Read Online The Whispering City by Sara Moliner - Free Book Online

his leather desk pad was clear. Pla lifted his head and stared at Pablo as he twirled the fountain pen between his fingers.
    ‘I’m pleased you came quickly, Noguer!’
    He held up a hand to keep Pablo from replying.
    ‘It’s an unpleasant matter. Extremely unpleasant. And serious.’
    Pablo took the precaution of saying nothing. He looked at Pla squarely, trying to maintain a neutral expression.
    ‘The day before yesterday you were in an…’ Pla paused briefly, ‘establishment.’
    Pablo nodded.
    Two days before, he had gone out with some of his young colleagues from the firm. Calvet had invited them. Pablo had understood it as some sort of initiation rite: going out for drinks together, going to a brothel and the next day toasting the occasion with Alka-Seltzer dissolved in water.
    ‘There, there were some…’ Pla hesitated again, ‘some excesses. Various excesses.’
    That was also true. He would have preferred to forget about them, and he felt embarrassed by some of the images that came into his head.
    Pla’s gaze became kindly. Pablo was familiar with the strategies his boss used in the courtroom. This expression worked to reassure reluctant witnesses so that he could then deliver a well-timed blow and destroy their credibility entirely. He prepared himself.
    ‘All of us, when we are young, have to let off steam. Well, later too, because a man is a man and has his needs. But’ – the kindness vanished – ‘there are limits.’
    Pla opened the main drawer of his desk and pulled out an envelope.
    ‘Someone filed a complaint with the police. It seems that on the night in question you consumed illegal drugs, namely cocaine. It seems you also sold the drug.’
    This was only partly true. That night there was plenty of everything: food, alcohol, women. Cocaine too. But he hadn’t brought it. He didn’t know where it had come from or who started spreading it around. No one sold cocaine there, only consumed it and, from what he could remember, the other three young colleagues, Miranda, Ripoll and Gómez, did too. Perhaps Pla knew as much, perhaps not. Pablo reacted as he had learned to. ‘Never admit to anything. It’s always better to counter-attack,’ his father would hammer into him.
    ‘That’s slander. Who filed the complaint against me?’
    Pla stared at him. ‘It was anonymous.’
    Before Pablo could reply, he continued, ‘Well, the complaint, due to fortunate circumstances that I don’t want to go into now, came from Vía Layetana straight into my hands. Luckily. So, give thanks to the goddess of Fortune or,’ Pla smiled, ‘light a candle to Saint Martin, the patron saint of drinkers, who must have been looking out for you.’
    Stay objective, don’t show any emotion, control your body language
. Pablo struggled to do so and hoped he was more or less managing it.
    ‘Don Jaime, of course I am most grateful, and I appreciate your attempt to protect me, but could you tell me what it says in the accusation?’
    Pablo extended a hand, but Pla didn’t give him the piece of paper. He unfolded it and smoothed it out.
    ‘I’m going to read it to you.’
    Pla ran his hand over his thin moustache, fitted some reading glasses onto his nose and looked at Pablo once more before directing his gaze to the piece of paper in his hand.
    ‘It’s almost impossible to read this scribble. The handwriting is a disaster.’
    He started to read. ‘
Your Excellency
…
’
    He glanced up.
    ‘It seems that our friend doesn’t have a good grip on the whole title business.’
    He continued reading. ‘
As a good citizen of new Spain I have to denounce something. The consumption of prohibitive drugs
– I guess he meant prohibited –
is rising, and they even sell them in bars. Were will we end up if solisotors do these things and skorn morality? Yesterday I was in a bar and was witness to thus. Neer eleven at night a group of posch young men, among them one named Pablo Noguer who I wanted to denounce to the