Everything was bathed in a dim, diffuse light, and static electricity hung on the air, making for a heavy, unreal atmosphere. The wind had picked up, and the twisted trees shook with gust after gust off the Atlantic. It would be even worse, he guessed, on the side of the island that faced out to sea.
As he walked briskly toward the shore, he replayed the events of the previous day in an obsessive loop.
He suddenly stopped, paralyzed.
He had just realized something. Antía, Helena, and their mother, Rosalía, had removed Diego from the crime scenebeforehe and Luis Docampo transported Pampín’s body to the store. And when they’d left, everyone still thought the youngster was the murderer. Diego Freire was innocent, but none of them knew that. And he doubted very much that the Docampo family members had disabused their rival clan. It was just too valuable—an ace up their sleeve and the perfect means for blackmail.
He started walking again, his mind whirring. He was the only one who had the power to change things, by letting the Freires know the true story. In Luis Docampo’s entire fiendish plan, that was the closest thing to a flaw he had come up with.
But it wasn’t quite so simple. He couldn’t be sure what the Freires would do if he told them the truth. They might help him out of his predicament, or, driven by their rivalry, they might see it as a chance to spare one of their own while Roberto took the blame.
The only certainty was that he had no idea what to do next. Rosalía Freire had seemed to him just as implacable as Ramón Docampo: pragmatic, hard, and inflexible. The chances of finding an ally in the matriarch seemed remote. On the other hand, there was Antía. Since his arrival, she had seemed like a reasonable woman, and something in his gut told him he could trust her.
He ought to talk to her on her own. But if he showed up at El Cucorno, the Freire ancestral home, Rosalía would most likely find a way to be a part of any conversation, since she was the one who had invited him to visit. And if he asked to speak to Antía in private, that would set alarm bells ringing. On top of that, how could he be sure the younger woman would keep the secret?
Feeling caught, he carried on walking. There was no one in sight, everyone on the island having the sense to keep themselves safe and dry in their homes ahead of the coming storm. He thought about going back to the cottage, but the prospect of being locked in there, with all these ideas going around inside his head, was too claustrophobic. He needed air.
The path curved gently around the coastline, and he only saw the signpost by chance, when he was almost on top of it. Crooked and half-buried in the undergrowth, it readChurch, with an arrow pointing to a narrow path that zigzagged off to his right.
Roberto was perplexed. The village church, where the money had been stowed, was back in the opposite direction. His curiosity piqued, he turned onto the path, which had had so little footfall that the bracken was at waist height, and made his way uphill.
The path soon leveled off and became a little wider, and then he saw it: a stone wall, some ten feet high, of excellent workmanship and in very good shape, its expanse broken only by a rusty iron gate that led into a walled enclosure, above which, farther back, the upper part of some edifice was visible.
Roberto tried the handle. With a creak, the gate swung open, and he went through. Before him was a small graveyard, and at the far end stood a stone chapel, very ancient looking, its roof tiles almost completely covered in moss. It had no windows besides a pair of slits on the side walls that somewhat gave it the air of a little stronghold.
Doubtless this had been the island’s original church, built hundreds of years before. Judging from its sturdy construction, it would indeed have served as a stronghold in times past, a place to withdraw to whenpirates came raiding. Over time, the old chapel must have fallen into disuse, and eventually the new church had been built. He approached the main door, a hulking thing of wood and rivets. He tried the handle, but it refused to budge.
The place was old and disused but hadn’t been abandoned entirely. There were dozens of graves, each with its own little whitewashed alcove and a cross in the ground at the head of the tombstone, and a few had fresh flowers.
He noticed that none of the burials were from later than the 1970s, so he guessed it must have been around then that the church ceased to be used. Most of the graves belonged to adults, yet the percentage of infants was chillingly high—a reminder of how hard life must have been on the island until fairly recently. He counted barely half a dozen graves whose occupants had lived beyond sixty.
It should have been oppressive and gloomy, especially with the storm that was about to hit, but the atmosphere was strangely peaceful, and as he wandered the graves, Roberto felt a measure of inner tranquility—the first in quite some time.
But he couldn’t stay there forever. The sky had darkened, and the rain would start any minute. If he didn’t want to get soaked, he needed to find shelter, and quickly.
Just then, there was a clap of thunder, followed by a deep rumbling. He quickened his pace as the first big, cold drops began to fall around him, leaving marks the size of coins as they hit the ground.
He had wandered too far from the cottage and doubted he would make it back before the full fury of the storm was unleashed. Cursing under his breath, he again quickened his pace, casting around urgently for somewhere to shelter. Spotting a cluster of houses on a cliff overlooking the beach, he headed in their direction.
Like most houses on the island, these were small and made of stone, with gable roofs and a lean-to in back. Formerly the dwellings of farmworkers or fishermen, they had been renovated as summer lodgings fortourists. As he drew close, Roberto saw that one had a narrow porch, only four or five feet wide, but sufficient to shelter under.
Dashing inside, Roberto shook himself like a wet dog. It was going to be a while before the downpour subsided, so he decided to make himself comfortable.
Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. The houses were in an exposed position, and gusts of rain hit him full in the face; he was almost as wet as if he’d just stayed outside.
Readying himself to see if he could find a more protected spot on the other side of the house, he pulled his hood tightly over his head and stepped out from the meager protection of the porch. He staggered in the wind and had to lean himself against the wall to make any progress while the icy rain lashed mercilessly down.
And then he heard a laugh.
It was a man’s laugh, and it reverberated around the enclosed space between the tightly packed houses, as in a kind of sounding board. He would not have heard it, except that just then, the wind died down for a brief moment.
TheTangaraño.
He knew it was absurd, yet he still couldn’t avoid the thought.
He peered about in the gloom, trying to identify where the sound might have come from. Nobody seemed to be there, and yet he was sure he’d heard laughter. As he was about to pass it off as a figment of his imagination, he heard it again. Looking up, he saw a chink of light from the window of a nearby house.
He had been wrong, it seemed, to assume the houses were all empty. It was a relief to think that he might now have somewhere to sit out the storm. Maybe even with a hot cup of coffee in his hands. He made it to the front door and knocked softly, but nobody answered. A particularly wet gust of wind smashed him from behind, and with that his patience was at an end. Without another thought, he turned the handle and went inside. Only to freeze, dumbstruck, in the doorway.
