Something has been riding in my car with me since 22:03

Monday, 6:14

Clocking out, unit 11, Sant Boi industrial estate. I get into the Ibiza and my phone buzzes before I start it. An alert I'd never seen before: there's a tracker that isn't mine moving with me. I open the map. A red line starts on my street, in Rubí, at 22:03 last night, goes down the motorway and stops here, in the warehouse car park. Exactly my drive in.

22:03 is when I leave home. I know because I've had this car for three weeks and I always leave at the same time to get a spot near the door.

I bought the Ibiza on Wallapop. 2,300 euros, a 2009, from a guy called Raúl Pujol, a driving instructor in Sabadell. He showed it to me outside the driving school, between two lessons, and told me it had been his mum's. I hit the button to make it play a sound. Nothing. I hit it again. A faint beep, really faint, from somewhere at the back.

6:22

Yeray Campos comes out from clocking off. Yeray drives a forklift, he's been at the warehouse five years and he's the one who taught me, my first week, not to look at the clock on shift, because it only makes it longer. I show him my phone.

“That's an AirTag or something,” he says. “Let's see.”

He doesn't look under the seats. He doesn't look in the glovebox. He opens the boot, lifts the carpet at the bottom and puts his hand into the spare wheel well. He pulls out a white thing the size of a two-euro coin, chunky, stuck on with grey duct tape.

“They always put them here,” he says. “I saw it in a video.”

I stand there staring at the tape. It's clean. Nothing in the boot of a 2009 car is clean.

6:31

I message Raúl on Wallapop: “Found a tracker in the car, is it yours?” He replies at 6:33, which is pretty quick for a driving instructor at that hour. “No. Never had one of those. My mum doesn't even know what they are.”

“Bin it,” says Yeray. “In the cardboard skip by the entrance. If it's somebody's, let them come looking for it here and get caught on the cameras.”

I throw it in the cardboard skip by the entrance. I go home. I sleep six hours, badly, with my phone face up on the bedside table.

Monday, 13:10

I get up and look it up online. You can buy those things anywhere for about 35 euros. Your phone warns you when one that isn't yours travels with you for a while, and lets you make it beep. That's all it takes to follow someone: a chunky coin, a strip of tape and knowing where they park.

Tonight I'm off. Sleeping during the day makes your days off weird: at one in the morning I'm as wide awake as on a Tuesday at four in the warehouse.

Tuesday, 1:00

I take the car just because. My phone stays on charge on the bedside table, since it's on 4%. I drive around aimlessly on the C-58, radio on. I stop at the kebab place on the Viladecavalls roundabout, the one that's open till three, and eat a dürüm inside the car with the lights off. I'm back at 2:20. I don't tell anyone. There's no one to tell.

Tuesday, 17:40

The Mossos (Catalan police) station in Rubí, ten minutes' walk from home. I'm seen by an officer, Sílvia Roca, who types with two fingers and really fast. I tell her about Monday. She asks if I've got the device.

“I binned it.”

“Right,” she says, without looking at me. “Without the device there's not much to go on. I'll write it down anyway. Who knows what time you leave home?”

“Everyone at the warehouse. We start at half ten.”

“And who knows where you live?”

I think about it. Merche, the shift manager, who has my file. The Wallapop guy, who sold me the car. And Yeray, who gave me lifts home on his motorbike the week the Ibiza was in the garage.

“Three people,” I say.

She writes it down.

Tuesday, 22:05

I leave home two minutes late because I get the urge to look under the car with my phone torch. Nothing. I open the boot and it looks the same as always: the carpet, the gym bag, the warning triangle. I don't lift the carpet. I don't know why. I drive to Sant Boi checking my phone at every traffic light. No alert.

On shift I tell Merche Ribas, the shift manager, because she asks: she can tell something's off, I've dropped a box.

“You did the right thing going to the Mossos,” she says. “And don't ever buy a car again from someone who shows it to you outside their work.”

“Yeah.”

“And write everything down with the time. Everything. Because later nobody remembers a thing.”

She goes off to check a pallet. Yeray, two aisles over, laughs. I don't know if it's at what Merche said or at something else.

Wednesday, 6:12

Clocking out. I get in the car. It buzzes.

There's a tracker that isn't mine moving with me.

I freeze with the keys in my hand. I open the map. First seen at 22:03 on my street. Motorway. Warehouse car park. The same drawing as Monday, at the same time.

I open the boot. I lift the carpet. Spare wheel well. Another white thing, round, stuck on with grey duct tape. Clean.

Yesterday at 22:03 it was under here, and I was out with the torch, checking underneath the car. And on Monday night, the kebab night, my phone stayed at home. The car didn't.

I don't rip it off. I leave it where it is. If I rip it off, whoever put it there will know.

6:19

Yeray knocks on the window with his knuckles. I wind it down.

“So, not beeping any more?” he says.

“No.”

“See. That was some thing of the Sabadell guy's.” He leans on the roof with both arms. “Hey, what do you do on your days off? You always say you sleep.”

“I sleep.”

“Sure.” He smiles. “The place on the Viladecavalls roundabout does the best dürüm in the Vallès, you know. But by one in the morning they're out of white sauce.”

He heads off to his motorbike, whistling.

Wednesday, 13:30

I haven't slept. I go down for bread at 13:30 and the Ibiza is where I left it, under the plane tree, with a leaf stuck to the windscreen. Carme from the bakery on the corner, who opens at six, asks me if someone's scratched my car.

“Why?”

“Because on Monday afternoon there was a guy looking at it. A guy on a motorbike, helmet on, one of those in a yellow work vest. He crouched down at the back for a while. I thought he was from the garage.”

“What time?”

“Around five. I was taking out the second batch.”

I pay for the baguette. 1.10. I go up to my flat and sit on the bed with the baguette in my hand, not eating it, staring at the door.

Thursday, 6:20

This is what I did today. If something happens to me, I want it in writing.

At 3:40, on my break, I opened Yeray's locker with the flathead screwdriver from the toolbox. The lockers at the warehouse open with a flathead screwdriver; I learned that my second week. Inside were his jacket, a sports bag and a roll of grey duct tape, half used, the edge still sticky.

I didn't take anything. I took a photo and closed it.

At 5:58, Yeray sent me a WhatsApp without me having written to him at all:

“Don't bin this one in the skip, the cardboard guy doesn't come till Monday.”

I've been sitting in the car for twenty minutes without starting it. The alert's still there. I've sent the photo of the locker to Sílvia Roca, the one from the Mossos, with the time.

6:24

She replies: “Don't start the car. Don't open up for anyone. We're on our way.”

In the rear-view mirror, Yeray's motorbike is still parked next to the warehouse door, with the helmet hanging from the handlebar.