The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

THE WORDS OF PENÉLOPE ALDAYA, WHICH I READ AND REREAD that night until I knew them by heart, brushed aside all the bitterness Inspector Fumero's visit had left in me. At dawn, after spending the night wide awake, engrossed in that letter and the voice I sensed behind the words, I left the house. I dressed quietly and left a note for my father on the hall cabinet saying I had a few errands to run and would be in the bookshop by nine-thirty. When I stepped out of the main door, the bluish shadows of early morning still darkened the puddles left in the street by the night's drizzle. I buttoned up my jacket and set off briskly toward Plaza de Cataluña. The stairs up from the subway station gave off a swirl of warm air. At the ticket office of the Ferrocarriles Catalanes, I bought a third-class fare to Tibidabo station. I made the journey in a carriage full of office workers, maids, and day laborers carrying sandwiches the size of bricks wrapped in newspaper. Taking refuge in the darkness of the tunnels, I rested my head against the window, while the train journeyed through the bowels of the city to the foot of Mount Tibidabo, which presides over Barcelona. When I reemerged into the streets, it seemed as if I were discovering another place. Dawn was breaking, and a purple blade of light cut through the clouds, spraying its hue over the fronts of mansions and stately homes that bordered Avenida del Tibidabo. A blue tram was crawling lazily uphill in the mist. I ran after it and managed to clamber onto the back platform as the conductor looked on disapprovingly. The wooden carriage was almost empty. Two friars and a lady in mourning with ashen skin swayed, half asleep, to the rocking of the carriage.

"I'm going only as far as number thirty-two," I told the conductor, offering him my best smile.