For several years now the chairman of the Cartujano Bank had spent his mornings at a table on this cafe terrace in the very heart of the city rather than in his office, full of paintings and fine furniture, on the Arenal. He spent the morning reading the ABC newspaper, watching the world go by and attending to business matters until it was time for lunch at his favourite restaurant, Casa Robles. Nowadays he almost never got to the bank before four o'clock, so if there were any urgent matters to be dealt with, his employees and clients had no choice but to go and see him at La Campana. This included Gavira; as vice-chairman and general manager, he had to make the rather inconvenient journey almost every day.

No doubt this was why his confident expression grew dark as he approached the table where the man to whom he owed his present and his future sat in front of a coffee and half a buttered muffin. Gavira's face grew darker still when he inadvertently glanced to his left and saw the cover of Q amp;S prominently displayed at a newspaper kiosk. He walked on as if he hadn't seen it, sensing Peregil's eyes on the back of his head. The black cloud was taking over, and his belly, its muscles firmed by a daily workout, was tense with fury. The magazine had been lying on his desk for two days now, and Gavira was as familiar with the photographs as if he'd taken them himself. The cover picture was slightly grainy from the use of a telephoto lens, but he could clearly recognise his wife, Macarena Bruner de Lebrija, heiress to the tide of El Nuevo Extremo and descendant of one of the three most noble families of the Spanish aristocracy – Alba and Medina-Sidonia were the other two – as she was leaving the Alfonso XIII Hotel at four in the morning with a bullfighter, Curro Maestral.

"You're late," said the old man.

Gavira knew, without even glancing at his expensive watch, that he wasn't. It was just that Don Octavio liked to keep up the pressure. Indeed, Gavira himself used the tactic having learned it from Don Octavio. Peregil, with his ridiculous hairdo, was his victim.