Off Side by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

spendthrift. I haven’t saved enough money to retire.’
    ‘Aren’t you with a pension fund?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘You’re making a big mistake. An old detective isn’t a detective any more — he’s just old. Take it from me. I’ve got the state standing behind me, but as far as I can see, you don’t have a penny to your name.’
    ‘I haven’t come here to talk about pensions.’
    ‘What do you think of this second letter? Damn stupid, if you ask me. That’s all we need, anonymous poets turning to crime! In the old days maybe we were less educated, but people were more honest. I’ve never seen such a load of drivel. I miss the old days, when anonymous letters were full of spelling mistakes, and used to start like the letters that people wrote before the war: “I hope that this letter finds you well. I am well too, thank the Lord”.’
    Camps let out an entirely inappropriate guffaw, and then repeated it. So inappropriate that to Carvalho it indicated a lack of respect and a streak of hysteria. Camps sensed what Carvalho wasthinking, and this made him laugh even more, until by the end there were tears streaming down his face.
    ‘I’m glad you find me so amusing.’
    In Contreras’s eyes you could almost see the handcuffs that he was mentally preparing for the impertinent Camps O’Shea. The latter was having some difficulty regaining his composure.
    ‘Inspector, you’re brilliant.’
    Carvalho found this sentiment equally repellent. Police inspectors are never to be considered brilliant, and even less should they ever be told so. Camps’s apparent neutrality in relation to the police was ill-befitting in a sane-minded citizen. A person is entitled to love the police when he’s riddled with authoritarianism, and a vigilant citizen is entitled to be an enemy of the police, but to see the police as somehow part of a spectacle is only possible in times that are essentially ambiguous, times in which people have lost their sense of values. Contreras decided to re-establish the logic of the situation, and came to the point.
    ‘I’ll tell you what’s behind all this.’
    This offering aroused expectant surprise in his audience.
    ‘What we’re dealing with here is a polysemic delinquent.’
    ‘Even though it might surprise some people — Carvalho knows who I’m referring to — the police nowadays work with new methods. We have here a clear starting point. What stands out when you take a close look at the first letter, but more particularly the second? Is it the fact that a murder is being announced? No. Or is it that the object of the exercise, if you’ll pardon the expression, is a centre forward, an unusual target for a murder, as I’m sure you’ll agree? Well, maybe, but maybe not, because we’ve had boxers being murdered, and those that live by the sword … I say this without any disrespect to the worthy profession of footballer, and particularly to the centre forwards of this world, who areundoubtedly a very proper class of person … Now, put your imaginations to work, gentlemen. What stands out? The form, gentlemen, the form! The important thing here is the form in which the letters are written. You laughed when I compared the form of these letters with the kind of anonymous letters that we used to get in the old days. Please don’t think I was annoyed, because I realize that the comparison was rather comical, amusing, what have you. But the point is still worth making. The author of our anonymous letters is trying to be literary. He is creating an atmosphere, just like they do in films or at the theatre, where you slowly build up the audience, and then, bang, the
coup d’effect
. One problem is that they’re written in a transfer lettering, probably Letraset, which means that we might have to go and interview every graphic artist in Barcelona, which could take us half a lifetime, since there’s a lot of publishers in this city. But it’s useful to remember that we’re on the trail of