The fifth book in the Mario Conde Mystery series, 2009

First published in Spanish as La neblina del ayer by Tusquets Editores, S.A.,Barcelona, 2005

© Leonardo Padura, 2005 English translation © Peter Bush, 2009

…In your life I’ll be the best from the mists of yesterday when you’ve forgotten me, like the best poem’s always the one we can’t remember.

Virgilio y Homero Expósito,

Be gone from me

The symptoms hit him suddenly, like a voracious wave sweeping a child off a quiet shore and dragging him into the depths of the sea: a lethal double blow to the stomach, numbness that turned his legs to jelly, a cold sweat on his palms and, above all, the searing pain, under his left nipple, which accompanied every single hunch he’d ever had.

As soon as the doors to the library slid open, the smell of old paper and hallowed places floating in that mind-blowing room overwhelmed him. In his far-off years as a police detective, Mario Conde had learnt to recognize the physical signs of his situationsaving hunches: he must have been wondering if he’d ever experienced such a powerful flood of sensations.

Initially he was all set to be ruthlessly logical, and tried to persuade himself that it was pure chance he’d come across that shadowy, decaying mansion in El Vedado: an unusual stroke of good fortune for once had deigned to come his way.