Isabella responded with another nod. Valls had a sip of his camomile and licked his lips.
‘Excellent. The best in all Barcelona. Taste it.’
Isabella ignored his invitation.
‘As you will understand, we can’t be discreet enough. May I ask you whether you’ve told anyone you were coming here tonight?’
Isabella shook her head.
‘Your husband, perchance?’
‘My husband is stocktaking in the bookshop. He won’t get home until the early hours of the morning. Nobody knows I’m here.’
‘Shall I get you something else? If you don’t feel like a camomile tea …’
Isabella shook her head and held the cup in her hands.
‘It’s fine.’
Valls smiled serenely.
‘As I was saying, I got your letter. I quite understand your indignation and wanted to tell you that it’s all due to a misunderstanding.’
‘You’re blackmailing a poor, mentally ill person, your prisoner, by getting him to write a book with which to promote yourself. I don’t think I misunderstood anything up to that point.’
Valls slid a hand towards Isabella.
‘Isabella … May I call you that?’
‘Don’t touch me, please.’
Valls pulled his hand away, putting on a conciliatory smile.
‘All right, but let’s talk calmly.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about. If you don’t leave David in peace, I’ll take your story and your fraud to Madrid or wherever is required. Everyone will know what sort of a person and what sort of a literary figure you are. Nothing and nobody is going to stop me.’
Isabella’s eyes brimmed with tears and the cup of camomile shook in her hands.
‘Please, Isabella. Drink a little. It will do you good.’
Isabella drank a couple of sips.
‘Like this, with a bit of honey, is how it tastes best,’ Valls added.
Isabella took two or three more sips.
‘I must say, I do admire you, Isabella,’ said Valls. ‘Few people would have the courage and the composure to defend a poor wretch like Martín … someone whom everyone has abandoned and betrayed. Everyone but you.’
Isabella glanced nervously at the clock above the bar. It was ten thirty-five. She took a couple more sips of camomile and then finished it off.
‘You must be very fond of him,’ Valls ventured. ‘Sometimes I wonder whether, given a bit of time, when you get to know me a bit better and see what I’m really like, you’ll become just as fond of me as you are of him.’
She looked at him coldly for a long while, the empty cup in her hands.
‘You make me feel sick, Valls. You and all the filth like you.’
Valls smiled warmly.