“The deal, if you’ll allow the amendment, is as follows,” said Vilajuana. “You tell me where you found the book, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

Alicia was about to say something when the journalist raised a warning forefinger. “One more mention of my personal security, and I’ll have to wish you good-bye and good luck. Taking for granted that what you say to me stays between us . . .”

She thought it over for quite a while. “Do I have your word?”

Vilajuana put his hand on top of the pile of papers he was working on.

“I swear on my inaugural speech to the Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona.”

Alicia acquiesced. She looked around her, making sure they were alone in the library. The journalist watched her expectantly.

“I found it a week ago, in Mauricio Valls’s home, hidden in the personal desk of his office.”

“And may I know what you were doing there?”

Alicia leaned forward. “Investigating his disappearance.”

Vilajuana’s eyes lit up like a flare. “Swear to me that you’ll be giving me the exclusive on this story and whatever derives from it.”

“I swear to it on your inaugural speech.”

Vilajuana’s eyes were glued to hers. Alicia didn’t even blink. The journalist gathered a few blank sheets of paper from the table and handed them to her, together with his fountain pen.

“Here,” he said. “I think you might want to take a few notes . . .”

35

“I met Víctor Mataix about thirty years ago, in the autumn of 1928, to be precise. I was starting off on my career, working in the newsroom of The Voice of Industry, doing a bit of everything and just about getting by. At the time, Víctor Mataix was writing serialized novels under different pseudonyms for a publishing house owned by a couple of scoundrels, Barrido and Escobillas: they were notorious for swindling everyone, from their authors to their suppliers of ink and paper. They also published David Martín, Ladislao Bayona, Enrique Marqués, and the entire starving young generation of prewar Barcelona authors. When the monthly advances from Barrido & Escobillas weren’t enough to make ends meet, which was often, Mataix wrote pieces commissioned by a number of newspapers, including The Voice of Industry, from short stories to some magnificent travel columns about places he’d never visited. I remember one titled ‘The Mysteries of Byzantium’ that at the time I considered a masterpiece, and which Mataix invented from beginning to end with no more documentation than a set of old postcards of Istanbul.”

Alicia sighed. “And there am I, believing everything I read in the papers.”

“Sure, you look just the type. But those were other times, when the pens that told lies in newspapers did so with a certain flair. The fact is that on more than one occasion I had to cut down Mataix’s texts just as we were going to press to make room for some last-minute publicity or an ill-timed column from one of the publisher’s friends or relatives. One day, when Mataix had come to the office to get paid for his contributions, he came up to me. I thought he was going to tell me off, but instead he shook my hand, introduced himself as if I didn’t know who he was, and thanked me for being the one who handled the scissors on his pieces, when there was no other option. ‘You have a good eye, Vilajuana,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t lose your touch here.’