I bent down and stroked his cheek with one finger; there was my brand-new little boy, so soft and round, so fresh. Absurd though it may seem, the sight of him calmed me, as if, as long as I was by his side, nothing could happen to me and everything else vanished; as if we protected each other, and yet how could he, poor thing, protect me? The sound of the Zippo lighter made me look up. Ruiz Kindelán had finally raised the cigarette to his lips, flicked open the lighter cover with his thumb and tried to light it, but no flame appeared. He shook the lighter hard and tried again, but still no flame. I glanced down at his shoes, which were always slightly grubby or, rather, never exactly gleaming; he probably neglected them, feeling, as many men do, an invincible distaste for the brush, cloth and polish, and it occurred to me that this must explain the existence of shoeshines; his shoes were in marked contrast with his rather good-quality, well-kept suits, even though some were slightly shiny with wear. The raincoat that he usually carried draped over one arm even in June lay beside him on the sofa in an untidy heap.

‘Look, my dear Berta,’ he said, and as soon as he said this, he gave a rather inopportune laugh, as if wanting to lend a festive tone to the conversation. ‘We have received information that an individual working for MI6 is causing a lot of damage in Belfast or is about to be let loose either there or in some other place, whether he’s on his way or already in situ we don’t yet know.’ He pronounced the name of the city with the stress on the second syllable, as almost no Spaniard would, or not at least a Spaniard of unmixed race, and he had used the same form of words as before: ‘We have received information’, but who from? And who was that ‘we’? Just him and Mary Kate, or someone else? An organisation, a government, a country? ‘We’re not sure who he is or who he’s pretending to be, we don’t know what he looks like because he may have changed his appearance once already or even twice. He may have had fair hair before and now be dark, having been a redhead in between. He may once have had a thick thatch of hair, and now wear it almost shaved. He may be sporting a beard, whereas before he was clean-shaven and, in between times, might have grown long sideburns and a moustache, a moustache like Crosby’s and sideburns like Stills or Neil Young.’ At the time, the music of that supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young still echoed in the air. And yet I was surprised that someone like Ruiz Kindelán should know who they were. ‘He didn’t wear glasses before, but now he wears some as big as mine.’ He touched the bridge of his glasses, pushing them further up his nose with his middle finger, and taking the opportunity to smooth his curly hair. ‘It’s only natural that he should hide his real face, or try to present various faces so as to seem to be different people and put others off the track, to sow confusion.’ He laughed again, apparently spontaneously, as if this were all a game or a riddle. ‘We suspect he may be a fairly new agent, recently trained, not burned out, not spent, probably deployed to act as a mole, an infiltrator, well, you know what I mean. And we suspect that he might be Thomas. How is Thomas’s Irish accent? Do you think he could pass for one of us? Apparently, he’s a real prodigy when it comes to imitating accents and voices and ways of speaking. Apparently, people almost split their sides laughing when they hear him. We haven’t yet had the opportunity ourselves to hear him in action, but people say he’s amazing.’ And he laughed for a third time, as if he were actually witnessing that prodigious display, then he picked up his raincoat and started carefully rummaging around in one of its many pockets, as he continued talking in an almost jocular tone, with not a trace of drama. ‘Not that we’re saying it is him, we don’t know, it’s very difficult to find out, of course; that’s the job of his superiors, to make finding out as difficult as possible. We’re not even sure he is employed by MI6. We hope not, we really do. We’d love this to be all a mistake. It would be very painful to learn that someone we’re so fond of is working to the detriment of Ireland; that would upset us greatly. The husband of someone we adore, imagine.’

‘And the father of this angel too, this little cherub,’ added Mary Kate, using her favourite word for the baby, and leaning forward to jingle her bracelets over him, a sound he always responded to, as if it were a substitute rattle.

