The Seville Communion

CARLOTA VICTORIA AMELIA BRUNER DE LEBRIJA Y MONCADA 1872-1910 GOD REST HER SOUL

Quart ran his fingers over the words carved in marble. He was absolutely certain that the postcard in his pocket had been written by the same woman, ten or twelve years before she died. Disparate characters and events were now starting to fall into some sort of order. And in the centre, like a crossroads, was the church. "Who was Captain Xaloc?"

Disconcerted, Gris Marsala watched Quart's fingers touch the name "Carlota".

"Manuel Xaloc was a sailor from Seville who emigrated to the Americas at the end of the last century. He was a pirate around the West Indies before disappearing at sea, during the war between Spain and the United States in 1898."

Quart saw the lines again, in his mind's eye: I come here to pray for you every day and wait for you to return.

"What was his relationship with Carlota Bruner?" "She lost her mind over him. That is, over his absence." "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said." The nun was intrigued by Quart's interest. "Or did you think that only happened in novels? The story could have come straight out of a cheap romance series. Only this one didn't have a happy ending. A girl from an aristocratic family stands up to her parents, and a young sailor goes to seek his fortune overseas. The family makes sure no letters are delivered. The young woman pines at her window, her heart with every ship that passes on the Guadalquivir." It was Gris Marsala's turn to touch the stone, but she withdrew her hand immediately. "She couldn't bear it and lost her mind."

Quart saw the remaining line in his mind: To the sacred place where you swore your love and gave me such happiness. He suddenly felt a strong urge to be outside, where the sun would banish the words, promises and ghosts he'd stirred up in the crypt.

"Did they ever meet again?"

"Yes. In 1898, shortly before war broke out in Cuba. But she didn't recognise him. She didn't recognise anybody any more." "What did he do?"

The woman's blue eyes seemed to be gazing out over a calm sea. "He went back to Havana just in time to take part in the war. But first he left the dowry he'd brought for her. The twenty pearls on the Virgin of the Tears are the ones that Manuel Xaloc collected for a necklace that Carlota Bruner was to have worn on her wedding day." She glanced one last time at the stone. "She wanted to be married in this church."

They left the crypt, and Gris Marsala locked the gate. Then she switched on the light to the high altar for Quart to get a better look at the Virgin of the Tears. On her chest the Virgin had a heart pierced with seven daggers, and her face, crown of stars and blue mantle were encrusted with Captain Xaloc's pearls.

"There's something I don't understand," said Quart, thinking of the lack of a postmark on the card. "A moment ago you mentioned

letters that weren't delivered. And yet Manuel Xaloc and Carlota Bruner must have maintained a correspondence… What happened?"

The nun smiled sadly. She didn't seem to enjoy recounting this story. "Macarena told me that you and she are having dinner tonight. Ask her. Nobody knows more about the tragedy of Carlota Bruner than she does."

She switched off the light, and the altarpiece was once again in shadow.

Gris Marsala climbed back up the scaffolding while Quart left through the vestry. Instead of going straight out, he took a look around. A very dark, damaged painting, an unsigned Annunciation, hung on one of the walls. There was also a battered carving of Saint Joseph with the Infant Jesus, a crucifix, two dented brass candelabra, an enormous mahogany chest of drawers and a cupboard. He stood in the middle of the room, looking, then went and opened drawers at random. They contained missals, liturgical objects, vestments. In the cupboard he found a pair of chalices, a monstrance, an ancient brass ciborium, and half a dozen chasubles. Quart closed the drawers without touching anything. The parish was obviously not prosperous.

The vestry had two doors. One of them gave access to the church via the small chapel with the confessional through which Quart had entered. The other door led out into the square through a narrow hall that was also the entrance to the priest's living quarters. A staircase led to a landing lit by a skylight. Quart glanced at his watch. He knew that Father Ferro and Father Oscar were at the archbishop's palace attending an administrative meeting which had been conveniently suggested by Quart himself. If all went well, he had about half an hour.

