“I’ll come with you, Alicia . . .”

“No, please. Stay here with your family.”

Before leaving, Alicia walked past the display cabinet and took one last look at Isabella’s photograph. She sighed with relief as she disappeared down the stairs. She needed to get out of that place before she started believing that it could be hers one day.

* * *

Alicia’s departure provoked a wave of murmurs among the guests. Grandfather Sempere had put Julián on his knees and was observing the boy. “Have you fallen in love so soon?” he asked.

“I think it’s time our little Casanova went off to bed,” said Bea.

“And I should follow his example,” Don Anacleto added, rising from the table. “You young wild things, stay on at the party. Life is too short . . .”

Daniel was about to heave a sigh of relief when Fermín gripped his arm and stood up. “Oh, Daniel, we’d forgotten to bring up those boxes from the basement.”

“What boxes?”

“Those boxes.”

The two slipped out toward the door before the sleepy and surprised eyes of the bookseller.

“Every day I understand this family less,” he said.

“I thought I was the only one,” murmured Sofía.

* * *

When they stepped out of the front door, Fermín took a quick look at the bluish passageway sketched out by the streetlamps on Calle Santa Ana and signaled to Daniel to follow him.

“What now?”

“Now we hunt the vamp,” replied Fermín.

“No way.”

“Burying your empty head in the sand will only make it worse. Let’s move it before she gives us the slip.”

Without waiting for an answer, Fermín set off toward the corner of Puerta del Ángel. There he took shelter under the canopy of the Casa Jorba department store and scanned the dark night, strewn with low clouds that crept over the rooftops. Daniel joined him.

“There she goes, the serpent of paradise.”

“For goodness sake, Fermín, don’t do this to me.”

“Hey, I held up my part of the deal. Are you a man of your word or a wimp?”

Daniel cursed his bad luck, and the two, going back to their golden days as second-rate detectives, set off on the trail of Alicia Gris.

10

They followed her, staying close to doorways and canopies, until they reached the end of the avenue. There the street opened out into a vast esplanade stretching toward the cathedral, where the ancient neighborhood used to be before it was flattened by air raids during the war. A liquid moon splattered the pavement, and Alicia’s silhouette left the wake of a shadow in the air.

“Have you noticed?” asked Fermín as they watched her starting up Calle de la Paja.

“Noticed what?”

“Someone’s following us.”

Daniel turned to scan the silvery darkness tinting the streets.

“There. In the entrance to the toy shop. See?”

“I can’t see a thing.”

“The ember of a cigarette.”

“So . . . ?”

“It’s been following us since we left.”