The Blind Man of Seville

6

Thursday, 12th April 2001, Calle Boteros, Seville

The paso veered away. The high Virgin’s pitiful eyes moved off, fell on others. The crush slackened. The final blast of the trumpets ricocheted off the balconies. The drums beat out to silence. The costaleros lowered the float from their shoulders. The crowd clapped at their feat of engineering. The procession of nazareños in their high-pointed hats put down their crosses, rested their candles. Falcón held on to the handle at the back of an old woman’s wheelchair, a hand on his knee. The old woman was waving at one of the nazareños, who’d lifted the flap of his hood. He smiled, revealing the normal human being beneath, nothing more sinister than a bespectacled accountant.

Falcón loosened his tie, wiped cold sweat from his face. He pushed through the edge of the crowd, staggered through the files of nazareños. The people on the other side parted for him. He found some pavement and bent his head to his knees, felt the blood thump back up his cerebral cortex, refresh his brain.

Haven’t eaten all day, he was thinking, but he knew that wasn’t it. He looked back at the paso, the Virgin staring off down the street, unconcerned with him now. Except, this was it … she had been. For that moment, for that fraction of a second, she’d got inside him, filled him out. It had been an experience he could nearly remember having had before, but he couldn’t quite get to the memory of it. It was too distant.

He found the office above the Jiménez restaurant, picked up the print-out and drank a glass of water. He left the old city, avoiding all processions. He drove down to the river and crossed over to the Plaza de Cuba feeling empty and hungry. He stopped at a bar on República Argentina and bought a bocadillo de chorizo, which he ate too quickly so that it stuck in his chest, the crust as hard-edged as the pain of loss, which was odd because he hadn’t lost anyone since his father died two years ago.

The Jefatura was on the intersection of Calle Blas Infante and Calle López de Gomara. He parked at the back of the building and made his way up the two short flights of stairs to his office, which had a view over the ordered ranks of cars. His office was spartan with not one personal item in it. There were two chairs, a metal desk and some grey filing cabinets. The light came from a neon strip above his head. He did not hold with distractions at work.

There were thirty-eight messages for him and five were from his immediate superior Jefe de Brigada de Policía Judicial, Comisario Andrés Lobo, who was no doubt reacting to pressure from his boss Comisario Firmin León, whose relationship with Raúl Jiménez Falcón had noted from the photographs. He went straight to the interrogation rooms, where Ramírez was standing over Basilio Lucena, holding his fist as if he wanted to punch him. He called Ramírez out, briefed him on the interrogation strategy for the girl and told him to send Pérez down. He went in to see Lucena who looked up and went straight back to writing his statement.

‘What you said to Inspector Ramírez back there …’ Falcón started, the nastiness of that line still bothering him.

‘Any student will tell you that lecturers react very badly to morons.’

‘Was that all it was?’

‘I’m surprised you’re concerned, Inspector Jefe.’

He was, too, and wondered if he was making a fool of himself.

‘I doubt my mother was ever as good in bed as Consuelo, if that’s what you were wondering,’ said Lucena.

‘You’re a confusing man, Sr Lucena.’

‘In a confused age,’ he said, waggling his pen at Falcón.

‘How long had you been seeing Sra Jiménez?’

‘A year or so,’ he said. ‘That was the first time I’d been back to the Edificio Presidente since we met … Such is my luck.’

‘And Marciano Ruíz?’

‘You’re as curious as the Inspector, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘I’m easily bored, Don Javier. Marciano and I see each other when my ennui peaks.’

Pérez came in, told Falcón which room the prostitute was in and took over.

The girl was sitting at a table smoking while she stacked and unstacked two packs of Fortuna. Her hair was cropped unevenly on her head as if she’d done the job herself without a mirror. She stared at the dead TV screen straight ahead of her, blue eyeshadow, pink mouth. A blonde wig hung off the back of an unused chair. She wore a tartan miniskirt, a white blouse and black boots. She was tiny and still looked of school age, but the depravity she’d seen on her extended truant was worn into her dark brown eyes.

Ramírez turned on the tape, introduced her as Eloisa Gómez and announced himself and Falcón.

‘Do you know why you’re here?’ asked Falcón.