He walked slowly up the creaking wooden stairs. The door at the top was locked; but finding a way round such obstacles was part of the job. The most difficult lock Quart had ever come across in his career was at the Dublin home of a certain Irish bishop. It had an alphanumeric combination, and he had to crack the code at the door itself, by the light of his Maglite, using a scanner connected to his laptop. The bishop, a rosy-cheeked red-haired little man named Mulcahy, was later summoned urgently to Rome. There, the prelate's cheeks turned pale when he was presented with a copy of the correspondence between himself and members of the IRA by a stern Monsignor Spada – letters that the bishop had been unwise enough to keep, filed in chronological order, behind the volumes of the Summa Teologica lined up on his library shelves. This curbed Monsignor Mulcahy's nationalist fervour and convinced the special units of the SAS that it was no longer necessary to eliminate the man physically. According to information obtained by IEA informers, this rather drastic step had been planned -at a cost of ten thousand pounds charged to the secret funds of the Foreign Office – for the upcoming visit of the bishop to his colleague in Londonderry. An operation for which the British intended Loyalist paramilitaries to be blamed.

The lock on Don Priamo Ferro's door, an old-fashioned, conventional type, was no problem. Examining it briefly, Quart took a slim metal strip from his pocket and inserted it into the hole. He moved the strip gently, without forcing it, until he felt several small clicks. Then he turned the knob and opened the door.

He walked along the corridor, looking around. The accommodation was modest, consisting of two bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom and small sitting room. Quart started with the sitting room but found nothing of interest other than a photograph in one of the sideboard drawers. It was a poor-quality Polaroid snapshot of an Andalusian patio. The floor of the patio was decorated with a mosaic, and there were pots of flowers and a tiled fountain. It showed Don Priamo Ferro, as ever in his long black cassock, sitting at a table set for breakfast, or possibly tea. There were two women beside him: an old lady, dressed in light, summery, slightly dated clothes, and the other one was Macarena Bruner. They were all three smiling at the camera. It was the first time Quart had seen Father Ferro smile, and the old priest looked quite different from the man Quart had met at the church and in the archbishop's office. The smile made him seem younger, softening the hard expression of his black eyes and stubborn chin, unshaven as always. It made him look gentle and sad. More innocent, more human.

Quart put the photograph in his pocket and shut the drawer. He went over to a portable typewriter on a small desk and took off the cover. By professional reflex, he inserted a sheet of paper in the roller and tapped several keys. That way he'd have a sample, in case he ever needed to identify anything typed on the machine. He folded the sheet and put it in his pocket with the photograph. There were about twenty books lined up on the sideboard. He glanced over them, opening some and checking to see if anything was hidden behind them. They were all on religious themes, well-thumbed volumes – the liturgy, a 1992 edition of the Catechism, two volumes of Latin quotations, the Dictionary of the Ecclesiastical History of Spain, Urdanoz's History of Philosophy, and Menendez y Pelayo's three volume History of Spanish Heterodoxy. Not the kind of book Quart would have expected. He was surprised, too, to find several books on astronomy. He leafed through them curiously but found nothing significant. The rest of the books were of no interest, except, possibly, the only novel there: a very old, battered paperback copy of The Devil's Advocate; Quart detested Morris West's bestsellers with their tormented priests. A paragraph was underlined in ballpoint pen.

… you and I and others like us have been removed too long from pastoral duty. We have lost touch with the people who keep us in touch with God. We have reduced the Faith to an intellectual conception, an arid assent of the will, because we have not seen it working in the lives of the common folk. We have lost pity and fear and love… We work by canon, not by charity.

He put the novel back and checked the telephone. It had an old-fashioned, fixed connection. Nowhere to plug in a modem. He went out of the room, leaving the door exactly as he'd found it, at an angle of forty-five degrees, and walked along the passage to a bedroom he guessed was Father Ferro's. It smelled stale, like a priest's solitude. It was a simple room with a window looking on to the square. There was a metal bed with a crucifix on the wall above it, and a wardrobe with a mirror. He saw a book of prayers on the bedside table and, on the floor, an old pair of slippers and a chamber pot. He smiled. Inside the wardrobe he found a black suit, a cassock hardly in better condition than the one Father Ferro wore every day, a few shirts and some underwear. One of the only other personal possessions was a yellowish photograph in a wooden frame. It showed a man and a woman – they looked like peasants in their Sunday best – standing beside a priest.

