“Your relationship sounds more personal than professional, if you’ll allow my opinion.”

“In my field one can’t exist without the other.”

“I worry about this contempt for discipline. We can’t afford any more mistakes in this matter.”

“There won’t be any more.”

“That had better be true. We’re putting our necks on the line. Yours and mine.”

“Leave it in my hands.”

“Tell me more about Gris. What makes her so special?”

“Alicia Gris sees what the rest don’t see. Her mind works differently from the rest. Where everyone else sees a locked door, she sees a key. Where others lose track, she picks up the trail. It’s a gift, one could say. And the best thing is that no one sees her coming.”

“Is that how she resolved what they called the case of the Barcelona Dolls?”

“The wax brides. That was the first case Alicia worked on for me.”

“I’ve always wondered whether that story about the civil governor was true . . .”

“All that happened years ago.”

“But we have time, no? While we wait for the damsel.”

“Of course. It happened in 1947. At the time I’d been posted to Barcelona. We were informed that during the past three years the police had discovered at least seven bodies of young women in different corners of the city. They turned up sitting on a park bench, at a tram stop, in a café on the Paralelo . . . They even found one kneeling in a confessional in the parish church of El Pino. They were all perfectly made up and dressed in white. There wasn’t a drop of blood in their bodies, and they smelled of camphor. They looked like wax dolls. Hence the name.”

“Did they know who they were?”

“Nobody had ever reported their disappearance, so the police thought they might be prostitutes. This was confirmed later on. Months went by without any more bodies appearing, and the Barcelona police closed the case.”

“And then another one turned up.”

“Correct. Margarita Mallofré. They found her sitting in an armchair in the lobby of the Hotel Oriente.”

“And this Margarita was the darling of . . . ?”

“Margarita Mallofré worked in a rather exclusive brothel on Calle Elisabets, which catered to, let’s say, unusual tastes provided at high prices. It emerged that the civil governor at the time was a regular customer, and the deceased was his favorite.”

“For what reason?”

“It seems that Margarita Mallofré was the one who managed to remain conscious longest, despite the governor’s special attentions. Hence the gentleman’s preference.”

“So much for His Excellency.”

“The fact is that thanks to that connection, the case was reopened, and because of the delicate nature of the matter, I was put in charge. Alicia had just started working for me, and I assigned it to her.”

“Wasn’t it too lurid a matter for a young girl?”

“Alicia was a very unusual young girl, and not easily shocked.”

“And how did the matter end?”