Free A Shortcut to Paradise by Teresa Solana Page A

Venice.”
    â€œOf course, that must be the famous hotel in the Lido where Merche took me once. Did you know they shot a film there?”
    â€œThen,” I interrupted so as not to lose my thread, “the Countess, who lives in Rome, decides to go to Venice to collect the prize. Naturally, she stays at the hotel where the prize ceremony will be held and where coincidentally she bumps into a bunch of ex-lovers. The Countess is pretty, young, intelligent, cultured and so on and so forth, but is marginalized by the macho attitudes of male-dominated literary circles. She’s very talented, but as she is a woman writer, everybody ignores her. What’s more, she’s envied by the other writers because she is so wealthy.”
    â€œMmm… Like Marina Dolç,” commented Borja.
    â€œAnd there are even more coincidences. The novel the Countess enters for the prize under a pseudonym is called A Shortcut to Paradise .”
    â€œYou don’t say it’s the novel that won the prize,” Borja deduced, beginning to get excited.
    â€œRight first time! And that’s not the end of it: that night after one of those parties you are so fond of, with champagne, oysters and caviar, the Countess is
murdered in her bedroom. Someone smashes her head in.”
    â€œJust like Marina Dolç!”
    â€œNot quite,” I replied. “From what you told me, Marina Dolç opened the door to her murderer. I don’t know if she had the time to realize what was happening before she died, but theoretically she saw who it was. The Countess, on the other hand, fell to the floor without setting eyes on her executioner. Although there is another coincidence…”
    â€œOut with it.”
    â€œThe murder weapon was the statue the Countess had just won: a to-scale reproduction of Michelangelo’s David .”
    â€œWell, at least it’s a notch up on the apple,” added Borja. “Did you see the photos? That hand looked like the towers of the Sagrada Familia…”
    â€œAnd all that happens in the first three pages and, surprise, surprise, the remaining four hundred and ninety-seven pages are the time the Countess takes to hit the ground. In that briefest of time spans (a few seconds, in fact) our good lady reviews her whole life in minute detail trying to deduce who the guilty party is.” I took a swig of gin-and-tonic. “I can tell you that after two hundred pages I was ready to conclude that a quite different crime had well and truly been committed!”
    â€œWell, she was a best-seller and was awarded the prize; the novel must have something going for it…” retorted Borja.
    â€œSure, every six or seven pages there’s a steamy scene. The Dolç woman certainly knew her dirty language if nothing else… I was soon up to here with all that heaving flesh.”
    â€œAll right. But who’s the murderer at the end?” asked Borja impatiently. “A man? A woman? A lover? Another writer?”
    â€œWell, it is true,” I gave a heartfelt sigh, “after wading through all that trash, you’re really desperate to know who killed her. If only to thank the person concerned…”
    â€œBut there must be some clue or other…”
    â€œWell, no. According to my notes” – I consulted my notebook – “I’ve counted forty-three male and female lovers (with the requisite detailed description of forty-three corresponding fucks), two ex-husbands, four fathers-in-law, seven girlfriends, three gay friends, at least five envious writers, six maids and a couple of butlers. The list of motives and suspects is endless. In the eighties, at the low end.”
    â€œFantastic,” commented Borja, wrinkling his nose.
    I was in need of another gin-and-tonic. Borja, on Cardhu as usual, ordered another round. It was a few minutes past eleven and Harry’s was beginning to liven up and fill up with people and smoke.