Albert Pierrepoint hanged James Inglis on the 8^th of May 1951. Inglis was 29 and, by his own admission, guilty of murder. Having not appealed his sentence when it was handed to him, it was carried out after the passage of three Sundays. It stands on record as the fastest hanging in British history, taking just seven seconds between him being removed from his cell to the instant the trap door opened. A prison guard had advised him to go quickly, without a fuss, and according to Sid Dernly – Pierrepoint’s assistant – he ran to his execution. Those last few days in August 2011 I awoke from my shocked stupor of three months and felt resigned to run to what I perceived was mine.

My last ten days in our home at Muntaner took on an urgent fury as I gathered cardboard boxes from various sources to pack my belongings, trawling the net and making calls in my search of a flat. Our house had long since become a ghastly mausoleum; the remnants of our lives together were everywhere and yet elsewhere. Those last months I had kept the place obsessively clean and tidy in her absence as I maintained my reverence for the icons of what I now know were nothing more than a hopeless mirage of my own design. In reality there was nothing left but vapours and shadows and crusts in what by now felt like a tomb.

I found the online link to Bernat’s flat on Giriti quite by chance; pretty pictures (as Froso used to say), yes, but what appealed to me was the fact that there seemed to be no agency involved. We spoke that same Friday evening and he invited me to come and see the flat at 12:00 the next day. I spent the rest of the evening in the living room, sipping wine, watching one documentary after another with no interest whatsoever.

I woke up on the sofa the next day still fully clothed, feeling groggy, with the TV blaring and the lights still on. This had become habitual as I rarely liked to sleep in our bedroom anymore; In fact I do not remember ever sleeping in our bed after this day. I showered and got dressed, throwing on my khaki cargo shorts and my green “Sound System” Tee and raced down towards El Born on a Bicing with just about enough time to spare. I had googled the address the night before and pretty much knew where I had to go but I ended up taking a long way around, getting lost in some back streets and appearing at the entrance to the building from behind the hotel which faces it. Bernat was sitting on a parked scooter facing away from me towards Argentería which was, obviously, where he was expecting me to appear from. I approached him and, having established our identities and said hello, we hiked five floors up the narrow stairwell to look at the flat. I was a bit breathless when we got up there and I must have been looking somewhat pale as Bernat asked me if I wanted a glass of water. I had a quick look around and nodded in quiet consent; a lovely little place and, given the circumstances, it would do fine. We arranged to meet there, at the flat, the following Saturday to sign the contract and for him to give me the keys.

I suppose I must have spent the following week getting organized and putting my part of our affairs in boxes; the move itself was planned for the Sunday. For the move I’d spoken to an Ecuadorian man with a van that had helped us once on a trip back from IKEA with some shelves and those of my mates who were available on that day would be pitching in lifting cases and such. As it happened, they all came up trumps; Valen and Monica, Laurence and Diana and Yael all sweating it out with me, hauling heavy boxes up an awkward stairwell.

On the Saturday, as planned, I met up with Bernat at the flat and he was there with his other half Miriam. We signed all the paperwork and sat around for a while chatting about this and that. We discussed some of the peculiarities of “the ‘hood” and they told me, by way of introduction, a bit about some of the other inhabitants of the building; the Philipino family on the first, the Colombian girls on the second next to whom was Victor the psychiatrist with the dreads and his classic Dutch bicycle, the gay couple on the third right bellow me, right out of something by Almodovar, and Cecile – from France – on the floor above mine occupying the rooftop flat with the terrace. The flat next to mine, on the fourth floor, was occupied by Celedonio; a quiet, polite and charming old boy, somewhere in his sixties, who worked in something related to gardening and who by all accounts was very discrete. The three of us left the place together and we walked a few narrow streets in each other’s company before parting ways somewhere near to El Mercat de Santa Catarina. I then headed back home to see to the last few details of my packing and to my last night on Muntaner. Thirty hours later I was in my new flat; staring vacantly at my new surroundings whilst tripping over unopened boxes with Otto – sniffing timidly around our new home – seemingly as unconvinced of the change as myself.

