“I didn’t want him along,” said the man. “And he didn’t want it either. You can see that. But we do as we’re told, eh?”

She started to get up but he waggled a finger and she sat back.

“Your master,” he said. “I know he’s not here because I’ve been watching the house.” He paused, as if waiting for her to deny it. “He’s free to come and go. He’s got money, horses. All this. What have you got? You haven’t even got a husband, have you? I can see you don’t.”

He sniffed, dabbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Slept out last night,” he said. “Saw a fox. A big one.”

It was warm in the kitchen and he unbuttoned his coat. When he saw she had noticed what he had there he opened that side of his coat like a wing to show it more plainly. “Don’t worry about that, Auntie,” he said. “We’re not using that today.”

She nodded. She touched her knees. She had a story cooked up about somebody coming to mend the roof—coming very soon. She would say that when she heard the knocking she had thought it was them, the workmen. But it was like her tongue had gone to sleep in her mouth. Like she was suddenly a hundred years old. She watched him move about the kitchen, picking things up and putting them down, looking for the thing that was in his mind. She turned away to the window. She pictured the dog in the yard happy with his bone in the shade of the tree. Then she thought of Tom, and imagined him crossing a field, the taste of coffee still in his mouth.

Later, when they could move freely in the house, they studied a painting near the top of the stairs. A cavalry officer with a fox-coloured moustache. He had a scroll in his hand. God knows.

“It is him?” asked Medina.

“It’s him all right,” said Calley.

“You are sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Yet you saw him only once. In the dark. And not close.”

“It’s him,” said Calley. “Can’t you see murder in those eyes?”

“There is nothing in his eyes,” said Medina. “It is not even a good painting.”

“What the fuck do you know about painting?”

“And now he is in Bristol?”

“At his sister’s place.”

“And you know how we find it? The sister’s house?”

“I do.”

“Then we should leave,” said Medina.

Calley nodded. “In your España,” he said, “a house like this would belong to a duke. Here it’s nothing special.”

“Where is the woman?” asked Medina. “The servant?”

“She’s all right.”

“Yes?”

“She’s having a lie down.”

“Have you taken anything?”

“You what?”

“Have you taken anything?”

“What’s it to you?”