She found newspaper clippings giving details of cases in which she’d been involved but which, naturally, never mentioned Alicia or the unit, crediting only the police or the Civil Guard. At the foot of the mosaic was a table arranged like an altar on which she recognized all kinds of objects related to her: menus from restaurants she remembered having visited, paper napkins on which she’d jotted something down, notes signed by her, a wineglass with a lipstick mark on the rim, a cigarette stub, the remains of her train ticket from Madrid to Barcelona . . .

In a glass bowl at one end of the table, exhibited like relics, were a few bits of underwear she’d been missing since the night when someone, or something, had come into her apartment while she was under the effects of her medication. A pair of stockings was neatly spread out on the table and held down with pins. Next to the stockings lay the Víctor Mataix book from the Labyrinth of the Spirits series that had been stolen from her home. Alicia suddenly felt a strong urge to run away from that nightmarish place.

She never saw the figure that had risen slowly from among the pile of dismembered bodies behind her, on the other side of the door, and was advancing toward her.

30

When she realized what had happened, it was already too late. She heard labored breathing behind her and turned around, but had no time to aim her revolver. A brutal impact shook her to the core. The stabbing pain took her breath away, and she fell to her knees. Only then was she able to see him clearly and understand why she hadn’t noticed him on her way in. A white mask covered his face. He was naked and carried an object that looked like some sort of industrial awl.

Alicia tried to shoot Rovira, but he skewered her hand with the metal spike. The revolver tumbled onto the floor. The man grabbed her by her neck and dragged her to the bed. He let her fall there and sat on her legs, holding them tight. He clutched her right hand, which he’d perforated with the awl, and leaned over to tie it to the metal bars of the bed with a piece of wire. As he did so, his mask slipped off and she saw his contorted face, almost touching hers. His eyes were glazed, and the skin on one side was peppered with the burns of a close-range gunshot. One of his ears was bleeding, and he smiled like a boy about to pull the wings off an insect, taking pleasure in its agony.

“Who are you?” asked Alicia.

Rovira observed her, enjoying the moment. “You think you’re so clever, and you still haven’t figured it out? I’m you. Everything you should have been. At first I admired you. But then I realized that you’re weak, that I have nothing left to learn from you. I’m better than you. I’m better than you could have ever been . . .”