Free The Antiquarian by Julián Sánchez Page A

funeral, but I’m afraid it’s going to be hard to leave my chair at the university right now.”
    â€œI don’t know yet. I’d like to go to the house in Vallvidrera, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it. I’ll see when I get there.”
    â€œI want you to call me—on my cell phone or at home—and let me know everything that’s going on.”
    â€œI will, don’t worry. I hope Fornells has a theory, some clues he can investigate. I’ll let you know.”
    The announcement that Enrique’s flight was boarding sounded over the PA. They finished their coffees and headed to the first of the only two boarding gates at the modest Hondarribia Airport.
    â€œOkay, I hope it goes well,” Bety said in parting. “Call me, no matter what.”
    â€œThanks for the ride. I will.”
    They looked each other in the eyes. Bety, in a spontaneous move, kissed his cheek. Enrique couldn’t remember how long it had been since he felt her full lips against his skin, and he couldn’t help but think back to happier times. Bety waved good-bye as Enrique made his way toward the airplane.

3
    The flight to Barcelona was without incident: the weather was good, and just forty-five minutes later the plane landed at El Prat Airport. Enrique stopped long enough to rent a car; it would be essential if he wanted to move freely around a big city like Barcelona. Before he picked it up, he decided to call the Raval police station to talk to Fornells. He was told that Fornells was out, but that he would be back soon. He left a message: Fornells should be informed that he was in Barcelona and would be at the station shortly. He then got into his tiny, rented hatchback and headed toward the city.
    Every time he returned to his city—because he did feel that it was still his, despite his years away—a feeling sprang inside him that was hard to define. It was a combination of homesickness, a desire to return, and relief at no longer belonging to the place. This feeling had accompanied him for years, no matter how much time he spent away, and it was just as strong and intense as it was the first day he left. After all, Barcelona had been his home for twenty-seven years, and of those, he had lived in the hills with the city at his feet for sixteen. And today he was returning with an emptiness in his heart. Whenever he had come back from his travels he had followed the same ritual, disciplined as a worshipper with the trappings of their religion: a mandatory visit to the man who had first been his godfather and later, for sixteen years, had stepped in for Enrique’s deceased parents. Now his ever-present yearning was accompanied by the bitter pain of his loss.
    He drove calmly. It was not because of the radar cameras now nested regularly along the highway, but because of the uneasy knowledge that something would be missing when he got home, something very important, a definite absence that he did notwant to face, that he would try in vain to put off. He entered the city on the Ronda Litoral coastal loop, which took him to a point on the landward side of the port with ready access to the lower stretch of the Ramblas. It didn’t take him long to reach the station, where he parked in front of the door.
    The Raval Precinct police station occupied three spacious floors of what had been, at the turn of the twentieth century, one of the most prominent homes in Barcelona’s finest district. It had a noble entryway with ten-foot ceilings and pockmarks of peeling plaster. A nearby private university, as well as a handful of public colleges, shored up the neighborhood, and helped curb the sense of laissez faire inherent to old streets near Mediterranean ports. Even so, a few former seamen still stuck around; perhaps out of nostalgia, perhaps out of stubbornness, or perhaps because they were simply too old and too tired to find new a harbor to dock their dilapidated