‘Not yet. They said it was a few questions, but I know you guys. I’ve been here before … I know your games.’

‘We’re different to the usual guys,’ said Ramírez.

‘That’s right,’ she said, ‘you are. Who are you?’

Falcón shook his head a fraction at Ramírez.

‘You were with a client last night …’ said Falcón.

‘I was with lots of clients last night. It’s Semana Santa,’ she said. ‘It’s our busiest time of the year.’

‘Busier than the Feria?’ asked Ramírez, mildly surprised.

‘Without a doubt,’ she said, ‘especially the last few days when everybody comes from out of town.’

‘One of your clients was Raúl Jiménez. You went to see him last night in his apartment in the Edificio Presidente.’

‘I knew him as Rafael. Don Rafael.’

‘You’d met him before?’

‘He’s a regular.’

‘In his apartment?’

‘Last night was maybe the third or fourth time in his apartment. Normally it’s the back of his car.’

‘So how did it work this time?’ asked Ramírez.

‘He called the mobile. My group of girls bought three mobiles last year.’

‘What time?’

‘I didn’t take the call. I was with someone else … but it must have been midnight. The first time.’

‘The first time?’

‘He only wanted to speak to me, so he called again around twelve-fifteen. He asked me to come to his apartment. I told him I was making a lot of money on the plaza and he asked me how much I wanted. I told him one hundred thousand.’

Ramírez roared with laughter.

‘That’s Semana Santa for you,’ he said. ‘The prices are ridiculous.’

The girl laughed too, relaxed a notch.

‘Don’t tell me he paid that,’ said Ramírez.

‘We settled on fifty.’

‘Joder.’

‘How did you get there?’ asked Falcón, trying to settle it down again.

‘Taxi,’ she said, lighting up a Fortuna.

‘What time did it drop you off?’

‘Just after half past twelve.’

‘Anybody around?’

‘Not that I saw.’

‘What about in the building?’

‘I didn’t even see the conserje, which I was glad about. There was no one in the lift or on the landing and he let me in before I rang the bell, as if he’d been watching me through the spy hole.’

‘You didn’t hear him unlock the door?’

‘He just opened it.’

‘Did he lock it once you were inside?’

‘Yes. I didn’t like that, but he left the keys in the door so I didn’t protest.’

‘What did you notice about the apartment?’

‘It was almost empty. He told me he was moving. I asked him where and he didn’t answer. Other things on his mind.’

‘Talk us through it,’ said Ramírez.

She grinned, shook her head as if men the world over were all the same.

‘I followed him up the corridor into his study. There was a TV on in the corner with an old movie playing. He took a video out of the desk and loaded it into the machine. He asked me to wear a thick blue skirt which came down to my knees and a blue jumper over my blouse. He told me to tie my hair in bunches. I was wearing a long black wig,’ she said. ‘He preferred brunettes.’

‘Did you see him take a pill?’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t notice anything strange apart from the place being empty?’

‘Like what?’

‘Anything that made you feel nervous?’

She thought about it, wanting to help. She held up a finger. They leaned forward.

‘He wasn’t wearing any shoes,’ she said, ‘but that didn’t exactly make me panic.’

They slumped back in their chairs.

‘Hey! It’s your fault. You’re making me see things where there’s nothing.’

‘Keep going,’ said Ramírez.

‘I asked him for my money. He gave me some five thousand notes which I counted. He picked up the remote and a porno movie started up on the TV. He took off his trousers. I mean he dropped his trousers and stepped out of them. And we got down to it.’

‘What about the windows?’ asked Ramírez.

‘What about them?’

‘You were facing the windows.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He assumes you were facing the windows,’ said Falcón.

‘The curtains were drawn,’ she said, suspicious now.

‘So you had sex with him,’ said Ramírez. ‘How long did it last?’

‘Longer than I expected.’

‘Is that why you turned round?’ asked Ramírez.

The brown eyes hardened in her head. These were not the usual games.

‘Who are you?’ she said.

‘Inspector Ramírez,’ he said, dry as fino.

‘We’re from the Grupo de Homicidios,’ said Falcón.

‘Somebody killed him?’ she asked, her head switching between the two men, who nodded.

‘The person who killed him was in the apartment while you were there.’

