Isaac walked down the long, curved passage, carrying the lamp in his hand. He only used it when he was going to receive someone. When he was alone, he didn’t need it. He knew that place like the back of his hand and preferred to walk through its heights and depths in the pallid half-light that always floated inside the building. When he reached the big front door, he stopped and set the lamp down on the floor. Using both hands, he clasped the crank that activated the bolt’s mechanism. He’d noticed that he was beginning to find it more of an effort than usual, and every time he pushed, he felt a pressure on his chest that he hadn’t felt before. Perhaps his days as the keeper of the place were numbered.

The bolt’s machinery, which was as ancient as that place, was made up of an elaborate system of springs, levers, and cogs, and it took between ten and fifteen seconds to unlock all its points of attachment. Once the door was released, Isaac pulled the bar that activated the counterweight system and allowed him to move the heavy oak structure while barely touching it. Dr. Soldevila stood there, silhouetted against the doorframe.

“As punctual as ever, Doctor,” Isaac began.

A second later, the doctor’s body fell inside, flat on its face, and a tall angular figure blocked the access.

“Who . . . ?”

Hendaya pointed his revolver between Isaac’s eyes and kicked the doctor’s body out of the way. “Shut the door.”

* * *

Alicia dipped the nib in the inkwell and slid it across the paper, drawing a brilliant blue line. She wrote her name and watched the ink slowly dry. The pleasure of the blank page, which at first always smells of mystery and promise, vanished as if by magic. As soon as one begins to place the first words on it, it becomes clear how in writing, as in life, the distance between intentions and results is much the same as that between the innocence with which one undertook the first and accepted the second. She was about to write a sentence she remembered from one of her favorite books when she paused and looked toward the door. Leaving the pen on the paper, she scanned the silence.

She knew immediately that something was wrong. The absence of the murmurings that usually could be heard between the two old veterans, the uncertain echo of irregular footsteps, and a poisoned silence she could feel in the air made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She looked around and cursed her luck. She’d always thought she would die some other way.

19

In any other circumstance Hendaya would have shot dead the two old men as soon as he’d gained access to the building, but he didn’t want to alert Alicia. Dr. Soldevila lay practically unconscious after the blow on the back of his head that had knocked him over. Experience told Hendaya that he needn’t worry about him for at least half an hour.