Despite the black hair and grave young face, Quart easily recognised the priest of Our Lady of the Tears. The photograph was very old and stained. Quart guessed it must have been taken forty years ago. The look of solemn pride on the faces of the man and woman – on whose shoulders the young cleric was resting his hands – suggested that the snapshot had been taken to celebrate his recent ordination.

The other bedroom was without doubt Oscar Lobato's. On the wall was a lithograph of Jerusalem seen from the Mount of Olives, and an Easy Rider poster with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper on motorbikes. Quart also saw a tennis racket and a pair of trainers in a corner. There was nothing of interest in either the bedside table or the wardrobe, so he searched the desk at the window. He found various bits of paper, books on theology, on the history of the Church, Royo Marin's Moral Doctrine, Altaner's Patristics, the five volumes of Mysterium Salutis, the lengthy essay Clericsby Eugen Drewermann, an electronic chess set, a guidebook to the Vatican, a small packet of antihistamine pills and an old copy of one of the adventures of Tintin, The Sceptre of Ottokar. And in a drawer – a reward for Quart's patience -twenty pages on St. John of the Cross printed in New Courier font, and five plastic boxes each containing a dozen 3.5" diskettes.

He might be Vespers or he might not. This was pretty slender proof; anway there was too much to go through then and there, Quart realised, annoyed, as he looked quickly through the boxes. He'd have to find a way to come back and copy the contents of the diskettes on to the hard disk of his laptop, to search them for clues later at his leisure. Copying the diskettes could take an hour, so he'd need to devise another excuse for getting the priests out of the way.

Quart could feel the heat of the sun through the curtains, and he was sweating beneath his lightweight black alpaca jacket. He mopped his forehead with a tissue, then rolled the tissue into a ball and put it in his pocket. He put the diskettes back and closed the drawer, wondering where Father Oscar kept his computer. The hacker would have needed a very powerful computer connected to an easily accessible telephone line, as well as additional equipment. Such facilities were not to be found in these quarters. Whether he was Oscar Lobato or someone else, Vespers obviously didn't work from here.

Quart looked round indecisively. It was time to leave. And at that moment, just as he glanced at his watch, he heard footsteps on the stairs. He realised that his problems had only just begun.

Peregil hung up and stared thoughtfully at the telephone. Don Ibrahim had just called from a bar near the church to give him the latest report on the movements of each of the characters in the story. The former bogus lawyer and his henchmen were taking their commission very seriously. Too seriously, in Peregil's view. He was fed up with receiving calls every half hour telling him that such-and-such a priest had just bought a newspaper, or that such-and-such a priest was sitting on the terrace of the Laredo Bar enjoying the evening air. So far, the only valuable information was that Macarena Bruner had met the envoy from Rome at the Dona Maria Hotel. Peregil reacted to this news with disbelief at first, then with a kind of expectant satisfaction. You could bet this would be interesting.

And speaking of betting. In the last twenty-four hours the gaming tables had brought him a few more problems. After paying Don Ibrahim and his companions the hundred-thousand-peseta advance on the three million promised for the entire job, Pencho Gavira's assistant gave in to temptation: he used the remaining two million nine hundred thousand to try to repair his dire financial situation. The idea had come to him in a flash, with the dangerous intuition that some days are special and that this was one of them. Also, a certain Moorish fatalism stirred in the man's Andalusian blood. Luck will not knock at the same door twice unless you do something to attract its attention. That was the only piece of advice his father gave him when he was little, the day before his father went out for cigarettes and ran off with the butcher's wife. So, as Peregil stood eating tapas at the bar, he suddenly realised, although he knew he was walking along the edge of a precipice, that if he didn't act on his instinct, he'd spend the rest of his life regretting what might have been. Because he, the sidekick of the strong man at the Cartujano Bank, could be many things: a scoundrel, a man ashamed of his baldness, or a gambler who would sell his old mother, his boss or his boss's ex-wife for the price of a bingo card; but just imagining the sound of a rolling roulette ball made him brave as a lion. So that evening Peregil put on a clean shirt and a tie with mauve and red flowers, and headed for the casino like a Greek on his way to Troy. He nearly pulled it off, and that said much for his intuition as an habitue of the gaming tables. But, as Seneca said, what isn't to be isn't to be. Or maybe he never said anything of the sort. The two million nine hundred thousand went the way of the other three million. So Celestino Peregil was without a cent, and the shadows of Mairena the Gypsy and El Polio Muelas hovered over him like a black cloud.

