Kylie was hanging a few damp clothes from a curtain rail when Eduardo came into their latest youth hostel room. She turned round and smiled at him.

'Hi, sweetie,' she said. 'I did some laundry while you were gone.'

'But not every single item of clothing we aren't wearing, right?' Eduardo said, with a watery smile.

'Who'd be stupid enough to do that?' Kylie grinned at him. Then, when he didn't grin back, she said, 'Are you okay?'

'Yeah, I'm okay.' He sat down on the bed. 'Just wondering why I did that.'

'Because you wanted to find out about your ancestor, wasn't it?'

'Not particularly. Not enough to go asking a bunch of dried-up old archive-keepers if I could go poking around in their drawers when I could've been with you.'

'I was much too busy to pay you any attention, sweetie,' said Kylie, as she smoothed out a hanging pair of jeans. 'Were the people at the archives really like that?'

'One or two of them,' said Eduardo, with a little laugh. 'Oh, I don't know. Everything I found out about him was pretty terrible, but he lived hundreds of years ago – I never thought I'd care much about what he did... not on a personal level, I mean. Why do I care, Ky?'

'Probably because you wanted some good news for Kevin,' said Kylie, going to sit on the bed next to him. 'You wanted to be able to tell him Captain Gaspar was a brave hero who discovered the chilli pepper for Europe or something.'

Eduardo laughed. 'Yeah, I sure wish I could tell him that.'

'As opposed to...?'

'Well, we already knew he was a soldier sent to subdue the indigenous people... the salvajes, as they called them. I think I even mentioned that once a while ago, didn't I?'

'Yeah,' said Kylie, 'you talked about your ancestry when Jandro raised those zombies on Day of the Dead a couple of years ago. You said he survived a shipwreck on the way over to the Americas somewhere near the Galapagos Islands. Captain Gaspar did, I mean, not Jandro.'

'I said all that, huh?' said Eduardo, surprised. 'I never knew if I really believed mi abuela about the wreck of the Esperanza, but I found out today that it's all true.'

'What does esperanza mean?' asked Kylie.

'A few things, like so many Spanish words. Hope, promise, prospect, expectation... from the same root as "aspiration", probably. I guess they chose the name to mean everything like that. Anyway, there was this document about the sinking with a list of survivors, and they were pretty much everybody except some navigator, a couple of menial crew-members and a little Incan girl who I found out was on the voyage. That's the worst part: Captain Gaspar was one of a group of men responsible for kidnapping this girl so they could force her to show them the way to some kind of Incan treasure trove or something.'

'Wow,' said Kylie. 'I didn't know they used to do anything quite like that. What happened exactly?'

'The record of the whole thing put it more delicately than I just did,' said Eduardo. 'This girl was traído a España, it said – brought to Spain – but that has to mean kidnapped, doesn't it? This was a few years before the voyage, and she was given to the Princess Marguerita as a "gift", which obviously means slave. Then she was taken on this sea voyage to South America... maybe stolen again, or traded if not... because she could read the writings of the Incas.'

'Something tells me you didn't get all of this from a few files that mention Captain Gaspar,' Kylie said gently. 'You kept looking to try to find out what happened to her, didn't you?'

'Zia,' said Eduardo. 'Her name was Zia. And yeah, I did. When I was leaving, a woman took one look at me and asked if I was all right, which was kind of unnerving. I seem to be wearing my heart on my sleeve lately. That's your fault, you know.'

'Hardly on your sleeve, babe,' said Kylie. 'Your inside pocket, maybe. So did you tell this woman about your feelings?'

He laughed. 'Not all of them. I just said I'd read a few words about Zia and I was sorry she seemed to've gone down with the ship, but then this woman said maybe she didn't die after all. She showed me a letter somebody wrote to Francisco Pizarro – you've probably heard of him – dated after the sinking, which mentioned a girl who might've been Zia. I said it could've been any other Incan girl, and she said she thought it was Zia for various reasons, and then she showed me indisputable proof that those three other members of the crew did survive after they were separated from the rest, and they eventually came back to Barcelona. So, she said, why shouldn't Zia have survived with them?'

