I followed Don Basilio through a wide hall with fine wood panelling. On one side was a circular room with a large round table and a series of portraits from which we were observed by an illustrious group of frowning members of the aristocracy.

‘The room for the witches’ sabbaths,’ Don Basilio explained. ‘All the section heads meet here with the deputy editor, yours truly, and the editor, and like good Knights of the Round Table, we find the Holy Grail every evening at seven o’clock.’

‘Impressive.’

‘You ain’t seen nothing yet,’ said Don Basilio, winking at me. ‘Look at this.’

Don Basilio stood beneath one of the august portraits and pushed the wooden panel covering the wall. The panel yielded with a creak, leading to a hidden corridor.

‘What do you say, Martín? And this is only one of the many secret passages in the building. Not even the Borgias had a set-up like this.’

I followed Don Basilio down the corridor and we reached a large reading room surrounded by glass cabinets, the repository of La Vanguardia ’s secret library. At one end of the room, under the beam emanating from a lampshade of green glass, a middle-aged man was sitting at a table examining a document with a magnifying glass. When he saw us come in he raised his head and gave us a look that would have made anyone young enough, or sensitive enough, turn to stone.

‘Let me introduce you to José María Brotons, lord of the underworld, chief of the catacombs of this holy house,’ Don Basilio announced.

Without letting go of the magnifying glass, Brotons observed me with eyes that seemed to go rusty on contact. I went up to him and shook his hand.

‘This is my old apprentice, David Martín.’

Brotons reluctantly shook my hand and glanced at Don Basilio.

‘Is this the writer?’

‘The very one.’

Brotons nodded.

‘He’s certainly courageous, stepping out into the street after the thrashing they gave him. What’s he doing here?’

‘He’s come to plead for your help, your blessing and advice on an important matter of documental archaeology,’ Don Basilio explained.

‘And where’s the blood sacrifice?’ Brotons spat out.

I swallowed.

‘Sacrifice?’ I asked.

Brotons looked at me as if I were an idiot.

‘A goat, a lamb, a capon if pressed…’

My mind went blank. For an endless moment Brotons kept his eyes fixed on mine without blinking. Then, just as I started to feel the prickle of sweat down my back, the archivist and Don Basilio roared with laughter. I let them laugh as much as they wanted at my expense, until they couldn’t breathe and had to dry their tears. Clearly, Don Basilio had found a soulmate in his new colleague.

‘Come this way, young man,’ Brotons said, doing away with his fierce countenance. ‘Let’s see what we can find.’

28

The newspaper archives were located in one of the basements, under the floor that housed the huge rotary press, a product of post-Victorian technology. It looked like a cross between a monstrous steam engine and a machine for making lightning.

‘Let me introduce you to the rotary press, better known as Leviathan. Mind how you go: they say it has already swallowed more than one unsuspecting person,’ said Don Basilio. ‘It’s like the story of Jonah and the whale, only what comes out again is mincemeat.’

‘Surely you’re exaggerating.’

‘One of these days we could throw in that new trainee, the smart alec who likes to say that print is dead,’ Brotons proposed.

‘Set a time and a date and we’ll celebrate with a stew,’ Don Basilio agreed.

They both laughed like schoolchildren. Birds of a feather, I thought.

The archive was a labyrinth of corridors bordered by three-metre-high shelving. A couple of pale creatures who looked as if they hadn’t left the cellar in fifteen years officiated as Brotons’s assistants. When they saw him, they rushed over, like loyal pets awaiting instructions. Brotons looked at me inquisitively.

‘What is it we’re looking for?’

‘Nineteen hundred and four. The death of a lawyer called Diego Marlasca. A pillar of Barcelona society, founding member of the Valera, Marlasca y Sentís legal firm.’

‘Month?’

‘November.’

At a signal from Brotons, the two assistants ran off in search of copies dating back to November 1904. It was a time when each day was so stained with the presence of death that most newspapers ran large obituaries on their front pages. A character as important as Marlasca would probably have generated more than a simple death notice in the city’s press and his obituary would have been front-cover material. The assistants returned with a few volumes and placed them on a large desk. We divided up the task between all five present and found Diego Marlasca’s obituary on the front page, just as I’d imagined. The edition was dated 23 November 1904. It was Brotons who made the discovery.

‘Habemus cadaver,’ he announced.

There were four obituary notices devoted to Marlasca. One from the family, another from the law firm, one from the Barcelona Bar Association and the last from the cultural association of the Ateneo Barcelonés.

‘That’s what comes from being rich. You die five or six times,’ Don Basilio pointed out.

The announcements were not in themselves very interesting – pleadings for the immortal soul of the deceased, a note explaining that the funeral would be for close friends and family only, grandiose verses lauding a great, erudite citizen, an irreplaceable member of Barcelona society, and so on.

‘The type of thing you’re interested in probably appeared a day or two earlier, or later,’ Brotons said.

We checked through the papers covering the week of Marlasca’s death and found a sequence of news items relating to the lawyer. The first reported that the distinguished lawyer had died in an accident. Don Basilio read the text out loud.

‘This was written by a chimp,’ he pronounced. ‘Three redundant paragraphs that don’t say anything and only at the end does it explain that the death was accidental, but without saying what sort of accident it was.’

‘Here we have something more interesting,’ said Brotons.

An article published the following day explained that the police were investigating the circumstances of the accident. The most revealing piece of information was that, according to the forensic evidence, Marlasca had drowned.

‘Drowned?’ interrupted Don Basilio. ‘How? Where?’

‘It doesn’t say. Perhaps they had to shorten the item to include this urgent and extensive apologia for the sardana, a three-column article entitled “To the strains of the tenora: spirit and mettle”,’ Brotons remarked.

‘Does it say who was in charge of the investigation?’ I asked.

‘It mentions someone called Salvador. Ricardo Salvador,’ said Brotons.

We went over the rest of the news items related to the death of Marlasca, but there was nothing of any substance. The texts parroted one another, repeating a chorus that sounded too much like the official line supplied by the law firm of Valera & Co.

‘This has the distinct whiff of a cover-up,’ said Brotons.

I sighed, disheartened. I had hoped to find something more than sugary remembrances and hollow news items that threw no new light on the facts.

‘Didn’t you have a good contact in police headquarters?’ Don Basilio asked. ‘What was his name?’

‘Víctor Grandes,’ Brotons said.

‘Perhaps he could put Martín in touch with this person, Salvador.’

I cleared my throat and the two hefty men looked at me with a frown.

‘For reasons that have nothing to do with this matter, or perhaps because they’re too closely related, I’d rather not involve Inspector Grandes,’ I said.

Brotons and Don Basilio exchanged glances.

‘Right. Any other names that should be deleted from the list?’

‘Marcos and Castelo.’