The next course was different. First, I sent out bowls of water scented with rose and orange blossom, to awaken their senses. Next came chicken, burnished with saffron and lemon, cinnamon, ginger and chilli. It was a dish to revive throats that had been burned by too many spirits, to quicken lips numbed by luxury, to entice them to eat and drink and talk and never stop talking.

During the meal I paced the kitchen like a cat locked in a room waiting for … I didn’t know what. Something had to happen after a dinner like that, after the glances that Langham had given me. When Bouzid came in I almost grabbed him by the arm.

‘Señor Cabrera has arrived,’ he told me. How could he be so cool? ‘Please make him up a plate. He is in the study with monsieur. The other guests will take their dessert on the veranda.’

I nodded. Had I not been so distracted, I might have proceeded with more caution. I might have tried to eavesdrop before approaching the study. As it was, I simply knocked and stepped through the door, thinking only of Langham’s face.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘I have brought a plate for Señor—’

I froze. The goat-eyed man, Bautista’s contact, was standing before me.

Look away, I screamed at myself, turn your head. But I couldn’t and he met my gaze, his yellow eyes flat in the lamplight. For one, desperate moment, I hoped he wouldn’t recognize me. Then his eyebrows were twitching into a frown, and I knew it was too late.

‘Gracias,’ he said, staring hard. ‘How kind.’

I had to step past him to put the tray on a side table. He watched me do it. I could feel his eyes on the nape of my neck and thought wildly of the Señor.

‘Will there be anything else?’ I murmured to the rug, wanting to run from the room, wanting to vomit up the crushing fear in my stomach. I didn’t want to look at Langham, not with Cabrera watching me, but when there was no answer, I had to raise my eyes.

Langham’s face was unreadable as stone.

‘No,’ he said coldly, ‘now leave us.’

I had to lock myself in the bathroom after that, and tell Bouzid through the door that the heat had made me sick. I was terrified, and furious with myself for being so. I never wanted to feel that way again, as I had been at the inn, voiceless, exposed …

I forced myself to think. So what if Cabrera knew me? I had done one job for him, that was all. He could only know what Bautista might have told him: I was a young man who had arrived in La Atunara with no papers and had paid for some new ones. He knew nothing that could hurt me, I told myself.