‘But there are some ugly rumours going around,’ Ruiz Kindelán went on. ‘And rumours do sometimes turn out to be true, but let’s hope that’s not the case this time.’ He still had his cigarette between his lips, his lighter with the lid down in one hand, while with the other, he continued calmly, unhurriedly, casually feeling about in his raincoat, barely paying any heed to the task, as if he were sure that what he was looking for would turn up sooner or later. ‘It would be good to know, and rule out the possibility. The sooner the better, for us and for you. For everyone. I think you could do that, Berta, I think it’s up to you to find out and to talk to him about it. And if that ugly rumour proves true, to convince him to stop, he wouldn’t lie to you, would he, not about a grave matter that would affect you and the child, all three of you. At least as regards Ireland, I mean. He must keep out of Ireland, or we’ll all end up the losers, and then we’ll be in a real mess. Do you understand?’ And he finally removed from an inside pocket the object he’d been searching for: a small can of lighter fuel, also bearing the brand name Zippo, and black like the lighter but with a red plastic lid, on top of which was a kind of spout that you turned one way to close and the other way to open, allowing the fuel out through a tiny orifice when your lighter needed refilling. It wasn’t that the flint was worn out, for on the two occasions when he’d tried to light it, it had sounded perfectly normal and had produced a spark, but no flame, that rather showy and, initially, lively Zippo flame, apparently less controllable than others, which is perhaps why it wasn’t easily extinguished, not even by a slight breeze, which is also perhaps why the lighters are more efficient than torches when it comes to starting fires, to burning things down. It had run out of fuel and he had come prepared; in those days, everyone – well, certainly all smokers – knew how they worked: you extracted the lighter from its metal casing and injected the fuel through a small hole into the cotton or foam packing or whatever it was, until it was saturated and the lighter ready for use. ‘We’ll be in a fine pickle if he can’t be persuaded,’ he added, smiling his usual pleasant, attractive smile, and then I noticed that the spout on the can was open and not closed as it should have been, and when Ruiz Kindelán shook the can before using it, as if it were a carton of fruit juice, a few drops (or perhaps a dribble) of that inflammable liquid fell onto Guillermo’s cradle, onto his tiny sheets and tiny pyjamas. It all seemed entirely unintentional, a mistake, the can must already have been open when he took it out of his pocket, and it happened so quickly, from its first appearance to those few fallen drops onto the very worst of places (all it took was one slight movement of the arm), that I could do nothing to avoid this absurd accident. My first impulse was to snatch my child up in my arms and carry him off to the bathroom, where I could undress him, clean, wash and bathe him, and remove him from the presence of that couple who, in the briefest of times, had gone from inspiring me with confidence and offering me protection to provoking sheer terror. And it was terror that kept me from moving, because, before I could pick up the child, Ruiz Kindelán again flicked open the lighter with his thumb, as if wanting to try again to light his cigarette, even though he hadn’t yet injected any fuel into the foam packing; nor did he close the spout on the can, as anyone else would have done after making such a blunder. He still had the cigarette between his lips, the can of lighter fluid in one hand and, in the other, the open lighter. I froze, suddenly understanding what I had preferred not to understand, I froze and sat quite still in my armchair, afraid I might make matters worse, counterproductive and worse, irremediable and worse. ‘The flint obviously works,’ I thought rapidly, and, in my anxiety, I began to breathe very hard, what would nowadays be called hyperventilating, ‘and, if he tries again, it’s possible that this time it will light. And if it does, he could throw the lighter into the wicker cradle, onto the sheets and pyjamas, then it would take only a moment for the whole thing to go up in flames. Or he might accidentally drop the lighter and its inextinguishable flame.’ Difficult though this was, I remained quite still, when what I most wanted was to run away, to escape with my child, but I didn’t dare, I forced myself to remain in that paralysed state. I addressed him as if I had still understood nothing and as if the situation were perfectly normal. I pretended, I spoke with complete aplomb, almost casually, although my breathing and the panicky tremor in my voice must have given me away. I pretended I wasn’t begging, but I was:

‘Please, Miguel, put the thing away, you’re surely not going to light it now. You’ve spilled lighter fluid on the cradle. How could you even think of refilling your lighter with the baby right there in front of you. And close the spout on the can too. What on earth are you doing with it open anyway? It’ll have leaked into your raincoat pocket. You’ll stink of the stuff.’

