Vargas leaned over and screwed up his eyes. “Numbers?”

Alicia nodded. “There are two columns. The first is made up of a sequence of numbers and letters. The second only has numbers. Sequences between five and seven digits. Have a good look.”

“I can see. And?”

“The numbers are consecutive. They start with forty thousand three hundred and something and end in forty thousand four hundred and seven or eight.”

Vargas’s eyes lit up, although a shadow still hovered over his face. “It could be anything,” he said.

“Mercedes, Valls’s daughter, remembered that her father had said something about a list to his bodyguard the night before he disappeared. A list with numbers . . .”

“I don’t know, Alicia. Most likely it’s nothing.”

“Perhaps,” she agreed. “Feeling hungrier now?”

Vargas gave in at last and smiled. “I’m always hungry.”

The visit to the Museum of Tears and the possibility—as slim as it was—that the unlikely clue found in the indentations of a blank page might lead somewhere had lifted Alicia’s spirits. To sniff a new trail was always a secret pleasure: the perfume of the future, as Leandro liked to call it. Mistaking her good mood for an appetite, Alicia confronted the Casa Leopoldo menu like a Cossack and ordered for both, and for two more as well. Vargas let her do so without complaining, and when the parade of rich food began to flow incessantly and Alicia could barely tackle it, the veteran policeman just muttered under his breath while he made short work of his own servings and a few more.

“When it comes to table-sharing we also make a great team,” he remarked, finishing off an oxtail stew with a superb aroma. “You order and I devour.”

Alicia nibbled at her food like a bird and smiled.

“I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but don’t get too excited,” said Vargas. “Those numbers might only be references to spare parts jotted down by the driver, or who knows what else.”

“That’s a lot of spare parts. How’s the oxtail?”

“First class. Like one I ate in Córdoba in the spring of 1949, which I still dream about.”

“In good company?”

“Better than the present one. Are you investigating me, Alicia?”

“Simple curiosity. Do you have a family?”

“Everyone has a family.”

“I don’t,” she snapped.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. What did Leandro tell you about me?”

Vargas seemed surprised by the question.

“He must have said something,” she insisted. “Or you must have asked him something.”

“I didn’t ask. And he didn’t say much.”

Alicia smiled coldly. “Between you and me. Go on. What did he tell you about me?”

“Look, Alicia, whatever game goes on between you two has nothing to do with me.”

“I see. That means he told you more than you admit.”

Vargas faced her. He looked irritated. “He told me you were an orphan. He said you lost your parents during the war.”

“What else?”