I unpacked my affairs at a tender pace over the next few days as I attempted to bring some sort of order and sense into my life. My days being occupied with a job I did not enjoy and that I had come to resent with increasing bitterness, I came home in the evenings to open my boxes of possessions and see how best to arrange them. It might have been a week before I’d emptied the last cardboard box. I had lost all pleasure in reading at that time and did not have much appetite. Dinner invariably was instant noodles that I would slurp at my desk; mindlessly watching one documentary after another on Youtube until I thought I was tired enough to go to bed. As we crossed each other on the stairwell I was starting to meet some of my neighbours. Sometimes I would ask them in for a beer at mine. Other times I would be asked in to theirs.

After about ten days I think I’d just about met everyone in the building except for Celedonio, my discrete neighbour from next door. I’m not the prying kind at all but old buildings such as this one don’t afford much privacy and I had registered the fact that I’d never heard his door either being opened or closed and neither had I seen any lights on through his windows. I must have been boiling my noodles in the kitchen one evening with the window open when I noticed the smell of burnt cheese wafting in. The couple downstairs, I already knew, had a side-line in fried pastries which they sold to some of the neighbouring bars and when they were busy cooking up their stock the smell would permeate my flat. I figured they must have burnt something and thought no more of it. The next evening, back in my kitchen with my noodles, the smell was still wafting in through the window and over the coming days it started to intensify; taking on an aggressive, sickly sweet note and starting to be noticeable in the stairwell of the building. What was beginning to come to mind seemed unthinkable and I quickly put those thoughts out of my mind, opting instead to close the windows of my kitchen and bathroom that shared the common light-well with Celedonio’s flat. This effectively eliminated the natural circulation of air in my place. It was mid-September and the weather was still hot and muggy. Despite all the other windows at mine being open continually I was spending some rather sweaty nights for lack of a draught and the pungent odor lingered quietly in the background. Otto was constantly at the front door, sniffing inquisitively at the air coming from the landing through the gap bellow.

By the Friday evening of my second week in the flat I was starting to think something might not be right and wondered whether or not I should call someone. In the meantime I had invited a few friends round for drinks and thought best to leave any action I was going to take until the next day for fear of being alarmist. Besides it was too late to cancel them. My friends arrived en masse at about nine, rang the bell, and I buzzed them into the building. I must have become slightly accustomed to the stench; they all came panting up the stairs, twitching their noses and pulling faces with wild eyes, asking what the hell had died. I let them in, served them a drink and made a good-hearted attempt to laugh it all off, telling them about my quiet neighbour.

The rest of the night was surreal. Monica insisted I call the police straight away. I remember feeling divorced from reality as I spoke on the phone, telling them I thought my neighbour might be dead, whilst I looked at my friends observing me in silence as they sipped their rum and cokes. The police arrived within minutes and knocked at my door to ask me a few questions. Not long after them the fire brigade arrived, kitted out with breathing apparatus and a battering ram to break into Celedonio’s flat. They told us to close all the windows and the door whilst they had a look. We turned up the music and got on with serving ourselves more drinks. We chattered loudly and intensely amongst ourselves. I was slightly in shock but giggling nervously along with everyone else who seemed to be prone to attacks of hysterical laughter. The volume kept going up, more drinks were poured, and at some point someone had the indecency to put “Thriller” on. It might well have been me. This had us all in stitches and we did the zombie thing. Marina got inspired and improvised a perico ripiao dance with frenetic movements to her chorus of “El Muelto! El Muelto!” Yael seemed morbidly obsessed with what was going on next door and kept on peeking through the spy-hole, giving us a running commentary of what appeared to be happening on the landing. Incredibly we seemed to be behaving as if we found the situation hilarious; laughing and shouting over the music and one and other to be heard. Eventually someone banged on the door and the room fell silent as I found myself speaking to one of the firemen. He confirmed what we had suspected and suggested we leave my flat now as what was coming next would be nasty; it might be a good idea to stay away for a few days. I got everyone mobilized, closed up behind myself and we all clambered down the stairs pretty sharpish, making a racket, all bottles and bags in hand. It can’t have been past eleven; that night then went on ‘til late.

Celedonio was found in the bathroom of his flat and quite decomposed. By all accounts he may well have been laying there – in the summer heat – for close to two months; quite unmissed, poor man. Peace.