The Serpent Papers by Jessica Cornwell Read Free Book Online Page B

I’m phobic of academics, but I’ve decided to make an exception . . .’ Fabregat stiffens ever so slightly and leans forward, pointing to the coffee table, where a stack of photocopies rests neatly beside a green folder. ‘I didn’t go to university,’ he says. ‘Went straight into working. No time for an education. A roofer for a while, helping my father. Then a security guard. Then an entry-level policeman. I read for pleasure, not for notas. We weren’t pijo . . . ’ He sighs. ‘But to business.’
    I can tell the man is smart.
    Eyes snapping over me. Drinking me in. Taking my number.
    ‘You sent a set of images to a colleague of mine for review at Los Mossos. Dated 1851 in Barcelona. Drawn by an Englishman. Lew-ell-eeeen .’ He struggles with the pronunciation. ‘ Seeet-wall .’
    ‘Sitwell,’ I say. ‘Yes.’
    An illustration of a girl’s body carved with nine letters, above a picture of a nightingale.
    ‘It gave me quite a shock when that arrived in my inbox. I thought – what are they drinking on Mallorca? Lightning, chapels, books, Americans . . .  Next thing you know, there’ll be a secret society,’ he says, looking straight at me. ‘You’re not a member of a secret society?’
    ‘No.’ I shift my weight. No special handshakes or occult machinations.
    He looks at me wryly. ‘Your letter intrigued me. I must thank you for coming. It’s a good thing, I hope. The case was one I worked on quite extensively; I’m very pleased you’re here. You’re serious about getting involved?’
    ‘Yes,’ I say.
    ‘You’re certain?’
    A sideways glance . I am a curiosity. The day’s singular event.
    He mutters under his breath. Disbelieving. She’s a child. És una nena. He slows, using the Catalan word for little girl. The nickname sticks, rapidly replacing my own. ‘It’s not a very nice story, Nena. Quite different to your books, I should think.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ I say. You’d be surprised.
    ‘I’ve had you checked out.’
    ‘And what did you find?’
    ‘My friends in Palma tell me you’re gathering a reputation as a bit of a local savant. A circus act. You do some pretty strange things.’
    ‘Professionally or personally?’
    ‘You’ve had a few episodes on the job recently.’ He waggles his fingers at me. ‘It seems someone on the island has taken a strong dislike to you. I heard about the fire. Gossip travels fast in these parts. Rumour has it you’re a psychic? Part time? Full time?’
    ‘That’s not the phrasing I would use.’
    ‘But you’re kinda funny, aren’t you? You hear things other people don’t.’
    I recoil.
    Psychic is false.
    As succinctly as I can, I explain that I listen. It is my preferred name for what I do, which is a kind of heightened feeling – mediated now and controlled.
    No, not psychic  – I repeat. I do not know things other people do not know. I cannot solve a murder by closing my eyes and psychically knowing something magical. I’m not going to snap my fingers and conjure a solution. That’s absurd. I can’t tell you what you are thinking unless you want me to know – but I can watch you, closely, and I can listen, and the same is true of books and stone – or perhaps, even listening is inaccurate. The more I understand a situation, the better I can trace the invisible threads that run through it. I feel like a bat. Generally speaking, my work mostly takes place in libraries and museums, in the deep archives, the underground layers, the boxes that people have left behind, or in more corrupt cases, hidden. I move in the shadows. I watch his right eyelid spasm, and withhold. Don’t tell the whole truth. That in the last year of university I spent two months asleep believing I was awake before the doctors realized I was in a constant state of REM. That while in hospital I had eruptions of pain in my head and my skin broke out in rashes. That when I awoke the voices were so loud that blood ran from my earlobes and nostrils.