“May I ask what this is about, Officer?” asked the receptionist behind his back.

“Captain,” Vargas corrected her without turning around.

The receptionist cleared her throat and, realizing she was not getting an answer, sighed. “Señor Sanchís is at a meeting right now. If you wish . . .”

Vargas turned around and looked at her coldly.

“I’ll let him know right away, Captain.”

Vargas nodded unenthusiastically. The receptionist rushed off in search of reinforcements. This was followed by a quick succession of hushed voices, sounds of doors opening and closing, and hurried steps along corridors. A minute later she was back, this time with a docile smile as she invited him to follow her. “If you’ll be so kind, the director will see you in the boardroom.”

He walked down a long passageway flanked by pompous office rooms where spruced-up lawyers in three-piece suits dealt with the day’s business with the seriousness of skilled traders. Statues, paintings, and top-quality carpets outlined the route leading him to a large room with a glazed balcony that afforded an angel’s-eye view of the entire Paseo de Gracia. An impressive board-meeting table presided over a series of armchairs, glass cabinets, and fine wood moldings.

“Señor Sanchís will be with you in a moment. Can I offer you anything while you wait? A coffee?”

Vargas shook his head. The receptionist vanished as soon as she could, leaving him on his own.

The policeman studied the scenery. The Metrobarna offices reeked of money. The carpet at his feet alone probably cost quite a bit more than he received from several years’ salary. Vargas walked around the board table, caressing the lacquered oak wood with his fingers and taking in the perfume of excess. The stage set, with its shapes and designs, distilled that oppressive and exclusive air of institutions devoted to the alchemy of money, reminding the visitor that even if he thought he was inside, he would, in fact, always be outside the proverbial bank counter.

The room was decorated with numerous portraits of different sizes. Most of them were photographs, but there were also some oil paintings and a few charcoal sketches signed by an assortment of official and prestigious portrait artists of the last decades. Vargas studied these. The same person appeared in all the images, a gentleman with silvery hair and a patrician expression glancing at the lens, or the easel, with a calm smile and ice-cold eyes. The protagonist of those pictures clearly knew how to pose and choose his company. Vargas leaned over to take a closer look at one of the photographs, in which the gentleman with the cold eyes appeared with a group of important-looking men in hunting gear, smiling like lifelong friends as they stood on either side of a younger-looking General Franco. Vargas went through the cast of figures taking part in the hunting scene and was drawn to one particular participant. He stood in the second row and smiled enthusiastically, as if he were trying hard to stand out.