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Lieutenant.”
     
    “Good. I want to talk to her.” Tejada stood up and held out the pad he had been writing on. “Type these,” he ordered. “Two copies of each. When you’re finished, leave one copy of each on my desk and bring the others to me to sign. Then deliver them.”
     
    Guardia Torres looked uncomfortable. “Type them, sir?”
     
    “Yes. I’m sorry about the two copies, but I can’t find carbon paper.” Tejada saw that the young man looked nervous and added reassuringly, “You can drag my chair over to the typewriter, if you like.”
     
    This kindness gave Torres the courage to stammer, “I-I can’t type, sir.”
     
    Tejada was annoyed, but not amazed. “You’ll have to hunt and peck then. Get as far as you can and if you haven’t finished when I come back I’ll finish them.”
     
    He was gone before the guardia had a chance to explain that he had never actually used a typewriter, was uncertain how to insert such niceties as capital letters, and was frankly terrified by carriage returns. Torres was a bold and enterprising young man, and managed to figure out the complexities of the battered Corona before the lieutenant’s return, but he was barely past the salutation of the first letter when Tejada relieved him of his task.
     
    The attempt to question Anselmo Montalbán’s wife had been unsuccessful and had consumed the lieutenant’s lunch hour, as well as running into the afternoon. Tejada took a certain satisfaction in banging the typewriter keys to ease his frustration. It was nearly six when he finished. He sent for Guardia Torres once more and told him to deliver the letters and inform the recipients that he would call on them the following day to discuss their contents. Made cautious by previous experience, he checked that Guardia Torres did in fact know where the mayor and the director of Devastated Regions were to be found.
     
    Then he considered what to do next. Ortíz was watching the Montalbáns’ fonda , probably uselessly. Carvallo was officially off duty until he relieved Ortíz of the Montalbán surveillance. Márquez and Battista were on patrol and would not be back until nightfall. The lieutenant had spent the last six hours in windowless rooms, and he felt that he deserved a break. He shut the office door a shade more firmly than necessary and marched out into the spring thaw. The Quiviesa, swollen with melting snow, burbled loudly. The peaks of Peña Vieja and Peña Sagra guarding Potes to the east and west loomed, snow-covered, in the still-warm afternoon light. If one overlooked the general charred rooflessness of the town, it was a pleasant evening. Elena should get some fresh air , the lieutenant thought. And I’ve worked enough for one day .
     
    He hurried up the stairs to their apartment, smiling a little ruefully at the knowledge that his day would have been more productive had he escorted Bárbara Nuñez up them earlier instead of releasing her, and wondering again how to tell Elena that they were lodged in the Guardia’s prison.
     
    She was seated at the tiny square table he had dragged into the space they called the “living room,” writing a letter, when he entered. “Care to go for a stroll?” he asked cheerfully.
     
    She started and then looked up at him gravely. “Do I have a choice?”
     
    He dropped into the chair beside her, concerned by her tone. “We don’t have to if you’re tired. But I think it’s warmer outside than in at the moment. And I was just thinking of walking along by the river a bit. Why? Are you feeling all right?”
     
    “That wasn’t what I meant.” She shook her head, impatient.
     
    Temperamental, Tejada reminded himself. It’s natural for her to be temperamental in her condition. He decided an apology for any outstanding sins might be in order. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get away for lunch. Something came up.”
     
    “Bárbara Nuñez.”
     
    The lieutenant winced. “It was just a routine interrogation,