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The important thing is not what you tell, but the way you do it, I always used to say. And that was why I was about to jump over the wall and to desecrate that old cemetery almost everybody had forgotten. Who ever would have said I would end up like this, as a common grave robber? And all because of the nonsense that had got inside my head, that itching sensation that hadn’t left me for an age.

It was a few minutes after seven in the morning, and dawn was just showing itself behind Mount Lobeira, which was stripped of its trees and with its immodest rocks in plain view after so many summers of deliberately started fires. With the dawn, the large iron cross affixed to its summit blazed brightly. Seeing it, I remembered that other cross – the one that is always drawn on pirates’ faded treasure maps in novels and films. It seemed my incessant search lasting all these years was about to end here. I had found it. Finally, I had the chest of gold and jewels within reach. I was a satisfied pirate. A few steps more, and it would be mine. I had succeeded. At last.

Hardly any cars drove along that solitary road at that filibustering hour. Only once in a while the silence would be broken by a bakery delivery van or the late clients of a singles bar further uphill. I had arrived very early and discreetly parked my car in front of Rubiáns municipal cemetery. I had opened the window and lit the first cigarette of the day. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The two sides of the road, which I had taken in Pontevedra, having left the motorway, were full of warehouses and sheds belonging to a wide range of industries on the outskirts of Vilagarcía: repair shops, pharmacy stores, furniture shops and car dealers. Almost at the roundabout at the entrance to town, in Carolinas, was the funeral parlour where I had attended more than one wake. There was also a steakhouse and a couple of bars that were completely shut. The workers of the businesses next to the road wouldn’t arrive for a while in search of the first coffees of the day or the first, anaesthetizing dose of alcohol to insert in their sleepy bodies. The only sign of life was in that club with the flashing red neon where the road began to run straight. It was far away from me, and the fresh breeze brought the echo of a catchy Latino tune that disturbed the early morning calm. I tried to hum along in between inhalations, but choked and coughed loudly.