He got up and paced the cubbyhole, full of photocopiers and paper, that he occupied two floors below his boss, with views on the Arenal and the Guadalquivir. From here he could see the Torre del Oro, San Telmo Bridge and couples walking along the river. Even in his shirtsleeves and with the air-conditioning on, he couldn't breathe. So he went to get the bottle and some ice, and downed a glass of whisky in one. He wondered how long things could go on this way.

A tempting idea was taking shape in his mind. Nothing specific yet, but something that might provide him with a little liquidity and breathing space. He'd be playing with fire again, but the truth was he didn't have much choice. The main thing was to make sure that Pencho Gavira never found out that his assistant was playing a double game. As long as Peregil was discreet about leaking the story to the press, this business could bring him quite a bit more money. The tall priest was much more photogenic than Curro Maestral.

Slowly turning the idea over, he went to the desk in search of his address book. His finger paused over a telephone number he'd dialled before. Suddenly he slammed the address book shut, as if struggling against temptation. You're a low-down rat, he said to himself with an objectivity unusual in the type he was. But the former detective wasn't really that concerned about the state of his morals; he was worried that some remedies, if you overdid it, could kill you. But debts could also kill you, especially if they were owed to the most dangerous moneylender in Seville. So, after weighing things again, he opened the address book once more and found the number of Q amp;S magazine. What have I got to lose? he thought. Somebody once said that betrayal was just a matter of timing; and for Peregil time was running out. Anyway, calling it betrayal wasn't right. He was just trying to survive.

"What are you doing here?"

Father Oscar hadn't been detained at the archbishop's palace long enough. There he was in the corridor, blocking Quart's way out, and not looking too friendly. Quart smiled coldly, barely managing to conceal his annoyance and embarrassment.

"I was taking a look round," he said.

"So it would seem."

Oscar Lobato kept nodding, as if answering his own questions. He wore a black polo shirt, grey trousers and trainers. His skin was pale, although he was now flushed from having run up the stairs. He was considerably shorter than Quart and didn't look very strong – his appearance (from Father Oscar's CV, Quart knew he was twenty-six) indicated that he spent more time sitting over a book than doing physical exercise. But he looked furious, and Quart knew you should never underestimate a man in that state. His eyes were wild behind his glasses, his fair hair flopped untidily over his forehead and his fists were clenched.

There was nothing Quart could say to get out of this mess, so he raised a hand, requesting calm,-and turned sideways, as if to go out into the narrow corridor. But Father Oscar moved to the left, blocking him. The envoy from Rome realised that things were going to go further than he had bargained for.

"Don't be stupid," he said, undoing the button on his jacket.

Even before Quart finished the sentence, Father Oscar struck, blindly, furiously, dispensing with priestly meekness. But Quart stepped back quickly, and the punch missed.

"This is ridiculous," Quart protested.

It was true. None of this was worth a fight. Quart raised both hands to placate. But his opponent, still in a rage, tried again to hit him. This time the blow glanced off his jaw. It was a feeble haymaker, but Quart was now angry. The assistant priest seemed to believe that people went at each other in real life as they did in films. Not that Quart was an expert at this sort of thing; but during the course of his work he had acquired a few skills unusual for a priest. Nothing spectacular, just half a dozen tricks to get him out of tight spots. Quart kicked the flushed, panting young man in the groin.

Father Oscar stopped dead, a look of astonishment on his face. Quart knew that it would take about five seconds for the kick to have its full impact, so he also punched him behind the ear, not too hard, to make sure he didn't strike out again. The assistant priest fell to his knees, his head and right shoulder against the wall, and stared fixedly at his glasses lying undamaged on the tiled floor.

"I'm sorry," said Quart, rubbing his sore knuckles.

He really was sorry – and embarrassed that he hadn't been able to prevent this ridiculous scene: two priests fighting like a couple of louts. His opponent's youth only added to his discomfort.

