The Ignorance of Blood (15 page)

‘Take a seat,’ she said, pointing at a cheap, low stool. ‘You look hot.’

Ferrera sat in the smell of her soap and deodorant mixed with sweat.

‘Do you always drink while you work?’ she asked.

‘Never,’ said Marisa, relighting her cigar stub.

‘So you're not working?’

‘I'd work if people didn't keep interrupting me.’

‘Other people?’ asked Ferrera. ‘Apart from us?’

Marisa nodded. Drank some more.

‘It's not just that he thinks I hate men …’ she said, pointing at Ferrera with her cigar stub. ‘And I don't hate men. How can I hate them? Only men can satisfy me. I only fuck with men, so how can I hate them? You? Do you only fuck with men? After what those guys did to you?’

‘So what else is it?’ asked Ferrera, feeling Marisa's drunken mind swerving away from her.

‘He thinks I killed her,’ said Marisa. ‘The Inspector Jefe thinks I killed his wife. I mean
his
ex-wife, Esteban's wife.’

‘He doesn't think that.’

‘Did you know her?’

‘Inés?’ asked Ferrera, shaking her head.

‘I don't know why your Inspector Jefe married that one,’ said Marisa, pointing to her head, blowing her brains out. ‘There was nothing inside.’

‘We all make mistakes,’ said Ferrera, some of her own and their consequences flashing through her mind.

‘She
was
right for Esteban,’ said Marisa. ‘Absolutely right.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Another empty vessel,’ said Marisa, knocking on the side of her work bench. ‘A hollow man.’

‘So why did you like Esteban?’

‘It's more to do with why did Esteban like
me
,’ said Marisa. ‘I was just there. He came after
me.
It didn't matter what
I
thought. That's what Sevillano guys are like. They come after you. They don't need any encouragement.’

‘And Cuban guys are different?’

‘They seem to know when you're not right for them. They see who you are.’

‘But you didn't turn Esteban down.’

‘I tell you, Esteban is not my kind of guy,’ said Marisa, and her face struggled against the alcohol into a sneer.

‘So what happened?’

‘He pursued me.’

‘You look as if you're old enough to be able to tell a guy that his interest is going to get him nowhere.’

‘Unless …’ Marisa said, holding up her finger.

Some tinny Cuban music started up in the back of the workshop. Marisa staggered off amongst the clutter and picked up her mobile phone. Ferrera gritted her teeth, the moment lost again. Marisa retreated into the darkness and listened intently without saying a word. After some long, silent minutes she dropped the phone and skittered away from it as if she'd suddenly realized it was emitting poison into her ear.

9

Consuelo's house, Santa Clara, Seville – Saturday, 16th September 2006,10.30 hrs

Consuelo was having trouble getting Darío out of the house and into the car. She was on the phone, talking to the estate agent in Madrid who'd found her ‘the perfect property’ in the Lavapiés district of the city. He was selling it hard because he was pushing something that was ‘off brief’. Darío was on the computer, playing his favourite soccer game. He was impervious to her occasional shouts to turn the damn thing off, and he only complied when she appeared over his shoulder to wrestle the mouse from his hand.

The electricity demands at the airport were such that the air-conditioning was not working at its optimum level. Looking out on to the taxiways where the aircraft unpeeled their tyres from the searing tarmac, Falcón held his jacket slung over his shoulder and put in a call to the only person he wanted to talk to.

‘I'm stuck in traffic,’ said Consuelo. ‘Darío, will you please just sit down. This is Javi.’

‘Hola
, Javi,’ shouted Darío.

‘We're on our way to the Nervión Plaza. The only place in the world where we're allowed to buy football boots. You know, the pilgrimage to Sevilla FC.’

‘I'm going to be out of town again today,’ said Falcón, ‘but I want to see you tonight.’

‘Do you want to see Javi tonight?’

‘Ye-e-es!’ roared Darío.

‘I think that sounds as if it would be acceptable.’

‘I love you,’ said Falcón, trying that out again, seeing if she would react this time.

‘What was that?’

‘You heard.’

‘The line's breaking up.’

‘I love you, Consuelo,’ he said, and it made him feel young and foolish.

She laughed.

‘Let's go!’ roared Darío.

‘Traffic's moving,’ she said.
‘Hasta pronto.’

The phone clicked off. He was disappointed. He'd wanted to hear it from her lips, but she wasn't quite ready for that yet, admitting to love in front of her youngest son. He put his hands up on the glass, stared out into the wavering heat and felt a great sense of longing in his chest.

How the hell would you fall in love if you were blind? thought Consuelo, phone in her lap, traffic at a standstill again. Smell would be important. Not the quality of a man's aftershave, although that in itself would tell you something, but rather his … musk. Nothing sharp or rancid and not soapy or fragrant, but not too manly either. Voice, too, would have powerful effects. You wouldn't want to listen to somebody whiny or booming, nothing guttural or sibilant. Then there was touch: the feel of a man's hand. No limpness, pudginess, nor clamminess. Dry and strong, but not crushing. Delicate, but not effeminate. Electric, but not
furtive. And then there were the lips. The crucial mouth. How his lips fitted on to yours. Just the right amount of give. Not hard, unyielding, nor soft and mushy. Kissing blind would tell you everything. Is that why we close our eyes?

‘Mamá?’ said Darío.

Consuelo wasn't listening. She was too engrossed in her imagination, thinking how well Javier scored on smell, voice and touch. She'd never believed, after her marriage to Raúl Jiménez, that she would ever think these foolish things again.

‘Mamá?’

‘What, Darío?’

‘You're not listening to me.’

‘I am, sweetie, it's just that Mamá's thinking, too.’

