Free The Serpent Papers by Jessica Cornwell Page A

Two starts quietly. It is the morning of Sant Joan’s Day. The holiday in Barcelona stretches over forty-eight hours. Festivities began on the evening of 23 June with la Revetlla de Sant Joan and culiminate now in the sleepy Feast Day, the 24 th . On this occasion, the sun rises behind the imposing pinnacles of Barcelona’s Cathedral. Dominant spires sprouting from the heart of what was once the walled Roman city Barcino, said to have been founded by Hercules, half man, half god, who loved the girl Pyrene, namesake for the Pyrenees; or perhaps Hamilcar Barca, father of Hannibal, the Carthaginian, built the first structures on Mont Tàber. The Great Cathedral rests here now. La Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia. Gargantuan. Brooding. Product of a fiscal boom, the brainchild of a medieval superpower long since dwindled. Nowhere else in the world are there so many great churches in such close proximity. The thrust of the cathedral feels drunk on power, still famous for exorcisms, exalted soil, stone-plated, façade ornamental, deceptive, a neo-Gothic addition made in the nineteenth century. Hung with the silhouettes of angels peering down on mysteries below. Studying the tourists with their cameras, the covered markets, the beggars and street cleaners, the businessmen in suits, the activists, the strikers, the politicians, the stoners and salesmen of squeaking birds who garble whistles in their mouths and shoot flashing lights into the sky, hoping to entrance a customer. In the night the gargoyles and angels have been gossiping with one another beneath the belfries. Watching something unusual. Something curious. Stone eyes gaze on the form of a girl. Laid out on the eleven steps leading to the mouth of the cathedral like an offering to an indifferent god.

Fuck! the medic whispers, as he pulls the shirt from the female body. Her flesh still warm. The assistant by his side loses his balance, and trips. The medic shouts. Get up! Get up!
    Natalia Hernández?
    The world stops for a moment and stares. Or her double? The assistant chokes. It might not be her. But they know. Everybody knows. Someone has pulled the hair from her face, leaving sticky marks on her cheek, and her brow, where they have tried to clean the death away. She has been gored in her belly and her chest. Punctured. Many places. She is porous. A quagmire. Her lips fresh-rouged. Mouth a lake of darkness. A policeman retches on the steps.
    And yet her face so still?
    The medic gives a small prayer under his breath as he inspects her neck.
    There are wounds all over this girl. God, he was cruel. Ostres! The medic whistles. He feels a chill on the air, as if in the presence of ghosts. A nasty icy-frost, even in the heat of summer. Natalia Hernández. Retrospectively, people will wonder how they left her there.
    They will feel a collective sense of remorse.
    She who was so beautiful.
    The housewives will read the tabloids with attention.
    This the medic knows with certainty as he feels the nothingness of Natalia Hernández’s pulse. She whom they held so tenderly in their hearts.
    Across the city, the doorman on Carrer de Muntaner will slam his fist into the desk. He had not known to alert the police that she never came home – Natalia Hernández who always came home at eleven – who never went out later – not even on an opening night. Hòstia, Santa Maria! Quin horror! Her hair pristinely coiled at the nape of her neck in a tight bun. Stage make-up thick on her face, and those luminous lips, burst berries against brown skin. Delicate limbs fold like the crumpled hind legs of a colt. Fingers long and curled in a death grip on her chest. Two moles, constellations at the corner of her neck and jaw. And yet she looks serene. Dreaming into herself, she disappears.
    Elsewhere, all is not as it seems. As the case unfolds, an investigator brings the media’s attention to Natalia Hernández’s doorman at No. 487, who saw a stranger enter and leave his building