Also in Luisa's entourage is Desvern's best friend, Javier Díaz-Varela, with whom María falls in love, although she quickly realizes that the latter's ties to the young widow are most ambiguous.

Javier, once a restless womanizer with no need for commitment, is obsessively in love with Luisa and only awaits the day when the mourning for the loss of her husband subsides.

Javier admits to blackmailing the drifter into killing Desvern, which he justifies by citing Miguel's apparently terminal illness.

After the failed relationship with Javier, Maria investigates the murder on the internet and is surprised why none of the journalists mention the fateful diagnosis about Miguel.

[6] In 2019 it was listed as one of the hundred best books of the 21st century by The Guardian: "Marías constructs an elegant murder mystery from his trademark labyrinthine sentences, but this investigation is in pursuit of much meatier questions than whodunnit.