Daniel's first encounter with Lain Coubert transforms a shadowy pursuer into a personal and unmistakable danger. On a night when Daniel has left home in anger and grief, Coubert finds him by the harbour and offers money for The Shadow of the Wind. His knowledge of Daniel's attachment to Clara and the final revelation of his fire-scarred face make clear that the book is not merely a valuable object: it is the focus of a threat that reaches into Daniel's private life.

The pursuit begins

After slamming the apartment door, Daniel rushes into the street and walks without direction. A stranger has been watching him from Puerta del Angel; dressed in a dark suit, with one hand in his pocket, he follows at a slight limp. Daniel continues through the city for an hour or more, eventually reaching the Columbus monument and then the harbour. There, memories of boat trips with his father and of the cemetery on Montjuic place his present distress beside the family past and the city of the dead.

The stranger approaches in the shadows and addresses him as Daniel, offering a cigarette and remarking that it is a good night for remorse. The familiarity unsettles Daniel, and the stranger soon explains that he knows more than Daniel's name. He says that Daniel possesses something he wants and offers good money for it. Daniel denies that the stranger has identified the right person, but the reply is confident: the man says he has known for a long time that Daniel has the book, because people talk and he listens.

The book and the bargain

The object Coubert wants is The Shadow of the Wind. He treats its purchase as a straightforward negotiation, asking Daniel to name a price and offering a thousand duros. He presents the offer as generous enough to buy many books, while dismissing the volume Daniel protects as rubbish. The contrast makes the bargain a contest over the book's value as much as over its possession: Coubert wants Daniel to surrender what he has chosen to keep safe.

Daniel refuses the stranger's premise and asks what he could possibly know about the book. Coubert does not explain how he learned of it; he insists instead that the question is only one of price. His claim that people talk and he listens leaves the reach of his information unclear, while establishing that Daniel's secret has not remained entirely private. The offer is framed as an attempt to obtain the novel without violence, but the insistence behind it makes that assurance unstable.

Clara becomes part of the threat

Coubert tries to establish an intimacy Daniel has not granted him. He praises Daniel's nerve and intelligence, then points to Clara as someone who could make a person lose his senses. The mention of her name immediately changes the encounter: Daniel's attention shifts from the stranger's offer to the possibility that he knows Clara too. He demands to know what Coubert knows about her.

Coubert says that he may know more about Clara than Daniel does and advises Daniel to forget her, while also suggesting that Daniel will not be able to do so. Daniel then recognizes him as the anonymous man who had harassed Clara in the street. The recognition confirms that Clara had not invented or misidentified the stranger, and turns Daniel's fear into a warning on her behalf. He tells Coubert that Clara does not have the book and orders him not to touch her again.

Coubert replies that Clara is not his concern: he wants the book. He says he would rather obtain it fairly and without harming anyone, but the distinction offers little reassurance after his demonstrated knowledge of Clara and his reference to her earlier harassment. Before the encounter ends, he tells Daniel to resolve matters with Neri and says he would not trust him, broadening the stranger's warning beyond the immediate negotiation.

The face revealed

When Daniel asks what should be done with the books, Coubert answers with an instruction: burn them. He takes a match from a box and strikes it, briefly allowing Daniel to see his face. The revelation is stark: the stranger has no visible nose, lips, or eyelids, and his face is a blackened mask of scarred skin consumed by fire. Daniel recognizes it as the same dead skin Clara had touched. The match goes out, and Coubert disappears into darkness again.

The reveal changes the encounter from an unsettling attempt at persuasion into a confrontation with a man whose appearance connects him to the destruction he demands. His injunction to burn the books gives the meeting its clearest statement of purpose, while his threat that they will meet again ensures that the encounter does not resolve the danger. He says that he never forgets a face and hopes Daniel will make the right decision, invoking both Daniel's safety and Clara's. The episode thus binds the fate of The Shadow of the Wind to the safety of the people Daniel cares about: Coubert wants the novel, but his pursuit has already crossed into Daniel's relationships and threatens to continue.