Chapter 2: The Hall of Dull Knives

The candles were not enough. They never are when there are too many truths in one room.

Elena had placed them on the marble shelf with hands that did not tremble—she decided that in the hallway, before opening the door—and now the four women looked at each other through the yellow light as if each one expected the others to burn first. "My husband is dead in the library," Elena said.

Without preamble. Without the broken voice that would have been easier to process.

«I found him less than an hour ago. There is an overturned glass of sherry and papers on the floor and I haven't called anyone because someone already knew what was here and sent the four of us.

Which means one of us knows more than she's saying." The silence lasted exactly as long as it took Marta to open the bag. He took the photograph with the precision of someone who has rehearsed the gesture.

Glossy paper, unfolded edges: Lisbon, a terrace with blue tiles in the background, Julián with his arm on Marta's shoulders and the two of them smiling towards the camera as if the world had no witnesses. “We had been there for three years,” said Marta.

His voice was architectural, built not to collapse. «I didn't kill him.

But I understand that it seems that way. Valentina did not wait her turn. The cry came before the words, a short, animal sound that cut the air in the room, and when he spoke he did so with his chin raised, as if his dignity were the only thing left intact.

"Me too. Two years.

"He told me it was complicated." A pause. «It was always complicated."Three women looked at Clara.

Clara had her hands on the black briefcase, her fingers perfectly still. "I came for a pending medical visit," he said.

"That's all I am here: your doctor." Not a single inflection. «I didn't receive any message."Elena studied her three seconds longer than necessary.

It was then that the sound came from outside: a long, deep crack, as if the night decided to split in two. Then the blow.

Then the new silence, denser than the previous one. Marta was the first to reach the window.

The headlights of Elena's car illuminated the road—or what was left of it. Four ancient pine trees had fallen diagonally, one on top of the other, closing the only exit as if someone had collected a debt.

"There's no signal," Valentina said, holding the phone up. "There wasn't one before either," Clara replied, without moving from her chair.

Elena turned to the three with a calm that was, in itself, a form of restrained violence. «Then listen to me well.

When dawn breaks and someone manages to get in, we are all suspects. Four.

"It doesn't matter what each one thinks of the others." He paused. «Either we investigate ourselves, tonight, or we arrive at dawn with empty hands and the same blame distributed equally."Nobody voted.

Nobody needed to do it. It was Clara who spoke, finally, in that coldly diagnostic voice of hers: "Before we touch anything, we should know exactly what he died of." And the way she said it—too quickly, too sure—Elena understood that Clara already knew.

Lies: The Silence of the Villa

Lies: The Silence of the Villa