'Whose son is he?'

'I didn't catch that?'

'You know I don't like to tread on anybody's toes.'

'This line's breaking up,' he shouted. 'Look, he's very capable but he could use some experience. I can't think of anybody better.'

'Does that mean nobody else would have him?'

'His name is Carlos Pinto,' he said, ignoring my question. 'I want him to see your approach. Your very particular approach. You know, you have this ability with people. They talk to you. I want him to see how you operate.'

'Does he know where he's going?'

'I've told him to meet you in that communist's bar you like so much. He's bringing the latest missing persons printout.'

'Will he recognize me?'

'I've told him to look for someone who's just had his beard shaved off after twenty-odd years. An interesting test don't you think?'

The signal finally broke up. He knew. Narciso knew. They all knew. Even if I'd been a stick insect those scales would still have come out at eighty-two kilos. You can't trust anybody these days, not your own daughter, not your own family, not even the Policia Judiciaria.

I showered and dried off in front of the mirror. Old eyes, new face looked back at me. Having just levered myself over forty maybe I was too old for this kind of change and yet, just as my wife had said I would, I looked five years younger without the beard.

Sunlight was beginning to colour the blue into the ocean just visible from the bathroom window. A fishing smack pushed through it and for the first time in a year I had that same surge of hope, a feeling that today could be the first day of a different life.

I dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt (short sleeves lack gravitas), a light grey suit and a pair of black brogues. I selected one of the thirty ties Olivia had made for me, a quiet one, not one that a pathologist would like to trap in a petri dish. I went to the top of the shabby wooden stairs and had a momentary feeling of a man who's just been told to take a grand piano down on his own.