“There must be something, all the more so if Valls himself stopped the police from following that thread and preferred to use Cascos to investigate.”

“Perhaps that something is the key to all this.”

“Do we or don’t we make a good team?”

Alicia noticed a feline smile lifting the corners of Vargas’s mouth. “What else?”

“Wasn’t that enough?”

“Out with it.”

Vargas lit a cigarette and took a deep puff, studying the spirals of smoke creeping through his fingers. “Later, as you were still visiting your friend, after I’d practically solved the case single-handedly, only for you to get the medals for it, I went by headquarters to pick up the letters from Sebastián Salgado, the prisoner, and took the liberty of consulting my friend Ciges, the police graphologist. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him what it was about, nor did he ask. I showed him four sheets of paper at random, and after having a good look at them, he told me there were quite a number of signs on the accents and in at least fourteen different letters and ligatures that ruled out a right-handed person. The angle of the ink strokes on the paper and the pressure—or something like that.”

“And where does that take us?”

“To the fact that the person who wrote those threatening letters to Valls is left-handed.”

“So?”

“So if you took some time to read the Barcelona Police report of Sebastián Salgado’s surveillance after his surprising release in January 1958, it specifies that the comrade lost his left hand during his prison years and wore a prosthetic porcelain hand. It seems that during one of the interrogations someone overplayed his hand, if you’ll excuse the pun.”

Alicia seemed about to say something, but she suddenly fell silent, her gaze miles away. In less than a minute she’d started to grow pale, and Vargas noticed a film of perspiration on her forehead.

“Anyway,” he said, “our quick-witted one-handed Salgado could not have written those letters. Alicia, are you listening? Are you all right?”

The young woman suddenly stood up and put on her coat.

“Alicia?”

Alicia picked up the folder that lay on the table with Salgado’s supposed letters and glanced absently at Vargas.

“Alicia?”

She made her way to the door, with Vargas’s baffled eyes fixed on her back.

15

The pain worsened the moment she stepped out. She didn’t want Vargas to see her like that. She didn’t want anyone to see her like that. The looming episode was going to be a bad one. That damned Madrid cold. The midday dose had only bought her a bit of time. She tried to manage the first stabs in the hip by breathing slowly and went on walking, taking each step carefully. She hadn’t even reached Plaza de Cibeles when she had to stop and hold on to a lamppost while a spasm clenched her, like an electric current eating away at her bones. She could feel people walking by, staring surreptitiously.