Kitson rings on the morning of the 14th. I am surprised to hear from him; a part of me was resigned to the fact that we would never meet again. And I had grown used to that. It didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would.

‘So what do you think?’ he asks.

‘What do I think about what?’

‘The press reports. The angle on the financial scandal?’

‘It looks to me like a dam that is waiting to break.’ This may sound like I’m baiting him, but it is an honest assessment of the situation now that several days have passed. ‘For the moment, Aznar seems safe. He moved quickly, he distanced himself from the culprits, he assumed a presidential air on the White House lawn. But how long can it last? This is Spain’s Watergate. You can’t bury a story of this magnitude for long, regardless of how much money or influence the Americans think they have. El País has been told to keep its mouth shut, but when smaller left-wing outlets get hold of the story they’re not going to pass up an opportunity to hammer the PP. Then it’s just a question of who gets the exclusives, who can track down the main players. Open season. They say that Maldonado and de Francisco were squirrelling away millions of euros in secret bank accounts, but nobody has heard their side of the story.’

‘Upbeat as ever, Alec,’ he replies, ‘upbeat as ever. Look, if the Aznar government falls, it falls because of bad management at the top. Better that than an illegal state-funded war against ETA.’

‘True.’ That’s what all of this boils down to.

‘Anyway, I have news.’

He sounds chirpy. I am sitting alone in Cáscaras eating my breakfast and looking out of the window. As we talk I keep thinking about what Kitson said in Starbucks: ‘Aznar is trying to drag this country, kicking and screaming, into the twenty-first century. Nothing must be allowed to get in the way of that.’ But does Spain want to be dragged? Isn’t it the beauty of this country that she is fine just the way she is?

‘What news?’

‘Lithiby is in town. He wants to see you tonight. What are you doing for dinner, Alec?’

I experience only a small pulse of excitement, nothing more. In truth I no longer care whether or not he offers me a job. How can that be? For weeks it was all that I could think of. All of the risks and hard work were justified if they moved me towards the reconciliation I craved. Yet I find that I am exhausted and strung out; I have learned nothing about myself except the clear impossibility of changing my nature. I would happily spend the rest of my days living on a beach in Goa if it would keep me out of people’s way. It turns out that all I ever wanted was approbation and, now that I have it, it proves worthless. And what of the human cost? Both Sofía and Carmen have been destroyed by my craven behaviour.

‘Nothing,’ I tell Kitson. ‘I’m not doing anything for dinner.’

I had planned to go over to Carmen’s apartment, to try to talk to her, perhaps even to explain, and I might still do that before any meeting with Lithiby.

‘Good. What about Bocaito. Do you know it?’

‘Of course I know it. I was the one who told you about it.’

‘So you did, so you did. Well, nine o’clock suit? He’ll be on British dinner time.’

‘Nine o’clock will be fine.’ So this is to be my crowning ceremony, the spy who came in from the cold. A pretty girl walks past the window and I look at her through the glass, getting nothing back. ‘What hotel is he staying at?’

Kitson hesitates and says, ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’

‘And are you coming?’

‘Me? No. I’m going back to London.’

‘Already?’

‘On the next plane. Most of the team were called home at the weekend.’ Kitson puts on a voice, a comic affectation that I’ve not heard him try before, imitating a bureaucratic mandarin. ‘Insufficient numbers back home to exploit leads indicating active preparations for terrorist attacks on UK soil. Manning the pumps, in other words.’

‘Well, good luck. Hopefully we’ll catch up one day.’ It feels like a strange thing to say, an abrupt goodbye. Kitson doesn’t respond, just ventures an upbeat, ‘Oh, guess what?’

‘What?’

‘They found Juan Egileor an hour ago.’

‘Who did?’

‘SIS. In Thailand.’

‘What the fuck was he doing in Thailand?’

‘Good question. Resort in Koh Samui. No sign of a kidnapper, no sign of mistreatment. Just a Spanish translation of The Beach on his hotel bed beside a teenage boy from Bangkok with a sore arse and a sheepish grin on his face.’

‘Jesus. So he wasn’t abducted? He just took off of his own accord?’

‘It would appear so.’

And we leave it at that. Kitson tells me that Egileor is being questioned in the Thai capital and will be flown home within the week. The press, he says, have yet to be informed about his reappearance, but an absence of foul play ‘will certainly assist in quashing rumours of government interference’.

It’s not until later that evening, at Carmen’s apartment, that I realize quite how misguided that assumption is.

‘So take care,’ Kitson tells me. And remember. Bocaito. Nine o’clock.’

‘Nine o’clock.’

42. La Víbora Negra

At 7.30, after lunch and a long afternoon tidying my flat, I go round to Carmen’s apartment. The lights are on in the first-floor windows and I can see a shadow moving between the rooms. This could be Laura de Rivera, but when I ring the buzzer there’s no answer and I assume that Carmen just wants to be left alone. An elderly couple emerge at a quarter to eight and I step forward, holding the door for them as they offer muffled thanks. They don’t seem to notice or care as I slip into the building behind them. There’s a smell of garlic in the stairwell. I decide to try to talk to Carmen through the door of her apartment.

‘Carmen!’

A shuffle of socked feet on wooden floors.

‘Quién es?’

‘It’s Alex. I need to talk to you.’

‘Go away, Alex.’

‘I’m not going to go away’

‘I can’t see you any more.’

‘Well, at least open the door. At least let me see your face.’

‘What did you tell them?’ she asks. She is speaking Spanish, as if she knows that I understand every word.

‘What?’

‘You heard me. What did you tell them?’

‘Just open up. I don’t understand what you’re asking.’

The security chain rattles and there’s a twist on the latch. Carmen opens the door ajar and holds my gaze through the gap. Her face has been obliterated by worry and fatigue, black gothic shadows beneath her eyes. It is a depressing sight.

‘You think I don’t know who you are?’ she asks, again in Spanish.

‘What?’

Frustration gets the better of her. She closes the door, frees the chain and invites me inside with a grand, sweeping gesture of contempt. ‘Pasa!’ There is alcohol on her breath.

‘Carmen, what the fuck are you on? Are you drunk?’ I move past her. ‘You haven’t answered your phone for days. You won’t return any of my messages. I’ve been worried sick about you.’

She turns and smiles, a poisonous leer. ‘I have a question for you.’

‘Go ahead. Ask anything you want.’

‘What was significant about the Naftali Botwin company on the Aragon front in 1937?’

‘What?’ I am utterly bewildered until I realize that she is testing my legend. It is a question about the PhD.

‘What? Why the fuck do you want to know that?’

‘Don’t ignore the question.’ She slams the front door and heads into the kitchen, where she pours herself a large tumbler of red wine.

‘I’m not ignoring the question. I just don’t think it’s very important at this stage in our relationship for us to be discussing the political idiosyncrasies of the Spanish Civil War.’

She laughs, a spat contempt, and little spittles of wine settle on my cheeks and lips. ‘Que mentiroso eres!’ What a liar you are.