Lagos, Portugal

'Take care of her,' Alba said as she handed the car keys over to the skinny valet.

Had it been her own car, she would never have trusted him — the boy looked too young for a driver's licence. But his uniform identified him as an employee of Hotel Constanza, the largest of the three hotels the AREX Group owned in Lagos. Since AREX were already paying for Alba's hired car, if the boy were to back it into some lamp post, AREX could settle the matter internally.

The wheels of Alba's suitcase rumbled as she rolled it over the broad doormat at the entrance and through the cavernous atrium. Two palms in heavy, marble pots flanked the reception area, where a group of English retirees had gathered. Their agitated huffing and the stoic expressions of the hotel staff suggested they had been there for a while already. Sighing, Alba set her shoulder bag on top of her suitcase and waited.

She had been to Lagos once before. Exactly eighteen months ago, she realised. But the memories remained so fresh and vivid, it felt like only weeks had passed. And yet, so much had changed, it might well have been in a different century.

Back then, Fernand and Alba had been two among of thousands bathing in the azure waters of the Atlantic and lingering in the town's countless cafes. That was Lagos in the summer, you could not expect anything different. She had expected, however, that the town would be deserted at this time of the year — December was out of season for a seaside town in Algarve. The rabble of Englishmen that had formed a barricade between Alba and the reception desk left her profoundly disappointed.

A slow melody drifted in from the patio. The notes of the flute climbed and fell like the surging and the ebbing of the tide. Although the English tourists continued their prattle, one by one, the music consumed their voices as if their complaints were nothing more than the rustling of a single leaf amid half a mile of whispering mangroves.

From where she stood, Alba could only see two people out there — a young couple finishing up their late lunch. Not knowing quite what she was doing, she released her grip on her luggage and followed the melody out onto the patio. The couple seemed to have settled their cheque. They set down their napkins and were zipping up their windbreakers. Yet, even as they walked past Alba and headed inside the hotel, their heads kept whipping back to the man, who sat cross-legged on the parapet that bounded the patio.

Alba cocked her head. The man used a simple flute made of bamboo and decorated with crimson string. No, it was so simple. Here in Portugal, whenever Alba came across a panflute player, they inevitably held a curved Romanian flute or one of the flutes that had originated from the Americas, such the rondador or the siku. That was not what this man held in his hands.

As he shifted forward half an inch, the pitch changed and Alba wanted to smack herself over the head. The man had some variant of a paixiao. Unlike European or Andean instruments, in a paixiao, the pipe holes at the top were cut at an angle of notched. Although the pipes were tuned diatonically, the notches allowed the player to bend the pitch down to a minor second. As a result, the pipe was fully chromatic without losing timbre. It was a perfect instrument for the man's indubitable skill.

He must have noticed he had a new audience. Alba caught his grin as he moved from one pipe to another and the tempo quickened.

'Ma'am?' said a woman in an impatient tone.

Alba glanced back towards the doors and realised one of the reception staff had followed her out onto the patio. She must think me a weirdo. What kind of person just wanders off like that? Muttering a quick apology, Alba hurried inside and reclaimed the baggage she had abandoned. The Englishmen had left, so she now had all three people at the reception desk waiting to attend to her.

'Apologies for the wait, ma'am,' said the woman that had called her inside. 'What can we do for you today?'

'I need to check-in. There should be a reservation for me under Alba Silveira.'

The woman —the sunlight bounced off her badge just at the wrong angle for Alba to make out the name — made a few keystrokes. 'Yes, we have you here. A moment please.' A few more keystrokes. 'How was it getting here? Did you travel far?'

'From Lisbon. It wasn't much of a hassle,' Alba replied, then after a hesitation, added, 'The flautist out there, is he a local? He plays beautifully.'

'He does, doesn't he? No one seems to know who he is. He popped up a few months back and has been wondering about town ever since. Likely he's a drifter looking to weather the winter in a milder climate. But he doesn't bother anyone, so the manager doesn't mind him,' the woman answered, glancing to the patio doors.

Although she had closed them after they had come back inside, the doors did not quite keep out the music.

'He hardly looks homeless,' Alba said.

From what she had seen, his hair and thin beard were styled neatly. The white, collared shirt might be yellowing with age, but his dark trousers and sandals looked near new. Is that so surprising though? I bet if he were to set himself up in the main square with a donation bucket, he would have enough by the end of the afternoon to buy a pair of trousers.

'As I said, no one knows. Can you sign here?' The woman thrust paperwork towards Alba. While Alba tried to figure out what she had been handed, the woman prepared the room key and added, 'You are in 1405, the lift is to the left. Room service is included, as is the wi-fi. Call us if you have any problems.'

'Thank you,' Alba replied and exchanged the signed papers for the room key.

The woman did not reply. A bus load of new guests and their overstuffed suitcases had just spilled through the front door. Every bag boy hurried towards them and the reception staff were already preparing for the coming onslaught. Alba shrugged, her luggage was not heavy and she was now used to carrying her own bags.

The music might have penetrated the doors of the patio, but the sound quickly dissipated in the vast space of Hotel Constanza's atrium. As she walked over to the lifts, her gaze lingered on the numerous great vases filled with fresh flowers. The whole ground floor was permeated with the scent of flowers, which reminded Alba of that wondrous garden behind the little cottage Fernand's uncle had lent Fernand and Alba for their holiday in Lagos. The cottage had been perfect — the blooming flowers, the crisp sunlight, the rumble of the sea below the cliffs. Here, however, the flowers seemed at odds with the cold marble floors and silver chandeliers. It brought to Alba's mind the kind of places her parents chose when they holidayed.

Her mother would certainly have approved Alba's hotel suite — a spacious collection of rooms on the fourteenth floor, just below the penthouse. Perhaps AREX were keen to make a good impression, but that was unlikely. She was a consultant hired to tick off a checkbox on a long list of government regulations. More probably, while the rest of the hotel was busy, there was a glut of unoccupied rooms on this level. The kind of people who would book a suite this size would not go to Lagos in December.

Alba set down her bags and opened the balcony door in the main bedroom; she had always hated the stale air of a hotel room that had been vacant for weeks. The view was as good as AREX advertised. The hotel sat on the edge of a cliff, the cobalt sea and the crisp, cirrocumulus clouds stretched out before her all the way to the horizon. And below, she could just make out the flautist, still seated on the parapet and playing to a restaurant of empty chairs.