When the dog calmed itself, whimpering plaintively, Fortunata stepped into the room. Over the Dutchman’s shoulder I could see the dim faces of a film crew through the harsh lighting. Guests in evening dress leaned against the walls, watching as Pereira signalled to his cameraman. He gestured impatiently at the sound engineer, who crouched forward with a boom microphone, trying to pick up the dog’s pathetic barks. The nervous German shepherd was being alternately comforted and abused by its handler, a small, shirt-sleeved man in his sixties with a pencil moustache. The glaring lights, the soundman’s nervous thrusts, and the handler’s fingers fondling its testicles had unsettled the large dog. It tugged at its leash, eager to go home, paws slithering on the tiled floor.

In front of the dog the crew had assembled a garish double bed with a quilted headboard, a cheap dressing table, and a red plastic lamp. Kneeling on the floor beside the bed was a naked woman, muttering to herself as she moved from one tired hand to the other. The fierce lights had bleached all the tones from her skin, which seemed like the latex on an inflated dummy. When she shook her long hair and glared angrily at Pereira I recognised Carmen’s arrow-like profile. The dog struggled against its handler and she slapped her hand on the floor, shouting some obscenity in Portuguese. Pereira tried to calm her, but she stared at him with unconcealed distaste, as if regretting that she had been persuaded against her better judgement into an ill-considered career move with this incompetent producer.

The dog’s ears pricked forward, its nose scenting Carmen’s exposed buttocks. The handler warbled into its ears, one hand massaging its penis, the other pushing its bushy tail from his face. With a look of mock resignation, Carmen glanced at the spectators along the wall. There were nods of sympathy, heads shaken over the incompetence of the handler and his beast’s lack of virility.

The sound engineer moved forward with his microphone, and the cameraman adjusted his eyepiece. The lights intensified, blanching out the faces of the spectators. The dog approached, paws slipping on the floor, the handler steering it by the testicles. Carmen raised one palm and brushed away an annoying piece of grit, then stared self-critically at the black pool of her shadow.

*   *   *

Three days later I stood on the steps of the conference centre, waiting to say goodbye to Dick Sutherland before catching the flight back to London. I had missed him when the audience dispersed after the televised panel discussion he had chaired. Giving up, I was about to walk to my taxi when I saw him emerge from the building with Señor Pereira. The film critic spoke effusively, thanking Dick for his presentation to camera and the few words of Portuguese he had memorised.