'I'll bet she did,' said Kylie.

'There's no more record of her.'

'No, there wouldn't be, would there? She wouldn't have been considered important enough. Come to think of it, she could easily have survived the shipwreck with Gaspar and friends after all; it's just that nobody would've bothered keeping a record of her.'

'Oh yeah, I didn't think of that,' said Eduardo. 'Her name wasn't on anything very official. The closest thing was where she was listed as cargo.'

'Cargo, huh?' said Kylie. 'Tough times. But y'know, sweetie, we talked before about how the world used to be a hundred times crueller than it is even now; everyone, and I mean everyone has ancestors who did horrible things.'

'Yeah, I know,' said Eduardo. 'It's not really the family connection that bothers me – it's just that I didn't like reading about it. And it wasn't even in a book; it was lists and letters and reports and stuff, in people's actual handwriting, and it just made it seem more real... like it all happened yesterday.'

'Oh, you are a soft-centred soul,' said Kylie, cuddling up to him.

Eduardo smiled slightly. 'It definitely ain't good news for Kevin, anyway.'

'Are you gonna tell him about it?'

'Yeah, I will. He'll be interested, and he already knows Captain Gaspar was far from perfect.'

'Is it only Captain Gaspar you know anything about?' said Kylie. 'You don't seem to know about anybody named Rivera more than a few generations back.'

'I don't,' said Eduardo. 'When my grandmother told me these stories, my grandfather used to say I shouldn't be interested because family trees only count through the male line, but when I asked him about the male line he couldn't tell me anything.'

'And did you challenge his sexist attitude?'

'I didn't dare when I was, like, five. Anyway, there was no need; my grandmother went crazy and told him all about what he missed when she gave birth to my father, and if that didn't count then there was something very wrong.'

'I like the sound of her,' said Kylie.

'She was great,' said Eduardo, 'in a lot of ways. But I know she made stuff up. Okay, there are records of Captain Gaspar's sea voyage, but there are a lot of gaps in his story and she filled all of them with stuff she couldn't possibly know, like... well, I don't guess anyone ever did a portrait of him, and even if they did she couldn't have seen it, and yet she was adamant – absolutely adamant – that the infamous Gaspar nose came all the way down from him.'

'Infamous?' said Kylie. 'As in, a nose of ill repute? Baby, are we talking about your nose here?'

'Yeah. I have it; she had it; my father had it; Carlos has it; Kevin has it, Adela has it; her father had it...'

'You have a lovely nose!'

'Not everybody can carry it off,' said Eduardo, 'but even if you can, I don't think it could ever really be called "lovely".'

'Oh!'

Eduardo looked at her and laughed. 'Why are you looking like somebody just slapped your face?'

'I didn't know anything about this! It's just so unexpected – I thought you liked your body.'

'I do, but I don't think it's perfect.'

'I do,' said Kylie, then she straddled his lap and began kissing his nose tenderly. 'I'm turned on by every last inch of you, mi chico amante.'

In the morning, Eduardo woke rather abruptly and looked skittishly around the room. When his eyes fell upon Kylie's sleeping form, he calmed himself and smiled tenderly at her, but moments later he was slinking out of bed and looking furtively around as he dressed in a hurry.

Kylie snuffled, yawned and stretched, felt for Eduardo and finally opened her eyes when she didn't find him next to her.

'Up and dressed so soon?' she said sleepily.

'Yeah, well, it's morning,' said Eduardo.

'The limp sausage problem really worrying you this time, is it?'

Eduardo stared at her, aghast.

'I'm talking about breakfast,' she said.

'Oh.'

'Oh, don't look so wounded! I am talking about breakfast!'

'I know,' said Eduardo. 'I'm sorry. It's just... well, you know.'

'No, I don't,' said Kylie, as she dragged herself out of bed and sat on the edge. 'So you don't feel like having sex right now – it's no big deal.' She paused, then added, 'Are you sick or something? Let me feel your head.'

