The Summer of Dead Toys Read Online Free PDF Page B

network of labyrinthine alleys that had remained immune to the wave of design that was battering nearby barrios , like the Born. These were streets where people hung out clothes on the balconies and you could almost steal them from your neighbor opposite; façades that would be difficult to renovate because there was no space for scaffolding; ground floors, previously abandoned, where now Pakistani grocers, ethnic clothes shops and a bar with tiled walls had sprung up. There, on Milans, on the second floor of a narrow, dirty building, Dr. Omar had his “clinic.” When Héctor arrived at the corner, he instinctively searched for his mobile and then remembered he’d left it dead at home that morning. Shit . . . His intention had been to call Andreu and ask her if there were Moors abroad, or if the coast was clear. He smiled at the thought that such phrases had become politically incorrect, and advanced slowly toward the building in question. Contrary to what he’d imagined, the street was empty. But that wasn’t surprising. The visit of the Mossos , Catalonia’s police force, had made many of the area’s inhabitants, who had no papers, opt for staying at home. There was indeed an agent at the door, a relatively young guy whom Héctor knew by sight, making sure that only residents could access the building.
    “Inspector Salgado.” The agent seemed nervous. “Sergeant Andreu told me you might come.”
Héctor raised an eyebrow and the boy nodded.
“Go on up. And I haven’t seen you. Sergeant’s orders.”
The stairwell smelled of damp, of urban poverty. He met a black woman who didn’t raise her eyes from the floor. On the second-floor landing there were two doors, each of a different wood. The darker was the one he was looking for. It was closed and he had to touch the bell twice before it decided to ring. When he remembered the events of that fateful evening, everything came back to him in the form of flashes: the destroyed body of the little black girl and a dense, bitter rage that could be neither swallowed nor spat out; then his closed fist, pitilessly striking a guy he’d only seen in the interrogation room once. Hazy images he’d have preferred not to remember.
    Stationed at the corner, Héctor waits for the fourth cigarette he’s lit in the last half an hour to be consumed. He feels a pain in his chest and the taste of tobacco is starting to make him sick.
    He goes up to the second floor. He pushes the office door. At first he doesn’t see him. The room is so dark that instinctively he’s on his guard. He stays still, alert, until a noise indicates that there is someone seated on the other side of the desk. Someone who lights a lamp.
“Come in, Inspector.”
He recognizes the voice. Slow, with an indefinable foreign
    accent.
“Sit down. Please.”
He does. They are separated by an antique wooden desk,
    which must be the best thing in that run-down, slightly stuffy flat.
“I was expecting you.”
The shadow moves forward and the light from the floor lamp fully covers him. On seeing him Héctor is surprised: he’s older than he remembered from that day he’d interrogated him at the station. Black, thin, an almost fragile appearance, and the eyes of a beaten dog who has learned that there is a daily ration of blows and waits resignedly for the moment to arrive.
“How did you do it?”
The doctor smiles, but Héctor could swear that deep down there is something like fear. Good. He has good reason to fear him.
“How did I do what?”
Héctor contains the desire to grab him by the neck and slam his face against the desk. Instead he clenches his fist and simply says:
“Kira is dead.”
He feels a chill on saying her name. The sweet smell is beginning to make him nauseated.
“A pity, isn’t it? Such a pretty girl,” the other says, as if he’s speaking of a gift, an object. “You know something? Her parents gave her that absurd name to prepare her for a life in Europe. Or in America. They sold her