The Blind Man of Seville

23

Friday, 20th April 2001, Falcón’s House, Calle Bailén, Seville

Clawing through oblivion was hard work. How could sleep be such toil? He surfaced, blathering like an old unvisited fool in a home for those close to the final terminus. His mobile was ringing, scintillating through the bones of his face. His mouth was as dry as bone meal. The phone ceased. He sank back into the felt grave of drugged sleep.

Was it hours later or just minutes? The mobile’s trilling madness seemed to be tunnelling through his sinuses. He burst out of sleep, flailing. He found the light, the phone, the button. He sucked cool water in over the clod of tongue in his mouth.

‘Inspector Jefe?’

‘Did you call earlier?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What is it?’

‘We’ve just had a report of another body.’

‘Another body?’ he said, his brain as thick as wadding.

‘A murder. The same as Raúl Jiménez.’

‘Where?’

‘In El Porvenir.’

‘Address?’

‘Calle de Colombia, number 25.’

‘I know that address,’ he said.

‘The house belongs to Ramón Salgado, Inspector Jefe.’

‘Is he the victim?’

‘We’re not sure yet. We’ve just sent a patrol car out to investigate. The body was spotted by the gardener from outside the house.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Just gone seven.’

‘Don’t call anyone else from the group. I’ll go on my own,’ he said. ‘But you’d better notify Juez Calderón.’

The name knifed through him as he hung up. He showered, head hung, arms weakened by the cruelty of Inés’s words from last night. He nearly sobbed at the thought of facing Calderón. He shaved, turning his face interrogatively in the mirror. It would not be mentioned. Of course it wouldn’t. How could something like that be laid out between two men? It was the end of his relationship with Calderón. ‘Things … that you could never even dream of.’

He put his head under cold water, took an Orfidal, dressed and got into his car. He checked his messages at the first traffic light. There was one timed at 2.45 that morning. He played it back. The message began with some music, which he recognized as Albinoni’s Adagio. Through it he could hear the muffled and desperate squeaking of someone trying to shout or plead through a gag. Furniture knocked against a wooden floor as the music soared, with the violins taking the exquisite pain of loss to new heights. Then a quiet voice:

‘You know what to do.’

A terrible gurgling and rattling sound, that could only have been made by a constricted throat, came through the music. The struggle continued through the adagio’s emotional peaks as the ricocheting furniture became frantic, until there was a crash and an abrupt silence before the violins returned on an even higher note and the message ended.

Horns blared behind him and he took off down by the river to the next red light. He called the Jefatura and asked to be connected to the patrol car. They still didn’t have access to the house but there was confirmation of a body in the middle of the floor of a large room at the back of the house, which gave out on to the verandah and garden. The body was secured to a chair, which was on its side, and there was a lot of blood on the wooden floor. He told them to find the maid or check the neighbours for spare keys.

At the Parque de María Luisa he turned away from the river up Avenida de Eritaña, past a police station and the Guardia Civil, which were no more than a few hundred metres from Ramón Salgado’s house.

There were still no keys by the time he arrived at the house, which gave time for an ambulance to turn up, followed by Calderón and finally Felipe and Jorge from the Policía Científica.

A neighbour found the spare set of keys at 7.20 a.m. and Falcón and Calderón entered the house, both wearing latex gloves. They went in to the large room at the back of the house with books lining the far wall. In the middle was a desk, which consisted of a sheet of three-centimetre-thick glass supported by two squares of black wood. There was an iMac, which was switched on with the ‘desktop’ showing. On the back wall behind the desk were four high-quality reproductions of the Falcón nudes. Between the desk and this wall Ramón Salgado was lying on his side attached to a high, ladder-backed, armless chair. One wrist was trapped underneath him, the other was secured so that the hand ported down the back leg of the chair. One bare ankle was tied to the front leg of the chair and the other was high up in the air with a length of cord looped around the big toe. The cord ran up to a light fitting in the ceiling that consisted of four spotlights attached to a metal strip. Concealed in the metal strip was a small pulley. The cord ran through that and back down to Salgado’s neck, which looked as if it might be broken. The cord was pulled tight so that Salgado’s head, lolling on his neck, did not make contact with the ground. On closer inspection of the pulley they found it had been jammed by a knot in the cord.

‘As soon as the chair went over,’ said Falcón, ‘he was a dead man.’

Calderón stepped around the blood on the floor.

‘What the hell was happening in here before that?’ he asked.

The Médico Forense, the same as for Raúl Jiménez, appeared at the door.

