The Silent and the Damned. Robert Thomas Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ playing in the pool in the late afternoon. The screaming, shouting and indefatigable mutual bombardment arrived heavily muffled through the double glazing. Only the occasional patter of water on the glass reminded them of the severity of the child artillery barrage. Javier nursed another beer. Consuelo was halfway down a glass of tinto de verano, a mix of red wine, ice and Casera. She smoked, clicking her thumbnail. Her foot, as always when distracted, was nodding.

      ‘I see you’ve let Mario join in,’ said Falcón.

      ‘I thought it best to let him lose himself in play for a bit,’ she said. ‘The swimming ban was Rafael’s obsession and there doesn’t seem much point…’

      ‘I can’t remember when I had that kind of energy,’ said Falcón.

      ‘There’s nothing more beautiful than a child, eyes stung with chlorine, lashes spiked, body trembling under towel with hunger and tiredness. It overwhelms me with happiness.’

      ‘You don’t mind me claiming my drink now?’ said Falcón. ‘When I come back with Mario’s aunt…I mean, I’ll have to take her back to her parents’ house, it wouldn’t be the same.’

      ‘As what?’

      ‘As seeing you like this.’

      ‘I have one major advantage over everyone else in this investigation of yours,’ said Consuelo. ‘I know how you work, Inspector Jefe.’

      ‘You did invite me for a drink.’

      ‘We’re all part of your world now,’ she said. ‘Helpless under your merciless observation. How did you get on with the others?’

      ‘I’ve just spent the last hour or so with Pablo Ortega.’

      ‘Performing, as ever,’ said Consuelo. ‘I could never marry an actor. I’m a monogamist and they can make a bed feel very crowded.’

      ‘I wouldn’t know.’

      ‘No actresses before you married that little truth-seeker…What was her name? Inés. Of course…’

      Consuelo stopped.

      ‘Sorry, I should have remembered about Juez Calderón.’

      ‘This is the first time I’ve worked with him since your husband’s murder,’ said Falcón. ‘He told me today that he and Inés were getting married.’

      ‘Doubly insensitive of me,’ said Consuelo. ‘But, my God, that’s going to be quite a truth-seeking union. A juez and a fiscal. Their first born is going to have to become a priest.’

      Falcón grunted out a laugh.

      ‘There’s nothing you can do about it, Javier,’ she said. ‘You might as well laugh.’

      ‘Lighten up,’ said Falcón. ‘That’s what Sra Krugman told me to do.’

      ‘She’s not exactly a comedy show herself.’

      ‘Has she shown you her photographs?’

      ‘So sad,’ said Consuelo, making the face of the unhappy clown. ‘I’ve had all that bullshit up to here.’

      ‘Juez Calderón was rather impressed by them,’ said Falcón.

      ‘By her ass, you mean.’

      ‘Yes, even all the many Pablo Ortegas stepped down off the pedestal of his ego to pant at her.’

      ‘I knew you had it in you,’ said Consuelo.

      ‘I’m angry with Maddy Krugman,’ he said. ‘And I don’t like her.’

      ‘When a man says that it normally means he fancies her.’

      ‘I’ll be joining a long queue.’

      ‘And Juez Calderón will be in front of you.’

      ‘You noticed.’

      A spectacular bomb by one of the children drenched the window. Consuelo went outside and told them to calm down. Falcón was aware of Mario looking at her as if she was a goddess. She came back in. By the time she’d closed the door the madness had restarted.

      ‘It’s a pity that they have to become us,’ she said, looking back to the pool.

      ‘You’re not so bad,’ said Falcón, the crass words out of his mouth so fast he stared bug-eyed at them, like a disgrace on the carpet. ‘I mean, when I said that…I meant you were…’

      ‘Relax, Javier,’ she said. ‘Drink some more beer.’

      Falcón gulped down the Cruzcampo, bit into a fat olive and put the stone in the tray.

      ‘Did Pablo Ortega ever make a pass at you?’ he asked.

      ‘Was that what you were trying to do then?’

      ‘No, that was…that was me thinking something and it coming out.’

      ‘Yes, well…“You’re not so bad,”’ she said, quoting him back. ‘You’ll have to do a lot better than that to improve your sex life. What did Pablo Ortega tell you?’

      ‘How he used his dogs to chat up women.’

      ‘You talked about him panting after Maddy and chatting up women, but I’ve always assumed he was a closet gay, or maybe just not that interested in sex,’ she said. ‘The kids love Pavarotti and Callas, but he’s never made a pass at me, and I imagine you wouldn’t miss a pass from Pablo Ortega when it happened.’

      ‘Why do you think he’s gay?’

      ‘It’s just a feeling that comes off him when he’s with women. He likes them, but he’s not interested in them sexually. It’s not just me. I’ve seen him with Maddy as well. He’s not panting. He’s showing off. He’s reminding everybody that he’s still potent but it’s got nothing to do with sex.’

      ‘He referred to you as a tough bitch,’ said Falcón. ‘I thought it was because you’d turned him down.’

      ‘Well, I am a tough bitch, but I’ve never been one with him. In fact I’ve thought that we always got on very well,’ she said. ‘Since he moved out here he’s been coming round for drinks, playing football with the kids, swimming…’

      ‘It was unmistakably sexual. He said you only smiled when you had a man’s balls in a vice – that sort of thing.’

      Consuelo spurted laughter, but she was annoyed, too.

      ‘I can only think that he believes that this is manly talk and that it would never get back to me,’ said Consuelo. ‘He’s underestimated your capacity for intimacy, Javier. But then I suppose intimacy between a cop and a…whatever. He probably thought he was safe.’

      ‘He knew Raúl, didn’t he?’ said Falcón. ‘I remember seeing him in the photographs behind the desk in your old apartment, СКАЧАТЬ