The Flanders Panel

“You have reason to. However fraught a game becomes, each player knows that it’s a bloodless battle. After all, he consoles himself, it is only a game… But that’s not so in your case.”

“And you? Do you think he knows about your role in this?”

Munoz looked evasive again.

“I don’t know if he knows who I am. But he must know that there’s someone capable of interpreting his moves. Otherwise, the game would make no sense.”

“I think we should pay Lola Belmonte a visit.”

“I agree.”

Julia looked at her watch.

“Since we’re near my place, why don’t you come up for coffee? Menchu’s staying with me, and she should be awake by now. She has a few problems.”

“Serious problems?”

“So it seems, and last night she was behaving very strangely. I’d like you to meet her… Especially now.”

They crossed the avenue, dazzled by car headlights.

“If I find out that Lola Belmonte is behind this whole thing,” Julia said unexpectedly, “I’ll kill her with my bare hands.”

Munoz looked at her, surprised.

“Assuming that my theory of aggression is correct,” he said, and she saw that he was observing her with new respect, “you’d make an excellent player if you ever decided to take up chess.”

“I already have taken it up,” Julia replied, peering rancorously at the shadows drifting by her in the fog. “I’ve been playing for some time now, and I don’t enjoy it one bit.”

She put her key in the security lock and turned it twice. Munoz was waiting by her side on the landing. He’d taken off his raincoat and folded it over his arm.

“It’ll be a mess,” she said. “I didn’t have time to tidy up this morning.”

“Don’t worry. It’s the coffee that matters.”

Julia went into the studio and raised the large ceiling blind. The foggy brightness from outside slipped into the room, dusting the air with a grey light that left the farthest corners of the room in shadow.

“Still too dark,” she said and was about to switch on the light when she saw the look on Munoz’s face. With a sudden feeling of panic, she followed the direction of his gaze.

“Where have you put the painting?” he asked.

Julia didn’t reply. She felt as though something had burst inside her, deep inside, and she stood utterly still, her eyes wide, staring at the empty easel.

“Menchu,” she murmured finally, feeling as if everything were spinning about her. “She warned me about this last night, only I couldn’t see it.”

Her stomach contracted and she felt the bitter taste of bile in her mouth. Absurdly, she glanced at Munoz and then ran towards the bathroom, but, feeling faint, stopped and leaned against the doorway of her bedroom. That was when she saw Menchu. She was lying on her back on the floor at the foot of the bed. The scarf that had been used to strangle her was still around her neck. Her skirt was pulled grotesquely up to her waist, and the neck of a bottle had been thrust into her vagina.

XII Queen, Knight, Bishop

I’m not playing with lifeless black and white pawns. I’m playing with flesh-and-blood human beings.

E. Lasker

The judge didn’t order the body to be taken away until seven o’clock, by which time it was dark. All afternoon the house had been filled with the comings and goings of policemen and court officials, with flashlights flickering in the hallway and in the bedroom. At last, they carried Menchu out on a stretcher, zipped up inside a white plastic cover, and all that remained of her was the silhouette drawn in chalk on the floor by the indifferent hand a policeman, the one who’d been driving the blue Ford when Julia drew her pistol on him in the Rastro.