able to spare twenty minutes at the most. Then he had to leavein order to prepare his speech as the incoming vice chairman of the Employers’ Federation.
‘The elections are this evening, and I’m bound to win.’
Carvalho had not been expecting this outpouring of self-confidence, but he accepted the appointment and prepared to meet Stuart Pedrell’s partner with the same enthusiasm that one might go to play tennis with someone determined to win in straight six-love sets. Carvalho’s prompt arrival deprived Planas of the pleasure of an irritated consultation of his watch.
‘A punctual man. A miracle!’
He took a notebook from his back trouser pocket and wrote in it.
‘Whenever I meet someone who is punctual, I note it in my little book. You see? I’m writing your name and the date. It makes a lot of sense. If ever I need a private detective, my first consideration is whether I know him, and the second is whether he’s punctual. The rest looks after itself. Do you mind if we walk as we chat? It gives me a bit of exercise between meetings. Afterwards I have to give an interview about my garden city on the Melmató Heights.’
The lines of his body were Roman. Classical. Not an ounce of surplus fat. His head had been shaved almost clean, as if in a pre-emptive strike against inevitable baldness. Planas walked beside Carvalho, with his hands behind his back. He looked hard at the ground as he gave carefully considered answers. No particular problems in Stuart Pedrell’s business life. All the projects were going splendidly. He stressed that they had never gone in for dramatic speculative ventures. Everything had full cover and very sound backing. Most of the initial capital belonged neither to him nor to Stuart Pedrell, but to their other partner, the Marquess of Munt.
‘Have you not met him yet? Alfredo’s a rare type, a truly great man.’
Their largest operation was in San Magín—the creation ofa completely new neighbourhood, new down to the last lamp post. There had been times when the appropriate authorities had been willing to provide facilities, but not any more. It’s as if capitalism were a sin, and capitalists were Public Enemy Number One.
Why had Stuart Pedrell gone off like that? ‘He couldn’t face the trauma of reaching fifty. He found it hard enough passing forty, and then forty-five. But he cracked when he came to fifty. He’d made too big a thing of it. And he’d turned his work into a parody. He’d distanced himself from the business side of things. He was like two people, one who worked, and one who was a thinker. A certain amount of distancing is all right, but not if you pull right out of things. In the end, he was becoming a nihilist, and nihilists can’t run companies. A good businessman has to have a pretty thick skin. He’s got to be able to soak up punishment. Otherwise he’ll never get anywhere—or get other people anywhere.’
‘But Stuart Pedrell was a rich man.’
‘Very rich. Rich from birth. Not quite as rich as Alfredo Munt, but rich all the same. My case is very different. My family was not badly off but, at the age of forty, my father went under. The bankruptcy was a big scandal. He had tried to set up a bank with the Busquets, and they went bust. My father had to pay over seventy million pesetas to the creditors. Seventy million pesetas. In the 1940s, that was a very large amount of money. He was left without a cent. I was at university at the time, but I was fully aware of everything that was happening. What was your youth like, Señor Carvalho?’
The detective shrugged his shoulders.
‘Mine was sad, very sad,’ Planas continued, his eyes fixed on the uneven tarmac of the yard through which they were walking.
‘Stuart relied on us, on the security of Munt’s financial backing, and on my capacity for hard work. He contributed “the general perspective”, as he called it. I never quite knew what he meant, but he maintained that it was absolutely
‘The elections are this evening, and I’m bound to win.’
Carvalho had not been expecting this outpouring of self-confidence, but he accepted the appointment and prepared to meet Stuart Pedrell’s partner with the same enthusiasm that one might go to play tennis with someone determined to win in straight six-love sets. Carvalho’s prompt arrival deprived Planas of the pleasure of an irritated consultation of his watch.
‘A punctual man. A miracle!’
He took a notebook from his back trouser pocket and wrote in it.
‘Whenever I meet someone who is punctual, I note it in my little book. You see? I’m writing your name and the date. It makes a lot of sense. If ever I need a private detective, my first consideration is whether I know him, and the second is whether he’s punctual. The rest looks after itself. Do you mind if we walk as we chat? It gives me a bit of exercise between meetings. Afterwards I have to give an interview about my garden city on the Melmató Heights.’
The lines of his body were Roman. Classical. Not an ounce of surplus fat. His head had been shaved almost clean, as if in a pre-emptive strike against inevitable baldness. Planas walked beside Carvalho, with his hands behind his back. He looked hard at the ground as he gave carefully considered answers. No particular problems in Stuart Pedrell’s business life. All the projects were going splendidly. He stressed that they had never gone in for dramatic speculative ventures. Everything had full cover and very sound backing. Most of the initial capital belonged neither to him nor to Stuart Pedrell, but to their other partner, the Marquess of Munt.
‘Have you not met him yet? Alfredo’s a rare type, a truly great man.’
Their largest operation was in San Magín—the creation ofa completely new neighbourhood, new down to the last lamp post. There had been times when the appropriate authorities had been willing to provide facilities, but not any more. It’s as if capitalism were a sin, and capitalists were Public Enemy Number One.
Why had Stuart Pedrell gone off like that? ‘He couldn’t face the trauma of reaching fifty. He found it hard enough passing forty, and then forty-five. But he cracked when he came to fifty. He’d made too big a thing of it. And he’d turned his work into a parody. He’d distanced himself from the business side of things. He was like two people, one who worked, and one who was a thinker. A certain amount of distancing is all right, but not if you pull right out of things. In the end, he was becoming a nihilist, and nihilists can’t run companies. A good businessman has to have a pretty thick skin. He’s got to be able to soak up punishment. Otherwise he’ll never get anywhere—or get other people anywhere.’
‘But Stuart Pedrell was a rich man.’
‘Very rich. Rich from birth. Not quite as rich as Alfredo Munt, but rich all the same. My case is very different. My family was not badly off but, at the age of forty, my father went under. The bankruptcy was a big scandal. He had tried to set up a bank with the Busquets, and they went bust. My father had to pay over seventy million pesetas to the creditors. Seventy million pesetas. In the 1940s, that was a very large amount of money. He was left without a cent. I was at university at the time, but I was fully aware of everything that was happening. What was your youth like, Señor Carvalho?’
The detective shrugged his shoulders.
‘Mine was sad, very sad,’ Planas continued, his eyes fixed on the uneven tarmac of the yard through which they were walking.
‘Stuart relied on us, on the security of Munt’s financial backing, and on my capacity for hard work. He contributed “the general perspective”, as he called it. I never quite knew what he meant, but he maintained that it was absolutely
Similar Books
