Southern Seas Read Online Free PDF

he is among the fortunate ones who have seen day break
    over the most beautiful islands on earth
    he smiles at the memory and replies that when the sun
    rose the day was already old for them.
    and:
    No more will anyone carry me south.
    He racked his brains for a possible cabalistic meaning that might lie concealed in the three pieces of verse. He opened the cocktail cabinet and poured himself a glass of ten-year-old Fonseca port. He didn’t have bad taste, this Stuart Pedrell. Carvalho turned the lines over in his mind. Maybe they were indicative of the man’s frustrations or maybe they were the key to a project that had expired with his death. He put the paper in his pocket and searched every corner of the room, even behind the cushions of the three-piece suite. Then he turned to the wall displaying the map of the Pacific Ocean. He followed the route traced by the flags: Abu Dhabi, Ceylon, Bangkok, Sumatra, Java, Bali, the Marquesas … An imaginary voyage? A real voyage?
    Next he examined the audio-visual equipment in a corner of the office and on a desk to the left of where Stuart Pedrell would have sat. Ultra-high fidelity. A compact television incorporated in an American radiocassette player. He tried all the tape recorders, in case something had been left on them. Blank. He looked over the cassettes of classical music and modern rock. Nothing you could call a clue. He called the ex-convent girl, who approached with tiny steps as if not to disturb the sanctity of the place.
    ‘Did Señor Stuart Pedrell book a trip in the days before he disappeared?’
    ‘Yes. To Tahiti.’
    ‘Did he book it direct?’
    ‘No. Through Aerojet. It’s a travel agency.’
    ‘Had he already paid a deposit?’
    ‘Yes. He also ordered a very large sum in traveller’s cheques.’
    ‘How much?’
    ‘I don’t know. But it would have been enough for a year or more abroad.’
    Carvalho looked at the canvases on the wall. Thoroughly modern painters. The oldest, Tàpies, was still no more than fifty years old, and the youngest, Viladecans, was around thirty. One signature was particularly familiar to him: Artimbau. He had known him during the years of the anti-Franco struggle, before he himself had fled to the United States.
    ‘These painters used to come here?’
    ‘A lot of important people used to come.’
    ‘Do you know them by name?’
    ‘Some of them.’
    ‘What about this one, Artimbau?’
    ‘He was the nicest one. He used to come often. Señor Stuart Pedrell wanted to commission him to do a big mural on his estate at Lliteras. A huge wall was spoiling his view, and Señor Stuart Pedrell wanted Señor Artimbau to paint it for him.’

    Artimbau’s studio was on Calle Baja de San Pedro. As usual, Carvalho felt a flicker of nervousness as he passed the police headquarters in Vía Layetana. He had only bad memories of the barracks-like building. However much they tried to give it a democraticface-lift, for him it would always be a grim fortress of repression. Vía Layetana itself, though, struck him differently—a first, hesitant step towards a Barcelona Manhattan that was never going to be completed. A pre-war street with the harbour at one end and the small industry of Gracia at the other, it had been extended through Barcelona to provide the city with a commercial nerve-centre. Over time, it had come to house trade unions and employers’ organizations, as well as policemen and their victims. It also housed a large branch of the National Savings Bank. In the forefront of an expansive, sub-Gothic public park stood a monument to one of the weightier members of the Catalonian aristocracy. Carvalho walked along Calle Baja de San Pedro until he came to a large doorway giving onto a courtyard. He picked his way across the yard and began to climb a narrow, time-worn staircase that gave access to a number of rickety landings. Opening onto these were the kind of small studios favoured by architects just embarking on their careers