Crocodile Tears 3j2v19

CROCODILE TEARS

Mercedes Rosende

Translated by Tim Gutteridge

Abracadabra Offering

Oh gloomy rose exuding musk and seer of Libyan reveilles, to Gonk-Gonk you offered warm entrails and hearts of panthers dark as dusk.

You called forth spirits of the rains and sang of dead debaucheries ’mid tepid bones and mortuaries and captive fair-haired damsels’ manes.

Thunder roared. To dying spates of fire and blood in mystic hush the addled idols did abate…

The rain fell sharp in crackling files and in the distance softly sighed

the languid tears of crocodiles.

julio herrera y reissig (1875 – 1910)

Contents

TITLE PAGE

PART ONE

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

PART TWO

9.23 a.m.

9.28 a.m.

9.29 a.m.

9.31 a.m.

9.35 a.m.

9.40 a.m.

9.42 a.m.

9.43 a.m.

10.15 a.m.

10.25 a.m.

10.35 a.m.

10.40 a.m.

10.44 a.m.

10.48 a.m.

PART THREE

DADDY

URSULA

LEONILDA

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT

PART ONE

I

The women arrive, tired from their early start, the journey, the queue. Leaving the humiliation of the police search behind them, they enter and look to either side and then at each other with an air of futile defiance, of bewilderment and poverty, of hatred. In the visiting shed, plastic tables and chairs have been set out in groups and the visitors break these up and reorganize them, dragging chairs to and fro, lifting and dropping them with a clatter. The shed is big, some fifty yards by twenty, with a corrugated iron roof that leaks at the slightest hint of rain, a bare floor, walls scrawled with names and prayers and songs, daubed with drawings of hearts and crucifixes and genitals. The only window looks onto a cement yard and a dirty grey sky: there seems to be no horizon between the two. The bathrooms are on the north side. The door of the men’s cubicle has come off its hinges and is propped against the frame, barely concealing half the toilet bowl. There is a dense odour in the air. A policeman stands at the door, picking his teeth, spitting out pieces of wood or bits of food. Diego, waiting for his lawyer, has taken a seat as far as possible from the other prisoners, in a gloomy isolated corner. He’s wearing faded blue overalls, his stubble is flecked with grey, his fists are clenched. His throat is tight. The women open old ice-cream tubs filled with cold pasta stew, tough breaded cutlets and polenta with meat sauce; they bring out bananas, packets of yerba mate and tobacco, lemons and mandarins, soft-drink sachets. From outside comes a dry repetitive sound, a ball bouncing against a hard floor, while inside the voices grow, the volume and pitch rising. The world is a little worse in this place, Diego thinks. That man walking down the corridor, with his hair combed and slicked with gel, a burgundy tie and Ray-Ban glasses, that is Antinucci. The small scar above his right eyebrow, halfway between his nose and his hairline, looks as if it was made by a fist, although it must have happened a long time ago because the skin is tight and shiny around the mark. Although he isn’t ugly or old, that’s the

impression he gives; it’s hard to say why. His eyes are his most noticeable feature, large, bulging, pale grey and with fleshy lids. Sometimes they become smaller, flattening, narrowing until they are just two lines. Right now they are hidden behind the Ray-Bans, very dark in this half-light. He carries a briefcase that the guards don’t check. Ever. “In you go, sir.” “Thanks, boys.” Diego hears loud decisive steps, heels clicking along the corridor. He looks up and sees Antinucci approaching. It’s as if a military march is playing inside the man’s head. Antinucci greets Diego with a martial nod, and Diego observes the hand moving forward with a precise movement, like a switchblade. The lawyer takes Diego’s hand slackly; the is flaccid and cold, a jellyfish that es, touches and then goes on its way. Antinucci places his chair so he is sitting directly opposite Diego. He sits down and opens the leather case, takes out a folder, also leather, which he places neatly on the table. He opens it and extracts a few sheets of paper. The cartapacio, thinks Diego, as he recognizes the worn dark leather spine that he has already seen before, on another visit; the lawyer guards this folder the way he guards his own life, or the way he thinks he should guard his own life. The object makes Diego shiver. Who knows why? The lawyer’s Ray-Bans erect a barrier between the two men. Diego has no way of knowing where the eyes behind the lenses are focused. He doesn’t know if the eyes are looking at him or are attending to the precise ritual of laying out each individual sheet of paper, a pencil and a couple of ballpoints, blue and red, a mobile phone, an eraser – and a watch that he removes from his wrist and places behind everything else, propped up so it is facing him. Diego prefers to believe that the lawyer is not looking at him and he, in turn, avoids looking at the glasses; he avoids them the way somebody avoids a revelation he knows he will, ultimately, have to hear. Antinucci places the case on the floor, upright, perfectly parallel to the chair; he crosses his legs, takes a mint from his pocket and slowly removes the wrapper, pops the sweet into his mouth and folds the wrapper four times. “You’re a patsy,” says Antinucci, and he pronounces the word slowly as if savouring the way it sounds.

Without looking away, he puts the folded wrapper in a plastic bag, which he puts in his pocket; he takes out a pack of cigarettes and an expensive lighter; he lights a cigarette, takes a couple of drags and blows the smoke in Diego’s direction. The laws that forbid smoking in public spaces haven’t reached Guantánamo Bay or the jails of Istanbul. And they haven’t reached the prisons of Uruguay either. Silence settles between them, thrumming like an old engine. Diego would like to speak but the words trip each other up and refuse to come out of his throat. He looks at the policeman standing at the door, picking his teeth, spitting out splinters of wood or shreds of food or both. “And Sergio, your partner in Santiago Losada’s kidnapping, is living it up somewhere in the world with the cash he got from his victim.” He taps the ash onto the floor, well away from his case. “I said you’d be out soon and I wasn’t wrong. I’m never wrong. You’ll be out in a few days.” Diego thinks he should be happy, smile, stand up, pat the lawyer on the back, shake his hand or even give him a hug, burst out laughing, applaud. But he does none of these things because he doesn’t feel happy or even enthusiastic, he just feels a faint sense of relief, which comes over him gradually. The prison night gets inside you and no daylight, no good news, is enough to get rid of it, the way you’d get rid of a patch of dust on your clothes. He barely even feels relieved. “Bizarrely enough, the victim’s statement helped you. That’s right. Losada said just those words to the judge: that you were a patsy. That the other kidnapper, Sergio – who worked for Losada’s company, who fled with the loot – was the brains behind it all. He set you up, didn’t he? He left you waiting with the captive while he disappeared.” Diego doesn’t know what he’s expected to say. He stares at his hands while he tries to think of an answer to a question he doesn’t understand, and Antinucci goes on. “Listen to me carefully. Do you want me to tell you something? Losada even went so far as to say you weren’t a bad guy, that you treated him well during the kidnapping and that, in short, he didn’t come to any harm. And as the wife, a certain Ursula López, said she never received a ransom demand, the witnesses did you a favour.”

Diego extends his fingers, gazes down at his hands, and thinks – or guesses – that Antinucci’s eyes are looking him up and down, scrutinizing him, trying to get inside his head. “Strange, wouldn’t you say? Tell me something. Didn’t you say Sergio had convinced you to kidnap Santiago to ask his wife for money? So, when you realized your partner had taken off with the money Santiago had in his car, why didn’t you go ahead and ask the wife to pay the ransom? I mean, you were already at the ball, so you might as well dance. I don’t understand. Why hold the guy hostage for three days if not to demand a ransom?” He extinguishes his cigarette on the floor, on the other side of the case; he treads on it, crushes it, grinds it down with the heel of his shiny leather moccasin. There is an awkward silence. “Tell me the truth: did she pay up or not? Losada’s wife, I mean. Ursula, she’s called Ursula. Not a name you could forget. Maybe she kept it quiet to avoid getting into trouble with the law. Be honest with me. Do you know this woman or not?” The lawyer speaks, he asks questions, holding an invisible melon in his hands. Diego wants to say something, he hesitates, he keeps it in. Let’s just pause for a moment: there’s a lot to explore in that indecision. What’s happening to Diego? Fear, insecurity? It seems as if, for some reason, he can’t speak or, if he could, he wouldn’t know what version to tell his lawyer. Antinucci removes his dark glasses with a slow, pompous, theatrical movement, places them on top of the cartapacio, his opaque gaze fixing on a point somewhere on Diego’s face, and Diego feels an almost physical pressure between his eyes and nose. He sees that the lawyer is looking at him through narrowed eyes, like two slits. “Another thing I don’t understand is why the police didn’t find a weapon in the place you were holed up with Santiago Losada. Am I supposed to believe you and Sergio were unarmed when you kidnapped this guy? I wasn’t born yesterday.” Antinucci clicks his tongue, grimaces lopsidedly and continues to stare at Diego, who avoids his gaze. For a moment the world retreats, the visiting shed retreats.

Diego feels sick. “You’re not telling? I don’t care. It’s your business, nothing to do with me. This case won’t go any further: no custodial sentence, that’s what the committal document will say. Within a couple of years the judge will issue a ruling; maybe he’ll dismiss it, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Given the state of the legal system in this country… You need to get ready because you’ll be out this week. A few days and, God willing, you’ll be back on the street. Before that, they’ll take you to court for a routine hearing.” “A hearing? Who with?” “Ah, good, so now you talk. The hearing is with Losada’s wife. With Ursula, Ursula López. Pretty name, wouldn’t you agree? I like the sound of it for some reason. No, it won’t be a problem. Like I told you, she said she never received a ransom demand from you. I still have my doubts, but if you confirm that in front of the judge… Now just fill out the forms, sign the documents. Here. And here.” And what can he say to the lawyer? That he had a weapon and he can’t explain how the revolver disappeared from the shack where they were holding Santiago? That he asked Ursula for a ransom and the two of them ended up forming a strange partnership? That she offered him money not to release her husband but to do away with him? Nobody would believe that of the wife of a businessman like Losada, and Diego has no intention of accusing her. Ursula was good to him, and when he gets out he’s going to look her up and thank her. He tries not to think, he tries not to feel the pressure of Antinucci’s eyes between his brows. He raises his head, avoiding the scalpel gaze. He looks at the ceiling of the shed, at the walls, at the people. The prisoners’ wives are still arriving, with that stunned look – resigned, humiliated, freezing cold. The shed already smells of fried dough balls and damp clothes and houses with no shower. They settle down, occupy the chairs, drag them from one table to another, drink mate and talk loudly in their shrill voices. Over there, next to the door, the policeman is talking on his phone, mumbling, laughing, still picking his teeth: talking, spitting and picking away. Diego opens his mouth, just a little at first. “In a few days, you said?”

“That’s what I said. You can’t complain about my work.” “I’ll pay you as soon as I can.” “You’ll be able to pay me very soon, Diego. You’ll hear from me straight away, today or tomorrow.” Diego feels a shiver at the nape of his neck, a queasiness in his stomach, but now all that matters is to get out. A month inside, one month. He looks at the yard, the piles of dry leaves that the end of autumn has blown in from the woods. Santiago’s wife lied when she said he hadn’t demanded a ransom, she lied because she’s a good person. But still, it doesn’t fit together, he feels confused, he senses that there are guilty people and innocent ones in this story, and they don’t match those who are really guilty and innocent.

II

Many years earlier

She’s just a hungry, frightened girl, just a little girl standing in the darkest part of the corridor, her back pressed against the wall, her eyes closed, frozen. Her forehead, neck and hairline are beaded with sweat, her breathing is agitated, like when she runs or when she jumps rope at school, and her hands are trembling slightly. She’s just a girl and it isn’t an easy decision but she’s hungry, she’s always hungry. Finally she moves, she bends down, she noiselessly removes her patent leather shoes with their silver buckles; very slowly she places them on the floor and advances in silence, her white socks sliding across the waxed parquet, a little further, then she hesitates, stops in front of the door, listens, carefully pushes open the swing door and peers round. From the threshold she observes the familiar space, the large cheerful room, the sun filtering between the curtains, light bouncing off the oak table; she runs her eyes over the cupboards, the spice jars, the fridge. She looks at the fridge. She imagines what’s inside and her mouth waters. But she is also alert, she knows the housekeeper is taking a siesta in the servant’s bedroom, next to the kitchen. She listens to the woman’s rasping, deepening snores. She’s a hungry girl but her fear is powerful, she hesitates before deciding to desecrate the comfortable domestic order of the kitchen, to enter the forbidden territory, the dangerous geography, to enter a world that at once beckons her in and shuts her out, a world watched over by the housekeeper, the white-aproned woman who is asleep in the next room. She thinks about food day and night, when she wakes up and when she falls asleep, before sitting at the table, as she eats what the housekeeper or her father has put on her plate, and while she finishes the small portions and gets up, her cravings scarcely dented, still thinking about food. She thinks about it while she’s at school, while she’s watching television, while she and her sister, Luz, are

playing with their dolls. Luz is thin and is allowed to eat as much as she likes, but she barely even touches what she is served. Her sister is thin and her father says she’s beautiful, just like her mother. But as he says this he looks not at Luz but at her, and she feels right then that her body occupies too much space. She pushes a little more and enters, she’s afraid but she’s also so hungry, she hears the deep snoring and takes courage, takes one step and then another, then halts, alert to the loud, regular breathing; she decides, her stomach instructs her brain, she crosses the kitchen in slow steps, her toes resting gently, lightly on the floor, first one foot and then the other; two more steps and she’s standing in front of the fridge, her hand moves of its own accord, reaches out, approaches the handle, touches it indecisively, her gaze vigilant, she looks to either side again and again, her small hand covers the cold metal, grips it, presses, pulls. She is very hungry. She opens the door. She takes out a piece of chicken and raises it to her mouth, her teeth bite into it, rip it, tear at the meat, she swallows, bites again, one mouthful, two; she looks at the jar of jam, takes a piece of cheese and rolls it up in a slice of ham that she uses to push down the chicken; she chews, gulps, looks at the door, opens the jar of mayonnaise, inserts a finger and slurps with lips and tongue; she takes a chunk of potato and dips it in the mayonnaise, swallows, looks behind her, smears two fingers with dulce de leche; she smacks her lips, takes a meatball, some sauce, devours it, rice, another meatball, more sauce, mayonnaise, lips, teeth, the finger in the jam, sucking, slurping, tongue, fingers; she’s in a hurry and pushes it down, she looks behind her, at the door; another piece of chicken, which she swallows almost without chewing; something’s wrong, she eats faster, swallows more, plunges all her fingers into the sauce; palate, lips, teeth; slurps, swallows, again and again. This explosion of sensory and tactile sensations suddenly freezes, her fingers are paralysed, her tongue turns to stone, her lips are open. There is a discordant element, a sound; she hears footsteps in the corridor, approaching. She recognizes them, those footsteps. She listens. And trembles. She turns her head. The kitchen door opens smoothly. The man stands in the doorway and looks at the girl.

“Ursula.” “No, Daddy.” Her fingers descend and rub sauce on her dress, her sleeve tries to wipe her mouth free of mayonnaise, of jam, of gravy, of dulce de leche; she closes the fridge door with her body and leans against it, wishing she could sink and disappear forever into its misty white cold interior. “No, Daddy. I won’t ever do it again.” The man is tall and thin, wearing a dark suit and tie, his black shoes glinting fiercely. He holds a golden cigarette lighter in his right hand and has a steely gaze. “Come here, Ursula.” “I promise, Daddy.” She looks at the man, blinks, closes her eyes, tries to hold back the tears that slide down between the grease, the gravy, the sugar. She is familiar with the ritual of punishment and her fear erupts again, takes her by storm, overwhelms her. She takes a step, avoids looking at him, bites her lips until they blanch. Her room, her bed; her head is spinning. The kitchen is a bright cheerful place, the sun bouncing off the big oak table, around which are six chairs with red-andwhite-checked cushions that match the curtains. She looks at the squares, one red, one white, one red. “No, Daddy, please,” she whispers into thin air. She knows what will happen and she begins to sweat, the fear assailing her, paralysing her. She will hear the sounds she already knows, the slow creak of the soles on the floor; she will see the shiny black leather, he will take her by the shoulder and push her forward a few steps, walking around his daughter; she will hear the altered breathing, observe him make two, three turns. Daddy will take her by the chin, forcing her to raise her head; she knows he will cough to clear his throat. He will play with the lighter, the flame will appear and disappear, each time a little faster. She imagines, and her teeth chatter. Then he will say: It’s for your own good.

“It’s for your own good, Ursula. I have to correct your weaknesses.” The tears run down her cheeks, slide over the grease and fall on the dress stained with jam, with meat, with saliva. Her father stops playing with the lighter for a moment, delicately takes her arm, draws her close, raises her chin again, gently forcing her to look him in the eye. She raises her gaze no higher than his chest, then trembles and looks back down at the floor, at those shoes like black mirrors. Fear attacks her, pins her down. “Crocodile tears, darling.” “No, Daddy.” She begs but she knows it’s pointless, that all the pleading in the world won’t shake him. He isn’t listening to her; he pushes her lightly, leading her to the kitchen door, down the age to her room, to the bed with the pink chenille quilt and the teddy bear and the dolls, which he carefully sets aside. Ursula looks at the shadows that invade the room as her father closes the blinds and the shutters, bars them, draws the curtains with their pictures of fairies, seals every chink through which light might enter. Now all that remains – for just a few moments, she knows – is the triangle of light that sneaks through the gap in the doorway. “Okay, darling.” She lies down on the bed and trembles, she curls up into a ball. She tries to the prayers she used to recite with her mother, which only come to her mind when she is afraid, with that fear that invades her, occupies her, possesses her. Fear of what is about to come. “Please. I won’t do it again, Daddy.” She sobs. Through the tears she sees her father’s serious face, the lighter flame once again burning bright and then going out, clicking and exploding, his furrowed brow, the narrow, tense lips, his tall thin body, the black shoes that now, without the light, are just dark, opaque. She sobs, afraid of what is about to come, and amid the tears a bitter taste gradually forms in her mouth, the start of a sticky resentment that makes her tremble more violently. She hears other steps approaching from the kitchen, sees the silhouette of the

cook in her white apron against the small triangle of light. Ursula can’t see the face but she hears the panting breath and closes her eyes, anticipating the woman’s smile before she opens her eyes again and watches the shadow disappear. She trembles, she tosses and turns, fear and rage turning her saliva bitter, burning it, dissolving it. Her father, who on this sunny afternoon is still alive, removes the key from the lock, stops for a few moments, perhaps wavering; perhaps he might forgive her, Ursula thinks in a final glimmer of optimism, perhaps he’ll open the windows, let the light in and allow her to leave. Yes, she watches him hesitate at the door; Daddy is good and she doesn’t hate him, she’s just a bit afraid of him when she sees how tall and thin he is, the tallest, thinnest man in the world. “One day of punishment, Ursula; no light and no food. The darkness will make you strong, fasting will cleanse your body.” The black shoes, no longer shiny, creak on the wooden floor. The flickering flame of the lighter only illuminates his steely eyes. “Alicia will come before night to bring you water and take you to the bathroom. I’ll see you at eight o’clock in the morning. Your punishment finishes at eight o’clock on the dot.” Her father closes the door and shuts out the last fragment of this sunny day. Ursula hears the key turn, once and then once more. She still doesn’t want to look at the shadows that surround her; she curls up into a ball, sinks her face deeper into the pillow that is damp with her tears, and a voice whispers to her that one day somebody will have to pay for all this weeping.

III

In prison, everything is dense. Everything makes his heart pound and fills him with claustrophobia and it’s not difficult to understand why they call this place the tomb: dirty corridors where smells intermingle, huge dark rooms furnished with a few wobbly chairs and scabby tables, photos of naked girls tacked to the crumbling walls, and that clammy cold that sticks to the body, filling the empty spaces with fog. And there are the people. There are people here who are walking Chernobyls, carrying inside them a silent deadly poison that spreads every time they exhale, with every word they utter, contaminating whatever is in front of them with every act. They carry the germ of evil so everything they touch rots; even their breath, even their gaze, corrupts. Every time he sees Ricardo, Diego has the urge to flee, like a cornered wild animal. Now he watches Ricardo walk down the empty ageway towards him and he turns his head from side to side, although he knows there is no escape. Anguish and confusion make him dizzy and nauseous, sometimes he faints, and that’s the last thing he’d want to happen in front of the Hobo. The guy is chewing something. He smiles, shows the gum between his teeth, walks around Diego, almost dancing, like a boxer circling his rival, bobbing and weaving; he rolls up his sleeves, reveals his black tattoos, letters that spell out names, skulls with glowing eyes, red bloodstains gushing across his skin. He has the habit of bringing his mouth too close to the listener’s ear. “You’re fuckin lucky, Sparrow,” he whispers, chewing both gum and words, spraying his listener as he speaks. “You been lucky ever since you got here.” Diego pulls his face away slightly, just enough to stem his disgust. The Hobo smells of stagnant water, of rancid sweat, of stale sex. Diego holds his breath, then answers. “I know, Hobo. I owe you.”

The man spits the gum into the palm of his hand and stares at it. He talks without taking his eyes off the gum; he’s talking to the gum. “I already told you how it goes in the cell.” “I know, I heard you.” “The capanga handles the dough. He’s the boss; you give it all to him, he collects the rent, buys the coke, hands it out.” “I already gave him everything I had, I gave him every cent.” Ricardo pinches the gum between his fingers, which are fat like blood sausages, then he squeezes it onto the windowpane with his thumb, pressing it flat like a shapeless coin. “That’s what you gotta do, Sparrow.” “Of course, Hobo. Of course.” “And as you’re new, I’m gonna give you a tip: you’re lucky the capanga is shaftin the Candyman just now. But the Candyman ain’t gonna last forever. And you’re the new kid.” The Hobo looks up at the ceiling, sucks in air, purses his lips, pretends something is stuck between his teeth, removes it with his tongue. Diego capitulates, like he always does. “If you could give me a hand… I’d be grateful.” “You don’t get nothin in here by being grateful, Sparrow. I already told you. Luck don’t come free. You gotta pay for it.” The man shakes his head repeatedly, his hand moves towards his tro pocket, he places a cigarette between his lips, holds a light to it, and all the time he is shaking his head. “You gonna have to pay me, Sparrow.” “I don’t have any dough. I gave what I had —” “Don’t be an asshole. I told you nobody give you nothin for free in here.” Diego

feels the fear taking hold of the muscles in his face, contorting it into a grimace. “I don’t… I mean…” “You ain’t gonna look so big when you got cum all over your face. I don’t want your ass,” he says loudly, spitting in Diego’s ear. “You fuckin faggot. Don’t mess with me. Ain’t nothin to stop me draggin you into an empty cubicle right now.” The hand that holds the cigarette makes an obscene gesture then returns the cigarette to the mouth. He snorts, his breathing agitated. Diego tries to calm him down. “Cool it, Hobo.” “You set me off, asshole.” “What can I do? Just tell me what to do.” The Hobo is trembling like a rabid dog about to attack, his eyes glare red as if in a bad photo, seeking out Diego’s own evasive gaze. His tongue is like a caged animal hurling itself against his teeth. Suddenly he smiles and his face changes, he gently takes Diego by the arm. Hit by a wave of anxiety, Diego’s vision begins to mist over. “Was that lawyer I gave you any good?” Diego struggles to draw air into his lungs. “Yes, yes.” “Tell me.” “We’ve already spoken a couple of times and —” “Antinucci’s the best. You gettin out soon, ain’t you?” “He told me I’ll be out next week, that —” “So you ain’t gonna spend no time in here. I’m pleased for you, Sparrow. You got no idea how pleased.” Hand on shoulder, pat on the back, more smiles. The occasional laugh.

The Hobo has stopped trembling. This is what scares Diego the most inside prison, not the overcrowding or the promiscuity, not even the blows or the violence or the danger, but this arbitrary nature of affairs. The changing moods, the whims. The fact that nothing stays the same from one minute to the next. A schizophrenia of isolated events. A life at the mercy of men whose actions are driven by unbridled force. “When you out, you gonna pay me back. By doin a job for me. You get that?” “What does it involve?” “You chickenshit. Who cares what it involves? You owe me your life.” “Okay, Hobo, okay. No problem.” “That’s how I like it.” The Hobo pushes Diego without touching him, just with his gaze, and they walk until they reach a door that opens onto a courtyard, an arid freezing space, a concrete steppe where some dreamer or cynic has painted the white lines of a non-existent basketball court. To the right is a grey bench and just above it, protected by wire mesh, is a huge clock which always says half past five. Sitting or standing in a circle are a dozen or so men with rotten-toothed smiles, their faces scarred and pockmarked, all wearing extravagant cushioned sneakers. Their caps bear a well-known logo, and they wear them back to front in an act of aesthetic rebellion. They look like the results of a genetic mutation, a horde of soulless zombies about to sack the planet. “Hey there.” “Who you got here, Hobo?” “Sparrow. He’s with the Chief and the Candyman. He’s a friend.” “Hey, Sparrow. Gimme a phonecard, I’m out of credit.” “I don’t have one. Sorry.” “A card, a smoke, whatever you got, my friend.”

“Stop fuckin around, asshole. Didn’t you hear the man? Sparrow ain’t got nothin.” “Cool it, Hobo. He your boy, this Sparrow?” The men laugh – their teeth yellowing, blackened, greenish. They laugh with their open, gappy mouths, with their cracked lips and their fetid breath; they laugh with the imprecise, asymmetrical laughter of poverty. The Hobo pushes him again, a rough hand squeezing his shoulder. “I’m gonna explain, but over there so these kids can’t hear.” They walk towards the north wall, thirty yards or so from the nearest group. They halt. Ricardo still has him by the shoulder. He brings his face close to Diego’s, narrows his eyes and thrusts his head forward, like a turtle. Flecks of saliva fly. Diego half-closes his eyes, stops breathing. “Kid. I still see the mud roads in my village, I still smell the leftover bean and mutton stew. You know why I’m tellin you this, Sparrow?” “No.” “Yeah, how would you know? Because I had enough of bein poor. You get me?” “Yes.” “When I get outta here I’m gonna be rich. This is my chance; I want it to go right. There’s somethin big, very big, that the guys upstairs have already planned, and me and the boss need you to lend a hand.” It’s cold, but who gives a damn. Diego starts to sweat. He observes the tattoos, the pictures of bloodstains; he asks himself what kind of human being has corpses, blood and entrails inked onto his skin. He retches. He’s desperate to escape. He’s nauseous. “And what would I have to do?” “You such a chickenshit, my brother. I ain’t even started.”

“No, no. I’m just asking.” “Let’s go, Sparrow. Listen good, get your brain in gear.” “I’m listening, Hobo.” “We gonna take out an armoured truck. You just help them get away with the bags, that’s all. You’ll be on lookout; you grab the bags with the cash, and the same day you’re back home with the loot, no problems.” “And who’s organizing it? You? From inside?” “Don’t be an asshole. I ain’t got the tools for a job like that. Less questions. I’ll tell you who the boss is later. First, I’m gonna tell you where you fit in. Come closer, little prince.” The paw squeezes Diego’s shoulder even tighter, the mouth presses against his ear. He is invaded by the sickly heat of a rainy summer, although we’re at the end of autumn. “The Candyman was gonna help me but there were problems; the stupid prick fucked up.” “Fucked up how?” “With the money from the coke; he tried to cut me out. And I don’t take that shit. The son of a bitch is gonna pay for it, I swear.” Ricardo forms a cross with his thumb and index finger and kisses it. “I swear he’s gonna pay for it.” Diego nods. And trembles. He knows he cannot allow himself to faint. He feels an almost physical disgust that makes him squeeze his lips closed; dazed by fear, he leans against the wall. A freezing wind blows from the north and Diego continues sweating like it’s the middle of summer. At this time of year dark comes quickly, like in the tropics, like an eclipse. Like death. Far away in the capital, Captain Leonilda Lima shifts uncomfortably in her seat, attributing her unease to Saturn’s unfavourable aspect in Taurus today. The Hobo pronounces words that brook no argument; he raises his voice,

whispers the name of the guy at the top, asks, demands, and Diego accepts. A circle has just closed. Diego is sweating; he looks at the clock and re it’s always the same time in here.