This was the first time Falcón had seen someone he knew murdered. He couldn’t get it out of his head, the last occasion he’d seen Salgado, drinking manzanilla in the Bar Albariza. Now, to see him inanimate, his blood all over the floor, the gross indignity of the manner of his death, he winced with guilt at his dislike of the man. He moved further toward the book-lined wall to be able to look into Salgado’s face. He could see that the cheeks were blood-streaked and stuffed full, gagged by his socks. The collar of his shirt was soaked, heavy with blood. The eyes stared up at Falcón and he flinched. In the coagulating blood on the floor he saw what he’d dreaded: a small flap with fine hairs.

Photographs were taken and Felipe and Jorge began taking samples of blood from every spatter mark on the floor until a path had been cleared for the Médico Forense to kneel by the body. He muttered his comments into his dictaphone — a physical description of Salgado, a catalogue of the injuries sustained and the probable cause of death.

‘… loss of blood due to head injuries caused by the flailing of the victim’s head against the sharp edges and corners of the chair back … eyelids removed … evidence of asphyxiation … possible broken neck … time of death: within the last eight hours …’

Falcón handed Calderón his mobile and played him the message that had been left at 2.45 a.m. Calderón listened and passed it on to the Médico Forense.

‘ “You know what to do”?’ Calderón repeated Sergio’s instruction to Salgado, mystified.

‘This pulley isn’t something installed by the killer,’ said Falcón. ‘It was already there. Somehow Sergio knew that Salgado had a predilection for auto-strangulation. He was telling him how he could end it all by taking his sexual proclivity beyond the limit.’

‘Auto-strangulation?’ asked Calderón.

‘To be on the brink of asphyxiation during a sexual experience intensifies the moment,’ explained Falcón. ‘Unfortunately the practice has its dangers.’

Things … that you could never even dream of, thought Falcón.

A patrolman came to the door. A policeman from the station down the road wanted to speak to Falcón about a break-in he’d investigated in Salgado’s house two weeks ago. Falcón joined the policeman in the hall and asked where the entry point had been.

‘That was the strange thing, Inspector Jefe, there was no evidence of a break-in and Sr Salgado said that nothing had been stolen. He just knew that somebody had been in his house. He was convinced that they’d spent the weekend here.’

‘Why?’

‘He couldn’t tell me.’

‘Does the maid come in at the weekends?’

‘No, never. And the gardener only comes at weekends during the summer to water the plants. Sr Salgado liked his privacy when he was at home.’

‘He’s away a lot?’

‘That’s what he told me.’

‘Did you check the house?’

‘Of course. He followed me around.’

‘Any weak points?’

‘Not on the ground floor, but there’s a room at the top of the house with its own roof terrace and the lock on that door was almost useless.’

‘What about access?’

‘Once you were up on the garage roof almost anybody could have made it up there,’ said the policeman. ‘I told him to change the lock, put a bolt on the door … They never do …’

Falcón went up to the top of the house. The policeman confirmed that the door and lock were the same. The key had come out of the lock and was lying on the floor. The door rattled in its frame.

In Salgado’s study the medical examination was over and Felipe and Jorge were back on the floor taking blood samples. Falcón called Ramírez, filled him in, and told him to bring Fernández, Serrano and Baena down to El Porvenir. There was a lot of work to do just interviewing the neighbours before they left for work.

‘There’s an icon on the computer desktop,’ said Calderón. ‘It’s called Familia Salgado and there’s a card under the keyboard with “Sight Lesson No.3” written on it.’

It was after midday by the time Calderón signed off the levantamiento del cadáver. It had taken Felipe and Jorge hours to take samples of each individual blood spatter in case one of them belonged to the killer. Salgado was removed, the crime scene cleaners disinfected the room. The chair was bubblewrapped and taken down to the police laboratory. It was 12.45 by the time Falcón, Ramírez and Calderón could sit in front of the iMac and watch Familia Salgado.

The film started with repeated takes of Salgado coming out of his house with his briefcase and getting into a taxi. These were followed by repeated takes of Salgado getting out of the taxi on the Plaza Nueva and walking down Calle Zaragoza to his gallery. There followed a succession of cuts — Salgado in a café, Salgado in a restaurant, Salgado outside the Bar La Company, Salgado window shopping, Salgado in the Corte Inglés.

‘Yes, so … what’s his point?’ asked Ramírez.

‘The man spends a lot of time on his own,’ said Calderón.

The next scene showed Salgado arriving at the door to a house. It was a classic Sevillana door of varnished wood with ornate brass studs. He arrived again and again at this house, which had a very distinctive terracotta façade, with the doorframe and friezes picked out in a creamy yellow colour.

