“What happened next?”

Mercedes swallowed hard. “Then Vicente came closer and shot her in the head. The lady collapsed at my feet in a pool of blood. I remember because one of the nuns picked me up and took off my shoes, which were stained with the lady’s blood. She handed me over to one of the bodyguards, who took me along to the car with Vicente. Vicente started up the engine and we drove off very fast, but through the rear window I could see two of the security men dragging the lady’s body away . . .”

Mercedes searched Alicia’s eyes, and Alicia hugged her.

“That night my father told me that that lady was mad. He said the police had arrested her a few times for trying to kidnap children from Madrid schools. He told me that nobody would ever hurt me, and that now I had nothing to worry about. And he told me never to tell anyone what had happened that day. Come what may. I never returned to the school. Doña Irene became my tutor, and I was schooled at home from then on . . .”

Alicia let Mercedes cry in her arms, stroking her hair. A desperate calm was falling over the girl when Alicia heard the horn of Vargas’s car in the distance and stood up. “I have to go now, Mercedes. But I’ll come back. And we’ll go to Madrid and I’ll take you to the cinema. But you must promise me you’ll be all right until then.”

Mercedes took her hands and nodded. “Will you find my father?”

“I promise.”

Alicia kissed her on the forehead and walked away, limping. Mercedes sat on the floor, hugging her knees in the shadows of her dolls’ world, now broken forever.

11

The drive back to Madrid was marked by rain and silence. Alicia sat with her eyes closed and her head leaning on the misted-up window, her mind a thousand miles away. Vargas watched her out of the corner of his eye, throwing the occasional bait here and there to see if he could draw her into conversation and fill the void that had persisted since they’d left Villa Mercedes.

“You were hard over there with Valls’s secretary,” he ventured. “To put it mildly.”

“She’s a harpy,” retorted Alicia in an unfriendly murmur.

“If you’d rather, we can talk about the weather.”

“It’s raining,” said Alicia. “What else do you want to talk about?”

“You could tell me what happened in there, in the garden cottage.”

“Nothing happened.”

“You were there for half an hour. I hope you weren’t tightening the screws on anyone else. It would be good if we didn’t get everyone against us on the first day. Just saying.”

Alicia didn’t reply.

“Listen, this only works if we work together. Sharing information. Because I’m not your chauffeur.”

“Then perhaps it won’t work. I can take taxis if you prefer. It’s what I usually do.”

Vargas sighed.

“Pay no attention to me, OK?” Alicia replied. “I’m not feeling very well.”