Barcelona 03 - The Sound of One Hand Killing Read Online Free PDF

will be out of Barcelona for almost a month. And when I get back, I’ve got to go into hiding and write a couple of keynote lectures. I really don’t have time to do my own fieldwork. And my publisher wants to bring the book out in October…”
    â€œI understand.”
    â€œOn the other hand, I have to say, I don’t feel at ease in such places,” she continued, smiling rather nervously.
    I smiled too, and nodded vigorously. I perfectly understood what she meant because I have the same problem: the rich put me on edge and I never know how to behave.
    â€œWell then? Will you give me a hand?”
    â€œOf course. My partner and I are highly adaptable. Aren’t we, Eduard?”
    Teresa Solana started smiling again and looked much more relaxed, and she said we should organize ourselves as we thought fit, that she had full confidence in our modus operandi . She had started her novel, she confessed, but needed that information to give the story a touch of realism. After we’d agreed our fee, she signed us a cheque that Borja quickly pocketed. She stayed a while and told us how she was angling her novel, until she looked at her watch at a quarter to two and leapt up from the sofa, looking alarmed.
    â€œYou must excuse me, but my plane leaves at five and I’ve still got to pack,” she said. And then she wrinkled her nose and asked, “Can you smell something peculiar?”
    â€œIt’s the burst pipes,” explained Borja, deadpan. “The stink comes from the courtyard.”
    â€œYes, that’s what it must be. Good, I’ll give you a ring as soon as I’m back in town. Good luck.”
    â€œDon’t worry. Eduard, my partner, and I will find you material to write a first-rate novel.” And, as if he’d had a kind of premonition, he kissed her hand in his gallant style and added, “No need for any worries on that front.”

3
    When Teresa Solana had disappeared, Borja loosened the knot of his tie and opened the window. He then took the bottle of brandy and a couple of glasses from the cocktail bar.
    â€œIf you ask me, Pep, I don’t think this is the time to get plastered,” I said, putting my hand over my glass to stop him filling it. “I’d like to remind you we are in the flat of an American who is prostrate on the floor of his kitchen, apparently murdered. And right now our fingerprints are everywhere.”
    â€œI don’t want to get plastered,” he replied. “I just want us to calm down and think through what we should do.”
    â€œPhone the police, I imagine? What else can we do?”
    â€œAnd what will we tell them? That we came up here to water the plants and found a dead man in the kitchen? That, as our office had been burgled (an office we’ve never signed a rental contract for), we took advantage of the fact we had the keys in order to see a client there – even though there was a corpse in the kitchen that we suspect to be Brian – because we didn’t want her to see inside our office that’s more like the stage-set for a comic opera?”
    â€œWell, if you put it like that…”
    â€œThey will question us about our company and our client. And when we tell them she writes crime fiction…”
    â€œI suppose the plot will thicken.”
    â€œBesides, when Teresa Solana finds out, I don’t think she will be at all amused to know we saw her in a flat where a guy had been shot in the head. She’ll think it some kind of macabre joke, or worse, will be furious. And she told us she was a friend of the Inspector, don’t you forget that.”
    â€œYou know, for someone who writes thrillers, Teresa Solana wasn’t what you’d call very perceptive. I don’t reckon she noticed a thing.”
    â€œShe said she had a cold,” said Borja, shrugging his shoulders. “I expect her nose was bunged up.”
    â€œWell, I can still smell the