A Small Death in lisbon (63 page)

The only thing Carlos couldn't remember was why António Borrego had hit him. I told him that after Felsen had given me his story I'd gone to
A Bandeira Vermelha
and asked António about Maria Antónia Medinas. He'd stalled me. So when, five and a half months later, and after our brittle exchange in the street by the rusted wheel-arch of the white Renault 12, Carlos appeared in the bar on his own to ask about the same woman—the one person who could motivate António to murder Catarina Oliveira—Borrego's paranoia did the rest. He wouldn't have known that Carlos and I had never discussed Maria Antónia Medinas. He wouldn't have known that to us it was just a name that needed some light shed on it. He thought he was finished.

It still hasn't rained. It's still dry and cold. The leaves are still scratching across the
calçada. A Bandeira Vermelha
is closed. I've had to find somewhere else to drink my
bicas,
someone else to make my toast.

Olivia still hasn't taught Carlos anything about clothes, he shambles about in that oversized thing, but he's reciprocated in his own way by telling her nothing of murder. He makes her happy in a way that she hasn't been for over a year.

Luísa Madrugada spares me the odd quarter of an hour from her publishing company and I occasionally look up from the book that she's been forcing me to write. Nothing about murder, of course, a children's story.

I've seen the untouchable lawyer too, Dr Oliveira in his Morgan, spanking down the Marginal with a blonde in the passenger seat. He didn't look bothered.

I'm getting out of this house. The landlord offered to sell me an apartment at a good price if I moved out and let him convert this old mansion. I thought it would be a difficult decision to make, but I agreed as soon as he proposed it. We looked at each other astonished.

And I bought a new car. The old one never forgave me for leaving her on the bridge that night. The new car's nothing special but the salesman, highlighting all the extras included, made it sound as if it could go into orbit and dock with
Discovery.
He knew everything, and I questioned him endlessly because it's in my nature, finally I asked him:

'How do they tint the windows so that they're clear in the shade and dark in the sunshine?'

'You know,' he said, without even a pause, holding up a finger. 'That's interesting. It's the only Portuguese element of this car.'

'Is that a selling point?'

'On the glass,' he said, ignoring me, 'they lay a very, very thin layer, less than a micron, a fraction of a micron of the finest Portuguese wolfram.'

I thought about that.

The obscure talent of wolfram.