* * *

More than once Valls had wanted to believe that while he could sit there, ensconced in the light and dreamlike quality of the paintings, those days shared with Mercedes, days of glory and fulfillment, would never slip away. For some time now Mercedes hadn’t come to spend the afternoon with him and listen to his masterly accounts of the golden age of Spanish painting, but the very act of seeking refuge in that gallery still comforted him: it made him forget that Mercedes was now a woman he had not recognized in her formal dress, dancing under the gaze of greed and desire, suspicion and malice. Soon, very soon, he would no longer be able to protect her from that world of shadows that didn’t deserve her, a world that lurked, baring its teeth, beyond the walls of the house.

He quietly finished his cigarette and stood up. The hum of the band and of the voices in the garden could just be made out behind the drawn curtains. Without turning his head, he walked over to the staircase leading to the tower. Vicente, emerging from the dark, followed him, his footsteps barely audible behind Valls’s back.

5

As soon as he inserted the key in the office keyhole, Valls knew the door was open. He paused, his fingers still holding the key, and turned around. Vicente, who was waiting at the foot of the stairs, read his eyes and crept up, pulling out a revolver from inside his jacket. Valls moved aside a few steps, and Vicente signaled to him to lean against the wall. Once Valls was safe, Vicente cocked the revolver’s hammer and very slowly turned the doorknob. Pushed by its own weight, the panel of carved oak moved gently toward the dim interior.

Keeping the revolver pointed, Vicente scanned the shadows. A bluish halo filtered through the windows, outlining Valls’s office. His eyes scanned the large desk, the admiral’s armchair, the oval library, and the leather sofa on the Persian carpet covering the floor. Nothing moved in the shadows. Vicente felt the wall, searching for the switch, and turned on the light. There was no one there. He lowered his weapon, putting it back inside his jacket as he took a few more steps into the room. Behind him, Valls watched from the entrance. Vicente turned and shook his head.

“Perhaps I forgot to lock up when I left this afternoon,” said Valls, without much conviction.

Vicente stood in the middle of the office and looked around him carefully as Valls stepped into the room and walked over to his desk. Vicente was checking the locks on the windows when the minister noticed it. The bodyguard heard him stop dead. He turned to look over his shoulder.

The minister’s eyes were glued to the desk. A cream-colored folio-sized envelope rested on the leather sheet covering the central part of the table. Valls felt the hairs on his hands stand on end, as if a blast of ice-cold air were assailing his body.