9.36am and Gloria hangs in the doorway watching the rise and fall of the sheet which barely covers his chest. She calls to him softly, her voice hardly rising above a whisper, fearful that he should actually hear her and wake. She moves towards him with hesitant steps and stands at the foot of the bed. His clothes lay scattered on the floor around her. She bends forwards and retrieves his shirt. Holding it up to the light she brushes the cloth with tentative fingers, running them down the length of the fabric with slow, careful strokes. Then she folds it. Places it on the chair by the wardrobe and stoops once more to pick up his trousers laying crumpled by her foot. Pepito stirs in his sleep. He turns over, mumbling a name which she can't quite hear. She drops the trousers over the back of the chair and moves towards him. Bending down over his slack-jawed frame she listens intently, her breathing restrained. But he doesn't stir again. He continues sleeping soundly with his eyelids twitching in the depths of some dream and she wonders. She wonders what he said. And she hovers. She hovers over him for what seems like an eternity, her hand rising impulsively and reaching out to touch the side of his face. Feel the sting of his bristles on the tips of her fingers. Have him murmuring her name. She checks herself in time, shakes her head with a wishful smile and lowers her hand with her fingers curling inwards, digging into her cushioned palm. Then she straightens herself. Lifts her spine with her chin tipped up and moves towards the door with silent steps.
Pepito opens his eyes and sits up in bed. Sliding out from the sheet he stands upright and rubs his face with both hands. He checks his watch. It's late. Stumbling towards the wardrobe he spots the shirt and trousers neatly folded over the back of the chair and swallows hard. He knew it. He knew it was her. Heard her breathing at the foot of the bed. Heard the soft rustle of cloth as she folded his clothes. Felt the air around his head dip and change as she moved in closer and then, with muffled footsteps, she was gone. Cursing softly he looks around the room, searching for his gun. But he isn't inclined to shoot her, at least, not for folding his clothes. He stoops down on cracking joints and checks under the bed. And there it is, dropped in exhaustion and tucked in its holster. He picks it up, cradling it gently in his hands and lays it on the bed. The thought of Gloria stumbling on his father's gun made his stomach turn and his stomach was strong. At least she hadn't found it. His secret is safe, for now. Still, it had been a close call, too close for comfort and somewhere along the way to his bedroom, she'd crossed a line. Throwing a robe over his shoulders, he moves towards the door with hasty steps and pokes his head out. He calls her name. Calls her name with his head pitched back and the volume turned up in his throat.
Downstairs in the stock room, she is moving boxes. Stacking them according to demand, regardless of their size, humming softly to herself as she works her way through the list. She knows that something is wrong. She can feel it in her gut. Like a bloodhound with the scent of blood in her nostrils, she knows how to sniff him out. She can smell the fear that springs from his pores whenever she's around but it's more than that. There's something else. Something that lurks at the back of his mind and keeps him out of her reach. Late nights and hasty mornings that would all add up in the end. Not to mention the shop. He'd been neglecting it, scuttling off without a moments notice and leaving her to run the place herself which, if the truth be told, she didn't mind. Not really. She could manage by herself and had been managing by herself for a very long time. Long enough to feel that she wanted something to change. Long enough to know that she wanted something else.
When she hears him call she lifts her head. She hesitates. Did he know? Did he know that only moments before she had stood in his room arranging his clothes? Had he been awake after all? She waits for a moment, suspended somewhere between doubt and desire until she hears him call again. Then she drops the boxes she's been holding and hurries out into the corridor. She lifts her leg to climb the stairs but something pulls her back. Pulls her back with a sudden jolt as she lingers by the stairs. Let him call. Let him call her name. Let him call to her again. Just one more time and she knows it's silly but let him call her name again. And again. Let him raise his voice a fraction, let him shout it from the stairs. Let him know that she is a woman, a woman consumed by a passion. A passion that knows how to wait.
"Is something wrong?" her fingers flutter over the skin at her neck. Pepito shakes his head but he doesn't know why. There was something. She'd been in his room and stood over his bed as she'd watched him sleep. Not to mention the clothes. A line had been crossed and he needed to tell her. He needed to tell her to back off but somehow, the words wouldn't come and no matter how hard he tried to form them in his mind, they wouldn't slide out from his throat.
"Gloria ..." he drops his head and rubs his brow, "it's just ..." he shuffles on the spot. "I won't be around much this morning that's all ... you'll have to take care of things yourself ..." he eventually chickens out. He looks up and catches her eye, those tiny bird-like orbs that peek out from her glasses and she returns his gaze with an intensity which alarms him. She waits with her chin tilted upwards and her lips parted then she moves towards him, a few bold steps, with her hand rising up in the air.