I could smell the fuel from where I was sitting, and Guillermo would be even more aware of it, breathing in those vapours would be bad for his little lungs, and he could do nothing about it. It occurred to me that with one swift, energetic gesture I might be able to rescue Guillermo from one of the two weapons or indeed both; anything can become a weapon, the inventive human mind is horribly quick in that respect. I noticed, however, that Ruiz Kindelán had both things firmly in his grasp, and, if I failed, the risk was still greater. ‘He can’t do anything,’ I thought, trying to convince myself and drive away my fear. ‘If he were to set fire to a child, he’d be put in prison, there’d be no escape, unless he set fire to me too. But what use would it be to me if they did send him to prison, because once the deed is done, it can’t be undone.’ Miguel raised his eyebrows as if nothing had happened, as if there were no danger at all and he was surprised at my fears. He laughed.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Nothing bad is going to happen,’ he said, adding his usual supposedly reassuring laugh. He closed the spout on the can of lighter fluid, but not his lighter. ‘At least that’s one less threat,’ I thought, mentally thanking him, then I realised that this wasn’t true at all, the fuel had already fallen on the sheets, there was no need for any more to be spilled. ‘I wonder how long it takes to evaporate,’ I thought, because I had no idea. Fortunately, Guillermo still wasn’t crying or complaining, but lying with his little fists clenched and raised as he stared waveringly up at the ceiling, uttering a few guttural sounds and the occasional gurgle, despite the pungent smell, which might make him feel nauseous.

I glanced at Mary Kate in search of help or support, perhaps some female solidarity, but she provided no consolation at all. She was looking fixedly, expectantly, at her husband seated to her left, as if she were waiting for him to do what he had to do or what they had agreed he would do. And it seemed to me now that her squint-eyed gaze had taken on a fanatical, visionary gleam, as if her spectacularly blue eyes had been stripped not only of the ingenuousness or vulnerability they sometimes revealed when in movement, but also of all compassion, as if they were waiting for precisely what I did not want, the irremediable and the worst. I recalled that, for her, the children they hadn’t had were a couple of silly ducks swimming on a pond. And I remembered, too, that for him, they were filthy little beasts.

‘Nothing bad, dear Berta,’ echoed Mary Kate, barely averting her gaze from her husband, or only enough to take in my almost undisguised look of supplication. ‘No, nothing bad, given that it all depends on you, the very best of mothers. You betcha,’ she added, slipping suddenly into unusually colloquial Spanish (unusual for a foreigner): Si lo sabré yo. For some reason, I found myself staring at her massive, prominent bust, either simply so as to not to have to see her terrifying squint or to persuade myself that any woman with such a welcoming bosom could not possibly harm anyone, still less a baby. Or as if this were a way of appealing to the maternal instinct she had doubtless never felt. I was feeling increasingly bewildered and could find no comfort in optimistic thoughts: deep down, I was sure she was capable of harming absolutely anyone, if her cause demanded it, and I could guess what that cause, or country, was. Far too many people appoint themselves as sole interpreters of the needs of their country, whatever that country is, and tend to infect it with their own contagious fervour.

‘Of course,’ I said, and I felt as if I were agreeing with a couple of mad people in order to placate them, something that the mad always notice and dislike intensely, it often irritates them and makes them still angrier, but I didn’t know what else to say, what other tone of voice to use. ‘Of course,’ I said again, ‘I’ll talk to Tomás as soon as I can, I’ll ask him about it and try to convince him, don’t worry. If there’s any truth in the rumour, which there probably isn’t, it’s doubtless just another false rumour, a case of mistaken identity, and he isn’t him at all.’ This last statement made no sense, but I assumed they would understand what I meant. Prolonged fear makes us think and speak as if we were in a fog.

‘Yes, but what if he denies it?’ said Mary Kate.

‘If he denies it, that’s because it’s not true.’

‘How would you know? He could deny it even if it were true. If he’s working for MI6, they will have trained him to deny even the undeniable, that’s just how it is. He could be standing in one place and yet swear blind that he isn’t.’

