The prisoner seemed to read her thoughts. He put his hand out and tried to grab her, but he barely had any strength left.

“Don’t leave me here,” he said, his tone somewhere between a plea and an order.

“I’ll come back with help,” whispered Alicia.

“No!”

She took his hand, ignoring the revulsion produced by the contact with that bag of bones someone had decided should rot to death in that hole. “I need you not to tell anyone I’ve been here.”

“If you try to leave, I’ll shout, you fucking whore, and they’ll stick you in here with me.”

Alicia looked him in the eye. For a moment she thought she could see the real Valls, or what little was left of him, in that living corpse. “If you do that, you’ll never see your daughter again.”

Valls’s face fell apart, all the fury and despair dissolved in a second.

“I promised Mercedes I would find you,” said Alicia.

“Is she alive?”

She nodded.

Valls leaned his forehead against the bars and wept. “Don’t let them find her and hurt her,” he begged.

“Who? Who would want to hurt Mercedes?”

“Please . . .”

Alicia heard footsteps again above that cavity. She stood up.

Valls gave her one last look, full of resignation and hope.

“Run,” he moaned.

27

Fernandito stared at the door that was slowly closing, pushed by the wind. Darkness solidified around him. The silhouettes of the dummies and the glass cabinets disappeared into the shadows. When the gap in the doorway was just a chink of faint light, he took a deep breath. He’d followed that guy to his hideout with a purpose. Alicia was counting on him. Gripping the revolver firmly, he turned toward the corridor of shadows that plunged into the depths of the workshop.

“I’m not afraid,” he whispered.

A light murmur reached his ears. He could have sworn it was a child’s laughter. Very close. Just a few meters from where he stood. Footsteps dragged quickly toward him in the dark, and he was seized with panic. He raised his weapon and, without knowing quite what he was doing, pulled the trigger. A deafening roar hit his eardrums, and his arms flew up as if someone had hit his wrists with a hammer. A flash of sulfurous light lit up the passageway for a split second, and Fernandito saw him.

The man was advancing toward him, his knife held high and his eyes ablaze. His face was hidden beneath what looked like a leather mask.

Fernandito fired again and again, until the revolver slipped from his hand and he fell on his back. For a moment he thought the demonic silhouette he’d seen looming over him was by his side, and that the cold steel would touch his skin before he could recover his breath. He pushed himself backward and struggled to his feet. When he’d regained his balance, he hurled himself against the small door. It opened wide, and he fell headlong on the waterlogged street. He scrambled up again and, without looking behind him, ran off as if death were breathing down his neck.