They were joined by Maria José Maldonado Sequeira, a beautiful young woman who had an affair with Alemeida Santos.

Later, the police discover that he is Major Luís Dantas Castro, a soldier arrested for attempting military sedition against the current political regime, who had escaped from prison, going to retire, along with three accomplices: Mena, a young woman with whom the Major had a violent and obsessive relationship before his imprisonment, the architect Fonte Nova, another prisoner detained for his involvement in the military revolt and a member of the same anti-Salazarist resistance movement as the Major, and Corporal Barroca, a guard at the field to carry out his military service.

The four take refuge in a house located 20 km from Lisbon, awaiting the help of the lawyer Gama e Sá, nicknamed by them as Commodore.

The person in charge of the investigation is Elias Santana, a head of the Judiciary Police brigade, who reconstructs the crime thanks mainly to the interrogations made to Mena, confirmed and completed later by the other two accomplices, meanwhile arrested.

In this last plan, the book portrays the reality and methods of the police during the Estado Novo regime, as well as the sad, routine and dull life of Elias Santana.