Father Oscar didn't move. Red in the face and gasping for breath, he was still staring myopically at his glasses on the floor. Quart picked them up and handed them to him, then put an arm under his shoulders and stood him on his feet. After Quart helped him to the sitting room, the assistant priest, still doubled up in pain, collapsed into a plastic sofa on top of a pile of New Life magazines. Quart brought him a glass of water from the kitchen and Father Oscar gulped it down. He put his glasses back on. One of the lenses was smudged. Sweat plastered his fair hair to his forehead.

"I'm sorry," Quart said again.

The assistant priest nodded weakly, staring at a vague point in space. He brushed his hair off his forehead. He looked truly pathetic. His glasses had slipped down his nose and he was very pale. He must have been under a lot of pressure to have lost control like that.

"I was just doing my job," Quart said, as gently as he could, leaning over the table. "There's nothing personal about it."

Father Oscar nodded again, avoiding his eyes. "I lost my head," he said, subdued.

"We both did," Quart said with a smile, trying to soothe the young man's wounded pride. "But I'd like to make one thing very clear: I didn't come here to persecute anyone. I'm just trying to understand."

Still avoiding Quart's eye and with his hand on his forehead, Father Oscar asked what the hell Quart thought he'd understand by going through other people's belongings.

Trying to sound as friendly as he could, Quart told Father Oscar about the hacker and the message to Rome. As he talked, he paced.

Then he stopped in front of the young priest. "Some believe," he said, in a tone that implied that he didn't believe it, "that you're Vespers." "That's absurd."

"But your age, qualifications, interests, they all fit the profile…" He leaned on the table again. "How much do you know about computers?"

"The same as everyone."

"What about these boxes of diskettes?"

The assistant priest blinked. "That's private. You have no right." "Of course not" – Quart held up his palms to placate – "but could you tell me where your computer is?" "That's not important." "I think it is."

Father Oscar looked more resolute now, and less like a humiliated young man. "Listen," he said, "there's a war going on here, and I've chosen which side I'm on." He sat up straight and looked Quart in the eye. "Don Priamo is a good and honourable man. The others aren't. That's all I have to say."

"Who are the others?"

"Everyone. From the people at the bank to the archbishop." He smiled for the first time. A smile of anger. "And I include those who sent you from Rome."

Quart couldn't have cared less; he wasn't bothered by insults to his team. Assuming that Rome was his team. "All right," he said neutrally. "I'll put all this down to your youth. At your age, life is much more dramatic. Ideas and lost causes carry you away."

The assistant priest glared at him contemptuously. "Ideas are what made me join the priesthood," he said, as if wondering what Quart's motivation had been. "And Our Lady of the Tears isn't a lost cause yet."

"But if anyone's going to win in this, it won't be you. You're being transferred to Almeria…"

The young man sat up even straighter, defiandy. "Maybe that's the price I have to pay for my dignity and a clear conscience."

"Nice words," said Quart. "So you're prepared to throw a brilliant career out the window. Is it really worth it?"

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and

lose his own soul?" The assistant priest faced Quart firmly as if there could be no argument with this.

Quart managed not to laugh in Father Oscar's face. "I don't see what your soul has to do with this church," he said.

"You don't see a lot of things. That some churches are more needed than others, for instance. Maybe because of what they hold within them, or symbolise. Some churches are refuges."

Quart remembered Father Ferro's using exactly the same expression during their meeting in Corvo's office. "Refuges," he echoed.

"Yes."

"From what?"

Still facing Quart, Father Oscar stood up and walked with difficulty to the window. He drew back the curtains, letting in the air and the light. "From Our Holy Mother the Church," he said at last. "So Catholic, Apostolic and Roman that it's ended up betraying its original purpose. In the Reformation it lost half of Europe, and in the eighteenth century it excommunicated Reason. A hundred years later, it lost the workers, because they realised it was on the side of the masters and oppressors. And now, as this century draws to a close, it's losing the young and the women. Do you know how this will end? With mice running around empty pews."

Father Oscar fell silent for a few moments. Quart could hear him breathing.

