‘Did Marlasca say what he had done?’

‘He said he’d handed his life over to a shadow.’

‘A shadow?’

‘Those were his words. A shadow who followed him and possessed the same shape, face and voice as his own.’

‘What did that mean?’

‘Guilt and remorse have no meaning. They are feelings, emotions, not ideas.’

It occurred to me that not even the boss could have explained this more clearly.

‘And what was your mother able to do for him?’ I asked.

‘Only comfort him and help him find some peace. Diego Marlasca believed in magic and that’s why my mother thought she should convince him that his road to salvation passed through her. She spoke to him of an ancient spell, a fisherman’s legend she had heard as a child among the hovels by the sea. When a man lost his way in life and felt that death had put a price on his soul, the legend said that if he found a pure soul who would agree to be sacrificed in order to save him, he would be able to disguise his own black heart with it, and death, which cannot see, would pass him by.’

‘A pure soul?’

‘Free of sin.’

‘And how was this to be carried out?’

‘With pain, of course.’

‘What sort of pain?’

‘A blood sacrifice. One soul in exchange for another. Death in exchange for life.’

A long silence amid the whisper of the sea and the wind swirling among the shacks.

‘Irene would have pulled out her own eyes and heart for Marlasca. He was her reason for living. She loved him blindly and, like him, believed that his only salvation lay in magic. At first she wanted to take her own life, offering it to him as a sacrifice, but my mother dissuaded her. She told her what she already knew, that her soul was not free of sin and that her sacrifice would be in vain. She said that to save her. To save them both.’

‘From whom?’

‘From themselves.’

‘But she made a mistake…’

‘Even my mother couldn’t see everything.’

‘What did Marlasca do?’

‘My mother never wanted to tell me – she didn’t want me and my siblings to be a part of it. She separated us and sent each of us far away to different boarding schools so that we would forget where we came from and who we were. She said that now we were the ones who were cursed. She died shortly afterwards, alone. We didn’t find out until much later. When they discovered her body nobody dared touch it: they let the sea take it away. Nobody dared speak about her death either. But I knew who had killed her and why. Even today I believe my mother knew she was going to die soon and by whose hand. She knew and she did nothing about it because in the end she too believed. She believed because she was unable to accept what she’d done. She believed that by handing over her soul she would save ours, the soul of this place. That’s why she didn’t want to flee, because, as the legend says, the soul that sacrifices itself should always remain in the place where the treasonable act was committed, like a bandage over the eyes of death.’

‘And where is the soul that saved Diego Marlasca?’

The woman smiled.

‘There are no souls or salvations, Señor Martín. That’s just an old wives’ tale, gossip. Only ashes and memories remain, but if there are any they will be in the place where Marlasca committed his crime, the secret he has hidden all these years to mock his own destiny.’

‘The tower house… I’ve lived there for almost ten years and there’s nothing…’

She smiled again and, with her eyes fixed on mine, leaned towards me and kissed me on the cheek. Her lips were frozen, like the lips of a corpse, and her breath smelled of dead flowers.

‘Perhaps you haven’t been looking in the right place,’ she whispered in my ear. ‘Perhaps the trapped soul is your own.’

Then she untied the scarf she wore round her neck and revealed a large scar across her throat. This time her smile was malicious and her eyes shone with a cruel, defiant light.

‘Soon the sun will rise. Leave while you can,’ said the Witch of Somorrostro, turning her back to me and looking into the flames once more.

The boy in the black suit appeared in the doorway and offered me his hand, an indication that my time was up. I stood and followed him. When I turned I caught my reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall. In it I could see the profile of an old hag, dressed in rags, hunched over by the fire. Her dark, cruel laughter stayed with me until I was out of the door.

Dawn was breaking when I arrived at the tower house. The lock on the front door was broken. I pushed it open and stepped into the courtyard. The locking mechanism on the back of the door was smoking and gave off an acrid smell. Acid. I climbed the stairs slowly, convinced that I would find Marlasca waiting for me in the shadows of the landing, or that if I turned around he would be there, behind me, smiling. As I walked up the last flight of stairs I noticed that the keyhole on the apartment door also showed signs of acid. I put in the key and had to struggle with it for a couple of minutes; the lock was damaged but had apparently not yielded. Finally I succeeded and pulled out the key, which was slightly gnawed by the substance, and pushed open the door. I left it open behind me and headed down the corridor without taking off my coat. I pulled the revolver out of my pocket and unlocked the barrel, emptying the cartridges of the bullets I had fired and replacing them with new ones, just as I’d seen my father do so many times when he returned home at dawn.

‘Salvador?’ I called.

The echo of my voice spread through the house. I cocked the hammer and continued to advance until I reached the room at the end. The door was ajar.

‘Salvador?’ I asked.

I pointed my gun at the door and kicked it open. There was no trace of Marlasca inside, just the mountain of boxes and old objects piled up in a corner. Again I noticed the odd smell that seemed to filter through the walls. I went over to the wardrobe that covered the back wall and opened its doors wide, removing all the old clothes from the hangers. The cold, damp draught that came from the hole behind it caressed my face. Whatever it was that Marlasca had hidden in the house, it was on the other side of that wall.

I put the weapon in my pocket and removed my coat. Standing by a rear corner of the wardrobe, I put my arm into the space between the frame and the wall. I managed to grab the back of the wardrobe with my hand and I pulled it forward hard. The first pull allowed me to gain a few centimetres and secure my hold. I pulled it forward again. The wardrobe now moved almost a hand’s width. I kept on pulling the end of the wardrobe until the wall behind it became visible and there was enough room for me to slip in. Once I was behind the wardrobe I pushed it with my shoulder, moving it right away against the adjacent wall. I stopped to recover my breath and examine my work. The wall was painted an ochre colour, different from the rest of the room. Beneath the paint I could feel some sort of clay-like mass. I rapped on it with my knuckles. The echo left no room for doubt. This was not a supporting wall. There was something on the other side. I leaned my head against it and listened carefully. Then I heard a noise. Steps along the corridor, approaching… I moved away and stretched out my hand towards the coat I had left on a chair, in order to grab the gun. A shadow filled the doorway. I held my breath. It peered into the room.

‘Inspector…’ I whispered.

Víctor Grandes smiled at me coldly. I imagined he must have spent hours waiting for me, hiding in some doorway in the street.

‘Are you refurbishing the house, Martín?’

‘Just tidying up.’

The inspector looked at the pile of clothes and boxes thrown on the floor and the displaced wardrobe.

‘I’ve asked Marcos and Castelo to wait downstairs. I was going to knock, but the door was open so I took the liberty of coming straight in. I said to myself: this must mean that my friend Martín is expecting me.’