He was a man who when he walked normally, walked with a loping, graceful stride. He wasn’t a man who should be skipping. But he came towards her, skipping.

“Marie!” he called, his face animated by such radiant energy she barely recognised the opposition politician of recent months.

“Marie!”

He seized her about the waist, clasped her to him, kissed her rapturously on one cheek, then another, stroked the hair she had so carefully brushed back, saying, “Marie . . . ”

“Teodoro,” she murmured. He tried to lift her up but her weight was too much.

“Marie, what news I have for you. What news!”

“What news, Teodoro?” She hitched down his collar and brushed some dandruff from his shoulder.

He gave her a fortune-teller’s wink.

“Senator Zamora . . . ” Julio Berlaguer, El Faro’s cub reporter, had finally caught up with him. Breathlessly, he held out a microphone. “Senator, can you comment on Captain Panteco’s speculation that it is the work of the Basques?”

“Later, Julio, later. I have to see Menendez.” And Senator Zamora planted a final kiss on Marie Amaral’s forehead, before pirouetting across the square towards the Casa del Gobierno with Berlaguer beside him.

6

Ninety feet under the ground, Pas de Problème had been dreaming of Madrid when he felt a jolt. He raised his head. His body was tired. He felt numb from sitting too long in this seat, envious of the colleague who had made it to the other side. Yesterday he had received a postcard from Plaisir des Yeux, of the Prado.

There was another jolt and his machine lunged forward. He heard its famished whine, but instead of earth it bored air. Surprised, he removed the thrust and reversed. He was not drilling under the sea but inland, into the promontory. The direction he was facing, with his back to Europe, in his opinion diminished the likelihood he had met a team advancing from across the Straits. His opinion, admittedly, was not expert. Recruited to work in the spoil lagoon, Pas de Problème had graduated to replacing the teeth on hand-drills. A four-day induction course had led him to where he sat now – at the controls of a rock-boring machine.

He surveyed the bank of VDUs. The laser guidance system told him he had not mistaken the angle of his attack. He climbed from his seat and squeezed between the blades of the drill head.

The passage ahead was silent and dark. He smelled a rancid smell. He called out nervously. “Allo? Bonsoir, messieurs?”

He shone his torch to the side of the shaft. Water oozed from the limestone fissures and the soil between had changed colour. He scooped up a handful of the loosened earth and winnowed it. A hard object remained in his glove. It was the fragment of a pot. Panicked, he directed his light at the tunnel face and breath was punched out of him. He dropped the torch and jerked down to retrieve it, but slipped. His body covered the light and the soil entered his mouth. He spat into the darkness, turning from side to side, digging the torch from under him, at the same time stretching out his arms. One hand grabbed air, the other something slippery, disgusting. He moaned to his feet, cannoning backwards into the drill head. The blades dislodged his helmet as he squeezed through. Alerted by the sounds, the Spanish foreman moved to the cabin window. He saw a monster stumble from the earth. Of its face, only the eyes were visible. It staggered forward to the glass, holding out its stiff hands, moaning.