Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Author:Carlos Ruiz Zafon [Zafon, Carlos Ruiz]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9780297857440
Publisher: ORION
Published: 2013-09-26T06:00:00+00:00

It was getting close to midday and Florián invited us to lunch in a small café near the station. We all felt like getting out of that house.

The café owner seemed to be a friend of Florián. He led us to a table set aside in a corner by the window.

‘A visit from the grandchildren, boss?’ he asked smiling.

Florián only nodded without attempting to explain. A waiter served us three generous slices of Spanish omelette and some bread rubbed with tomato and oil and sprinkled with salt. While we enjoyed the meal, which was delicious, he continued with his account.

‘When I started investigating Velo-Granell Industries I discovered that Mijail Kolvenik didn’t have a very clear past . . . There was no record of his birth or nationality in Prague. I suspect Mijail was probably not his real name.’

‘Who was he then?’ I asked.

‘I’ve been asking myself that same question for thirty years. In fact, when I got in touch with the police in Prague, I did discover there was one person named Mijail Kolvenik, but he appeared in the registers of the WolfterHaus.’

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘An asylum. But I don’t think Kolvenik was ever there. He simply adopted the name of one of the patients. Kolvenik wasn’t mad.’

‘Why would Kolvenik steal the identity of a mental-hospital patient?’ asked Marina.

‘It wasn’t that unusual at the time,’ Florián explained. ‘When there’s a war going on, changing identities can amount to being reborn, leaving an inconvenient past behind. You’re very young and you haven’t lived through a war. You don’t really get to understand people until you’ve lived through one . . .’

‘Did Kolvenik have anything to hide?’ I asked. ‘If the Prague police had information about him, there must have been a reason . . .’

‘Pure coincidence, matching surnames. Bureaucracy. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about,’ said Florián. ‘Supposing the Kolvenik of their files was our Kolvenik, he left only a thin trail behind him. His name was mentioned in the investigation into the death of a surgeon in Prague, a man called Antonin Kolvenik. The case was closed and the death attributed to natural causes.’

‘Why then did they take that Mijail Kolvenik to a mental hospital?’ Marina now asked.

Florián hesitated for a few moments, as if he didn’t dare reply.

‘It was suspected he’d done something with the dead man’s body . . .’

‘Something?’

‘The Prague police didn’t explain what it was,’ Florián answered dryly, lighting a cigarette.

We fell into a long silence.

‘What about the story Dr Shelley told us? About Kolvenik’s twin brother, the degenerative illness and—’

‘That’s what Kolvenik told him. Kolvenik could lie just as easily as he breathed. And Shelley had good reasons to believe him without asking any questions,’ Florián said. ‘Kolvenik financed his medical institute and his research, down to the last céntimo. Shelley was almost like an employee at Velo-Granell Industries. A henchman . . .’

‘So, Kolvenik’s twin brother was another invention?’ I was disconcerted. ‘His existence might justify Kolvenik’s obsession with people afflicted with deformities and—’

‘I don’t think the brother was an invention,’ Florián cut in.

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