“I don’t think it will be necessary, but thank you,” replied Salgado.
As Professor Esteve had said, Aleix Rovira could be a charming boy.
Gina opened her eyes when the bell rang. Befuddled, lying on the sheets, she took a few seconds to react. Twenty past four. Hadn’t her mother said something about five o’clock? More rings, short and in quick succession. She remembered that the cleaner left at three and she was alone in the house, so she went barefoot down the stairs and almost ran toward the hall. She looked at herself in the foyer mirror before opening the door. God, she was horrible. Still looking at her reflection with an expression of intense disgust on her face, she opened the door.
“Beautiful, were you sleeping?”
“Aleix! What are you doing here?” She didn’t move, momentarily thrown by this unexpected visit.
“You didn’t think I was going to leave you here alone with the fuzz, did you?”
He was smiling and his brow gleamed with sweat. He took off his sunglasses and winked at her. “You going to let me in or what?”
Gina stood aside and he strode across the threshold. He was wearing a faded blue t-shirt and loose, checked Bermuda shorts. He was perfectly bronzed. Beside him, Gina’s pale skin seemed like a consumptive’s.
“You should get dressed, shouldn’t you?” Not waiting for a response, he strolled toward the kitchen. “Hey, I’m going to get a drink. I came on my bike and I’m parched. What time are they coming?”
She didn’t answer. Slowly, she went upstairs. Before he could follow her, she closed her bedroom door, though she knew that wouldn’t stop him. Sure enough, she was still deciding what to wear when he appeared at the door. He was still smiling and had a can of Coke in his hand.
“Are you in a bad mood?” He went toward her and started tickling her. He smelled faintly of sweat and she moved away.
“Leave me alone. .”
“Leave me alone,” he repeated, mocking. He gave her a kiss on the lips. “Do you really want me to leave you alone? Shall I go?”
“No.” The answer came out much faster than she’d expected. No, she didn’t want him to leave. “But wait outside while I get dressed.”
He raised both hands, like a robber caught with his fingers in the dough. He closed his eyes and kept smiling.
“I promise not to peek. . Although I can’t help remembering!”
“Do what you want,” she replied, turning to the clothes folded on the chair. She grabbed a pair of denim shorts and a black, low-cut t-shirt with very short sleeves. Rapidly she took off her pyjamas, but before she could dress herself he came up behind her.
“I’m still not looking, I swear.” He kissed her again, this time on the neck. As he did so, without meaning to, he brushed Gina’s skin with the still-cold can and she flinched. “OK, OK, I’ll leave you alone. I’ll be good! By the way, have you got rid of the teddies? About time. .”
Gina got dressed. He sat down in front of her computer and started typing. She watched him, annoyed: she hated him using her things without even asking, as if they belonged to him.
“Let’s go downstairs,” she said to him. “My mother will be here any minute.”
“One second, I’m just looking at Facebook.”
She went over and positioned herself at his shoulder. Then she saw the same message she’d received less than an hour before. “Alwaysiris wants to be friends on Facebook.” The blurred photo of a blonde little girl, squinting in the sunlight.
“You too?” she asked.
“Screw them,” he replied. Without hesitating, he hit the “Delete Request” button.
“I did the same a little while ago.” Suddenly, without knowing why, she realized tears were running down her cheeks. She tried to control herself but she couldn’t.
“Gina. .” He rose and hugged her. “Sweetheart, that’s enough. That’s enough.”
She leaned against his chest. Hard, smooth, a strong and unyielding washboard. She sobbed like a little girl, ashamed of herself.
“Enough, enough, enough. It’s all over.” He moved away a little and brushed away her tears with his fingertips. She tried to laugh.
“I’m stupid.”
“No. No.” He looked at her tenderly, with a kind of olderbrother affection. “But we have to forget about all this. It was Marc’s business, we have nothing to do with it.”
“I miss him so much.”
“Me too.” But she knew he was lying. The thought made her uneasy and she moved away from him. “By the way, give me the USB stick. Better that I have it.”
She didn’t ask why. She opened a drawer and gave it to him. Aleix delayed a second in putting it in his pocket and smiled at her.
“Come on, let’s go downstairs. See if they’ve arrived yet and finish with this once and for all. And remember, not a word. About anything.”
Gina saw it in his eyes. A flash of fear. A gentle threat. This was why he’d come: not because he wanted to keep her company, not because he was worried about her, but because he didn’t trust what a girl like Gina would say if the police pressured her. The memory of Marc’s face came to her, a shadow over it, and she heard his quivering voice, almost inaudible, “You’re a motherfucker, a real motherfucker,” while fireworks exploded in the sky on the other side of the window. She felt a hand forcefully grasping her arm. He was still looking at her intently.
“This is important, Gina. No messing around.”
He let go and she rubbed her wrist.
“Did I hurt you?” It was he who rubbed it then. “Sorry. Really.”
“No.” Why did she say no when she wanted to say the opposite? Why did she let him kiss her again, on the forehead, when his sweaty smell made her feel sick?
The buzz of the intercom interrupted her seeking an answer she didn’t wish to find anyway.
The porter of the building, situated in Via Augusta, just before Plaça Molina, showed no sign of being shocked that two agents of the law were coming to visit one of the building’s inhabitants. He rose from his chair as if doing so were an inconceivable effort, an indecent thing to ask of a man at ten to five on one of the hottest days of the summer, while he was honorably working by leafing through the sports pages with his headphones on. It appeared that the person who answered the intercom from the flat had given them permission to go up, because, with a lethargic gesture, the porter pointed them toward the lift and mumbled, “Top floor, second door,” before falling back into his chair.
Héctor and Leire went toward the lift, which was slow and gloomy like the porter. She looked at herself in the dark mirror and saw that her face was starting to show signs of a definite bad mood. However curious she’d felt about Inspector Salgado before meeting him, working at his side was rather uncomfortable. After leaving the school she’d tried to discuss what the teacher had told them, but to no avail. Apart from answering in monosyllables, Salgado had spent the journey- not very long, it must be said-looking out of the window, in a posture that clearly showed that he’d prefer to be left in peace. And still the same: politely he’d let her go ahead of him into the foyer and the lift, but his face, which she was watching out of the corner of her eye, still had the same impenetrable, worried expression. Like a civil servant obliged to stay late at work.
Gina Martí met them at the door, and one didn’t have to be a master of observation to see that she’d been crying not long before: the red nose, the glazed eyes. Behind her was a boy with a serious, respectful expression whom Leire instantly recognized as Aleix Rovira.
“My mother will be back soon,” said the girl after Héctor introduced himself. She seemed to hesitate as to whether it was right to bring them into the lounge or remain standing in the hall. Aleix decided for her and invited them in, as if it were his home and not Gina’s.
“I came to see Gina,” he commented, as if to justify his presence. “If you want to speak to her alone, I’ll go,” he added. His tone was protective, affectionate. But the girl remained serious, tense.