The Flanders Panel

“It’s usually the father who teaches the child his first moves in the game. And the dream of any son who plays chess is to beat his father. To kill the king. Besides, it soon becomes evident in chess that the father, or the king, is the weakest piece on the board. He’s under continual attack, in constant need of protection, of such tactics as castling, and he can only move one square at a time. Paradoxically, the king is also indispensable. The king gives the game its name, since the word ‘chess’ derives from the Persian word shah meaning king, and is pretty much the same in most languages.”

“And the queen?” asked Julia.

“She’s the mother and the wife. In any attack on the king, she provides the most efficient defence. The queen is the piece with the best and most effective resources. And on either side of the king and the queen is the bishop: the one who blesses the union and helps in the fight. Not forgetting the Arab faros, the horse that crosses the enemy lines, the knight. In fact, the problem existed long before Van Huys painted his Game of Chess; men have been trying to solve it for fourteen hundred years.”

Munoz paused, and seemed about to say more, but instead of words, what appeared on his lips was that brief suggestion of a smile.

“Sometimes,” he said at last, as if it were an enormous effort to formulate his thoughts, “I wonder if chess is something man invented or if he merely discovered it. It’s as if it were something that has always been there, since the beginning of the universe. Like whole numbers.”

As if in a dream, Julia heard the sound of a seal being broken and, for the first time, she was properly aware of the situation: a vast chessboard embracing both past and present, Van Huys and herself, even Alvaro, Cesar, Montegrifo, the Belmontes, Menchu and Munoz. And she suddenly felt such intense fear that she had to make an almost physical effort not to express it out loud. The fear must have shown in her face because both Cesar and Munoz gave her a worried look.

“I’m all right,” she said, shaking her head as if that might help calm her thoughts. Then she took from her pocket the list of different levels that existed in the painting, according to Munoz’s first interpretation. “Have a look at this.”

Munoz studied the sheet of paper and passed it to Cesar without comment.

“What do you think?” asked Julia.

Cesar was hesitant.

“Most disturbing,” he said. “But perhaps we’re being too literary about it.” He glanced again at Julia’s diagram. “I can’t make up my mind whether we’re all racking our brains over something really profound or something absolutely trivial.”

Julia didn’t reply. She was staring at Munoz. He placed the piece of paper on the table, took a pen from his pocket and added something and passed it back to her.

“Now there’s another level,” he said in a worried voice. “You’re at least as involved as any of the others.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Julia.

“Level 6 is the one that contains all the others.” Munoz pointed to the list. “Whether you like it or not, you’re there in it too.”

“That means,” said Julia, looking at him with wide-open eyes, “that the person who may have murdered Alvaro, the same one who sent us that card, is playing some kind of mad chess game. A game in which not only I, but we, all of us, are pieces. Is that right?”

There was no sadness in Munoz’s face, only a sort of expectant curiosity, as if fascinating conclusions could be drawn from what she’d just said, conclusions he would be only too happy to comment on.

“I’m glad,” he replied at last, and the diffuse smile returned to his lips, “that you’ve both finally realised that.”

Menchu had made herself up with millimetric precision and had chosen her clothes to calculated effect: a short, very tight skirt and an extremely elegant black leather jacket over a cream sweater that emphasised her bosom to an extent that Julia instantly decried as “scandalous”. Perhaps foreseeing this, Julia had opted that afternoon for an informal look, choosing to wear moccasins, jeans, a suede bomber jacket and a silk scarf. As Cesar would have said, had he seen them parking Julia’s Fiat outside Claymore’s, they could easily have passed for mother and daughter.