The Blind Man of Seville - Robert Thomas Wilson

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      ‘I wouldn’t know, I’ve never denied anything.’

      ‘… because there are no doubts … ever.’

      ‘I’m either a liar or completely deluded,’ she said. ‘I can’t win, Inspector Jefe. But at least I always tell myself the truth.’

      ‘But do you tell it to me, Doña Consuelo?’ he said.

      ‘So far … but perhaps I’m changing my mind.’

      ‘I don’t know how you persuaded your husband’s old flames that you were a silly tart.’

      ‘I dressed like one,’ she said, tinkling her fingernails. ‘I can talk like one, too.’

      ‘You’re an accomplished actress.’

      ‘Everything counts against me.’

      Their eyes connected. His soft, brown, tobacco. Hers frozen aquamarine. He smiled. He couldn’t help liking her. That strength. The inexorable mouth. He wondered what it would taste like and shot the thought straight out of his head. They crossed the Puente del Generalísimo and he changed the subject.

      ‘It’s never occurred to me before what a Francoist little corner of town this is. This bridge. This street is named after Carrero Blanco …’

      ‘Why do you think my husband was living in the Edificio Presidente?’

      ‘I thought most people were following the Paquirri fashion.’

      ‘Yes, well, my husband liked los toros, but he liked Franco even more.’

      ‘And you?’

      ‘He was before my time.’

      ‘Mine, too.’

      ‘You should dye your hair, Inspector Jefe, I thought you were older.’

      They parked up. Falcón called Fernández on his mobile, told him to go to the Jiménez apartment. He and Sra Jiménez took the lift to the sixth floor, nodded past the policeman at the door. They paced the empty corridor towards the empty hook, that double walk still snagging in Falcón’s brain. They sat down in the study and waited in silence for Fernández to arrive.

      ‘Just run your pictures past Sra Jiménez, please,’ he said. ‘In order of appearance on the CCTV tapes.’

      Fernández counted them out, each one getting the negative from Consuelo Jiménez until the last one when her eyes widened and she blinked the double take.

      ‘Who is that in the picture, Doña Consuelo?’

      She looked up at him, entranced, beguiled as if it had been magic.

      ‘It’s Basilio,’ she said, her mouth not closing.

       5

       Thursday, 12th April 2001, Edificio Presidente, Los Remedies, Seville

      How to play this? Falcón resisted the temptation to run his fingers up the edge of the desk like a concert pianist in full flourish. He rested his chin on his thumb, tensed his jaw and brushed his cheekbone with a finger while the adrenalin flashed down his arteries. This was it, he thought. But how to make it come out? Separate or together? He felt inspired. He decided on the cockpit approach. Throw them in together, let them flap and cut, peck and stab.

      ‘Sra Jiménez and I are going to El Porvenir,’ he said to Fernández. ‘Contact Sub Inspector Pérez and help him find the prostitute. Tell him we’ve identified the unknowns from the CCTV tapes.’

      Sra Jiménez crossed her legs, lit a cigarette. Her foot wouldn’t keep still. Falcón went into the corridor to call Ramírez on his mobile. He wished he liked him more.

      Ramírez was bored. He’d taken on the fruitless task of interviewing the fired employees himself and, so far, after two had come up with nothing other than they were glad to get away from Sra Jiménez. Falcón watched her while Ramírez blew off steam. She was clicking the fingernails of her thumb and forefinger, playing things over in her mind. Falcón briefed Ramírez and gave him Basilio Lucena’s address, told him to get down there and be ready to maintain the pressure on the two protagonists.

      Falcón took Consuelo Jiménez back across the river to 17 Calle Río de la Plata. The traffic was heavier around lunchtime. The joggers were out in the park; girls with their hair tied in ponytails bobbed along beyond the railings, gay in the sunshine. These moments of police work were fascinating to him — driving along while a suspect endured some massive internal struggle between denial and truth, between acting out the lie or embracing the relief of retribution and absolution. Where did the impulse come from that started the body chemistry into a decision of such magnitude?

      He turned right up Avenida de Portugal behind the high towers of the Plaza de España. The building which had been the centrepiece of the ‘29 Expo was so normal to him that he wouldn’t have noticed it except, on this day, with the red brick against the blue sky and the explosive greenery all around, it amazed him. It brought back a memory of his father throwing himself out of his seat as they watched Lawrence of Arabia on television to point out that David Lean was using the building as the British Embassy in Cairo.

      ‘You can talk if you like,’ he said.

      She started out aggressive and pulled back after the first syllable. She found a lipstick in her handbag and reshaped her mouth … nicely.

      ‘I’m as curious as you are,’ she said, which unnerved him.

      They parked down the street from the house. No Ramírez. Falcón took out the autopsy report and read it through, blinking in the detail. The instruments used, the technical know-how demonstrated, the chemicals and solutions evident on the victim’s clothes — all reaffirmed his suspicions.

      A car pulled up alongside. Ramírez nodded and parked up at the end of the street. He walked back down, through the gateway and rang the bell to number 17. Lucena opened it. There was a discussion. Ramírez showed his ID card. He was let in. Minutes passed. Falcón and Sra Jiménez got out of the car, rang the bell. Lucena came to the door, harassed. He walked straight into Falcón’s eyes and caught the blue flash of his lover’s. The fear was unmistakable, but of what Falcón wasn’t sure. They went in, the man definitely crowded out in his own living room with the pressure of three pairs of eyes on him. Falcón positioned himself next to the television set, which had a video camera connected to it. Ramírez stood by the door. Lucena sat down on the edge of an armchair. Sra Jiménez occupied the sofa opposite, looked at him out of the corner of her eye, crossed her legs and set her foot nodding.

      ‘We’ve already established from Sra Jiménez that you were with her last night,’ said Falcón. ‘Can you remember when you left?’

      ‘It was about two o’clock,’ he said, running his hand through his thin, brown hair.

      ‘Where did you go after leaving the Hotel Colón?’

      The foot stopped nodding.

      ‘I came back here.’

      ‘Did you leave your house again that night?’

      ‘No. I went to work this morning.’

      ‘How did you get to work?’

      He faltered, stumbled over the beginner’s question.

      ‘By bus.’

      Ramírez took over and tied him in knots about bus routes. Lucena clung to his lie until Falcón quietly put the print-out from the CCTV tapes into his hands.

      ‘Is that you, Sr Lucena?’ he asked.

      He jiggled his head in nervous affirmation.

      ‘What subject do you lecture in at the university?’

      ‘Biochemistry.’

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