Leandro gazed at her at length and, when he didn’t get a reply, walked over to the bathtub. He turned his back to her and removed his robe. Alicia looked at his naked body, pale like the belly of a fish. He grabbed the golden bar on the marble wall and slowly immersed himself in the bath. Once he was lying in the tub, the steam caressing his face, he opened his eyes with a hint of sadness.

“Everything should have been different, Alicia, but we’re children of our time. Deep down, it’s almost better this way. I always knew it would be you.”

Alicia let the gun drop.

“What are you waiting for?”

“I’m not going to kill you.”

“Then why have you come?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you know.”

“What are you doing?”

Leandro stretched out a hand to the telephone extension hanging from the bathtub wall. Alicia aimed at him again.

“You know what this is like, Alicia. . . . Operator. Yes. Put me through to the Ministry of the Interior. Gil de Partera. Yes. Leandro Montalvo. I’ll wait. Thank you.”

“Put the phone down. Please.”

“I can’t do that. The order never was to save Valls. The order was to find him and silence him, so that none of this sad business would come out in the open. And we were on the point, once again, of crowning the mission with success. But you didn’t listen to me. That’s why now, much against my will, I’m going to have to order the death of all those people you have involved in your adventure. Daniel Sempere, his wife, and all his family, including that fool who works for them, and all those to whom, in your crusade for redemption, you’ve had the ill-fated idea of blurting out what they should never have known. You’ve wanted it this way. Fortunately you’ve led us to them. As usual, even when you don’t try, you’re the best. Operator? Yes, Minister. Same here. That’s right. I have news—”

One shot was enough. The receiver slipped from Leandro’s hand and fell on the floor by the bathtub. His head tilted to one side as he bestowed upon her a look poisoned with affection and longing. A scarlet cloud spread under the water, masking the reflection of his body. Alicia stood there, motionless, watching as he bled with every throb, until his pupils dilated and his smile froze into a mocking grin.

“I’ll wait for you,” he whispered. “Don’t be long.”

A second later the body slid slowly, and Leandro Montalvo’s face sank into the blood-filled water, its eyes still open wide.

5

Alicia picked the receiver up and put it to her ear. The line wasn’t connected. Leandro had not called anyone. She pulled out the bottle of pills and swallowed a couple, chewing them and mixing them with a gulp of expensive brandy Leandro kept in a small cabinet in the sitting room. Before leaving the suite, she cleaned Hendaya’s gun thoroughly and dropped it on the carpet.