Chapter 25
Luke
You’re a bloody twat.” Divya made her feelings known to Luke the moment they were back on the street.
“What she’s saying,” quipped Sol.
The three of them were walking on the narrow streets of Sandro’s neighborhood with Luke in the middle.
Luke shot his hands in the air, his head ping-ponging between the two shorter women. “Oh, come on! Since when did you two become so sappy? I was doing my job. Someone had to press him for answers.”
Sol gasped. She looked at Divya, leaning forward to avoid Luke’s body in the middle of them. “Has he really called us sappy?”
The Mancunian returned the look. “He bloody did.”
“I don’t much like you two ganging up on me,” Luke objected. “I feel outnumbered.”
“Aw,” Divya made a mocking sound.
“Then you shouldn’t be harassing a witness who is visibly distressed, because his lover is missing.
And you most definitely shouldn’t be calling your detective partner—and me—sappy.
Shouldn’t you, Luca?” Sol was giving him lots of attitude, her chin lifted as she looked up at him, with her hands at her hips.
He couldn’t repress the smirk.
“As fun as this is,” he pointed to the two women. “We need to talk about this bloody case.”
“What we need is to talk to Isabel Teixidor again.” Divya had got over being annoyed at him. She wanted to focus on the case.
“Agreed,” Sol said. It looked like she’d become an integral part of that investigation but, unlike in previous cases in which that had happened, this time no one was pretending like she wasn’t.
Luke was also aware that for Sol to forget what she considered an insensitive gesture on his part, he’d have to work extra hard. He couldn’t repress the smile, there was nothing he liked more than making up with her.
“Luke, mate. Do you agree?” Divya said. The two women were looking at him. Divya had probably asked him something and he’d missed it because he was thinking of the many ways he wanted to reconcile with Sol.
What was it that he’d told himself not half an hour ago? Luke, mate, bloody focus.
“I’m sorry. What were you saying?” he asked his detective partner.
Divya’s gaze sharpened on him. “Should we have lunch and then visit Isabel? Or the other way around?”
He checked the time on his phone. It was 12:41. “Isn’t it a bit early for lunch?” He was sure he’d been in bloody Barcelona for too long. Not a week before he’d have chosen the opposite option.
“Won’t you get grumpy and hangry if we do the interview first?” That was Divya again.
“I don’t get grumpy—or hangry.” He huffed.
Both women started laughing. They’d definitely teamed up against him. Then again, they tended to do it and he loved that they were friends, that they’d bonded.
“Not that I’m not looking forward to witnessing the Contadino hangriness, but do you guys need me at the interview with Isabel?
” Sol asked. She almost could not repress the laugh.
He liked seeing her like that. She’d looked a bit too worried and distressed when they’d been with Sandro.
The only thing Luke didn’t like about having Sol by his side and helping him investigate was that the work tended to affect her more deeply than she realized.
“Please, cara, come with us if you don’t mind,” he asked her.
“Just in case Isabel decides she doesn’t understand English today either,” Divya added.
Sol nodded in agreement and the three of them hailed a taxi to go pay a surprise visit to the theater director.
···
Sol
El bano de Edipo’s stage director Isabel Teixidor had chosen not to speak or understand English that day.
But that hardly surprised Sol. Judging by their faces, it didn’t surprise the detectives either.
It was as if Isabel was resolved to make things difficult—and that hardly looked good for her considering that she was probably the person to benefit the most from Leonardo’s disappearance.
“So what’s the theater for the new run of the play?” Sol asked the director in Catalan. The whole team was once again seated in her old-fashioned living room.
“One of the stages of Teatre Autònom. I’d be thrilled if it wasn’t for shitty Sandro Palau.” Isabel was gritting her teeth and not even trying to disguise her anger.
“What’s going on with Sandro?” Sol played innocent.
“He says he won’t do the show until that fool Leonardo Pascual is found. As if…” Isabel sighed, frustration edging her features. “I need to figure out a way to convince him and change his mind.”
“Can’t you just wait a few days, until Leonardo is back?” Sol was threading a thin line while trying to remain professional and make Isabel believe she was worried about her play. Once again she was reminded how much harder than a journalistic interview that kind of questioning was.
