Something smashed into the back of my head, driving the sense from me. I staggered and tried to turn but hands were seizing my jacket, throwing me on to the dusty, pin-strewn floor.

My ears were ringing, eyes flooding, but still I heard the door being slammed and locked. Panic shot through my body. I knew I should run, should shout or scream but I was winded, my lungs like useless scraps of cloth. From the corner of my eye, I saw a boot, drawn back to strike and I closed my eyes in terror.

‘Enough,’ someone said.

One heave, two and my lungs filled at last. Gasping, I looked up.

Two eyes, yellow as a goat’s, stared back at me.

‘Hola, del Potro,’ said Cabrera.

He was sitting on the little tailor’s stool, elbows on his knees. Souissa was nowhere to be seen.

I struggled to hide my fear.

‘What do you want?’ I coughed, wiping my lips on my sleeve, trying to make my voice as gruff as possible. How much did he know?

Cabrera leaned back. ‘You were more courteous the other night. That food, by the way.’ He looked heavenward. ‘I haven’t eaten so well in years. It was like being back home, in Andalucía.’

He smiled, and a wave of fear escaped my control. If Souissa had talked … I tried to look about me for some way to defend myself, some way to escape. My knife. But I didn’t have it. Dar Portuna had made me forget the lessons I had learned so hard from Morales. I felt something trickle on to my collar and reached up to find my scalp wet with blood. It was Márquez who had hit me, I realized, looking up into the gloom, Márquez with his terrible breath.

‘Where’s the tailor?’ I demanded.

‘He is in the back.’ Cabrera was still watching me. ‘The new suit looks marvellous by the way.’

‘The bastard can keep it.’

‘Ah,’ Cabrera clucked his tongue. ‘Don’t blame Souissa for your own foolishness, chico.’ He threw a piece of paper at me. I recognized it immediately; stationery from Langham’s writing case, covered with my own writing, ordering the white flannel suit. ‘You shouldn’t entrust such letters to street rats.’

He must have been watching the house ever since he visited, I realized, waiting for an opportunity, like the one I had stupidly handed him.

‘Get on with it. What do you want?’ Despite my efforts, there was a tremor in my voice.

Cabrera shook his head at me. ‘I have to say I am impressed. Getting yourself employed by Langham like that. That took cojones.’ He looked deliberately at the crotch of my trousers. ‘Perhaps when all this is over, we can work together.’

‘I’d rather eat shit.’

A blow between my shoulder blades sent me sprawling again. This time it was Cabrera himself who pulled me to my knees.