She kept her head down as she waited her turn in the queue and it was a relief to step into the church’s cold embrace, the scorch of the sun on her back immediately quenched as brown marble replaced hot cobbles. As always when she entered this holy space, her eyes were drawn upwards. It was an instinct impossible to resist, for the church’s plain facade hid a magnificent interior – the vaulted ceilings frothing with murals and baroque frescoes, an opulent crystal chandelier dangling down as big as a man. The church’s very shape was ornate too, the seemingly boxy exterior revealing a polygon clad in reeded marble and dimpled with deep niches and alcoves. But it was the gilded, full-height altarpiece that always rendered everyone mute, reinforcing the supreme majesty of the god they had come to worship.

Nene took a seat in one of the pews at the back, pushing herself into the corner and trying to look unobtrusive. She had never sat here before, her family always front and centre in the best seats, closest to God. From lowered eyes she watched the feet of the mourners shuffling past her on the brown and white marbled floor, the stitches missing in some leather uppers, patches on others, but all of them polished to a shine. The men were in their best suits, the women in their mourning hats, all of them dignified in their unified grief. Nene could hardly lift her head from the shame that they were gathered here because of what her brothers had done – killed a man. Murdered him. Vale had accused Jose of being an animal – but who was the beast really, who was proven the most barbaric and base?

An elderly couple came and sat beside her, easing themselves slowly onto the unforgiving wooden pews, coughing lightly into handkerchiefs, their breath coming in exhausted rasps. The church was almost completely full, the pews filling up rapidly so that soon there would not be enough room to sit. She pulled her elbows in, trying to take up as little space as possible and hoping desperately no one would look at her too closely. She tugged down on the sliver of net that was passing as a veil. Her own mourning mantilla fell to her collarbone, obscuring her face completely, and would have done a far better job at concealing her identity as well as tears – but it was in itself too decorative, a Chantilly lace from Paris that would have announced her presence as loudly as any speaker.

The congregation sat in almost perfect silence but for the occasional cough or sob, everyone’s heads tilted skywards. Nene’s eyes scanned the backs of their heads, guessing their identities from their body posture and hairstyles. Manuel Garcia, the barber; Andres Ramirez, the mechanic; Emiliano Dambolena, the pig man. Pablo Lopez, the man who had instigated the quarrel with Señor Martin. He was sitting in the second pew from the front; she could tell him just by the anger in his shoulders which were risen almost up to his ears, his jaw set forwards like a brake. His wife – bony-shouldered and shivering – sat beside him, her head bent low as she worried at some rosary beads, tutting to herself as they waited for the ceremony to begin.