“Leonardo won’t be back.” Isabel deadpanned.
The director had one of the more solid poker faces Sol had encountered.
The journalist couldn’t tell what the other woman was feeling or thinking.
That, added to the fact that the two detectives also in the room didn’t speak Catalan, didn’t bode well for their chances as a team to decipher if Isabel was somehow involved in Pascual’s disappearance.
“Why are you so sure?” Sol asked Isabel.
“I told you already when we talked the other day. Because he’s dead.”
The certainty in Isabel’s words made Sol’s heart tighten.
Sol didn’t want to even contemplate the possibility of Leonardo not being all right.
She also noticed Isabel was no longer wiping her runny nose and crying about her certainty in Leonardo’s death like she did a couple of days before.
Sol guessed Isabel considered Leonardo mourned.
Or had she been just pretending to be distressed the first time they’d met her?
“So, will you help me then?” Isabel asked Sol.
“Help you?” Sol didn’t follow.
“Will you publish something about the play and Sandro being a difficult brat? No one likes being called out in such a way in the media. With a bit of luck we may even get him half cancelled—not totally cancelled though, I still need him to be my star. But that ought to convince him to do the play and vindicate his name.”
Sol’s face slackened, her mouth was agape.
She was tempted to tell the director Sandro wasn’t a difficult brat but a man in love and worried sick.
But she didn’t want to betray Sandro and Leonardo’s secret.
“I’m afraid I’m not here as a journalist, but helping the detectives.
” She signaled to a confused-looking Divya and Luke seated across from them.
“Pfffff,” Isabel pouted. “Everyone is set on ruining me and my play!”
“What makes you say so?” Sol tried asking that in a measured way but there’d been something in Isabel’s words…
“First Leonardo left the play, no matter how much I asked him not to…”
“He had previous commitments, right?”
Isabel made a dismissive gesture. “Actors, they can abandon any previous commitment if it suits them. But he didn’t want to continue doing my play. Said he didn’t like my directing style. Can you believe it?”
Sol tried smiling, but wasn't sure she pulled it off. But yes, she could absolutely believe that working with that woman was no picnic.
“But we were fortunate. Leonardo dies,” Isabel continued, completely oblivious about her insensitive comment.
“Everyone is talking about the show. Whoever had been at the theater for what was supposed to be the play’s last performance with Leonardo saw Sandro instead and decided that he is brilliant. ”
“You don’t think Sandro is brilliant?”
Another dismissive gesture from the stage director. “He’s an actor. They’re easily replaceable. What matters is the talent behind them.”
Sol chuckled nervously, looked in Divya and Luke’s direction, hoping they’d see the discomfort in her eyes. Isabel had just plainly told Sol that actors could be replaced.
“And now that we have a new offer to continue with the play,” Isabel continued blabbering, seemingly unaware of Sol’s many objections about her, “Sandro decides he’s not available. As if he’s going to get a better chance than this!”
Sol was at a loss for words. She truly wished Divya and Luke understood Catalan right then so that one of them would assist her. She had no clue how to continue that conversation.
“Can you ask her if she’s not worried about looking a bit too suspicious,” Luke told her and Sol sighed, relieved.
The environment had been so tense, she’d almost forgotten that he could understand some Catalan due to his Italian.
She was immensely thankful for it, “She’s not even trying to conceal she was not happy with Leonardo and the whole ordeal is benefitting her. ”
“If I get Sandro to do the play, that is,” Isabel cut him, in English. “And no, I’m not worried.”
Sol was stunned.
“What can I do so that you help me?” Isabel addressed the journalist in Catalan again.
Sol blinked nervously. Was Isabel suggesting what she thought she was suggesting?
“What can I do for you so that you publish an article to pressure Sandro to do the play?”
Yes, she was.
“As I said,” Sol began and didn’t try to hide her dislike of the director this time. “I’m here just as one more member of the detective team trying to figure out what happened to Leonardo Pascual.”
Isabel scoffed, lips tightening. “Good luck with your search then.”