So, given all of the above, I don’t know why I’m pushing this except that there remains a smidgeon of curiosity, a lingering doubt about the letter-and-cross-in-a-box mystery that I would like to lay to rest once and for all and, however obscurely, this seems like a good way of working my way round to mentioning it. ‘What about this one?’ I hand him a pedantic-looking tome on desert life. ‘It’s got a lot of information on this area.’

Benjamín stands up stiffly and brushes dust from the knees of his jeans. He reclaims his knife from the bottom of a crate and slides it through his belt.

‘I can’t read, Alice.’

‘Oh.’ I sit back on my haunches. Now I’ve done exactly what I hadn’t wanted to do and offended him. ‘But you speak such good English?’

‘Nooooo, Alice.’ This particular roller coaster of Os implies rank amazement that I could possibly think such a thing.

‘Well what about Spanish? Can you read in Spanish?’ Good God, what’s wrong with me? Every instinct I have tells me to drop this before it goes any further.

‘No,’ he says, refusing to meet my eyes.

Okay, so fine, I’ve got the whole thing wrong. Benjamín can’t read. Benjamín does not wax his moustache by the light of the moon and he has never slept in my bed. The letter belongs not to him but to one of the dead miners, proof of a forbidden love, kept in a secret box, hidden under a squeaking floorboard. Then suddenly it dawns on me why I find this so difficult to believe.

‘But, Benjamín, you must be able to read. I mean you can write!’

‘Noo,’ he says, then, too late, remembers.

‘Benjamín, I know you can write!’

He looks at the floor angrily.

He was lying, I was sure of it. The first time we came to Temerosa, Benjamín gave Robert a file of notes and guarantees on the cabin which minutely catalogued everything that had been installed and how it worked. In the last few weeks I’ve spent long hours poring over manufacturers’ manuals, boning up on pipe flows and instructions for fixing the pump, all of which are hand-written. I don’t exactly remember how Benjamín put it, but certainly he’d left me with the impression that it had been his work. But one thing’s for sure – if you can’t read, you can’t write.

‘Benjamín, you were here when the cabin was renovated, right?’

He takes his hat off the chair and puts it on.

‘Benjamín?’

‘¿Sí?’ Out comes the jaw.

‘Who wrote all the notes in that maintenance file?’

He scratches the stiff hairs by the side of his ears.

‘Was it somebody from the building company?’

‘Building company?’ he parrots.