The Blind Man of Seville. Robert Thomas Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.’

      ‘So you’d probably be working from one of those buildings on Avenida de la Reina Mercedes?’

      He nodded.

      ‘Very close to Heliopolis, where Sra Jiménez is moving to?’

      He shrugged.

      ‘In your faculty would it be easy to get hold of such a chemical as chloroform?’

      ‘Very easy.’

      ‘And saline solution and scalpels and cutting scissors?’

      ‘Of course, there’s a laboratory.’

      ‘You see those figures in the bottom right-hand corner of the picture … what do they say?’

      ‘02.36. 12.04.01.’

      ‘Who were you going to see in the Edificio Presidente at that time?’

      He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezed his eyes shut.

      ‘Can we talk about this in private?’ he asked.

      ‘We’re all interested parties here,’ said Ramírez.

      ‘Twenty-five minutes after you entered that building Raúl Jiménez was murdered,’ said Falcón, who saw now that Lucena, rather than considering him as a persecutor wanted him as a friend. It was the woman he feared.

      ‘I went to the eighth floor,’ said Lucena, throwing his hands up.

      An unexpected answer, which had Ramírez reaching for his notebook.

      ‘The eighth floor?’ said Sra Jiménez.

      ‘Orfilia Trinidad Muñoz Delgado,’ said Ramírez.

      ‘She must be ninety years old,’ said Sra Jiménez.

      ‘Seventy-four,’ said Ramírez. ‘And there’s Marciano Joaquín Ruíz Pizarro.’

      ‘Marciano Ruiz, he’s the theatre director,’ said Falcón.

      Lucena nodded up at him.

      ‘I know him,’ said Falcón. ‘He’s been to see my father, but he’s …’

      ‘Un maricón; said Sra Jiménez, deep-voiced, brutal.

      Ramírez, like some mugging comic actor, took a quick step back, stared down at Lucena. Falcón used his mobile to call Fernández, who told him that there’d been no reply from the Ruíz apartment when he’d called that afternoon.

      ‘He’s СКАЧАТЬ