IV

Ursula seems to have had a bad night. She has bags under her eyes and an expression that puts the neighbours off talking to her, puts them off even saying hello. She looks at the elevator, which has been broken or temperamental for years, and curses in a way that would be obscene if anyone could hear her. The elevator is out of order again, and at any other time this would just be a minor setback, maybe she’d postpone her outing or even cancel it, but today the setback becomes a tragedy because there’s no question of postponing; it’s already late, she’ll have to deal with the situation, walk down five flights of stairs and hold at bay the feelings of anxiety that arise when she thinks about having to climb back up those stairs this evening. She’s in a hurry but she doesn’t rush, she doesn’t race down the stairs but takes them one step at a time, planting first one foot and then the other, gripping the banister firmly, tightly even. No doubt she is thinking, as always, that her extra weight could cause her to trip or to lose her balance, to tumble and fall, rolling clumsily from floor to floor until she reaches the bottom. Perhaps she thinks that if she trips then her body will plummet, bouncing off the worn marble steps, her head smashing against the edges and corners of the bronze-and wrought-iron banister. Perhaps she even imagines the sound of soft flabby flesh hitting the floor, the sound a veal cutlet makes when hammered with a tenderizer. Maybe she sees her wrecked and bleeding body, finally still, forever still down there, in the hallway, at the end of its descent. Stair after stair, on her slow march she imagines curious ers-by peering through the glass of the entrance hall, their noses pressed against it for a better view of the spectacle, the red trail of blood on the marble, because people are morbid and nothing attracts an audience quite like disease or pain or death. Or sex. Her father’s voice warns her to take care when she’s going down the stairs: You’re fat, Ursula, with all that extra weight you shouldn’t exert yourself, your heart could give out. Don’t tell me that now, Daddy, I’m in a hurry, I’ve got lots to do. Look at yourself, Ursula, you need to do another slimming treatment, for

the good of your health. I told you to shut up, I’m in a hurry. And I’m not that little girl any more, Daddy. She shakes her head in annoyance and carries on down the stairs, carefully, one foot after the other; he knows, Daddy knows when to talk to her and what to say to make her soul shrink to the size of a lentil. We observe her pausing on the second floor, stopping as if to rest or to get her breath back, but then Ursula turns sharply and walks quickly over to the apartment closest to the stairway, number 201. The residents are a couple – students or bank clerks, she’s not sure. Silently, she touches the door, presses her face against the wood, first her cheek, then her mouth, then her ear. It seems she wants to listen to something. She stands quite still for a few moments, and we don’t think she’s heard anything: at this time of day, the couple in number 201 must have gone out a while ago. But she doesn’t give up; she tries again with her right ear and then again with her left, and only after a while does she let up. A little put out, she continues her descent, step by step. She reaches the final stretch, the entrance hall and, against all her own predictions, makes it to the main door safe and sound. From inside you can barely hear the nervous echo of the outside world: the roar of the Old Town is muffled, wrapped in insulating material, the racket is scarcely audible and this silence accentuates the almost womblike atmosphere of the building in which she lives. Every day for just over a month, Ursula López has followed a military routine: she sleeps, gets up at six, has a bath, eats breakfast, leaves the house, makes her way to the place where the woman lives, the other Ursula, and keeps watch until she sees her go out for a run. Sometimes she follows her, sometimes she just watches her disappear, sometimes she waits for her to return. All to a precise timetable that she implements every day, without fail. It is the timetable of her revenge. Today she walks down Calle Sarandí, hurrying the short distance to Plaza Matriz among artisans and tourists, yuppies wearing clothes that scream lawyer, ant, manager; among beggars with huge coats and misshapen caps, gay couples holding hands, diligent and carefully made-up bilingual secretaries, delivery boys, shivering prostitutes, uniformed teenagers. And as she walks among these people, she hears the cathedral bells tolling eight o’clock. Eight

o’clock on the dot. The sound causes her to halt, rooted to the spot, unsettled; the eight chimes of the cathedral remind her, as they do whenever she hears them, of the time at which her father used to open her cell door. Ursula knows she can’t afford the luxury of trembling; there are some things better kept in a wooden box, and that box should be kept inside another one, and everything inside an even bigger one made of iron, bound with steel cable and dropped to the bottom of the sea. One day she’ll have money and she’ll be able to move out of the Old Town, buy a house in Carrasco with a swimming pool and a maid and a fancy car and forget all about her past. Forget about Daddy, for example, leave that house with all its memories. Actually, if it wasn’t for that woman she should already have her house in Carrasco and much more. She feels the pull of hatred, of revenge. No, now is not the time: she’s afraid of getting lost in the labyrinth of her thoughts, and she forces herself to keep going. She enters the square. Today is one of those pale sepia days when everything makes you feel like crying. Despite the cold air, the nape of her neck is sweating, her armpits are already soaked and there’s a nagging pain between her ribs. Sebastián, the bookseller, the kid who rents out the garage where she parks her car, approaches from the opposite direction; he’s also in a hurry, they exchange a greeting, a friendly word, a complicit glance. He’s a good boy, Sebastián, he owes her some favours that he might end up repaying one of these days. Ursula hurries along Calle Sarandí, the city accompanying her like a ghost, she crosses the square without looking, turns right and continues like an automaton; she could follow this route blindfolded. She reaches Calle Bacacay, from where you can see the Solís Theatre and part of Plaza Independencia, but she doesn’t look. She turns, arrives at the same time as the bus that will take her to her destination, hails it and gets on. She doesn’t take her car, she doesn’t want to park nearby, doesn’t want to run the risk that somebody might recognize it; she’s thought about everything, even the smallest details, Ursula thinks, and nobody will be able to catch her out. She climbs on board and sits at the back, like always. At this time of day and travelling in this direction, there are hardly any engers, and the few that there are sit staring at their smartphones like idiots. She covers her face with a

scarf, her eyes with sunglasses, her forehead with a woollen hat. It will be a short journey; there’s not much traffic and she doesn’t have far to go, just fifteen or twenty minutes, then she’ll get off at the junction of Calle 21 de Setiembre and Ellauri, walk a few yards to Vázquez Ledesma, the street that runs alongside the park, and then a couple of blocks south towards the waterfront, but on the side with the buildings. Then she’ll cross over to Villa Biarritz Park, sit on a bench neither too far from nor too close to her target, inhale the fragrance of the vegetation – eucalyptus, carpet grass, oak, maritime pine, monkey puzzle trees, earth, dog shit – and she’ll wait until it’s time, until the main door opens and the woman comes out. The woman she’s waiting for will come out of her house, an apartment block almost in the “luxury” category, stepping through the door with its polished bronze frame and out onto the waxed marble beyond, before which she will have greeted the uniformed doorman in a tone somewhere between indifference and sarcasm, that slightly overbearing tone that comes from when she still lived in Carrasco, in a house with a swimming pool and a cook and a maid, and a big garden with exotic trees and two gardeners. The woman she’s waiting for will come out of her house after greeting the doorman, nimbly descend the stairs separating the shiny door from the street, dressed in expensive sportswear, her hair pinned up with a designer hair clip; she’ll check the time on her Swiss watch, adjust her headphones and cross the street, jog through the park at a gentle pace that Ursula will follow from a distance and with some difficulty, until she reaches the waterfront, where the jog will become a run that will separate the two women until the next day. Or Ursula will simply sit and wait as she thinks about how the woman promised to pay her the ransom for her kidnapped husband, Santiago, about how this traitor lied to her, about how she deceived her. She trusted the woman’s promises, she imagined a house, a car, a swimming pool, and now all she has is her anger. And who knows what Ursula feels today as she waits on this park bench from which she has been keeping watch for a month? Who knows what she feels in this repeated simulation of police surveillance, of espionage or detective work? What does she feel? What does she think? Because sometimes her brain doesn’t entirely belong to her and suddenly she realizes something is drilling away at it: her own rage, the unstoppable internal monster that roars at her, constantly reminding her of her betrayal by that other Ursula López, that other woman, her

namesake.

V

The image is strong, colourful, bright, as if taken from the cover of a magazine: the wintry morning light refracts as it es through the stained-glass windows and falls on the man kneeling on the prie-dieu, tinting his grey suit and his gelled hair, colouring his whole person red, blue, violet and yellow. Autumn is nearly over and it’s very cold outside. On the walls to the right and left are representations of the Via Crucis – of the Stations of the Cross, to be more exact – and holy music that might be Bach drifts over the pews and aisles and altars and floats up to heaven from the parish church of Las Esclavas del Sagrado Corazón, on Calle Ellauri. Antinucci is performing the penance that Father Ismael imposed on him just a few minutes ago: one Lord’s Prayer, one Hail Mary and one Gloria in exchange for God’s forgiveness for taking His name in vain and for having three unclean thoughts about the secretary at his law practice. The shafts of morning sunlight that enter through the stained-glass windows on the east side don’t bother him because his eyes are shut, squeezed tight. He prays conscientiously, lost in his act of contrition and oblivious to his surroundings, feeling neither heat nor cold. When he recites his prayers he forgets about everything and isolates himself from the iniquitous sinful world outside; he keeps his head down, his eyelids closed, and doesn’t even hear the muffled footsteps of tardy believers, the ones who always arrive at the last moment, just before Father Ismael steps up to the altar in his chasuble to celebrate Mass. Not many people attend the seven o’clock service and they acknowledge one another with a slight movement of the head, their lips forming an almost straight line; just the trace of a smile es between those who enter on tiptoe and those who are already seated. Antinucci finishes his prayers and crosses himself in an expansive movement that goes from the crown of his head to somewhere down near his navel and from his left shoulder to his right. He looks up and sighs, exhaling the pent-up air, expelling the sins he has now paid for, relieving himself of the final traces of guilt, which he releases with his breath. Then he fills his lungs with fresh holy

air, with the smell of incense and purity. His image, which a few moments ago was multicoloured, is now almost golden as a result of the sun shining through the yellow glass. If one of the faithful were to notice him – unlikely, as each is concerned with their own sins – perhaps they would assume the lawyer is an archangel or a prophet or at least a saint, or that his state of grace is beyond that of a normal human being. That being said, nobody appears to perceive the changing play of the light that now casts a supernatural aura around Antinucci and which, like so many daily miracles, goes entirely unnoticed. Now free of sin and having completed his penance, paid the price he deserved, Antinucci gets up and takes his seat on the pew. He smiles to himself, undoes a button on his grey suit, pulls his tro legs up a little and sighs again. He feels good, comforted in his guilt, part of the flock of good Christians; he knows the Lord is his shepherd and he shall not want. In fact, he wants for nothing, nothing at all. He looks happily at the images of the Stations of the Cross with which he is so familiar: the Son of Man is carrying the cross, he falls to the ground exhausted, three times. And he saves his favourite image for last: Christ resurrected, beautiful and whole, luminous and full of vigour, reprimands those who searched for him in the tomb. “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!” Father Ismael enters and, despite the sunlit church interior, the lights are turned all the way up, the music becomes louder and the liturgy begins, with Antinucci listening in a reverential attitude, his forehead tilted slightly back, although he is paying scant attention, lost in his own thoughts. Only the Eucharist prayer, half an hour later, will shake him from his self-absorption as he prepares to receive Christ. He moves his lips, murmurs a few ritual words, keeps his thick eyelids more or less closed, and then stands up and s the line to take Communion. And he will do so as he has done since his childhood, free of any conflict with the hermeneutics of the continuity of tradition and two millennia of teaching, just like before the Second Vatican Council, because this is not one of those churches with Communist priests, full of Tupamaros and leftists, one of those where not just the priest but any of his helpers may place the Host in the hands of the faithful. No. In the church of Las Esclavas del Sagrado Corazón, the Host will be given by the priest and placed directly in the believer’s mouth, to avoid any possible blemish to the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Antinucci stands up, walks towards the nave, his eyes lowered and his arms crossed over his chest, takes his place at the end of a line of three or four old ladies, advances slowly while keeping his distance, waits his turn and takes Communion. He returns to the exact spot where he was sitting before, kneels with his head bowed between his hands, and prays until the Host dissolves in his saliva, prays until not one crumb is left, until he cannot feel a single particle in his entire mouth. He searches with his tongue, checks his palate, his gums, the gaps between his teeth. There is no trace of the body of Christ. He sighs, comforted. A few minutes later, he leaves the building with its smell of incense and disinfectant and goes out into the even more intense cold of the street, ready to face the world. Outside, Antinucci is surrounded by beggars with pale faces and outstretched hands. He hurriedly distributes some coins, averts his gaze from the beggars’ faces and walks towards his car, parked a hundred yards down the street. He feels free of sin, he looks content and at peace. The sound of his phone shatters the beatific moment. He brusquely takes the device from his pocket and looks at the number. His hitherto relaxed face goes tense. “Hello. Yes, yes. I told you I want everything ready for next week. Which bit don’t you understand? It’s time, we can’t wait any longer: do it as soon as possible, without delay. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. I also told you to include Diego. Yes, confirmed, he gets out in a few days. He owes me and he’s going to have to pay off his debt. The Candyman wasn’t happy? I told you last time, I’m sick of him: do whatever it takes.” He ends the call. He opens the door of his Audi A6 and gets in, caresses the upholstery, breathes in the smell of the material – at this point, we might ask whether this man has some obsession with leather – then starts the engine, turns on the sound system and the music gently rises. Vivaldi’s “Miserere” soothes him, fills him with peace, returns him to his state of purity.

VI

He has struggled to get to sleep, to expel the permanent tension of his waking minutes, to soften his nervous body; he has struggled to allow himself to be carried away by the exhaustion of so many sleepless nights, waiting, keeping watch, spying; he has struggled but now he feels himself falling into a warm dark abyss. In slow motion, he falls into a hole, feels himself leaving the other bunks behind, the doors with their iron bars, the sound of the guard’s footsteps, all the horrors he has seen in prison and all those he fears are still to come. It’s taken him a lot to relax, to match his breathing to his heartbeat, and now his mind gradually succumbs to drowsiness, enveloping him in a mild torpor that faintly, ever so faintly, resembles tranquillity. Although the news of his imminent freedom has plunged him yet deeper into terror, Diego finally surrenders to sleep. Just as he’s about to drop off, he is startled by a noise that is almost nothing, merely a faint scraping sound that could be an insect rubbing its wings or a hand brushing against something rough. He opens his eyes but can’t see anything in the dark cell. He listens, emerges from the sleep he hadn’t completely fallen into, holds his breath. Prison is full of unexpected noises and incidents. He was sure he heard something near his bunk but now even that certainty has abandoned him; the senses play nasty tricks when sleep and fear are involved. He raises his head, turns his neck, tries to break the darkness. Nothing. He rests his forehead on his arm, his only pillow. He feels cold, tries to cover his neck but it’s futile, the blanket barely comes up to his chest. No, he wasn’t dreaming; the sound has come back, footsteps – yes, footsteps, there’s no doubt – slide past, not so close to his bed this time, and advance along the far wall, behind him. The universe of familiar night-time sounds crumbles. He tries to think how long it is until dawn. He knows the answer: in here, time has been cancelled, it no longer exists.

He tenses his muscles, fingers the shiv Ricardo gave him, grips it and gets ready. He lies quite still, breathing as silently as he can. He turns over, lying face down so he can monitor the darkness behind his head. The noise advances slowly, still some way from the bunks, sticking close to the back wall; sometimes it stops and then starts again, as if pulling itself along. The sound moves effortlessly through the darkness, staying far from the sliver of light that enters beneath the door. Diego, still unable to see anything, catches a new acidic odour, something that was not present during his hours of insomnia, a whiff of unknown perspiration, unwashed clothes, a smell that moves in time with the sound it produces, that skirts around him, that takes on strange resonances in the silence and the gloom. Now he can feel the tension in the other bunks, restrained movements, muted breathing, fingernails scratching on metal. He can even hear the ts of the other men’s bones. He remains immobile and alert, he tries to calm himself, he can’t allow himself to be carried away by desperation but he imagines bare feet, dark dirty fingernails, fierce eyes in which you can glimpse violence or stupidity or misfortune. Outside, the wind is starting to blow; he shudders, he’s cold, he covers himself as best he can and grips the shiv with both hands, as if trying to squeeze juice from it. The footsteps become faster, they sound closer and louder, implacable, nearby, at his side, almost above his bed. Diego sits up and the movement causes his blanket to fall to the floor. He wants to shout, to stand up and run but he can’t; a sense of vertigo paralyses him, renders him mute. The rectangle of light from the door illuminates a small patch of wall to his right, just enough for him to see a shadow-puppet hand wielding a dagger. He wants to jump, to flee, but he is pinned to the mattress by panic. A terrifying cry echoes around the cell. The shadow hand rises and falls rapidly, it falls five, six times, then falls once more. An awful scream, then another, nervous mumbling, laboured breathing followed by an icy silence that lasts for many seconds.

There are footsteps in the corridor, hard boots pound on the hard floor, a bolt clangs, the door opens, there is shouting, the lights go on. Diego closes his tender eyes against the blinding light, the shouting continues. “Everyone against the wall, everyone against the fucking wall!” Diego smells something acidic, metallic, he opens his eyes, slowly, just a slit, nearby he sees the puddle of blood, an arm hanging down, a limp hand, a lifeless torso. He hears the murmurs. The Candyman, it’s the Candyman. “Get up against the wall,” a guard says, and he points at Diego, strikes his ribs. He gets out of bed, walks a few steps and feels the hot sticky liquid on the soles of his feet, working its way between his naked toes. Diego pulls back in horror, in disgust. In a moment of lucidity he erases his prints, looks for a hole, any hole, and slips the shiv into a crack in the wall. He stands with the others, looks at them and sees eyes like jaws, dark and narrow – anxiety, fear, bitterness – so turns his gaze to the leprous walls, corroded by the dampness; he tries not to look at the light from the torches, not to remain motionless, to move as he is ordered. Vertigo. Everything is spinning. What did the Hobo say about the Candyman? Diego tries to the words, feels himself falling. “Out, everyone out and with your hands up. You too. Move it you fucker, come on, out.” There are six guards, and the sound of boots in the corridor tells him more are on their way. He staggers out of the cell, everyone exits together, a uniformed gang advances down the corridor: guns, helmets, batons, shouting. Candyman, they killed the Candyman. The whisper es from mouth to mouth. The prisoners move with an arsenal of weapons pointing at them, they are pushed and beaten, pressed up against a wall where they are kept immobile, huddled, trembling with cold and fear. Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, a few miles and several light years from this place, Ursula López is just beginning to wake up in her house in the Old Town.

Here in this world, in the prison, Diego sees the red prints left by his bare feet. He feels the blood congealing, starting to form a crust on his heels. At least this time it wasn’t his blood.

VII

Captain Lima opens the file, leafs through it absent-mindedly, takes another sip of the coffee that is already somewhat bitter by this point in the afternoon, reads a few paragraphs here and there, sighs or yawns. Lost in other thoughts, she turns a couple of pages, raises her gaze and looks outside at the vista of sootcovered walls beyond her office window, thinks about her journey home, the walk along cold dark streets, tries to recall the contents of her fridge. She lowers her gaze and strives to concentrate on the case, to continue with her reading: interrogations, psychiatric evaluations, lists of phone calls, statements, police reports, fingerprint analyses, photographs, paper, paper and more paper. This wasn’t what Captain Leonilda Lima had expected when she ed the force, this wasn’t the life she wanted but, well, we never get the life we want. Back in the beginning there had been hopes, desires, dreams gradually left by the wayside, projects that came to nothing, but life never turns out like we imagine and the captain, now a little past forty, has known that for a while, even if it doesn’t stop her hankering after what she’s never had. She’s not exactly pretty. She has a slight squint and her wavy hair never seems to be quite where it should be, but what is a pretty woman, anyway, other than a bundle of ideas and preconceptions? She is beautiful in her own way, with her lazy dark eyes and their yellow flecks that gleam like those of a cat, and her somewhat unruly hair which moves as if it has a will of its own. Apart from that, her body is normal, standard size, no obvious defects. In other words, she would be considered pretty or almost pretty if our tastes weren’t conditioned by such unrealistic aesthetic standards. This life is not the one she imagined, and she seeks comfort in her work, the language of the reports makes her feel in her element, protected, calm. Words like suspect, accused, crime, victim, corpse, firearm, sharp implement and exit wound shelter her with their familiarity, make her feel useful, needed, make her think she’s doing what needs to be done. She likes wading through this paperwork, sprinkled with technical and

acronyms; in this familiar bureaucracy she feels like the tarnished but honest heroine of a moral fable, the mediocre woman who has to hack her way through the maze to reach the tower of the evil wizard and bring him to justice. Leonilda Lima may feel disillusioned, may have witnessed plenty of acts and attitudes that make her feel disappointed with life and even with her profession (and she will surely witness more), but she believes in Justice. With a capital J. On her third coffee, she finally manages to concentrate. She goes back to the beginning and reads the first reports, simple sentences full of she recognizes, hints she decodes, questions that challenge her to find an answer. You might imagine the specific details of each case would disturb her routine because they require her to think about everything each time, but although she feels pleasure at recognizing those words and she loves her routines, Captain Leonilda Lima prefers to avoid procedures which, through repetition, become mechanical and devoid of intelligence. Yes, she loves the routine of her work, but she focuses all her faculties on what she does and exercises a degree of independent judgement, a fact that will be of no little importance for the reader’s future comprehension of this story. She reads late into the night, takes notes, organizes her thoughts using the standard techniques and a few tricks she has invented herself and, by the time the clock has ed ten, she has an overview of the case and has even come up with a plan to take the investigation forward. The captain is no longer in the grip of the bad mood that descended when she was given this minor case, an affair which until yesterday had been in the hands of Captain Leonardo Borda, who suffers from chronic haemorrhoids and has been itted for surgery first thing tomorrow morning. Also gone is the disappointment she felt at not being assigned the case of the killer nurses, those angels of death at Maciel Hospital who appear to have been responsible for helping dozens of patients, perhaps even hundreds, into the afterlife. This evening she has been getting to grips with the murder of Juan Carlos Lencina, alias the Candyman, an inmate of Santiago Vázquez Prison, and she now feels the familiar enthusiasm as she tackles a file that, so far, is just a question, an accumulation of facts with no apparent logic or explanation, to which she will have to find a solution or acknowledge failure and it she has been defeated by a superior mind. She turns to the next page in search of photos, reports, statements, evidence; she

sees that a brutal murder has been committed, that there is a blade that has not been found and, above all, there are too many complications in play. A mind, Leonilda thinks, in the end there’s just one mind in which the idea of any crime appears for the first time. And she has to find that person: that’s her job, identifying the real culprit hiding behind all this verbiage. The captain looks at the photos taken at the scene. A cell, bunk beds, a corpse punctured by stab wounds, mattresses, floor and walls dyed red: quite simply, a bloodbath. She reviews the victim’s record and sees he has no known profession; he appears to have ed himself by picking pockets on buses, mugging old ladies, stealing things when the owner was looking the other way. Nothing special. She doesn’t have the sense that the corpse in this photograph was that of a big-league gangster; rather, this mass of bloody flesh looks like it belongs to a petty criminal. Leonilda thinks she sees rage and perhaps evil in this case, a chicken thief who was stabbed to death in a cell packed with men who supposedly were asleep, an act as risky as it was savage, an act without apparent justification, one which would have needed a whole rosary of complicity for the perpetrator to get away with it. Leonilda asks herself why a man like this could have met with such a violent death. Jealousy, money, envy, revenge, sex. Rage.

VIII

Half past two in the morning. Ursula’s window is slightly open, the curtains are drawn, the blind is halfway down; the room is dimly lit and she has just placed the telescope on the tripod she assembled a moment ago. Five floors below, a taxi rumbles along the cobbles of Calle Sarandí, a homeless guy drags a rattling shopping cart over the irregular surface, a stray dog limps by, trailing one of its hind legs. She observes them from her watchtower, a sentinel in her improvised observation post. Improvised? Not exactly. It’s no coincidence that she is here at the window at this time of night putting the finishing touches to her lookout station; it’s not the first time and it won’t be the last. We ought to talk about why she can’t get to sleep, why she gets up in the middle of the night, what she is furtively searching for right now, but to do that we’d need to delve back into the distant past, which isn’t possible. Ursula doesn’t like digging around in her memories; even with her analyst she is unable to do that. For her, spying on her neighbours goes through three stages. First, the bad mood triggered by this inconvenient situation of closing the blind, dimming the lights and setting up the telescope that she takes out of its hiding place and which she will have to dismantle and put away again later. Second, the feeling that comes over her when she looks into other people’s lives, the unchecked arousal. And finally, the sense of guilt at having done something wrong, the remorse that arrives at the end, the certainty that she should not cross this boundary again. But she knows, how well she knows, that her remorse is no more than crocodile tears, that she will do it again, that she will always return to spying and regretting and then spying again. But let’s be patient: we are still finishing the first stage, the one where she is in a bad mood because of the work and the inconvenience. The telescope is assembled and in place but Ursula hasn’t occupied her vantage point. She turns out the final light, places the chair with precision, settles herself neither very close to the edge of the seat nor leaning very heavily on the

backrest. She aims the telescope, adjusts the range controls of the German device – a Carl Zeiss Jena inherited from her father – and focuses; she no longer sees the things surrounding her: this gloomy room with obsolete furniture, the display case with the Japanese figurines, the embroidered tablecloth with its faded colours, the slightly worn Persian rugs, the table covered with medicines, the yellowing family photographs sitting on the marble tops of chests of drawers, the walls darkened by the age of time, her whole house. Adjusting the instrument, Ursula flies a hundred and fifty yards, ing through the window of a well-lit room with which she is already familiar. In this space, everything is clean and light and uncluttered, everything is modern and complete, the room is painted white, there is a pair of brushed metal lamps with halogen bulbs, some black-and-white photos, a couple of designer armchairs and, in the centre, an enormous square bed. White. She halts when she comes to the couple who are in the middle of their bedtime ritual. The scene is simple and predictable: she undresses and puts on a nightdress, he undresses and slips between the sheets. Once in bed, each takes out a book, reads, sometimes they seem to speak. Ursula waits, ten minutes , twenty, she begins to lose hope. This is the worst part; the waiting feels eternal, and there is no certainty that her patience will be rewarded. They might just put down their books and turn out the light. Ursula watches these people she doesn’t know, who barely move, watches them turn the pages, adjust an arm, tug at the blanket, take a sip from a glass of water. She has observed other couples in her life: many, truth be told. She hates thinking about it. Even more than that, she hates repeating it and knowing she will repeat it, she struggles every day to repress these memories and above all to repress the impulse, and for long stretches of time she is successful. But sometimes there is something like a glimmer, a spark that becomes a fire, and off she goes and sets up her telescope or stops in front of her downstairs neighbours’ door. Ursula has known where to look for many years. There is a small warning that her wait is over: the woman puts down her book and, instead of kissing the man on the cheek and turning off her bedside light, she strokes his hair and then strokes him again, beneath the sheets. The man puts down his book, turns to her, moves the sheets aside, strokes her neck and kisses her ears. Ursula breathes heavily, following the feline movements of the man and the woman as they touch each other; she watches as one of the nightgown straps

falls, she closes her eyes, sighs, opens her eyes again. She watches them lick one another, imagines each taste, each texture, she can smell the musk of their sweat. She pants. The two have commenced their mating ritual, the man is sitting and she is on top of him, they rock rhythmically, the woman’s head is tilted back and, squatting, she moves up and down, up and down. At a precise moment, Ursula stops breathing, and the only thing that exists is the image the telescope offers her. And then the image is gone, and it is just her.

IX

This man who is gripping the steering wheel, his foot pressing hard on the accelerator, his teeth clenched, is Antinucci. He’s flying down Route 8 in his Audi A6 with its new-car smell, driven for the first time last week. It must have cost him a truckload of money, although nobody can really imagine how much he paid to have it brought over from in less than a month, upholstered in the most expensive leather. He’s obsessed with the stuff, as we were saying. His briefcase (or, as he calls it, his attaché), his cartapacio, the armchairs in his office, the surface of his desk; if it was up to him, we suspect he’d cover everything in leather. He’s listening to Dvorak’s New World Symphony and drumming his fingers, tapping the steering wheel in time to the music. On the dashboard he has erected a small altar, very discreet: a couple of images of the Virgin Mary, a St Christopher his mother gave him and a rosary of mother-ofpearl beads that hangs from the rear-view mirror. We’ve already talked about his appearance, about his obsessive neatness and his somewhat old-fashioned martial air. When he listens to music and feels at peace, from the expression on his face we imagine him growing old in his lawyer’s office; however, we can’t help suspecting that the small scar on his forehead, which might have been left by an unruly branch or the edge of a piece of furniture, was in fact caused by a fist. Perhaps his eyes are his only truly disturbing feature: too large, bulging, with their excessively fleshy lids, almost always hidden by his Ray-Bans, which he says he wears because he suffers from photosensitivity. He’s been driving along Route 8 for two hours in the rain; he’s already stopped at the roadside four times to smoke – two cigarettes an hour, he calculates – and at this thought he feels the urge to stop again, but he can’t because the rain is getting heavier and he can’t see anywhere to pull over and light up without soaking his grey cashmere suit and his shiny Italian leather moccasins. His withdrawal symptoms are making him anxious, causing him to put his foot down; he doesn’t want to go back on his decision not to smoke inside the car, which still smells of the new leather of its upholstery. This smell drives him crazy with delight, we think.

Antinucci wants to give up smoking, he wants to give up cigarettes, he detests his vice, his weakness as he calls it. Hypnosis, acupuncture, addiction treatments, he’s tried everything; he’s spent a fortune on doctors, healers, pills, patches, needles, he’s tried a thousand ways of giving up smoking but he fails time and time again, returning to this filthy habit that makes him hide, that fills him with guilt, that stains his teeth a disgusting yellow so he has to visit the dentist once a month, despite the fear it inspires. He re his next dental appointment and checks his mouth in the mirror, curling his upper lip to reveal his teeth, contemplating the microscopic sepia-coloured particles, moving his head and contracting his mouth in a rictus of disgust, of bitterness. Antinucci diverts his gaze and his thoughts elsewhere. He checks his watch for the second time in five minutes: he has time to spare. He brushes an imaginary speck of dust from the digital display with a blue background that shows the speed in huge numerals, and he settles back into the first-class plane seat, thinks about the comfort and luxury of his car, tries to convince himself of his good fortune, but his lungs continue to cry out, demanding smoke, asking for nicotine. The miles and he can’t find so much as the roof of a bus shelter, not even a tree with thick foliage that could protect him from the liquid inclemency that falls and won’t stop falling. He curses and immediately repents, he must not to use the foul language of his defendants and occasional partners, for God is Everywhere and Omnipresent, and He hears everything. Antinucci touches his fingertips against the white beads on the rosary which hangs from the mirror, says a short prayer and returns his attention to the road. He slows down, he gradually slows down, he was doing well over a hundred on this empty road. At first, we might think he has simply ed his duty to drive safely and that he is faithfully complying with it, but we soon see that’s not it: he has slowed down to make a sharp right turn onto a local road. There’s no question of going fast on these ten irregular pothole-ridden miles of stones and sodden earth. The lawyer is not in a good mood; he’s afraid of getting his gleaming new car bogged down in the mud, he’s annoyed when he thinks that this evening, when he gets back home, there won’t be time to have the car washed, that he’ll have to put it in the garage covered with all this filthy sludge. The idea of keeping something dirty in his house puts him in a bad mood, it irritates him, and the

irritation gives him heartburn, causing his lunch to repeat on him and making him aware of the acidity of the wine and the aftertaste of onion and garlic. The garage, its floor polished last week, is as clean and orderly as an operating room, but tonight it’s going to accommodate all this mud and grass and dung. A Cessna light aircraft flies overhead, starting its descent. He has just turned off the main road, we were saying: he stops the vehicle at a gate, opens the car door and gets out quickly, looks at the sky, the clouds, the Cessna, resumes or intensifies the grimace we saw a few moments ago when he was checking the nicotine stains on his teeth and, despite the pouring rain, lights the cigarette he has been holding between his fingers for the last ten miles and breathes in deeply, looks at the grey sky again, inhales the smoke, contemplates his black moccasins, mutters something through his teeth. Antinucci thinks about how he comes out into the countryside a lot and that he should have a pair of boots in the back of his car, a raincoat, a tarpaulin; he walks a few steps and opens the wooden gate, splashes his way back, and the expression on his face is unquestionably one of fury. Standing next to the Audi, he carries on smoking for a few seconds under the persistent rain. Then he opens the door, starts the engine, and drives through without bothering to stop and close the gate behind him. There is nothing but countryside, soya fields and forestry plantations, woods of eucalyptus and pine in the gentle rolling landscape of rural Uruguay, the odd acre of wheat, one or two fields with animals which, from a distance and in this rain, could be horses or cows, could even be camels. And, a bit further off, what we’re interested in now: a landing strip which is barely more than a track from the road to the houses of the farmworkers, three hundred and fifty yards of poorly flattened earth which, during the rainy season (like today) becomes imable even for four-wheel drives. Despite this, the plane that was flying overhead a few minutes ago manages to touch down and taxi to a halt without any difficulty, coming to a stop near the houses and sheds. The one who does seem to be in difficulty is Antinucci, who is stranded halfway along the track in his Audi A6 with its smell of shiny new leather, sinking into the mud which covers part of the wheels and is now threatening to reach the door. At that precise moment he gets out with tense, rapid movements, a furious expression on his face and the eternal unlit cigarette between his fingers. In the distance, a tall thin man alights from the Cessna and leans against the fuselage to

drink from a can or a bottle; he is calm, he drinks and he waits, resting against the plane, as if he doesn’t care about getting soaked. Another man, a whitehaired giant in the clothes of a farmworker – boots, baggy bombacha tros, cowboy hat – comes running across the field towards the stationary car. “Good afternoon, sir,” he shouts, still more than thirty yards away. “Bring a tractor and get me out of here, Eugenio. And make it quick: I need to go back to Montevideo in half an hour. Come on, Eugenio, hurry up.” “The tractor’s broken, sir. I told you the last time.” “Jesus —” Antinucci interrupts himself. We already know about his religious convictions and we’re not going to labour the point. Father Ismael can judge his behaviour tomorrow, not us. He looks at his moccasins again, and at the hems of his tros, which are covered with mud. He restrains himself, he doesn’t want to blaspheme, Holy Mother of God. He regrets the whim that led him to bring his new Audi instead of just using a pick-up truck, all so he could test out the car’s performance on the open road. He talks quietly, pronouncing each word separately, sliding them between his teeth, chewing them, spitting them out. “You’ve got fifteen minutes to get me out of here. Okay, Eugenio?” “Yes, sir. Should I bring the Toyota?” “Bring whatever you want, but move your ass. And that guy, standing over there as if he had all the time in the world? Does he think I’m going to wade through this mud to the plane? Tell him I’m off.” The labourer hurries away without another word. A truck appears from somewhere and approaches the Cessna; words are exchanged between the pilot and the labourer and boxes are unloaded while Antinucci, who has returned to the shelter of his Audi, watches as he compulsively drums his fingers on the dashboard, raises the unlit cigarette to his mouth, looks at his shoes and the hems of his tros dripping onto the new

floor mat. Ten minutes and the labourer returns in the vehicle we saw earlier, and from the back he takes out a steel cable, a large box that appears to be very heavy and a long thin box. The aircraft starts taxiing again, takes off and flies away. “Get me out of here, Eugenio. And then put everything in the back.” “Yes, sir. Don’t forget to leave some money to fix the tractor.” The man in bombacha tros and cowboy hat attaches the cable to the Toyota and then to the Audi, gets back in, starts the engine, puts it in gear to pull the car out: huge quantities of mud are churned up, inevitably splashing the shiny black waxed paintwork, the gleaming windows, the iodine headlamps, the alloy wheels. Finally, Eugenio manages to get the car out. He jumps down from the truck, and the boxes are ed from one vehicle to another without a single word being exchanged. That night, when Antinucci’s car enters the garage, it’s a pitiful sight. He doesn’t even want to think about it; he has a shower, eats supper. After ten, he goes back down to the garage, looks at the state of his Audi A6 and – with great effort – takes the two boxes from the back, puts them down to catch his breath, stands up and shakes his head: by tomorrow the mud will have dried and the grime solidified, and it will be easier to clean. He drags the boxes to the kitchen and opens the larger one first. He takes out four SIG Sauer P226 pistols, checks them, feels their weight; next come the four Parabellum magazines – a hundred 9 mm bullets each – and he smiles faintly, for the first time today he smiles, he seems satisfied; he takes out the two Calico M960A sub-machine guns with their helical magazines, 750 rounds per minute, and his facial muscles contort into an expression that appears to be one of happiness. And finally, in the other box, the night’s real star: the RPG-7 grenade launcher with anti-tank rounds, which he takes out with care, almost reverentially. Antinucci sighs and looks at it in wonder. He tries it out, rests it on his shoulder, imagines the hole it would make in steel armour-plating up to two inches thick;

he caresses the barrel, polishing it with his sleeve. To think that the boss didn’t want to send it to him, he said it was too much, but here it is, resting in his very hands. This one is for him, he decides. He brings it close to his face, smells it, licks it, removes a fragment of nylon with his tongue. He touches his lips to the metal. At the bottom of the box all that is left are ten plastic bags, 100 grams each, white, absolute top quality. He smiles, gradually showing his teeth. 750 rounds a minute, and a kilo of high-grade coke. He stretches his lips until they become tense strings which frame his nicotine-yellow smile.

