The Ignorance of Blood (33 page)

‘Then you left me,’ he said.

‘But I came back, Javier,’ she said. ‘Thanks to Alicia, I came back a different person.’

‘And now?’ said Falcón. ‘Do we have Alicia to thank for you coming here this evening?’

‘Not this time,’ she said. ‘I spoke to her. She listened. It's made me feel stronger.’

‘And that didn't… No, I forgot, you
had
to come back,’ said Falcón. ‘I know
why
you're here, because I can't stop thinking about Darío myself, but who or what particularly has thrown us together this time?’

‘This time, Javier, it's our enemies.’

They looked each other directly in the eye for the first time since she'd appeared at the door.

‘Does that mean you've heard from the Russians?’

She nodded.

‘But I told Inspector Jefe Tirado to call me if there were any developments,’ said Falcón. ‘He assured me nothing had happened. No phone calls…’

‘I
called
them.’

Falcón blinked. She told him about the email and the call she'd made from the bottom of next-door's garden.

‘And we have no record of this conversation,’ said Falcón.

She handed him two sheets of A4 with the transcript of the dialogue as best she could remember it.

‘I was not calm when I made that call,’ she said. ‘I realize now that I was stupid. I reacted in a state of excitement and panic, which was how they expected me to react.’

Falcón nodded, read the transcript several times.

‘Talk to me, Javier,’ she said, unable to bear the silence any longer. ‘Tell me what you make of it. Ask me questions. Every detail, from the top.’

‘When did this happen?’ he asked.

‘The email was timed two p.m., but I didn't see it until after four, then I had to charge the phone and open an account. I made the call at around five.’

‘Five hours ago,’ he said.

‘I didn't want to call you. You can see how complicated it is,’ she said. ‘I only wanted to do this face to face. I've been waiting outside for the American to leave.’

‘Tell me about the voice,’ said Falcón. ‘Was there only one voice?’

‘The first voice was foreign. I don't know what Spanish sounds like spoken by a Russian, but I'm certain it was a foreigner. All he said was
Diga
and
Momentito
, but I could tell.’

‘So the second voice was the one you had this conversation with, and he was Spanish.’

‘Yes, definitely Spanish-speaking, but not from Spain. I'd say South American.’

‘Or Cuban?’ said Falcón. ‘A lot of Cubans still speak Russian.’

‘That must be it. I wasn't listening to the finer points of accent. I was concentrating on what he was saying and his
tone. He was quite gentle with me. The second time he asked whether I knew why Darío had been kidnapped, he put it a different way.’

‘He said: “Do you understand why your son has been taken from you?”’ said Falcón.

‘He said it like a doctor who wanted to explain the necessity of Darío's quarantine. As if he had a contagious disease and it was better for him. It made me very emotional.’

‘The next bit about…’

‘That's about you, isn't it?’ she said. ‘I was angry and, I can't deny it, Javier, I still am.’

‘Just remember, Consuelo, that I am your friend,’ said Falcón. ‘Whatever this has done to us, I am still your friend. I want to get Darío back as much as you do.
I
did not kidnap him and it's not
me
threatening him with harm, and I will do everything I can to bring him back safely.’

‘That's why I said, it's our enemies who've brought us together this time,’ said Consuelo. ‘I only understood that by working on the transcript.’

‘They are trying to do something very tricky here. They want to remind you that I am responsible for all this – not them,’ said Falcón. ‘But they also need me to be your friend because they know that what you're asking of me is very difficult.’

‘I realize that they want me to corrupt you,’ said Consuelo. ‘They believe that by holding my son they will have reduced me to their own moral level and that I will make you my friend, or even my lover, in order to corrupt you for my own purposes.’

‘You don't need to talk me through this, Consuelo.’

‘I do. I need you to understand that I know exactly what they're doing,’ said Consuelo. ‘They're making me a whore, in the hope that I will entice you to corrupt yourself, and I hate them for it. I could kill them for that, let alone taking Darío.’

And in that moment he fell for her all over again. If he'd thought that he loved her in the airport on Saturday he'd been mistaken, because what filled him now was an admiration so complete that he wanted to kiss those lips that had spoken such words.

He knew then that he would do anything for her.

‘The one thing that is not established here, and given the stress of the call you were unlikely to think of it, is whether they have Darío or not,’ said Falcón.

‘You mean I didn't ask for some proof that he was alive?’

‘Not exactly. I'm sure that Darío is being held by Russians; we're just not sure which group,’ said Falcón.

He explained how Leonid Revnik had taken over the Russian mafia on the Costa del Sol after his predecessor had fled to Dubai and how Yuri Donstov had arrived in Seville. He also laid out his theory of Russian mafia involvement in the Seville bombing.

‘But why would the Russians involve themselves in something like that?’ asked Consuelo.

‘Because they were invited to do so by the conspirators,’ said Falcón. ‘Lucrecio Arenas and César Benito didn't know how to plant a bomb, they needed men of violence to do it for them. They had access to these people presumably because they were doing some money-laundering for them. The idea was that the Russians would be rewarded in the political fallout after the bombing. It didn't happen. And not only that, their whole criminal organization was put at risk. The Russians did the only thing possible and assassinated the Catholic conspiracy's ringleaders before they could implicate them.’

‘And this huge amount of money and the disks?’

‘They represent a complication. They came into our hands because of a defection from Revnik to Donstov by a gangster called Vasili Lukyanov,’ said Falcón. ‘It means that men in both groups were possibly responsible for the Seville bomb
and also that both groups will want to get their hands on those disks, because they will give them the leverage they need.’

