The Ignorance of Blood (27 page)

‘Probably not,’ said Falcón.

Spinola took him by the arm and guided him out of the room, casting jokes and compliments as he went. They crossed the corridor; Spinola checked for an empty office, found one. He sat behind the desk, pulled out one of the side drawers and rested his expensive loafers on the edge. He sat back, comfortable, hands resting on his stomach, which proved to have its first gathering of middle-aged fat.

‘What can I do for you, Inspector Jefe?’ he asked, vaguely amused by it all.

‘I want to talk to you about Marisa Moreno.’

‘Esteban's girlfriend?’ he said, frowning. ‘I hardly know her.’

‘But you met her first.’

‘That's true. I met her at a gallery opening,’ he said, nodding, looking out of the window. ‘Over the past few years Esteban hasn't had much time for art. He used to go to openings all the time. He was always interested in paintings, literature, that kind of thing, much more so than me.’

‘Then why did you go?’

‘The people. A good art dealer can always bring together an interesting bunch of people. Collectors tend to have money and influence. And that's my job.’

‘What
is
your job?’

‘I work for the mayor.’

‘That's what Esteban told me,’ said Falcón. ‘I'm sure you've got more to add?’

‘I make sure the mayor is in touch with the right sort of
people to achieve his aims,’ said Spinola. ‘Things don't happen on their own, Inspector Jefe. Whether you're building a mosque in Los Bermejales or pedestrianizing the Avenida de la Constitución, or remodelling La Alameda or tunnelling a metro under the city, there are huge numbers of people to deal with. Angry residents, disgruntled religious groups, disappointed contractors, furious taxi drivers, to name but a few.’

‘Presumably there are happy people as well.’

‘Of course. My job is to help the mayor convert those unhappy people into … well, maybe not totally happy people, but at least quieter, more manageable people.’

‘And how do you do that?’

‘You must know my father, Inspector Jefe, he's a lawyer,’ said Spinola. ‘I never had the temperament for sitting down and learning lots of stuff from books, like Esteban did. But in my own way I'm like both of them. I'm a very persuasive guy.’

‘So what happened with Marisa, then?’ said Falcón, smiling.

‘Oh, yes, right, exactly. What happened with Marisa…’ said Spinola, giving him a delayed laugh. ‘I met her at Galería Zoca. Do you know it? Just off the Alfalfa. She wasn't showing. She's not a big enough name for that place. But she's very nice to look at, no? So, José Manuel Domecq, the owner, always invites her to, you know, prettify the usual assembly of toads and trout with their crocodile-skin handbags and wallets bulging with cash. I already knew everybody there, so I didn't have to work very hard, and we all went out to dinner and Marisa and I sat together and, you know, Inspector Jefe, we got along. We got along very well.’

‘Did you sleep with her?’

Spinola initially narrowed his eyes, as if preparing to take affront, but in the end decided on a lightness of touch. He laughed, a little exaggeratedly.

‘No, no, no, que no
, Inspector Jefe. It wasn't like that.’

‘I see,’ said Falcón. ‘Forgive my misunderstanding.’

‘No. We exchanged numbers and I called her the following week to invite her to the garden party at the Duchess of Alba's house. It's an annual affair and I thought it would be … exotic to turn up with a beautiful black girl on my arm.’

As Spinola's eyes travelled from the window back across the room, they stopped for a beat to check how things were going down with Falcón, then carried on to the door. For a persuasive man, Spinola was weak on eye contact.

‘So, how did your introduction of Marisa to your cousin come about?’

‘Well, it wasn't so much an introduction as Esteban arriving on my shoulder within seconds of my arrival and introducing
himself to
Marisa.’

‘I think you might have misremembered something.’

‘I don't think so. I can see it now. Esteban cutting her away from me while I got drawn into the crowd. He hogged her the whole evening.’

‘I think that's doubtful,’ said Falcón, ‘because Esteban was married to Inés and, at that point in their relationship, he was not in the habit of brazenly displaying his inclination for infidelity, especially in front of his and her parents and, of course, your father, the Juez Decano de Sevilla, who was his employer.’

A pause for thought. Some rearrangement of the details. Falcón could hear the brain furniture scraping around in Spinola's head. Then the mayor's fixer suddenly shrugged and threw his hand up in the air.

‘These are just details, Inspector Jefe,’ he said. ‘Think of how many parties I go to, how many social situations I find myself in. How am I supposed to remember the finer points of every meeting and introduction?’

‘Because, as you've just told me,’ said Falcón, ‘it's your job. Your job is to know what makes people tick. What they like and dislike. And people in social situations don't wear
their needs and intentions on the outside, especially, I imagine, when you're around and they're very conscious of the impression they want to make on the mayor's office. Yes, I would have thought that, under those circumstances, it would all be in the detail. And your reading of that detail is what makes you so successful.’

Finally, the eye contact, very level and sustained. A mixture of respect and fear. Spinola now thinking: What does this man know?

‘How does Esteban remember it?’ he asked, in order to avoid another lie and to give himself a chance of building a different point of view on the rock of truth.

‘He remembers you pulling him out of a family group. You were on your own at the time. You told him that he must meet this wonderful sculptress that you'd found at an opening the previous week. He says you took him into the house, to a room with some magnificent paintings where you'd left Marisa to wait alone. He remembers you introducing her and the next thing he knows
you
are no longer in the room. Does that refresh your memory?’

It did. Spinola's eyes drifted above Falcón's head as he tried to massage the facts he'd just heard into something perfectly comprehensible.

