Nausea suddenly hit her, and she jumped out of bed. A half-open door led to the bathroom. She collapsed on her knees by the toilet and vomited bile. She went on retching until she could no longer bring out a drop of saliva, then leaned against the wall, sitting on the floor, panting. She looked around her. The bathroom, a creation made of pink marble, was pleasantly warm. On the wall, a built-in loudspeaker exuded the murmur of a string orchestra performing a sugary version of a Bach adagio.

Victoria recovered her breath and stood up, leaning on the walls. Her head was spinning. She walked over to the sink and let the water run. After washing her face and getting rid of the bitter aftertaste in her mouth, she dried herself with a thick, soft towel, which she dropped by her feet. She staggered back to the room and slumped back onto the bed. Although she tried to erase the images from her mind, Hendaya’s blood-spattered face seemed branded with a hot iron on her retinas.

Victoria looked around at this strange place in which she had awoken. She didn’t know how long she had been here. If this was hell, and it deserved to be, it looked more like a luxury hotel. Soon she fell asleep again, praying she would never wake up.

2

The next time Victoria opened her eyes, she was blinded by the sunlight behind the curtains. She could smell coffee. She stood up and found a silk dressing gown that matched her pajamas. There was also a pair of slippers at the foot of the bed. She heard a voice behind the door that seemed to lead to another room in the suite. Moving closer, she stopped to listen. The soft tinkling of a teaspoon in a china cup. Victoria opened the door.

A short corridor led to an oval room. On a table in the middle of the room, breakfast was set for two: a pitcher of orange juice, a basketful of bread rolls and pastries, a selection of jams, cream, butter, scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, sautéed mushrooms, tea, coffee, milk, and brown and white sugar lumps. The smell it all gave out was wonderful, and despite herself, Victoria’s mouth began to water.

A middle-aged man, of middling height, middling baldness, and middling middlingness, was sitting at the table. When he saw her come in, he stood up courteously, smiled affably, and offered her the chair opposite him. He wore a black three-piece suit and had the pallid complexion of those who live behind closed doors. If she’d passed him in the street, she would barely have noticed him, or would have taken him for a midrange civil servant, or perhaps a provincial notary visiting the capital to go to the Prado Museum and the theater.

Only when one stopped to observe him closely did one notice his pale eyes, limpid and piercing, enlarged behind glasses whose oversize tortoiseshell frames lent him a vaguely effeminate air. His gaze seemed shrouded in perpetual calculation as he watched her, almost without blinking.