My mind was incapable of following this exchange, however brief. I was entirely occupied with my defenceless child and that open lighter, for if Ruiz Kindelán flicked the wheel with his thumb and, this time, a flame did emerge, just one, the next step could be catastrophic, whether by accident or intention. The anxiety of knowing that I was incapable of protecting or saving Guillermo was becoming unbearable. My eyes were fixed on that thumb, my treacherous breathing ever louder and faster, and the fact is I was prepared to do anything, they could have ordered me to commit the most humiliating, indecent or abject act and I would have obeyed. I would certainly have betrayed my country – which, after four decades of dictatorship, I didn’t hold in very high esteem – or my parents, or Tomás; I wouldn’t have hesitated for an instant if it meant removing the threat of fire from my child. I wouldn’t allow myself even to imagine him burning, because if I had, I would have fainted and not even have been able to keep watch.

Ruiz Kindelán continued smiling his usual sunny smile, he even giggled as if amused by Mary Kate’s last words.

‘Why ever did Thomas get involved in the first place,’ he said, not so much as a question, but taking for granted that it was true and as if he found it interesting or diverting to speculate. ‘Having spent most of his life here in Spain, he can hardly be such a great English patriot. And no one ever emerges from that business well, dear Berta, if, that is, they do emerge. I’ve known a couple of men like him, and studied a few more, and they usually come out either mad or dead. And those who aren’t brought to justice and don’t go entirely mad, end up not knowing who they are. They lose their life or it splits in two, and those two parts are irreconcilable, mutually repellent. They lose their identity and even their earlier memories. Some try to return to normality years later and just can’t do it, they don’t know how to reintegrate themselves into civilian life, if we can call it that, into ordinary passive life, with no sudden shocks or tensions, into enforced retirement. It makes no difference what age they are. If they’re no good any more or are burned out, they’re withdrawn from service, just like that, sent home or left to vegetate in an office, and some individuals don’t even reach thirty before feeling that their time has passed – like football players. They miss their days of action, of villainy, deceit and falsehood. They remain attached to their murky past, and are sometimes overwhelmed by remorse: when they stop, they realise that what they did was utterly vile and achieved little or nothing; that they were, at best, dispensable; that anyone could have done what they did and with the same result; that all their hard work and the risks they ran were pointless, almost futile, because no one individual ever plays a truly decisive role or makes a truly radical difference. They also discover that no one will thank them for their efforts or their talent, their astuteness or their patience, that they will receive no gratitude, no admiration. What was important, no, crucial, for them is of no importance to anyone else. How could Thomas have been so stupid as to get involved in that? And so imprudent. As I said, no one comes out of that world in a good state. No one.’ I wasn’t paying much attention, but I did think: ‘As long as he goes on speechifying, it will be all right. He’ll be distracted and forget about his cigarette, and won’t try to light it.’ And then I thought: ‘But who is he? Who are they? Perhaps he’s referring to himself when he says all this, because he knows that one day the same fate will await him, the tasks he’s charged with must be similar to those he attributes to Tomás, otherwise he wouldn’t be warning me, he wouldn’t be urging me to distance him from those tasks. Not that I believe that this is what Tomás does, there must be some mistake, and they’re confusing him with someone else. But how little I actually know.’ – ‘And he’s putting you and yours in danger too. Don’t you realise that, dear Berta? The people he’s trying to harm will do their best to deflect that harm. They’ll try to neutralise him by any means possible. They’ll take their revenge.’ – ‘He’s talking about himself now,’ I thought, ‘about him and Mary Kate, who are a team, not just a married couple, but he speaks as if those taxed with dissuading or taking their revenge were other people, not them. He has the cheek to talk like that when he’s just spilled lighter fuel into Guillermo’s cradle and is holding an open Zippo lighter in his hand; true, it’s nearly out of fuel, but it might yet have a drop left that could ignite at any moment, because something can appear to be empty and yet not be, I’ve seen it happen in films when someone gives an apparently empty water canteen a good shake, and, finally, a drop, like a drop of sweat, slips slowly out …’

Guillermo began to cough then, and I could stand it no longer.

‘Look, I’ll do anything you want, Miguel. But please put the cover back on your lighter and let me pick up my baby, let me clean him and wash him, he’s probably choking on that strong smell, see how he’s coughing. If I can smell it, imagine how much worse it must be for him. And he’s so tiny, everything about him is so tiny. Please, let me.’

