He scanned his surroundings like a bird of prey. The years had imparted not tolerance or mercy to those eyes but weariness. A lookout and smuggler in his youth, later a moneylender in Jerez and, by the time he was forty, a banker in Seville, the founder of the Cartujano Bank was about to retire. Now his only known ambition was to have breakfast every morning at the cafe on the corner of the calle Sierpes, opposite the Pena Betica and the head office of the rival bank. Which the Cartujano had recently annexed, having engineered its gradual downfall.

"About time," said Machuca, still staring across the street. Following the direction of his gaze, Gavira wasn't sure whether

he meant the Poniente Bank takeover or the fact that they now had the mayor's support.

"I had dinner with him last night," Gavira said, glancing at the old man's profile out of the corner of his eye. "And this morning I had a long friendly chat with him on the telephone."

"You and your mayor," muttered Machuca, looking as if he was trying to place a vaguely familiar face. Anyone else might have thought it a sign of senility. But Gavira knew his chairman too well.

"Yes," he said, appearing keen, alert to nuances – exactly the kind of attitude that had got him where he was. "He's agreed to reclassify the land and sell it to us immediately." He might well have allowed a note of triumph into his voice, but he didn't. This was an unwritten rule at the Cartujano Bank.

"There'll be an outcry," said the old man.

"He doesn't care. His term of office ends in a month and he knows he won't be re-elected." "What about the press?"

"The press can be bought, Don Octavio. Or it can be fed more tasty morsels."

Machuca nodded. In fact Canovas had just put away in the briefcase an explosive dossier obtained by Gavira about irregularities in welfare payments by the Junta de Andalucia. The plan was to make it public at the same time as the deal went through, to act as a smoke screen.