VARGAS NOTICED IT right away. His room key slid into the lock with difficulty, as if it had come across sharp edges in the mechanism, and when he turned it, the spring barely offered resistance. The lock had been forced.
Pulling out his gun, he gently pushed the door inwards with his foot. The apartment – just two rooms separated by a curtain – lay in semi-darkness. The curtains were drawn, and Vargas clearly remembered having left them open.
He cocked the hammer. A silhouette stood motionless in a corner. Vargas raised the weapon and aimed.
“Please, don’t shoot! It’s me!”
Vargas took a few steps forward, and the figure stepped out with his hands in the air.
“Rovira! What the hell are you doing here? I was about to blow your brains out.”
The little spy, still wearing his shabby coat, was trembling as he looked at him.
“Put your hands down,” said Vargas.
Rovira nodded repeatedly and obeyed. “I’m sorry, Captain. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to wait for you downstairs, but someone was following me, I’m sure, so I thought—”
“Hold your horses, Rovira. What are you talking about?”
Rovira took a deep breath and waved his hands about, as if he didn’t know where to begin. Vargas closed the door and led him to an armchair.
“Sit down.”
“Yes, sir.”
Vargas grabbed a chair and sat facing Rovira.
“Start at the beginning.”
Rovira swallowed hard. “I have a message for you from Superintendent Linares.”
“Linares?”
Rovira nodded. “He was the one who ordered me to follow you and Señorita Alicia. Although I can assure you I’ve obeyed all the instructions you gave me and I’ve kept my distance so as not to bother you. And I’ve also reported the bare minimum.”
“What message?” snapped Vargas.
“When he arrived at police headquarters, Superintendent Linares received a call. Someone from Madrid. From very high up. He’s asked me to tell you that you’re in danger, that you’d both better leave town. You and Señorita Alicia. He told me to go and look for you at the morgue and tell you. At the morgue, I was told that you’d already left for the registry.”
“Go on.”
“Have you discovered anything interesting there?” asked Rovira.
“Nothing that concerns you. What else?”
“Well, I went to the registry but was also told that you’d left, so then I hurried over here to wait for you. And it was then that I noticed you were being watched.”
“Wasn’t that your job?”
“Someone else other than me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“And how did you get in here?”
“The door was open. I think someone has forced the lock. I made sure there was no one hidden inside, and I drew the curtains so nobody could see I was waiting for you here.”
Vargas looked at him for a long time, without saying a word.
“Have I done something wrong?” asked Rovira fearfully.
“Why didn’t Linares phone me at the morgue?”
“The superintendent said the telephones at headquarters weren’t safe.”
“And why didn’t he come in person?”
“He’s in a meeting with that officer they sent from the ministry. Someone called Alaya or something like that.”
“Hendaya.”
Rovira nodded. “That’s the one.”
The guy was still trembling like a puppy. “Can you give me a glass of water, please?” he begged.
Vargas hesitated for a moment. He walked over to the chest of drawers and filled a glass from a half-full pitcher.
“What about Señorita Alicia?” asked Rovira behind him. “Isn’t she with you?”
Rovira’s voice was suddenly much closer. Vargas turned, glass in hand, to find Rovira standing right next to him. He no longer trembled, and his frightened expression had fused into an impenetrable mask.
Vargas never got to see the blade of the knife.
He felt a brutal stab in his side, as if someone had bashed his ribs with a hammer, and realized that the cutting edge had sunk so deep, it had perforated his lung. Vargas thought he saw Rovira smile, and when he tried to grab his revolver, he was struck by a second blow. The blade penetrated his neck right up to the handle. Vargas staggered. His vision clouded over, and he held on to the chest of drawers. A third knifing hit his stomach. He collapsed, falling flat on the floor. A shadow hovered over him. While his body surrendered amid convulsions, Rovira snatched his weapon from him, examined it with indifference, then chucked it on the floor.
“Piece of junk,” he said.
Vargas searched those bottomless eyes. Rovira waited a few seconds and then dealt him two more stab wounds in the stomach, twisting the blade as he did so. The policeman spat out a surge of blood and tried to hit Rovira, or whoever that creature was who was tearing him apart. His fists barely touched the other man’s face. Rovira pulled out the knife, soaked in his blood, and showed it to him.
“You son of a bitch,” whispered Vargas.
“Look at me, you old shit. I want you to die knowing that with her, I’m not going to be so gentle. I’m going to make her last, and I swear she’s going to curse you for having failed her while I show her all the things I can do.”
Vargas felt a deep cold taking hold of him, paralysing his limbs. His heart beat fast, and he could barely breathe. A tepid, slimy sheet was spreading under his body. His eyes filled with tears, and he was overcome by fear such as he’d never felt before. His murderer cleaned the knife on his lapels and put it away. He stayed there, squatting, looking into Vargas’s eyes and relishing his agony.
“Can you feel it now?” he asked. “What is it like?”
Vargas closed his eyes and conjured up the image of Alicia. He died with a smile on his lips, and when the man he’d known as Rovira noticed it, such was his anger that even knowing Vargas was dead, he started hitting his face with his fists until his knuckles were raw.
*
Hiding in the doorway, Fernandito listened. He’d run up the stairs, and when he reached Vargas’s door, he waited for a moment before calling. The sound of sharp blows on the other side stopped him. A rough voice was yelling furiously while those terrible punches landed on what sounded like flesh and bone. Fernandito wrestled with the door, but it was shut. After a while the blows stopped, and he heard footsteps approaching the door. Fear gripped him, and, swallowing his shame, he ran up the stairs to hide. Glued to the wall on the landing, Fernandito heard the door open. Footsteps began to descend. Fernandito stuck his head into the stairwell and saw a short man wearing a black coat. He hesitated a few moments, then went silently down to Vargas’s door. It was ajar. He peeped into the doorway and saw the policeman’s body, lying on a black sheet that looked like a liquid mirror. He didn’t know what it was until he stepped on it, slipped, and fell headlong next to the body. Vargas, white as a marble statue, was dead.
For a moment Fernandito didn’t know what to do. Then, seeing the policeman’s weapon on the floor, he picked it up and hurtled down the stairs.