The Ignorance of Blood. Robert Thomas Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ made her slim, strong legs look even longer. Falcón was glad he'd taken the time to shower and change. He walked through the crowd towards her and she didn't see him until he was on her.

      They kissed. He tasted her peachy lipstick, put his hands around her slim waist, felt her contours fitting into his. He inhaled her smell, felt the sharp prick of her diamond-stud earring in his cheek as his lips found her neck.

      ‘Are you all right?’ she said, running a hand up the back of his head so that electricity earthed through his heels.

      ‘More than all right now,’ he said, as her hands travelled the outline of his shoulders and his blood went live. Her thigh slipped between his legs. His stomach leapt, cock stirred, perfume shunted into his head and he became human for the first time that day.

      They parted, feeling the eyes of the people around them.

      ‘I'll get a beer,’ he said.

      ‘I've booked us a table across the road,’ she said.

      The bar was heaving and noisier than the trading floor of a metal exchange. He fought his way in. He knew the owner, who was serving. A guy he didn't immediately recognize grabbed him around the shoulders. ‘Hola, Javier. Que tal?’ The owner handed him a beer, refused payment. Two women kissed him on his way through. He was sure he knew one of them. He squeezed back out into the street.

      ‘I didn't know you were going to Madrid today,’ said Consuelo.

      She knew Yacoub, but not that he was Falcón's spy.

      ‘I had a meeting with another cop about all that stuff in June,’ said Falcón, keeping it vague, but still stumbling around in the memory of his meeting with Yacoub, Marisa, that second phone call.

      ‘You were looking as if you'd had a hard day.’

      He took out his mobile, turned it off.

      ‘That helps,’ he said, sipping his beer. ‘How about you?’

      ‘I had some interesting conversations with a couple of estate agents and I had a session with Alicia.’

      ‘How's that going?’

      ‘I'm nearly sane,’ she said, smiling, blue eyes widening hysterically. ‘Only another year to go.’

      They laughed.

      ‘I saw Esteban Calderón today.’

      ‘I'm not as nuts as he is,’ said Consuelo.

      ‘The prison governor called me on the way up to Madrid to say he'd put in a request to see Alicia.’

      ‘I don't know if even she could sort out his madness,’ said Consuelo.

      ‘That was the first time I'd seen him since it happened,’ said Falcón. ‘He didn't look good.’

      ‘If what he's got in his mind has started to come out in his face, he should be looking terrible,’ she said.

      ‘Are you moving?’ he asked.

      ‘Moving?’

      ‘The estate agents,’ said Falcón. ‘You're not bored of Santa Clara already?’

      ‘My business expansion plans.’

      ‘Seville not big enough for all your ideas?’

      ‘Maybe not, but how about Madrid or Valencia? What do you think?’

      ‘Will you still talk to me when you've been photographed by Hola?’ he said. ‘Consuelo Jiménez in her glorious home, surrounded by her beautiful children.’

      ‘And my lover … the cop?’ she said, looking at him sadly. ‘I might have to let you go unless you learn how to sail a yacht.’

      That was the first time she'd called him her lover and she knew it. He finished his beer, took her empty glass and put them on a ledge. She took his arm and they walked across the square to the restaurant.

      They knew her in the restaurant, which despite its Arabic name had a neo-classical feel to it – all pillars and marble and strong white nappery, with no such thing as a round plate. The chef came out to greet her and two glasses of cava, on the house, arrived at their table. There was a lull in the restaurant hubbub as the other diners looked at them, recognized their faces from distant scandalous news stories; moments later they were forgotten and the cacophony resumed. Consuelo ordered for both of them. He liked it when she took over. They drank the cava. He wished they were at home and he could lean over and kiss her throat. They talked about the future, which was a good sign.

      The starter arrived. Three tapas on an oblong plate: a tiny filo pastry money bag containing soft goat's cheese, a crisp toast of duck liver set in sticky sweet quince jam, and a shot-glass of white garlic and almond soup with an orb of melon ice cream floating at the top and flakes of wind-dried tuna nestling in the bottom. Each one went off in his mouth like a firecracker.

      ‘This is oral sex,’ said Consuelo.

      Plates were removed with their empty flutes. A bottle of 2004 Pesquera from the Ribeiro del Duero was opened, decanted and glasses filled with the dark red wine. They talked about the impossibility of going back to live in Madrid after the lotus life of Seville.

      She'd ordered him duck breast, which was presented in a fan with a mound of couscous. Consuelo had the sea bass with crisp silver skin in a delicate white sauce. He felt her calf rub against his and they decided to forgo the dessert and get a taxi instead.

      They practically lay down in the back and he kissed her neck as the street lights flashed overhead and the young people outside made their moves from the bars to the clubs. The lights were still on at her neighbour's house and the daughter let them in. Falcón lifted Darío from the bed. He was fast asleep.

      As they walked across to Consuelo's house the boy came awake.

      ‘Hola, Javi,’ he said sleepily and thumped his blond head into Falcón's chest and left it there, as if he was listening to his heart. The trust nearly broke Falcón apart. They went upstairs where he poured the boy into his bed. Darío's eyelids fluttered against the weight of sleep.

      ‘Football tomorrow,’ he murmured. ‘You promised.’

      ‘Penalty shoot-out,’ said Falcón, pulling up the bedclothes, kissing him on the forehead.

      ‘Goodnight, Javi.’

      Falcón stood at the door while Consuelo knelt and kissed her son goodnight, stroked his head; he felt the complicated pang of being a parent, or of never having been one.

      They went downstairs. She poured a whisky for Falcón, made herself a gin and tonic. He could see her properly now for the first time that night. Those slim, muscular legs, a subtle line running down her calf. He found himself wanting to kiss the backs of her knees.

      There had been a difference in her touch tonight. It wasn't as if they hadn't made love since they'd got back together after the Seville bombing. She hadn't been restrained in that department, although, what with the summer holiday and the kids being around, there hadn't been much opportunity. СКАЧАТЬ