X

“Take off your clothes,” the policeman orders. He’s tall and fat, with the neck of a Russian doll. The uniform is tight at his stomach and his arms. “Come on, take your clothes off, all of them. Turn around.” The room measures six feet by six; it has a low ceiling and no windows. It’s a wooden cubicle. There are distant sounds: a rat scratching, a man coughing, a car braking, tyres squealing. “Turn around, quick,” he repeats. “Bend over, a bit further, a bit further, that’s it.” Diego obeys the order and touches his toes so his buttocks are pointing upwards, towards the fat man’s greasy hair. Silence, a few moments of hard, interminable silence. From outside comes a damp smell, a smell of cold morning, of reheated stew; a smell of absent dog. The fat man tells him to stand up. Diego stands up. The fat man tells him to get dressed. Diego gets dressed. “Perfect,” the policeman says. “Let him through,” he shouts to his colleague, who is picking his teeth at the door. “Take him to the car.” Then, to Diego: “Get on with it. Quick.” Diego comes out, still buttoning up his shirt. A couple of guards – bored faces, cigarette butts in the corners of their mouths – take him outside and put him in the car just like in a crime movie. “Watch your skull,” says one, and shoves him in. “Hurry up, sit in the middle.” The guard keeps the door open and, before Diego is even fully inside, gets in too and slams it closed behind him. Checketen, checketen, blares the radio, pumping out cumbia beats. Diego slides along the seat, hunkers down, a policeman at each side. “Nice and easy, eh, that’s the way we like it.” He squeezes himself into the narrow space between the two men’s shoulders, his legs pressed together, his arms by his sides, walled in between two bodies. He searches his memory, looking for a series or a movie. He’s sure he’s watched a thousand scenes like this, the criminal being taken somewhere in a patrol car, between two cops, and while Diego racks his memory for the scene – not the one happening just now but another, more colourful, brighter and, above all, more enjoyable scene because he is looking on from outside – and tries to block out the deafening noise of the music pounding out of the loudspeakers, checketen, checketen, but it’s hopeless, he can’t do it, and he remains stuck between the

bodies, with the music so loud it’s distorted. He can’t . In the end, he thinks about how shabby this shot would look in a movie, thinks about the details of his faded dirty shirt, his worn-out shoes, battered and stained, the grey stubble on the cheeks of one of the cops, the black fingernails of the other one. Reality is always messier than fiction and, we suspect, that’s why he prefers the latter and is trying to recreate it. The car starts. Diego barely sees the prison buildings go by, one after the other; he hardly sees the barred windows with clothes hanging to dry and faces looking out, the grey of the cement, the plastic bags fluttering in the sad landscape. We suspect we know why he closes his eyes when they stop at the control post, why he squeezes them shut. The guy on the right gets out and all he can hear are voices, laughter, a little distance away another radio with other music that seems like the same music, the noise of metal clanging, doors opening, chains being removed. He closes his eyes tight, we were saying, squeezes them as if soldering his eyelids shut to defend his thoughts, his dreams, the fiction he now manages to or to imagine. We don’t want to be too hard on him, he’s our character after all, but we know Diego has never had much talent for coping with reality, and this moment is no exception. With his eyes closed, he no doubt wants to escape from the closed space of the car, crossing the frontier between the prison and the world, and maybe that’s why he opens them shortly after the car moves off and leaves the prison buildings behind. Now they are driving past shacks: there are motorbikes, bicycles and people arriving on foot from the bus stop, loaded with bags and packages, who will soon be standing in line to go through the prison checks. Diego observes the scene but imagines others, he wants to get away from all this and begins to slip into that state of sadness and isolation with which we are already familiar. He swallows down a mouthful of bad breath and saliva. The car heads for the city centre, first along Route 1, then through the Cerro, around the shanty towns on the edge of the city, before hitting the port road, past the builders’ yards, between the towers of shipping containers, the water to the right and, to the left, the glass and concrete of the Palacio de la Luz and the train station. Diego thinks about the route, trying to avoid specific thoughts, and for a brief moment he manages, but he can’t keep his emotions at bay: since he woke up this morning he has oscillated between dejection and despair, aware that

nothing good can come of this piece of legal theatre which could have been lifted from an American movie, this hearing with Ursula, the wife of the man he kidnapped little more than a month ago. Just over thirty days ago, and so much has happened that he already struggles to recall the details. Everything has become vague, it seems old and shabby, like a sepia-toned melodrama, something that occurred in another era and in another place. He thinks about the time since he returned from Spain, the plans he made with Sergio to abduct Santiago, the day of the kidnapping, the hideout, the ransom they demanded from the victim’s wife, Ursula, and the final betrayal by his partner. The story seems distant, alien, with the exception of the strange relationship he struck up with the victim’s wife. He asks himself if it’s true that she once suggested becoming partners or if he just imagined it. Dejection, we were saying, despair, hopelessness; he is overcome by a rising sense of imminent disaster, a flashback of rapid images, of partial ideas, of mistaken beliefs, sometimes mere sensations such as the resentment he feels towards Sergio or his bewilderment at Ursula’s behaviour. And he thinks about her a lot. Soon they’ll be facing each other in a courtroom, and he asks himself for the umpteenth time why she said she didn’t recognize him and had never heard his voice and had certainly never received a ransom demand for her husband. He asks himself if she wanted to protect him and he doesn’t understand, but right now Diego doesn’t understand much. The policeman sitting on his right is sending text messages, tapping them out at the speed of sound then waiting as if on standby, motionless and expectant, his eyes glued to the screen, turned to stone until the notification pings him back to life and everything starts again. On the patrol car radio, the music is still playing, cumbia or salsa or some fake version of both, nobody can tell the difference anyway. Diego would like to move through the city without any sounds to disturb him, he’d like to escape, of course he would. Who doesn’t want to escape, from prison, from routine, from reality? He wishes he could go on a journey, if only in his mind, without the sounds that tie him to the car. But it’s always the same: everyday reality never matches our dreams. His ears are ringing and he asks (in a very low voice, ittedly; he’s shy and will still be shy when we come to the end of this story) if they can turn the music down, but nobody seems to hear him because he doesn’t even elicit a stare, a contraction of the facial muscles, not so much as a blink from either of the two policemen who are guarding him.

Diego concentrates. Trying not to listen to the noise or to inhale the cigarette smoke, he focuses all his energy on capturing the landscape, the morning sun, the slightly wet road and even the river–sea smell which insinuates itself through the closed windows; he makes an effort and manages to see himself in the near future, free again, and he enjoys the idea, at least for a moment. But, as happens so many times a day, he falls once again into a state of dejection – the bitter memory of Sergio, the betrayal, his own failure – and he is overcome by the anguish of someone caught unawares, the harsh pain which comes with the discovery that he has fallen victim to a trick. And he re Ursula, that enigma he is unable to solve. Why did she lie? Now he is going to come face to face with her, he wonders if she will stick by her original statement. The outside world is a provisional stop between now and freedom. Another phone goes off and the policeman on the left shoots out his right arm and buries his elbow in Diego’s lower back with a movement and a degree of strength that Diego finds hard to believe are unintentional; the cop grinds his elbow around until he takes out the phone, not before repeating the dig with a Neanderthal force that Diego has already learned to endure without complaint. They have left the countryside behind, crossed a beautiful wide river and entered the city. Diego sees the glow of the refinery towers and the trail of grey smoke. Now the car is driving along the port road, it speeds past the brickyards and turns left. The journey ends in a street in the Old Town, just thirty or forty minutes after it began.

XI

Ursula has few memories of her mother. The face of a vaguely friendly if somewhat absent woman, a slack face with a lost look in her eyes, a young face trapped inside another older, more tired one, a lifeless voice, cold white hands which sometimes, very occasionally, touched her, brushed her cheek, her forehead. She has lost the memory of her mother’s voice, perhaps because she didn’t hear it often, because her mother didn’t talk much or didn’t talk to her or talked when she wasn’t listening. Nor does she recall any of her mother’s habits, what she ate for breakfast, the clothes she wore, what she did when she was at home or where she went. But she does her mother’s face, although she wonders if those features come from her memory or from the photos with which her father later filled so many spaces around the house, occupying corners and other places where his slender wife had scarcely cast a shadow in life, spaces he conquered for a dead woman. What she does retain, though, is an olfactory memory, the delicate grassy aroma of Heno de Pravia soap, the scent of wild herbs accompanied by the more personal smell of her clean body; and the stench of disease which came later, of medicine and sweat and urine. “I don’t want to die.” Sometimes she re a long hot summer, a time they would normally have spent at the beach, but that year the whole family stayed in the apartment in the Old Town – her father, her sister Luz, Auntie Irene and her – all talking in whispers despite the blazing sun outside. The windows were closed and they shut the doors behind themselves silently as they tiptoed in and out of darkened rooms. She re the smell of white jasmine that the man with the basket brought every Saturday without fail, a sweet odour for the first few days but with a hint of decay and death before the flowers were changed. “I don’t want to die.” She re, sees herself standing beside a bed in a huge room that her father closed up and which remains locked to this day; she re the high ceiling and the glass teardrop chandelier, the white imitation ivy of the mouldings, the

solemn curtains, the baroque images of saints and virgins, the mothball odour of the velvet chairs, the white bedspread with its smell of laundry soap, the rugs redolent of the dry cleaner’s, and the tang of antibiotics mixed with the Heno de Pravia scent given off by her mother’s body. She re the nurse, a fat blonde woman who wore her glasses on a gold chain, who would remain still for hours and hours, her elbows resting on the windowsill and her gaze fixed on cars and pedestrians, like a melancholy bride; she re the woman taking her mother’s wrist, checking her pulse, looking at her watch and then placing her mother’s hand back on the white bedspread, resting it carefully on the ribbed fabric, turning slowly towards them, looking at the father, meeting the girl’s gaze and sizing up the fear in their eyes. Her mother was lying in the bed, her headscarf had slipped towards her right ear and her hand made no move to adjust it, as it had on so many other occasions. “I don’t want to die,” she had shouted just a few minutes earlier, and Ursula had heard her from outside, had opened the door and gone in, had seen the nurse take the woman’s pale sick hand, put it back gently on the white bedspread, had seen the nurse turn to her father and to her. Between the two velvet curtains she could just see the lights of the cathedral coming on, lights appearing in windows, on street corners, in the row of buildings along the waterfront. The traffic of the ending day, the voices of people fleeing homeward; all the noises of the world sounded distant, muffled, fragmented behind the wooden shutters and the velvet curtains. The world was so far away that inside the bedroom you could even hear the furniture creaking. Auntie Irene entered just then with a basin of water scented with lavender and English cologne, and soft music was playing somewhere, perhaps a folk song on the transistor radio in the kitchen. The universe stopped and the scene was fixed in her memory like a photograph: the nurse sweltering in her starched uniform, her glasses hanging from a chain, resting on her chest; Ursula’s father standing in front of her, his blue summer jacket with gold buttons, astonishment in the angle of his eyebrows; Auntie Irene’s hand bejewelled with bracelets and rings, grasping the basin of water that would never be used; and her, Ursula, a sad girl who can smell the fear and the starch and the death. A photo, a painting, a watercolour in pale tones which disintegrates when the nurse clears her voice and makes the announcement that brings an end to the macabre silence. These remnants from the past are hers, they are her memory, the part of her

mother that Ursula carries inside her. Not the photos her father rushed to place around the house or the anecdotes her sister Luz tells; they are the trace that remains in her memory, only hers, because she is sure nobody else recalls all these smells. And here she is, much later, in this same house and surrounded by all the same old things, with the memories that come to her mind, wishing she could sleep all night long, wishing for dreams shorn of the past, of memories, of the future. Before she started killing, she thought her victims would smell of lavender and starch, that they would look into her eyes to get the measure of their own fear, and those nights she was unable to sleep despite the Somnium, lying on her back in a cold sweat.

XII

Imagine the waiting room of the Criminal Court. No, it’s not one of those court waiting rooms you see in American television series, painted in subtle colours and austerely decorated, furnished in dark polished wood, with thick carpets that silence the footsteps of grey-suited lawyers and prosecutors and judges, those neatly combed and clean-shaven agents of the law. There are no wide corridors or sunlit rooms here, no burgundy curtains or libraries with hundreds of volumes bound in green English leather. No, none of that. In here, the first thing to hit your nose, even before you are inside, is the smell of caged animals. Before you see the row of red or orange plastic chairs – the colours have faded and the difference no longer matters – before you see the walls with six layers of bubbly paint, pale blue and beige and green, before you walk past the brownish damp stains, before you even come out of the iron elevator lined with Formica and then with plastic, the smell knocks you flat. The place reeks of humidity and unwashed bodies. It’s the smell supermarkets hide at the back, in the part of the store protected by no entry signs: the smell of abandoned houses. The outside world would wrinkle its nose if it entered this place, where prisoners wait for hours and days for their turn to listen to questions, for somebody to write down their answers, to be informed of their sentence, to hear the word that represents the frontier between being outside and being inside. There are no windows, no skylights, no transoms, no reference to the light of the outside world, no with the street other than the dark arrogant chill that rises up the stairwell. The tiled floor has been partially torn up, exposing blobs of cement beneath; cobwebs and cigarette smoke stain the aqua-green tones of the ceiling; and the metal door of the elevator, once brown, displays the names of hundreds of suspects, carved into it with the tip of a key or painted on with nail polish. If we walk down the narrow, poorly lit corridor, if we enter the waiting room of

Criminal Court Number 4, we will see Diego, his elbows on his knees, his head resting on the palms of his hands and, just like in the patrol car, a policeman sitting at either side. At least he is no longer being tortured by cumbia – no music is allowed here, regardless of the style – and the guards, just for a change, are captivated by their phones, their eyes glued to the screen, sending and receiving messages, notifications going off, shooting down Martians and eating dots with their Pac-Man. Every now and then they take turns to go out and smoke, returning with another smell that mixes with all the other odours. They don’t talk to him or even look at him; they scarcely communicate with each other. Pay attention to the elevator door. Just now it is opening and two more policemen emerge, in their custody a grim dishevelled man. Diego recognizes the walk. The group enters the room and the policemen nod at their colleagues then tell their prisoner where to sit. The Hobo obeys, dragging his feet, his head bowed, collapses into the chair, falling so the row of red-or-orange seats shifts backwards with the impact. The cops sit at either side, as the regulations no doubt stipulate. For a moment, the man looks at Diego, their eyes meet, there’s a spark, scarcely a glimmer, and then they lose themselves again, each attending to his own business. Within a few minutes, the new arrival seems to have fainted or to have fallen asleep. Observe the arms which emerge from his rolled-up sleeves, arms covered in black tattoos: letters forming names, skulls with gleaming eyes, red bloodstains gushing across his skin. Beneath the tattoos the muscles are knotty, like those of a featherweight boxer. Diego, who has learned more about tattoos these last few days than in the rest of his life, knows the skull is San La Muerte, the saint of death, and that the guy who seems to be asleep made him a promise that he will keep, whatever the price, even if it costs him his life. Let’s be careful. Better not look too long at the Hobo; if he wakes up we don’t want to be looking into those eyes, filled with enough fury to give you nightmares, as Diego knows so well. Diego forces himself to look away, focusing on random details in the room, a single broken chair abandoned in the corner, the dull uneven tiles, the locked brown wooden door which leads to the offices. He is unaware of it, but his face has gradually turned grey in the last few minutes as if due to some lethal alchemy; the bags beneath his eyes look larger, darker. We don’t know what he’s thinking about just now – maybe today’s hearing with Ursula, more than a month after that meeting at Bar Tasende. Or maybe he’s trying to think about nothing.

The door that leads to the offices opens, a threshold to the outside world. Diego looks up to see a woman with a document in her hand, her mouth red and greasy with cheap lipstick; he hears her say his name and surname with her open rounded lips. She waits for him to get up, shows him through, then closes the door. The policemen, who looked up for a moment in case they were about to receive orders, go back to chasing dots with Pac-Man. The woman leads Diego down a corridor, a dozen yards or so, closed brown doors to the left and right, the ageway illuminated by cold, low-energy bulbs, the sad lighting of a public restroom or a butcher’s shop. They halt in front of the last door; the woman opens it, signals to him to go through. Diego obeys. Let’s not ignore this fact: based on what we’ve seen so far, Diego always obeys. Inside, Antinucci is waiting for him, sitting in front of a man who Diego assumes must be the judge. The office is small and the surface of the desk is messy and chaotic; sitting on top of a pile of objects and papers is an open file that is no doubt his. A young woman, maybe the secretary, distributes coloured prisms on the screen of a computer which disproves the notion of planned obsolescence. She doesn’t take her eyes off the image, she hits the keys frantically, seeking to block, accommodate or turn the falling prisms and, as she performs this impossible mission, the woman shifts left and right, forward and back, as if she were just one more rectangle in the game. Diego hesitates, unsure whether to walk forward or remain standing, and neither the judge nor Antinucci have looked at him or given any sign they are aware of his presence. He wipes the sweat from his forehead with the palm of his hand; he’s nervous and dazed, anxious and confused, as if he were hungover and had tried to remedy it with too much caffeine. He remains motionless until the woman who brought him here applies the lightest of touches and points to a chair, whispers some words to the judge, answers a couple of the judge’s questions, picks up a piece of paper and leaves. “Well, look who we have here. Your Honour, let me introduce Diego Palacios, Santiago Losada’s kidnapper.” Diego finds Antinucci’s familiarity even more inhibiting than the judge’s forbidding expression. He expected to find himself talking to somebody

unremarkable, your typical pen-pusher, a meticulous and unimaginative of justice, but this man has hard, round features, intelligent eyes, the kind of presence that arouses love or hatred. The desk is lit up by rays of sun and Diego catches a glimpse of a document, on the cover of which Statement of Ursula López is written in large letters. “Please sit down.” The judge looks at him from beneath his bushy eyebrows, closes a file and allows the hint of a smile to appear on his face, then turns back to the lawyer and picks up the conversation, the interruption of which Diego is apparently to blame for, a conversation full of references to laws and verdicts and prison . Diego sits down, kneads his fingers one by one, looking at them as if trying to memorize their every detail. From outside comes a discordant noise, a racket, voices getting louder until they become shouts, the sound of metal furniture being dragged along and falling to the floor, doors slamming. Everyone has looked up: there’s an attentive expectant silence. The judge stands up behind his desk, hesitating. The door opens and the woman who brought Diego here comes in again, still holding the piece of paper she was carrying when she left. The judge looks at her and drops back into his chair. She slams the door shut behind her, takes four strides across the room, and leans forward over Judge Lancia. She whispers nervously, leans away, observes the judge’s face to see the impact of her words, and the judge looks at her, whispers words of his own which, from afar, sound like questions, and she doesn’t reply, she just shrugs. They carry on looking at each other for a few more seconds. Judge Lancia is no longer whispering; he sits up straight in his chair, then stands up, almost leaping out of his seat, looks at the woman and appears to be restraining a desire to grab her by the arms and shake her. “What did you say?” he shouts. The woman is silent for a few seconds; she knows it creates a theatrical effect. The tension rises like a spiral of smoke, wafting up like the smell of incense – or shit. “Ricardo Prieto, who had been brought here to make a statement, has just escaped from the waiting room.”

Antinucci, who until now has been sitting still, his right leg crossed over his left, both hands resting on the judge’s desk, takes his phone out of his jacket and looks at the screen, puts it away, looks for the packet of cigarettes, extracts a cigarette and holds it, unlit, between his fingers. Judge Lancia exhales through closed teeth, scratches his cheek with his middle finger, looks at the woman and waits, stonily, his face like a mask. She shakes her head, she has nothing more to add. The judge makes for the door. By the look of how this hearing is shaping up, there seems to be no way of avoiding disaster. From the door the judge looks at Diego. “Ursula López informed us she is unable to attend today, so the hearing is suspended until further notice. I’ve already signed your release papers.”

XIII

El Reportero

RICARDO PRIETO, ALIAS THE HOBO, ESCAPES!

hoodlum houdini on the run

A felon came up with an escape plan worthy of the best crime novel. The murder he committed several months ago made the front pages of the press, and his disappearance from the Criminal Court is no less newsworthy. After evading the guards who had escorted him to the bathroom, the prisoner managed to disappear from the waiting room at the court, where he was due to be questioned in connection with a homicide. The alarm was sounded seconds later and a search of Calle Rincón and the surrounding area was undertaken, but the dangerous criminal had vanished into thin air. The police continued to look for the fugitive late into the night, undertaking an exhaustive search of the entire neighbourhood before finally itting defeat. Prieto, no doubt with the help of numerous accomplices and a getaway vehicle, must already have been spirited away to a safe house, far from the scene of his disappearance. Before the end of the day, with Montevideo’s Old Town still reeling from the search for the hoodlum Houdini, the chief of police, Inspector Darío Clemen,

arrested one of Prieto’s escorts after he confessed to having facilitated the escape in return for the sum of 10,000 pesos, which was found concealed beneath the seat of his moped, parked on prison property.

XIV

Hey, Skinflint, long time no see. Have a good time in the slammer? And now you’re out again? I’m delighted for you. How long you going to last on the outside this time? Pray to the Virgin, to Oshun, to any other saint you can think of. You’re going to need them all if you want to keep the cops off your back. I’ve got what we talked about: one, two, three, four, five. Go on, count it. The five grand you asked me for, it’s all there, okay? No, I can’t get you a motorbike. I’ve kept my word, now it’s your turn. No, no, no. None of this Chichi stuff. I’m not one of your lazy-ass girlfriends, you call me Captain Lima, you got that? Or Madam, if there’s anyone else around. But who’s going to hear us in this shithole? Not even the rats come out here at this time of night. So go on, spit it out. What news have you got about our fugitive, the Hobo? I’m in charge of this investigation now because Captain Borda’s been under the knife, so whatever you’ve got had better be worth the dough I’ve just handed over. And dragging me all the way out here, Chrissake! Couldn’t you have found somewhere better for us to meet? I already told you not to call me Chichi. It’s Captain Lima. Or don’t you understand Spanish? Fine, let’s get started. So, the Hobo’s plotting something in the barrio? I thought as much. And where’s he holed up? I need an exact location, that’s what I’m paying you for. Of course. I didn’t think he’d be in the same place the whole time. His mother’s place? Not exactly original. I know, I know. He always comes and goes at night so we can’t pick him up, even with a court order. You lot know all the tricks. But what’s new? I could have worked that out for myself. Don’t try my patience, I don’t have all night to listen to you. And what do you know about the murder of the Candyman? Yes, kid, that’s my case too. Was it him? Was it Ricardo Prieto? The Hobo, I mean. That’s what everyone suspects. You don’t know? So tell me, Skinflint. Do you really not know anything? Quit messing me around. What the hell did you bring me out here for? Make an effort, think, use your damn brain. The Hobo. We’re talking about the Hobo, about Ricardo Prieto. And about the murder that happened a few days ago, when you were still inside. You only got out a couple of days ago, on parole, , and you could be back inside tomorrow. Yeah, you don’t know a thing, but let’s just imagine it was him. He must have had some help on the inside, because someone managed to get rid of the shiv he used to kill the Candyman. Who do you think got rid of the blade? On the phone, you

told me you knew something. Have you forgotten? Speak up, you slacker, I can’t hear you. What? You reckon there’s a lawyer protecting him? Are you sure? That’s not the answer I was expecting. Well, there’s never much to choose between defence lawyers and their clients. You got a name for me? Antiruchi or Anticruchi, something like that. Fine, check this guy’s name, but I’m depending on you and you owe me. Or have you forgotten already? I’ll wait for you to confirm the information, and if you don’t then I’ll come looking for you in a car with the sirens blaring and in five minutes every cop in Montevideo will be on your ass. Now, what about this juicy tip I’ve paid so much for? Otherwise they’ll put me through the mincer for pouring police money down the drain. Yeah, you told me the Hobo’s planning a big heist. Out with it. This is what I want to hear about. A big hit. How big? An armoured truck. Jesus Christ! He doesn’t mess around, this Prieto guy. And he’s looking for people? What kind of people? I’m guessing he won’t recruit just anyone; taking out an armoured truck is no kids’ game. A cash truck, full of dough – and with guards armed to the teeth. You should see the weapons those guys pack. Nobody wants to mess around with one of those things. Let’s see. And if you sign up, Skinflint? Don’t be chicken. Of course we’d give you guarantees. What else do you want? No, you won’t get hurt, kid. Just the crew and me the info, that’s all. No, I don’t have a cigarette, I don’t smoke. A kiosk, around here? Why on earth would there be a kiosk? There’s nothing here. I told you, I want you there at the heist, you sign up and as soon as you’ve got the info you get in touch: where, when and how they’re going to do it. Yeah, I know it won’t be easy. How much do you need? I’ll have to ask, but I’m sure I can get twenty grand. Forty?! Are you out of your mind? I might even get you a second-hand bike, let me speak to my boss. We’ll be in touch. Yes, you deal with the Hobo. Get him to put you on the crew; you’re not short of experience. And as soon as you know anything, call me on this number. I’ll be waiting, so don’t mess me around. Every jewel has its value. Let’s go.

XV

The woman enters her home and closes the door. The voice behind her is so quiet she’s not sure if she’s dreaming. “How’s it going, babe?” She stands motionless, facing the door, the key still in the lock, her hand still on the key, and after a moment of silence she is still wondering if the voice is real or has emerged from the depths of her nightmares. She turns the key slowly, feels the vein in her neck pulsing, her hands getting clammy. Memories come rushing up and she tries to push them away, but from the darkest corner of the room she hears the voice again, dispelling any doubt. “Man, ain’t it good to see you again! Come here.” Mirta leans back against the door, feels the s digging into her ribs, her clothes beginning to stick to her skin despite the cold. And she re back to that afternoon, siesta time, sex with Ricardo, the horrific denouement, the police, and Miss Irene’s corpse. In the gloom she can only see his outline, the sketch of a man; she doesn’t want to look at him, and his words have made her forget to turn the light on. The key shakes in her fingers. She makes an effort to stand still, she’s afraid she’ll slip and fall in her high heels. “Cat got your tongue?” She manages to turn the light on: he’s there. She moves away from the door with difficulty, walks a few steps, feels her legs tremble, and stops in front of Ricardo. She tries to breathe normally and looks up. She looks at him, for the first time she looks at him. She speaks in the quietest of voices. “How did you get in?” “I learned a few things recently. New skills, let’s call them.” On the low table, next to where he’s resting his boots, is a half-empty bottle of wine; he picks it up, takes a swig, then another. “Like how to pick locks, for example. And it

looks like you got some new skills too. Judging by this place.” The woman observes him laugh, deep lines spreading out from the corners of his eyes. He’s older. And crueller. He takes another drink from the bottle, lets out another laugh. The woman looks at the bottle; she sees – or thinks she sees – the reflection of her turquoise silk blouse. She observes his rings, his stubble, the tattoos she hasn’t seen before; she holds in her fear and disgust. He laughs for no reason, sticks out his tongue, displays a piercing, makes an obscene gesture. One of the rings is set with a large blue stone. Another finger has a plait tattooed around it. “When did you get out? Are you on parole?” Mirta can hardly speak. He doesn’t answer; he swills wine from one cheek to the other as if it were mouthwash. “What do you want, Ricardo?” “Please tell me what you want, Ricardo!” His voice imitates hers, but higher. The mockery is chilling. He lifts the bottle, takes a swig. “Where you get posh wine like this from? Seems a bit pricey for a maid or a cook. Or ain’t you a maid no more?” “It was a gift.” “Yeah, right. Just like them French delicacies in the kitchen, the furniture, this place.” He leans forward and puts the wine on the table, banging the bottle down so red liquid trickles onto the floor, staining the cream-coloured rug. Ricardo doesn’t seem to care; Mirta watches the stain while its edges expand, forming a red cloud. “Who killed the old lady, Mirta? Was it you?” She looks at him in terror and hesitates before responding. It is as if the words she has been carrying inside her all these years are starting to take form in her throat.

“You’re crazy. You were always sick in the head.” “Was it you who killed the old broad?” “You know it wasn’t me.” “So who was it, then? Did the bogeyman kill her and steal the fuckin ring while we were asleep?” “I don’t know, I swear.” As she says it, her eyes return to the red stain, which now looks like a map of Uruguay, the middle dark, almost black, the edges a lighter red, the borders imprecise. Mirta repeats: “I swear I don’t know.” “Don’t fuck me about, bitch.” Ricardo puts down the bottle and stands up suddenly; he grabs her shoulder and forces her to raise her head. He runs a finger over her neat eyebrows, tracing the edge of her kohl-rimmed eyes. “And don’t laugh at me, you fuckin whore. You don’t know me no more; you don’t know who I am now.” “It wasn’t me. I swear I’m telling the truth. I’m not laughing, I don’t feel like laughing.” “So? What do you think? You must have an idea.” “I don’t know, Ricardo. The gun had your prints on it. I thought it was you. That’s what I heard, that’s what I read in the papers. Nobody told me anything else.” “The revolver had my prints because I picked it up from the table by your bed. I handled it, turned it over a couple of times, pretended to fire it. I was high. Didn’t you see me playin with the gun?” “No, I didn’t see a thing. I went to sleep after we had sex. I don’t anything. That’s what I said at the trial, and it’s the truth.” “So you told the truth, you little whore?”

