"The door, Nina! Run to the door!"

He struggled to his feet, let loose a punch – missing – at someone who got in his way, grabbed La Nina by the hand, and dragged her up on deck. El Potro was already out there, bouncing around the helm. Don Ibrahim, heart pounding, exhausted, certain he would have a coronary at any moment, took El Potro by the arm and, still gripping La Nina's hand, pulled them both to the ladder and dry land. There, pushing them ahead of him, he managed to steer them along the quay. La Nina was weeping. Beside her, his head down and breathing through his nose – left, right – El Potro del Mantelete did battle with the shadows.

They took Father Ferro up on deck and sat there, enjoying the cool evening air after their skirmish. With the torch they'd found, Quart could see Gavira's swollen cheek and right eye almost closed, Macarena's dirty face with a scratch on her forehead, and the scruffy figure of the old priest, his cassock wrongly buttoned and two days of stubble covering his scarred face. Quart himself wasn't in much better shape: the man who looked like a boxer had got in a good punch just before the lamp went out. Quart's jaw was now stiff, and his ears buzzed. He prodded a tooth with the tip of his tongue and thought he could feel it move.

It was a strange situation: the deck of the Lovely littered with broken seats, the lights of the Arenal above the parapet, the Torre del Oro illuminated beyond the acacias downriver. And Gavira, Macarena and he in a semicircle around Father Ferro, who had not said a single word. The old priest stared at the black river, as if he were far away.

Gavira was the first to speak. Precise and calm, he put his jacket round his shoulders. Without denying that he was responsible, he said that Peregil had misunderstood his instructions. That was why he was here now, trying to set things right if he could. He was prepared to offer the old priest compensation, which included tearing Peregil to shreds when he laid hands on him; but he made it clear that this didn't change his attitude towards the church. The two matters were completely separate. He paused to feel his swollen cheek and light a cigarette. "In which case," he added after a moment's thought, "I'm no longer involved in this." That was all he said.

Macarena spoke next, giving the old priest a detailed account of everything that had happened since his disappearance. Father Ferro listened without any sign of emotion, even when she told him that Honorato Bonafe was dead and the police suspected Father Ferro of the murder. This was Quart's area. Father Ferro turned to him and waited.

"The problem is," said Quart, "you have no alibi."

By the light of the torch, the old priest's eyes were sunken and inscrutable. "Why should I need an alibi?" he asked.

"Well," said Quart, leaning forwards, his elbows on his knees, "there's a crucial period, between seven or seven thirty in the evening until about nine o'clock. It depends what time you closed the church. If you had any witnesses to what you were doing during that time, it would be wonderful." He waited for the priest to answer, observing how hard the old man's face looked.

"There are no witnesses," said Father Ferro.

He seemed not to care. Quart and Gavira exchanged a glance. The banker remained silent. Quart sighed.

"This makes things difficult," he said. "Macarena and I can testify that you arrived at the Casa del Postigo shortly after eleven, and that there was absolutely nothing suspicious in your behaviour. Gris Marsala can confirm that everything happened as usual until seven thirty. I assume that the first thing the police will ask you is how you could have failed to notice Bonafe in the confessional. But you didn't go into the church, did you? That's the most logical explanation. We have a lawyer for you, and I assume he'll ask you to confirm that point." "Why should I?"

Quart looked at him with exasperation. "What can I say? It's the most credible version. It'll be harder to assert your innocence if you tell them you locked the church knowing there was a dead man inside."

Father Ferro remained impassive, as if it had nothing to do with him. Quart went on to remind him that the days were long gone when the authorities accepted the word of a priest as gospel. Particularly when corpses turned up in his church. But the old man paid no attention, glancing at Macarena or staring silently at the black river.

"Tell me. What would suit Rome?" Father Ferro said at last.

This was the last thing Quart expected to hear. He became impatient. "Forget Rome. You're not that important. There will be a scandal anyway. Imagine, a priest accused of murder, and in his own church."

Father Ferro scratched his chin. He seemed almost amused. "Good," he said at last. "Then what has happened suits everyone. You get rid of the church," he said to Gavira, "and you and Rome" – to Quart – "get rid of me."

Macarena stood up. "Please don't say that, Don Priamo," she said. "There are people who need that church, and who need you. I need you. And so does the duchess." She stared defiantly at her husband. "And tomorrow's Thursday."

For a moment Father Ferro's face softened. "I know," he replied. "But things are out of my hands now. Tell me one thing, Father Quart. Do you believe I'm innocent?"

"I do," said Macarena, almost pleading. But the old priest's eyes remained fixed on Quart.

"I don't know," Quart said. "I really don't. But that doesn't matter. You're a fellow priest. It's my duty to help you as much as I can."

Father Ferro gave Quart a strange look, a look he had never given him before. For once, there was no hardness in his eyes. Gratitude, perhaps. The old man's chin trembled, but then he blinked, clenched his teeth, and his face was hostile again. "You can't help me," he said.

"No one can. I don't need alibis or proof, because when I locked the vestry door, that man was lying dead in the confessional."

Quart closed his eyes. This left no way out. "How can you be sure?" he asked, guessing and fearing the answer.

"Because I killed him."

Macarena turned abruptly with a cry. Gavira lit another cigarette. Father Ferro stood up, clumsily buttoning his cassock. "You'd better turn me over to the police now," he said to Quart.

The moon slid slowly down the Guadalquivir, meeting the reflection of the Torre del Oro in the distance. Sitting on the bank, with his feet hanging just above the water, Don Ibrahim held a handkerchief to his bleeding nose. His shirt was untucked, showing his fat belly covered with coffee stains and oil from the boat. Beside him, lying face down as if the referee had counted to ten and it no longer mattered, El Potro too stared at the black, silent waters, lost in a dream of bullrings and afternoons of glory, of applause under the spotlights in the boxing ring. He was a tired hound waiting faithfully beside his master.

And the early risers ask you:

Maria Paz, what are you waiting for…

At the foot of the stone steps leading down to the river, La Nina dipped the hem of her dress in the water and wiped her forehead, singing softly to herself in a husky voice redolent of Manzanilla and defeat. And the lights of Triana winked from the far bank, while the breeze from Sanlucar and from the sea and – it was said – from America rippled the surface of the river, soothing the three companions:

He once swore his love,

but now he sings a different tune.

Don Ibrahim put a hand to his heart and let it drop again. He'd left Don Ernesto Hemingway's watch and Garcia Marquez's cigarette lighter and his panama and the cigars all back on the Lovely. Together with the remaining shreds of his dignity and the promised four and a half million they were going to use to set up a tablao for La Nina. There had been many bad business ventures in his life, but none as disastrous as this.