuny apartment empty, then?”
“No, not empty, because nobody has taken anything from there in all these years since the old man died. Sometimes it even smells. I’d say there are rats in the apartment, mark my words.”
“Do you think it would be possible to have a look? We might find something that tells us what really happened to Julián….”
“Oh no, I can’t do that. You must talk to Mr. Molins, he’s the one in charge.”
I smiled at her mischievously. “But you must have a master key, I imagine. Even if you told that guy you didn’t…Don’t tell me you’re not dying to see what’s in there.”
Doña Aurora looked at me out of the corner of her eye.
“You’re a devil.”
THE DOOR GAVE WAY LIKE A TOMBSTONE, WITH A SUDDEN GROAN, exhaling dank, foul-smelling air from within. I pushed the front door inward, discovering a corridor that sank into darkness. The place was stuffy and reeked of damp. Spiraling threads of grime and dust hung from the ceiling like white hair. The broken floor tiles were covered by what looked like a layer of ash. I noticed what appeared to be footprints making their way into the apartment.
“Holy Mother of God!” mumbled the caretaker. “There’s more shit here than on the floor of a henhouse.”
“If you’d rather, I’ll go in on my own,” I said.
“That’s exactly what you’d like. Come on, you go ahead, I’ll follow.”
We closed the door behind us and waited by the entrance for a moment until our eyes became accustomed to the dark. I could hear the nervous breathing of the caretaker and noticed the sour smell of her sweat. I felt like a tomb robber, whose soul is poisoned by greed and desire.
“Hey, what’s that noise?” asked the caretaker in an anxious tone. Something fluttered in the dark, disturbed by our presence. I thought I glimpsed a pale shape flickering about at the end of the corridor.
“Pigeons,” I said. “They must have got in through a broken window and made a nest here.”
“Those ugly birds give me the creeps,” said the caretaker. “And they shit like there’s no tomorrow.”
