THE DRIVE BACK to Madrid was marked by rain and silence. Alicia sat with her eyes closed and her head leaning on the misted-up window, her mind a thousand miles away. Vargas watched her out of the corner of his eye, throwing the occasional bait here and there to see if he could draw her into conversation and fill the void that had persisted since they’d left Villa Mercedes.
“You were hard over there with Valls’s secretary,” he ventured. “To put it mildly.”
“She’s a harpy,” retorted Alicia in an unfriendly murmur.
“If you’d rather, we can talk about the weather.”
“It’s raining,” said Alicia. “What else do you want to talk about?”
“You could tell me what happened in there, in the garden cottage.”
“Nothing happened.”
“You were there for half an hour. I hope you weren’t tightening the screws on anyone else. It would be good if we didn’t get everyone against us on the first day. Just saying.”
Alicia didn’t reply.
“Listen, this only works if we work together. Sharing information. Because I’m not your chauffeur.”
“Then perhaps it won’t work. I can take taxis if you prefer. It’s what I usually do.”
Vargas sighed.
“Pay no attention to me, OK?” Alicia replied. “I’m not feeling very well.”
Vargas observed her carefully. She kept her eyes closed and clutched her hip in agony.
“Shall we go to a pharmacy or something?”
“What for?”
“I don’t know. You don’t look too good.”
“Thanks.”
“Can I get you something for the pain?”
Alicia shook her head. Her breathing sounded laboured.
“Shall we stop for a moment?” Vargas said at last. He spotted a roadside restaurant a few hundred metres farther on, next to a service station, where about a dozen trucks had congregated. He left the main road and stopped opposite the entrance. Then he walked around the car and opened the door, offering Alicia his hand.
“I can manage alone.”
After two attempts, Vargas held her below her shoulders and pulled her out of the car. He picked up the handbag she’d left on the seat and hung it over her arm. “Can you walk?”
Alicia nodded, and they made their way to the restaurant door. Vargas held her gently by the arm, and she, for once, did nothing to rebuff his help. When they entered the bar, the policeman made a brief inspection of the place, as was his habit, locating entrances and exits and checking those present. A group of truck drivers were talking at a table covered with a paper tablecloth, house wine and soda-water siphons. Some of them turned to have a look at Alicia and Vargas, but as soon as they met his eyes, they buried their faces and thoughts in their plates of stew without a murmur. The waiter, looking the part of the innkeeper in an operetta, was walking past with a trayful of cups of coffee. He pointed them towards what must have been the restaurant’s best table, separated from the plebs and with a view of the road.
“I’ll be with you in a second,” he said.
Vargas led Alicia to the table and settled her in a chair with her back to the other customers. He sat down opposite and looked at her expectantly. “You’re beginning to frighten me.”
“Don’t get too carried away.”
The waiter returned swiftly, all smiles and attentiveness in welcoming such distinguished and unexpected visitors. “Good afternoon, will madam and the gentleman wish to have lunch? We have a delicious stew today, made by my wife, but we can also prepare whatever you like. A little fillet steak . . .”
“Some water, please,” said Alicia.
“Right away.”
The waiter hurried off to fetch a bottle of mineral water and returned armed with a couple of menus handwritten on thick cardboard. He poured two glasses of water and, guessing that his presence would be best appreciated for its brevity, withdrew with a bow, saying, “I’ll leave the menu with you in case you want to have a look at it.”
Vargas mumbled a thank-you, while Alicia drank her glass of water as if she’d just crossed the desert.
“Are you hungry?”
She took her bag and stood up. “I’m just going to the bathroom. You order for me.” As she walked past Vargas, she put a hand on his shoulder and smiled weakly. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” She hobbled off towards the ladies’ room and disappeared behind the door.
The waiter watched her from the bar, probably wondering what the relationship was between that man and such an unusual young woman.
*
Alicia closed the bathroom door and bolted it. The room stank of disinfectant and was hemmed in by discoloured tiles covered in obscene drawings and infelicitous witticisms. A narrow window framed a ventilator through whose blades slanted sharp beams of dusty light. Alicia went over to the sink and leaned on it, opening the tap to let the water run. It reeked of rust. She opened her bag and with shaking hands pulled out a metal case from which she took a syringe and a phial with a rubber top. She plunged the needle into the phial and half filled the cylinder, then rapped it with her fingers and pushed the piston down until a thick, shiny drop formed on the tip of the needle. Alicia then walked over to the toilet, closed the lid, sat down, and, propping herself up against the wall with her left hand, pulled her dress up to her hip. She felt the inside of her thigh, breathed deeply, and plunged the needle a couple of centimetres above the top of her stocking, emptying the contents. Seconds later she felt the rush. The needle fell from her hands, and her mind clouded over while a cold sensation spread through her veins. She leaned against the wall and let a couple of minutes go by without thinking of anything except that ice-cold snake creeping through her body. For a moment she felt she was losing consciousness. She opened her eyes to find herself in a foul-smelling broom-cupboard of a room that she didn’t recognize. A distant sound, of someone knocking on the door, roused her.