Ricardo grips her tighter, traces the lines of her face with a rough finger; he lifts her skirt and pulls at the edge of her underwear, his hand invading her, the rough finger poking, probing. He presses his face against Mirta’s. “I always liked your ass. Turn around.” “Please, Ricardo.” “I ain’t Ricardo no more. I’m the Hobo. And you’re just a whore.” She tries to push him away, tries to escape his hand, his finger. The smell of wine makes her feel dizzy and nauseous. She evades his mouth, which is assailing her face, pinning her down. She retches in disgust. She struggles, pushes him, gets free, moves away. “Leave me alone.” “Keep still, you piece of shit. Don’t fuckin push me.” The order is accompanied by a blow to the cheek. The ring with a stone catches Mirta’s cheekbone, breaks the skin, causing a few drops of blood to run down her face, and she tastes it at the corner of her mouth. She obeys and keeps still. He grabs her hair, pulls her head back, lifts her skirt up roughly, rips off her blouse; a turquoise button flies off and lands on the floor. He removes her lace bra, pinches her nipples. “You like that?” He looks like the cat who got the cream; she doesn’t look at him, her eyes are on the floor, on the turquoise button. “Fuckin bitch.” Ricardo turns her over and paws at her, opening and closing his hands on her soft flesh; he undoes his fly and thrusts himself into her, grunting behind her for less than a minute. He finishes, releases her, pushes her away, walks over to the armchair and sits down, his tros halfway down his legs, picks up the bottle and drinks. “My first fuck since that afternoon. With a woman.”

He breathes heavily and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He seems satisfied, although we don’t know if it’s because he’s sated his desire or because he’s put Mirta in her place, or maybe he’s killed two birds with one stone. He pulls up his tros, closes the zip, stands up. “And now let’s get to work, Mirta. Time to check out this story.” “I told you, I don’t know anything. Leave me alone.” “Shut up. Tell me who inherited the old woman’s money.” Mirta is still putting her clothes back on, trying to do up her blouse with one button missing, fumbling with the skirt, her fingers shaking; she hasn’t managed to cover herself up yet. “Talk. I can do much worse.” He says it in a sing-song tone that is meant to sound friendly. She tries to think what she should say. “I don’t know. How would I know that? Nobody tells the maid about their legal business.” “Of course you know. You’d known your boss for years. She have any kids?” Mirta shrugs. “No kids. I guess the money went to her nieces.” He studies her closely. “That pair of bitches. My lawyer said they gave statements against me at the trial.” “So you know them.” “I saw them come in when I was waiting to be questioned, but I don’t their faces. One was fat, I that. You don’t have no photos?” “No. And they weren’t in court?” “Don’t be a fool. It ain’t like the movies here. You don’t see nobody. I hardly even saw the cheapskate public defender they gave me, he screwed up the case. I hope he rots in hell. Lucky I got the best in the business now: Antinucci.”

“That’s good.” “You said they got the old woman’s money?” “I don’t know a thing, Ricardo. I guess so. I didn’t see the nieces again. But they were Irene’s only relatives, so I guess they inherited the lot.” “Names?” Mirta hesitates. “Luz and Ursula López.” “Addresses? Phone numbers?” “I haven’t got anything. That’s all I can tell you. Look them up in the phone book.” “Ursula and Luz López, you said? I bet those bitches will be in the book.” “Yes: López. I don’t know where they live, nothing else.” “Those whores didn’t just frame me for killing the old lady. They set me up for stealing a ring I never saw in my goddamn life.” “Irene’s ring? She always had it on, I . It was special. White gold, with a diamond the size of a pea.” He listens to her, notes down the names on a cigarette pack, drinks what remains of the wine, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand again. Before he leaves, he observes the expensive designer lamp, the white armchairs, and he smiles. He goes out, leaving the door wide open. In the street, he takes out his phone, keys in a number, waits. “Mr Antinucci? Boss, a couple of days ago I asked you to check something out? That’s right, to find out who collected the inheritance of a woman called Irene Salgado. You’ve got the names? Go ahead. Luz and Ursula López Salgado? Another thing. You think you could get me their addresses? Really, you’ve heard of this Ursula woman? What a coincidence. Ursula López is the wife of the guy kidnapped by the Sparrow? Yeah, Diego, that’s right. And all her info is in the file. I can’t believe it. If you don’t mind. Check it out and

me the address as soon as you can. Tomorrow? I owe you one, boss.”

XVI

The scene that follows is rather sad. It’s a chilly day; there is scarcely anyone on the paths in the park. It’s damp, drizzly, muddy; the trees are leafless, almost bare, and she is sitting on a stone bench, waiting. The dog walkers haven’t appeared (they probably won’t in this weather), and even the park wardens have taken refuge in their concrete hut. The cars that on the side streets seem to be fewer than usual, and the silence and the morning fog create a ghostly atmosphere. By now, Ursula knows that the woman she’s waiting for, the other Ursula López, won’t be going for a run like she normally does. She takes advantage of her solitude and starts the penultimate part of her liturgy: she opens the pink bag, feels around until she finds what she is looking for, hesitates and looks to either side, takes out the case, opens it carefully (it brings back so many memories), touches the leather and the metal, caresses it. She looks to either side again before she raises the binoculars that once belonged to her deceased father – may you rest in peace, Daddy. He used them on Sundays to follow the horses at the Maroñas Racecourse, she re, and smiles. Her father’s voice sounds strict, he tells her to be careful: Don’t forget them, Ursula, make sure you don’t drop them, you know how careless you are with everything and these are topquality, I bought them in , the very best optical technology, you might break them or just leave them behind. Be quiet, Daddy, I’m busy, can’t you see? When are you going to finally leave? You’re dead. Dead. She shakes her head vehemently. Then she focuses on the sidewalk opposite, the brick building – almost but not quite a luxury block – full of mirrors and polished metal and with a uniformed doorman; she focuses on the first floor, turns the little wheel to zoom in, adjusts the image and waits. Every few seconds she looks around, checking the sides, scanning the distance. Nobody. Although it’s early, there is a light on in a room in the apartment; it’s on the left and, as far as she can work out, it must be the kitchen. It’s the only window

that’s illuminated. The curtains are open and the glass is starting to steam up; someone is cooking lunch or heating water, we don’t know. Ursula zooms in and now she can make out tiles, a pattern that looks like fruit, perhaps matching the motif on the curtain and, no doubt, the crockery and table linen, all coordinated around the same design, which is repeated, she imagines, on the teapot and the napkin holder. She observes or imagines these details and plays at feeling part of this clean, new, gleaming, well-equipped kitchen, she imagines herself as its owner, the owner of this whole apartment, an apartment for rich people (or almost) with its bedspreads that have hardly been used. She imagines herself drawing the curtains, letting the sun in when it is there, she sees herself with a frying pan in her hand or stirring the contents of a pot, arranging the teacups with their fruit motifs or walking from the stainless steel sink to the fridge that spits out ice cubes. And she jumps when she sees the woman appear, when she sees the head of the other Ursula silhouetted against the light in the window, a smooth clear face, light-brown hair, almost blonde, already tied back in a ponytail. Is she going running in this weather? How long has she been there? The woman opens the curtain a little wider and looks out, towards the street, at the park. At her? Ursula’s heartbeat accelerates, she focuses, observes the woman, holds her breath, forgets about her surroundings, remains still, containing even the slightest movements. Surely the woman can’t be looking at her? It’s very hard to see clearly from this distance and on a misty day but Ursula feels as if she has been found out, has the unpleasant certainty that the woman, the other Ursula López, her namesake, has spotted her, and that she could be in danger. She lowers the binoculars, swiftly hiding them in her bag. She waits for a few seconds, imagines a call to the police, a complaint, an accusation of loitering, of spying. Is spying on people a crime? It’s a question she’s asked herself before – many times, in fact – and she doesn’t know the answer. She will have to find out. And, even if it’s not a crime, it would be embarrassing, humiliating to be caught in this situation; she feels like an idiot, Daddy would tell her she’s messed up. There are mentally ill people who spy on others for sheer pleasure; she’s heard of this revolting habit they call voyeurism, and it worries her to think she could be accused of something like that. She hears a siren, she shivers, her teeth chatter; the temperature is falling. The woman’s face is still there, and her eyes may be looking towards the park,

the bench, that strange figure observing her on this impossibly cold drizzly day. Ursula turns her head and looks towards the groundskeeper’s hut but all she can see are the closed door and the light inside. The woman disappears from the window, closes the curtains, turns out the light. Ursula, without knowing quite why, pulls down the peak of her cap and covers her face with her hand, waiting, shivering a little more. Time es, the minutes go by, and nothing happens; the sirens recede, there is no more movement, and the woman with the same name as her is no doubt checking the weather and perhaps wondering whether she should put on more clothes or a raincoat or even take an umbrella when she leaves the house. That’s all. Ursula feels as if she has just been pardoned. A few minutes later another light comes on, this time in the living room, and she observes the woman sit down, put something on the table, a cup of tea or coffee no doubt, pick up a magazine or a book, turn the pages. She can’t resist the temptation and she takes out the binoculars again; the tea or coffee sits steaming on what Ursula imagines to be a glass tabletop. Ursula breathes, reassured, but her hands are still shaking. She focuses on some paintings on the back wall, some bookshelves, ornaments, lamps; the house of the woman who is almost rich and who now lives alone because her husband left her for another woman but still s her and maintains her status and her social and economic standing, including this apartment with a doorman and domestic staff, even if it is no longer the house in Carrasco with a garden and a swimming pool. She observes the woman lifting the drink to her mouth and wiping her lips with a folded grey or greyish-green napkin. Careful with the binoculars, Daddy says, your hands are still shaking and you might drop them, break them, ruin them, you’re shaking with rage and envy while you spy on this woman, Santiago’s wife, the man who was kidnapped by that delinquent friend of yours, Diego. Shut up, Daddy, my hands are trembling because it’s cold, and stop tormenting me. Just you’re dead. The woman who was going to pay the ransom, Ursula, the money you were going to use to pay for your weight-loss treatment and to live in a fancy house: she cheated you. Want to know why? Shut up, you old fool. Because crime doesn’t pay, sweetie. She isn’t going to listen to her father any more, she isn’t going to listen to him; she’s still looking but she no longer sees anything, she’s shaking with rage, her eyes glued to the binoculars but her mind miles away. She doesn’t know when the lights in the apartment went out; she doesn’t know, didn’t it, there’s no longer any movement and she guesses the woman

will come out soon, to walk through the park, to run along the waterfront. She lowers the binoculars, puts them back into their case, quickly puts everything in her pink leather handbag. She looks left and right. There’s a guy standing there, twenty yards away, a man who wasn’t there a moment ago. Or perhaps he was there and she didn’t see him arrive? She can’t see his face properly, can’t make out the features. She tries to guess if he’s been there for a while, if he might have seen her using the binoculars, if he might have realized she’s spying on something or someone as he stands there with a clear view of her. But the man only seems to be interested in the building opposite, and he watches it, concentrating fiercely. Ursula is also concentrating. She studies the man’s face, waiting for him to move, to turn his head so she can see him better, from another angle; a brief moment of light enables her to make out his nose, his mouth, a chin that reminds her of somebody. And, to her surprise, recognition begins to dawn on her. The man moves, takes out a cigarette, tries to light it but is thwarted by the wind, turns to shield himself and exposes his other side. Ursula watches him and feels the unease of a memory she can’t quite place. As she observes, she stands up and walks until she is no longer in the man’s field of vision, she looks at him from the side and from behind, studies his face, his features, his hair. The man is concentrating, looking straight ahead at the brick building; he makes no effort to conceal himself and hasn’t moved, and just now he is swivelling his hips, rotating them in a way that, seen from here, looks vaguely obscene. Not only does he appear to have no wish to remain hidden, he gives the impression of showing himself deliberately, as if he wants to be seen. The memory is so clear that she is jolted. In a moment, she re everything, and almost wants to laugh with relief: it’s Ricardo, the one who was done for murdering Auntie Irene. What’s he doing here? And why is he out of prison? The case ended with Ricardo being found guilty; she doesn’t the sentence, but she knows they put him away for a good few years. What’s he doing in the park, this man who was found guilty of killing Auntie Irene? she asks herself, anxiously we suspect, if he has proved his innocence. He doesn’t know her, she’s certain he never saw her face, but the guy still makes her feel anxious; her conscience weighing on her, she feels the need to get away as quickly as possible. But, despite the urgings of her common sense, she knows

she won’t leave. She skirts round a post, heads for a clump of three bushes, conceals herself behind the branches and waits. We’ve been here before: there’s nobody quite like her when it comes to spying without being seen. The woman from the first floor comes out of the building and down the stairs, two steps at a time. Ursula watches the other Ursula from her hiding place; she’s already crossing the street towards the park. The other woman takes the inner path and starts to do her warm-ups against a tree, swinging her arms, stretching her leg muscles. This time she’s added a quilted jacket to her usual outfit. Ricardo is standing next to the trunk of an ancient acacia tree; he’s seen her cross the road, he’s following her with his gaze, there’s no doubt he’s staring at her quite brazenly, he doesn’t care about going unnoticed, he’s not making the slightest effort not to be seen. The woman doesn’t seem to notice his presence until he approaches and they exchange a few words. It seems like a trivial conversation, maybe commenting on the weather or asking for the time. She finishes her stretches without hurrying and sets off at a gentle trot, warming up. The guy watches her go, follows her with his eyes and then walks after her, about twenty yards behind, at most. Every now and then he stops and looks. Ursula waits, picks up the pink handbag she had placed on the ground, removes a damp flyer that is stuck to it. Grand Concert: San Francisco Philharmonic. Villa Biarritz Park. Free entry.

XVII

He buys new clothes in a shop in the centre, the first one he sees when he gets off, very close to where the prison bus leaves him – some warm tros, two checked shirts and a woollen jacket, a pair of good shoes – and when he comes out he still has some of the money Ricardo loaned him. He doesn’t care that it’s not a lot, all Diego cares about is getting somewhere, having a shower, turning back into a person. Starting again. It’s damp outside, and a yellow fog emerges from the drains and wraps itself around the lights on the avenue. This is neither the time nor the place to go sightseeing, but he comes out of the shop and starts walking. It’s just three blocks from here to Plaza Independencia. As we were saying, he comes out of the shop, raises his jacket collar and follows a route of grimy bars and sorry businesses, of closed storefronts with For Sale signs, of massage parlours and Korean mini-markets, making his way through crowds of people who have just finished work, towards the Palacio Salvo. He walks quickly; the bags aren’t heavy, the one with the new clothes in isn’t very big and the one he brought from prison is almost empty because, when they arrested him in the hideaway where he was holding Santiago, he just had the clothes he was wearing. He walks blindly, his eyes turned inwards, focused on his thoughts; he bumps into a blind old beggarwoman who curses him. Diego sees the toothless mouth, the dark fingernails, he murmurs an apology and hurries away as fast as he can. He is intimidated by the way the atmosphere changes at this time of the evening, becoming more sordid with each step, each yard. Diego sees the sign for the Chinese restaurant on the corner; all the bulbs are still blown and maybe they’ll stay that way until the end of time. The whores and transvestites are in their corners, the squatters in the abandoned building hang out their clothes like flags. He crosses Calle Andes, cuts through the arcade, and comes to the main door of the building with dull bronze fittings and dirty glass panes. He walks past an employee who he doesn’t know or doesn’t , and looks around: there’s a man behind a table covered with watches and an old woman counting coins. Nobody greets him, and he walks over to the elevator of

this bastardized building, with its mixture of plastic fittings and porcelain tiles. He waits, gets in, presses number eight, the contraption lurches into motion, screeching as it es each floor just like always, just as if this month he’s spent in prison never happened. But it did happen, and he spent it in prison, which is not the best place to spend a month – or even a day. Although we suspect that’s a subject Diego will never want to discuss, ever. He gets out at the eighth floor, listens to the echo of his footsteps in the silence of the corridor, walks along in the deathly gloom, feels cold shifting draughts, can barely make out the peeling walls in the weak light of the bulbs, the succession of closed doors, enigmatic doors which might open onto decrepit apartments, dark rooms. Better not to think about what the lives behind those doors might hide. Diego arrives at the door of his own apartment. The neglect that is eating at the building continues inside. The rooms are large, unequal, poorly laid out and surrounded by impossible corridors. Nobody builds like this nowadays. He goes in and sighs: he’s arrived home, at a place he can call home. Diego puts down the bags, takes a couple of turns around the apartment, checks it and finds everything as he left it. The police don’t seem to have searched too enthusiastically or turned the whole place upside down looking for his connections to a kidnapping to which, after all, he had confessed from the first moment. He checks the desk: his papers are organized just as they were before he went out for the last time, the night he disguised himself as a policeman to deceive Santiago and took him, unconscious, to the hideaway on the outskirts of the city. He’d imagined the worst – Diego always imagines the worst, we already know that – and he was careful not to leave any clues. All the information about Santiago, his schedule, his connections, all the information that son of a bitch Sergio had given him, all the material he now knows was as false as it was useless, ended up in the trash several days before the date the two men had set for the kidnapping. He just left a few coded phone numbers, written on the shopping list as if they were prices, and they are still there, of course, stuck to the fridge with a magnet. It was a childish, idiotic trick, but it was easy enough to guess that the Uruguayan police wouldn’t send the supermarket list of a failed kidnapper to their colleagues at the FBI in Quantico, Virginia.

Diego goes to the bathroom, to the only mirror in the house; he looks at himself, at his beard, the lines on his forehead, the bags like a mask around his eyes, and shakes his head, denying something, although we have no way of knowing what. He looks at the jacket hanging from his shoulders, the shirt that is baggy at the chest, observes his tros with their folds and creases around the waist, his worn shoes; these are the same clothes he was wearing in the place at Punta Yeguas where they were holding Santiago, the same clothes he wore day after day while he waited in vain for Sergio, the clothes he was wearing the last time he met Ursula, the victim’s wife, the same clothes in which he inexplicably fell asleep in the hideout (a development Santiago exploited to call the police, he thinks bitterly), the same clothes he was wearing when he woke up and the cops were already there, surrounding the shack. He touches his Adam’s apple, traces the contours of his sunken cheeks with his finger. Finally he begins to undress, slowly removing the jacket, which slips lifelessly to the floor; next he undoes his shirt, starting with the top buttons, gently and then more roughly, almost ripping off the bottom ones; he throws the garment away and it falls between the toilet and the bidet; a moment later, his tros hit the shower wall and land on the floor, the legs dislocated; he tears off his underwear and is left naked. He gets into the shower, washes, scrubs himself; furiously tackling every inch of his skin, he takes his time. He allows the minutes to until the water is so cold it becomes unbearable. He gets out and dries himself carefully, lovingly. Then he gets dressed in the clothes he takes from his bag, adjusts the garments on his body before he looks up, smooths out the creases, corrects the hang of the fabric, straightens and flattens the cloth with his fingers. He looks at himself. Now he shows his teeth in an attempt at a smile, his first smile in a long time. He comes out into the corridor in his new clothes, the ones he will use to start a new life, the clothes he bought to become a new man and leave behind the forgotten failures. As we were saying, he comes out, but as he reaches the door he is already asking himself if he is not taking too big a risk, if what he is about to do to give himself a fresh start is really worth it. Diego, we already know, asks himself too many questions. And he tells himself yes, it’s worth it, and he feels a half-hearted, miserable relief, a relief that will gradually dissolve during the night, leaving no trace by morning.

XVIII

Good afternoon. I’m Captain Leonilda Lima. Yesterday you submitted a complaint to Section Ten, claiming that somebody was spying on you. We think it’s important to follow up such reports; that’s why we’ve called you in, to confirm it and to expand some of the points that weren’t clear. Please take a seat. I was notified of your case because it could be linked to another one I’m investigating. No, I’m sorry, I can’t tell you what the other case refers to. I’m going to ask you a few questions, starting with your personal details, your name, address, phone number, ID. Just let me write that down. I’d like to start by asking you to confirm your statement, so we can pin down exactly what the situation is, the precise nature of your complaint. Were they spying on you from the street? Okay. You say you’ve seen two people over the last few days, a man and a woman. Give me a moment to take a note of that. And they’re watching your house. Where are they? Try to be as precise as possible. In the park opposite. Excuse me for asking you this, but is it possible they’re simply enjoying spending some time in the open air? Couldn’t they be people who go out for a walk at a certain time of day? No, you don’t think so. They watch you, they just watch your home. You’ve even seen the woman with a pair of binoculars. I understand. And you know these people? Not the man. The woman’s face is familiar, but you can’t place her. Are you sure they’re watching you? They couldn’t be watching somebody else, someone in another apartment, for example, or just happen to be looking in your direction? You don’t think so, and you’ve even been followed by one or both of them. They’ve been there every day? So, you say you’ve seen them almost daily: you noticed the woman a couple of weeks ago, the man only appeared a few days back. Have you seen them arrive together? No, they don’t come together, or at the same time. Sometimes you’ve seen them at the same time, but they don’t behave as if they’re together. What was that? You saw them both yesterday; she was sitting on a bench and he was twenty or thirty yards away, standing next to a tree. No between them? No . And how do they behave? Do you think they’re trying to hide? The woman, maybe, you don’t know, you’re not sure. Sometimes she seems to want to go unnoticed and other times she gets out her binoculars right in front of you. The man definitely isn’t hiding: he stands in full view, makes no pretence, watches you , watches you insistently, even asked

you once what time it was. Could he be trying to scare you, perhaps? Of course you don’t know. In other words, apparently, you’ve seen them on a daily basis, more or less? And you can see them from the window of your apartment, is that correct? Then you go out for a run and they’re there. Have they spoken to you? Yes, yes, you told me. The man asked you once what time it was. Did he seem threatening, intimidating, strange in any way? So he seemed threatening. He just asked you the time but he looked at you strangely, and although you went straight back to your routine of warming up and running, you were really thinking of getting away. That was the only time? He didn’t approach you on any other occasion? No? In the section report, there are some photos that I’ve looked through. Yes, you took them from your window, I understand. It could be very important, obviously. We’re going to look at them again, and I’ll add them to the file. The ones of the man are quite clear, you can see his face. The only one you took of the woman is fuzzier, you can hardly see her features. In addition to dark glasses, she seems to be covering her face with the peak of her cap and with her hand to avoid being recognized. Look here, next to her, on the ground, there seems to be a large handbag, pink. One question. How did you manage to take the photos without being noticed? Because I assume you tried to make sure they wouldn’t be aware. Of course. You closed the curtains, turned out the light and click, click, click, with no flash. Can you give a description of these individuals? A tall man, muscular, wearing a cotton hoodie that comes almost down to his knees, baggy tros, oversized running shoes. And one of those baseball caps, I know the style. Dark brown hair. No distinguishing marks? When he talked to you he had his sleeves rolled up and you saw that he had tattoos on his arms. And the woman? Tall, a bit plump, fairish brown hair. Any particular features? Pretty, you say. Well, that’s relative. Anything more to add? No, madam. I’m afraid I can’t give you the details of the other case I’m investigating, the one that could be linked. As I told you, all I can say is that, based on the photos you’ve provided, the man could be a fugitive from justice, somebody we’re trying to track down. But I can’t tell you any more: the file is confidential. You’d like to know what you should do? It’s not easy to give you advice. You haven’t been threatened or robbed, you haven’t come to any harm. What’s more, you can’t say why they’re watching you. I wonder if they could be private detectives; perhaps somebody has paid them to spy on you. Oh, you don’t think so. The man doesn’t look like a private detective; in fact he looks dangerous, deliberately threatening. I understand, as if he wanted to scare you, right? Yes, you can call me immediately if you see these people again, but I have to tell you it won’t be easy for us to arrest them or question them just for standing in a park looking at your house, even if they’re using binoculars. They can always say they were

birdwatching or looking at the sky. You’d be surprised at the weird hobbies some people have. And I’m afraid that in our country there’s a legal grey area with regard to stalking, and although you might think they’ve violated your privacy, that would be difficult to demonstrate in this case. It would be different if you could prove that they’re interfering with your mail or have accessed the hard drive on your computer. In that case, they would have committed an offence. No, I don’t think I can assign you police protection just because you suspect you’re being watched, madam. As I said, if you’d received a phone call or a letter or even a threatening email … nothing like that? All I can suggest is that you call me as soon as you see anything else odd. Here’s my number. Goodbye, madam. Leonilda closes the door, returns to her desk, looks at the photos again. She has no doubt this guy is Ricardo, alias the Hobo. The man who was doing time for the murder of Irene Salgado. The one who escaped from court when he was due to be questioned. The one who, all the clues suggest, murdered the Candyman. And who’s the woman in the other photo? She makes a note: Big Pink Handbag.

XIX

He struggles to stay asleep, refusing to abandon the warmth of his bed, to tear himself out of his lethargy, his drowsiness. He resists but his rage overpowers him, fury drilling into his skull, perforating it, exploding. Shit! He opens his eyes, furious. Fuck! He opens his eyes and feels the anger rising, the strident pounding, the relentless latent hatred throbbing inside his head. He turns over. He wakes up. He grinds his teeth. He clenches his fists. There can be no more delay, he must do it today. He gets up and starts the death ritual. This afternoon, the park is packed with people who are here to listen to the San Francisco Philharmonic, people in every square yard, on the paths, on the grass and on the streets which the authorities closed to traffic a few hours ago to allow concertgoers to move more freely as they arrive. The woman from the first floor of the brick building with its polished brass fittings greets the doorman, crosses the street with her springy, sporty step. But she’s not wearing her sports gear today, she’s not going for a run. She’s wearing a red overcoat buttoned all the way up. He watches her approach from behind the tree where he stationed himself nice and early, puts on his dark glasses, emerges from the shadows and walks behind the red coat. He moves through hurrying spectators without losing sight of her, he submerges himself in the mass of humanity. He tries to close the distance by a few feet, to get closer to the red back. But it’s more and more difficult to move, to find a space through which to advance. The crowd converges on the site, on the central stage where they are already doing the soundchecks, a human tide pushed by a centripetal force, flowing slowly in the same direction. He wants to speed up but he can’t; one foot after the other, one foot at a time. In this cold, nobody expected such a big turnout, so much enthusiasm for classical music at the end of autumn, especially

considering the midwinter temperatures, and there are hardly any more police than normal. His feet are barely moving, his face is pressed into an anonymous neck in front of him. One more step, so slow that he despairs and begins to lose his patience. The red coat, he can’t lose sight of the red coat. He feels in his pocket, clutches the weapon, feels the metal digging into his fingers, the cold steel in the palm of his hand as it opens and closes. Despite the situation, he smiles. In a world devastated by war, serial killers, massacres, earthquakes and genocides, assassinating an individual human being has an almost artisanal touch. This doesn’t mitigate the crime, of course, but does at least make it less sordid. He looks at the tall man in front, looks at his back, and there, two or three heads away, is Ursula López’s red coat, but he’s struggling to stay close, the tide of people has its own capricious logic, one that is difficult to predict or outwit. He pushes with his elbows and his hips and his shoulders, struggling to move forward through the crowd that is pressing towards the stage upon which the musicians have already begun to appear and are now tuning their instruments. The loudspeakers spit out high sounds that make his skin crawl, and low sounds that hammer at his skull. (One-two-three, one-two-three, testing, testing.) More than once he loses his balance, but his body is wedged in between other bodies. Perhaps, even if he stumbled, he wouldn’t fall immediately, he thinks; his body would be suspended for a few moments, held up by the multitude. How long would a body take to fall in the middle of this throng? His hand is in his pocket, gripping the revolver with its silencer, his finger is on the trigger and he feels an urge to squeeze it, an urge he can barely contain. He clenches his teeth, resists the temptation, continues. (Low chords, a cello plays a scale.) He takes another step and then one more, the human sea slows down until it is almost stationary, Ursula’s back is still there, so close, about three feet away, there are two or three people between them. He sees the detail of the dark clip in her light hair, the texture of the wool of her scarf, he can almost smell her scent, almost smell the exotic wood and the citrus, perhaps mandarin or bergamot, but

the aroma is very faint. If he stretched out his hand he could touch her face, feel the texture of her skin, trace the edge of her ear with its diamond earring. He makes the most of a gap – one woman stops and another moves aside – and pushes forward, a couple of quick movements and he’s right behind her, inches away, his chest brushes against her back, his left hand half-opens his jacket, allowing the barrel to poke out. The pushing makes it difficult to steady his body, his arm, the weapon, but he knows he has to do it now. He looks at her for the last time, looks at the brown hair with hints of blonde, held in place by a clasp that he now sees is lined with blue fabric, the red scarf around the raised collar of the jacket, the diamond earrings. He calculates, hesitates, focuses on a point in the centre of the red and fires. (The sound of the cymbals explodes, there are shouts, fireworks, applause.) The shot is dry, as if wrapped in cloth, an incongruous sound lost among the other sounds emanating from the loudspeakers. The crowd is still moving, milling around, agitated. Ursula’s head advances and retreats, the red coat wobbles for a few moments before it starts to collapse, the woman’s body slides down between the people and falls gently, slowly, collapsing noiselessly and in slow motion on the grass. The crowd closes in and shouts. A voice orders: “Get back, get back. Someone’s fainted.” The crowd obeys, moves back, exposing the sight of a woman’s red leather shoe, an expensive brand, at an impossible angle. “Someone’s fainted. Call a doctor.” Some shout, others run, some have taken out their phones and are calling the police or an ambulance or friends and family. A force pushes towards the woman lying on the ground, and another equal opposing force pulls away. He looks around and allows himself to be carried towards the edge of the park, he wants to reach the side street where there are just a few pedestrians; in front of him he sees a young couple with a child, pushing their way through, shouting who knows what, perhaps calling for help for Ursula López, who is already out of sight. He detaches himself from the crowd and walks slowly. A hundred yards from the

corpse, life goes on as normal. The voices and shouts fade away, dispersed by the wind from the waterfront. He takes a side street. He is filled with a sense of joy that makes him want to jump and run. He walks another hundred yards and boards a bus. He pays the driver and sits at the back. (Sound of a siren: ambulance or fire engine or police.) He leans back against the seat, smiles, feels the pocket with the bulky gun inside. He smiles.

