‘Yes, it jarred with us too but we had to work with what we had,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s since transpired we were working with inaccurate information.’

‘Inaccurate how?’

‘Birthdate. There are two Marina Quincys: the one we were targeting; and her grandmother, after whom she’s named.’

There was a long silence, her embarrassment at the idiotic error only lengthening in the vacuum.

‘Right. Well that immediately makes more sense. And how old is Marina Quincy Senior?’

‘Ninety-eight.’

‘The same as Carlos Mendoza.’

Charlotte rolled her eyes. It would be just like him to have memorized the entire bloody file.

‘Is she a former girlfriend then? First wife? There’s no mention of another marriage.’

‘She’s his twin.’

‘. . . No mention of that either,’ he said tersely, as though they’d been deliberately wasting his time.

‘We only discovered it ourselves in the last twenty-four hours, but you can see how that changes things.’

‘Hmm,’ he reluctantly agreed, but she could hear from his tone that his interest had been piqued again, his academic brain wanting to solve the puzzle. ‘Well, this at least makes more sense. But if they’re estranged siblings then it dramatically changes the potential timeline. It’s one thing researching his life for the last twenty or thirty years but this break between them could have happened anytime from childhood. If they’re both ninety-eight, then . . .’ his voice trailed off as he did the maths. ‘That means going right back to when they were teenagers or even kids from the 1930s onwards . . .’ he exhaled, working out dates. ‘It’d mean trawling through stuff from the Civil War, the Second World War and any time after in the Franco era, right up to the present day.’

‘You’re going to be busy then,’ she said flatly. ‘Mateo is putting a lot of store in your research capabilities. I told him you wouldn’t let him down.’

There was another long pause. ‘. . . Look, Charlotte, this isn’t a good idea.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t go looking for this; I thought I was hiring Jose Ferrante. If the situation could be changed, I think we’d both jump at it, but it’s too late now. Mateo wants you.’ She cleared her throat lightly, the strain getting to her. ‘So tell me where you’re up to.’

He was quiet for a long while, clearly looking for a way out – and finding none. ‘Jose had done a preliminary trawl through records for Marina Quincy here in Madrid – birth, confirmation, marriage, electoral register . . . Clearly none of that’s now relevant given he was working with the wrong date of birth so I’ll have to start again on all that. As she’s his sister and there’s a family history, it’ll probably mean going down to Andalusia too; the Mendoza estate, La Ventilla, is just outside Ronda so I’ll need to base my searches there as precious little has been digitized. A lot of information was lost during the Civil War; and what does remain, well – when it comes to Franco’s version of history, let’s just say revisionist doesn’t begin to cover it. I’ll need to see source material myself which will mean flights, a car, hotel, food etc . . .’