‘What exactly is on those disks?’

‘They show powerful people having sex with prostitutes. The most important people on those disks, as far as my investigation is concerned, are the ones who are representatives of the two companies who I think originally initiated the Seville bombing: an American corporation, called I4IT, who own a Spanish holding company in Barcelona, called Horizonte.’

‘And those companies are now
excluding
the Russians because they no longer need, or want, their brand of violence.’

‘I have no proof of any of this,’ said Falcón. ‘All I know is that the original idea behind the Seville bomb was to take political control of the Andalucían state parliament and I can only assume that there would ultimately be economic rewards for those involved. What's happening now is smaller scale. It's just business. I'm not sure what the business is, but it's probably something to do with construction in or around Seville. I think the Russians got their foot in the door with Lucrecio Arenas and César Benito, and they still want their reward for the dirty work they've done.’

‘So whichever mafia group holds the disks can exert pressure on I4IT and Horizonte.’

‘My guess is that Darío is being held by Yuri Donstov, who was expecting delivery of the disks from Vasili Lukyanov when the car accident put his whole strategy in jeopardy.’

‘Does Leonid Revnik know that Lukyanov has disappeared with the disks?’

‘We assume so, because Lukyanov's best friend was found shot dead in the woods behind Estepona.’

‘So it could just as easily be Revnik holding Darío, trying to get back in the game?’

‘If Lukyanov had the foresight to ensure that he had the originals and there were no copies, then yes,’ said Falcón.

‘If I was him, I'd have made sure of that,’ said Consuelo. ‘That money and the disks were probably in the same safe and he stole both.’

‘Lukyanov ran
puti clubs.
He controlled the girls. So he was probably responsible for the secret filming of what they did with these men,’ said Falcón, tapping the transcript.

‘And the money?’

‘I'm thinking about that,’ said Falcón. ‘They're asking for the return of €8.2 million, but Ramírez told me there was only €7.75 million accounted for.’

‘Light-fingered Guardia Civil on the motorway?’ said Consuelo.

‘Or the Russians are lying.’

‘Or they don't know. They're guessing.’

Falcón paced slowly around the patio.

‘You're very calm,’ he said, suddenly. ‘I don't know how …’

‘Because in making me their agent they've given me power,’ said Consuelo. ‘I know nothing will happen to Darío while I can still do things for them.’

‘A further complication,’ said Falcón, ideas occurring to him all the time. ‘The reason we need proof that whoever we're talking to
is
holding Darío, is that they could
both
say that they're holding him.’

‘So far I've only been contacted by one group,’ said Consuelo. ‘And they used an email address that is strictly for friends and family.’

‘You think only Darío could have given them that address?’ asked Falcón. ‘Do you have any protection on that computer? It's a family PC. You probably don't even need a password to use it. Anybody could have found that out.’

‘All right,’ said Consuelo, thinking desperately. ‘There's
been no media coverage yet, so only the group that's performed the abduction will know about it.’

‘That's in the perfect world,’ said Falcón, ‘but these mafia groups have connections everywhere. The corruption is deep. They've penetrated the Guardia Civil and it wouldn't surprise me if they had someone in the Jefatura.’

‘So they would know if you called on other resources, too,’ said Consuelo, alarmed.

Falcón nodded, feeling the box they were in getting tighter and darker.

‘What… what about their demands?’ said Consuelo, the earlier calm beginning to dissipate now that she could sense their isolation.

‘The first obstacle is the money,’ said Falcón. ‘We can't get our hands on the cash. It's already in the Banco de Bilbao and I have no authority over it. That lies with Comisario Elvira, and we don't want him involved in any of this.’

‘The Russians probably know that, or have guessed it,’ said Consuelo hopefully. ‘They probably felt they had to ask for the money, especially that
amount
of money, or they'd have made the disks look too important. They'll be understanding about the money.’

‘They'll have to be,’ said Falcón. ‘It's not a possibility.’

‘If the Russians have their people in the Jefatura, why don't they just lift the disks themselves?’

‘No, that's true, we're not exactly a high-security institution,’ said Falcón, ‘the disks are in a safe in the evidence room, which during office hours is heavily used and manned, especially as the money was kept there until it was moved this afternoon. Only two people have the key and the combination of that safe: Elvira and myself.’

‘And there are only the originals in existence?’

‘No, there are copies of parts of the disks on the Homicide squad's computer and to access it you'd need not only the
passwords to the system, but also the encryption software to unscramble the shots.’

They fell silent again. Falcón focused on the problem. If, as Consuelo's business brain had intuited, I4IT/Horizonte were excluding the Russians from whatever this new deal was, then it could be crucial for the Russians to know that Juan Valverde, Antonio Ramos and Charles Taggart were going to be in Seville tomorrow evening and night.

‘You've gone quiet on me again, Javier.’

Falcón reached for his mobile, called Ramírez.

‘How did you know that the money from the Lukyanov accident had left the Jefatura?’ he asked him.

‘Because you'd signed the money into the Jefatura it was technically Homicide squad evidence, so I had to accompany Comisario Elvira to the evidence room and sign it over to him, so that he could sign it over to Prosegur for delivery to the bank,’ said Ramírez.

‘Was the money in the safe?’

‘As much as they could fit in,’ said Ramírez. ‘There was still one block in the Prosegur box.’