The basketball court is still there.

The mile and a half Nicholas walked is still there.

Whatever happened in that mile and a half, on that June night in 1994, remains in the dark.

And the boy who walked it has not come back.

Linares, Spain: The Stage Is Set

The city of Linares sits in the province of Jaén in southern Andalusia, a mid-sized Spanish industrial city known historically for its lead mining.

It is not a place that appears in international news with regularity, and it would never have appeared in this story at all except for the specific circumstances that placed Frédéric Bourdin there in October 1997.