XX

That morning’s horoscope has upset her, with its prediction of a bad week for Capricorns: problems both emotional and occupational. The man who analyses the position of the stars in the cosmos on television had been clear in his predictions, had singled out Saturn – in such an unfavourable aspect for so long – and had explained the reason for its baleful influence on her constellation. Worried, she turns off the television, her mind now occupied by a fate that will be hard to avoid. This is her Sunday off and she has the whole day to herself, to do whatever she wants. However, Captain Leonilda Lima doesn’t want to do anything special; in fact, she doesn’t know what to come up with to fill this free time which, far from being a break, is a long and tedious bridge between one day of work and another. In other words, what we have here is that huge cliché of literature and of life: a single woman waiting for her day off to come to an end so she can return to activity. She doesn’t know it yet, but she won’t have to wait long. A couple of hours ago she cleaned the house, made her bed, polished the three pyramids – one bronze, one steel, one copper – dusted the ceilings, swept up the last molecule of dust which might impede the flow of chi. She waits until midday to suspend her boredom; that’s when she’ll decide whether to eat a yogurt or perhaps a salad, to have a siesta or go for a half-hour walk. She turns on the television again, watches the start of a soap opera that she can’t make head or tail of, unthinkingly changes channel and, paying no attention, plays with the buttons on the remote control. She hears her phone ringing. She hurries to look for it and finds it lying on the pillow. Her heart leaps at the sight of the number: it’s the chief of police, Inspector Clemen. “Did you hear the news, Leonilda?” “I’ve just woken up,” she lies. “What’s the time?” “Late. You haven’t read the papers either, then? No, of course not. Yesterday, at

6 p.m., Ursula López was murdered.” “What? Murdered?” “At 6 p.m. precisely.” “Where did it happen?” “Right in front of her house, in the park.” “Oh my God! It’s my fault, I should have given her protection.” “No, Leonilda. You consulted me and you did the right thing. She hadn’t been threatened.” “Even so —” “I know, it doesn’t feel good.” “Why wasn’t I told earlier?” “There was a mix-up and they gave the case to Leonardo Borda.” “A mix-up? It wasn’t his any more, Inspector Clemen.” “I agree, it was my mistake. Borda thought it was still his case and he got involved. But there’s no point worrying about that now. We need to look to the future.” Something’s not right here; Borda knew perfectly well she was in charge of this case. She can’t show her mistrust of the chief inspector without proof or at least some better clues about the decision to keep her away from the case. But strange things have been happening for a while. She decides to leave this issue for later. “Are there any suspects?” “There are always suspects. Someone made a complaint yesterday that could be linked to this case or to the investigation into the Candyman murder, the one you’re working on.” “What was the complaint?”

“Assault, bodily harm, threats – but I don’t think the victim is prepared to follow through. She didn’t even agree to a medical examination.” “And who’s the victim? And the suspects?” “The alleged victim is Mirta Tellez; she reported an assault, but her statement was very unclear. She came back this morning and told us the name of her attacker: Ricardo Prieto, alias the Hobo. Does that ring a bell, Leonilda?” “Christ, what a small world we live in!” “And she gave a more detailed statement about what happened. It seems the guy turned up at her house, threatened her, questioned her about how the nieces of the woman he murdered a year back might have been involved in his trial and the subsequent prison sentence. And you’ll never guess the name of one of those women, one of the nieces. Ursula López.” “This is my case, Inspector.” “Of course. I know there’s been a mix-up. That’s why I’m calling you, even though it’s your day off. If you agree, then it’s all yours from now on.” “Certainly, Inspector.” Leonilda has sprung back to life. She puts on a local news channel, looks for the papers, gets some clothes. She nibbles a few slices of cucumber that she’s found in the fridge, reads some newspapers, checks the story she’s interested in, browses the internet and takes a couple of notes. Two shadows cross her mind: the negative outlook for Capricorn for the whole of this week, and Clemen’s insistence on giving her the Ricardo Prieto case, one which has now been ed between her and Borda three times. She drinks some yogurt, two glasses. She finishes getting dressed, applies a little natural grapefruit and coconut perfume, touches the image of the Virgen Desatanudos, says a quiet prayer to ask for her help in solving this impossible case, re that the Skinflint hasn’t called her back, and rushes out.

XXI

It’s past midday in the Old Town. Sometimes, like today, she goes out for a stroll and constantly changes her route to extend her walk, to postpone her return home. She wanders down cobbled streets, pretends to lose her way and then to find it again. At each corner she searches for them, the dead, as if on such afternoons all of them – Mother, Father, Auntie Irene – were headed for some meeting place to which she, too, had access. She waits for it to be time; sometimes she wanders at length and searches for them in the places where they used to go, trying to what those people, their houses, were like back then. She pursues the names of the people who lived there and tries to if she ever went inside, what the furniture, the courtyards, the stairways and walls were like, if they echoed with the shouts of children or were silent. But all this effort just produces shades of the past, a sepia photograph. It’s sunny today and she’s been wandering among strangers for almost two hours, walking and swallowing carbon monoxide; today there are businessmen and tourists, people rummaging through the garbage, office workers with lunch boxes, students and beggars. Ursula looks at everything and smiles discreetly – they’re not part of her past, they’re not the ones she’s looking for. Aloof and somewhat hostile, she walks among these strangers, observing them with curiosity, behaving the way an adult might behave at a circus or in a square where children are playing. She feels like crying, and she doesn’t feel like crying alone. That’s why she’s looking for the dead. She stops among a crowd of foreigners taking photos in different languages. At a kiosk selling newspapers and magazines, she can’t help looking at the heavenly silky beings that appear on the covers; they are never second-class women, the kind who eat and get fat, they’re beautiful people in two dimensions, their skin smooth and glowing, people with no past beyond that moment when somebody photographed them, people who will never grow old.

She’s been walking for more than two hours now. It’s time. She goes up the worn marble steps, crosses the threshold of the chapel and enters the twilight of the silent frozen space. The gloom contrasts with the light outside. She walks; the air of the church, stale with mourning, is like some perverse, irreversible corridor. The central aisle is empty, barely illuminated by the light from the stained-glass windows above the small side chapels. There aren’t many people, just blurry shadows, faceless and reclining. A smell of incense seems to come from the stone tombs. The notes of an organ can be heard, but perhaps they are part of the dream from which she never quite awakens. A priest is saying Mass for five people at a side altar. And, as always, she sees him again, Daddy, in a satin-lined casket resting on the catafalque, covered with flowers. And beneath the roses, carnations and jasmine is the corpse, what is left of her father, the form of her father, the container, the wrapping; skin that has turned waxy, a tight blue mouth that will never open again, will never fire out words as if they were bullets, hands that will never again lock her bedroom door. Never again, Daddy, never again. She sees him there in his coffin. Standing at his side is her sister Luz in the dark-grey suit, made to measure from expensive-looking fabric, the face that could grace a glossy magazine transfigured by grief. And she sees herself enter and come down the central aisle, her footsteps, one after the other, clicking towards the altar, the echo of her heels against the marble floor in the silence, towards the dark and the irreversible. Luz approaches, hugs her, looks at her, searches her face for some sign. “It was all so fast, Ursula. How could something like this have happened? Daddy didn’t —” “Yes, but the Somnium —” “He wasn’t suicidal. I know he wasn’t suicidal.” “We’ll never really know what happened, Luz, if it was an accident or not.” “It’s so hard to accept.” “Depression comes without warning.” “No, I can’t believe it. Not him.”

Her sister’s doubts disturbed her, irritated her; she wanted to get away, leave her sister behind, save herself. She wanted to stay and be condemned, to suffer. She felt that her sister’s gaze was searching for something in her, inside her, and that she might find it. She looked down. A priest had appeared and begun to prepare himself for the Requiem. Ursula sees herself as if from some distant point in time, sees this woman who doesn’t seem to be her but who is, contemplates the strange, macabre rite of death and, just like that time, the weeping slowly rises to her eyes, pushes and comes out and, just like that time, she feels her face flooding with tears. Crocodile tears, that’s what the dead man, her father, would say if he could talk. But Ursula made sure he wouldn’t talk any more. When the response was over, she walked to the exit alone, breathed in the salty air from the port, saw her sister Luz run towards her, hug her and cry on her shoulder, squeeze her hand, search once again for her eyes. At some point, Luz offered to take her home. Ursula re her refusal, talking about how she needed to clear her head, take a walk through the Old Town, until she finally watched Luz get into her silver car, the latest model, and drive off to her house in Carrasco. That day, which had also been sunny, she had wandered the narrow streets, past dilapidated buildings, past happy families holding hands, past hurrying businessmen, but she crossed the squares without seeing them, walking among faceless people until night fell and the atmosphere turned cold, silent and immobile. She wanted to go home, but not to her home, not to that empty place where there would never be anyone but her. What is home, exactly? The place where you were born? Or is it that place you can never quite leave even though the air is unbreathable and there is no future? Perhaps it is just the place you can reach by memory, even if what awaits you there is dark and irreversible, even if it is to find yourself stranded in grey loneliness. She walked, wandering the streets, felt the drizzle falling; there were no people any more, just an old, grey, silent city. After that, the days broke free like furious dogs, and for many years Ursula has walked, is always walking, through the Old Town.

XXII

The woman slowly takes off her coat, a coat which, like everything she is wearing, appears to be brand new. She hangs it on the back of the chair and sits down without waiting for an invitation from Leonilda. She appears to be interested in the walls, the portrait of General Artigas, the plastic flowers, the printed card with an image of Jude the Apostle. The visual inspection is brief; there are very few items in the captain’s office. Then the woman looks at Leonilda and asks how she can be of assistance, with that tone of voice used by customer service operatives who have not the slightest intention of helping. She is one of those artificial beauties, the long hair, the make-up, the neat eyebrows: an afternoon soap opera star. Captain Leonilda Lima looks at her; sometimes she is attracted by this kind of woman, even though she knows she shouldn’t be, not at work. She needs to concentrate, tries to strike up a conversation with Mirta Tellez, tries to win her trust. She brings up banal topics and introduces the odd question, but so far she hasn’t managed to get the woman to say more than four words at a time. So far, it’s just been yes, no or some other monosyllable. We know Leonilda will insist. “So, what did Ricardo Prieto ask?” “I already told you.” “You told the person who took your statement. But I’m in charge now, and I want to everything. Do you understand me, Mirta?” A silence, an evasive look, eyes that avoid . “He asked me some stuff, what they were called and where they lived. The ones who got him put away. Irene’s nieces.” “And what did you tell him?” “The names. Ursula and Luz López. What else could I have done?”

“I’m struck by that detail: the niece of the woman murdered a year ago was called Ursula López, just like the woman who was murdered in the park. I’m guessing you’ll have heard about that. Quite a coincidence; Ursula isn’t a common name. And the same last name.” “Maybe it’s the same person.” “Maybe. We’ll check it out.” Mirta looks at her with empty eyes. She says nothing. “Anything else?” “I told him I didn’t know where they lived.” “And after that? Anything else?” “What do you mean, ‘anything else’?” “Did you tell him anything else, did you give him any other information?” “I don’t know. I didn’t have anything else to tell him. I haven’t heard from them since Irene was murdered.” “You worked for the victim, for Irene Salgado, didn’t you?” “Yes.” The captain swallows saliva, air, frustration. She closes her eyes, talks quietly. “Look, Mirta. You could be the witness in a murder case. Please try to cooperate. I’ve already told you it’s serious; there are two murders involved here.” The woman looks out of the window and scratches her cheek with a long red fingernail. She brushes her hair from her face and looks at Leonilda, squinting slightly. She displays a hygienic smile. She’s blonde, her face caked with makeup. She tugs her skirt downwards. “Mirta, don’t play games with me.” “I’m not sure.”

“What aren’t you sure about?” “If I want to carry on with this complaint. I’m afraid of Ricardo. You don’t know him, he’s turned into a monster.” Leonilda thinks about the other woman who sat in this seat a few days ago, and who is now dead. She bites her lower lip. “We could give you protection.” “Right. How long for? My whole life?” “Of course not.” Mirta laughs noiselessly, spreads her arms, her palms facing up. “That’s no good to me.” “And what would be good for you?” “Nothing. If he finds out I’ve blabbed on him, he’ll wait as long as he needs and then he’ll kill me too.” Leonilda eyes the expensive outfit and asks herself how this former servant of a murdered lady can afford to spend so much on clothes. But she can’t ask her how she makes a living. That would just frighten her more. “If you don’t want to file a complaint, then why did you come? Why are you here?” The woman thinks, looks away. “Because I’m angry. I want him to pay for what he did. But I’m also afraid. Do you understand that? No, you’re a cop. What would you understand? Nobody hits you, let alone threatens to kill you.” “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, Mirta. There have been two killings, there’s evidence to suggest it could have been Ricardo, and you show up telling me he asked you about a woman who could be the same person who was subsequently murdered. You’re going to be a witness in this case whether you like it or not.”

“How did they kill her?” “A .38 bullet in the back, from an inch away. The wound was fatal.” “Just like Irene, point-blank and with a .38. Where did it happen?” “At a concert in Villa Biarritz Park; lots of noise, lots of people.” She thinks. “I’m no snitch.” “He hit you, he threatened you.” “And he raped me.” “You didn’t say that. Do you want to report that?” Mirta tosses her head as if she has suddenly realized she’s forgotten something important, in a gesture both theatrical and completely wasted on Leonilda. Then she clears her throat a couple of times, as if in preparation for what she is about to say. “Is it worth it?” Leonilda doesn’t know what more to say. A very faint feeling of discomfort, a shadow of unease, has installed itself in the region of her diaphragm. As a reflex she touches the bottle of antacid that sits on her desk. “It would be difficult to prove, it was a few days ago. You should have told us earlier.” “So —” “Finish telling me what Ricardo Prieto asked you.” “He asked me who had inherited the old woman’s money.” “Irene’s?” “Yes, my boss. The old lady he murdered. Or not. I don’t know.” “Why would he want to know that?”

“To find the real culprit for the crime he’d been framed for, he told me.” “Are you suggesting he might not be guilty?” “You’re the cop, you should know.” “And who inherited the dead woman’s money?” “The nieces.” “Ursula López?” “And her sister, Luz.” “Did you give him their addresses?” “No, I told you: I don’t know where they live. I told him to look in the phone book.” “Do you anything else? Did he tell you where he’d been? Did he tell you anything about his plans?” “No.” Leonilda hears herself swallowing. “Okay. In a few days you’re going to receive a summons to make a statement. Is there anything else you’d like to add?” Mirta taps her chin with her index finger and looks at the wall again, the portrait of General Artigas, the image of St Jude, the plastic flowers, pretending to search for a memory. She smiles and shrugs, her lips curling slightly. “No.” To Leonilda, these monosyllables sound like a mantra, like a litany. “You don’t say. Now you’re going to go through that door and I’ll be left here looking at these pretty plastic flowers, and I’ll ask myself what’s wrong with me, what kind of an idiotic face I must have for people to think they don’t need to open their mouths. Leave, and please phone me if you manage to recall anything

important. Have a good day, Mirta.” Leonilda is left on her own. She won’t hear from Mirta, either in the near future or in all of eternity. She sighs. This was never going to be a good day; that was clear from the start. She opens the azure folder, takes out a photograph which shows a red overcoat and an enlarged bullet hole, scorched around the edges; she leafs through some more photos that repeat the red colour and the burn. She reviews credit card printouts, bank statements, lists of phone calls from and to the victim’s mobile number and her home phone. Statements of neighbours, doormen, family, friends. There’s got to be something here. Santiago, the exhusband, was in Bolivia on the day of the murder. The victim’s lover, Sergio, was somewhere in Africa, and he hasn’t returned. Maybe there’s nothing in all these papers. She needs to check if there are two women called Ursula López. She logs on to the identity registration program, keys in the name: two files come up. The photos, personal details and addresses are there. There are two people with the same name. She prints them off. One is the woman who was sitting here, the one who was murdered. And the other? There’s something familiar about her. She picks up the card with the picture of Jude the Apostle, touches it with the tip of her index finger, mentally asks him for protection against the angels of evil, against the army of darkness. They push their way through life: suffering, stealing, killing. And she doesn’t always feel capable of facing up to them. Sometimes she feels alone. She sighs. Leonilda thinks again about the two women with the same name: Ursula López, the murder victim, and Ursula López, the niece of a woman murdered some time ago. Too many Ursulas and too many murders. Could the two cases have become mixed up? And, most important of all, could Ricardo, the Hobo, have got confused? Could he have killed one woman believing she was the other? Maybe Ricardo murdered the wrong woman. She runs through the case in her mind: a convicted murderer escapes, attempts to discover the whereabouts of the person who accused him of the crime, watches a woman who shares a name with his acc but is not actually her, and this woman ends up being murdered. At the very least, she has to track down the other Ursula López, because her life could be in danger.

Her phone rings, and she is startled. She loathes telephones: they frighten her. Leonilda puts the card on her desk, leaning it against the lamp so it faces her to offer her strength and protection, and looks at the number on the screen: it’s Skinflint. They talk briefly, she writes down an address and a time in the margin of her notebook. She puts aside her apocalyptic thoughts, already thinking about how to organize the perfect operation. Then she picks up the image of Jude the Apostle and puts it in the breast pocket of her shirt. She gets ready to leave.

XXIII

There is a room, a bed, a woman lying on the bed. Her face is tense, her body taut on the chenille bedspread, which looks vintage but is just old-fashioned. The woman on the bed has earplugs which isolate her from the noises outside but amplify those inside: every time she swallows it sounds like a tsunami, every time she grinds her teeth it sounds like an earthquake. But from outside, she hears nothing. On the fifth floor of a dilapidated building where the elevator almost never works, in a room whose walls are painted a shade that thirty years ago was called Nile green, lying on a bed covered with a chenille bedspread that is not vintage but simply old, Ursula is neither sleeping nor watching the television nor listening to the radio; she is not reading, nor is she doing the translations that have been pending for more than a month; she isn’t watching the evening slowly die, the darkness overcoming what is left of the light, the rain beating against the window. Instead, lying on her bed, she slips into her memories and feels an abstract and diffuse rage against everyone who is alive and even against some who are dead. It’s been raining in Montevideo for hours, and the Old Town is gradually sinking into a watery stupor, a desolate day lit by streetlamps that illuminate nothing. This city of yellow light is like something from a foggy movie. Outside, the temperature is glacial, and inside it’s not much better. Her earplugs protect her against threats. In bed, Ursula re and feels angry, she focuses on her misfortune, tries to make sense of the essence of her bad luck as she wallows in the past. She fails, and this makes her feel even angrier. Her state of mind is one of rigid tension, the kind that precedes danger, and although usually nothing happens, we know that sometimes it does. In her life, she believes, it’s always the same day. Week after week, month after month, she watches the seasons change, following one another, all the same,

their immutability calming and comforting her while also making her desperate and furious. Lying on the bed, she thinks about those television series in which the same characters always find themselves in the same situation, repeating similar dialogue, wearing similar clothes, season after season in an infinite present. And her present is infinite, too, a straight monotonous line that hardly wavers. As we were saying, she allows herself to slip into her memories, into her past, and accepts all the collateral damage: the feelings of injustice and resentment this gives rise to, because self-pity is the only thing that interrupts the monotony of a dark, rainy afternoon. When she’s just about to reach the limit, when the tears she’s been waiting for are just starting to well up, the phone on her bedside table rings, once, twice, three times, but all she hears is a high-pitched sound, muted by the foam inserted in her ears that separates her from the world. “Fucking phone, fucking phone,” Ursula shouts at the first ring, and her words echo, amplified, inside her head. Bad luck: her moment of delicious self-pity is over. She reaches out to grab the device; she tries to read the number but isn’t wearing her glasses and all she can make out is a blurry line of enormous ants dancing across the blue screen as it continues to ring, the tone hammering her brain like machine-gun fire. She rips out the earplugs. Her head hurts and the sound of the phone drills into her skull. She loathes these high sounds, like needles. It rings again, she picks it up, says hello. “Hi, it’s me.” She takes a moment to recognize the voice. A few short words and then silence. And she waits, pausing for that moment that women of a certain age leave before they move towards their objective. Then she makes the leap into consciousness. “Shall we meet tonight, Diego?” “Okay. Where?” “My place. On the corner of Treinta y Tres and Sarandí, above the shop,

apartment 501.” She can’t believe what she’s just said.

XXIV

Things Ursula never does: coming down the stairs two by two, feeling regret, running, inviting men to her house, sleeping without taking Somnium, stealing a load of money, escaping from the police, fleeing across the rooftops. But in the next few hours she will do all of them. She gets ready in front of the mirror, combs her hair, applies a little make-up to her cheeks, almost finishes putting on her eyeliner. The house is impregnated with an ominous silence that is shattered by the sound of the buzzer. There are a few moments of anxiety as she waits, arm raised, eye pencil in her right hand, left eye half-closed and the tip of her tongue out, expectant, frozen. Ursula is barely breathing. The buzzer goes off again. She tosses the pencil into the basin, runs out of the bathroom and opens the door. This time she won’t wait for the elevator that never works; instead she runs down the stairs, taking them two at a time without worrying about falling, and reaches the ground floor with a smile on her face. She opens the door. “Hello.” “Ursula, it’s been a while.” He offers his hand; she accepts. “How are you? When did you get out?” “Yesterday.” “And how does it feel to be free?” “It’s like coming back to a different city.” “Did they treat you badly in prison?”

“They treated me like they treat everyone, Ursula.” “You’re soaking. Come in. No, the elevator hardly ever works.” They go up the worn marble steps, Ursula leading the way; her heart is not racing or pounding, she skips up the stairs, turns and smiles. She smooths out an imaginary crease in her tightly fitting blouse. She ascends the five flights of stairs without wheezing, reaches the top without becoming short of breath. He follows behind, observing this beautiful woman with her delicious curves. “This way. In you go.” “What a beautiful home.” “I was born here. It’s my father’s house.” “Does he live with you?” “No, he died a long time ago. I live alone.” “So you separated from your husband, Santiago, in the end?” There’s a silence. A long one. “And you collect Japanese figurines.” “Those were my father’s too. He left them to me on condition I look after them. It’s a lot of work, you know. Three hundred and twenty-two figurines, and they all have to be cleaned individually. Brushes, cloths, sponges, several kinds of cleaning fluid, a whole arsenal of tools. I dedicate every Sunday to them.” “You’ve got a lovely hobby.” “It’s not my hobby. It was his. My father’s.” “But now it’s yours.” “I’m not sure. Would you like some coffee?” “Yes please.”

Silence. Diego looks at the floor, then looks through the window, out into the night. Ursula goes to the kitchen and a few minutes later returns to the living room, carrying a tray with two cups, the coffee already served. She places them on the table; on Diego’s saucer is a sachet of sugar, on Ursula’s a sachet of sweetener. The windows of the city have gradually lit up. Inside the house there is barely any light, and the gloom that surrounds them makes the noise of the ing traffic seem more distant. The silence inside has intensified, and in that silence you can hear both the gentle clinking of the coffee cups and the sound of throats being cleared. “Would you like some water?” “No, don’t worry. You told me your father was dead. How did he die?” “He had an accident with Somnium, with sleeping pills.” “And do you have any other family?” “A sister, Luz. She’s in Bolivia.” “That’s great. You’re so lucky to have a sister, believe me. I’m an only child.” “Absolutely. I adore her.” Silence, a word-free vacuum, but it’s comfortable, cordial. “Really, I just wanted to say thanks.” “What for?” “For not giving a statement against me, Ursula. For saying you’d never spoken to me, that I never demanded a ransom for your husband. You lied to save me.” Another silence. Ursula looks at the floor, then out of the window. She hesitates, her soul a tangle of frozen weeds. She’s been thinking all this time, and she still doesn’t know how to tell him. “Diego, there’s something very important I haven’t told you.”

He stares at her, his eyes wide open. “I did something unforgivable. I tricked you.” “You tricked me? But you said I —” “I didn’t say anything. I never gave a statement, either favourable or unfavourable. I wasn’t summoned.” “My lawyer told me you said I hadn’t demanded a ransom to release Santiago, your husband —” “Diego, listen to me.” “— you said I hadn’t asked for money —” “Diego —” “— and I’m grateful because if you’d said I’d asked for money, I would have been accused of kidnapping and extortion, and —” “I don’t have a husband.” Another silence, this time more substantial. “What was that? But what about Santiago?” “I told you I don’t have a husband. And I never gave evidence in the case of Santiago’s kidnapping.” “Was I misinformed, then?” “No, what they told you was correct. Ursula López gave evidence that she never received your call, that you hadn’t asked her for money, and she was telling the truth. Because when you called to demand a ransom, you didn’t call her: you called another Ursula López, you called me.” “And? I don’t understand.” “There are two Ursula Lópezes. Santiago’s wife and me.”

“Who are you, then?” “Well, like I said, I’m Ursula López. But I’m another Ursula López. Do you understand?” “No.” “We share the same name. When you phoned to ask Ursula López, Santiago Losada’s wife, for a ransom, you called the wrong number. You called me. You called the wrong woman.” Diego thinks. Absorbed in thought, he inspects his hands or his fingernails. He parts his lips slightly, talks slowly, takes long pauses; it is as if the words are emerging from some distant place. “I looked for Ursula López’s number in the phone book and found yours. So it wasn’t Santiago’s wife’s number?” “No.” “You never told me you weren’t Santiago’s wife. You behaved as if you were.” “That’s right. That’s why I said I’d tricked you. I went to meet you and behaved as if I was her. I wanted to be her for a moment, just a moment, and then I realized I enjoyed being another woman.” Ursula is sitting in the dark-red velvet armchair, looking at the glass teardrops of the chandelier that hangs from the ceiling. “I enjoyed pretending to be her, to be someone else.” “And I asked you to pay her husband’s ransom: a million. You said you’d pay it if I … made him disappear.” Ursula wonders if she should tell him that she, in turn, asked the other Ursula, Santiago’s wife, for the ransom money. The damn woman had pretended to agree to pay the million but had put one condition on the payment, the same one she had imposed on Diego: that the husband had to disappear. But then the bitch had betrayed her and sent the police to the hideout where Santiago was being held.

No, better not to tell him anything about the failed negotiations. Or that, when they had met in the bar that night, she had drugged Diego and followed him back to the hiding place, found him knocked out by the pills, and when she heard the police coming she reacted quickly and fled with the gun that was sitting on the table. A good decision, in the light of events, because if the police had found the weapon… In the end, she’d saved him from being prosecuted for kidnapping and extortion. She looks at him and sighs. “Forget about the other Ursula. There’s no husband, no house in Carrasco, no swimming pool, no maids, no gardeners. And no million dollars.” Ursula pauses, allows the words to accumulate, gives him time to process the deceit. She wonders if Diego will get angry, if he’ll shout, if he’ll storm out, slamming the door behind him. Impossible. The door to the street is locked and she’d have to go down five flights of stairs to open it for him, and during that time any fit of rage would probably dissipate or simply feel ridiculous. As we know, reality trumps theatrical gestures. But Diego doesn’t do anything; he’s lost in thought, his disconcerted gaze wandering over the walls of the room. “Why did you do it? Lie, I mean. yourself off as somebody else.” “I already told you, I tried it and I enjoyed it. It’s what I’ve always wanted: to be somebody else. To escape the tedium of knowing that every day would be the same.” Diego smiles; it’s not a big smile, not even a friendly one, more like a strange expression with perhaps an element of comion, a sign of peace. But a smile nonetheless. “Do you how we said we’d be partners, Ursula?” “Yes.” “That’s water under the bridge; let’s forget about it, like you said. Now I’m going to propose another partnership. But this time I’m talking to you, not to Santiago’s wife. To the right woman, not the wrong one.”

Ursula takes a sip, two, puts her cup on the saucer and puts the saucer on the table. She nods, once, twice, several times. He’s talking slowly, in a low voice, in a whisper. “I’m taking part in something big, a robbery. I need your help. Please.” She dabs her lips and the napkin is stained pale pink. Old rose, they called it thirty years ago. “Tell me.”

XXV

Montevideo, dawn. The city is deserted, it lies motionless, not even breathing. From the east, the first ray of sunlight touches what was once the tallest tower in South America: the Palacio Salvo. The silence is white, gilded. At police headquarters, a radio plays jazz or blues or something else that couldn’t be less in keeping with the time and the place. Outside, the city of Montevideo is waking up, besieged as ever by a faint smell of garbage. Captain Leonilda Lima has been at her post since last night, attempting to bring together a team that is up to the challenge, giving them the instructions she’s prepared, organizing them. As we were saying, she has tried, but with little success: the men and the vehicles are either unavailable or simply don’t exist, she doesn’t know. The fact is that, just a few hours before the heist Skinflint tipped her off about, she has only been assigned four police officers, nowhere near enough to confront a group of heavily armed criminals who are determined to attack an armoured truck. We can’t do it like this, she decides, not like this. She calls Chief Inspector Clemen, but he doesn’t even answer. She leaves him a message and waits. She knows he won’t call back but she waits anyway. She is suspicious, apprehensive, we said, she’s had a bad feeling ever since she learned they’d assigned her case to Leonardo Borda. But why then did they give it back to her? Her suspicion grows, developing little by little, like a novel; chapter by chapter she gathers information, and reality gradually changes. Leonilda looks out of the window, the sun appears for a few minutes, shines, disappears, then reappears. The day will be one long string of changing situations, she thinks or assumes or predicts, she must take care, she repeats; the aspect of the planets couldn’t be worse for Capricorn. She finally rounds up sufficient men to convince herself, at this stage and faced

with the even worse option of abandoning the operation, that it will be enough. Three patrol cars and an armoured vehicle, their sirens blaring, set off for the western approaches to the city, and from there they will head north. There’s little or no traffic, the streets are strangely empty at this time of day, nobody is talking, the only sound to be heard is the tyres on the road surface. They go through red lights, do U-turns, the screeching of the sirens giving them licence to do as they please. They go no more than twenty blocks. “What’s up now?” “I don’t know. The armoured vehicle stopped.” “This is unbelievable!” “I’ll get out and see what’s happening, Captain.” “Hurry up, Rojas.” Captain Leonilda Lima holds her head in her hands, sighs, is torn between undoing her seat belt to leap out of the car in a rage and just accepting her fate. She goes for the middle option; she gets out of the car and approaches the armoured vehicle. “What’s the problem, Sergeant?” “Engine seems to have seized up, Captain.” The morning, in keeping with predictions, is going from bad to worse, and it feels as if the light is suddenly fading. She swallows. “Can you fix it?” The man looks at her in that way men look at women who ask them about mechanical problems. “No,” he says, making no mention of her rank. The eloquence of the monosyllable, shiny and smooth, can sometimes be brutal.

There’s not much to add. “Is another vehicle available?” “Afraid not.” It’s the hour just after dawn, when the woods are cloaked in newborn green, the mountains are incandescent and the sprinklers spray pure silver. Except that here there are no woods or mountains or water, not even a little patch of garden with a lawn in front of those poor houses with their bare cement walls. She runs her hand through her hair. It was foretold, you can’t challenge fate; it’s best just to resign yourself and go with the flow. She stares into space and for a moment she seems to be in a trance. Her face has a placid air, or at least that’s what the sergeant who’s watching her thinks, although of course he doesn’t use the word “placid”. Then she takes out her phone and makes some calls. But she’s quite certain that whatever she does and whoever she calls, she won’t arrive on time.

