Questions about this passage

[createdamadman]

I have the following passage and am a bit thrown by the two bold words:

"—Tienes que relacionarte más, camarada. No somos pocos los que nos buscamos la vida en este barco. No es bueno pasar tanto tiempo solo.

Ferrán se sonrojó al instante, como si acabaran de revelarle su más recóndito secreto, pese a que ni su hermana ni el francés sospecharan del motivo que lo llevaba a pasarse solo horas enteras, ya fuera en el camarote o paseando por el barco, con las manos en los bolsillos y perdido en sus pensamientos."


For the first one, I get why the imperfect subjunctive is used, but I don't understand why "acabaran" is used instead of "acabara".

For the second one, I don't understand why the imperfect subjunctive is used at all; I would have expected "sospecharon" here.

[wrholt]

For the first one, the subject of "acabaran" is plural: his sister and the Frenchman. One of them is the speaker of the preceding sentence.

For the second one, "pese a que..." is similar to "a pesar de que...": it requires that that main verb of the clause following "que..." be subjunctive. I trust Rusty's opinion on this.

[Rusty]

Actually, «pese a que» may be followed by an indicative mood verb. In fact, that is more commonly heard than using the subjunctive. I think the author is using the subjunctive to portray the fact of an unreal situation.