“I don’t know what . . . shares you’re talking about,” stammered Sanchís.

“Stop sniveling, for fuck’s sake. Can’t you see what an uncomfortable position you’re putting me in? I must leave this room with results. It’s that simple. You understand that. Basically, it’s very straightforward. When life gives it to you up the ass, it’s best to pretend you’re a faggot. And life is about to fuck you in the backside big-time, my friend. Don’t make things difficult for yourself. Men a hundred times tougher than you have sat in this chair and only lasted a quarter of an hour. You’re a bit high and mighty. Don’t force me to do what I don’t want to do. For the last time: tell me where you’ve got him, and all will be forgotten. You’ll be back with your wife tonight, unhurt.”

“Please,” Sanchís begged, “don’t do anything to her. . . . She’s not well.”

Hendaya sighed and slowly drew closer to Sanchís, until his face was just a few centimeters away. “Look here, you bastard,” he said, his tone infinitely colder. “If you don’t tell me where Valls is, I’m going to fry your balls until you crap on your mother’s memory, and then I’m going to get that little wife of yours and peel the flesh off her bones with a pair of hot pliers, slowly, so she knows that the crybaby she married is to blame for what’s happening to her.”

Sanchís closed his eyes and whimpered.

Hendaya shrugged and walked over to the generator. “It’s your party.”

The banker smelled that metallic odor again and felt the vibration on the floor under the soles of his feet. The lightbulb flickered a couple of times. Afterward, all was fire.

4

Leandro was holding the receiver and nodding. He’d been on the phone for forty-five minutes. Vargas and Alicia were watching him. Between them they’d polished off the bottle of wine. When Alicia got up to look for a new one, Vargas held her back, muttering “No” under his breath. She threw herself into chain-smoking, her eyes glued on Leandro, who listened and nodded slowly.

“I understand. No, of course not. I realize. Yes, sir. I’ll tell them. You too.”

Leandro put down the phone and gave them a languid look, exuding relief and concern in equal measure.

“That was Gil de Partera,” he said at last. “Sanchís has confessed.”

“Confessed? To what?” asked Alicia.

“All the pieces are beginning to fall into place. It’s been confirmed that the story goes back a long way. It seems that Valls and Miguel Ángel Ubach, the financier, met shortly after the war. At the time Valls was a rising star in the regime, having proved his loyalty and reliability while running Montjuïc Prison, not exactly a pleasant job. Apparently, through a consortium set up to reward individuals who had made an outstanding contribution to the national cause, Ubach handed Valls a package of shares from the reconstituted Banco Hipotecario, which grouped together various financial institutions that had been dissolved after the war.”