The Blind Man of Seville. Robert Thomas Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ illogical muddling so his fascination grew and it occurred to him briefly that he might just be getting old.

      The yacht photographs, which were just shots of Raúl Jiménez’s new toy, didn’t interest him until he came to one of the harbour full of boats and people partying on the decks. Jiménez and his wife and children were in the foreground. They looked happy. His wife was waving with the two kids over her knees giggling. Falcón shifted the magnifying glass up and along through the other boats lined up behind Jiménez’s. He stopped, slid back to a couple on the deck and dismissed the likeness. He carried on and then returned to the couple and realized why he’d dismissed them. It was his father and he was leaning on the ship’s rail of a yacht, much larger than Raúl’s. He was with a woman whose face he could not see properly but who had blonde hair. They were kissing. It was a quick, private moment that the Jiménez photographer had inadvertently caught. He checked the back. Tangier, August 1958. Pilar, his mother, would still have been alive. He looked at the blonde woman more closely and was stunned to find that it was Mercedes, his father’s second wife. He felt nauseous and pushed the magnifying glass away. He pressed his palms into his eyes. That’s what happened when you went off on a tangent … you came across unexpected truths. It was the whole reason he did it.

      The phone rang — his sister on a mobile in a packed bar.

      ‘I knew I’d find you at home if you weren’t at work,’ said Manuela. ‘What are you doing, little brother?’

      ‘I’m looking through some old photographs.’

      ‘Hey! Come on, grandpa, you’ve got to learn to live a little. We’re here in La Tienda for the next half-hour, come and have a cervecita with us. Then we’re going to dinner at El Cairo. You can come there too, if you bring your walking stick.’

      ‘I’ll join you for the cervecita.’

      ‘You do that, little brother. And one thing. One very important condition … ‘

      ‘Yes, Manuela?’

      ‘You’re not allowed to say the word “Inés”. OK?’

      She hung up. He shook his head at the dead phone. Manuela’s bad psychology. He put on his jacket, straightened his tie, checked his pockets and found Raúl Jiménez’s son’s address and telephone number. It was Viernes Santo tomorrow. The holiday. He tried the number just on the off chance. José Manuel Jiménez picked up the phone. Falcón introduced himself and offered his condolences.

      ‘I’ve already been informed,’ he said, about to put down the phone.

      ‘I just wanted to talk to you about —’

      ‘I can’t speak to you now.’

      ‘Perhaps we could meet tomorrow … for a short talk. It would be important for background detail.’

      ‘I really don’t see …’

      ‘I would come to Madrid, of course.’

      ‘There’s nothing to be said. I haven’t seen my father in years.’

      That’s the point. I’m not interested in now.’

      There’s really nothing.’

      Think about it overnight. I’ll call again in the morning. It won’t take long and it would be a great help.’

      Jiménez stammered and hung up. Falcón knew the man was a lawyer but he hadn’t come across as one; too uncertain and unconfident. He turned off the lamp and went out on to the patio. He breathed in the cool night air and the near silence, as the workings of the city arrived at a faint roar in this dark and hollow centre of the house. He stretched, opened his chest and arms, and saw among the arches of the gallery above the patio what Eloisa Gómez would have called, ‘the shadows move’. He sprinted up the stairs, digging in his pocket for the key to open the wrought-iron barred door at the top. He strode the length of the gallery to the next wrought-iron door, which led to another stretch of arches outside his father’s old studio. It was empty. He moved back to the arch where he thought he’d seen the movement and looked down into the patio. The water in the fountain, flat and black as a pupil, stared up to the sky. Just tired, he thought, and squeezed his eyes shut.

      He left the house, stepped out through a small door cut into the massive wooden-and-brass riveted gates, which were the entrance to his oversized home on Calle Bailén. Too big for him, he knew it, and too grand for his position, but each time he thought of selling it he quickly foundered on what it would entail. First of all, he would have to do what he should have done as instructed by his father’s will — clear out the studio and incinerate everything. Burn the lot, right down to the last rough sketch. He couldn’t do it. He hadn’t done it. He hadn’t even been back into the studio since his father died nearly two years ago. He hadn’t even unlocked that last wrought-iron door in the gallery.

      His father’s lawyer had died three months after the reading of the will, and Paco and Manuela didn’t give a damn. They were too engrossed in their own inheritance — Paco’s bull-breeding finca at Las Cortecillas on the way up to the Sierra de Aracena and Manuela’s holiday villa in El Puerto de Santa María. They hadn’t had the same relationship with their father that he’d had. He’d spoken to him almost every day since the first heart attack and, once he’d started working in Seville, if they didn’t go out for lunch on Sunday they would at least meet for a fino just to get him out of the house. They’d nearly recaptured that same level of intimacy as when he’d been a boy in the early 1970s. He was the only child left after Manuela had decamped to Madrid to study veterinary science and Paco was installing himself on the farm after his recovery from a severe goring in the leg which he’d suffered as a novillero in La Maestranza bullring in Seville. The injury had ended any hope of a career as a torero.

      Falcón headed down the narrow, cobbled street canyons to the bar on Calle Gravina. It was a converted mercería, still with the old scales on the counter. People were spilling out on to the street with their beers. Manuela was with her boyfriend deep in the crowd. Falcón squeezed through. Men he barely knew gave him un abrazo as he went past, strange women kissed him — Manuela’s friends. His sister kissed him and hugged him to her gym-worked body. Alejandro, her boyfriend, whom she’d met on the rowing machines at the club, handed Javier a beer.

      ‘My little brother,’ she said, as she’d always said since they were small, ‘you look tired. More dead bodies?’

      ‘Only one.’

      ‘Not another gruesome drug slaying?’ she said, lighting one of her foul menthol cigarettes, which she thought were better for her.

      ‘Gruesome, yes, but not drugs this time. More complicated.’

      ‘I don’t know how you do it.’

      ‘There can’t be many of your friends who could imagine that someone as beautiful and sophisticated as Manuela Falcón could have been up to her shoulder dragging out stillborn calves.’

      ‘Oh, I don’t do that any more.’

      ‘I can’t see you cutting poodles’ toenails.’

      ‘You must talk to Paco,’ she said, ignoring him. ‘He’s very stressed, you know.’

      ‘The Feria’s his busiest time of year.’

      ‘No, no, not СКАЧАТЬ