LITMIR.BIZ

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reeled backwards, his feet kicking at the rug edge and the parquet flooring as he fell over the television lead, yanking the plug out of the wall socket. He crabbed on the heels of his hands and feet until he hit the wall and sat legs splayed, thighs twitching, shoes nodding.

      Eyelids. Two top. Two bottom. Nothing could have prepared him for that.

      ‘Are you all right, Inspector Jefe?’

      ‘Is that you, Inspector Ramírez?’ he asked, getting up slowly, messily.

      ‘The Policía Científica are ready to move in.’

      ‘Send the Médico Forense down here.’

      Ramírez slipped out of the doorframe. Falcón shook himself down. The Médico Forense appeared.

      ‘Did you see that this man had had his eyelids cu—his eyelids removed?’

      ‘Claro, Inspector Jefe. The Juez de Guardia and I had to satisfy ourselves that the man was dead. I saw that the man’s eyelids had been removed and … it’s all in my notes. The secretaria has noted it, too. It’s hardly something you’d miss.’

      ‘No, no, I didn’t doubt that … I was just surprised that it wasn’t mentioned to me.’

      ‘I think Juez Calderón was about to tell you, but …’

      The bald head of the Médico Forense rolled on his shoulders.

      ‘But what …?’

      ‘I think he was in awe of your experience in these matters.’

      ‘Do you have any opinion about the cause and time of death?’ asked Falcón.

      ‘The time, about four, four-thirty this morning. The cause, well, vamos a ver, the man was over seventy years old, he had been overweight, he was a heavy smoker of cigarettes which he preferred with the filter removed and, as a restaurateur, someone who enjoyed a glass of wine or two. Even a young and fit man might have found it difficult to sustain these injuries, that physical and mental distress, without going into deep shock. He died of heart failure, I’m sure of it. The autopsy will confirm that … or not.’

      The Médico Forense finished, flustered by the steadiness of Falcón’s look and annoyed by his own idiocy at the end. He left the frame, which was instantly reoccupied by Calderón and Ramírez.

      ‘Let’s get started,’ said Calderón.

      ‘Who called the emergency services?’ asked Falcón.

      ‘The conserje,’ said Calderón. The concierge. ‘After the maid had …’

      ‘After the maid had let herself in, seen the body, ran out of the apartment, and taken the lift back down to the ground floor …?’

      ‘… and hammered hysterically on the door of the conserje’s flat,’ finished Calderón, irritated by Falcón cutting in. ‘It took him some minutes to get any sense out of her and then he called 091.’

      ‘Did the conserje come up here?’

      ‘Not until the first patrol car arrived and sealed off the crime scene.’

      Was the door open?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And the maid … now?’

      ‘Under sedation in the Hospital de la Virgen de la Macarena.’

      ‘Inspector Ramírez …’

      ‘Yes, Inspector Jefe …’

      All exchanges between Falcón and Ramírez started like this. It was his way of reminding the Inspector Jefe that Falcón had moved down from Madrid and stolen the job that Ramírez had always assumed would be his.

      ‘Ask Sub-Inspector Pérez to go down to the hospital and as soon as the maid … Does she have a name?’

      ‘Dolores Oliva.’

      ‘As soon as she is sensible … he should ask her if she noticed anything strange … Well, you know the questions. And ask her how many times she turned the key in the lock to open the door and what exactly were her movements before she found the body.’

      Ramírez repeated this back to him.

      ‘Have we found Sra Jiménez and the children yet?’ asked Falcón.

      ‘We think they’re in the Hotel Colón.’

      ‘On Calle Bailén?’ asked Falcón, the five-star hotel where all the toreros stayed, only fifty metres from his own … from his late father’s house — a coincidence without being one.

      ‘A car has been sent,’ said Calderón. ‘I’d like to complete the levantamiento del cadaver as soon as possible and get the body down to the Instituto Anatómico Forense before we bring Sra Jiménez up here.’

      Falcón nodded. Calderón left them to it. The two Policía Científica, Felipe in his mid fifties and Jorge in his late twenties, moved in murmuring buenos días. Falcón stared at the TV plug lying on the floor and decided not to mention it. They photographed the room and, between them, began to put together a scenario, while Jorge took Jiménez’s fingerprints and Felipe dusted the TV/video cabinet and the two empty slipcases on top. They agreed on its normal position and the fact that Jiménez would usually have been watching it from a leather scoop chair whose swivel base when lifted revealed a circular mark on the parquet. The killer had incapacitated Jiménez, swivelled the leather chair, which was unsuitable for his purposes, and moved one of the high-backed guest chairs so that he could shift the body in one turning movement. The killer had then secured the wrists to the arms of the chair, stripped the socks off the feet, stuffed them in Jiménez’s mouth and secured the ankles. He then manoeuvred the chair by pivoting it on its legs until he achieved the ideal position.

      ‘His shoes are under here,’ said Jorge, nodding to the footwell of the desk. ‘One pair of ox-blood loafers with tassels.’

      Falcón pointed to a well-worn patch on the parquet in front of the leather scoop. ‘He liked to kick off his shoes and sit in front of the TV rubbing his feet on the wooden floor.’

      ‘While he watched dirty movies,’ said Felipe, dusting one of the slipcases. ‘This one’s called Cara o Culo.’ Face or Arse I.

      ‘The position of the chair?’ asked Jorge. ‘Why move all this furniture around?’

      Javier Falcón walked to the door, turned and held his arms open to the forensics.

      ‘Maximum impact.’

      ‘A real showman,’ said Felipe, nodding. ‘This other slipcase has La Familia Jiménez written on it in red felt-tip and there’s a cassette in the machine with the same title, same handwriting.’

      ‘That doesn’t sound too horrific,’ said Falcón, and they all looked at Raúl Jiménez’s blood-streaked terror before going back to their work.

      ‘He didn’t enjoy the show,’ said Felipe.

      ‘You shouldn’t watch if you can’t take it,’ said Jorge from under the desk.

      ‘I’ve never liked horror,’ said Falcón.

      ‘Me neither,’ said Jorge. ‘I can’t take all that … that …’

      ‘That what?’ asked Falcón, surprised to find himself interested.

      ‘I don’t know … the normality, the portentous normality.’

      ‘We all need a little fear to keep us going,’ said Falcón, looking down his red tie, the sweat tumbling out of his forehead again.

      There was a thump from under the desk as Jorge’s head hit the underside.

      ‘Joder.’ Fuck. ‘You know what this is?’ said Jorge, backing out from under the desk. This is

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