“What are you thinking?” asked Vargas.

“I was wondering whether you like your job.”

Vargas chuckled again.

“Aren’t you going to ask me whether I like mine?”

“Is that any business of mine?”

“I suppose it isn’t.”

“Well, then.”

Realizing that the conversation had no future, Alicia pulled out the dossier supplied by Gil de Partera and started looking through it. At first glance there wasn’t much there. Notes from the police officers. The statement of the minister’s personal secretary. A couple of pages devoted to the supposed frustrated attack against Valls; procedural guidelines from the two inspectors who opened the case; and excerpts from records relating to Vicente Carmona, Valls’s bodyguard. Either Gil de Partera trusted them even less than Leandro had suggested, or the top men in his department had been twiddling their thumbs for the past week.

“Were you expecting more?” asked Vargas, reading her thoughts.

Alicia fixed her attention on the trees of Casa de Campo Park.

“I didn’t expect anything less,” she mumbled. “Who are we going to see?”

“Mariana Sedó, Valls’s personal secretary for the last twenty years. She’s the person who reported the minister’s disappearance.”

“That’s a lot of years for a secretary.”

“According to gossip she’s much more than that.”

“Lover?”

Vargas shook his head. “I think Doña Mariana’s tastes lie more on the other shore. What people say is that she’s the one who steers the ship, and that nothing was done or decided in Valls’s office without her consent.”

“Behind every bad man there’s always a worse woman. People also say that.”

Vargas smiled. “Well, I’d never heard that. I’d been warned that you were somewhat irreverent.”

“What else have you been warned about?”

Vargas turned toward her and winked.

“Who is Hendaya?” asked Alicia.

“Excuse me?”

“Hendaya. Who is he?”

“Rodrigo Hendaya?”

“I suppose.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“One can never know too much.”

“Has Montalvo mentioned Hendaya in connection with this matter?”

“The name came up in the conversation. Who is he?”

Vargas sighed. “Hendaya is a butcher. The less you know about him, the better.”

“Do you know him?”

Vargas ignored her question. They made the rest of the journey without exchanging a single word.

7

They’d been driving for almost fifteen minutes through avenues speckled with armies of uniformed gardeners when a boulevard of cypress trees opened up before them, leading to the spiked gates of Villa Mercedes. The sky had acquired a leaden color; fine drops of rain spattered on the windshield. A porter, waiting by the entrance to the estate, opened the door to let them in. On one side stood a sentry box, where a guard holding a rifle responded with a nod to Vargas’s greeting.

“Have you been here before?” asked Alicia.

“A couple of times since last Monday. You’re going to love it.”

The car glided along the fine-gravel path, winding around groves and ponds. Alicia gazed at the parade of statues, pools, and fountains, and the faded rose gardens, disintegrating in the autumn wind. A narrow railway track could be glimpsed here and there among bushes and dead flowers, while farther away, on the far edge of the property, Alicia noticed the outline of what looked like a miniature station. A steam locomotive bearing two cars waited by the platform under the drizzle.