The old man went on watching the people as if searching for a familiar face. He had held Macarena Bruner over the font at her baptism, and he had walked her looking beautiful in white satin -to the altar where Pcncho Gavira stood waiting. Rumour had it in Seville that the marriage was the old banker's doing, as it guaranteed
a financially secure future for his goddaughter in return for the social recognition of his protege. At the time Gavira was an ambitious young lawyer at the bank rising meteorically through the ranks.
"Something ought to be done about it," added Machuca thoughtfully.
Despite his humiliation Gavira burst out laughing. "You surely don't expect me to go and shoot the bullfighter."
"Of course not." The banker half-turned, an over-curious look in his cunning eyes. "Would you be capable of shooting your wife's lover?"
"She's my ex-wife, Don Octavio." "Yes. That's what she says."
Gavira rubbed at the little beer stain and adjusted the crease in his trousers. Of course he'd be capable of it, and they both knew it. But he wasn't going to.
"It wouldn't change anything,*' he said.
It was true. Before the bullfighter there had been a banker from a rival firm, and before him a well-known winemaker from Jerez. Gavira would need a lot of bullets if he was going to shoot her lovers, and Seville wasn't Palermo. Anyway, he himself had recendy found solace in the arms of a Sevillian model whose speciality was fine lingerie. Old Machuca slowly nodded twice there were better methods.
"I know a couple of branch managers." Gavira smiled, calm and dangerous. "And you know a few bullfighting promoters That young man, Maestral, might have a hard time of it next season."
The chairman of the Cartujano Bank screwed up his eyes. "A shame," he said. "He's not a bad bullfighter."
"He's pretty," said Gavira bitterly. "He can always turn to soap operas."
He glanced over at the newspapers, and the black cloud that had been lurking in the background again darkened his morning. Curro Maestral wasn't the problem. There was something more important than the blurry photo of him and Macarena, taken in poor light with a telephoto lens, on the cover of Q amp;S. What was at stake was not Gavira's honour as a husband but his very survival at the Cartujano and his succeeding Machuca as chairman of the board. He had almost clinched the deal involving Our Lady of the Tears. There was only one problem. A document dating back to 1687 set out a series of conditions that, if not met, would cause the land ceded to the church to be returned to the Bruner family. But a law passed in the nineteenth century, when the confiscation of ecclesiastical property was ordered by a government minister, Mendizabal, made ownership of the land revert, in the event of its secularisation, to the municipality of Seville. It was a matter of some legal complexity, and if the duchess and her daughter decided to resort to the law, things would grind to a halt for some time. But the deal was in its final stages; there was too much money invested and too many measures taken. Failure would mean that Octavio Machuca would undermine his successor's authority before the board of directors where Gavira had enemies just when the young vice-chairman of the Cartujano was about to seize absolute power. His head would be on the block. But as Q amp;S, half of Andalusia, and all of Seville knew, Pencho Gavira's head wasn't something Macarena Bruner had much time for lately.
Quart came out of the Dona Maria Hotel, but instead of walking the thirty metres or so to the archbishop's palace, he wandered over to the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes and looked around. He was standing at the crossroads of three religions: the old Jewish quarter behind him, the white walls of the convent of La Encarnacion on one side, the archbishop's palace on the other, and at the far end, adjoining the wall of the old Arab mosque, the minaret that had become a bell-tower for the Catholic cathedral, La Giralda. There were horse-drawn carriages, postcard vendors, begging Gypsy women carrying babies, and tourists looking up in awe as they queued to get in to see the tower. A young girl with an American accent left her group to ask Quart for directions to some place close to the square; an excuse to get a closer look at him. Quart gave a brief, polite answer to get rid of her. The girl went back to her friends and they glanced at him, giggling and whispering. He heard the words "He's gorgeous". It would have amused Monsignor Spada. Quart smiled at the thought of the director of the IEA and the advice he'd given him on the Spanish Steps during their last conversation in Rome. Then, still smiling, he looked up at La Giralda, at the weather vane that gave the tower its name. Spain, the south, the ancient culture of Mediterranean Europe, could be sensed only in places such as that. In Seville different histories were superimposed and interdependent. A rosary stringing together time, blood, and prayers in different languages, beneath a blue sky and wise sun that levelled everything over the