The waiter brought the coffee and the beer. Machuca put a lump of sugar in his coffee and stirred it as two nuns from Sor Angela de la Cruz walked by in their brown habits and white veils.

"By the way," the old banker asked suddenly, "what's happening with that other priest?" He stared after the nuns. "The one who had dinner with your wife last night."

It was at moments such as these that Pencho Gavira showed his mettle. He forced himself to watch a car turn into the street and then disappear around the corner, while he tried to still the pounding in his ears. He took about ten seconds before he arched an eyebrow and said, "Nothing. According to my information, he's still carrying out his investigation on behalf of Rome. Everything's under control."

"So I hope, Pencho." Machuca raised his cup to his lips with a slight grunt of satisfaction. "Nice place, La Albahaca." He took another sip. "I haven't been there for some time."

"I'll get Macarena back. I promise."

Machuca turned to face him, "You have a brain. There could be no better future for Macarena than with you. That's how I saw it from the start…" He laid a hand lightly on Gavira's arm; the hand felt bony and dry. "I appreciate your qualities, Pencho. Maybe you're the best thing that could happen to the bank now. But the fact is, at this point I couldn't care less about the bank. It's your wife I care about. And her mother."

Gavira felt trapped. He had to keep pedalling, he told himself, or else he'd fall off the bicycle. "The church," he said bitterly, "is their future."

"And yours, Pencho." Machuca shot him a malicious glance. "Would you sacrifice the church deal and the Puerto Targa operation to get your wife back?"

Gavira didn't answer immediately. This was the crux of the matter, and he knew it better than anyone.

"If I lose this chance," he said evasively, "I lose everything."

"Not everything. Only your prestige. And my backing."

Calm, Gavira allowed himself a smile. "You're a hard man, Don Octavio."

"Possibly." The old man stared at the PENA BETICA sign opposite. "But I'm just. The church deal was your idea, and so was your marriage. Although I may have helped things along a little."

"Then I'd like to ask you something," Gavira said, putting his hands on the table. "Why won't you help me now, if you're so fond of Macarena and her mother? You could make them see reason."

"Maybe, maybe not," Machuca said, narrowing his eyes. "But if I helped you, you see, it would mean that I'd allowed Macarena to marry a fool. Let's understand each other, Pencho: for me this is like owning a racehorse or a boxer or a good fighting cock. I enjoy watching you fight."

He made a sign to his secretary. The audience was over.

Gavira stood up, buttoning his jacket. "Do you know something, Don Octavio?" He put on his Italian designer sunglasses and stood by the table, cool, immaculate. "Sometimes I think you don't want a definite outcome… As if deep down you don't care about any of it: Macarena, the bank, me."

Across the street, a young woman with long legs and a very short skirt came out of a clothes shop with a bucket and started washing down the shop window. Old Machuca watched the girl thoughtfully. At last he said: "Pencho, did you ever wonder why I come here every day?"

Gavira stared at him, surprised, not knowing what to answer. What did this have to do with anything? he thought. Damn the old man.

There was a glint of mockery in the banker's eyes. "Once, a long time ago," he said "I was sitting at this very table when a woman walked by. She was beautiful, the kind of woman that takes your breath away… I watched her go by, and our eyes met. I thought of getting up, stopping her. But I didn't. Social convention carried more weight. I was known in Seville… She continued on her way. I told myself I'd see her another day. But she never walked past here again."

His voice was flat as he told the story. The secretary approached, briefcase in hand. With a nod in Gavira's direction, Canovas sat down in the chair that Gavira had just vacated. Settling back into his own chair, Machuca smiled coldly at the young vice-chairman of the Cartujano. "I'm a very old man, Pencho," he said. "In my lifetime, I've won some battles and lost others. But now I don't feel involved in any of it." He took one of the documents his assistant handed him. "What I have now, more than a desire for victory, is a sense of curiosity. Like someone who puts a scorpion and a spider in a bottle and waits to see what happens. With no sympathy for either of them."

He turned his attention to the document, and Gavira muttered a goodbye before going to his car. He had a deep vertical line on his forehead, and the ground felt shaky beneath his feet. Peregil, smoothing his hair over his bald head, looked away as Gavira approached.

Sunlight bounced off the corner of the white-and-red-ochre Hospital de los Venerables. Across the street, beneath a poster for that Sunday's bullfight at the Maestranza bullring, two pale-skinned tourists, looking on the verge of sunstroke, sat outside the Bar Roman, recovering. Inside, Simeon Navajo carefully peeled himself a prawn and then looked at Quart.

"The Computer Crime Department didn't come up with anything," he said. "No previous records."

He ate the prawn and gulped down half his beer. He was always having extra breakfasts, snacks, sandwiches, and Quart wondered where the skinny deputy superintendent put it all. Even the.357 magnum was so bulky on his slight frame that he carried it in a strong-smelling, fringed leather bag over his shoulder. With his ponytail and baggy flower-print shirt, Simeon Navajo made a sharp contrast with the tall, soberly dressed priest.

"We have nothing on our files," the policeman went on, "on any of the persons you asked me to check… We've got young students playing pranks on their computers, a pile of people selling pirated copies of computer programs, and a couple of guys who get into systems they shouldn't from time to time. But there's no sign of what you're looking for."

They were standing at the bar, beneath rows of cured hams hanging from the ceiling. The policeman took another prawn, tore off its head and sucked it with relish, and then began expertly peeling the rest. Quart's own glass of beer was almost untouched.

"Did you make the enquiry I asked you to? Those companies, and Telefonica?"

"I did," said Navajo with his mouth full. "Nobody on your list bought any computer equipment from them, at least not using their real name. As for Telefonica, the head of security there is a friend of mine. According to him, your Vespers isn't the only one who gets on the network illegally and makes calls abroad, to the Vatican or wherever. All the hackers do that. Some get caught, some don't. Yours seems pretty sharp. Apparently he uses a complicated loop system to get on and off the Internet. He leaves behind programs that wipe any trace of him and make detection systems go bananas." He ate another prawn and ordered another beer. A piece of prawn shell had got caught in his moustache. "That's all I can tell you."

Quart smiled at the policeman: "It's not much, but thanks anyway."

"You don't have to thank me," Navajo said, eating. A pile of prawn shells was growing at his feet. "I wish I could do more. But my bosses made it very clear: I can only help you unofficially. On a personal basis, between you and me. For old times' sake. They don't want to get involved with churches, priests, Rome and all that. It would be another story if someone had committed a crime, within my jurisdiction. But the two deaths were ruled to be accidental… The fact that a hacker from Seville is pestering the Pope isn't something we can get too excited about," he said and noisily sucked a prawn head.

The sun slid slowly over the Guadalquivir, and there wasn't a breath of air. On the bank opposite, the palm trees looked like sentries guarding La Maestranza. El Potro del Mantelete was at the window against the glare from the river, a cigarette in his mouth, as motionless as the bronze figure of his hero Juan Belmonte. Don Ibrahim sat at the table. The smell of fried eggs with morcilla wafted from the kitchen, along with La Nina Punales's song: