“What is it? Embalming liquid?”

“I keep it for when I have to take something along to weddings and first communions in my wife’s family. Aren’t you going to tell me about the case? What was this wretch Lomana doing in the swimming pool of an abandoned house in Vallvidrera?”

Vargas shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Then I’ll try with the living. What are you doing in Barcelona? If I’m not mistaken, you’d promised never to return.”

“An unbroken promise doesn’t deserve to be called a promise.”

“And what’s this you’ve got here?” asked Manero, pointing to the list of numbers Vargas was holding. “I always thought of you as a man of letters.”

“Who knows? I’ve been carrying it around with me for days, and I don’t know what it means.”

“Can I have a look?”

Vargas handed it to the pathologist, who glanced at it while he sipped his liqueur.

“I was thinking that perhaps they were bank account numbers,” said the policeman.

The pathologist shook his head. “I wouldn’t be able to say what the ones in the right-hand column are, but the ones on the left are almost certainly certificates.”

“Certificates?”

“Death certificates.”

Vargas gave him a puzzled look.

Manero pointed to the column on the left. “Do you see the numbering? These numbers follow the old system. The numbering changed years ago, but in these you can still see the number of the document, book, and page. These bits are added later, but here we generate these numbers every day. Even your friend Lomana will have one for the rest of eternity.”

Vargas downed his drink in one gulp and examined the list again as if he were looking at a jigsaw puzzle he’d been battling with for years, and it was suddenly starting to make sense. “What about the numbers in the right-hand column? They look as if they’re correlated, but the sequence of the numbering is different. Could they also be certificates?”

Manero looked closer and shrugged. “Looks like it, but they’re not from my department.”

Vargas let out a sigh.

“Does this help you at all?” asked the pathologist.

The policeman nodded. “And where could I find the documents that correspond to these certificate numbers?”

“Where do you think? Where everything begins and ends in this life: in the Civil Registry.”

21

The glimmer of light seeping through the bathroom window told Fernandito that dawn was at hand. He sat on the bed and glanced at Matilde, who had fallen asleep next to him. His gaze ran over her naked body, and he smiled.

She opened her eyes and looked at him serenely. “How’s things, love? A bit more relaxed?”

“Do you think they’ll have left by now?”

Matilde stretched and looked for her clothes, strewn by the foot of the bed. “Just in case, go out through the opening that leads to the alley. It will take you to one of the market entrances.”

“Thanks.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. Have you enjoyed it a little?”