"Above all," the assistant priest went on, "some churches allow us to defend ourselves from what you came to impose here: submission and silence." He contemplated the orange trees in the square. "At the seminary I realised that the entire system is based on appearances, and on a game of ambition without principles. In the priesthood you only get dose to people if they can advance your career. Very early on, you choose a teacher, a friend, a bishop who will further you," Father Oscar laughed quietly. He didn't look so young now. "I thought there were only four types of bow that a priest makes before the altar, until I met priests who were experts at hundreds of bows. I was such a priest myself. People look for a sign from us, and when we fail to give it, they fall into the hands of palmists, astrologers and other charlatans peddling the spirit. But when I met Don Priamo, I saw what faith is. Faith doesn't even need the existence of God. It's a blind leap into a pair of welcoming arms. It's solace in the face of senseless fear and suffering. The child's trust in the hand that leads out of darkness."

"And have you told many people this?"

"Of course. Whoever will listen."

"Well, I think you're going to get into trouble."

"As you know better than anyone, I already am. I could start over, somewhere else. I'm only twenty-six. But I'm not leaving the priesthood. I will stay and fight, wherever they send me…" He stared at Quart defiantly. "Do you know something? I think I quite enjoy being a nuisance to the Church."

Pencho Gavira sat back in his black leather armchair, staring at his computer screen. The e-mail message read:

They parted his garments, casting lots upon them, but they could not destroy the temple of God. The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner. It remembers those that were torn from our hand.

For his own amusement, the intruder had also slipped in a harmless virus: an irritating little white ball that bounced around the screen and multiplied. When two balls bumped into each other, they exploded in a mushroom cloud, and then the whole thing started over again. Gavira wasn't too worried; the virus could be deleted. The bank's computer department was already working on it, and checking to make sure there weren't other, more destructive viruses lurking. What worried him was how easily the hacker – a bank employee or just a prankster? – had slipped in the little bouncing balls, and the strange quotation from the Gospels that must have been an allusion to the operation involving Our Lady of the Tears.

Trying to think of something more cheerful, the vice-chairman of the Cartujano looked up from his computer at the painting hanging on the main wall of his office. It was by Klaus Paten and extremely valuable. It had been acquired a little over a month ago, together with the rest of the stocks and assets of the Poniente Bank. Old Machuca wasn't keen on modern art, so Gavira appropriated it when they divided up the spoils. In the past, generals wrapped themselves in flags captured from the enemy, and the Klaus Paten was exactly that: the standard of the defeated army, a 2.2m x 1.8m expanse of cobalt blue with one red stroke and one yellow stroke crossing it diagonally, entitled Obsession No. 5. For thirty years it had presided over board meetings at the bank recently absorbed by the Cartujano. A trophy for the victor.

The victor. Gavira almost said the word aloud. But he was frowning as he turned back to his computer screen, now covered with little balls bouncing in all directions. At that moment two of them collided and set off the mushroom cloud. Boom. A single ball started the sequence again. Exasperated, Gavira swivelled his chair one hundred and eighty degrees to face the enormous window looking out on the banks of the Guadalquivir. In his world he had to keep moving, like that bloody little ball. If he stood still he was vulnerable, like a wounded shark. Old Machuca, calm and cunning as ever, said to him once: It's like riding a bicycle: if you stop pedalling, you fall. It was Pencho Gavira's fate to keep pedalling, finding new paths, constandy attacking his enemies, real or imagined. Every setback spurred him on, every victory entailed a new struggle. That was how the vice-chairman of the Cartujano Bank spun his web of ambition. He would know his ultimate objective when he reached it. If he ever reached it, that is.

He exited his e-mail, typed his password, and entered a private file to which only he had access. There, safe from prying eyes, was a confidential report that could cause him serious trouble. Commissioned by board members opposed to Gavira's succeeding Octavio Machuca as chairman of the Cartujano, it was drawn up by a private financial information agency and was a lethal weapon. The conspirators were planning to produce it at a meeting the following week. They didn't know that Gavira, by paying a considerable sum, had managed to obtain a copy:

S amp;-B Confidential

Summary of CB internal investigation re FT deal and others In the middle of last year an abnormal increase was noted in the reserves of the Bank, and consequently in the interbank debt of previous months. Vice-chairman Fulgencio Gavira (who is, in addition, invested with all powers except those that may not be delegated) maintains that said increases occurred principally as a result of funding to Puerto Targa and its shareholders, but that these were specific, provisional transactions which would be normalised with the imminent sale of the Puerto Targa company to a foreign group (Sun Qafer Alley, with Saudi capital). The sale would produce a substantial capital gain for the shareholders and a large commission for the Cartujano. The sale has been authorised by the Junta de Andalucia and the Council of Ministers.

