The Whispering City by Sara Moliner Read Free Book Online Page B

contradict yourself is to repeat exactly the same story from beginning to end.’
    But you also do that when you are telling the truth, thought Ana, though she kept quiet. Perhaps it was just Castro’s strategy for verifying her statement.
    ‘How do you want me to tell it to you?’
    ‘Try the truth.’
    ‘That’s what I did.’
    ‘Well, tell it to me again.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘However you want, but without lies.’
    The woman began her story again, this time hesitating; the effort not to repeat literally what she had said, to search for synonyms, add details, was clearly causing her difficulties. She was concentrating hard, with the lost gaze of someone who is recalling images to mind.
    Castro didn’t let her finish, interrupting her with another question. ‘Did Señora Sobrerroca keep valuable objects in her husband’s office?’
    As if coming out of a trance, Carmen replied, ‘Not that I know of.’
    With a wave of his hand, the inspector indicated for her to go on.
    ‘Dr Garmendia’s office was like a museum. No one was allowed to move anything. When I cleaned, she would come in afterwards and make sure that everything was where it should be.’
    ‘How do you know that Señora Sobrerroca wasn’t keeping anything of value in there?’
    ‘I don’t know. But what would there be of value in a doctor’s office?’
    ‘Don’t make conjectures, that’s not your place.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Did she have valuable jewellery? Money?’
    ‘She had jewellery, in her dressing room. And that isn’t conjecture.’
    The slap came so quickly that Ana almost leapt out of her chair with fright.
    Castro, who had stood to deliver the blow, sat down again, put his hands on the desk and said, in the same monotone he had maintained throughout the entire conversation, ‘You’re trying my patience. How about you start telling me something I can believe?’
    ‘What?’ asked Carmen, tearful and scared. ‘What do you want?’
    Her left cheek was red.
    ‘For example, you could show me your hands.’
    The woman obeyed. She lifted her hands and showed them with the palms facing up, parallel to the desk. She was trembling. Castro sat up to look at them, indicating to the woman that she should show him the backs. She did. With a quick movement, the inspector seized the woman’s hands with his left. Reflexively she tried to free them, but she was prevented by the right arm of the policeman rising up to hit her again.
    ‘Too small to strangle Señora Sobrerroca. What’s your accomplice’s name?’
    Ana didn’t know what was more menacing: Castro’s hand, which seemed impatient to fall on the woman, his sudden familiarity or his impassive expression.
    ‘What’s your accomplice’s name?’ he repeated.
    And, although the question ‘What accomplice?’ was logical, it earned the woman another slap; a brusque, precise slap on the same cheek as the first, as if Castro were fitting his hand to the pre-drawn contour.
    Carmen Alonso would have fallen from her chair if the inspector hadn’t been holding her by the hands. She hid her face between her outstretched arms. She was crying; her tears stained the thin blue cardboard folder that was on the policeman’s desk, right beneath her face.
    ‘Why are you hitting me?’
    ‘Listen, you don’t know how much it irritates me to be taken for a fool. We weren’t born yesterday, you know.’
    Nothing in the inspector’s expression showed rage, or even anger. Castro spoke and slapped with the coldness of an automaton.
    Ana was trembling. Why didn’t she get up and tell Castro to stop? Out of fear. Two fears, if she was honest, and one of them made her feel ashamed. Being scared to confront a man capable of such sudden violence and who, moreover, had the protection of his authority, was at least understandable. But that she didn’t dare to do it out of fear of losing her job was degrading, it sullied her.
    And even then she remained glued to her seat, as Castro let the maid go, sat