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and interests. It promised to be a good day, the first in many weeks.
    ‘Daniel, we should bring out the collections of illustrated children’s classics. The Vértice editions, with the blue spine.’
    ‘I think they’re in the basement. Do you have the keys?’
    ‘Bea asked me for them the other day. She wanted to take something down there – something to do with the baby. I don’t remember her giving them back to me. Have a look in the drawer.’
    ‘They’re not here. I’ll run up to the flat to look for them.’
    I left my father serving a gentleman who had just come in, looking to buy a history of old Barcelona cafés, and went out through the back room to the staircase in the hallway. The flat Bea and I shared was high up and, apart from the extra light it provided, walking up and down those stairs invigorated both our spirits and our legs. On the way I came across Edelmira, a widow on the third floor who had once been a chorus girl and now made a living by painting Madonnas and saints in her home. Too many years on the stage of the Arnau Theatre had finished off her knees and now she had to hold on to the banisters with both hands to negotiate a simple flight of stairs. In spite of her problems, she always had a smile on her lips and something kind to say.
    ‘How’s your beautiful wife, Daniel?’
    ‘Not as beautiful as you, Doña Edelmira. Shall I help you down?’
    As usual, Edelmira refused my help and asked me to give her regards to Fermín, who always volunteered slightly flirtatious comments or cheeky propositions when he saw her go by.
    When I opened the door of the apartment, it still smelled of Bea’s perfume and that mixture of aromas given out by babies and their props. Bea usually got up early and took Julián out for a walk in the shiny new Jané pushchair Fermín had given us, which we all referred to as ‘the Mercedes’.
    ‘Bea?’ I called out.
    It was a small flat and my voice echoed back even before I’d closed the door behind me. Bea had already left. I stepped into the dining room, trying to reconstruct my wife’s train of thought and work out where she could have put the basement keys. Bea was far tidier and more methodical than me. I began by looking through the drawers in the dining-room sideboard where she usually kept receipts, unanswered letters and loose change. From there I moved on to side tables, fruit bowls and shelves.
    The next stop was the glass cabinet in the kitchen, where Bea usually left notes and reminders. Finally, having had no luck so far, I ended up in the bedroom, standing in front of the bed and looking around me with a critical eye. Bea’s clothes took up seventy-five per cent of the wardrobe, drawers and other storage areas in the bedroom. Her line of reasoning was that I always dressed the same, so I could easily make do with a corner of the cupboard. The arrangement of her drawers was far too sophisticated for me. I felt a sudden twinge of guilt as I went through my wife’s private belongings, but after rummaging in vain through all the bits of furniture in sight, I still hadn’t found the keys.
    Let’s re-enact the crime scene, I said to myself. I vaguely remembered that Bea had said something about taking down a box with summer clothes. That had been a couple of days ago. If I was right, that day Bea was wearing the grey coat I’d given her on our first wedding anniversary. I smiled at my powers of deduction and opened the wardrobe to search for the coat. There it was. If everything I’d learned reading Conan Doyle and his disciples was correct, my father’s keys would be in one of the pockets of that coat. I thrust my hand into the right pocket and felt two coins and a couple of mints, the sort they give you at the chemist. I went on to inspect the other pocket and was pleased to confirm my thesis. My fingers felt the bunch of keys.
    And something else.
    There was a piece of paper in the pocket. I pulled out the keys and, after a moment’s