While Ernesto’s employment policy frequently led to chromatic uproar, his habit when in doubt of playing presto con spirito did not lend itself to every composition. Even in death, Zamora would not bring himself to forgive the conductor for his performance at Lieutenant Zamora’s funeral service.

It was among Zamora’s earliest and saddest memories. His mother had selected the music, the extra slow movement of Haydn’s B flat opus 74, No. 4. From the start, the young Teodoro Zamora had disapproved of Ortiz’ conducting. His Haydn – accelerated to his favoured tempo – would never be Teodoro’s and indisputably it had not been his mother’s Haydn. It was a wonder the funeral party had not dropped the coffin.

Over the years, Zamora was to hear each of his favourite pieces gilded by Ernesto. And if they did survive his embellishments they had then to evade the booby traps laid by his female virtuosi. The more adulterous Ernesto became the less he required of a musician providing she could press the lift button to the first floor of the Hotel Zamora.

“How’s Genia?” Zamora enquired of Asunción, to change the subject after his daughter confirmed to him that Tromso was not coming for Christmas lunch after all. “Well?”

“Rather too well,” said Asunción.

“Oh dear.”

Since his daughter’s marriage to Ortiz’ son, the conductor’s widow had grown to be part of the furniture of Zamora’s life. He was fond of her, but she possessed no gift for intimacy. And yet there had been a time, not so long ago, when she had hinted that it might make sense if they were to . . . He had drawn a tender veil over the incident. She was many years older than he. He could not think of marrying again. Besides he was wedded to the city.

She had worked as his personal assistant on El Faro. It was an appointment he almost immediately wished he had not made, but to everyone’s surprise it had worked out well. They made a good team, made even closer by Asunción’s marriage to Tromso. It was only when she started dropping the names of the Kiev aristocracy that he reached for his smelling salts.

Equally insufferable, was the lineage she claimed for her husband. “I tell Pablo he’s descended from the two oldest families in Abyla.” Zamora was too polite to contradict her. Though his eyes might insist: I, Dr Teodoro Zamora, Correspondent Member of the Spanish Academy and Doctor of Letters from the University of Oran, am descended on my mother’s side from the physician who cured Sancho the Fat of his obesity and on my father’s side from Prince Henry’s most cherished knight, and when your husband’s family arrived, most probably in chains, we helped them unpack!, his lips murmured, “You are right, Genia.”

Tomorrow, she would arrive in her finery. She would tap the fireguard with her baton, setting the tempo for an artificially joyful occasion. He would open the champagne. They would toast Minerva. “Minerva.”