XXVI

Dawn filters through the curtains of the old apartment, at first faint and pale, then with that fiery glow of the early light of a winter morning, illuminating the worn leather armchairs, the old Persian rugs, the oak desk. And Ursula’s face. Ursula, standing with her arm outstretched, is aiming at nothing in particular. “Bam, bam, bam,” she says, then blows across the barrel of the revolver and tucks the .38 Special between the waistband of her tros and her underwear. She performs a ninety-degree turn, whips out the gun again, aims, shouts “Bam, bam, bam”, blows on the barrel, and puts it back in her waistband. She repeats the action a few more times, until she grows tired or bored or decides she’s had enough practice. Now she’s sitting, concentrating, the revolver in her hand, a box of bullets on the table, deploying the soft lint-free cloth she uses to clean her collection of figurines. But today it is not the turn of the Japanese figurines. Today is not Sunday, and instead she is cleaning the gun, polishing it until it feels smooth, until metal and wood are like silk. She inspects her work and is satisfied. On the wall hang oil paintings of family , photographs of the same people, births, weddings, holidays, reminders of the dead: all of them are dead except for her and Luz. She stops again, plants her legs, leans forward, looks ahead. She pulls out the gun and aims, in a single movement. Bam, bam, bam. Ursula’s pose reminds us of a sheriff in a western poster: one foot forward, the knees very slightly bent, her gaze fixed on a target we can’t see, and the revolver – whipped from its holster or from her tro waistband – extended in a straight line that starts at her nose, continues along her outstretched arm, and ends with the gun. She looks at her watch; it’s gone half past six. She’s hungry. That hunger she feels when she’s anxious, needy, nervous, when

she feels alone, depressed, nostalgic, angry: the hunger of memories, the hunger of the void. She walks over to the fridge, takes out rice, fish, sugar-free jelly, low-fat yogurt, unsalted cheese, fat-free ham, wholemeal crackers, carries everything over to the table with the low-calorie mayonnaise, olive oil, light dressings and sauces, takes a nibble here and a nibble there, opens a tin of frankfurters, defrosts a small portion of lentil stew, spoons some lentils into her mouth, spears some cheese and some ham, swamps them in ketchup and swallows, bites into meat, takes a piece of ravioli, dips it in vinaigrette, mops up some cream with the last of the noodles, gulps down the asparagus soup. The feelings of satisfaction and of guilt arrive almost at the same time. Ursula sits motionless, looks in disgust at the leftovers from her little feast, closes her eyes. She needs to get rid of everything, to empty the fridge. She promises not to do it again, but she knows or suspects the flesh is weak, that her flesh is weak. Living in such a fragile body is disturbing. She is aware of how wasteful it is to throw away all this food and she swears – she swears blind – that she won’t buy it again, ever. Sorrowfully, she places the jar of blueberry jam in the kitchen trash, slowly disposes of the two packets of filled pasta, throws out the salami and even the Christmas nougat. It wasn’t so difficult; the real challenge will be not to buy more of the same. She opens the cupboard and throws tins of food to the floor, sweeps packets and jars from the shelves, chucks everything into black plastic bags which she then drags to the front door and leaves on the landing. She closes the door, leans against it, her breathing agitated. Gradually she calms down. Ursula goes back to her desk. The sun, which has already moved almost a yard, is now falling on the revolver. She looks at it, caresses it, picks it up and smells it: jasmine, ylang-ylang and rosewater, with just a hint of vetiver oil. The scent of the last person to hold it, the scent of her own hand. But, more than this aroma, the smell of the house is deep and familiar: it smells of old wood, of worn leather, of pipes blocked off years ago, of yellowing books, of a life that has ed. Finally, she puts the gun in her bag, adds the binoculars, a packet of wholemeal crackers that has survived the massacre, her sunglasses, a box of surgical gloves, a bottle of water, and a cardigan in case it gets cold. Ten past seven.

Out of habit she turns on the television, a large set housed in dark wood. The images are grainy, the voices full of static. There is a news report about a gang of criminals caught by the police in the middle of an assault on a payday loan shop, one of the participants dying after being shot with a high-calibre weapon owned by the store manager; the journalist holds his microphone in front of a man who says this is the tenth time he’s been robbed so far this year, the camera focuses on a body, the dead robber, as someone covers the corpse with a large bag or a nylon sheet. Ursula strides over to the television, rips out the cable, and the television dies. She leaves with the cable in her hand and throws it down next to the bags. In an hour’s time, everything will have begun.

PART TWO

9.23 a.m.

This is the scene: the Nissan truck, its engine running, is waiting on the south side of Calle Rosaleda, ten yards from the corner with Calle Río Colorado. Inside are Ricardo and the Skinflint, both smoking. At Ricardo’s feet lies the Calico M960 semi-automatic (calibre 9×19 mm Luger; empty weight 2.17 kg; open length 835 mm; barrel length 330 mm; rate of fire 750 shots per minute; magazine capacity 100 cartridges). In his pocket is the Smith & Wesson .38 Special (calibre .38+P, double action; capacity five bullets; barrel length 4.8 cm; total length 16.8 cm; weight 405.4 g). Tucked into his belt, under his jacket, the Skinflint has one of the SIG Sauers (calibre 9 mm Parabellum; length 180 mm; weight 642 g). On the back seat is a box with ten grenades. In front of the Nissan, about fifty yards further down, still on Rosaleda, sits a Toyota truck, white, double cab, green tinted glass, the engine off, Diego inside. The other Calico is on the floor of the vehicle but as far as possible from his feet. He doesn’t want to look at it, doesn’t want to think; he isn’t allowed to be afraid and, for a moment, he plays at believing he is part of this group that, any second now, will launch its attack. He wants to belong, tries to pull himself together. He takes a pill from his pocket, throws his head back and tosses the pill into his mouth. He struggles to swallow it. Half a block from where Diego sits, Ricardo has been cutting out lines of coke with his identity card and snorting them, one after another, for the last thirty minutes. He seems happy and he laughs at everything; he makes a circle with his mouth, as if he was about to whistle, and his thick lips tremble as if he had a chilli pepper on his tongue. He opens his mouth and taps his thumbnail against his nicotine-stained teeth, and looks at the Skinflint with an expression he must think is full of meaning. The Skinflint avoids the Hobo’s gaze and stares instead into the emptiness outside; he accepted a couple of lines and now he feels more nervous than before, more afraid. He wishes he could leave. He checks the time on his phone. All this quilombo, all this chaos, all this fear, for a few pesos and a used motorbike. “That’s the way, Skinflint. You stuck by me. The rest just disappeared like

smoke.” “You’ve got to understand. Nobody wants to get involved with a cash truck, Hobo. Too many guns, too much violence.” “That’s why we’ll be rich while they’re still eating cold stew. Cowards. Just as well I put the squeeze on the Sparrow.” “Does he have any experience?” “He’s a rookie but he just has to load the bags and drive. I wasn’t spoiled for choice; it was him or nobody. Bunch of fuckin chickens, they all pulled out on me.” “It’s an armoured truck, Hobo…” Fifty yards away, Diego is sure it’s going to be a disaster. He takes another pill from another pack, throws his head back again and, once more, tosses the pill into his mouth. Agony is the word that best describes his state of mind. He thinks about people who live according to a plan, who know exactly what is going to happen to them for days, months, years. Bankers, ministers, all those organized men who live to a plan, like a map of their lives, a GPS which tells them what route to follow in their existence. His life, in contrast, is directionless. On the block, there are no shops or offices, just low houses, grey buildings – some of brick or bare concrete; a middle class dragged down by successive crises from which some people never recover, houses built by their inhabitants ten years ago, when this was still countryside. Between the white Toyota and the Nissan is a tall tree, thirty feet high, still covered with leaves, an Indian lilac or a rosewood. Just opposite is a locked garage, which we know opens in the afternoon; the floor is black with oil, and in front of it sits the useless carcass of a rusty old bus. There’s almost nobody around. It’s 9.23 in the morning and those who go off to work or school already left a while ago, while the rest are staying inside, not putting so much as their noses out into the cold air. There aren’t many vehicles either: very occasionally a cheap Chinese motorbike, a rusty bicycle, a car with the bumper held on by string. On Rosaleda, west past Río Colorado, a couple of hundred yards further along,

inside his Audi A6, is Antinucci. Hidden behind tinted glass, he trains his binoculars on where the action will unfold. He is keeping his beady eye on proceedings. He arrived more than an hour ago and he hasn’t allowed himself to smoke inside the car or to get out and smoke on the sidewalk; as a result, his mood is steadily worsening. He strikes the steering wheel with the gold ring on which the initials VAA are engraved in relief, surrounded by scrollwork; he bites his lips, first the lower one then the upper, and starts again. He tries to concentrate on monitoring the street, the faces of the few ers-by, but he can’t hold on any longer, if he doesn’t get out to smoke he’s going to light up right here, inside the car. And that would be impossible, unforgivable: he looks after his car like he’s nursing a sick child. He opens the door and almost hurls himself out; he searches his pockets, repeatedly, convinced he has an unopened packet in there. He checks everywhere but the cigarettes don’t appear and Antinucci, the tension rising, feels as if he’s about to explode. He decides to walk to the kiosk on the corner, although he doesn’t like leaving the car and its contents: the RPG7 grenade launcher (40 mm-calibre launcher and 85 mm-calibre shell; PGO-7 and UP-7V telescopic sight; weight 7 kg; length 950 mm; range 920 m). Obviously he has to leave it. Or was he thinking of taking it to the kiosk, hidden perhaps beneath his overcoat, the barrel poking out at the collar, just next to his left ear? He shakes his head, laughing at his own thoughts, opens the back to check it’s still there, then closes it, checks a couple more times that the back door is closed properly, looks at the time: the clock is ticking, he needs to get a move on. On the other side of Rosaleda, on the corner with Moreras, is Ursula. Nobody can see her because she’s hidden behind a truck that’s been there since last night and which conceals her completely from the view of anyone looking from the other corner, from Rosaleda and Río Colorado and beyond. She’s calm; in her right hand is a pair of binoculars, her pink handbag is on her shoulder, inside it are wholemeal crackers, a water bottle, and a cardigan in case it gets cold. She has the Smith & Wesson .38 Special in her coat pocket. She dominates the whole scene, observes each movement of the participants, keeping a close eye on Diego. She holds up the binoculars and, just now, furrows her brow, adjusts the focus wheel, unable to believe what she sees: she’s recognized Ricardo. That man again? The other day in the park, and now here. She asks herself why he’s out of prison after he’d been locked up for killing Auntie Irene and wasn’t due to be released for another ten or twenty years. She shakes her head angrily. This guy shouldn’t be here, and he certainly shouldn’t

be Diego’s partner. And her own, by extension. She sees him, and the images unfold, her mind travelling back in time to a dark corridor. From the shadows, through the crack of a barely open door, someone watches a couple having sex, watches them copulate, observes their movements, watches them tremble as they reach orgasm, sees them relax after they have finished, watches as the woman falls asleep and the man, bored perhaps, plays with a gun before putting it on the bedside table and then he, too, falls asleep. The person who is watching from the doorway tiptoes into the room of the sleeping couple, takes the gun, picks it up carefully, walks down the corridor to Auntie Irene’s room, holding the revolver with Ricardo’s fingerprints in her hand, a hand sheathed in a surgical glove. She opens the door, looks at the old lady sleeping between her white sheets, smells the perfume of lily and white musk, senses the woman’s vulnerability, and a tear trickles down her cheek. She tingles with a feeling of tenderness, watching her taking a siesta without a care in the world, and knows all these moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain. It’s time to die, she thinks sadly. And she starts to walk towards the bed. Ursula doesn’t want to , but the images overwhelm her. In the next scene, everything is confused: her aunt dead from a gunshot, the revolver abandoned by her side, the maid’s lover dragged out of the house and hustled into a patrol car that speeds away, sirens blaring, Ursula’s statement to the police, the latex gloves at the bottom of her handbag, Auntie Irene’s ring in the pocket of her overcoat. Ursula wrinkles her forehead in annoyance and shifts her eyes from Ricardo to the man next to him, the Skinflint. She doesn’t like this man either; she finds him suspicious, even if we don’t know why she feels this way. She looks at Diego again, directly opposite, although he can’t see her; she notices his face has acquired a greenish hue, no doubt the effect of the tinted windscreen, she thinks. Later, she will discover it’s the colour of his fear, not the glass. She continues to observe the green-tinged face, thinks about green, how it reminds her of the sea, dreams of holidays at the seaside. Now she’ll be able to go on holiday to the beach or wherever she wants. No, Ursula, you don’t deserve a holiday at the beach or anywhere else, Daddy says. Look what a mess you’ve got yourself into. Robbery, armed robbery. That was all you needed. They’ll lock you up for this, but not just until eight in the morning, when I come to open your door and bring your penance to an end. This time they’ll lock you up for good. Shut up, Daddy! You’re going to end up in prison, Ursula, just like you always deserved, you thief. Because you used to steal food and now you steal money. Shut up, you old bastard, shut up! You’re a fat little thief, that’s what you are! Be quiet, Daddy, you’re dead. I made sure you were good and dead. Ursula breathes with

difficulty, looks at Diego, grabs the binoculars; she’s annoyed, angry. She focuses on Diego, he looks afraid, small, weak; if he isn’t up to it, she’ll know what to do. She can smell money, the aphrodisiac scent of paper, ink and sweat. And when she has money she’ll lose weight, she’ll buy a house in Carrasco, she’ll have a swimming pool, a maid, a gardener, a new car. Holidays on the beach beside a green sea. You’ll see, Daddy. You’ll see, Luz. The cash truck will come down the side street in ten to fifteen minutes’ time, with three men in the cab and two more in the back with the takings. The Skinflint, slightly wary, rejects the coke and begins to roll a cigarette, painstakingly; like a craftsman he smooths out the paper, arranges the tobacco, rolls it, twirls it between his fingers, runs his tongue along the edge. The process of rolling the cigarette reassures him, he ires his handiwork, sighs. Ricardo can’t sit still, he leaves the engine running and jumps down from the truck, walks a few steps, and halts next to the Toyota. He bangs on the window; Diego hadn’t seen him coming, and starts. “Open up, asshole.” Diego does as he is told and lowers the window. A car speeds down Rosaleda and comes within inches of the Hobo, splashing his tros, his jacket, his hair with dirty water. Ricardo hurls insults but the driver can’t hear because he’s already far away. “I’ll blow your brains out, you motherfuckin candy-assed piece of shit.” “Careful, Hobo. Keep your voice down, people will notice.” “Keep my fuckin voice down? You see what that son of a bitch did?” “Keep it down. We don’t want to attract attention. We need to keep a low profile.” “Christ’s sake, Sparrow. You’re a fuckin coward.” Just as Antinucci comes out of the kiosk, a lit cigarette in his mouth and the rest of the pack in his pocket, Diego is beginning to think he’s tired of that word, coward, but his rage always gives way to his fear.

The noise of a powerful engine breaks the spell in this street of silent houses. Diego and Ricardo look at each other, their heads turning in perfect synchrony, a movement that – two hundred yards away and viewed through binoculars – has the grace of a well-rehearsed dance, a grace that seems completely removed from this moment, just before a robbery is about to start. Ricardo grunts, the sound you make when you’re in the chair, your mouth open and full of cotton wool and metal implements, and the dentist asks you a question. Diego doesn’t understand, until he hears him shout: “The truck’s coming, it’s early. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!”

9.28 a.m.

Ricardo covers half a block in four strides. The cash truck is still a hundred and fifty yards away and is moving at walking pace, no doubt due to the numerous potholes on Calle Rosaleda. He gets into the Nissan, does up his seat belt, puts the vehicle into first and turns the steering wheel. The front of the car is just poking into the street and, without taking his eyes off the rear-view mirror, without taking his eyes off the truck, he calculates and guides his vehicle eastwards. He watches the truck approach, has it in his sights; it’s only a hundred yards away and his heart is pounding. Shoot, Antinucci, shoot, he thinks. Ricardo grips the steering wheel until his knuckles ache, clenches his teeth until his gums hurt, fifty yards and Antinucci still doesn’t shoot. Press the trigger, he thinks, his breathing is laboured, his eyes glued to the truck. Shoot, for Chrissake, just fucking shoot. Antinucci has returned from his trip to the kiosk; the cigarette is now reduced to a butt between his lips and he throws it carefully into the angle formed between the asphalt and the edge of the kerb. He gets into his car, settles down, picks up the binoculars, adjusts them. And what he sees makes him jump, disturbing the buttocks that were so comfortably arranged on the leather seat. “Jesus Christ, it’s early.” It’s only fair to note that, immediately after saying this, he repents sincerely, he knows he shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain and tomorrow he will have to confess or live with the shadow of sin on his conscience. He gets out again, goes to the rear of the vehicle and takes the grenade launcher out. He looks around; there’s nobody here, just as they’d planned. He rests the weapon on his shoulder and aims the telescopic sight, calibrates, all the while wondering whether in this case he would also be taking His name in vain, he’s not sure, he must to ask Father Ismael tomorrow at seven o’clock Mass. He half-closes his right eye against the sight, focuses, adjusts. And fires.

Ricardo’s hands are gripping the steering wheel, his eyes are on the rear-view mirror, he’s shaking with impatience – and from the effects of the cocaine – when he hears the sound, and a triumphant shout emerges from the back of his throat as he hears the whistle of the grenade which, as agreed, Antinucci has just fired at the truck, some fifty yards away. The explosion is terrible, the vehicle bursts into flames, columns of fire and smoke rise into the air. The boom has shaken the tranquillity of this suburban morning, and it is followed by a dense hissing silence. The occasional old lady appears at the window, still wearing an apron, a spoon in her hand; there is the clang of a door or a window opening, a voice, one shout and then another, disconnected sounds, the noise gradually growing. Somebody seems to be complaining somewhere. Ricardo steps on the accelerator and the Nissan draws up to the cash truck. They get out, him and the Skinflint. An old man in pyjamas comes out onto his balcony, puts on his glasses to see what’s happening, shouts, asks something, gestures, waves his arms. “Get back inside, Grandpa!” the Skinflint shouts. The old man continues to gesture, continues to shout. His pyjamas flap on his skinny body. Ricardo, the Hobo, gets out the .38 and takes aim. “Leave him, Hobo, he’s going.” But Ricardo has already emptied the chamber and at least two bullets hit the target. The man in pyjamas falls down and, although we don’t know if he’s dead, he won’t reappear in this story. A voice is heard from the truck. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, I’m injured, fucking Christ,” someone shouts, a young voice. “Help me, please.” Ricardo is holding the Calico in one hand and the .38 in the other. He puts away the revolver, goes straight to the front of the truck and, without even opening the

door, unleashes one burst, then another, then a third – a dull sound, like explosions in a feather pillow – although the first burst is enough to reduce the door to splinters, shear the driver’s body in two and blow his companion’s face off. Ursula looks through her binoculars, smells the powder, the sweat, the blood. She thinks about the danger, the money, and Diego – we don’t know if in that order or in some other sequence – and she thinks again that Ricardo can’t be free, that something is going wrong in the world. She puts her hand into her overcoat, touches her own .38. Antinucci, two hundred yards away, puts the grenade launcher on the back seat and lights another cigarette, this time inside the car. He looks around: the street is deserted, just as they agreed. He smiles and strokes the roof of his Audi. In front of Antinucci, another two hundred yards away, Ricardo turns ninety degrees and walks up to the back of the armoured vehicle. He stops, waits for a few seconds. Inside there is movement, a voice, a complaint. “Don’t shoot. Jesus! Please don’t shoot.” The door opens and a man appears, comes out with his hands up, his face covered in blood. A large portion of his scalp is missing. “Please don’t shoot.”

9.29 a.m.

The Hobo looks at the man and then at the Calico. He hesitates for a moment before taking the .38 from his pocket; then he aims and fires four times and the guard falls to the ground, his face spattered with his own brains. With minimal variations, he repeats the operation with the guard lying on the floor of the vehicle, a man who was probably already dead, to judge by his condition, which it is probably best not to describe. Ricardo again turns ninety degrees and faces the Nissan. He shouts. “The bags, load up the bags. Now.” He gestures towards the place where the Skinflint should be but there’s nobody there because the Skinflint has disappeared. “Skinflint, you cunt! Where the fuck are you?” The Hobo’s shouts blare out like the horn of an ocean liner. He looks at the Toyota, runs over to it. Diego sees his shadow growing larger against the glass, and at the same time he feels his nausea rising. He looks at the Hobo, hears him shout. “Where the fuck has the Skinflint gone?” “I saw him. He just ran off round the corner.” “That son of a goddamn fuckin bitch. Bring the truck, back it up and help me load the bags.” Diego interrupts whatever it is he is thinking about. He swallows, obeys. He looks eastwards; a few yards away some dogs are fighting over a bone or a piece of plastic, barking and nipping at each other. His gaze sweeps down the road and comes to rest at the corner, on a truck that has been parked there since last night, and his facial muscles slacken slightly.

He turns on the engine and reverses up to the armoured vehicle. He gets out of the van – leaving the engine on and the back door open, as agreed – then looks again to the east, to the corner with Moreras, and gives a small signal, almost imperceptible, with his thumb. He feels panic again, thinks about prison, tries to expunge the memory, but the thought returns. Prison. He imagines the sirens, the patrol cars surrounding him, hands pushing him to the floor, boots against his ribs. He struggles to breathe, tries to fill his lungs. He’s panting like a dog. He takes out a pill and puts it in his mouth. On legs that have turned to jelly, he walks over to Ricardo. Antinucci, sitting in position two hundred yards away with his binoculars, is watching Ricardo, saw the Skinflint escape without being able to do anything to stop him, curses the fact that he doesn’t have more people, keeps Diego in sight. He curses his employees, these low-life idiots, wishes he could just kill the lot of them. He turns his head and sees the grenade launcher on the back seat. The initial fire of the explosion is going out. Just over a minute has ed since the explosion, the longest minute of Diego’s life. In this situation, we imagine being a minister or a banker wouldn’t have done him much good, he’d be just as screwed, or almost. Diego and the Hobo get into the back of the truck. There’s a third man lying on the floor: he’s very young, moaning with pain, his thigh bone seems to be broken and his leg is at a weird unnatural angle. He’s badly burned, he has no eyebrows or lashes. The Hobo takes aim. “No, no,” Diego shouts over the report of four shots. The young man opens and closes his mouth and falls silent, his eyes wide, his gaze directed at the roof of the truck. Ricardo loads the first bag and looks at Diego. The smile is so forced that it terrifies him. “Hurry up. There’s more cash than we thought.” “Why did you shoot him? He couldn’t even move. You could just have taken his gun.” “Sooner or later he would have fingered us. Why do you care what I do? Shut up and help load the cash. I’m in charge here, your job is to follow orders. Skinflint is gonna pay for this, that son of a bitch.” “How many bags should we take?”

“As many as we can, you retard. It’s a whole night’s casino takings, millions and millions.” Ricardo es the first bag to Diego, who carries it with some effort, then two more, and another two; all of them end up in the back of the Toyota. Ricardo shouts and gives orders as if he was alone in the world. And so it seems, because nobody who lives on the street has dared show their face. Ursula, on the corner, fingers the revolver in her pocket, her frown looking more tense than it did a few minutes ago, then emerges from her hiding place and starts to walk towards the cash truck. Antinucci has just grabbed the grenade launcher from the back seat and got out of the Audi. He loads another projectile and can no longer contain his desire to shoot again; he weighs up the situation, aims the RPG-7. Inevitably, some of the residents start to look, to appear at windows and doors. Ricardo sees a toothless woman who has just stuck her head out from behind a grimy curtain, and takes aim. “What you lookin at, you halfwit? You want me to rub you out like the other one?” The woman goes back inside, a hand draws the curtain and disappears, we hear a door closing behind her, the noise of a deadbolt. They grab two more bags. Time is running out. “Hobo, we’ve got to split. There’s no time.” “I already told you, I give the orders,” Ricardo shouts, spitting out the words, spattering Diego with saliva, his own face contorted by rage, adrenaline or coke. Diego sees Ricardo’s fingers on the gun and he feels a wave of nausea. He tries to hold on but he feels himself falling; he tells himself he can’t faint, not now, that if he doesn’t flee, doesn’t get the hell out of here right now then he’s a dead man. He looks to the side, searching for an escape route, but his body doesn’t respond. He feels around. Where are the pills? He searches futilely for the blister pack.

“I’m done with you. We’ve finished loading up the bags, I ain’t got no use for you now.” “No, Hobo, I —” “Shut up, chicken.” Ricardo takes out the gun, grips it, Diego observes the hand raising the revolver and holding it three inches from the midpoint between his eyes, he sees it and he wants to shout but his tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth, his arms swing back and forward like a rusty crane. He makes an effort, tries to straighten his back, which has gradually hunched over, takes a breath and finds himself gasping. His eyes mist over. Diego tries to think about things he wished he’d done when he was alive but didn’t, he wants to see his whole existence before his eyes, but all that happens is that the wait becomes longer and emptier. Antinucci, who has been adjusting the sight of the grenade launcher, can’t believe what he now sees. Nervously, he tries to focus to get a clearer view. He turns the zoom left and right, puts his eye to it, adjusts it again. “Son of a goddamn bitch,” he swears without remorse. “Son of a no-good goddamn fucking bitch,” he says, impervious to sin. “Goddamn fucking cunt,” he adds, without the slightest desire to confess to Father Ismael. He focuses again, adjusts and finally sees a clear image of the woman who is walking, gun in hand, approaching the scene. Everything is going wrong. Diego feels the cold of Ricardo’s revolver between his eyes, tries to move back but can’t, closes his eyes tighter. His mind is empty, he waits for what feels like an eternity. And finally he hears the gunshot, squeezes his eyelids, clamps his teeth, clenches his fists, his whole body trembling as he waits for the pain of the bullet tearing his flesh. It takes a few seconds before he understands that the sound of the gunshot came from the wrong direction, from behind him. He opens his eyes.

9.31 a.m.

Before Diego understands what is happening, he sees the Hobo stagger and drop his gun. He has a strange expression on his face, his eyes are wide open, he’s looking at something, he takes a couple of steps back and stumbles, and looks behind Diego again. The sky darkens with the speed of an eclipse. Ricardo drops the gun and doubles over, clutches his stomach with both hands, manages to raise his head, sees the revolver with which he has just been shot, sees the hands in their surgical gloves, sees the woman holding the revolver, sees her eyes and, despite the pain now spreading through his body, suddenly becomes alert, his muscles tensing. From wherever it is he stores his memories, a house, a homicide, a robbery appear. The house is Irene’s, the homicide the one he was framed for but didn’t commit, the robbery the theft of a ring he never saw. As we were saying, he sees the woman who is holding the gun, and he re Irene’s niece, he recognizes her. He understands, or thinks he understands, that this is not her first crime. Then he sinks further, falls to the floor, and can no longer see or think. Ursula, still holding the revolver in the air, observes the fallen figure, motionless against the black tarmac, sees the bloodstain spreading from the man’s stomach, and thinks she should hurry up and get rid of the weapon before Ricardo recognizes her, although she doubts he’s in a condition to recognize anyone. She magics it away, slipping it into the bottom of her bag. Then she realizes she is very thirsty. She gets out the bottle of water, takes a couple of sips. She dabs her mouth with a white handkerchief, which she then folds and tucks into her sleeve. A haemorrhage caused by a gunshot wound to the stomach is not a good prognosis for survival, she thinks. She doesn’t like this face, this man; she goes up to the body and turns him over, turns him so he is lying on his front, his face hidden. That’s better. “Diego, don’t just stand there. Get a move on.”

“Ricardo —” “He’s dead – or he will be soon. He was aiming at you, Diego, he wanted to kill you. Didn’t you see him? He’s a traitor: a traitor and a murderer. I knew him a little, and I can promise you he wasn’t a nice guy.” “Dead?” “As a dodo, I’d say.” “And you said you knew him?” “Just in ing. He was the boyfriend of my Auntie Irene’s maid.” Diego isn’t listening any more, he’s looking for , something to hold on to. In the distance, a thunderclap sounds, like a warning. Or is it a police siren? His eyelids feel heavy. Antinucci has loaded his weapon. He’s struggling to focus the grenade launcher’s telescopic sight and curses the people who sold it to him, without pausing to think about Father Ismael or confession or penitence. He aims, his calculation little more than a wild guess. He swears again, feels he can’t wait any longer, he pants with the rage that all this unpredictability causes, at the setbacks which come from things not going the way they were planned, at the frustration of not being able to count on these fucking peasants. He fires. Three things happen at once: Diego faints and falls to the floor, Ursula bends down to help him, and the grenade fired from Antinucci’s weapon hisses over both their heads and hits the remains of the cash truck just a few yards away. A few moments later, the time Antinucci takes to reload, the next grenade arrives and hits the Nissan. The truck and the van catch fire, and within seconds both are enveloped in flames. The sound of a siren can be heard in the distance. More projectiles whizz past. Ursula is petrified by the noise of the explosions, dazzled by the flames. Crouching over, she grabs Diego by the neck and drags him a few yards to the Toyota, opens the door, and with some effort pushes him into the enger seat without taking her eye off the fire which surrounds the vehicle. Then she gets into the driver’s seat, puts the van into first and gets going. She’s seen plenty of movies and she knows that, sooner or later, everything will go up in smoke. The

siren sounds closer. Antinucci, two hundred yards away and looking through the telescopic sight, can only see smoke and flames, the street stained red and black, and he thinks to himself that none of this is what he planned. He tosses the grenade launcher into the back of the car, gets in, starts the engine. He feels his fingers tingling, his hands cold. The skin of his face feels tight, like when you sense a stone ing close to your head. He accelerates towards the fire. We wouldn’t like to be in his path. As he reaches the corner he hears the explosion, sees pieces of truck fly into the air, hears the sound of breaking glass as the windows shatter. Everything has gone wrong. Ursula, who has already driven east down Rosaleda, turns onto Moreras and goes another hundred yards before she hears the crash of the first vehicle exploding. “I knew it was going to explode,” she says, speaking to nobody in particular. And then she hears the second explosion. She nods to herself. At her side, Diego is oblivious. Ursula turns, takes Camino Maldonado towards Curva de Maroñas, just as Antinucci and Captain Leonilda Lima arrive at the scene, from the same direction and at the same time. Diego, despite being barely conscious, bursts into tears. Ursula ignores him; she’s no good at consoling people. Well, she thinks, life’s a bitch, and those who cry are quite right to do so.

9.35 a.m.