‘Do we know where this house is?’ asked Calderón.

‘Yes, we do,’ said Falcón. ‘It’s my house … my late father’s house. Salgado was my father’s agent.’

‘If your father is dead,’ said Calderón, stopping the film, ‘why was Salgado …?’

‘He was always trying to get access to my father’s old studio. He had his reasons, which he never told me.’

‘Were you ever in when he called?’ asked Ramírez.

‘Sometimes. I never answered the door. I didn’t like Ramón Salgado. He bored me and I avoided him whenever possible.’

Calderón restarted the movie. Salgado appeared at the intersection of a street. Above his head was a sign to the Hotel París and Falcón knew that he was standing on Calle Bailén looking in the direction of the house. Salgado set off. The camera followed him as he weaved through people bustling in the streets. Salgado was following somebody else. It was only as they came up to Marqués de Paradas that they could see that he was pursuing Falcón himself. They watched him go into the Café San Bernardo, which had an entrance on Calle Julio César. Salgado took the entrance on Marqués de Paradas and a ‘chance’ meeting ensued. The camera even came into the café, sat down and watched them talking at the bar. The barman set down a café solo for Falcón and a larger cup and saucer for Salgado. He returned with a steel jug of hot milk. Falcón recoiled as it was poured into Salgado’s cup.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Ramírez. ‘Did he say something to you?’

‘He’s always asking the same thing. “Can I just have a look in your father’s …”’

‘But why did you step back as if …?’

‘That’s nothing, I just don’t like milk. It’s an allergy or something.’

‘Now we’re at the cemetery,’ said Calderón.

‘This is the Jiménez funeral,’ said Ramírez. ‘That’s me by the cypress filming the mourners.’

The film showed Falcón and Salgado in conversation and then it stopped abruptly. Calderón sat back.

‘Sergio seems to think that you are Salgado’s only family, Inspector Jefe,’ said Calderón.

‘Salgado had a sister,’ said Falcón. ‘He’d just installed her in a home in Madrid.’

‘Was there anything different about that last meeting after the funeral?’ asked Calderón.

‘He offered me information on Raúl Jiménez in exchange for access to the studio. He also said he didn’t want anything from the studio but just to spend some time in there. I’d always thought he wanted to put on a final Francisco Falcón show, but he insisted that that was not the case. He made it sound as if it was something nostalgic’

‘What sort of information?’

‘He knew Raúl Jiménez and his wife. He implied that he knew who the man’s enemies were. He said that he picked up privileged information from the moneyed clients who frequented his gallery. He implied that he could point me in the right direction, towards people who had trusted Raúl Jiménez and been let down by him. We also covered such topics as the cleaning of black pesetas before the new euro currency comes in, how the restaurant business created black pesetas and how property and art were good havens for them. He was making everything sound full of promise, but I know Ramón Salgado …’

‘And you have no idea what he wanted from your father’s studio?’ asked Calderón.

‘Possibly there’s a skeleton buried in all that paper,’ said Falcón, ‘but I doubt I will ever find it.’

‘How well did Salgado know Consuelo Jiménez?’

‘I know for certain that he introduced her to my father and that she bought paintings from him on three occasions. I am also convinced that Consuelo Jiménez knew Ramón Salgado from the Madrid art world and that it might even have been Salgado who introduced her to Raúl Jiménez at the Feria de Abril in 1989. She has not been clear about her relationship with Ramón Salgado from the beginning. This could be just her protecting her privacy — she really does not like our intrusions — or it could be that Salgado did know things about Raúl Jiménez and she wanted to keep us away from him. She referred to “a friend of her husband’s from the Tangier days”, who I am sure is Salgado. This would mean that the two men had known each other for over forty years.’

There’s a motive in there somewhere, isn’t there?’ said Calderón.

‘She’s had Salgado done as well,’ said Ramírez. ‘I’m sure of it.’

‘Let’s not jump to conclusions yet, Inspector,’ said Calderón. ‘It’s something worth pursuing, that’s all. We should look at this sight lesson now.’

Ramírez took the card out of the evidence bag. There were two names written on the reverse side. Francisco Falcón and H. Bosch.

‘The card was tucked under the keyboard of the computer,’ said Falcón. ‘They could be access codes to files.’

Calderón double-clicked on the hard-disk icon and a box appeared demanding an access code. He typed in Francisco Falcón. The hard disk opened up to reveal twenty folders with nothing unusual about their names — Letters, Clients, Accounts, Expenses … They clicked them all open but only ‘Drawings’ demanded another access code. They typed in H. Bosch and it opened up another series of files. Calderón opened a file at random. It contained hundreds of photographs, each initialled and dated.