‘Mamá?’

‘Yes.’

‘You missed the turning.’

She squeezed his knee so that he yelped and made the complicated series of turns to get back to the Nervión Plaza parking.

‘Mamá?’ said Darío, as they descended into the underground car park, ground to a halt in the queue to go in.

‘What is it, darling?’ said Consuelo, feeling that the first three inquiring ‘Mamá's’ had been a prelude to some big, burning question, dying to be asked.

‘Do you still love me now that Javi is with us?’

She looked at him, big eyes beseeching her, felt her insides collapse. How do we know these things? Even at eight years old he can tell something important might be swerving away from him. She stroked his head and cheek.

‘But you're my little man,’ she said. ‘The most important one in the world.’

Darío smiled, that small confrontation with sadness instantly forgotten. He pushed his fists between his knees
and hunched his shoulders up to his ears as his world fell back into place.

The driver of the black Jaguar didn't say a word. The car sped along the M4 motorway into London. Falcón was cold, underdressed for the season, and he was feeling a Spaniard's uneasiness for silence in company, until he remembered his father, Francisco, telling him that the English liked to talk about the weather. But as he looked out on to the dull, grey, flat landscape overhung by dull, grey, pendulous clouds, he could find nothing to say about it. Couldn't imagine what anybody would find to say about it. He put his face close to the window to help him perceive what a local person might see in such unmitigated dullness and thought it might be what you couldn't see.

‘When did you last see the sun shine?’ he asked, in perfect English, his breath fogging the glass.

‘Sorry, mate,’ said the driver, ‘don't speak Spanish. Go to Mallorca every year for my holidays, but still don't speak a word.’

Falcón checked him for irony but could tell, even from the back of the man's head and his quick glance at the rear-view, that he was totally good-natured.

‘It's not our strong point either,’ said Falcón. ‘Languages.’

The driver whipped round in his seat as if to check he still had the same passenger.

‘Oh, right,’ he said. ‘Yeah, no. You're pretty good. Where d'you learn to speak English like that?’

‘English lessons,’ said Falcón.

‘Well, that's cheating, innit?’ said the driver, and they both laughed, although Falcón wasn't quite sure why.

The traffic seized up as they came into the city. The driver turned off the Cromwell Road; twenty minutes later they went past the famous revolving sign of New Scotland Yard.

Falcón introduced himself at reception, handed over his
ID and police card. He went through security and was met at the lifts by a uniformed officer. They went up to the fifth floor. Douglas Hamilton met him off the lift, took him into a meeting room where there was another man in his late thirties.

‘This is Rodney from MI5,’ said Hamilton. ‘Take a seat. Flight OK?’

‘Not your sort of temperature, eh, Javier?’ said Rodney, releasing Falcón's ice-cold hand.

Finally, the weather, thought Falcón.

‘Pablo forgot to tell me it was already winter here,’ he said.

‘This is
our
bloody summer,’ said Hamilton.

‘You ever been to the Irish bar in Seville, down by the cathedral?’ asked Rodney.

‘Only if someone was murdered there,’ said Falcón.

They laughed. The room relaxed. They were going to understand each other.

‘You run Yacoub Diouri,’ said Rodney, ‘but you're a police officer.’

‘Yacoub is a friend of mine. He said he would supply information to the CNI only on condition that I was his main contact.’

‘How long have you known him?’

‘Four years,’ said Falcón. ‘We first met in September 2002.’

‘And when was the last time you saw him before yesterday?’

‘We spent some time on holiday together in August.’

‘And his son, Abdullah, was with you?’

‘It was a family holiday.’

‘And how did Abdullah appear to you then?’

‘As I would have expected the son of a wealthy member of the Moroccan elite,’ said Falcón.

‘Spoilt brat?’ asked Hamilton.

‘Not exactly. He didn't behave any differently to a Spanish
boy of his age. He was very attached to his computer, bored by the beach, but he's a good kid.’

‘Was he devout?’

‘No more than the rest of the family, who take their religion very seriously. As far as I know, he wasn't leaving dinner early to go and study the Qur'an, but then Yacoub said his browser was full of “Islamic” sites, so maybe that's what he was doing.’

‘Did he drink?’ asked Rodney. ‘Alcohol?’

‘Yes,’ said Falcón, feeling the strange weight of this question. ‘Yacoub, Abdullah and I would share a bottle of wine at dinner.’

‘Just one bottle between three?’ said Rodney, whose top button was undone and the knot of his tie off centre.

There was a grunt of laughter from Hamilton.

‘If I hadn't been there they wouldn't have drunk alcohol,’ said Falcón. ‘It was just to make me comfortable as their guest.’

‘Has Abdullah ever joined Yacoub on any of his business trips to the UK?’ asked Hamilton.

‘I think so. I seem to remember Yacoub talking about taking Abdullah to the Tate Modern to see the Edward Hopper exhibition. That was before I recruited Yacoub.’

‘Did you know that Abdullah was in London now?’

‘No. In fact yesterday Yacoub told me he was in a training camp for GICM mujahideen back in Morocco. He also told me that he himself was returning to Rabat…’

‘Pablo briefed us,’ said Rodney, nodding.

‘Have you found him yet?’ asked Falcón, and Rodney glared. ‘Pablo said you'd lost Yacoub, or rather Yacoub had lost your…’

‘We picked him up again about an hour ago,’ said Rodney. ‘It was just him. Abdullah stayed in the hotel. It's not the first time he's lost one of our tails, you know that.’

‘Do you follow him every time he comes to London?’

‘We do now,’ said Hamilton. ‘Since the first time he lost a tail, back in July.’