“Alicia, are you all right?”
It was Vargas’s voice.
“Yes,” she forced herself to say. “I’ll be right out.”
The policeman’s footsteps took a while to move away. Alicia cleaned the blood trickling down her thigh and smoothed down her dress. She washed her face in the sink and dried it with a piece of thick paper hanging from a nail on the wall. Before leaving, she looked at her face in the mirror. It reminded her of one of Mercedes’s dolls. She put on some lipstick and tidied up her clothes. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself for her return to the world of the living.
When she got back to the table, she sat down opposite Vargas and gave him her sweetest smile. He was holding a glass of beer, which he didn’t seem to have tasted, and looked at her with undisguised concern.
“I ordered a fillet steak for you,” he said at last. “Rare. Protein.”
Alicia nodded to indicate that she thought his choice was perfect.
“I didn’t know what to ask for, but you strike me as a carnivore.”
“Bleeding meat is all I eat,” Alicia remarked. “If possible from innocent creatures.”
He didn’t laugh at her joke. Alicia caught her own image in his eyes. “You can say it.”
“Say what?”
“What you’re thinking.”
“What am I thinking?”
“That I look like Dracula’s girlfriend.”
Vargas frowned.
“That’s what Leandro always says,” said Alicia in a friendly tone. “It doesn’t bother me. I’m used to it.”
“That isn’t what I was thinking.”
“I’m sorry about earlier.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
The waiter came over carrying two dishes and an obliging grin.
“Fillet steak for the young lady . . . and the house stew for the gentleman. Anything else? A bit more bread? A glass of wine from the local winery?”
Vargas shook his head. Alicia glanced at the steak on her plate, flanked by French fries, and sighed.
“If you like, I can cook it a bit longer,” the waiter offered.
“It’s fine, thanks.”
They began to eat in silence, exchanging the occasional conciliatory look and smile. Alicia wasn’t hungry, but she made an effort and pretended to enjoy her steak.
“It’s good. How’s your stew? Makes you want to marry the cook?”
Vargas put down his spoon and leaned back in the chair. Alicia knew he was observing her dilated pupils and drowsy face.
“How much did you inject?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“What sort of a wound is it?”
“The sort a well-brought-up young lady doesn’t talk about.”
“If we’re going to be working together, I need to know what to expect.”
“We’re not engaged. This will last a couple of days. You don’t need to introduce me to your mother.”
Vargas didn’t show the slightest hint of a smile.
“It’s from when I was a child. During the bombings, in the war. The doctor who rebuilt my hip hadn’t slept for twenty hours, and he did his best. I think I still carry a couple of souvenirs in there from Mussolini’s air force.”
“In Barcelona?”
Alicia nodded.
“I had a colleague in the Force who came from there. He lived for twenty years with a piece of shrapnel the size of a stuffed olive stuck to his aorta.”
“Did he die in the end?”
“Run over by a newspaper delivery van as he stood outside a railway station.”
“One can never trust the press. At the slightest chance, they’ll do you in. What about you? Where did you spend the war?”
“Here and there. Mostly in Toledo.”
“In or out of the siege?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Mementoes?”
Vargas unbuttoned his shirtfront and showed her a circular scar on the right-hand side of his chest.
“May I?” asked Alicia.
Vargas nodded. Alicia leaned forward and felt the scar with her fingers. Behind the bar, the waiter dropped the glass he was drying.
“It looks like the real thing,” said Alicia. “Does it hurt?”
Vargas buttoned up his shirt again. “Only when I laugh. Honestly.”
“With this work, you can probably barely afford all the aspirin you need.”
Vargas smiled at last. Alicia raised her glass of water.
“A toast to our sorrows.”
The policeman held up his glass, and they toasted. They ate in silence, Vargas mopping up the stew with bread and Alicia picking at her meat here and there. Once she’d pushed her plate to one side, he started stealing her remaining fries, which was almost the whole serving.
“So what’s the plan for this afternoon?” he asked.
“I thought you could stop by headquarters to get a copy of Salgado’s letters and see whether there is anything new on that front. And if there’s enough time, pay a visit to that Cascos guy at the publishing house, Ariadna. There’s something there that doesn’t quite add up.”
“Don’t you want us to go and see him together?”
“I have other plans. I thought I’d pay a visit to an old friend who might be able to lend us a hand. It’s better if I see him on my own. He’s a peculiar character.”
“If he’s a friend of yours, that goes without saying. Is the enquiry about the book?”
Vargas signalled to the waiter to bring the bill. “Don’t you want a coffee, a dessert, or something else?”
“In the car you can treat me to one of your imported cigarettes.”
“This isn’t a ruse to get rid of me at the first opportunity, is it?”
Alicia shook her head. “We’ll meet at seven in the Café Gijón and ‘share information’.”
Vargas looked at her severely. She raised a hand solemnly. “Promise.”
“You’d better. Where should I drop you?”
“Recoletos. It’s on your way.”