“We’d like to speak to the lawyer.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“I’m afraid not. Is Señor Brians in?”

“He usually gets in a bit later. Likes to take his time, you know, make an entrance . . . Perhaps you’d like to wait in the bar downstairs.”

“If you don’t mind, we’d rather wait here. There are lots of floors to climb.”

The secretary sighed and nodded. “As you wish. As you can see we’re in a real mess here.”

“We’re aware of the situation,” Vargas said quickly. “We’ll try not to bother you.”

Alicia’s sweet smile and in particular Vargas’s looks seemed to have softened the secretary’s distrust. “Follow me, please,” she said, and guided them down the long corridor that cut through the offices. On either side there were rooms packed with full boxes, ready for the move. The bustle had stirred up shining particles that tickled their nostrils, and they continued their voyage through the remains of the shipwreck until they came to a large corner room at the end. It looked like the last standing bastion in the workplace.

“If you’d be so kind . . . ,” said the secretary, showing them in.

The room was, in fact, all that remained of Brians’s office. It presented a mass of shelves and files stacked in precarious heaps against the walls. The main exhibit was a desk of fine wood that looked as if it had survived a fire, and behind it a glass cabinet containing the entire collection of Aranzadi law books, randomly piled together.

Alicia and Vargas sat down on a couple of improvised stools by the French window, which opened onto a balcony with a view of the statue of Our Lady of Mercy perched on the dome of the basilica, on the other side of the street.

“You could ask the Virgin Mary to have pity on us. She pays no attention to me,” the secretary remarked. “Who shall I announce?”

“Jaime Valcárcel and wife,” said Alicia before Vargas could even blink.

The woman nodded diligently, although her eyes brushed mischievously past Vargas, as if she wanted to remark on the age difference and let him know that she had no problem forgiving this peccadillo in a handsome fellow like him.

“I’m Puri, at your service. I don’t think Señor Brians will be long. Can I offer you anything while you wait? Mariano from the bar brings up a few madeleines and a Thermos flask with coffee every morning, in case you’d like some . . .”

“I wouldn’t say no . . . ,” Vargas allowed.

Puri smiled happily.

“I’ll bring it along right away.”

They saw her march off with a suggestive swing of the hips that did not escape Vargas.

“Enough of Mariano and his madeleines,” muttered Alicia under her breath.

“We all make do as best we can.”

“How can you possibly still be hungry after eating a whole pig?”

“Some of us still have blood in our veins.”