A couple of coffees and half an hour later, she hadn’t seen a single person stop by the bookshop, not even to glance at the shop window. Sempere’s ledgers must be gathering cobwebs at the speed of light. The temptation to cross the street, enter that enchanted bazaar, and spend a fortune was strong, but it was not the right moment. What she had to do now was observe. Another half hour went by, with nothing much happening. She was beginning to consider whether or not to weigh anchor when she saw him. He looked distracted as he walked, his head in the clouds, a half smile on his lips, with that calm expression of one who is lucky enough not to know how the world works. She had never seen a photograph of him, but she knew who he was before he approached the shop door.

Daniel.

Alicia smiled unconsciously. When Daniel Sempere reached the bookshop, its door opened outward, and a young woman who didn’t look a day older than twenty came out to meet him. Hers was one of those fresh beauties, the sort that writers of radio soaps would describe as coming from within, the sort of beauty that makes love-prone saps addicted to stories about golden-hearted angels drool and sigh. She had the touch of innocence, or modesty, of a girl from a good family, and she dressed as if she suspected the type of chassis she carried under her clothes but didn’t dare acknowledge it. The famous Beatriz, Alicia told herself, a Snow White, perfumed with innocence, in the land of the dwarves.

Beatriz stood on her toes and kissed her husband’s lips. A chaste kiss, a quick brush of joined lips. Alicia couldn’t help noticing that Beatriz was the type of woman who closed her eyes when she kissed, even if this was her lawful little husband, letting him put his arm around her waist. Daniel, on the other hand, still kissed like a schoolboy. An early marriage hadn’t yet taught him how to hold a woman, where the hands should go, and what to do with his lips. Clearly nobody had taught him. Alicia felt her smile vanish, and a streak of malice invaded her. “Will you bring me a glass of white wine?” she asked the waiter.

On the other side of the street, Daniel Sempere said good-bye to his wife and stepped into the bookshop. Beatriz, in her tasteful but low-budget clothes, set off toward Puerta del Ángel, mingling with the crowd. Alicia studied her waist and the undulations described by her hips. “God, if I could dress you, my princess,” she murmured.

“You were saying, miss?”

Alicia turned to find the waiter standing there with the glass of white wine, looking at her with a mixture of enthrallment and apprehension. “What was your name?” she asked.

“Mine?”

Alicia looked all around the café, confirming that they were alone. “Do you see anyone else?”

“Marcelino.”

“Why don’t you sit down with me, Marcelino? I don’t like to drink alone. Well, that’s a lie. But I like it less.”