In the centre of the square there was a bust of the quinologist, Leopoldo Zamora, a metal rocking horse and an empty fountain of mustard-coloured tiles. On Fridays, such as today, a man from Algeciras sat on the fountain rim eating cockles and selling reproductions of familiar and not so familiar paintings.

On this morning, propped against the fountain, Wavery saw: “two Lancaster bombers breaking from the clouds”; “the New York skyline”; “Moses Pitti’s Mappa Mundi of 1681”; “a peregrine falcon landing in the snow”.

Today the man was offering a selection of the world’s great masters. Christmas being only three weeks away, he was carrying on a brisk trade.

Genia Ortiz, stood on the rocking horse side of the fountain and tapped a pile of Murillo Virgins with her baton. She wore a fox-fur boa and a green tulle dress with a collar slightly too high, and, fastening the collar, a cameo portrait in red hyalite of her great-grandmother, Olga.

“My spectacles – I cannot see without my spectacles – there we are.” She had decided on a painting as a Christmas present for Asunción, but which one? She couldn’t make up her mind between a Murillo Virgin and a Matisse casbah gate. Stooping down, a hand on each thickly stockinged knee, she picked up first the one, then the other. Her baton descended on the Murillo, raising a tiny puff of dust. How much? Ten thousand pesetas, said the man. She picked up the Matisse. It had been painted on his visit to North Africa in 1912. A seated figure – a woman could it be? – observed those passing through the gate into the medina. At the centre of the composition was a trellis dotted with pink flowers. They reminded Genia Ortiz with pleasure of her own pelargoniums.

Her hand played with the cameo. She replaced the Matisse and picked up the Murillo. The trouble was, she always felt different about something when standing than when sitting. She closed one eye on the Virgin. It was more Christmassy. Eight thousand, she said. The man shook his head. His expression said old women like Genia Ortiz should be beaten to death with their batons. Genia Ortiz balanced the Murillo on top of the pile and drew out an identical copy from lower down. She was cleaning it with her elbow when she noticed Wavery.

“Señor Consul General, help me!”

“Señora?” said Wavery, who had not spoken to Genia Ortiz since their encounter in Don Ramon’s grocery. Several times he had heard the bleep of her telephone through her balcony window. Once he had seen her watering her plants.

“Which should I give Asunción? This? Or this?”

“I’m not frightfully good at paintings,” Wavery said.

“No, please.”

Wavery indicated the Murillo. “This one.”

Genia Ortiz sighed. “The thing is, señor, I don’t think it’s quite Asunción.” She abandoned both paintings and put Ernesto’s cane into her shopping bag. “And how is the ballroom coming along?”

“Slowly, slowly,” said Wavery.