Life Almost Still

Carme Riera, Josep Sobrer

Description

A grisly account of murders set in Barcelona University.

In November 2007, Romain Lannuzel Erasmus, student at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​mysteriously disappeared without a trace. This case remains unsolved, when the novel begins with another mysterious disappearance of Costantinu Iliescu, a Romanian student. His girlfriend and two of his Erasmus colleagues sound the alarm and move heaven and earth to find him, but both police and university officials believe that Iliescu has left voluntarily and refuse to get involved. However, they will soon have to change their minds as the events that occur after the disappearance of the Romanian student reveal that something terrible, dark and macabre is happening at the college.

A team of policemen, including Deputy Inspector Manuela Vazquez, open an in-depth investigation and the potential suspects multiply. In the minds of teachers, police officers and students, the thick shadow of what appears to be a meticulous and bloodthirsty murderer looms.

Carme Riera endorses the best elements of the thriller genre to create a state of tension and suspense that is maintained until the last page. The prose is evocative, almost cinematic and knows how to combine brilliantly intrigue, irony and social criticism.

Sujets

• General officer
• General
• Thriller
• Noir
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 19 juin 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783084623
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

LIFE ALMOST STILL
Life Almost Still
ANTHEM PRESS
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company Limited (WPC)
First published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by
ANTHEM PRESS
75-76 Blackfriars Road
London SE1 8HA
www.anthempress.com
Natura quasi morta
Copyright Carme Riera, 2011
Edicions 62, S.A. Avda. Diagonal 662-664, 08034 Barcelona
English translation copyright Josep Miquel Sobrer, 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.
The moral rights of the author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All the characters and events described in this novel are imaginary and any similarity with real people or events is purely coincidental.
The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Institut Ramon Llull.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78308-461-6
This title is also available as an ebook.
LIFE ALMOST STILL
Carme Riera
Translated from the Catalan by Josep Miquel Sobrer
To Lluna, our dog, in memoriam
Author s Note
O n 13th November 2007, between Barcelona and Sabadell, the Erasmus scholarship student Romain Lannuzel disappeared. He has not been heard of since. This novel, which also begins with a disappearance, serves as a reminder that the Lannuzel case remains unsolved.
I want to acknowledge two masters: Francisco Gonz lez Ledesma for his advice, and Andreu Mart n for his constant help and for the detailed reading of a draft of this book.
*
The campus of the Universitat Aut noma de Barcelona (UAB), occupying about 650 acres - 568 acres of which are green spaces - abuts to the north on Bellaterra, to the south on Cerdanyola del Vall s (to whose municipality it belongs), to the east on Badia del Vall s and Sabadell and to the west on Sant Cugat del Vall s and again on Bellaterra. Criss-crossed by 21 kilometres of pathways and three axes, northern, central and southern, the university accommodates 40,000 students, 3,688 professors and 2,340 instructors, plus the administrative and service personnel.
It is a Campus of Excellence , the only one in Catalonia, consisting of 57 schools or departments, and it is dedicated to vigorous research. As its assures us, UAB is a privileged spot for students to live in and study. In its Vila, 600 apartments can lodge more than 2,000 people who can easily access shops, caf s, restaurants and the Serhs, a hotel set in a unique environment surrounded by nature.
The Facultat or School of Philosophy and Letters, where a good part of this novel takes place, sits on the southeast part of the campus, near the Humanities Library, and shares Building B with the facultats of Psychology and Economics. The path leading from the Letters parking lot to Ciutat Badia via a small wooded area after crossing highway C-58 through a tunnel is an important setting for our story. The same goes for the rectorate or administration building, the apartments of the Vila and the Serhs to its northwest. You can get to the school from the parking lot after a short walk or you can hop on the bus that serves the campus as Laura Cremona and Domenica Arrigo, important characters in this narrative, used to do.
If you are interested in visiting the Bellaterra Campus, as it is often called, you can get there from Barcelona by several means. A very sustainable one - and the one preferred by Professor Bellpuig and Marcel Bru, the two protagonists of this novel - is the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat train line, which stops at the UAB itself or the national railroad line, RENFE, which entails getting off at Cerdanyola and then taking a bus. If you drive, you can choose between three highways: AP-7, C-58 or B-1414.
In the UAB libraries, open on quite a generous schedule, you will find more than a million books, and the adjacent lawns are a most pleasant spot for a breath of fresh air. If you pay attention, you might get a whiff of science, critical spirit and innovative knowledge which are the backbone of the university s mission.