She wrenched the cigarette from her mouth, puffed hard.

‘How do you know?’

Ramírez had prepared the tape earlier and clicked the remote so that the screen was instantly filled with the empty corridor, the bare hook, the light falling from the study doorway while the soundtrack blared the mixture of the two fake ecstasies. The hairs came up on Falcón’s neck. The girl was transfixed. The camera turned the corner and she saw herself kneeling in front of Raúl Jiménez, who was staring up at the screen while she confronted the curtains. As her head turned, the camera toppled back into the darkness.

The girl knocked her chair back flat and paced the room. Ramírez returned the screen to black.

‘That is very weird,’ she said, pointing at the screen with her cigarette fingers.

‘Did you notice anything?’ asked Falcón.

‘I don’t know whether you’ve put things into my head, but I do remember something now,’ she said, closing her eyes. ‘It was just a change of light, a shadow wobbling. In my business that’s what I’m frightened of … when the shadows move.’

‘When darkness has a life of its own,’ said Falcón, the words out unsupervised so that Ramírez and the girl checked him for oddness. ‘But you didn’t react … to these shadow moves?’

‘I thought it was something in my head and anyway I think he reached his moment about then and that distracted me.’

‘And afterwards?’

‘I cleaned up in his bathroom and left.’

‘Did he lock the door behind you?’

‘Yes. The same as when he locked it the first time. Five or six turns. I heard him take the keys out, too. Then the lift came.’

‘What time was it?’

‘I don’t think it was much after one o’clock. I was back in the Alameda with another client by half-past one.’

‘Fifty thousand,’ said Ramírez. ‘That’s a good hourly rate.’

‘It might take you a while before you could earn that amount,’ she said, and they both laughed.

‘What’s your mobile number?’ asked Falcón, and they both laughed again until they saw he was serious and Eloisa rattled it out for him.

‘So,’ said Ramírez, still good-humoured, ‘that seems to be everything … except I’m sure she’s left something out, aren’t you, Inspector Jefe?’

Falcón didn’t react to Ramírez’s brutal game. The girl looked away from him and back to where she’d suddenly felt the threat.

‘I’ve told you everything that happened,’ she said.

‘Except the most important thing,’ said Ramírez. ‘You didn’t tell us when you let him into the apartment.’

It took a few seconds for the implication of that mild statement to penetrate and then her face went as hard as a death mask.

‘I thought you were too good to be true,’ she said.

‘I’m not good,’ said Ramírez, ‘and nor are you. You know what the guy did — the one you let into the apartment? He tortured an old man to death. He put your Don Rafael through some of the worst suffering that we’ve ever come across in our police careers. No, it wasn’t just a shot to the head, not a knife in the heart, but slow, brutal … torture.’

‘I didn’t let anyone into that apartment.’

‘You said he left the keys in the door,’ said Falcón.

‘I didn’t let anyone into that apartment.’

‘You said you saw something,’ said Ramírez.

‘You made me think I saw something, but I didn’t.’

‘The light changed,’ said Ramírez.

‘The shadows moved,’ said Falcón.

‘I didn’t let anybody in,’ she said slowly. ‘It happened just as I told you.’

They terminated the interview just before 16.30. Falcón sent Ramírez off with the girl to find a policewoman to supervise a pubic hair match with the Policía Científica. As they left he heard Ramírez talking to her as if she were an old friend and they were heading for a cervecita except the words were different.

‘No, I tell you, Eloisa, if I was you I’d drop the guy, drop him like a hot rock. If he can kill a guy like that he can kill you. He can kill you without feeling a damn thing. So you watch yourself. You get any suspicions, any doubts, you give me a call.’

Falcón went to his office and called Baena and Serrano to see if they’d found any witnesses outside the Edificio Presidente. None. Few people around. Shops closed. Most of the locals in the centre of town for the processions.

He hung up, cracked his knuckles one after the other, a habit that Inés had loathed but it was an unconscious act, something he did to steady his brain. It had made her writhe.

Falcón called Comisario Lobo, who told him to make an appearance in his office. On the way to the lift he saw Ramírez and told him to get the paperwork ready for the meeting with Juez Calderón. He went up to the top floor. Lobo’s secretary, one of those minimalist Sevillanas who reserved all her extravagance for after office hours, sent him in with a flick of an eyelash.

