mobile phone, if it doesn’t exist? Canella never even knew the number, apparently he’s given them four or five different numbers, he’s not sure what it was, which is perfectly normal, since they’re all invented or dreamed up by him. He was given the phone but never told the number, that’s what we agreed and that’s what happened. So what’s new? The guy claims he heard voices talking about his daughters and telling him who was to blame. Like lots of other nutcases. There’s nothing so very odd about him hearing those voices through a mobile phone rather than in his head or coming down from the sky, they’ll just assume he’s a loony showing off. Even losers, even madmen, know about the latest trends, and these days, anyone who doesn’t have a mobile phone is an idiot. Just let it go. Don’t get too alarmed about it, because that’s not going to help either.’
‘And what about the man in the leather coat? You yourself were alarmed about that, Ruibérriz. That’s why you came running to tell me. Now you’re saying there’s no need to worry. So which is it to be?’
‘To be honest, it did freak me out a bit. There we were, happily convinced that he wouldn’t make a statement or say a word. It caught me by surprise, I just wasn’t expecting it. But telling you about it now has made me realize that it’ll be fine. And if he did get a couple of visits from a man in a leather coat, so what? Practically speaking, it’s tantamount to him saying he’s been visited by the Virgin of Fatima. Like I said, I’m only wanted in Mexico, and the warrant there has probably lapsed by now, not that I’m planning to fly over and check: a youthful misdemeanour, it happened years ago. And I didn’t wear these leather coats then.’ Ruibérriz knew he was in the wrong, that he should never have allowed himself to be seen by the gorrilla. Perhaps that was why he was trying to play down the importance of the news he himself had brought.
‘Well, you’d better get rid of the coats you’ve got, starting with that one. Burn it or shred it. We don’t want some smart-arse linking you with what happened. You may not have a record here, but you’re still known to a few cops. Let’s just hope the murder squad doesn’t swap information with other crime squads, although that seems unlikely, no one in Spain seems to swap information with anyone else. Each department keeps pretty much to itself, so I’d be surprised if they did.’ Díaz-Varela was trying to be optimistic now and to reassure himself. They sounded like normal people, as much the bumbling amateur as I would have been, people who are unaccustomed to crime or not fully convinced that they’ve committed, or from what I could gather, commissioned one.
I wanted to see that man Ruibérriz, who must have been about to leave; I wanted to see his face and see that famous leather coat before he destroyed it. I decided to leave the bedroom and was on the verge of getting dressed. But if I did that, Díaz-Varela might suspect that I’d been aware for a while that there was someone else in the apartment and had perhaps been listening or spying, at least during the few seconds it would have taken me to pull on the rest of my clothes. If, on the other hand, I burst into the living room as I was, I would give the impression that I had just woken up and had no idea that anyone else was there. I would have heard nothing, convinced that he and I were, as usual, still alone, with no witness to our occasional evening conjunctions. I was simply going to look for him, having discovered that he had left the bed while I was sleeping. It would be best if I presented myself in that state of half-undress, with no show of caution and making a normal amount of noise, like an innocent unaware of anything.
The fact is, though, that far from being half-dressed, I was half- or almost-naked, and ‘the rest of my clothes’ meant everything apart from my skirt, because that was all I was wearing, Díaz-Varela preferring to see me with it pulled up or preferring to pull it up himself during our labours, but for reasons of pleasure or comfort, he always removed my other garments; well,