The rain starts to fall, softly at first, gently, and then comes beating down; the police cars arrive in a flurry of roaring engines and squealing brakes and wailing sirens, barely muted by the noise of the downpour, and they stop at a prudent distance from the fire, which the heavens are doing their best to extinguish. Like needles of stone, the rain cascades down onto the woman, the first to emerge from one of the patrol cars, and she runs and tries to shield herself with her hands, her arms, her jacket collar, then stands rooted to the spot ten yards from the burning truck, observing the fire with a frown, her fists clenched, next to the smouldering remains, and finally lowers her arms, impotent against the elements and fate. She can’t believe it; she’s just a few blocks from where she was born, from where she grew up. She looks around. So many years ago. But she has to concentrate on the present. The agents deploy: they run to and fro, orders are hurled, heavy soles slap on the wet ground, voices shout in rough accents from tough areas on the outskirts of the city. Captain Leonilda takes a look round, does her reconnaissance. There’s nobody here. There’s been a struggle but there’s no trace either of living people or of their corpses. It’s like an abandoned battlefield: shards of glass, splinters of metal, fragments of plastic, scraps of burned paper. Banknotes? Are those pieces of banknotes? There seems to be a lot of burned cash flying around the street. There’s what’s left of the truck – the chassis and the armoured cab – and the remains of an SUV skewed across the street, maybe a Nissan, maybe the vehicle used by the robbers. In the middle of the road are the springs from a car seat, some polyurethane foam, and scraps of upholstery fabric blowing in the wind. Not a soul? Not a single human being? She closes her eyes, has the feeling she’s made a mistake but doesn’t know what, opens her eyes. She looks, again, at the smoke, the foam, the pieces of metal. She scans the scene, systematically, yard by yard. She shudders; ten yards away there’s something that looks like … an arm? It’s an arm. She’s sure it’s an upper

limb. Breathe, breathe. She shudders again. Rage. They could have arrived in time to prevent what she suspects is a massacre. As we were saying, her men have fanned out, they’ve closed off both entrances to the street. The fire engines and the technical team are on their way, Rojas confirms. Leonilda orders them to hurry up, to get here and take photos of everything before the scene is contaminated. How on earth did they blow up this truck and the van? They must have used something really powerful, expensive, difficult to get hold of. Military hardware. She has to warn Ballistics, she needs everyone working on this case, it’s urgent. She walks around the armoured truck, there are people inside the burned cab, she thinks, bodies; she approaches then stops herself, knows she has to hold off and wait for the fire engines and the ambulances, follow the protocol without thinking too much. An Audi A6 has stopped behind the police cars. A man gets out of the Audi, and Leonilda watches him as he approaches with a confident step, wearing a suit and moccasins that are shiny despite the rain. He has a small head, eyes that are bulging rather than large, a high, almost dome-shaped forehead, a scar that perhaps was made by a fist, and a huge Adam’s apple, bouncing up and down like a ball. Why has she noticed these details? She doesn’t know. The guy marches over; he’s not wearing a raincoat or sheltering from the downpour. She signals to him to stop. “No access, sir. Please go back.” Antinucci appears not to have heard, he approaches, offers Captain Lima his hand. “Mr Antinucci, at your orders. I was just driving past when I heard the explosion, saw the flames. What on earth has happened here? It looks like a war zone. An assault on an armoured truck, apparently. If I can be of help in any way, perhaps as a witness… I saw the flames from a distance.” Leonilda shakes her head in annoyance, barely brushing the hand the man insists on offering her, just enough to have the impression that she has touched an invertebrate, a jellyfish. She’s sure she’s heard that name before, it sounds familiar, but just now she can’t put a face to it or where or from whom she heard it. No, she doesn’t think she’s seen him before, she’d that

conceited air. And the Adam’s apple going up and down. “Agent Rojas, take this gentleman’s details so we can call him if needed. I want him away from the crime scene. Immediately.” She feels a twinge, a disquiet that she can’t explain and which disturbs her. The man in the shiny shoes hasn’t moved. He’s talking and gesticulating. “What a mess, right? A bloodbath. You’re going to need Forensics. Did you call Forensics?” “Yes,” she lies, and immediately wonders why she’s lied. “I’ll say it again; you can count on me. Here’s my card.” She takes the card without looking; mechanically, she puts it in her pocket. She sees the man’s car, the Audi A6 parked any old how behind the patrol cars, one of those vehicles which make the owner feel like he’s a big shot. Leonilda’s gaze meets two eyes that are like two slits, two horizontal lines that don’t seem quite human. Despite her training, her time at the police academy and all those years of experience, she feels the ground shifting beneath her feet. She has to take control. “You can’t be here. Don’t make me have you removed by force.” “I just want to help.” “Rojas, deal with him, please.” Rojas grabs the man by the shoulder and pushes him back. The man acquiesces, shrugs in a gesture of powerlessness, but before he retreats he scans the scene, a precise painstaking inspection that records every inch in a mental photograph. He stops. Antinucci’s scanner seems to have detected something. He frees himself of Rojas’s grasp. “There’s somebody there,” he says. Leonilda’s eyes follow the man’s finger – a long pale finger with a manicured nail – and she thinks she can see a body, yes, there’s a body just five or six yards from the armoured truck, half-hidden by pieces of fabric or plastic. She feels the

cold in her bones, looks into the man’s eyes and thinks, again, that they are like two slits that have opened to analyse this lifeless body. Leonilda thinks she sees a glint in his eyes before they move on, continuing the search. The captain shivers, the first signs of fever. There are people whose gaze we must avoid, she thinks, whose attention we should not attract, strange creatures for whom just a glance, the merest persistence of a gaze, is enough to give them the excuse they are looking for. Sometimes it’s better to keep your eyes on your shoes. Leonilda overcomes this need to avoid looking at him. “Sir, if you don’t leave immediately I’m going to have you arrested. Agent Rojas, I don’t want this man inside the perimeter for one more second.” “I’m leaving. Don’t worry about me, Captain Leonilda Lima.” Her name is uttered like a threat and she shudders, her top lip beaded with sweat. How does he know who she is? Where does he know her from? “Leave,” she hears herself shout, beside herself. “Leave right now. Get out of here immediately.” “Captain, please that the man over there might not be dead.” “I told you to leave.” “I’ve got things to do too, Leonilda, lots of things. I can promise you. You’ve got my card; I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other. Give my regards to Inspector Clemen.” Leonilda watches him go beneath the downpour, his back straight, his stride martial, apparently unbothered by the rain. She gives an order: “Rojas, get hold of an unmarked car, have that guy followed. Don’t lose sight of him.” Leonilda watches the man beneath the yellow tape that cordons off an area some hundred yards wide; he gets into his top-of-the-range car, which will soon be swallowed up by the curtain of water. And she re the name: it’s Ricardo Prieto’s lawyer, the man the Skinflint said would be in charge of this robbery. Antinucci. She re now having seen his signature several times in the file of Ricardo Prieto, alias the Hobo.

She looks at the body. She shouts, calls for help, urges the ambulances to hurry up. Forensics, we need Forensics. She tries to keep her wet hair out of her eyes. Tries to dry her eyes. Desperation, maybe that’s the word that would best define her feelings right now.

9.40 a.m.

Ursula is driving and tries to come up with a plan immediately, a quick solution which will take them far from the scene of the robbery. That’s what she calls it, the robbery, the word her father used. She needs to find somewhere to offload the money. She needs to get rid of the Toyota van. And she needs to look after Diego, who appears to be catatonic. The first thing to do is cover the bags printed with the logo of the transport company. She has a lot to do, but Ursula doesn’t seem dazed or overwhelmed. She’s driving confidently, even with a certain flair, you might say, between buses and motorbikes, cars and pedestrians, weaving skilfully through the chaotic morning traffic; the whole city seems to have agreed to go into town. And she, too, is going into town: the Old Town. We can’t help asking ourselves why she wants to expose herself to such danger – why not flee in the other direction? – but she must have a reason. She drives skilfully, as we were saying, attentive to the noise and the signals, looking ahead, behind and to both sides; she has eyes in the back of her head and two strong hands that grip the wheel, change gears, lower the window, rearrange her hair, remove a fleck of dust from her coat. If you could see me, Daddy, with all this money. I bet you never saw as much money as this, there’s enough here for a house in Carrasco, a bunch of swimming pools, a whole load of cars. A thief, that’s what you are, Ursula. No, Daddy, I didn’t steal it; Ricardo did. You stole it, too. You and that idiot who’s ed out by your side. Don’t call Diego an idiot, Daddy, I won’t allow it. This is what you’ve become; a thief who has perpetrated a robbery with a bunch of criminals. I already told you I didn’t steal it, you old bastard, I’m just taking the money away before someone else does. And now get back in your grave, because the road is wet and this vehicle is groaning under the weight of all this cash. She breathes deep and looks at Diego, who still appears to be unconscious, and she continues to weave between the taxis, the bicycles and the ers-by. There’s a patrol car with two cops inside parked to her left. Is it her imagination, or are they looking at her? Impossible to know; they’re wearing dark glasses. They don’t stop her. She can’t let herself be carried away by paranoia. She sighs. She blinks faster than usual. She feels as if her mind is running riot but she reins

it in and, as she reaches the corner of 8 de Octubre and Propios, she begins to put things in order. “Whose van is this, Diego?” Her voice sounds harsh and metallic. Diego doesn’t react or barely reacts, scarcely opening his eyes, blinking, apparently unable to fully return to reality. “Can you hear me, Diego?” “Yes.” A monosyllable. Is that all this man can say, after he’s just robbed an armoured truck and made off with millions? She shakes her head in annoyance. “I’m asking you a simple question, Diego, I’m not asking you to trace the Amazon back to its source. I just want you to answer me.” Silence. You can’t ask people anything; sometimes she suspects she loathes humanity. She wants to arrive, to be under cover, to be far from the streets and the cars and the crowds, far from the stupidity of men. She is starting to see how to solve some of her problems. It doesn’t matter that Diego is asleep or unconscious; she knows what to do. Could it be later than she thinks? She’s lost all sense of time, and she looks at her watch. No. It’s early and everything’s fine. She sees the bus approach, trying to overtake, sees the shrinking distance between the wheeled behemoth and her own vehicle, honks the horn to warn the driver of the danger but, as if deaf, the driver only gets closer. She yanks the steering wheel, just managing to dodge the bumper of the colossus before it smashes into the door of her van, then turns away from the bus – running the risk of hitting the Chevrolet on her right – and slams on the brakes, hardly able to breathe, her heart racing. Just then, to her left, she hears the sound of a collision between two vehicles. The driver of the bus stops and tries to explain himself through the window. A line of cars is soon backed up, their occupants shouting and arguing, looking for someone to blame, flinging doors open and slamming them shut. Ursula puts her foot on the accelerator and makes her getaway, she speeds up and tries to reach the next set of lights before they change, before a

policeman or a traffic inspector appears, or anyone else who might take down the Toyota’s registration number. Now she needs to calm down. She escaped by a whisker, but she escaped. She needs to stop for a moment, to breathe. But she can’t: she sees another police car, this time parked on the other side of the avenue.

9.42 a.m.

Antinucci has ducked under the yellow tape and left the restricted area, and now there is not the slightest trace of the smile he was displaying thirty seconds ago. He punches a number into his phone, walks over to his car, lights a cigarette before he gets in and smokes it in a hurry, leaning against the side of the vehicle. “Did you find the Toyota? Are you following it? Keep going until it stops and then do what we agreed: approach with whatever pretext seems plausible and get a look at whoever’s taken the cash. No, I told you I didn’t see what happened; the smoke hid everything. I just saw the woman I described: after that, nothing. Keep me informed, don’t arrest them and don’t make a fuss, there’s a lot of dough and people might get suspicious. And then they’ll want a piece of the action. Don’t lose sight of her; I’m heading your way. Oh, one more thing. We need to deal with Ricardo, the Hobo. He’s got a bullet wound, poor prospects from what I saw. But he’s alive and no doubt they’ll take him to hospital at some point. Someone needs to ferry him across the Styx… I’m telling you to kill him, you moron.” He puts the phone in his jacket pocket. Antinucci, from a distance and surrounded by cigarette smoke and mist, seems almost mysterious. From close up, though, there is something contrived, something ridiculous in his stiffness, in the pompous sweep of his arm as he raises the cigarette to his mouth. He thinks for the thousandth time about the last thing he observed through the telescopic sight of the grenade launcher, he thinks about that woman who shot the Hobo, thinks about Diego lying on the ground. And, as far as he could see, there was no trace of the Toyota loaded with money at the scene of the crime. Yes, those two made off with the cash; the woman shot Ricardo, and they both fled with the loot. Or did she get rid of Diego, too? Maybe she killed him and his body hasn’t been found yet? Antinucci doesn’t know, he doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t like it when he doesn’t understand. His informants still haven’t been able to tell him if there is another person in the van. It doesn’t matter; the only

thing that matters is to follow the Toyota and the money, keep it in sight, wait for the moment to pounce. He regrets firing at the other van, the Nissan, but these grenade launchers aren’t very accurate; they’d tried to tell him, but he hadn’t listened. Antinucci thinks about the cash and his lips curl slightly upwards, tracing what could be a smile. He inhales a couple more times before throwing down the cigarette butt. The rain doesn’t bother him; it’ll let up in a few minutes, the sky is already looking clearer. Once again, he throws the butt carefully into the angle formed between the street and the edge of the kerb. Then he climbs into his Audi, puts on Vivaldi’s “Miserere”, turns the key and allows the engine to warm up for a moment before he drives off. The lawyer thinks about Ricardo, dead or wounded, thinks about the Toyota van driving around the city with his money inside, thinks that his plan has just changed. No, he mustn’t lose his nerve, he’ll have his money back before the morning’s over. His lips tighten. He turns up the volume. He wonders whether, in all conscience, he should confess his sins to Father Ismael, who – as always – will grant him the absolution he requests on his knees in the confessional. It’s not easy to keep oneself unblemished, but He understands and forgives, always. Antinucci receives a call and he puts it on speakerphone. “Down 8 de Octubre towards the centre? And you don’t know how many people are inside? Okay. They couldn’t see, all they can say is that there’s a woman at the wheel. Right. Tell them not to lose sight of her. Yes, as soon as we catch them we’ll share out the cash, like we agreed. What? Are you accusing me of inefficiency? How is it my fault if some crazy woman shows up and — Yes, yes, cool it. I’m heading straight over. I’ll get the money back. Don’t worry, we’ve got the van under observation; wherever it goes, there’s no escape. Yes, I promise you’ll have all your money tonight.” He puts the car into first but this time he takes no pleasure in the purring engine, in the silky-smooth motion. The only thing that makes him happy is the possibility of leaving this miserable barrio, with its poor tumbledown houses; he wants to get out of this depressing poverty-stricken place. He tries to concentrate

on the “Miserere”, as the phone call has set his nerves on edge. The same questions go round and round in his head. Who is this woman? Where did she come from? He barely even saw her face, the features blurred by the poorly focused telescopic sight. Blonde, a bit plump, around forty, a woman like so many others. There’s no point coming up with hypotheses just now. It’s time for action. Things could hardly have turned out worse, but at least he can congratulate himself on having attached a GPS to the chassis of the Toyota.

9.43 a.m.

She goes through several sets of lights, all green, managing to keep up a constant speed despite the heavy traffic. She sees a van with official markings, the inspectors checking licence plates against a list; Ursula assumes that whoever uses a van to rob a cash truck will make sure their vehicle tax is up to date. This assumption is correct, we think, because nobody signals to her to slow down and she continues on her way. She finally halts at a red light; three police cars approach slowly from the opposite direction, their occupants looking from side to side as if searching for something. Ursula turns sharply to the right, confident they haven’t seen her, and drives down a cobbled street. The van rattles and bumps; it’s overloaded with all the money. She stops and parks. “Diego.” Diego doesn’t answer. She can’t keep driving around with these bags of money with the transport company logo; somebody might stop them and see. At the very least, she needs to cover them up. Ursula gets out and looks on the back seat, on the floor, finds a yellow tarpaulin and covers the bags as best she can. She drives four or five blocks along the street parallel to the avenue, then turns back onto 8 de Octubre. There’s a traffic jam on the over due to maintenance work, and a single lane for traffic in both directions. There’s a long slow-moving queue of vehicles. Diego wakes up. “Why have we stopped?” “There’s a jam on the over, roadworks or something. There’s only one lane open.” Ursula s the queue. She wants night to fall, wants the cover of darkness, but she’s not afraid, oh no, she just wants to be at peace and to enjoy the respite of some well-earned rest, her and her millions. As she thinks about her money she smiles, but the smile disappears when she sees another police car waiting at the mouth of the tunnel. It can’t be a coincidence. Without thinking twice, she

mounts the sidewalk, turns into a driveway, makes a U-turn, travels ten yards against the traffic and leaves the avenue at full speed. Her tyres squealing, she turns, then turns again, until she reaches Boulevard Artigas, heading for the waterfront and, along the shore, to the Old Town. Too many police cars, she thinks. The clouds have dispersed and the day is bright and sunny; people emerge from their caves and walk, run, exercise their dogs. Ursula – who has been thinking about her millions, her houses, her cars, her holidays at the beach – looks from one side to the other, senses she is being watched, notices a green car, a woman with huge glasses, some kids in school uniform: a good cover to follow her and go unnoticed. She accelerates in an attempt to shake off the spies, but a few minutes later the woman in huge glasses is back on her right; they have both stopped at the lights. Ursula stares at her but the woman appears not to realize and looks into the distance. Bitch, I’m sure she’s following me, she thinks. When the lights change, Ursula puts her foot down, the engine roars and the Toyota van shoots off; in its wake it leaves tyre marks on the road and an acrid smell in the air, and the woman who was spying on her is left behind. She puts her foot down, goes even faster, flings back her head and laughs. She’s thrown off her enemies for now, but she’ll have to be careful. As we were saying, the day has turned bright and sunny, and Ursula lowers the window a little to feel the mild air. Diego, huddled by her side, appears not to know if it’s hot or cold, and, as far as she can see, is hardly breathing. At least he’s stopped crying. The police van is parked on the corner, hidden by a garbage bin, and by the time she sees them it’s already too late. She reduces her speed sharply, and the vehicle squeals in complaint. The officer signals to her to stop. She looks at Diego. “Get ready.” Diego emerges from who knows what dream. He opens his eyes but doesn’t look at her. To judge by his expression, he seems to have been enjoying a moment of delicious self-pity: she knows all about that, and regrets having to drag him back to reality. “Okay, Diego. Time to wake up.”

“What?” “Wake up.” She brings the car to a gentle halt, skilfully, and parks with painstaking precision. The policeman approaches from behind: blue uniform, shades, cap. “Good morning.” “Good morning, officer.” “Driving licence, registration documents, vehicle insurance.” Ursula takes out her licence and looks for the papers in the usual place: behind the rear-view mirror. She finds them and quickly scans them before handing them over: the vehicle is owned by some business out in the back of beyond. She gives the documents to the police officer. He reads them, front and back. Then he takes a look inside the van; the money sacks must stick out like a bunch of porn photos at Disneyland. The policeman hands back the papers and smiles. “Is your companion okay?” “Yes, he’s just got a bit of a headache. Migraine.” “I see.” She puts away the documents, avoids eye , gets ready to drive off. “What have you got in those bags?” From the port comes a whiff of damp sea air, tinged with fuel oil. “Clothes, bedding. We’re moving house. I’m taking some things to the new place.” “I can sympathize! That’s stressful.” The policeman smiles. “Absolutely. That’s why my husband’s got a headache.” “I hope it goes okay.”

“Thanks, officer.” The policeman moves off. He stops another vehicle. Ursula looks at Diego, who now seems a little less dead, observes him straightening his sleeves, surreptitiously stealing a glance at the back seat. “Wakey-wakey! We need to see this through.” “I don’t feel good. I’m still dizzy.” Ursula shakes her head. “We all have reserves of pain or anger to draw on when we need them, Diego. Look for your anger. And wake up.” He looks at her and turns on the radio, concentrating on the music or the streetscape. “Where are we taking all this, Ursula?” “To the garage where I keep my car.” “In your building?” “No, I live in an old place; it doesn’t have space for cars. I rent a garage in a house on Treinta y Tres; it’s close by – and cheap. Don’t worry, the owner’s never there at this time of day, he works in a bookshop on the same block.” “Is it safe? Can we leave the bags there?” “It’s as safe as houses. The kid’s trustworthy, he owes me a few favours. But if you’ve got a better idea, be my guest.” “I can’t think of anything, Ursula.” She’s beginning to relax, feels they’re near to the end. The wind has picked up, a wind that blows in from the sea and leaves a salty tang in her mouth. Ursula runs her tongue over her lips, bites them nervously. She covers the final stretch at thirty, the window down, the breeze in her face.

10.15 a.m.

When a dead man appears in the street, the police should ask: Who is he? Where did he come from? What was he doing here? That’s what Captain Leonilda Lima asks herself as she tries to get to grips with this bloodbath in which there appear to be not one but several dead bodies, almost all of them badly damaged – in pieces, to tell the truth, although some might shrink from such lack of respect for the solemnity of death – with the exception of the body spotted by Antinucci, which appears to be whole, or at least with all its limbs correctly attached. This body must belong to one of the men who attacked the armoured truck: it isn’t wearing the uniform of the transport company. The other corpses will be those of the men who were guarding the truck, and perhaps of other assailants. Witness statements will have to be taken from local residents to establish whether there were more vehicles and how many people were involved. Presumably the guards, or whatever remains of them, will have identification documents. This won’t help catch the perpetrators; another way of identifying the one who’s intact will have to be found. An ambulance arrived a few moments ago and a medic is examining the body. Leonilda knows she can’t touch anything, that when the experts finish checking, listing, photographing, filming, documenting every inch of the space, the bodies – the pieces, she thinks to herself – will be classified and wrapped up and taken off for forensic examination, and all the items found at the crime scene, every scrap of metal and glass and plastic, will be bagged up and labelled and inspected and analysed. “Captain Lima.” Crouching next to the body, the medic turns his head and calls to her. She hurries over, almost running. “This man is still alive. He’s in a bad way, but alive. He has a bullet wound close to the stomach; his liver, spleen and pancreas could be compromised. We’ll need to be careful when we turn him over.”

The nurses place a sheet under the body, which is lying face down, and flip it over in one simple manoeuvre. Leonilda sees the face, recognizes it immediately; she’s seen it in the photos from the Candyman case, and in the file on the murder of that woman, Ursula. It’s Ricardo Prieto, alias the Hobo. She already knew he was involved; the information the Skinflint gave her wasn’t wrong. “Quick, get him into the ambulance and take him to hospital.” Leonilda wonders if she should call Inspector Clemen again; he said he’d come right away, and that was half an hour ago. She decides against it, decides to bring him up to date in person. When he shows up. Skinflint kept his word; late, it’s true, but he called her as soon as he could escape Ricardo’s attentions, and he gave her the coordinates. He’ll have to be paid, of course; he didn’t do it for the love of it. He also told her to send the money and the bike via a brother, that he was going to disappear for a while. The nurses carry the patient – body, corpse, patient: the words follow each other in dizzying succession – and transfer him to the ambulance, lift him, intubate him, inject him. “Can I talk to him?” “Out of the question. He’s in systemic shock: internal bleeding caused by the projectile.” Leonilda knows she’ll have to wait. She re Antinucci and frowns. What was he doing here? How did he locate Ricardo Prieto so easily when the man was in hiding? And, most important of all, how did he know her name and rank? Leonilda isn’t wearing any identification; she left it in her locker this morning. She cheers up when she sees Inspector Clemen arrive. But then she sees Leonardo Borda get out of the vehicle too. And her smile disappears.

10.25 a.m.

From outside, the building looks as if it’s abandoned. Ursula stops the car at the garage entrance. A van in fluorescent purple and yellow drives past, and on the rear of the vehicle she reads: securitrack – satellite vehicle monitoring. She feels her insides turn to liquid. Then she hears Diego’s voice, mixing with music that comes from a long way away. “Here? Is this your garage?” She feels that something is wrong. The fluorescent van and its lettering disappear, merging into the mid-morning traffic of the Old Town. The sun came out a few moments ago and has turned the rain to mist. “Yes, this is it,” she replies. “Shall we get out?” Still lost in thought, she looks at her companion without really ing what she sees. She hesitates, feels afraid. Things Ursula never usually does: hesitating, feeling afraid. She manages to bring herself back down to Planet Earth, and answers him. “Not yet, Diego. I’m thinking.” “What are you thinking?” Ursula sighs or takes a deep breath, we suspect as a preamble to an important announcement. “I think they’re following us, and I think this van might have, I don’t know, some way of tracking us. Do you know how satellite monitoring works?” Diego thinks for a moment and then nods, slowly, several times. “Yes, of course I know. The van could have GPS. If that’s the case, it would be very easy to

locate us, to follow us. I guess it would make sense for the boss to stick a tracking device on a vehicle carrying so much money.” “You told me you don’t know who the boss is, though.” “No. They didn’t tell me —” “Really?” “Okay, okay. I know his name. But I’m not sure I’d be doing you a favour if I told you.” “Please, Diego, we have to share all the information we’ve got. We’re partners.” Diego hesitates, then finally says the name. Ursula sighs. Her nose twitches slightly. “That name rings a bell. It’ll come to me, but I can’t put my finger on it just now. And where could that GPS be?” Diego thinks, looks out of the window, takes a moment. “Anywhere a small device could be attached.” “So we’d have to check the van from top to bottom. That would take ages.” “It could do.” “We don’t have that much time.” “No. So what are we going to do?” “To start with, I’m going to keep driving. Now we know they’re following us, we can’t stop here. It would be like putting a cross on a map.” Ursula gets moving. Diego is still thinking, biting his lip to stop it from trembling. They drive around aimlessly. “Any ideas yet, Diego?”

“Like what?” “Like some way of locating the GPS or cancelling it out. Think. You’re the engineer in this partnership.” Diego smiles. “And what does that make you, Ursula?” She thinks, doesn’t answer straight away. “The guiding hand, the finger that squeezes the trigger,” she says. “Who knows? What a question to ask at a time like this.” Diego looks at his companion. “I think I’ve got an idea.” “I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me. Tell me about it.” “If we’re carrying a GPS – and it seems pretty likely we are – then it wouldn’t work if it was somewhere covered by a thick layer of concrete.” Ursula drives carefully, obeying the street signs, respecting priorities. “I don’t know how easy it’s going to be to find somewhere covered with a layer of concrete, and a thick one to boot.” “It shouldn’t be that difficult. It could be a building with several floors.” Ursula looks at Diego, momentarily devoting all her attention to him. “You’re a genius.” She speaks almost with reverence. “Thank you. Even if I don’t know why.” “You said a building with several floors.” “Yes. What are you thinking about?” “A multistorey garage.” “I think I’ve got you.” “Let’s see what you think of this plan. You get out at the corner and walk to my garage, the house I just showed you. You take my car to the parking garage on

the corner of Cerrito and Juan Carlos Gómez. I’ll be waiting for you on the second floor with this van, and we transfer the money from the Toyota to my car. Then one of us takes the van and dumps it, somewhere close by, in the port, and one of us takes my car and the money, puts my car in the small garage, and waits there for the other to return. Completely safe. What do you think?” “Isn’t it a bit risky to do the swap where there will be people coming and going all the time?” “The comings and goings aren’t a problem; they’ll protect us from the gang. If you don’t like it, come up with an alternative.” Silence. “There’s something else. I think they’ve been following us since we got onto 8 de Octubre, but for some reason they haven’t intercepted us.” “Why do you think they haven’t stopped us?” “I don’t know. Maybe they prefer to move in the shadows. I guess the boss doesn’t want to mount an operation somewhere as busy as this and attract attention, especially from the police.” “Okay, Ursula, let’s do it. We can’t wait any longer. You say this place, your garage, is safe?” “As a Swiss bank.” “And nobody lives in the house?” “Just a kid who works in a bookshop, like I already said. He leaves at eight in the morning and gets back at eight in the evening. Slave labour, you know; they take advantage of young people. I trust him completely.” “And the garage isn’t linked to the house?” “There’s a metal door with a bolt on the other side, but Sebastián never locks it. And I’ll tell you a secret: there’s a ageway linking the house to the bookshop where he works. He showed it to me, one of those stone tunnels from the colonial period. He discovered it himself. Even the bookshop owners don’t know

it exists.” There are a few empty moments. A dry sound erupts from Diego’s throat before he starts to speak. “Ursula, I know I owe you my life.” This is followed by a silence that lasts the time it takes for a bus to drive the length of the block. Ursula observes the man’s eyes, the shape of his face, his hair, even his ears, his nose. She sizes him up. “Here are the keys. Take the car, go to the place at the corner of Cerrito and Juan Carlos Gómez, and meet me on the second floor. I’ll be waiting.” Ursula smiles at him with affection, with pity, with an expression that also contains a hint of savage violence. “And don’t worry about what you owe me, Diego. We’ll settle up later.”

10.35 a.m.

Leonilda Lima listens to her boss and her world crumbles; she feels a wave of anxiety, senses a self-fulfilling prophecy. As she feared, more than the stars have come between her and this case, of which she has just been relieved without commentary or explanation. “Captain Borda will be in charge now,” announces Inspector Clemen in a strong icy voice. Silence. She doesn’t argue with orders, she never has, but something sticks in her throat, stops her from breathing. It’s not exactly a discovery, because it’s something she’s gradually been realizing over time, so slowly that she has hardly noticed until now. The suspicion eats away at her brain, worms its way into her consciousness. The words struggle and finally emerge. “What are your orders, Inspector?” Leonilda looks straight at Clemen; she can’t blink, doesn’t want to, because if she does the tears will course down her cheeks. “You’ve already done more than enough for today, Leonilda. You can go back to the office and finish your shift there. I’ll see you tomorrow, God willing.” The two men take control, start to shout, to make phone calls. Borda yells: “No press, I don’t want any journalists. Expand the perimeter beyond the corners. No press.” She moves away as if she were being pushed, runs to the car, claps her hands in frustration and anger, lowers her gaze to hide red-rimmed eyes brimming with tears. She asks someone for a cigarette and lights it. The tip flickers as she inhales, the flame catches; she looks at the smoke and it makes her think of ectoplasm, a presence from the beyond that has come to speak to her, to reveal something, but which vanishes before she hears it. She finishes, smokes the last of the cigarette and throws it away, treads on it with the sole of her boot, grinds it

into pieces. Her teeth are clenched so tight that her jaws are starting to ache. Leonilda gets into the unmarked car she’s been assigned; she’ll go to HQ, to her office. She drives off. Just as suddenly as it appeared, her anger dissipates, her face relaxes, her shoulders release their tension and drop. Fate is strange, bringing her back to this poor neighbourhood, this place where she spent her childhood. And all this money, stolen from an armoured truck, money that somebody was no doubt taking to a safe place, if it wasn’t already well hidden. Still on Rosaleda, past Río Colorado, Leonilda stops and gets out to buy some cigarettes at a kiosk. She walks a few steps, buys a packet, takes one out, lights it. A voice comes from somewhere off to the side, by the kiosk window. “Is that you, Leo?” The woman is framed by the ramshackle doorway, an opening that lacks either door or gate, just a gap leading onto some narrow ages, giving onto dwellings constructed from wood and corrugated iron, shacks where the poorest of the poor live, where true poverty resides. She’s old and wears a greasy apron, on which she repeatedly wipes her hands, with their long, uneven, grimy fingernails. Her grey shapeless slippers drag along the ground until she is standing in front of Leonilda, who struggles not to retreat as she reels at the stench of rancid stew, stale piss and nameless filth. “Do I know you?” “I was friends with your mother when you were small. Then you moved into town.” “Yes, I used to live here when I was a kid. What’s your name?” “I don’t know if I should tell you my name. You’re a cop, aren’t you? You’re sniffing around after that robbery.” “I’m not involved with that case.” The woman looks at her suspiciously, but it’s clear she wants to talk. “Mara, that’s me. Don’t you ? I’m Mara. I had a shop and a hairdresser’s. Your mum used to bring you to get your hair cut when you were

just a kid. This was all countryside back then. With a farmhouse over there, where you lived.” Leonilda re a small room at the back of a shop: two beds, a basin for washing people’s hair, a standing hairdryer, combs and brushes, clothes and towels, tangled cables, coloured rollers. She doesn’t recall any faces, doesn’t recall Mara. “Of course I ,” she says. The woman pulls a face, sucks her top lip and moves her tongue from side to side, accompanying all of this with a watery noise. Leonilda can’t take her eyes off the toothless hole; she tries not to feel disgust. “I saw the man who fired the bombs that blew up the money truck.” “You heard bombs?” “I don’t know what they’re called: explosions, yes. The guy was right here, he had this big gun, this weapon he fired and – boom! – there were bits of truck flying all over the place. I heard it all. And I saw it too, my eyes are still good.” “Did you see it or just hear it? Can you describe this weapon that was firing the bombs?” The woman tells how she peeked out without being seen, describes something Leonilda thinks could be a grenade launcher. That would explain the destruction at the scene of the robbery. “And the man? Can you describe the man who was doing the shooting, Mara?” The old woman laughs with her almost empty mouth, revealing bare gums. “That depends.” “On what?” The old woman looks around, to one side of the street and to the other; there’s not a soul to be seen. She lowers her voice to a whisper.

“If you pay me. Last night they put the word out, said there’d be trouble in the morning, something big was going down, told us to stay put and not talk to anybody. But everyone else got 500 pesos and I got nothing. They think I’m old and deaf, and the bastards gave me nothing. I’ll talk if you give me my 500 pesos.” “Okay, I can give you 500 pesos. Tell me about the man with the grenade launcher. The gun thing that fired bombs, I mean.” “Tall, thin, eyes like hard-boiled eggs. Blue suit. Big car, big and dark. Walking like the street belonged to him. You going to give me the cash? Those bastards, they didn’t give me a bean. But they paid everyone else around here.” Leonilda hands over a banknote and makes her way to the car as if she was sleepwalking. Then she dives inside and takes out the card Antinucci gave her. She tries to recall what the Skinflint told her. What was the boss of the organization called? Now she thinks about it, he never confirmed the name, just said he was a lawyer, Antiruchi or Anticruchi or something. She calls a number. “Did you follow that guy like I told you? Where is he? Good, don’t lose sight of him, I’m heading over.”

