Julian Kills Pedro Sanmartí

Julian’s killing of Pedro Sanmartí is a decisive, deliberately obscured act in Nuria’s account: Sanmartí’s harassment drives her from his office, his body is found the following morning, and Julian’s response to her later question implies responsibility without confirming it. The narrative withholds the killing itself, making its absence part of the event’s meaning and leaving both the act and Julian’s motives uncertain.

Causes and Background

Nuria describes Sanmartí as a man who routinely invaded her personal space at work. He would sit on the edge of her table or stand behind her, sometimes placing his hands on her shoulders. Although she felt afraid and wanted to escape, she needed the job and its meager pay. One night, as he began another unwanted massage and started fondling her, she broke away and ran for the exit. Her account establishes the immediate circumstances that preceded Sanmartí’s death, but it does not establish that Julian knew what had happened before the killing or that this harassment was its cause.

At the foot of the stairs, Nuria encountered Inspector Fumero, who greeted her as Sanmartí’s employee and made a pointed remark about her husband. His presence connects the office episode to the larger atmosphere of intimidation surrounding Nuria and Julian, but the evidence does not describe any agreement or confrontation between Fumero and Julian about Sanmartí. The sequence instead leaves the reader with an unresolved question: what, if anything, did Julian know, and when?

The Discovery

The night she fled the office, Nuria went to the apartment in Ronda de San Antonio, where Julian was waiting in the dark. He told her he had written a poem for her, the first thing he had written in nine years. Rather than read it, she broke down and told him what had happened at work. Julian listened without speaking, held her, and stroked her hair; for the first time in years, Nuria felt she could lean on him. She wanted to kiss him, but he had no lips or skin to offer. She fell asleep beside him in the small bed in his room.

When Nuria woke, Julian was gone. She heard his footsteps on the roof terrace at dawn and pretended to remain asleep. Later that morning, a radio report announced that a man’s body had been found on a bench on Paseo del Borne, but she heard the news without recognizing its significance. The dead man was seated with his hands crossed over his lap and facing the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar. Pigeons pecking at his eyes drew a local resident’s attention and brought the police to the scene; the corpse had a broken neck.

Sanmartí’s wife identified him as Pedro Sanmartí Monegal. At a nursing home in Banyoles, the deceased man’s father-in-law heard the news, gave thanks, and thought he could now die in peace. The report gives the death a public identification and an immediate consequence for Sanmartí’s family, but it does not identify a killer. Its placement after Nuria’s night with Julian invites suspicion without resolving the question of what happened after she fell asleep.

Nuria’s Question and Julian’s Reply

Two months later, Nuria encountered Julian again in a cinema. Alone and unable to face returning to her cold, empty apartment, she had gone to see a film. Julian sat beside her, gripped her hand, and remained with her as they looked toward the screen without seeing it. Their reunion is quiet, but Nuria’s first whispered question cuts through that stillness: she asks whether he killed Sanmartí. Julian replies by asking whether anyone misses him.

That answer is neither an admission nor a denial. It redirects attention from the fact of the killing to the worth of the dead man in other people’s lives. The reader can reasonably infer that Julian may have been responsible, particularly given the timing and his response, but the account does not show him killing Sanmartí or provide a direct confirmation. His question also echoes the relief expressed by Sanmartí’s father-in-law, while leaving Julian’s own motive unstated.

Narrative Significance and Limits

The killing is presented through its aftermath rather than as an enacted scene: the threat that precedes it, the body reported on the radio, and Nuria’s later question to Julian. That structure makes uncertainty consequential. Nuria has already described trying to believe that Julian remained the man she had loved and that the figure she associated with Laín Coubert had disappeared. The unanswered question about Sanmartí therefore belongs to her larger struggle to distinguish the Julian she hopes survives from the person he may have become.

The evidence supports a strong implication, not a complete account. It establishes Sanmartí’s harassment of Nuria, her escape from his office, Julian’s presence with her that night and disappearance by morning, the discovery and identification of Sanmartí’s body, and Julian’s evasive reply two months later. It does not establish precisely when or how Julian killed Sanmartí, whether he acted in response to Nuria’s disclosure, or whether his question was meant as a confession. The gap between suspicion and certainty is central to how the event is narrated.