‘I hope we don’t have to go through Salgado’s entire collection of drawings to find what Sergio wants us to find,’ said Calderón.

Falcón scrolled down the list to the bottom.

‘Those last five are movies,’ said Calderón.

‘Maybe the photographs aren’t so innocent,’ said Ramírez.

‘They could be for insurance purposes,’ said Falcón.

Ramírez grabbed the mouse and double-clicked on the movie icon. The men flinched at the opening image of the movie which was framed by a small screen. It was of a boy tied face down on an old-fashioned leather gym horse. His face although slack and glazed over from drugs, still showed the worm of fear.

‘We don’t need to see any more of this,’ said Falcón.

‘Check one of the photographs,’ said Calderón. ‘All these files could be disguised.’

Ramírez opened one up. They all flinched again and gasped in disgust. That was enough for them and they shut the computer down.

‘We’d better let Vice take a look at this,’ said Falcón.

‘And where does this take us?’ said Calderón. ‘Why did Sergio draw our attention to that?’

‘It was a sight lesson,’ said Falcón. ‘He was just showing us the true nature of the man. If before you thought that Ramón Salgado was an elderly, lonely, wealthy, well-connected, respectable director of a prestigious gallery in Seville, then now you think differently.’

‘I think it’s a blind alley,’ said Ramírez. ‘It’s just another way to send us off on the wrong track. It’s no coincidence that Sra Jiménez is intimately connected to both victims.’

‘There was a third victim as well,’ said Falcón.

‘You know what I mean, Inspector Jefe,’ said Ramírez. ‘The puta was an unfortunate casualty and another way to confuse our investigation as well as use up our time. Consuelo Jiménez had all the information to set up her husband and, by the sound of it, Ramón Salgado, too. I still think we should take her down to the Jefatura and put her under some real pressure.’

‘Before we even think about bringing her in for questioning I would suggest that we search this house from top to bottom and send a team round to the gallery on Calle Zaragoza,’ said Falcón. ‘To take her on you need ammunition.’

‘And what are we looking for, Inspector Jefe?’ asked Ramírez.

‘We’re looking for an ugly connection between Consuelo Jiménez and Ramón Salgado,’ said Falcón. ‘So, leave Fernández interviewing the neighbours here and take Serrano and Baena with you up to the top of the house and start working your way down behind Felipe and Jorge.’

Ramírez left the room. Falcón closed the door behind him, went back to Calderón sitting at the desk.

‘I wanted to talk to you in private for a moment,’ said Falcón.

‘Look, er … Don Jav—, Inspector Jefe,’ said Calderón, unprepared for this moment, the private and the official clashing in his mind. ‘I don’t know what happened last night. I don’t know what Inés said to you. I know, of course, that you … but she told me that it was finished, that you were divorced. I think you have to … I don’t know … I mean … What were you doing there last night?’

Falcón was rooted to the spot. The morning had been so full that he hadn’t even thought about Inés. What he’d wanted to talk about in private was MCA Consultores S.A. and nothing to do with his private life. He stared into the floor, desperate for a time collapse that would bring him round a week later on another case with a different judge. It didn’t come and he found himself in one of those titanic struggles of the sort he watched suspects go through on their way to confession. He wanted to say something. He wanted to somehow address the complexity of his recent experience, to show that he, like Calderón, was capable of overcoming this embarrassing situation, but all he came up against was an immense entanglement. Falcón sensed himself in retreat. He fingered the buttons on his jacket as if to make sure they were well fastened.

‘It had not been my intention to talk about that at this juncture,’ he said, appalled at the pomposity and restraint in his words. ‘My only concerns are professional.’

He hated himself instantly and Calderón’s dislike of him hit him like a bad stink. He’d been given a civilized opportunity to come to an understanding and he’d shown it the cold heel of one of his laced-up shoes and now it was irretrievable.

‘What was it that you had on your mind, Inspector Jefe?’ said Calderón, crossing his legs with glacial calm.

Everything had gone to ashes in that instant. Falcón had failed on the human level with Calderón and it had tarnished his professional credibility. He sensed that there would be resistance to his ideas and perhaps worse: the man’s antipathy would turn against him. Calderón would never be an ally and any ideas that Falcón put to him might be furnishing an enemy with the means to destroy him. But he couldn’t help himself and he realized that it wasn’t his professionalism that made him tell Calderón about MCA Consultores S.A., it was his failure. It was because of the ridiculous and illogical thought that the young judge might now be able to agree with Inés and say: ‘Yes, Javier Falcón has got no heart.’