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absorbed in anthropological research, and he ate the paella as if he was consuming the soul of his new country of adoption. Camps barely touched his, maintaining an air of distant reserve, like an English major in the Falklands. Carvalho took advantage of Mortimer’s ecstasy to ask him a few questions appropriate to his new-found status as a sports psychologist.
    ‘Do people see you as a superstar in England?’
    ‘Yes, more or less.’
    ‘Were there protests from the public when you decided to sign for a foreign club?’
    ‘No. No. We have a lot of centre forwards in England, and my club did a good deal. The club is a limited company, and the proceeds from my signing will keep them out of the red for a while.’
    ‘Has anyone ever tried blackmailing you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Have you ever had threatening letters? Or phone calls?’
    ‘Only one time, when we reached the cup final, against Manchester. Sometimes you get threats from lunatics. But then nothing happens. The fans tend to fight it out on the terraces, and they leave the players in peace.’
    ‘Have you encountered any particular hostility from members of other teams?’
    ‘Off the pitch, not at all. One season I had a bit of a feud with a Liverpool midfield player … But these days, every time we have a run-in, it’s a kind of a nod and a wink situation. We’re professionals. Football’s our bread and butter. The dangerous players are the younger ones, because they’re in a hurry to make their mark, and the older ones, because they want to show that they’re still up to it. There’s nothing more dangerous than an ageing midfield player. I got an elbow in the face once, and ended up with a broken cheekbone.’ At this point Mortimer got up, in the middle of what was a rather expensive Barceloneta restaurant, and invited Carvalho to participate in an action replay. ‘You jump. Jump as if you’re about to head a ball.’
    Camps half closed his eyes as if urging him to play along, but Carvalho limited himself to getting up and resting his hands on the tablecloth. Mortimer closed in on him, leapt up as if to head off an imaginary football, and lashed out with his left elbow in the direction of Carvalho’s head.
    ‘You see? You could end up knocked unconscious and the ref wouldn’t even notice. Elbows are the worst, because a kick usually leaves a mark, but refs don’t tend to notice elbows. Or when somebody nuts you. There was a Spurs centre back who had a head like iron, and if he nutted you you’d end up out for the count.’
    He was obviously intending to do a demonstration head-butt on either Carvalho or Camps, but they both sank back into their seats to deny him the opportunity.
    ‘I’ll eat paella every day,’ Mortimer promised himself, and he inquired of Camps O’Shea whether it was possible to buy frozen paellas, because Dorothy wasn’t too hot on cooking.
    ‘She likes cakes — people in England like cakes — but she doesn’t like cooking.’
    ‘Have you been married for long?’
    ‘A year.’
    ‘Isn’t your wife going to get very bored in a city that shedoesn’t know?’
    ‘Dorothy never gets bored. She’s been working as a buyer for Marks and Spencer’s, but she’s into birdwatching in her spare time. She wants to make a list of all the birds in Barcelona. I told her that there are a lot of birds in Barcelona. I saw a lot of birds on the Ramblas.’
    ‘It’s a market. They’re in cages. They’re not native birds.’
    Camps moved to temper this discouraging piece of information: ‘Don’t worry. We have uncaged birds too. If that’s what Dorothy likes, she’ll find no shortage of birds.’
    ‘I hope so. She does my accounts, too. She’s got a good head for figures. Not like me. My business is football. I know where a ball’s going to land simply by the shape that the kick takes. It’s instinctive. The English papers used to say that I could always tell where a ball’s going to end up.’
    ‘Remarkable,’ said