"There is something wrong isn't there?" She lays her hand on his arm. "You're in some kind of trouble aren't you? You can tell me, it's all right ..."
Recoiling from her words he pulls his arm from her touch and starts to speak with his mind reeling and his mouth flapping. "Now just a minute Gloria ..." He clears his throat and tightens his robe but she doesn't let that distract her. She pushes forwards, steps up closer and emboldened by the moment, she reaches out towards him.
"Mr. Pons, Pepito, I've been meaning to tell you ..." But she's already said too much and as the sound of his name escapes from her lips, Pepito is propelled into action.
"That's enough," he shouts with his hand held high in the air, gut protruding and the sweat popping out on his brow. "I have some business to take care off, that's all ... business that doesn't concern you .." he checks himself before he reveals too much. Swallowing hard, he resolves to be tough but he doesn't have to bother, really. She steps backwards, her hand rising as though she's just been slapped. She shakes her head with her mouth all twisted and slowly straightens her back.
"I'm sorry," she says with a glaze in her eyes and a voice that is trapped in her throat. "I made a mistake and I shouldn't have bothered you ... it won't happen again." She turns from him and reaches the stairs before Pepito has a chance to witness the tears that her crowding her eyes and threatening to spill over. Threatening to give her away as they slip down her face, burning shamefully over her cheeks. She couldn't bear that. Couldn't bear him knowing after all that had passed, over all those moments in all those years, that she could break - just like that. When she reaches the bottom of the stairs she stops. Steadying herself against the banister she twists her head and looks behind her. She waits. She waits until the tears stop falling, then hurries into the shop.
As for Pepito, he stands for a moment on the landing, his right hand raised to his temple and his left hand clutching his jaw. Scratching the lines sunk deep in his forehead, he turns back towards the bedroom and closes the door behind him with a disconsolate nudge from his foot. He closes his eyes and rests his back against the door frame, his chin tipped up towards the ceiling and considers the possibility that perhaps, he'd been too rough. What did she know of him really? What threat could she pose to his intricate life? Pushing his legs forwards he crosses towards the bed, flops himself down on top of the mattress and buries his face in the sheets.
Raphael wakes up somewhere in the Collserola hills and stretches. Despite the discomfort of the ground, he'd slept well. He stands up and looks out over the city that lays sprawling at his feet. He feels good. He feels that he has accomplished something of which Pepito will be proud. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out the passport and flips through the pages then he pulls out his phone and hits Pepito's number.
"What happened to you?" It's the first question Pepito asks when he hears the voice on the other end.
"What do you mean?" He bites down on his lip to stifle the details which are fighting for air at the back of his throat.
"Where did you go?"
"Oh, just hung around .."
"You hung around Candy's place?"
Of course, he has to tell him. In fact, he's bursting to divulge all the events of the previous night which now trip from his mouth with shocking embellishment before he can stop them.
"You what?" It was Pepito's turn to speak but after the initial exclamation he is lost for words.
"I was there .... Francisco's place."
"You mean you broke into Francisco Turó's house?"
"Not exactly .. I mean, the window was open."
"But you hid in his boot ..."
"Well, okay ... I admit I picked the lock for that one."
Pepito shakes his head as though the action itself will make the details any clearer. "You know how stupid that is?" He eventually says.
Raphael considers for a moment, his head cocked to one side, fanning himself with the passport. "Okay, it's a little stupid but at least I made it worth my while."
"You didn't steal anything did you?"
"That depends on how you look at it ..."
"Did you take anything from his place?"
"Maybe some things ..."
"Like what?"
"Nothing special, nothing to get worked up about ..." he was regretting having told him, "he won't even miss them and a passport but there was a few of them anyway so he won't even know that it's gone."
"A passport?" Pepito sits upright.
"Yeah, that's what I'm trying to tell you ... strange looking writing, I don't know where it's from but the girl .." he stops for a moment and flicks through the pages until he comes to the photograph. "The girl, she's a looker all right. A real looker."
Pepito picked him up on the other side of the hill from Mariquita's house. He was sitting by the side of the road still gazing at the picture of the girl in the passport. His lips moving as he tried to make out the writing by the side of the photograph but the only thing he came close to was her name and her date of birth which made her eighteen in October, a little older than Raphael. They drove downtown and stopped at a bar on the Rambles. Raphael was starving, he hadn't eaten all night. He devoured three bikini's and a plate of patatas bravas before he lifted his head and took a breath. Pepito had coffee with ice.
Dipping into his pocket he retrieves the passport and pushes it along the table to Pepito. Pepito picks it up and examines it, turning it over in his moist palms as he flicks through the pages. Then he sits back in his chair and throws it on the table towards Raphael with a satisfied plop.
"Russia," he says, "that's where she's from."
