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carried her into the registry; most people didn’t even know it had happened. She recovered very quickly; fresh air, a glass of water and she was fine.’ He paused. ‘Senor Planas saw, of course. Angel was going to help, until he saw that I had the situation in hand, but the old man, he just stood there and stared at her, as if he was annoyed at the inconvenience. Afterwards, once we were outside the church, Dolores Fumado, Justine’s mother, actually apologised to him.’
    ‘What about the father? Was he there?’
    ‘No, he had died a few months before that. In fact, the wedding had been postponed, out of respect. Both Planases, father and son, were pall-bearers at his funeral.’ He paused, as if he was looking at the scene. ‘And so was Justine. I remember, José-Luis wasn’t pleased; I heard him mutter to the parish priest, my senior, that women these days seemed to have forgotten their place.’ He beamed at me; Tom frowned as if he disapproved of something, but couldn’t quite work out what. (Happily, some concepts are still beyond him.) ‘Which brings me back to my question,’ Gerard continued, taking advantage of the competition’s preoccupation to nick a choice wedge of pizza. ‘Why are you so interested in the old reactionary?’
    Stage by stage, I told him of my meeting with Justine, and of the reasons for her inability to give the go-ahead for the venue for the wine fair. By the time I finished my story, his expression had gone from sunny to dark.
    ‘The man can be that petty?’ he growled. ‘I know that as a priest I can’t bless those who live together out of marriage, or who don’t remain celibate before it, but I deplore vindictiveness. If Planas had been in the crowd that Jesus challenged to cast the first stone, then that would have been the end of the woman taken in adultery.’ He was as annoyed as I’d ever seen him. ‘Know what, Primavera,’ he declared, ‘I’m going to have a few words to say about him in church.’
    ‘No, Gerard! Don’t do that. It won’t help Justine and it won’t help Ben. Plus, it would probably piss off your senior priest and get you banished to Tavertet, or somewhere else in the back of beyond. I’ll deal with this myself, the straightforward way: I’ll tackle the old bastard face to face. I’ll shame him into backing off. I promise you, I’ve squared up to tougher people than him.’
    ‘Then I wish you luck, for you may find that there’s no stronger armour than a man’s sense of his own righteousness.’ He broke off and stared at the empty plate on the table. ‘Hey, what happened to the last three pieces?’
    Tom laughed; Charlie looked guilty.

Seven
    I n the light of everything Gerard had told me, and of his warning, I decided on an oblique approach to the problem. I decided also that a hall table I had inherited when I bought the house was in need of a move to the garage, and so I headed for Mobles Planas, the problem’s store halfway down Avinguda Ave Maria, L’Escala’s main drag.
    It’s a big shop, warehouse-like, on two floors, with a range of furniture that had been drastically improved in the three years since my only other visit. Virtually all of the old dark, traditional stuff had been replaced by modern styles and modern materials; it seemed as if the business had gone from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first in a single bound. I guessed the reason, and so I wasn’t surprised when it approached me, medium height, slim, dark haired, in light trousers and a striped open-necked shirt with long sleeves; pretty formal working gear by local standards, a sign of authority.
    ‘Good afternoon, madam,’ said Angel Planas, in English.
    ‘And to you, sir,’ I replied, in Catalan.
    He smiled, in approval: a good sign, since I’ve met people, invariably men, who pretend not to understand when I have the temerity to speak their language. ‘How can I help you?’ he asked.
    I pointed to a Georgian repro semi-circular, three-legged