'Which one?' said Eduardo. Kylie took a moment to digest this, then they both laughed before Eduardo went on, 'I'm not sick... unless I'm going crazy. The thing is, I really feel like there's someone here in the room with us.'

'How, in the world that we inhabit, would that mean you're going crazy?' said Kylie.

'Well... you don't seem to think there's anybody here but us.'

'That doesn't mean anything. We're neither of us used to the atmosphere here – you're just probably more sensitive to whatever's affecting it.'

'Much more. If you were feeling what I'm feeling, you'd be in more of a hurry to get dressed.'

Kylie smiled all the way down to her core and said, 'Sweetie, if there is a ghost in here, it's already seen and heard everything we have to show it.'

As Eduardo looked at her, his anxious expression melted away and he rushed to put his arms around her, saying, 'That smile has to be the sexiest thing that ever existed, querida.'

'Hey now,' said Kylie, as he kissed her face and neck, 'don't start anything you can't finish.'

'I think I might be able to finish after all,' said Eduardo.

'I wouldn't bet on it,' said Kylie, pushing him gently away. 'I kind of do want to get dressed now.'

'Does that mean you can feel it too?'

'Not really.' She stood up and began to put on her clothes. 'I mean, only by power of suggestion... and it seems that's enough to put me off.'

Eduardo sighed heavily and said, 'This is a serious problem. We got three more nights here, right?'

'Does that seem like a long time to you?'

'Yes. Doesn't it to you?'

'We've abstained for more than three nights before.'

'Only when one of us was sick or menstruating. Or maybe when we had a huge case on at work.'

'True,' said Kylie. 'All right, it does seem a long time to me. You know what it does to me when you speak Spanish, and you've been doing that a lot lately.'

'Tiene que hacerse, querida,' said Eduardo.

'Oh, Eduardo, don't tease me,' Kylie tittered. 'Y'know, I have no idea what that meant.'

'It has to be done, querida – nothing very sexy.'

'It all sounds sexy coming from you, baby.'

'Yeah?' said Eduardo. 'So what am I gonna be saying today?'

'Oh, well,' said Kylie, 'things like... may I squeeze your tomatoes, por favor?'

He laughed. 'Who am I gonna be saying that to?'

'Whoever sells the nicest-looking tomatoes at the big, famous food market that's around here.'

'Ah,' said Eduardo, 'la Boqueria.'

'Mmm, sexy as hell,' said Kylie, giving him that smile again.

Eduardo smiled back and said, 'Sure you don't feel like it?'

'Hmm... fairly,' Kylie said pensively. 'What do you think?'

Eduardo looked away from her and around the room, and suddenly he began to look unsettled. He put an arm around Kylie and steered her towards the door, saying, 'I think I want to get out of here.'

Some while later, in a large and busy marketplace, Kylie was laden with shopping bags, waiting for Eduardo and a stallholder to finish exchanging money and a large, whole fish.

'The plan is that you're gonna cook this stuff, right?' said Eduardo, as the stallholder wrapped up the fish.

'Of course,' said Kylie.

'So you're gonna scale and fillet that thing?'

'Not if you want to do it, sweetie.'

'What are you – oh, gracias, señor – what are you planning on doing with the head?'

'Too bad Pagan's not here – he'd love it,' said Kylie, as they wandered off through the market stalls. 'But under the circumstances, I think I'll try making it into soup.'

'That sounds completely gross.'

'More for me, then. Yummy, nutritious fish-head soup. I can hardly wait.'

'Does that include the eyes?' asked Eduardo.

'Oh, I don't know about that,' said Kylie. 'Maybe you wouldn't mind taking them down to that eco-friendly garbage area at the youth hostel for me, baby.'

Eduardo laughed. 'To hell with that. You can't make me.'

'Yeah, you're right,' said Kylie. 'I can't even threaten to withhold sex, since neither of us seems to feel like it in that room, especially you.'

'You know what?' said Eduardo. 'Since you brought it up, I don't think it's just the room. I'm still feeling kind of weird... like someone's following us or something.'

'Really?' Kylie looked alarmed. 'God, maybe this is serious! Maybe we should call Egon when we get back to the hostel.'