Puerto Targa is a company with an original share capital of five million pesetas. Its aim is the creation, in a protected zone near the Coto de Donana National Park, of a golf course and a development of luxury villas with a marina. The administrative restrictions on construction in a protected zone have recently and unexpectedly been lifted by the Junta de Andalucia. The Junta previously vehemently opposed the project. Seventy-eight per cent of the shares in the company were purchased by the Bank at the request of the vice-chairman (Gavira), following an increase that raised the capital to nine billion pesetas. The other twenty-two per cent has remained in private hands, and we have good reason to believe that the company H. P. Sunrise, based in St. Barthelemy in the West Indies, which retained a substantial block of shares, may have links with Fulgencio Gavira.

Time has passed, and the sale of Puerto Targa still has not been concluded. Meanwhile the risk mounts. For his part, the vice-chairman has continued to maintain that the increase noted was caused partly by the liquidation of assets, paper discount, and pure funding, but that the sale of shares will take place imminently, thus ensuring the expected significant reduction in exposure. Our investigation has, however, revealed that the increase in exposure is due to items that were deliberately concealed at the time and that came to light only upon probing. These amounted to twenty billion pesetas, of which only seven corresponded to the Puerto Targa operation. The vice-chairman continues to maintain that the purchase of the Puerto Targa shares by Sun Qafer Alley will rectify the situation.

The investigation has revealed that Puerto Targa is a company that, following a complex operation revolving around Gibraltar-based companies, has been financed, from its foundation to the present day, almost entirely by the Cartujano Bank. This situation has been kept hidden from the majority of Board members. It could be said that the company was set up, firstly, to record a fictitious profit on the previous balance sheet of the Cartujano Bank, in that the seven billion pesetas spent on the purchase of the company were entered as profits, when the Bank actually paid itself that sum when it sold itself Puerto Targa through the Gibraltar companies acting as fronts for the operation. The second purpose of the company was, with the capital gains produced by its subsequent sale to Sun Qafer Alley, to restore the Bank's balance sheet. In other words, to restore the shortfall of over ten billion pesetas produced at the Cartujano Bank by the present vice-chairman's dealings and the burden resulting from previous transactions.

The sale, which, according to the present vice-chairman, will triple the value of the company, has not yet taken place. A new date for the sale has been set for the middle or end of this month of May. It is possible that, as the vice-chairman maintains, the Puerto Targa operation may return the bank's internal situation to normal. But, for the time being, it is definite that the systematic concealment of the true situation is proof of a cover-up in the income statement of the Cartujano Bank. This means that for the past year, the Board has been kept in the dark concerning the risks of the situation and the lack of positive results, as well as with respect to management errors and irregularities, although in truth the vice-chairman cannot be held entirely responsible.

Some of the methods used to conceal the true situation were as follows: frenetic searching for new and expensive sources of funds; false accounting and infringement of banking regulations; and risk-taking that – should the expected sale of Puerto Targa to Sun Qafer Alley (forecast to fetch some hundred and eighty million dollars) not take place – will deal a serious blow to the Cartujano Bank and cause a public scandal, considerably diminishing the Bank's high standing with its shareholders, most of whom are conservative by nature and have small shareholdings.

As for the irregularities for which the present vice-chairman is directly responsible, the investigation has uncovered a general lack of financial prudence. Considerable sums have been paid to professionals and private individuals without due documentary proof These include cases of payments to public figures and institutions that can only be described as bribery. The investigation has also discovered that the vice-chairman has intervened in transactions with clients and, although this is not proven, has received certain sums as commission.