‘How old are you, Señor Spinola?’

‘Thirty-four,’ he said.

‘You're not married?’

‘No.’

‘Perhaps you could explain why you, a single man, would effect an introduction to a very attractive woman, also single, to your married cousin?’

Something like relief passed over Spinola's face and Falcón realized a strategy had occurred to him.

‘I'm sorry to say this, Inspector Jefe, but Marisa would not be the first woman I'd ever introduced to my cousin.’

‘What does that mean exactly?’

‘It means what I've just said. I've introduced single women to Esteban before and he's had affairs with … some of them.’

‘I was wondering if you meant that you had an arrangement, like some sort of informal pimping service,’ said Falcón mildly, but with calculated aggression.

‘I resent that, Inspector Jefe.’

‘Then clarify the understanding you had with your cousin for me.’

‘I'm younger than him. I'm not married. I meet young, available women…’

‘But
what
is the understanding? Has anything ever been said between the two of you about what you're doing?’

‘As you said yourself, Inspector Jefe, my job is to know what people like.’

‘In that case, what was
your
purpose, Señor Spinola?’

‘My purpose, Inspector Jefe, is to build up favours in all walks of life, so that in my own, or the mayor's, crucial moments I can call on people for support,’ said Spinola. ‘Local politics is only pretty on the surface, and the surface is very important. Nobody ever
asks
for a bribe. Nobody ever
asks
for a nice young chick to blow him under his desk.
I
have to know, and then I have to make it look as if I didn't, so that we can still look at each other at the next party.’

Spinola had taken the first round by a whisker. Falcón stood up. He went to the door, reached for the handle. Spinola lifted his feet off the drawer, shoved it in.

‘You might not have heard, Señor Spinola,’ said Falcón. ‘Marisa Moreno was murdered last night. They used her own chain saw on her. Cut off her hand. Cut off her foot. Cut off her head.’

The small triumph disappeared from Spinola's face and what was left behind was not sorrow or horror but a very live kind of fear.

16

Consuelo's house, Santa Clara, Seville – Monday, 18th September 2006, 16.15 hrs

Consuelo had found an old mobile phone, but with a flat battery, which she was now recharging. She reckoned half an hour would give her enough juice. Voices reached her from downstairs. She was nervous about making the call in the house. If something happened and she had an emotional reaction, they would hear her and that might affect Darío's safety.

The patrolman at the front door did not move as she passed him. She saw that his head was resting on the wall. He was asleep. In the kitchen, the sound man and the family liaison officer were having one of those endless Sevillano conversations about everything that had ever happened to them and their families. Consuelo made some coffee, served them and took her own into the living room. She watched the second patrolman sitting by the pool. He was slumped in his chair. It was 40°C out there. He, too, must be asleep. Time leaked by until she could bear it no longer.

Back upstairs. The phone had recharged enough. She entered the phone number from the email into the memory, not sure, in her emotional state, that she could rely on her
brain to remember it. She called the service provider and set up a pay-as-you-go account for twenty-five euros. She changed into some flat pumps, slipped back downstairs, past the first patrolman, past the kitchen and out through the sliding doors. She walked the length of the pool. The patrolman didn't move. At the bottom of the garden there was a rough break in the hedge where a gate led to the adjoining property. It was rusted and had never been opened as far as she knew. She vaulted over it and found herself at the back of her neighbour's pool house.

She called the number. It rang interminably. She breathed back her fear, apprehension and rampant agitation, but when the answer came it was still like cold steel in the stomach.

‘Diga.’

Nothing came out of her paralysed throat.

‘Diga!’

‘My name is Consuelo Jiménez and I've been told to call this number. You're holding my –’

‘ Momentito.’

There was muffled talk. The phone changed hands.

‘Listen to me, Señora Jiménez,’ said a new voice. ‘Do you understand why we have taken your son?’

‘I'm not sure who you are.’

‘But do you understand why your son has been taken from you?’

Put like that she nearly broke down.

‘No, I don't,’ she said.

‘Your friend, Javier Falcón, the inspector –’

‘He is
not
my friend,’ she said, blurting it.

‘That's a pity.’

She wasn't sure why he should have said that: sad because they'd split up, or a shame because he could be useful?

‘You need friends at a time like this,’ said the voice.

‘Why do I need
him?’
she asked.
‘He
is the cause of all this.’

‘It's good that you understand that much.’

‘But I don't understand why
you
have taken
my son
because of
his
investigations.’

‘He was warned.’

‘But why
my
son?’

‘I am in no doubt that you are a good person, Señora Jiménez, but even you, in your business, must understand the nature of pressure.’

‘The nature of pressure,’ she said, her mind blank.

‘Direct pressure is always met with resistance. However,
indirect
pressure is a much more complicated business.’

Silence, until Consuelo realized that her response was required.

‘And you want me to apply … some indirect pressure. Is that it?’

‘There was a car accident on the motorway between Jerez and Seville a few days ago in which a Russian named Vasili Lukyanov was killed,’ said the voice. ‘Inspector Jefe Falcón was put in charge of this accident because there was a lot of money in the boot – eight million two hundred thousand euros – and a number of disks, which contain footage of men and women in compromising situations. We would like the money and the disks returned to us. If you are successful in persuading Inspector Jefe Falcón to act for you, then no harm will come to your son. He will be released, you have my word on that. If, however, you decide to involve other agencies, or your old friend calls on other resources, then your son will still come back to you, Señora Jiménez, but piece by piece.’