Act Three - The Angel’s Game — Chapter 14

David Martín goes to Señor Valera’s grand residence under the pretext of delivering documents. He finds the front door ajar, follows piano music through a corridor lined with religious art, and is guided by Valera’s white Alsatian into a firelit reading room.

In the armchair by the hearth sits Valera, motionless, smiling faintly, a bloody tear on his cheek and a leather-bound notebook in his hand. David takes the notebook—clearly a diary of firm transactions—and begins to read.

Entries dated November–December 1904 record large cash movements from a “D.M. trust” delivered by an office clerk, Marcel: money to a stonemason’s workshop behind the old cemetery, a payment handover at Bogatell beach near the Somorrostro, and the start of monthly bank transfers to Jaco and Irene using aliases. These notes contradict the idea that Jaco fled with funds, showing Marlasca arranged payments in person via the firm.

Surveying the wall of photographs, David identifies Valera senior and junior alongside a recurring figure: Diego Marlasca. Comparing the images to his memories, David recognizes that the man he knew as “Ricardo Salvador” is actually Diego Marlasca.

David leaves with the diary’s implications: Valera is dead under suspicious circumstances, the D.M. trust financed shadowy contacts in Somorrostro and a stonemason, and Marlasca has been alive and operating under the false identity of Salvador, overturning David’s assumptions about his informant and the case.