10.40 a.m.

A few minutes ago, Ursula entered the garage on the corner of Cerrito and Juan Carlos Gómez. She waited on the second floor for Diego to arrive, and the two of them transferred the money from the Toyota to the Volkswagen. Everything went pretty smoothly, despite the problem of squeezing all the bags into a far smaller space and the interest taken by people in cars parked nearby. In fact, this isn’t really a case of interest in general but rather of one observer whose gaze is a little more insistent than the others, a man who has parked his hatchback just a few yards away. Diego feels himself turning to stone as the man approaches, and then relaxes a little when the stranger just asks for a light and walks away, down the ramp, without a second glance. Ursula feels a knot in her stomach when she sees all this money for the first time but she controls herself. “Who’s going to get rid of the Toyota and who’s going to take my car to the garage?” “Whatever you decide, Ursula.” Diego’s voice is a barely intelligible whisper. She thinks about it for a few seconds. “You’re stronger; you’ll have to unload the bags, hide them. There’s a locker at the back. Did you see it when you got the car? Stick the bags in there, then lock it. Turn the key twice. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. And wait for me.” Diego just stands there looking like a wreck, his teeth chattering, his hands trembling, his hair damp with sweat. “Come on, Diego. It’ll only take a few minutes. You’ve already got the key for the garage; the key to the locker is in the door.” “I don’t know if I can do it alone. I feel ill. I feel sick, dizzy.” “Pull yourself together, man. It’s just a moment. I’ll be there in no time and take care of everything. At least go to the garage and wait there. I’ll deal with the

bags later.” He looks at the money and looks at her but he can’t focus properly; his vision is blurred and he knows that any moment he’ll start to faint, feel the tingling in his arms and legs. He can’t bring himself to tell Ursula he’s not sure he can drive the four or five blocks from here to the garage. For the umpteenth time he searches for the pills in one of his pockets, but he can’t find them. “Okay, Diego. The world is no place for cowards. God spits out the fainthearted.” Diego feels a rising sense of suffocation; the world is getting away from him and he is left immersed in amniotic fluid, struggling to make the slightest movement. “The car’s already loaded and our money’s in danger. Do you want them to find us, to come and take it away from us?” Diego manages to shake his head. He looks down, although he’s not sure whether he cares about losing the money just now. “Well, hurry up then.” He gets into Ursula’s car and feels a stabbing pain in his chest as he does up the seat belt. Somehow he manages to coordinate the series of simple actions required to start the engine; he drives off, gripping the steering wheel, and goes down the ramp. Diego drives slowly, at walking pace, afraid he will be unable to control his shaking hands, afraid of crashing into a wall or another vehicle, of plunging into the void. He feels palpitations in his chest, his abdomen, his throat. He stops at the barrier and his fingers are unable to press the green button, until eventually someone comes out of the booth, walks over and opens it manually. He closes his eyes while he waits, hears himself groaning, listens to himself crying, a noise that sounds like rusty tin and comes from his chest. When he drives out onto the street he realizes his window is down and the wind is coming in; the salty air hits him in the face, the cold makes him blink. His hands are slick with sweat, and they slip on the steering wheel. He drives without really knowing where he is, careful not to crash or to stop, he takes wrong turns, trying to get his bearings. He can’t fail Ursula now, he can’t, but he doesn’t know how to control this impulse to get out of the car and run off, to run until he is far from everything, far away from his fear. He tries to fill his lungs but he suspects he won’t be able to, he knows the symptoms: now he will start to suffocate, an iron

corset squeezing his chest. He manages to stop the car at the corner, against the kerb, he struggles for air, holds the steering wheel to keep himself from falling. A ghastly noise emerges from his chest. Anxiety, panic. When this moment arrives Diego feels failure and pain; he wants to die. But he can’t let Ursula down, he can’t just abandon all this money they’ve risked so much to get. God spits out the faint-hearted, Ursula said. He tries to pull himself together, tries to breathe. A little air enters his lungs and he feels some temporary relief; the danger of fainting recedes, at least for a few seconds. He sets off, drives a few blocks. The cathedral bells chime, he doesn’t know how many times, after six he loses count. It must be midday, there are a lot of people in the street, the restaurants have put out tables despite the cold and the threatening clouds. His body moves slowly inside the car and once again he has that sensation of floating in viscous fluid. He stops constantly; all around, car horns are honking, pedestrians and drivers are gesticulating furiously. He could stop again, right there, throw himself out of the car without even pausing to close the door, abandon the vehicle and the money, what does he care, run to the nearest corner and get into a taxi, go to hell, far from his failure and his fear. The temptation is huge. Diego struggles to breathe but succeeds in filling his lungs. He looks at the back seat, sees the bags of money that didn’t fit in the boot; he’ll have to pluck up his courage, grit his teeth, send his fear to hell, and act. That’s what Ursula expects of him. He has to get to the rendezvous, unload the bags, put them in the locker. And he is gripped by panic. Will he be able to get Ursula’s car into such a small space, such a narrow garage? But then, if he was able to get it out before, surely he can get it back in? He’ll have to do it, damn it. He stops at the next crossing, breathes in and out, takes Calle Buenos Aires. More than once he confuses the brake with the clutch; the car lurches forward. There are only three or four blocks to go. He turns left onto Treinta y Tres, stops again at an intersection, looks at the people: they seem normal, not afraid, not anxious; he wonders where they carry their failures, how they handle them, and he feels the moisture of the bay on his cheeks. Through the tears, he observes the street that leads down to the waterfront. He takes a few deep breaths and the dizziness, the fear of ing out, gradually disappear. He drives one more block down Treinta y Tres. He stops and waits to allow people to cross: a boy with a dog, a man carrying a huge box. His lungs fill, normally. He bites his lip, lowers his head, thinks. He looks behind him. Diego puts the car into first.

10.44 a.m.

A few minutes after leaving the multistorey, before dumping the Toyota close to the port road, Ursula ed a damp tissue over the steering wheel, the dashboard, the gearstick, the driver’s seat and the front enger seat, the door handles and even the sun visor. She exited the parking garage without any problems and drove a few blocks until she reached the waterfront. Originally, she had been planning on jumping out of the vehicle, fleeing from the pursuers – who must have been alerted when they stopped receiving the signal – by abandoning the van on the spot. But the time of day, the heavy traffic and the number of people on the streets made her feel protected; she didn’t see anyone who looked suspicious, and she followed her impulse to do things properly, the way they should be done, the way Daddy would have done them. She’s just removed any traces of DNA that might remain and is wrapping the dirty tissues in a bag which she throws into a garbage bin on the street. When she’s finished she closes the door, walks away from the van and drops the keys down a drain, like she once saw in a movie, then walks a couple of blocks. Ahead of her is the port, huge cranes, towers, shipping containers stacked high. The wind is blowing from the south, the air is damp, cold, salty. She opens her handbag, looks for the cardigan, rummages around; whenever she’s looking for something in a hurry she thinks she has too much stuff, that she should declutter, get rid of some of the contents of her bag. In a few minutes she’ll be in the garage with Diego, with the money that, for her, is not money but houses in Carrasco, gardens, swimming pools, real cars and not this crappy VW Golf. Her thoughts fly from Carrasco to the bags of cash. The bags will be made from something strong, she thinks, and she wonders if she’ll need special scissors. No, there are some of Daddy’s craft knives in a box, she can use them. If they’re still sharp. Don’t you dare use my things for your crimes, Ursula. I can’t talk to you just now, Daddy darling, I’m busy. Later, okay? Don’t bother me just now. Go back to your grave. A gentle, grey shimmer floats in the sky over the bay, the air darkened by thick low clouds; she knows it’s midday, but it feels like dusk. She zips her coat all the way up, raises the soft woollen lapels, and walks another fifty yards.

Out of nowhere two men appear, blocking her path. One of the men stands in front of her, the other says, “There’s a gentleman who’d like to have a few words with you.” He grabs her arm with vice-like fingers, makes her walk a few yards, pushes her, tries to bundle her into a car that has just appeared and that Ursula hadn’t noticed. She’s strong, she resists, braces her arms against the door frame. Someone inside the car is talking on the phone in an affected voice. “We’ve got her, don’t worry,” Ursula hears him say. In the middle of the tussle, she spots a police car driving along the waterfront, some thirty yards from where they are. She frees her arms, waves them around frantically, shouts to the police. “Help, help! I’m being kidnapped.” But the police don’t stop, perhaps because they don’t see or hear her – the wind is gusting, sweeping the sound away, bearing it off to the city centre – and the spectacle Ursula puts on comes to nothing. “Come on, stick her inside and get moving,” says the voice. “And don’t bother resisting, because you won’t get far, madam. All that money is mine, and I’m going to get it back right now. And there’s no point trying to escape, because I’ll follow you to hell and back.” Ursula sighs, pushes the thugs away, and gets into the car on her own. She makes herself comfortable, smells the shiny new leather, the cashmere, the vetiverscented soap; she casually tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and looks for the first time at the man who is speaking to her from the seat at her side. Blue suit, black shiny shoes, gelled hair. The vehicle moves off and she notices that the daylight has faded, or perhaps it’s the colour of the windows of this oh-so luxurious Audi. “Let’s cut to the chase. The Toyota’s empty. Where are you holding my money?” The car, driven by one of the thugs, glides noiselessly down Calle Baltasar Brum, along the waterfront, and Ursula watches the customs building go by, the market hall, the container ships queueing in the distance, on the horizon, floating on the waters of the Río de la Plata. When she answers, she does so without

looking at her interrogator. “Your money? I’d say it’s my money. I earned it.” The constant movement of the Adam’s apple in the man’s throat, a ball bobbing up and down, grabs her attention. “You’re joking, right? I organized this operation…” “You organized it badly. So badly that the armoured car arrived early, you didn’t recruit enough people to do the job, one of your three men deserted halfway through the robbery, another turned out to be a crazed assassin who was on the verge of killing everyone in the neighbourhood, and the third fainted because he had a panic attack. Can you tell me exactly what you organized?” Antinucci moves his face to the side, sharply, as if he’s just been slapped. His voice sounds a little less forced. “So, am I supposed to be grateful you turned up, killed one of my men, kidnapped the other and took over the operation, not to mention running off with the cash?” “It’s your business if you don’t want to recognize your shortcomings in planning and in choosing accomplices for your hold-ups.” Antinucci’s cheeks flush, overlaying the usual grey pallor of his face with red; he even seems a little less martial than usual, perhaps because his bottom lip is trembling slightly. When the phone rings again, he takes it out and looks at the number but doesn’t answer it. “I saved this operation. If I hadn’t intervened in time, the maniac would have carried on picking fights and taking coke, he would have killed the depressive, the police would have arrived, and all the money would have been left in the Toyota – which, by the way, I’ve just cleaned thoroughly, wiping away every last fingerprint, and abandoned a long way from the scene of the crime.” Antinucci raises his hand to his perspiring forehead, unbuttons his coat. His face is burning and his head is spinning. He feels a growing discomfort. He repeatedly checks the screen of his phone.

“Where’s the money?” he croaks. “I’m not going to tell you. How stupid do you think I am? You could kill me, chop me into pieces, I’m not going to tell you.” “You don’t know what I’m capable of.” She smiles, but the man notices that she is only smiling with half of her mouth. The other half is serious, fierce, almost hostile. Antinucci is starting to feel very tired. “Are you going to shut me away in a dark room?” What room is this woman talking about? Antinucci asks himself. Where is all this talk leading? He opens and half-closes his eyes; his head hurts and he has an odd taste in his mouth. He hears his mouth say something he disagrees with, but he doesn’t have much to lose. “Okay, okay. I need that money right now. Let’s negotiate.” “Very good. We’re beginning to understand each other.” “How much?” “How much what?” “How much do you want?” Silence. There’s a lengthy silence. “I’ve got the cash. You’re the one who should tell me how much you want. And I’ll think about it.” Antinucci looks at the phone and looks at her. He loosens his tie and undoes the top button of his shirt. “Let’s be realistic and mathematical. As far as I know, there’s four million. Keep one million and give me back the rest.” Ursula turns towards the man until she is facing him directly.

“I’m going to tell you what I think. There were four people involved in this operation: you, the deserter, the maniac and the depressive. After a series of eventualities that I won’t repeat for fear of embarrassing you even further, the only ones left are you, the depressive and me. So we should divide it like that, between the three of us. One point three three three million each.” “You’ve forgotten something. Or someone. Another partner.” “Who?” “The police.” “That’s no surprise. What a shitty world we live in. You can’t even trust the law. Fine, we’ll divide it four ways then.” “All right. Now take me to wherever it is you’ve hidden the loot, and we can bring this to an end.” “Now we’ve reached an understanding, tell these thugs to get out of the car. I don’t want any witnesses to see where the money is.” Antinucci responds in a tone that is far from military. “Are you crazy? I’m not going to dismiss my men.” “I’m telling you it’s better if there are no witnesses. Listen to me.” “No way, lady. This is as far as I’m going in this negotiation. Tell me the address, and we’ll go and pick up the damn money.” “Treinta y Tres, all the threes.” “I think you’re crazy,” Antinucci says, but almost in a whisper. Neither Antinucci nor Ursula have seen her, on the opposite side of the road, observing from an unmarked car: it’s Leonilda, checking the profile of the woman sitting in the Audi. She can’t see much through the tinted glass, just an outline blurred by the greenish-grey window, but the captain smiles; she had more than enough time to observe the woman when the two thugs approached her near the port and made

her get into the car. She had time to recognize her: it’s the woman in the photo she’s holding in her hand, taken from the identification . Leonilda has her details, too; she reads that the woman lives on the corner of Treinta y Tres and Sarandí. Antinucci’s car drives off, and she follows it at close range.

10.48 a.m.

Diego roughly dries his tears. He needs to concentrate on what he’s doing and make it to the rendezvous, he can’t collapse now he’s just a few yards from the garage door. He thinks again and again about the narrow space, and the symptoms return: the shivering, the sweating, the palpitations in his chest and throat. He reaches the house and turns left, and starts to shake when he sees the door, calculating how much space there will be on either side of the car. He switches off the engine. He’d like to take these damn bags in, put them away, hide them, finally be done with his part of all this, and just sit and wait for her without anything else to do, anything else to think about. Or run far away, flee from it all. But he can’t, he can’t do either of those things, and once again he feels as if he’s dying of fear: the lack of oxygen, the sweat soaking his back so his shirt sticks to his body, sweat dripping down his armpits, his chest, his neck. His hands search for the handle to open the car door but don’t find it, and instead they grip the edge of the seat like claws. He wants to escape, to disappear, to die. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe; a hoarse sound of snot and tears comes from his chest. Time es and Diego doesn’t it; he knows it’s important, but just now he can’t when he arrived. How long has he been sitting here? Ten minutes, half an hour, forty minutes? He has to breathe, has to calm himself. The panic es, it always es, he knows that, but he’s afraid there will come a time when he can’t bear it. The air enters his lungs again, imperceptibly, his breathing steadies, the fear persists but it’s no longer terror. His fingers manage to grab the handle and he gets out of the vehicle, leans on it, tries to think rationally. He has to calmly assess the width of the door and just get the car in there, he tells himself again and again, but his body refuses to move even one inch.

He finds a pill in an unchecked pocket, pops it out of the blister pack, throws back his head and chucks the pill into his mouth. His heart rate and his breathing slow. Diego straightens up, stretches his arms. He has to get moving: Ursula’s about to arrive and he hasn’t even started. His fingers rummage around in his pockets, find the garage key; he takes it out and looks at it, shining in the palm of his hand. He raises his head and looks into the distance. Far away. When the panic starts to recede, he feels like the survivor of a nuclear disaster. Now, what’s more, he feels the responsibility on his shoulders, and it weighs down on him like a granite obelisk. God spits out the faint-hearted, he thinks. He approaches the garage door, checks the surroundings, observes the faces of ers-by, tries to give his own face an innocent air, the half-smile of the naive or the idiotic. He turns the key, pushes the door. A dark fog emerges from inside and he reels back; it’s a smell of age, of stained peeling walls, of graveyard soil. Diego’s nostrils quiver. He thinks of the corpse of a rat or an opossum; the stench clings to the inside of his nose. He can’t see anything, but he smells death. He closes the door, turns around, doubles over and throws up the breakfast he ate more than three hours ago. He gets into the car, starts the engine and drives off. He feels a disconnection between his body, which is still moving, and his mind, which is completely immobile. Diego takes the waterfront road, drives fast, his anxiety returning; he wants to flee. He’s driving, the car is loaded with cash, and he doesn’t know where he’s going.

PART THREE

DADDY

Between a rock and a hard place, like always. There you are, sweating away as the suspicion, the fear, the anxiety grow, yearning to eat despite the circumstances, desperate to swallow something, because right now you’re hungry and you’re thinking of food, despite the situation, despite the fact that this man has awakened your alarm and your mistrust. When did it all begin, Ursula? This nameless, disgusting, diabolical thing growing inside you, when did it start? I’m asking you. Don’t cover your ears, don’t tell me to be silent, it’s quite futile. And don’t tell me it was because I punished you by shutting you away in your room in the dark, because I know it was much earlier than that. It was when you made the brutal discovery that your sister Luz was – is – more beautiful and thinner than you. When you realized, what’s more, that she was – is – a better person than you. I can see you, I can see you getting out of that sinister black car, crossing the street flanked by two hoodlums and that mafioso, Antinucci, and I ask myself what you’ve got yourself into, Ursula, my daughter, how you got caught up in this robbery, all these deaths; what you’re doing with all these underworld types, squabbling over your ill-gotten gains. I’m shouting at you to run, to get away from that house, from the door into which you are inserting the key with such precision, calm despite your rising misgivings, and I’m telling you to run from this street and this neighbourhood, to run while there’s still time. But you cover your ears, you whisper insults at me, you concentrate on the moment and hug your arms to your fat body to conceal the smell of your sweaty armpits. And you open the door. I see you, Ursula, entering that garage that smells like a damp grave, apprehensively feeling for the light switch, suspiciously; you have a bad feeling things haven’t gone the way you planned, that something has gone terribly wrong. You’re losing your calm but not your appetite, fumbling for the switch with one hand, gripping the handle of the revolver with the other – your nervous,

chubby hands – and despite the fear and the bad omens, you feel as if you’re in a thriller, as if your life is taking on meaning. I see you overcome your misgivings and start sketching out a plan; you push away the anxiety, the sweat in your armpits freezes, a cunning look appears in your eyes. Your hands are still on the light switch and the revolver; you turn on the light that hangs from the ceiling, enter and turn around, facing Antinucci and his thugs, you feign surprise, you say – as if it was necessary – there’s nobody here. Diego can’t have arrived, you speculate, or, even worse, he must have made off with the loot. The man turns pale, he confronts you, he shouts, gesticulates and curses, you see him through the drops of sweat which, once again, are trickling down your forehead and onto your eyelids; the man talks exclaims shouts interrogates demands insults. You listen to the tense angry words that ignite a furious, explosive hatred within you. The door to the street, which was slightly ajar, opens a little more, blown by the wind. In this garage that smells of piss and mildew and decay, there are four people – Antinucci, the thugs and you, Ursula – and there’s not much space; it’s narrow, you’d need to be an escape artist to make a getaway without them stopping you, to reach the metal side door that’s no more than three yards from where you’re standing, to open it and make it through to the other side, then close it and lock the bolt – which you know is open because Sebastián never locks it – all in the blink of an eye. Why is it, Ursula, that you rise to the challenge when the chips are down? Your self-confidence is growing, your miraculous transformation has begun. You fire your most exquisite ammunition: hate. You feel something silent moving down the street, perceive the footsteps of a shadow, smell its presence, the vulgar fragrance of a fifth person – a woman? – who until now wasn’t in the script. The policewoman? Who other than a policewoman would wear the vulgar scent of grapefruit and coconut oil? You wrinkle your nose, think up a plan, check your surroundings: there’s not a lot of light, just a twenty-five-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling that barely softens the shadows. You answer Antinucci’s questions, you argue, ask for time, plead with him to be patient, and as you talk you get as close as you can to the door, your salvation, moving furtively, cautiously.

An irredeemably fat woman measures the distance, calculates the gap. The garage is now a ship the moment before the storm hits. You take two, three steps, again sense that presence, the smell of grapefruit and coconut; you now recognize a woody note. The ghostly presence draws even closer, taking olfactory form. Antinucci and his thugs must have heard something behind them or noticed the direction of your eyes, because they turn to face the entrance. And you, Ursula, capitalize on the slightest slip, the slightest distraction to divert their attention and their gaze away from you, and in two strides you’ve made it to the iron door, shoved it open, gone through, turned round, pushed it, closed it, locked it, forced the rusty bolt into place, and now you’re running down Sebastián’s corridor, running as you hear the shots just a few yards away, on the other side of the wall, as you hear the shouts from the street, the sirens of two patrol cars, the raised voices. It’s all receding. And I know you, I know you’ll make it to the room at the end, you’ll see the bookseller’s cat and briefly stroke its back, you’ll open the trapdoor, go down the ladder to the stone tunnel, run fifty or sixty yards, reach the stairs that lead to the door beneath Sebastián’s bookshop, enter, smooth down your hair and walk past him, maybe even wink at him, then you’ll go out into the street. All the other details will be irrelevant because you will have won. I watch you and I love you, Ursula. You come from me, I have constructed you over many years, we’re scum, you and me both. I’ve known it ever since my body began rotting in that grave you sent me to.

El Reportero

VIOLENT ASSAULT ON ARMOURED TRUCK

at least five dead

There was a violent assault on an armoured truck in the early hours of the morning at the intersection of Rosaleda and Morera, disturbing the customary tranquillity of the humble La Chapita neighbourhood. At 9.30 a.m., a heavily armed group consisting of at least three individuals attempted to rob an armoured transit vehicle operated by Asegur. The criminals, who intercepted the cash transport vehicle on the western outskirts of the city, are reported to have used a Nissan van. They tried to breach the security system of the truck, which was defended by guards travelling inside the vehicle. A firefight ensued, involving rifles, handguns and grenades, and concluded with the spectacular explosion both of the armoured truck and of the van used by the criminals, with the unfortunate deaths of all involved, the only exception being the leader of the gang. The criminal in charge of the operation has been identified as Ricardo Prieto, alias the Hobo, who has an extensive criminal record and had recently escaped from the Criminal Court, where he was due to be interrogated regarding another case. He was transferred to hospital with a bullet wound to the stomach, and his prognosis is uncertain. A witness reported that the gunfire lasted for about ten minutes, at which point the explosion occurred. “I didn’t see anything because bullets were hitting doors and windows, and I took shelter under the bed,” said Pedro Álvarez, a resident of the street where the events occurred. The final exchange of fire took place at approximately 9.40 in the morning. Inspector Darío Clemen refuted a rumour circulating in the press regarding the participation in the attack of a well-known lawyer. According to the official, the individual was on his daily visit to the prison at the time, a fact that has been confirmed by dozens of witnesses. Despite the rapid intervention of the fire service, all the money was completely destroyed by the explosion and the subsequent conflagration.

URSULA

It’s June, late autumn in the southern hemisphere, half past five in the evening. The sky is overcast; the clouds are grey and white, long and twisted like a mass of intestines. Rain threatens. Down there is a city lashed by freezing wind, a shoreline on a wide bay, lots of buildings, cars, people hurrying home to turn on their televisions. Night is gradually arriving from below. There is an old apartment, slightly decrepit, a room and a bed; on the bed is a woman, her face tense, her body taut on the chenille bedspread which looks vintage but is just old-fashioned. The woman has a severe expression which, from a distance, gives her the appearance of a respectable wife. The sounds from outside don’t penetrate the room; this world is cushioned, sealed off, far from the hubbub. The woman is neither sleeping nor watching television nor listening to the radio, she is not reading a book or doing the work she has pending, she doesn’t look out the window at the dying evening, at the darkness overcoming what is left of the light, at the first raindrops hitting the glass. Lying on the bed, she waits for a call; she has been waiting for weeks. The woman on the bed, the woman who is waiting, is Ursula. I am Ursula. I have a pile of abandoned translations sitting beside my bed, a display case full of figurines that haven’t been cleaned in a month, and an almost empty fridge. The number I need is saved in my phone and I’ve asked myself a thousand times why I don’t call and bring this agony of waiting to an end, but no, I wait and I wait, I don’t really know why. The phone is like a dead mouse, abandoned on the pillow, here at my side. Finally, the ringtone. I hear it and look outside, but dusk has transformed the window into a mirror. I hear it ringing and look at the window. I think that, after this call, it will be over: my years of measured boredom, of comfortable hatred,

of going to sleep in the knowledge that, with no great effort or sorrow, the world will continue on its unchangeable course and that, when my death arrives, somebody will place a three-line announcement in the newspaper. It’s ringing, it’s ringing. “Hello, I was expecting your call. How did I know you were going to call? I just knew. No, I won’t say your name over the phone, I’ll be discreet. And I hope you’re not at home now, because I know someone who’s probably looking under every stone for you. Where did you get to? Tell me. All right, don’t say anything if you think that’s safer. What? You want me to wait? You’re coming over today? Now you’ve called, I’m a bundle of nerves. Bring it, all of it: the house in Carrasco, the swimming pool, the luxury cars, bring the lot, even if it has to be bit by bit. After that, we’ll see about the beach holidays beside a green sea, the weight loss clinic, the Nile cruise. Tonight we’ll dine at Rara Avis and drink a toast with the finest champagne. What’s that? You feel bad about disappearing? Don’t apologize. That’s not how I see it. You did what you could under the circumstances. We’re not gods, we do what we can. Yes, of course I always trusted you: I knew you’d come back. Our relationship is strong enough to survive any little mishaps, darling. See you in a couple of hours. Goodbye. Wait, don’t hang up, I need to tell you something else. I’m glad you called, not just because of the money, not just because of our relationship; above all, I’m glad because it shows your integrity, your decisiveness. I’m glad you called because I can’t stand weak-willed people. It’s not for nothing that they say God spits out the faint-hearted.” And I hang up. For a while, I wait for something to happen, for the phone to ring again, then I get up, walk over to the window and open the curtains that cut me off from the world, raise the blinds, open the wooden shutters, open the window and allow the chilly evening air to enter. I look at the sky, the lights in apartments and cars, the illuminated adverts. The whole city is gradually lighting up, bit by bit, and the darkness floats around the creased nightdress that billows about my body. I breathe in the cold air, close my eyes. When I shut the window I see myself reflected in the glass, my image projected over fragments of light. I hum a song. How beautiful life is, even if it’s only a pretence. I smile and run to the shower.

My shell has broken, I realize: finally, I will no longer be the person I was.

LEONILDA

Place: Time: Weather:

Police HQ, two miles from Ursula’s house. After half past five; night has almost fallen in Montevideo. Overcast, grey and white clouds, rain.

I hear the final click as the phone call ends. I’m sitting at the desk in my office, headphones on, ballpoint in my right hand; I’ve been here for hours, days, waiting for this call, and I don’t know how I’m going to repay the favours I owe to the technician who risked his job to tap these two lines so that I could listen to this conversation. A few minutes earlier, I’d thought that Saturn and every other cursed planet was aligned against me. First, Clemen had ordered me – this time shouting and threatening to have me arrested – to abandon the investigation into the hold-up of the armoured truck; second, I was unable to obtain official authorization to investigate Antinucci because, according to my superiors, there wasn’t the slightest link between the explosions and the lawyer (and I’ll be lucky, they say, if he doesn’t file a complaint against me for entering a private home without a judicial order); and third, to cap it all off, the kid in the bookshop, who I questioned unofficially, told me he’d been renting the garage for years to a woman who lives in the neighbourhood and who he scarcely knows, and that he didn’t hear any suspicious noises that morning. I look at the piece of paper in front of me. The words of the conversation I’ve just listened to don’t mean anything; they don’t mean anything yet. Despite all the setbacks, I had a hunch and a couple of clues that kept me going. I tied up loose ends, talked to the locals, observed the neighbourhood during my time off, took photos, did the painstaking work of a typical Capricorn faced with a challenge, working under restrictions and with so many questions to answer. And now I know that the woman who rents the garage from the bookseller is the same one I saw in the car with Antinucci, the woman with the pink handbag, the one he went into the garage with, although I don’t know what they were doing there or why she fled, let alone how she managed to disappear into thin air before I arrived with my men. I also know that she lives in a building on the corner of Treinta y Tres and Sarandí; I see her going past every morning while I have my breakfast in the bar on the corner, the one directly opposite her house, and I’m sure she’s the same woman who appears in the photo Ursula López took from the window of her apartment on Villa Biarritz Park, a few days before she was murdered. What’s more, I’ve confirmed – and this confuses me – that this woman in the Old Town is also called Ursula López, just like the one in Villa

Biarritz. There are still too many questions, still too much work left to do, but I’m a Capricorn, a silent, hard-working, obstinate woman. And very, very patient. And today, just as I was growing desperate, the miracle occurred: the phone that I needed to ring, rang. A few moments ago, I heard the click of the end of the conversation between Ursula and this man whose identity I don’t know, and I can still hear the opaque, monotonous, infinite tone that indicates that the line is free. I pull off the headphones and throw them onto the desk. I sit up, with my back straight against the chair, put the ballpoint down next to the paper and read what I’ve just written, notes made with sharp, black, rapid strokes:

Rara Avis She knew he’d come back? The money

I scan the lines, from top to bottom, from bottom to top until I know them by heart, until they start to merge, to blur on the paper, and I push it to one side in annoyance. I can’t stop mentally repeating the final words of the conversation, the quotation from Revelation, I can’t help recognizing a sign, can’t help feeling that dart aimed straight at my own heart. It hurts, but I try to relax and lean on the desk, holding my head in my hands and closing my eyes, concentrating on myself, on my professional life, on my private life, on that frontier where police captain and woman merge, and I tell myself that what she said, what Ursula said to the man who called her, is so very true: God spits out the faint-hearted.

About the Author

Mercedes Rosende was born in 1958 in Montevideo, Uruguay. She is a lawyer and a journalist when not writing fiction. She has won many prizes for her novels and short stories. In 2005 she won the Premio Municipal de Narrativa for Demasiados blues, in 2008 the National Literature Prize for La muerte tendrá tus ojos and in 2019 the LiBeraturpreis in for Crocodile Tears. She lives in Montevideo.

Copyright

BITTER LEMON PRESS

First published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Bitter Lemon Press, 47 Wilmington Square, London WC1X 0ET

www.bitterlemonpress.com

First published in Spanish in 2016 as EL MISERERE DE LOS COCODRILOS by Estuario editore, Montevideo © 2016, Mercedes Rosende

English translation © Tim Gutteridge, 2021

This translation is published by arrangement with Ampi Margini Literary Agency and with the authorization of Mercedes Rosende

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher

The moral rights of the author and the translator have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988

All the characters and events described in this novel are imaginary and any similarity with real people or events is purely coincidental

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978–1–913394–431 eBook ISBN USC 978–1–913394–448 eBook ISBN ROW 978–1–913394–455

Bitter Lemon Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Arts Council of England and of Programa IDA

Typeset by Tetragon, London Printed and bound by the I Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR 0 4YY