All the places mentioned above are in the comarca (something akin to a US county) of El Vall s, within the Spanish autonomous region of Catalonia whose capital Barcelona lends its name to the university and where a good number of students and faculty live. The main cities within El Vall s are Terrassa and Sabadell. Halfway between these, the Catalan autonomous police, the Mossos d Esquadra ( Squad Boys ), have its center of operations, the Complex Egara. The mossos are the police body in charge of the investigations in this novel.
1
A profusion of flyers bearing the picture of Constantinu Iliescu were pasted on the walls of the different schools. They appeared at the train stations in Bellaterra and Cerdanyola, on the campus buses, in caf s, libraries and the lobbies of the Vila apartments. Flyers also showed up, though not quite as profusely, on the fa ades of some buildings near Cinema Verdi in the Gr cia neighborhood of Barcelona and on the stairs of the metro stations of Fontana and Lesseps.
The flyers on letter-size paper - it was obvious they were homemade - had a photograph of Iliescu and some personal data: a Romanian student, 21 years old, 5 9 , stocky build, shaven head, blue eyes. Beneath these references, in gigantic capitals, was the word: DISAPPEARED. Informers were to call the phone numbers printed at the bottom.
These flyers were created by two friends of Iliescu s: Laura Cremona, the Italian girl who was waiting for him the day he vanished, and Marcel Bru, one of Laura s few friends who was not an Erasmus scholarship student. Both Laura and Marcel kept their cell phones switched on day and night in the hope of receiving a clue to Iliescu s whereabouts.
There were many calls. Some merely inquired whether there would be a reward for whoever could offer a lead. Others, in blatant bad taste, came from idle idiots eager to poke fun. There were even some from xenophobes who claimed they were happy Catalonia had one less immigrant. Some called and hung up without a word which really annoyed Laura and Bru who expected to hear a ransom demand or at least get some information that would throw light on the matter Only two calls dealt with the issue in a direct way, both to Laura s cell phone, and they came from phone numbers with the prefix of the Universitat Aut noma de Barcelona where Iliescu, Cremona and Bru were all enrolled.
The first call was from Professor Rosa Casasaies, the adviser to the Erasmus students in the School of Letters, expressing dismay at not having been informed of Iliescu s disappearance before it was made public, especially in such an overwhelming and probably useless display. In those days, the school was almost empty due to strikes. Casasaies was annoyed but made an effort to be kind. Not being able to place Laura by her name, she insisted on knowing what courses Laura had registered for. She wanted to make sure the affair was for real, not a macabre joke that someone was playing on the Romanian student. After all, the school had been occupied by a sit-in protest against the new Bologna legislation for university studies, and for at least one week and a half, the general ruckus had plunged the university into chaos.
From their conversation, Casasaies was convinced that Cremona was telling the truth and had a justifiable reason for not having asked the adviser for help as she had assumed the university would not want to get involved in Iliescu s disappearance. The registrar s office where the students had sought to consult their friend s transcript had refused them the information. They claimed nobody but the student himself could access those private documents, even though all his friends wanted to know was where he stayed when he arrived in Barcelona and his parent s address so they could contact them.
And from this you get that the university would just wash its hands of the matter? Casasaies asked with a perplexed inflection in her voice, considering once again the tendency of the young to confuse things. It was one thing for the registrar to have strict orders not to disclose transcripts, but why would academic authorities ignore a student s disappearance?
She got no answer. The professor took advantage of the silence and insisted on the fact that the situation seemed absurd to her. Of course, they had the right to look for their friend, but it was better to act in collaboration with the faculty. To take the frying pan by the handle in a unilateral way, she added, would lead them nowhere.
Do you understand what I m saying, Laura? She asked, attempting to establish a certain complicity by using the student s first name. Did you understand? Do you know the Catalan idiom to take the frying pan by its handle ?
I do not, Laura replied drily. I still haven t learned all the idioms ... Now her voice sounded less arrogant and showed her Italian accent. What we want is to find Constantinu, she continued, as soon as possible. If you can help us, all the better.
Of course, we want to help. How long has it been since you last heard from him?
He disappeared six days ago. We waited four days before putting up the flyers, she said in a tearful voice.
Please come to my office and you can tell me everything calmly, Casasaies proposed.
I can t go to your office because I m not in Bellaterra, Laura said, recovering her blunt and aggressive tone which the professor pretended not to hear.
Come on, honey, Casasaies encouraged her. You ll see that everything will be all right. I will speak to the dean right away. We ll get in touch with Iliescu s family and you c