The Blind Man of Seville. Robert Thomas Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ is an investigation into your husband’s murder,’ he said flatly.

      ‘It’s relevant.’

      ‘I was married,’ he said.

      She smoked and counted her fingers with her thumb.

      ‘You didn’t need to tell me that,’ she said. ‘You could have left it at “Yes”.’

      ‘These are games we should not be playing,’ he said. ‘Every hour that goes past takes us an hour away from your husband’s death. These hours are important. They count more than the hours, say, in three or four days’ time.’

      ‘You’ve separated from your wife?’ she said.

      ‘Doña Consuelo …’

      ‘I’ll be quick,’ she said, and batted the smoke away from between them.

      ‘We are separated.’

      ‘After how long?’

      ‘Eighteen months.’

      ‘How did you meet her?’

      ‘She’s a public prosecutor. I met her at the Palacio de Justicia.’

      ‘So, a union of truth hunters,’ she said, and Falcón searched her for irony.

      ‘We are not making progress, Doña Consuelo.’

      ‘I think we are.’

      ‘I might be satisfying your curiosity …’

      ‘It’s more than curiosity.’

      ‘You are reversing the procedure. It is I who have to find out about you.’

      ‘To see whether I killed my husband,’ she said. ‘Or had him killed.’

      Silence.

      ‘You see, Inspector Jefe, you’re going to find out everything about us, you’re going to dig into our lives. You’re going to strip down my husband’s business affairs, you’re going to probe his private life, uncover his little uglinesses — his blue movies, his cheap whores, his cheap … cheap cigarettes.’

      She leaned over and picked up the pack of Celtas and threw them across the desk so that they skidded into Falcón’s lap.

      ‘And you won’t let me alone. I’ll be your prime suspect. You saw that horrible thing,’ she said, waving at the television behind her.

      ‘Number 17 Calle Río de la Plata?’

      ‘Exactly. My lover, Inspector Jefe. You’ll be talking to him too, no doubt.’

      ‘What’s his name?’ he asked, getting out his pen and notebook for the first time, down to business at last.

      ‘He is the third son of the Marqués de Palmera. His name is Basilio Tomás Lucena.’

      Did he detect pride in that? He wrote it down.

      ‘How old is he?’

      ‘Thirty-six, Inspector Jefe,’ she said. ‘You’ve started before I’ve finished.’

      ‘This is progress.’

      ‘Did she meet somebody else?’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘The public prosecutor.’

      ‘This isn’t …’

      ‘Did she?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘That’s hard,’ she said. ‘I think that’s harder.’

      ‘What?’ he asked, instantly annoyed with himself for snatching at her bait.

      ‘To be dumped because she would rather be alone.’

      That slid into him like a white-hot needle. His head came up slowly.

      Sra Jiménez looked around the room as if it was her first time in it.

      ‘Were you aware that your husband was taking Viagra?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Did his doctor know?’

      ‘I imagine so.’

      ‘You must have been aware of the risks for a man in his seventies.’

      ‘He was as strong as a bull.’

      ‘He’d lost weight.’

      ‘Doctor’s orders. Cholesterol.’

      ‘He must have been very disciplined.’

      ‘I was disciplined for him, Inspector Jefe.’

      ‘I should have thought as a restaurateur, with all that food around …’

      ‘I hire and run all the staff in the restaurants,’ she said. ‘They were threatened with the sack if they gave him so much as a crumb.’

      ‘Did you lose many?’

      ‘They are Sevillanos, Inspector Jefe, who, as you probably know, rarely take anything seriously. We lost three before they understood.’

      ‘I’m a Sevillano.’

      ‘Then you must have been abroad for a long time to learn your … gravity.’

      ‘I was in Barcelona for twelve years and four years each in Zaragoza and Madrid before I arrived back here.’

      ‘It sounds as if you’ve been demoted.’

      ‘My father was ill. I asked to be transferred to be close to him.’

      ‘Did he recover?’

      ‘No. He didn’t make it to the new millennium.’

      ‘We have met before, Inspector Jefe,’ she said, stubbing out the cigarette.

      ‘Then I don’t remember.’

      ‘At your father’s funeral,’ she said. ‘We are talking about Francisco Falcón.’

      ‘You couldn’t believe it before,’ he said, thinking: Let’s see how this changes your tune.

      ‘Was that who you were looking for in the photographs?’ she asked, and he nodded. ‘You wouldn’t find him there. He was not Raúl’s kind of celebrity. He never came to any of the restaurants. I doubt they knew each other. I went to the funeral because I knew him. I own three of his paintings.’

      He СКАЧАТЬ