Casa Román is a restaurant in Seville that serves as the setting for a meeting between Lorenzo Quart and subcommissioner Simeón Navajo. In the shelter of its interior, Navajo reports that the police computer-crime group has found no useful record connected to Quart’s inquiry, making the restaurant a quiet waypoint in an investigation otherwise marked by uncertain deaths and missing information.

Setting and Scene

The meeting takes place inside Casa Román on a fiercely bright day near the Hospital de los Venerables. Across the street, beneath a poster advertising the Sunday bullfight at La Maestranza Bullring, two tourists sit close to the point of heatstroke. Inside, away from the punishing glare, Navajo carefully peels a prawn and gives Quart the results of his search. The contrast between the harsh street and the restaurant’s protected interior gives the exchange a pause from the city’s heat, while keeping its subject firmly on what can—and cannot—be established.

The Computer-Crime Inquiry

Navajo tells Quart that the computer-crime group has no useful antecedent and no archived reference to the people Quart wants to identify. He distinguishes that absence from the ordinary cases the police do know about: young students playing computer pranks, sellers of pirated software, and two more capable intruders who sometimes trespass into places they should not. One had recently tried to enter Banksur’s current accounts and transfer money to himself. None of these cases, however, matches the target of Quart’s inquiry. The report offers no lead; its significance lies in closing off the available records rather than solving the mystery.

Narrative Function

Casa Román is not merely a backdrop for information. The meeting places the investigation’s technological trail beside a plainly physical, everyday scene: Navajo eats and drinks as he speaks, while Quart observes the contrast between the slight policeman and the tall, severe priest. The ordinary rhythm of a restaurant conversation frames the limits of police knowledge. In a plot where deaths at Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas invite competing explanations, this scene establishes that the digital search has yielded nothing that can identify the elusive figures Quart seeks.