“Now that you mention it, sir . . . ,” Alicia agreed.

Leandro turned toward her and, exchanging a conspiratorial look with Gil de Partera, put her in the picture. “The fact is, Alicia, that it’s not by chance or out of personal choice that the minister has been unable to offer us his fine intellect and flawless talents.”

“I see you’ve had occasion to deal with him, Leandro,” Gil de Partera cut in.

“I had that pleasure long ago, just briefly, during my years in Barcelona. A great man, and someone who has best exemplified the values and deep significance of our intellectual class.”

“I’m sure the minister would agree with you wholeheartedly.”

Leandro smiled politely, fixing his gaze on Alicia again before he began to speak.

“Sadly, the business that brings us here today is not the indisputable merits of our dear minister, or the enviable health of his self-esteem. If Your Honor, Señor Gil de Partera, will allow, I don’t think I would be speaking out of turn if I say that the prolonged absence of Don Mauricio Valls from public life in the last few years has been due to the suspicion that there is, and has been for years, a plot to carry out an attempt on his life.”

Alicia raised her eyebrows and swapped glances with Leandro.

“In order to support the investigation opened by the General Police Corps, and following a request from our friends in the Ministry of the Interior, our unit assigned an agent to assist with the investigation, although we weren’t officially involved in it and in fact, were not aware of its details,” Leandro explained.

Alicia bit her lip. Her superior’s eyes made it clear that question time had not started yet.

“For reasons we haven’t yet been able to clarify,” Leandro continued, “that agent has broken off contact, and we’ve been unable to track him down for a couple of weeks. This puts into context the mission for which His Excellency has kindly asked for our collaboration.”

Leandro looked at the veteran policeman and gestured to him to take over. Gil de Partera cleared his throat and adopted a somber expression. “What I am going to tell you is strictly confidential and cannot leave this table.”

Alicia and Leandro both nodded.

“As your superior has already explained, on the second of November 1956, during an event organized in his honor in Madrid’s Círculo de Bellas Artes, Minister Valls was the object of a failed attempt on his life, apparently not for the first time. The news was kept under wraps, a decision agreed upon as the best option by both the cabinet and the minister himself, who didn’t wish to alarm his family or his collaborators. An investigation was opened and is still ongoing, but despite all the efforts of the General Police Corps and a special unit of the Civil Guard, we still haven’t been able to establish the circumstances surrounding this crime and other similar ones that may have taken place before the police were alerted. Naturally, from that very moment, the minister’s police escort and all security measures were reinforced, and his public appearances were canceled until further notice.”