Barry Maitland - The verge practice

Plan B. When she got back to Barcelona, Kathy drove into the centre of the city and parked near the hotel where they had stayed ten days ago. She wondered about asking if they had a room, but she guessed it would be expensive and postponed a decision, though it was now gone ten p.m.

She approached the Placa de Catalunya on foot along a narrow twisting lane, and, turning a corner, suddenly found her way blocked by a police car and a small knot of people. She recognised English accents. A man was saying loudly, ‘… all over me, then this other bloke offered to help. Next thing he’d taken my wallet…’

As she got closer Kathy saw that his shirt was covered in some brown liquid, and a foul smell hung in the air. A woman said, ‘We were warned about this!’

The two cops, looking bored, made room for Kathy to get past.

‘They looked so respectable,’ the woman complained, and Kathy thought, yes, you just can’t tell who’s a thief these days.

‘Hey!’ A man’s voice, calling after her. She turned and saw one of the policemen wave at her. He began to walk towards her. For a moment she thought of running, but instead gave him a smile. He looked stern and pointed at the pack slung over her right shoulder, then waved an admonishing finger. He made a gesture like someone snatching it, then mimed wearing it properly on her back, with both straps. She grinned and thanked him, and he gave her a wink. Clearly she was more interesting than the tiresome middle-aged tourists who were making such a fuss.

She found a place in a cafe overlooking the square. There were shiny aluminium tables and chairs spilling out across the broad pavement, the outdoor ones packed by under-thirties who were maintaining running conversations with the crowd passing by. Kathy chose a table in a corner inside, where the light was bright enough to study the book she had brought in her backpack, The Complete Works of Luis Domenech i Montaner.

She ordered a long black and turned to the plans of the house of the hospital superintendent of Sant Pau. It wasn’t a large house, quite modest really in terms of the number of its rooms, but compensating in the extravagant flourishes of its details. She traced the route that she and Linda had taken through the house, from the front door through the hall to the main salon at the rear where they had met Dr Lizancos. From the plan she saw that there was also a dining room, kitchen and maid’s room on the ground floor, and a staircase leading from the hall to the upper floor, containing three bedrooms. There was no cellar or any room indicated as an office or study, but there was one unidentified feature, a turret room at roof level, circular in plan and accessed by a spiral staircase rising from the top of the main stairs. The lizard’s lair, Kathy thought. She memorised the plans and the intricately ornamented elevations, paid for her coffee and set off once again.

The street was deserted, the house in darkness when she reached the front gate. She eased it open cautiously, trying to remember if it had squeaked on her first visit, and then she was in the deep shadows of the overgrown garden, making her way carefully along a meandering path. The dark outline of the house rose above her, its pinnacles and gargoyles bristling against the night sky.

The path took her round to a small rear lawn. There were the windows of the salon, and above them those of the main bedroom, all in total darkness. Beyond the garden wall a motorbike spluttered, a horn blared, but within the shroud of the garden nothing stirred.

Kathy retraced her steps to the front of the house, visualising its layout. And there, in the far corner of the front elevation, almost obscured by a thick canopy of foliage, rose the turret, capped by a conical spire like that of a fairytale castle. As she worked her way closer, past an arbour and a waterless fountain, she saw that this side of the house was clad in a dense fabric of ivy. Gnarled and thick, it draped the wall like assault netting. A cat burglar couldn’t have asked for better. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Kathy breathed, let down your hair. She grasped two handfuls and tested her weight. The plant held it easily. She raised one arm higher and began to climb.

Halfway up she was able to stand on a ledge formed by a stone moulding to catch her breath before moving on to reach the main parapet, above which the turret rose skyward. She found that by standing on the lip of the parapet she could reach one of the turret’s windows, a leaded framework of small diamond panes. She selected one and used her small screwdriver to bend back the lead until she could prise the glass free. She reached inside for the handle, opened the window and hauled herself inside.

It felt a little like being at the top of a lighthouse, with windows overlooking the city in all directions. Heavy drapes were bunched at intervals, and she slid these closed so that she could use her torch without attracting attention. A bench ran all the way around beneath the windowsills, interrupted only at the entrance from the head of the spiral stairs. Beneath the bench were cupboard doors, their dark green panelling picked out in scarlet. There was one office chair, incongruous in tubular steel among the medieval fitments. Even more incongruous was the video player.

Kathy imagined Dr Lizancos sitting up here, a wizened Captain Nemo at the controls of his Gothic Nautilus.

She tried the cupboard doors; all were locked. Regretfully, she jammed the head of the larger screwdriver in the edge of one and levered it open, splintering the frame. Inside was a pile of old files. They looked like medical records, but were all in Spanish, which she couldn’t decipher. The names of the patients, if that’s what they were, seemed to come from all over Europe-German, English, Scandinavian. Dates were spread over the eighties and nineties.

The second and third cupboards yielded scores more files. Kathy was becoming concerned at the damage, and more importantly the noise her forced openings were making.

The videotapes were in the fourth cupboard. They were numbered. She picked the one which looked the newest and slid it into the player, pressing buttons. The screen came alive with lurid colour and she sat down.

At first she thought it was a pornographic film. The fat sausage of a man’s penis lay slack between his open hairless thighs, in large close-up. Some fingers appeared from the side of the screen to lift it up. More fingers prodded the testicles. The fingers were covered with creamy coloured latex.

The fingers disappeared and there was a long pause, the penis lying limp, as if the camera were waiting for it to stand up and perform some sort of trick. Then the fingers reappeared, this time holding a gleaming scalpel. Both Kathy and the camera recoiled slightly.

‘Oh my God…’ she breathed, as the blade touched the flesh and soundlessly began to slice.

It was the most shocking thing she’d ever seen, but she couldn’t drag her eyes away, watching the blade cut and cut until the whole organ came away.

She gave a violent jump as hands gripped her shoulders and the lights came on.

The hands moved down to her biceps, caressing almost, then squeezed so hard she gasped with pain. With no apparent effort they lifted her bodily out of the chair and swung her round to face Dr Lizancos. The old man was breathing heavily from the exertion of climbing the stairs. He gazed malevolently at Kathy from under his thick lids, then his eyes darted around the room. She saw his suspicion flare into anger as he spotted the broken cupboard doors. He stabbed at the video to switch it off. His mouth was a pale line, tight with fury. He barked something in Spanish or Catalan to the man who held Kathy, and she recognised a name, Sigfried, the bodybuilder at the gym. He grunted and increased the pressure of his grip. Kathy gasped, aware of her eyes watering, the feeling dying in her arms.