‘Best just to mention the smell, rather than a fire, best not give him ideas,’ I thought foolishly, since it was clear what his idea had been from the start of that fake accident; he was trying to frighten me so that I would give in to any demands, would promise what I wasn’t even in a position to promise. I leaned down and held out my arms, determined to lift Guillermo out of the cradle, whether Miguel gave me permission or not. He didn’t give me permission, because it was then, when he saw my determined, but incomplete gesture, that he flicked the thumbwheel of the lighter to light the cigarette that was still between his lips. No flame emerged then either, but I didn’t have time to breathe a sigh of relief – I’d held my breath for a fraction of a second, or my heart had skipped a beat – because he closed the lighter for a moment only to open it again and repeat the threat. I had stopped so abruptly that I remained with my arms outstretched, frozen halfway, as if unable to reach my baby, as though I were separated from him by some invisible barrier, by railings, a glass screen, by the greatest force that exists: fear. Kindelán looked at me, smiling his usual smile and giggling, amused by himself.

‘How easily frightened you are,’ he said benevolently. ‘I’ve already told you that nothing bad is going to happen. See?’

And he again flicked the thumbwheel of his lighter and now, perhaps to his own surprise, a brief, minuscule, fluctuating flame emerged, just as I had foreseen.

I did what any mother would have done, I suppose. I instinctively blew out the flame and snatched up my baby. It was enough to have seen that feeble flame. I was sure that both Ruiz Kindelán and Mary Kate had finished their business. I was sure that the danger of the day had passed, but it could also return, and this was only an inaugural danger. He snapped the lighter shut – an unmistakable sound –and put it away in his jacket pocket. ‘Yes, I can rest for today,’ I thought, ‘but from now on, I’ll never be able to rest easy again, because these two people might come back. Or perhaps it’s all just a bad joke, which is how I’ll see it tomorrow.’ It’s amazing how easily we drive from our mind the things that preoccupy and worry us, that prevent us from living normally; just as in between bombardments, in time of war, people make the most of that parenthesis and pretend the bombardments don’t exist and go out into the street and meet in cafés, I would need to believe that what was still happening hadn’t happened at all; for they were still there, the Kindeláns, and I wondered who they really were; it suddenly seemed to me impossible that two embassy employees could behave like that, despite their efforts to ensure that everything appeared entirely fortuitous, I knew there was nothing fortuitous about it, but how could I prove that, I couldn’t denounce them or write a letter of protest to their superiors, I could only talk to Tomás, tell him what had happened and ask how much of it was true, if any of what they had said was true. And even though I felt safe now, I was still breathing hard, you can’t just stop that agitated breathing, or simply detach yourself from a horror.

Then he did the same with the little can of lighter fuel, returning it, safely sealed, to a pocket in his raincoat, the two weapons gone. He picked up his crumpled coat, threw it over his arm as it had been when he arrived, and almost sprang to his feet – he was always disconcertingly agile for such a very fat man – and his wife followed suit. Her lipstick had smudged a little, spilled over the edges of her lips. She noticed this, opened her bag, took out a small mirror and a Kleenex and carefully wiped away the lipstick (she also examined her teeth, in case they had become smeared with lipstick too) as if nothing at all had happened. At most, her eyes swivelled restlessly away from the mirror, flickered here and there about the room, but avoided resting on Guillermo, as if the little cherub had ceased to exist. I was clutching him to me as hard as I could, covering his head with one hand to protect him, keeping him as far away as possible from those two people. Holding him close, I was even more aware of the smell of lighter fuel; poor thing, I feared for his lungs, although he had stopped coughing as soon as I picked him up and took him out of the cradle, and I would, anyway, summon a paediatrician for advice, Dr Castilla or Dr Arranz.

The Kindeláns were clearly taking their leave, I just hoped they really were being dispatched to Turkey or to Outer Mongolia, once their mission, their repugnant mission, was completed. They walked calmly to the door, but I did not accompany them, the further away they were the better. I waited until they were on the other side of the door, then rushed over and bolted it, a purely superstitious move. Before he pulled the door shut, though, the fat man smiled again and gave that same little giggle:

‘You see, dear Berta, we were right, weren’t we? As I said before, you won’t want to see us again after today.’