began to race. Were they looking for me? I crouched down near a fish seller and feigned interest in a basket of mussels, trying to keep my face averted until they had passed by. The rheumy-eyed old man who sat on a low stool beside his basket grew quite animated at the prospect of making a sale and prised one of the shells open, thrusting the contents halfway up my nose to prove they were fresh. When, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the soldiers strolling away from me, I pushed the old man’s trembling hand away and strode on, his whines following me.
Then I suddenly saw her, Silvia, walking ahead of me along the waterfront, a scarlet bandanna wound through her mane of glossy black hair. She was swaying with that easy stride of hers that made her hips swing as if she was beginning a dance. I called to her, but she couldn’t hear me. I hurried after her, shoving my way through the crowd, ignoring the curses and insults as I elbowed people aside.
‘Silvia! Silvia!’
Her head turned slightly, but she walked on.
I barged into one old lady with such force that she staggered and would have fallen had the press of the crowd not been so great, but a cascade of bright oranges tumbled from her pannier and bounced on to the street. She screamed curses at me as she struggled to retrieve them from under the feet of the crowd, but I didn’t stop to help her. I pushed on through.
Silvia had vanished. I gazed frantically round and finally spotted the scarlet bandanna disappearing round the corner of a side street. Mercifully this street, though narrow, was less crowded and I sped after her, dodging round piles of pots and dishes that the shopkeepers had stacked out in the street. I had almost caught up with her.
I seized her arm. ‘Silvia, my angel, I’ve been –’
She gave a squawk of indignation and pulled her arm out of my grip, turning to face me. I felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of icy water over me. It wasn’t Silvia.
Muttering incoherent apologies, I backed away straight into a teetering stack of jars that wobbled alarmingly. Trying to right myself and steady the jars at the same time, I heard the girl’s mocking laughter behind me, but I did not turn around.
I walked a few paces around the corner and sank down on my haunches under the shade of an almond tree. I’d been so sure it was her, but even as I touched her I’d known it wasn’t. Where the hell was she? Surely someone must have seen her. Was she still in Belém?
I hadn’t dared go to her usual haunts the previous night in case Filipe or the fishermen had reported the body and named me as her killer. I’d spent the night a short way out of the town, huddled behind a small shrine, with precious little sleep. Most of the night was spent cursing that witch Silvia. It was she who’d dropped me into this pile of dung. As I tossed and turned on the stony ground, without even the solace of a flagon of wine to comfort me or soothe my grumbling belly, I bitterly imagined how Silvia was spending the night. She’d be laughing and drinking in a tavern, tearing great strips of hot roasted chicken off the bone with her sharp white teeth and rolling into a warm soft bed with her newest lover. I can tell you that long before the morning sun had finally stirred its fat arse and bothered to clamber over the horizon, I was actually wishing Silvia really was lying dead on the floor of that stinking fisherman’s hut.
But, although every instinct told me I should keep walking away from Belém, whatever the danger I was forced to return. One hungry night was enough to remind me that I could not afford to be on the road without a good sum of money in my pocket. Some men may survive sleeping rough and scrounging a crust or two where they can, but a man of my sensitivities needs good food in his belly, fine wine in his cup and a thick mattress beneath his bones. I could not bear to delay any longer. The sooner I had that money, the sooner I could get away from here.
The church bells were just sounding noon when I stood before Dona Lúcia’s gate, slapping the