“And you haven’t seen him or spoken to him since?”

Vilajuana shook his head.

“Lomana can be quite persistent,” said Alicia. “How did you get rid of him?”

“I told him what he wanted to hear. Or what I thought he wanted to hear.”

“Which was . . .”

“He seemed very interested in the house where Víctor Mataix and his family lived until his arrest in 1941, on Carretera de las Aguas, on the hillside of Vallvidrera.”

“Why the house?”

“He asked me what the phrase ‘the entrance to the labyrinth’ meant. He wanted to know whether it referred to a particular place.”

“And . . .”

“I told him that in the novels from the Labyrinth series, the ‘entrance,’ the place through which Ariadna ‘falls’ into the subterranean world of that other Barcelona, is the house where she lives with her parents, which is none other than the house where the Mataix family lived. I supplied him with the address and directions. It’s not anything he couldn’t have found himself by spending an hour in the land registry. Perhaps he thought he’d find a treasure there, or something better. Am I right?”

“Did Lomana say who he was working for?”

“He showed me a badge. Like they do in films. I’m no expert, but it looked genuine. Do you also have one of those badges?”

Alicia shook her head.

“A pity. A femme fatale working for the regime is something I thought could only happen in a Julián Carax novel.”

“Are you a Carax reader?”

“Of course! The patron saint of all Barcelona’s ill-fated novelists. You two should meet. You look like you just walked out of one of his books.”

Alicia sighed. “This is important, Señor Vilajuana. The lives of various people are at stake.”

“Mention just one. With a name and surnames, if possible. That way I may be able to take all this a bit more seriously.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Of course. For my own security, I suppose.”

She nodded. “Even if you don’t believe me.”

The journalist clasped his hands over his lap and sat back in his chair, pensive. Alicia sensed that she was losing him. It was time to throw out some more bait. “How long is it since you’ve seen Valls make a public appearance?” she let out.

Vilajuana unclasped his hands, his interest stirred again. “Go on.”

“Not so fast. The deal is that you tell me what you know about Mataix and Martín, and I tell you what I can as soon as I can. And it’s a lot. You have my word.”

Vilajuana chuckled but nodded slowly. “Including Valls?”

“Including Valls,” Alicia lied.

“I suppose there’s no point in me asking you to show me the book.”

Alicia donned the sweetest smile ever.

“You’ve also lied to me about that?”

“Only partly. I had the book until two days ago, but I’ve lost it.”

“I’m supposing that wasn’t because you left it behind in a tram.”

She shook her head.