The Hidden Assassins. Robert Thomas Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ way after the reckless madness of the initial downpour. Falcón did some paperwork with his mind elsewhere. He turned away from his computer and stared at the reflection of his office in the dark window. The fluorescent light shivered. Pellets of rain drummed against the glass as if a lunatic wanted to attract his attention. Falcón was surprised at himself. He’d been such a scientific investigator in the past, always keen to get his hands on autopsy reports and forensic evidence. Now he spent more time tuning in to his intuition. He tried to persuade himself that it was experience but sometimes it seemed like laziness. A buzz from his mobile jolted him: a text from his current girlfriend, Laura, inviting him to dinner. He looked down at the screen and found himself unconsciously rubbing the arm which had made contact with Consuelo’s body in the entrance of the café. He hesitated as he reached for the mobile to reply. Why, suddenly, was everything so much more complicated? He’d wait until he got back home.

      The traffic was slow in the rain. The radio news commented on the successful parading of the Virgin of Rocío, which had taken place that day. Falcón crossed the river and joined the metal snake heading north. He sat at the traffic lights and scribbled a note without thinking before filtering right down Calle Reyes Católicos. From there he drove into the maze of streets where he lived in the massive, rambling house he’d inherited six years ago. He parked up between the orange trees that led to the entrance of the house on Calle Bailén but didn’t get out. He was wrestling with his uneasiness again and this time it was to do with Consuelo—what he’d seen in her face that morning. They’d both been startled, but it hadn’t just been shock that had registered in her eyes. It was anguish.

      He got out of the car, opened the smaller door within the brass-studded oak portal and went through to the patio, where the marble flags still glistened from the rain. A blinking light beyond the glass door to his study told him that he had two phone messages. He hit the button and stood in the dark looking out through the cloister at the bronze running boy in the fountain. The voice of his Moroccan friend, Yacoub Diouri, filled the room. He greeted Javier in Arabic and then slipped into perfect Spanish. He was flying to Madrid on his way to Paris next weekend and wondered if they could meet up. Was that coincidence or synchronicity? The only reason he’d met Yacoub Diouri, one of the few men he’d become close to, was because of Consuelo Jiménez. That was the thing about intuition, you began to believe that everything had significance.

      The second message was from Laura, who still wanted to know if he would be coming for dinner that night; it would be just the two of them. He smiled at that. His relationship with Laura was not exclusive. She had other male companions she saw regularly and that had suited him…until now when, for no apparent reason, it was different. Paella and spending the night with Laura suddenly seemed ridiculous.

      He called her and said that he wouldn’t be able to make dinner but that he would drop by for a drink later.

      There was no food in the house. His housekeeper had assumed he would go out for dinner. He hadn’t eaten all day. The body on the dump had interrupted his lunch plans and ruined his appetite. Now he was hungry. He went for a walk. The streets were fresh after the rain and full of people. He didn’t really start thinking where he was going until he found himself heading round the back of the Omnium Sanctorum church. Only then did he admit that he was going to eat at Consuelo’s new restaurant.

      The waiter brought him a menu and he ordered immediately. The pan de casa arrived quickly; thinly sliced ham sitting on a spread of salmorejo on toast. He enjoyed it with a beer. Feeling suddenly bold he took out one of his cards and wrote on the back: I am eating here and wondered if you would join me for a glass of wine. Javier. When the waiter came back with the revuelto de setas, scrambled eggs and mushrooms, he poured a glass of red rioja and Javier gave him the card.

      Later the waiter returned with some tiny lamb chops and topped up his glass of wine.

      ‘She’s not in,’ he said. ‘I’ve left the card on her desk so that she knows you were here.’

      Falcón knew he was lying. It was one of the few advantages of being a detective. He ate the chops feeling privately foolish that he’d believed in the synchronicity of the moment. He sipped at his third glass of wine and ordered coffee. By 10.40 p.m. he was out in the street again. He leaned against the wall opposite the entrance to the restaurant, thinking that he might catch her on the way out.

      As he stood there waiting patiently he covered a lot of ground in his head. It was amazing how little thought he’d given to his inner life since he’d stopped seeing his shrink four years ago.

      And when, an hour later, he gave up his vigil he knew precisely what he was going to do. He was determined to finish his superficial relationship with Laura and, if his world of work would let him, he would devote himself to bringing Consuelo back into his life.

       2

       Seville—Tuesday, 6th June 2006, 02.00 hrs

      Consuelo Jiménez was sitting in the office of her flagship restaurant, in the heart of La Macarena, the old working-class neighbourhood of Seville. She was in a state of heightened anxiety and the three heavy shots of The Macallan, which she’d taken to drinking at this time of night, were doing nothing to alleviate it. Her state had not been improved by bumping into Javier early in the day and it had been made worse by the knowledge that he’d been eating his dinner barely ten metres from where she was now sitting. His card lay on the desk in front of her.

      She was in possession of a terrible clarity about her mental and physical state. She was not somebody who, having fallen into a trough of despair, lost control of her life and plunged unconsciously into an orgy of self-destruction. She was more meticulous than that, more detached. So detached that at times she’d found herself looking down on her own blonde head as the mind beneath stumbled about in the wreckage of her inner life. It was a very strange state to be in: physically in good shape for her age, mentally still very focused on her business, beautifully turned out as always, but…how to put this? She had no words for what was happening inside her. All she had to describe it was an image from a TV documentary on global warming: vital elements of an ancient glacier’s primitive structure had melted in some unusually fierce summer heat and, without warning, a vast tonnage of ice had collapsed in a protracted roar into a lake below. She knew, from the ghastly plummet in her own organs, that she was watching a pre-figurement of what might happen to her unless she did something fast.

      The whisky glass travelled to her mouth and back to the desk, transported by a hand that she did not feel belonged to her. She was grateful for the ethereal sting of the alcohol because it reminded her that she was still sentient. She was playing with a business card, turning it over and over, rubbing the embossed name and profession with her thumb. Her manager knocked and came in.

      ‘We’re finished now,’ he said. ‘We’ll be locking up in five minutes. There’s nothing left to do here…you should go home.’

      ‘That man who was here earlier, one of the waiters said he was outside. Are you sure he’s gone?’

      ‘I’m sure,’ said the manager.

      ‘I’ll let myself out of the side door,’ she said, giving him one of her hard, professional looks.

      He backed off. Consuelo was sorry. He was a good man, who knew when a person needed help and also when that help was unacceptable. What was going on inside Consuelo was too personal to be sorted out in an after-hours chat between proprietor and manager. This wasn’t about unpaid bills or difficult clients. This was about…everything.

      She went back to the card. It belonged СКАЧАТЬ