“And what does Cesar think of him?”

“He likes him. I imagine he finds him amusing as a character. He treats him with somewhat ironic courtesy. It’s as if Cesar feels a pang of jealousy every time Munoz makes some particularly brilliant analysis of a move. But as soon as Munoz takes his eyes off the board, he’s ordinary again, and Cesar feels better.”

She stopped talking, puzzled. She’d just noticed, on the other side of the street, parked by the kerb, a car that seemed familiar. Where had she seen it before?

A bus passed, hiding the car from view. Menchu saw the look of anxiety on her face.

“Is something wrong?”

Disconcerted, Julia shook her head. The bus was followed by a delivery van that stopped at the light, making it impossible to see if the car was still there or not. But she had seen it. It was a Ford.

“What’s up?”

Menchu looked uncomprehendingly from Julia to the street and back. Julia had a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, an uncomfortable feeling she’d come to know all too well over the last few days. She stood absolutely still, concentrating, as if her eyes, through sheer force of will, could be capable of seeing straight through the van to the car. A blue Ford.

She was afraid. She felt the fear creep gently through her body, felt it beating in her wrists and temples. After all, it was quite possible that someone was following her. That they’d been doing so for days, ever since Alvaro and she… A blue Ford with smoked-glass windows.

Then she remembered: it was double-parked opposite the offices of the messenger service and had jumped a red light behind them that rainy morning. Why shouldn’t it be the same car?

“Julia.” Menchu seemed genuinely worried now. “You’ve gone quite pale”

The van was still there, stopped at the light. Perhaps it was only coincidence. The world was full of blue cars with smoked-glass windows. She took a step towards the gallery door, putting her hand into the leather bag she wore slung over her shoulder. Alvaro in the bath, with the taps full on. She scrabbled in the bag, disregarding cigarettes, lighter, powder compact. She touched the butt of the derringer with a sort of jubilant sense of comfort, of exalted hatred for that car, hidden now, that represented the naked shadow of fear. Bastard, she thought, and the hand holding the weapon inside the bag began to tremble with a mixture of fear and rage. Whoever you are, you bastard, even if it is Black’s turn to move, I’m going to show you how to play chess. And to Menchu’s astonishment, Julia went out into the street, her jaw set, her eyes fixed on the van hiding the car. She walked between two other cars parked on the pavement just as the light was changing to green. She dodged a car bumper, ignored a horn sounding immediately behind her and, in her impatience for the van to pass, was on the point of taking out her derringer when, at last, in a cloud of diesel fumes, she reached the other side of the street just in time to see a blue Ford with smoked-glass windows and a numberplate ending in the letters TH disappearing into the traffic ahead.

“That really was a bit over the top, my dear.” Cesar was winding his spaghetti round his fork. “Can you imagine it? A worthy citizen happens to stop at a traffic light, at the wheel of his car, which just happens to be blue, when a pretty young woman transformed into a basilisk appears, quite without warning, and tries to shoot him.” He turned to Munoz, as if seeking the support of a voice of reason. “It’s enough to give anyone a nasty turn.”

Munoz stopped playing with the bail of bread he was rolling about on the tablecloth, but he didn’t look up.

“She didn’t actually get that far. I mean, she didn’t shoot him,” he said in a calm, low voice. “The car drove off first.”

“Of course it did.” Cesar reached for his glass of rose wine. “The light had changed to green.”

Julia dropped her knife and fork on her barely touched plate of lasagne, making a noise that earned her a pained look from Cesar over the top of his wine glass.

“Listen, stupid. The car was already parked there before the light turned red, when the street was empty… Right opposite the gallery.”

“There are hundreds of cars like that.” Cesar put his glass gently down on the table, dabbed at his lips and composed a sweet smile before adding, in a voice lowered to a sibylline whisper, “It might well have been one of your virtuous friend Menchu’s admirers. Some heavily muscled would-be pimp, hoping to oust Max.”

Julia felt a profound sense of irritation. At moments of crisis Cesar always slid into his vicious viper mode, aggressively slanderous. But she didn’t want to give way to her ill humour by arguing with him, least of all in front of Munoz.

“It might also,” she replied, feigning patience after mentally counting to ten, “have been someone who, on seeing me come out of the gallery, decided to make himself scarce.”

“It seems very unlikely to me, my dear. Really it does.”

“You probably would have thought it unlikely that Alvaro would turn up with his neck broken, but he did.”

Cesar pursed his lips as if he found the allusion an unfortunate one, at the same time indicating Julia’s plate.

“Your lasagne is getting cold.”

“I don’t give a damn about the lasagne. I want to know what you think. And I want the truth.”

Cesar looked at Munoz, but the latter, utterly inscrutable, was still kneading his ball of bread. Cesar rested his wrists symmetrically on either side of his plate, and stared at the vase containing two carnations, one white, one red, that adorned the centre of the tablecloth.

“Maybe you’re right.” He arched his eyebrows as if the sincerity demanded of him and the affection he felt for Julia were waging a hard-fought battle. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Well, there you are; I’ve said it.” His blue eyes looked at her calmly, tenderly, stripped of the sardonic mask they’d worn before. “I must admit that the car’s being there does worry me.”

Julia threw him a furious look.

“May I know then why you’ve spent the last half-hour playing the fool?” She rapped impatiently on the table with her knuckles. “No, don’t tell me. I know already. Daddy didn’t want his little girl to worry, right? I’d be far better off with my head buried in the sand like an ostrich. Or like Menchu.”

“You won’t solve anything by hurling yourself on people who just happen to look suspicious. Besides, if your fears are justified, it might even be dangerous. Dangerous for you, I mean.”

“I had your pistol.”

“I hope I don’t come to regret giving you that derringer. This isn’t a game, you know. In real life, the baddies have pistols too. And then play chess.”

As if Munoz were doing a stereotyped impression of himself, the word “chess” seemed to breach his apparent apathy.

“After all,” he murmured to no one in particular, “chess is essentially a combination of hostile impulses.”

Cesar and Julia looked at him in surprise. What he’d just said had nothing to do with the conversation. Munoz was staring into space, as if he’d not quite returned from some long journey to remote places.

“My dear friend,” said Cesar, somewhat peeved by the interruption “far be it from me to doubt the blazing truth of your words, but we’d be most grateful if you could be more explicit.”

Munoz continued rolling the ball of bread round and round in his fingers. Today he was wearing an old-fashioned blue jacket and a dark green tie, but the ends of his shirt collar, crumpled and none too clean, curled upwards as usual.