"You recognise the writing?"
Pepito nods his head. "How many more did you say there were?"
"A dozen or so."
"Did you get a look at any of them?"
Raphael slurps his coke and winks at Pepito over the rim of the glass. "They were all the same, more or less."
"And did they all have the same writing?"
"Yup."
Pepito props his elbows on the table. Somehow, Raphael had stumbled on something big. Hell, it may even turn out to be the thing he had been looking for in the first place. The crux of the matter, the missing link, the key to the whole damn case. He reaches out towards the passport and runs his finger over the curling script. Somehow, these girls held the key - the only question was how exactly did they fit? He taps his brow with an agitated finger. Rosa had to have stumbled on this herself. Was that why she was killed? Did she find out too much? The question stirs in his gut and he stiffens his back. But he has to be sure.
Raphael has been watching him. He knows he did good. Real good. He can tell by the way a subtle spasm tugs at the corner of Pepito's mouth, pulling downwards. He's deep in thought. Mind ticking over double time, picking up the pieces and jamming them together but not just any old way - the pieces had to fit. That was the key. That was what kept a man like Pepito, Detective Pons, right on track. An eye for the obvious and a nose for the rest and perhaps that's what guided Raphael too. Guided him to Francisco's place last night. Guided him into that room and towards that cabinet. And the rest, they say, is history.
"What do you think?"
"I'm not sure yet but if Francisco has these passports ..." He stops and strokes his chin between finger and thumb, observing Raphael through the slit of his lids. "What time did Francisco show up at Candy's place last night?"
"Not long after you left."
"How long?"
"Fifteen minutes maybe ..."
"You sure?"
"Sure as I'll ever be."
Pepito leans back in his chair with his hands stretched out in front and fingers drumming impatiently on the surface of the table. He considers his options for a moment, then leans forwards towards Raphael with his voice pitched low.
"She must have called him after I left."
"Who .. Candy?"
Pepito stands up and reaches for his wallet. Flipping it open he pulls out a couple of notes and throws them down on the table. He's a man in a hurry, a man with no change and right now, he doesn't have the time to wait for it.
Gloria turns the sign in the shop and closes the door behind her. Gathering her cardigan around the folds in her waist, she steps out into the street. With a hasty sweep of her head he looks right and left and crosses the road. She walks quickly with her head pitched down and her feet scraping the tarmac. She's angry, angry as hell but she doesn't top her movement. Doesn't stop the scene playing out again and again in her head. Or Pepito's voice, raised an octave and shouted out in her face. And she'd like to think that he didn't mean it but deep down inside, she knows that he did. Meant every word, shot through his teeth with the professional eye of a marksman. And they hit. They hit her hard. Hit her right in her foolish old heart.
She turns the corner and strides towards the spires of the Sagrada Familia. There's no way around it. Not today. And not in this mood. She presses onwards with her elbows pitched out and pushes past the tourists. Forces her way through the throngs of bodies milling around on the street. Colliding with maps and dancing round strangers, she doesn't break her stride. As she nears the park she quickens her pace and circles around the pond and there, through a break in the trees, she sees him. Back braced and feet together, he cups the ball to his chest. Runs his hand over its cool, hard surface, once, twice, for luck and then with a slow, graceful arch in his spine he bends forwards and delivers his shot. His best shot. The ball clips two others in its spiraling path and knocks them to the side of the pitch. He jumps backwards with a spring in his step and clasps his hands above his head. Someone claps him on the back and someone else shakes his head. And when he turns in his moment of triumph, he sees her approaching with her arms swinging loose. He smiles, that papery stretch of lip and raises his hand in greeting.
"Hello," he calls and the other men turn. "Did you see that?"
She nods her head as she walks towards him.
"A few more shots like that and we have a chance to win the tournament."
She smiles and stretches her hand towards him.
"So what brings you down here at this time?" He twists his wrist and checks his watch.
"Can they spare you for a minute?" She nods towards the huddle of men of the patanka pitch.
He turns his head and looks behind him. "Can you spare me for a minute?"
The huddle nods.
She leads him towards a bench facing a play park and sits down. He sits down beside her with his hands braced tightly in the crease of his lap.
"Are you all right?"
She nods her head and lifts her face towards him. "I'm fine really and I've been thinking about what you said on Sunday. I've been thinking about it a lot."
A bead of sweat springs from his brow and trickles slowly down his nose. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and dabs his face with fluttering little movements.
"I think, I mean ... I think we could ..."
He reaches out and clasps her hands. "Are you sure?"
She nods her head, closing her eyes. She closes her eyes to his face as he raises her hands to his papery lips and covers her fingers with dry little pecks. Over the tips of her salmon pink nails and down to the bone in her knuckles.
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