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buildings, tall high-rises of burnished glass and steel glinting in the bright sun. Half an hour later, she joined the A-1 and headed north. She reached forward and switched off the satnav. There were two hundred kilometres of motorway to go before she needed to think about directions again.
    A car roared past, horn blaring as she pulled into the inside lane out of his way. She saw the driver’s raised finger and angrily returned his gesture. Jesús , she was tense enough without morons like him winding her up. She drove on, her actions becoming automatic as she brooded about Guzmán. It was one thing for Fuentes to tell her to drop her investigation, it was another to accept it. Most of Guzmán’s crimes still remained hidden, waiting to be discovered. That was a challenge she wanted to take on.
    Lost in thought, Galíndez didn’t notice as she left the last isolated suburbs of Madrid behind. She was still dwelling on Guzmán, the way he got away with his crimes just as her father’s murderer had. Before she’d been hospitalised, if the topic arose, she’d always said she wanted Papá ’s killer behind bars. There were times now when she harboured darker, more violent ambitions.
    The pain began somewhere near Burgos. At first, Galíndez ignored it, staring at the endless line of the motorway in front of her. When it got worse, she slowed, crossing lanes to pull in at a service station. In the car park, screened from the road by a ragged line of trees, she tried to relax the way they’d shown her in the pain management sessions in the hospital. It hadn’t worked then and it didn’t now.
    She watched the constant motion of traffic through the trees. Words hammered around her head, words she would never utter to anyone. I’m a mess. A fucking mess. She put her hand over her mouth, struggling for control. She hadn’t given in to her emotions all the time she’d been in hospital and she wasn’t going to start now, in a dusty service station on the outskirts of an industrial park. She just needed time. The memory of what had happened to her would fade, she was sure, but there were other, more permanent signs of her encounter with Guzmán’s malevolent legacy that time couldn’t erase.
    She slipped a hand inside her shirt, tracing the line of scar tissue running down her ribs. She was lucky to be alive, the doctors said. Lucky because the shrapnel had only slashed her side, rather than embedding itself in her body. Recalling the pain of that still made her break out in a sweat. Lucky? The only piece of luck had been when she’d lost consciousness.
    She left the car and wandered into the anonymous labyrinth of the service station. In the women’s toilets, she splashed her face with water, seeing her reflection in the mirror above the sink. A pale face, dark weary eyes. She glanced round, checking if any of the cubicles were occupied. Satisfied she was alone, she took a plastic container from her pocket, twisted off the cap and shook two tablets into her palm. She swallowed them quickly and ran the tap, cupping her hands to catch enough brackish water to wash them down.
    By the time she joined the queue at the coffee shop, the painkillers had started to take effect. The assistant behind the counter made a joke as she put her order on a tray and Galíndez laughed out loud, her eyes twinkling as she shared the joke. Returning to her car she sat in the back seat, alternating sips of coffee with mouthfuls of sweet roll. When she’d finished, she took out the plastic container and counted the tablets. Ten left. No more pills once those were gone, she promised. Not unless the pain got too bad. She got behind the wheel and started the engine.
    She passed the industrial sprawl on the outskirts of Burgos in a haze, her eyes dry and heavy. The last thing she needed was to doze off and wake up in a ditch so she turned on the radio, selecting a chat show