Free The Serpent Papers by Jessica Cornwell Page B

that fateful morning, taking the elevator to Natalia’s floor in the lavish apartment complex on leafy Muntaner. Said doorman fails to recognize the man on his departure from the building. The little that he could remember upon questioning was that he was nondescript and sandy-haired, slight features, of an average height. ‘I don’t know, I suppose it could have been anyone. I didn’t see him come in. I assumed he was a romantic friend of one of our inhabitants, leaving after the night.’ At 6.30 a.m. the mystery man is promptly forgotten. Later the doorman will claim he was a ghost – a demon, a spirit – no human could have crept by, not in that nasty, serpentine way, slithering along the floor so that he could not be seen by the human eye! Smoke, however, is not so easy to dismiss, and by seven in the morning the living room of 5A, No. 487, has raged into a blazing inferno. Black clouds billow out from the cracks around the apartment door into the fifth-floor hall of No. 487. Fire of this kind never before seen on Muntaner. And still it worsens. In the workroom of Natalia Hernández the heat reaches a vat of turpentine, stacked on the shelf – the flames consume everything – and then the great explosion – a magnificent fireball rising in the air. Sprinkler systems flood the floors to either side. When the fire brigade arrive they struggle to put out the roaring flames, by which time the living room is blackened, the two sofas a disfigured mass of leather, smelling like a burnt carcass, and at the centre of the living room a charred circle of thick black dust. Inside the ash are still discernible the woman’s implements of writing, the spines of books smoke-eaten and destroyed, the pages incinerated in a fire caused by a flame which had met the gas stove (left on) and exploded through the small adjacent kitchen into the living room of the apartment. The firemen suspect arson – the door to the apartment ajar, the taps running in the kitchen. What remains bizarre is that this incendiary cloud of black smoke engulfs Natalia Hernández’s apartment approximately one hour and fifty-seven minutes after her death.
    Was it the explosion of her soul – split like an atom from her body? Or the intensity of her life manifested in flames? Only Bobi the Pekinese lapdog remains calm, clutched by his aged owner. His glassy canine eyes observe the fire with placid acceptance from the stricken crowd below.
     
    Inspector Fabregat stands, in this exact moment, in the square of Natalia Hernández’s death. Sleep barely rubbed from his eyes. He runs a hand through his hair, his features wolf-sharp. Across the way the sun glints in shop windows. Olive trees murmur beside diminutive palms. The stone of the surrounding buildings golden and pink. Layered. Mismatched, from all ages. Cypress trees standing to attention at the rim of grey flagstones.
    This morning the almsmen will be kept away from the church steps. As will the tourists. Still too early for crowds . . . but they will come , Fabregat thinks. Pacing beneath black ornate lanterns jutting out from stone walls. Past museums and church archives. Narrowing streets. He walks in circles. Waiting for results. This time they will have cameras of the diocese, the door-guards, and Fabregat is agitated, eager, to see what they hold.
    Soon Sergeant de la Fuente will lead Inspector Fabregat back to the white-and-blue van stationed at the far side of the square, underneath a row of larger trees.
    The excitement on his voice is palpable. ‘We’re tracing them back now. All the way through the Gothic.’
    ‘ Them? ’ Fabregat’s left eye twitches.
    De la Fuente grins. Fabregat forces a smile.
    ‘If you’re telling me this, you’d better be sure, Sergeant. I’m a very sensitive man. Don’t go getting my hopes up.’
    De la Fuente opens the door to the mobile lab. He pulls up a chair to the central computer and gestures to the inspector, who refuses to take a seat.