The Flanders Panel

Inspector Feijoo was the last to leave; he’d stayed on for nearly an hour to complete the statements made earlier by Julia and Munoz, and also by Cesar, who had come as soon as he heard the news. The policeman, who’d never been near a chessboard in his life, was patently bewildered. He kept looking at Munoz as if at some bizarre animal, but nodded with wary gravity at the latter’s technical explanations, every now and then turning to Cesar and Julia as though wondering whether this were just some huge practical joke concocted by the three of them. Occasionally, he jotted down notes, tugged at his tie and gave another uncomprehending glance at the typewritten characters on the card found by Menchu’s body. Munoz’s interpretation of the symbols had merely succeeded in giving Feijoo a splitting headache. What really interested him, apart from the oddness of the whole situation, were details about the quarrel Menchu and her boyfriend had had the previous evening-This was because – as policemen sent to investigate had reported back during the‘ afternoon – Maximo Olmedilla Sanchez, twenty-eight years old, single and a male model by profession, was nowhere to be found. Furthermore, two witnesses, a taxi driver and the porter in the building opposite, had seen a young man answering his description leaving Julia’s building between twelve and twelve-fifteen that day. According to the pathologist’s first report, Menchu Roch had been strangled, from the front, having first been dealt a mortal blow to the throat, between eleven and twelve. The detail of the bottle in the vagina – a large bottle of Beefeater gin, almost full – to which Feijoo made repeated and extremely crude reference (revenge for all that chess nonsense his three interviewees had thrown at him), he interpreted as concrete evidence, in the sense that everything pointed to a crime of passion. After all, the murdered woman – he’d frowned and put on a suitably grave face, making it clear that people generally get what they deserve – was, as both Julia and Cesar had just explained, not a person of irreproachable sexual morality. As to how this murder was linked to the death of Professor Ortega, the connection was obvious, given the disappearance of the painting. He ventured a few more explanations, listened attentively to the replies that Julia, Munoz and Cesar gave to his further questions, and finally said good-bye, after arranging to see them at the police station the following morning.

“As for you, Senorita, you’ve nothing more to worry about.” He paused on the threshold, with the dignified expression of a public official fully in charge of the situation. “We know who we’re looking for now. Good night.”

When she’d closed the door, Julia leaned back against it and looked at her two friends. She had dark shadows under her now dry eyes. She’d cried a lot, out of grief and rage, tormented by her own impotence. Immediately after finding Menchu’s body she’d wept, quietly in front of Munoz, then, when Cesar had arrived, looking pale and harassed, with the horror of the news evident on his face, she’d embraced him as she had when she was a child, her tears had become sobs, and she’d lost all control, clinging to Cesar, who could only murmur futile words of consolation. It wasn’t just her friend’s death; it was, she said, her voice breaking as hot tears streamed down her face, the unbearable tension of the last few days, the humiliating certainty that the murderer was playing with their lives with absolute impunity, confident that he had them at his mercy.

At least the police interrogation had had one positive effect: it had restored her to a sense of reality. The stubborn stupidity with which Feijoo refused to see the obvious, the false affability with which he’d accepted – without understanding anything, without making the slightest attempt to understand – the detailed explanations they’d given him about what was going on, had reinforced her belief that she had nothing to hope for from that direction. The phone call from the officer dispatched to Max’s and the discovery of the two witnesses had confirmed Feijoo in his idea, typical of the police, that the simplest motive is usually the most likely. The chess story was, of course, interesting, something that would doubtless fill out the details of the incident. But as far as the substance of the matter went, it was purely anecdotal. The detail of the bottle proved it. Pure criminal pathology. “Because, despite what you read in detective novels, Senorita, appearances are never deceptive.”

“There’s no doubt about it now,” said Julia as the Inspector could be heard going down the stairs. “Alvaro was murdered, like Menchu. Someone’s obviously been after the painting for a long time.”