Rovira stared at her, on the verge of a seizure.

“From now on, you’ll follow me as you’ve been ordered to do, but never less than a hundred meters away and trying your best not to let me see you. And when they ask you where I’ve been and what I’ve done, you’ll tell them what I ask you to tell them.”

“But . . . is that legal?”

“Rovira, you’re a cop now. Legal is whatever you say is legal.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“Of course you know. You’re a connoisseur of the policing arts. What you’re lacking is self-confidence.”

Rovira looked dazed. He blinked a few times. “What if I say no?”

“Don’t be like that, just when we’d started to become friends. Because if you refuse, I’m going to have to go and see your father-in-law the captain and tell him I saw you climbing up the wall of the Teresian mothers’ school and jerking off during the break.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

Alicia fixed her eyes on his.

“Rovira, you haven’t a fucking idea of what I might do.”

The man let out a moan. “You’re evil.”

Alicia pressed her lips together, pretending to sulk. “When I decide to be evil with you, you’ll notice it immediately. Tomorrow, first thing, you’ll be waiting for me opposite the Gran Café, and I’ll tell you what the plan is for the day. Are we clear?”

Rovira seemed to have shrunk a few centimeters during the conversation. He looked at her with pleading eyes. “All this is a joke, isn’t it? You’re laughing at me because I’m new at the job . . .”

Alicia did her best impression of Leandro’s icy look. She shook her head slowly. “It’s not a joke, it’s an order. Don’t fail me. Spain and I are counting on you.”

8

At the dawn of the twentieth century, when money still had a whiff of perfume and large fortunes were not only inherited but also put on display, a modernist palace, born from the troubled romance between the dreams of great craftsmen and the vanity of a tycoon, fell from the heavens and was encased forever in the most improbable enclave of Barcelona’s Belle Époque.

The so-called Casa Pérez Samanillo had been occupying the corner of Calle Balmes and Avenida Diagonal for half a century in the guise of a mirage, or perhaps a warning. Built originally as a family residence at a time when almost all aristocrats were getting rid of such ostentatious abodes, this paean to abundance seemed like a Parisian coral reef, beaming its coppery light over the streets from its French windows, displaying to mere mortals its grand staircases, halls, and crystal chandeliers with no hint of shame. Alicia had always thought of it as a sort of aquarium where one could observe exotic and undreamed-of forms of life through glass panels.

For years this lavish fossil had ceased to be a family home, and more recently it had become the headquarters of the Equestrian Club of Barcelona, one of those unassailable and elegant institutions left to ferment in all great cities, where people with good names can protect themselves against the smell of sweat given off by those on whose shoulders their illustrious ancestors built their fortunes. Leandro, a fine observer of such situations, said that once the business of food and home has been solved, the next thing humans strive for are reasons to feel superior to others, and resources with which to demonstrate that superiority. The club seemed to have been fashioned for that very end, and Alicia suspected that if Leandro hadn’t moved to Madrid years ago, those exquisitely designed halls of fine wood would have provided the perfect stage for her mentor, a residence where he might handle his murky affairs with kid gloves.