For the reasons set out above, and quite apart from the management irregularities uncovered, it is evident that the failure of the Puerto Targa operation would place the Cartujano Bank in serious difficulties. Another cause for concern is the possible negative effect that knowledge of the operations carried out by the vice-chairman involving the church of Our Lady of the Tears and the entire Puerto Targa project might have on public opinion and on the traditionally middle-class, conservative and Catholic customer-base of the bank.

In general terms, it was all true. In the past two fiscal years, Gavira had needed to perform great feats of juggling in order to present his management of the bank in a favourable light. He had taken over a bank damaged by uninspired, conservative policies. Puerto Targa and other, similar operations were simply ways of playing for time while he strengthened his position at the helm of the Cartujano. It was like building the staircase on which one climbed; but until the final coup, which would ensure his position, this was the only possible tactic. He needed a breathing space and credit, and the deal involving Our Lady of the Tears – bait for the Saudis buying Puerto Targa – was crucial: it would turn north Santa Cruz into a prime location for upmarket tourism. The project was a small, exclusive luxury hotel only five hundred metres from Seville's ancient mosque, a personal whim of Kemal Ibn Saud, brother of the King of Saudi Arabia and principal shareholder of Sun Qafer Alley. The file with all the plans was protected by a password on his computer, along with the report on his management of the bank and a few other sensitive documents. Copies on diskette and CD were stored in the safe just below the Klaus Paten. He couldn't let four board members ruin things. There was too much at stake.

He glanced at the screen again, frowning. The intruder and his little bouncing ball worried him. It was unlikely, but possible, that the hacker had cracked the password and got into the file. The thought made Gavira feel hot; it wasn't pleasant imagining a hacker wandering about so close to that kind of information. As old Machuca would say, better safe than sorry. Gavira deleted the file.

Afterwards he stared at the grey-green Guadalquivir and the Calle Beds running along the opposite bank. Sunlight glinted on the river, and the glare framed the compact outline of the Torre del Oro. It could all be his one day. He lit a cigarette and opened his desk drawer. For the hundredth time he pulled out the magazine with the photographs of his wife outside the Alfonso XIII Hotel with a bullfighter. Again he felt a morbid fascination as he turned the pages and looked at the photographs that were already burned in his memory. He glanced from the magazine to the silver-framed photograph on his desk of Macarena in a white off-the-shoulder blouse. He had taken the photograph at a time when he thought she was his – his all the time, not just during sex! Then things went wrong, this business with the church, Macarena wanting a child, Macarena becoming bored in bed.

He shifted uneasily in his leather armchair. Six months. He remembered his wife sitting naked on the edge of the bath. He was taking a shower, unaware that they would never make love again. She looked at him as she had never done before, as if he were a stranger. She left suddenly, and when Gavira came into the bedroom in his dressing gown, she was dressed and packing her suitcase. Not one word of reproach. She just looked at him darkly and went to the door before he had time to say or do anything. Six months ago today. And she had refused to see him since.

He put the crumpled magazine away and stubbed out his cigarette viciously. If only he could stub out the old priest, and that nun who looked like a lesbian, and all those priests in their confessionals, and the catacombs, and the dark, useless past, everything that was complicating his life. If only he could stub out miserable, moth-eaten Seville; this city that was only too pleased to remind him that he was nothing but a parvenu the minute the duchess of El Nuevo Extremo's daughter turned her back on him. Gritting his teeth, he knocked the photograph of his wife face down with the back of his hand. By God, or the devil, or whoever was responsible, he was going to make them all pay dearly for the humiliation. First they'd taken his wife, now they were trying to take the church, and his future.

"I'll wipe you out." He spat the words. "All of you."

He switched off the computer and watched the rectangle of light on the monitor shrink and disappear. A few priests out of circulation, taught a lesson – a broken hip or something – wouldn't cause Pencho Gavira any remorse. He picked up the telephone, determined.

"Peregil," he said into the receiver, "are your people reliable?"

Solid as rocks, the henchman answered. Gavira glanced at the picture frame lying on his desk. His face had the fierceness now that had earned him the nickname Shark in Andalusian banking circles. It was time to take action. Those damned priests were going to learn a lesson.

"Set fire to the church," he ordered. "Do whatever you think necessary to settle this once and for all."