Gavira arranges Ferro's release

Pencho Gavira arranges the release of Príamo Ferro not as an act of reconciliation, but as a calculated move in the struggle over Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas. With Ferro suspected in Honorato Bonafé’s death and the police searching for him, Gavira judges that freeing the priest will remove an obstacle to the church’s redevelopment while letting him claim credit with Macarena Bruner. The release shifts the immediate danger away from captivity, but leaves Ferro exposed to police questioning and the church’s future in dispute.

Circumstances and Opportunity

Gavira’s plan takes shape after he hears his assistant’s account and the initial panic subsides. The sequence of events leaves Ferro without an alibi: Bonafé’s death was established late in the afternoon, while Ferro’s disappearance, according to Macarena and the priest from Rome, did not occur until after midnight. Whether the kidnapping was an extraordinary coincidence or connected to Bonafé’s death, Gavira recognizes that the police now have reason to pursue Ferro.

That suspicion makes continued captivity more dangerous than useful. Gavira reasons that Ferro can be released without harming the redevelopment project; in fact, police interviews and inquiries will keep the priest occupied. If Ferro is freed at night with the police after him, Gavira expects there may be no Mass the next morning at Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas. In his calculation, the priest’s public exposure can weaken his ability to defend the church without Gavira having to confront him directly.

The murder accusation rests on unsettled evidence, not a confirmed account of what happened. Earlier, church deaths had been explained as accidents: municipal architect Peñuelas fell from a roof after a scaffold railing gave way, while Father Urbizu was killed when a heavy piece of plaster fell during restoration work. Later, Navajo reconstructs Bonafé’s death as a fall from the altar scaffold, followed by his crawl into the confessional, where he died. He suggests Ferro may have surprised Bonafé while he was investigating the pearls, but presents this as a theory rather than a witnessed fact.

The Release as Leverage

Gavira sees a second advantage in the release: he can present it to Macarena as a favor. His intended account is that he intervened as soon as she told him what had happened, while people working indirectly for him exceeded his instructions. He anticipates that the danger surrounding Bonafé’s death will make Macarena cautious about speaking openly, particularly because the accusation implicates the priest she admires. He even considers whether the situation might create an opening for renewed closeness between himself and his estranged wife.

His willingness to leave Ferro’s next decision to Macarena and the priest from Rome makes the calculation plain. Gavira says, in effect, that it does not matter to him whether Ferro turns himself in or leaves the country. Either way, the priest is likely to be out of action for a time; Gavira privately regards the church as nearly finished as well. The release is therefore not a rescue in the sense of restoring Ferro’s freedom to act. It transfers the priest from the hands of his captors into a predicament that Gavira expects to serve his own purposes.

Macarena’s Account and Ferro’s Whereabouts

The arrangement reaches Quart through a telephone call between Gavira and Macarena. After the call, she tells Quart that Gavira has apologized and claims he had nothing to do with the abduction, blaming people who worked indirectly for him for exceeding their authority. Quart does not treat the denial as decisive; he is concerned first with reaching Ferro before the police do, because Ferro is a priest and the Church cannot simply wait for events to unfold.

Macarena says Ferro is safe aboard a boat moored at the Arenal Docks. Gavira will call again once he has arranged everything, and he is offering the priest’s release to her in exchange for peace. She describes the suggestion that the police might be involved as a bluff. Quart is relieved that this part of the problem has been resolved, though the exchange does not establish what happened to Bonafé or settle Ferro’s legal exposure.

The Larger Church Crisis

The release is tied to more than the immediate kidnapping. Gavira expects Ferro’s absence to interrupt the regular Mass at Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas, weakening the priest’s presence at the church at a moment when redevelopment interests are pressing against its continued existence. His move exploits the gap between physical release and practical freedom: Ferro may leave the boat, but police suspicion and the unanswered questions around the church can still keep him from returning to his parish responsibilities.

Those questions remain substantial. Navajo’s investigation finds that the Virgin’s original pearls had been replaced months earlier by twenty imitations. The clues point toward the Madrid art dealer Francisco Montegrifo, previously associated with Ferro’s irregular sale of an altarpiece, and suggest that the captain Xaloc’s pearls entered circulation through him. Investigators also connect the timing of the proceeds with renewed church repairs whose costs exceeded what Ferro’s salary and the church’s alms could cover. Navajo proposes that Bonafé discovered the imitation pearls and that Ferro may have killed him, but the evidence does not conclusively prove Montegrifo’s role or establish the priest’s actions.

The arrangement consequently resolves one immediate fact—Ferro is alive and no longer being held aboard the captors’ vessel—without resolving the central conflict. Gavira can use the priest’s exposure to advance his plans and attempt to manage Macarena’s response, while the police continue investigating a death whose circumstances remain partly reconstructed and disputed.