Lobo was facing the window, hands behind his back, doing knee bends while he took in the greenery of the Parque de los Príncipes across the street. He was short and stocky with large, hairy agricultural hands. He had a bull neck and grey, industrial hair. He’d always worn heavy black-framed glasses from a lost era until last year when his wife had persuaded him into contact lenses. It was an attempt at image improvement which had failed because his eyes were the colour of mud and the lack of frames had made his nose look more hooked, revealing more of his brutal face than most wanted to see. He had thin lips, which were only two shades darker than his cumin complexion. He looked more criminal than most of the people in the holding cells, but he was a good manager and a direct talker, who always supported his officers.

‘You know what this is about?’ he said, over his shoulder.

‘Raúl Jiménez.’

‘No, Inspector Jefe, it’s about Comisario León.’

‘He was in the photographs in Jiménez’s study.’

‘Who was he in bed with?’

‘They weren’t those sort of …’

‘I’m joking, Inspector Jefe,’ said Lobo. ‘You probably saw a lot of other funcionarios in those photos.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Did you see me?’

‘No, Comisario.’

‘Because I’m not in them, Inspector Jefe,’ he said, walking quickly to his desk.

They sat down; Lobo clasped his hands as if about to crush small heads.

‘You weren’t here at the time of the 1992 Expo?’ he said.

‘I was in Zaragoza by then.’

‘A very different situation existed here at Expo ‘92 than at the Barcelona Olympics. There, I’m sure you will recall, the Catalans made a profit. Whilst here, the Andalucians made a staggering loss.’

‘There was talk of corruption.’

‘Talk!’ roared Lobo savagely. ‘Not just talk, Inspector Jefe. There was corruption. There was so much corruption that if you weren’t making millions it was an embarrassment. Such an embarrassment that those who hadn’t managed to stuff their pockets went out and hired Mercedes and BMWs to make it look as if they had.’

‘I didn’t realize.’

‘And it wasn’t just the locals. The Madrileños were down here in force, too. They could see a certain attitude was prevailing. A slackness. A lack of attention to detail that could be financially exploited.’

‘How is this relevant ten years later?’

‘Do you remember how many people were brought to book over that?’

‘I don’t recall, Comisario.’

‘None!’ said Lobo, whacking the desk with his clasped hands. ‘Not one.’

‘Hermanos Lorenzo,’ said Falcón. ‘Construction.’

‘What about them?’

‘Raúl Jiménez had a business relationship with them, which terminated in 1992.’

‘Now you’re beginning to understand. Raúl Jiménez was on the Expo de Sevilla Committee. He was on the board of directors responsible for the development of the site. Hermanos Lorenzo was not the only construction company he was connected to.’

‘I’m still not sure how this can be relevant to his murder nearly ten years later.’

‘Possibly it isn’t. I doubt there will be any connection. But you’ll be stirring up the shit pot, Inspector Jefe. Nasty things will come to the surface.’

‘And Comisario León?’

‘He doesn’t want any unpleasant surprises. You must tell me if you come across “sensitive” information and … no leaks, Inspector Jefe, or we’ll all be broken on the wheel.’

Another reason why Lobo’s men liked him was his unique ability to help them understand the seriousness of a situation. Falcón got up to leave, headed for the door knowing that there was something else, that Lobo always liked to spring things on his men as they were leaving. It made a more lasting impression.

‘You probably thought, with all your experience in Barcelona, Zaragoza and Madrid, that your application to a second division murder city like Seville would be well received.’

‘I don’t take anything for granted, Comisario. Politics plays its part in every appointment.’

‘I had to work very hard on your behalf.’

‘Why did you do that?’ he asked, Lobo unknown to him before he arrived.

‘For that very unfashionable reason that you were the best man for the job.’

‘Then I thank you for it.’

‘Comisario León was a great admirer of the tenacious talents of Inspector Ramírez.’

‘As am I, Comisario.’

‘They keep in touch, Inspector Jefe … informally.’

‘I understand.’

‘That’s good,’ said Lobo, suddenly cheerful. ‘I knew you would.’