'What the hell for? He won't be able to do anything. We don't even really have anything to tell him.'

'But I don't want you feeling uncomfortable, sweetie. I want you to enjoy yourself.'

'So do I,' said Eduardo, 'but what can Egon do about it?'

'Yeah, well...'

'Whoa!'

'What?'

'Do you see that guy?' said Eduardo. 'I think he could be my ghost.'

'Where?' said Kylie, looking eagerly around.

'There.' Eduardo pointed. 'I mean, the guy has a sword, and no one seems to've noticed. In fact, no one's looking at him at all. Do you see him?'

Kylie squinted in the direction Eduardo was pointing. 'Oh... I might've just caught a glimpse of him. He just walked off, right?'

'Yeah, he did.' Eduardo looked nervously around. 'I don't see him now.'

'Do you see that little girl?'

'Where?'

'Where you just told me you saw your ghost. She's crying.'

'Oh yeah, I see her,' said Eduardo. 'Why doesn't somebody help her? Is she a ghost too? Oh my God – it's Zia!'

'I don't think so,' said Kylie. 'She doesn't look Incan; she's wearing Nikes. I guess no one's helping her because they're all hoping somebody else will.'

'Better be us, then,' said Eduardo, and they approached the girl. 'You talk to her – she'll know not to talk to strange men.'

'I wouldn't call you that strange,' said Kylie, digging him in the ribs. 'Anyway, you know I don't speak Spanish.'

'Just get a conversation started, then,' said Eduardo. 'Ask her if she's lost. Estás perdido.'

Kylie stepped towards the little girl, crouched down beside her and said, clumsily but kindly, 'Estás perdido?'

'Sí, señorita!' said the girl, clutching desperately at Kylie the moment she registered her. 'He perdido a mi madre. Ese hombre nos separó.'

Kylie looked up at Eduardo. 'Did she just say something about a man separating her from her mother?'

'Yes,' said Eduardo. He looked at the girl. 'Como paso?'

'No lo sé!'

'No te preocupes,' he said reassuringly. 'Encontraré un policía.'

Eduardo wandered off, leaving Kylie with the child sobbing on her shoulder, and returned some minutes later with a pair of police officers. The child attached herself firmly to the female officer while the male officer talked to Eduardo at length, and occasionally put a question to the child. At last, the officers left with her, so Kylie linked up with Eduardo.

'So, a man separated her from her mother,' she said, 'and she couldn't tell you how it happened.'

'You're really starting to pick up the language, huh?'

'Just a word here and there... the ones everyone knows like hombre and madre, and the ones from the same roots as English. I couldn't get anything you were saying to those police officers, though.'

'What that kid said to them was the most interesting part,' said Eduardo. 'She described the guy I saw, right down to the sword. I lied and said I hadn't seem him. Do you think that was okay?'

'Given that he's almost definitely a ghost,' said Kylie, 'I think that's fine.'

'So what are we gonna do about it?'

'First off, we're going to get this food back to the youth hostel kitchen before it goes bad.'

'Oh, right, 'cause that'll stop any more little girls from getting lost.'

'It might,' said Kylie. 'It's your ghost, remember? It's following you.'

'Maybe it's not the same one. Or maybe her hombre even isn't even a ghost.'

'Sure he is, if he had a sword, and you saw him when nobody else could. I'm not even a hundred percent sure that I saw him. Okay, we can't be certain about anything, but it's a reasonable theory and we do have to get this fish on ice.'

'All right,' said Eduardo, 'so assuming her man is my ghost, and he follows me back to the youth hostel, what do we do then?'

'I think we'll have to play that one by ear, babe,' said Kylie. 'After we put away the food. Then if nothing untoward happens, we can make sandwiches out of our expensive bread and go check out the Gothic Quarter. When we get back, I'll make my fish dish for dinner.'

'If nothing untoward happens to us,' said Eduardo, 'does that mean it's all still happening here?'

'How can we know?' said Kylie. 'Come on, babe, don't worry. Let's just get on with the rest of our trip and see if anything else happens.'