the white rook on b6…“ He stopped, absorbed, his mind plunged automatically into considering the various possibilities offered by the move he’d just mentioned. Then he blinked and returned with a visible effort to the real situation. ”Our opponent takes it as read that we accept his challenge and that we’ve moved our white rook to b3, to protect our white king from a possible sideways move to the left by the black queen and, at the same time, with that rook backed up by the other rook and the white knight, threatening the black king on a4 with check. I deduce from this that he likes taking risks.“

Julia, who was following Munoz’s explanations on the board, felt sure she detected in his words a hint of admiration for the unknown player.

“What makes you say that? How can you know what he does or doesn’t like?”

Munoz shrugged and bit his lower lip.

“I don’t know,” he replied after a brief hesitation. “Even‘ person plays chess according to who he is. I believe I explained that once before.” He placed the card on the table next to the chessboard. “Pd7 – d5+ means that Black now chooses to play by advancing the pawn he has on d7 to d5, thus threatening the white king with check. That little cross next to the figure means check. In other words, we’re in danger.

a danger we can avoid by taking their pawn with the white pawn on e4.“

“Right,” said Cesar. “That’s fine as far as the moves go. But I don’t see what all this has to do with us. What relationship is there between those moves and reality?”

Munoz looked noncommittal, as if they were asking too much of him. Julia noticed that his eyes again sought hers, only to slide away a second later.

“I don’t know exactly what the relationship is. Perhaps it’s a prompt, a warning. I have no way of knowing. But the next logical move by Black, after losing his pawn on d5, would be to put the white king in check again by moving the black knight on d1 to b2. In that case, there would be only one move White could make to avoid check whilst at the same time maintaining his siege of the black king, and that’s to take the black knight with the white rook. The rook on b3 takes the knight on b2. Now look at the position on the board.”

The three of them, still and silent, studied the new positions of the pieces. Julia would remark later that it was at that moment, long before she understood the meaning of the hieroglyphics, that she sensed the board had ceased to be simply a succession of black and white squares and become instead a real space depicting the course of her own life.

And, almost as if the board had become a mirror, she found something familiar about the piece of wood representing the white queen on e1 so pathetically vulnerable to the threatening proximity of the black, chessmen.

But it was Cesar who was the first to understand.

“My God,” he said. And those words sounded so strange on his agnostic lips that Julia looked at him in alarm. He was staring fixedly at the board, the hand that held the cigarette holder apparently frozen a few inches from his mouth, as if the realisation had been so sudden it had paralysed a gesture only barely begun.

She looked again at the board, feeling the blood beating silently in her wrists and temples. She could see only the defenceless white queen, but she felt the danger like a dead weight on her back. She looked across at Munoz, asking for help, and saw that he was shaking his head thoughtfully, the furrow between his eyebrows deepening. Then the vague smile she’d noticed on other occasions flickered briefly and humourlessly across his lips. It was the fleeting, rather resentful smile of someone who finds himself obliged, most reluctantly, to acknowledge his opponent’s talent. And Julia felt an explosion of intense, dark fear, for she understood that even Munoz was impressed.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, barely recognising her own voice. The squares on the board swam before her eyes.

Exchanging a grave look with Munoz, Cesar said: “It means that the white rook’s move threatens the black queen. Isn’t that right?”

Munoz gave a lift of his chin.

“Yes,” he said. “The black queen, who before was safe, is now under threat.” He stopped. Venturing along the path of non-chess interpretations was not something he felt at ease doing. “That might mean that the invisible player is trying to communicate something to us: his certainty that the mystery of the painting has been resolved. The black queen…”

“Beatrice of Burgundy,” murmured Julia.

“Yes, Beatrice of Burgundy, the black queen, who, it would seem, has already killed once.”

Munoz’s last words hung in the air without expectation of any response. Cesar reached out a hand and, with the meticulousness of someone who desperately needs to do something in order to remain in touch with reality, delicately flicked the ash from his cigarette into an ashtray. Then he looked around as if he might find the answer to the questions they were all asking themselves in one of the pieces of furniture, one of the pictures or objects in his shop.

“You know, my dears, it really is an absolutely incredible coincidence. This just can’t be real.”

He raised his hands and let them fall in a gesture of impotence. Munoz merely gave a gloomy shrug of his shoulders.

“This is no coincidence. Whoever planned this is a master.”

“And what about the white queen?” asked Julia.

Munoz moved one hand towards the board where it hovered over the piece in question, as if not daring to touch it. He pointed to the black rook on c1.

“There’s a chance she could be taken,” he said calmly.

“I see.” Julia felt disappointed. She thought she would have felt more of a shock if someone had confirmed her fears out loud. “If I’ve understood you correctly, the fact of having discovered the picture’s secret, that is, the lady in black’s guilt, is reflected in that move of the rook to b2. And if the white queen is in danger, it’s because she should have withdrawn to a safe place instead of wandering around making life difficult for herself. Is that the moral of the message, Senor Munoz?”

“More or less.”

“But it all happened five hundred years ago,” protested Cesar. “Only the mind of a madman…”

“Perhaps we’re dealing with a madman,” said Munoz with equanimity. “But he played, or plays, damned fine chess.”

“And he might have killed again,” added Julia. “Now, a few days ago, in the twentieth century. He might have killed Alvaro.”

Cesar, scandalised, raised a hand, almost as if she’d made an improper remark.

“Now, hang on, Princess. We’re getting ourselves tied in knots here. No murderer can survive for five hundred years. And a painting can’t kill.”

“That depends on how you look at it.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. And stop mixing things up. On the one hand there’s a painting and a crime committed five hundred years ago… On the other hand there’s Alvaro, dead.”

“And the sending of the documents.”

“But no one has yet proved that the person who sent the documents also killed Alvaro. It’s even possible that the wretched man cracked his own head open in the bath.” Cesar raised three fingers. “Third, we have someone who wants to play chess. That’s all. There’s nothing that proves there’s any link among the three things.”

“The painting.”

“That’s not proof. It’s just a hypothesis.” Cesar turned to Munoz. “Isn’t that right?”

Munoz said nothing, refusing to take sides, and Cesar gave him a resentful look. Julia pointed to the card on the table next to the chessboard.

“You want proof, do you?” she said suddenly, for she’d just realised what the card was. “Here’s a direct link between Alvaro’s death and the mystery player. I know these cards all too well. They’re the ones Alvaro used in his work.” She paused to take in the significance of her own words. “Whoever killed him could have taken a handful of his cards.” The irrational sense of panic she’d felt only minutes before was already ebbing away, to be replaced by a more precise, more clearly defined feeling of apprehension. She said to herself, by way of explanation, that the fear of fear, of something dark and undefined, was not the same as the concrete fear of dying at the hands of a real human being. Perhaps the memory of Alvaro, of his death in broad daylight with the taps turned on, helped to clarify her mind and free her of superfluous fears. She had quite enough on her plate as it was.