* * *
The Edificio de los Juzgados was almost empty at this time of night and Falcon’s footfall echoed through his hollow body as he walked the long corridor to the stairs. He had to hold on to the bannister to get down the steps and stop at the landing to control the shaking of his legs. He was persuading himself that it was coincidence, that there was no bizarre telepathy between him and Sergio. Life was full of these odd moments. There was a word for it: synchronicity. It should be a good thing. Human beings liked things to synchronize. But not that. Not their discussion about outsiders, Calderon talking about the film with the unmentionable title and then Sergio slapping them down with that terrible line. A line that disconnected him from the normal world of human relations, from the profound filial-maternal bond. They were the words of the loneliest individual on the planet and they had torn into Falcon like a chain saw.
He made it to security, motor reflexes normalized. On the other side was Ines, putting her handbag and briefcase through the machine. This was the last person Falcon wanted to see and as he thought this, it all came rushing back — her beauty, the sex, his longings, their failure. She waited for her bags, looking directly at him, almost mocking.
‘Hola, Ines,’ he said.
‘Hola, Javier.’
The hate was undisguised. He was condemned to be the unforgiven. He didn’t understand this because he could find no trace of rancour in himself. They had made a mistake. It had been recognized. They had parted. But she couldn’t stand him. The security guard handed over her bags and she dazzled him with a smile. Her lips returned to a hard red line for Falcon. He would have liked some inspiration at that moment. To somehow be able to make it instantly better, as people can in the movies. But nothing came. There was nothing to be said. This was a relationship beyond the possibility of even friendship. She despised him too much.
She walked away. The narrow shoulders, the slim waist, the swaying hips, the sure feet and the heels counting out the distance.
The security man gnawed his lip, looking at her, and it came to Falcon why she so loathed him. He had destroyed the perfection of her life. The vibrantly beautiful and brilliant law student who had become an exceptional young prosecutor, worshipped by men and women wherever she went, had fallen for him — Javier Falcon. And he had turned her down. He had failed to love her back. He had tarnished her perfection. This was why she thought he had no heart, because it was the only possible explanation for his failure.
Outside he took up a position by one of the pillars of justice of the adjoining building. It gave him a view of the main door to the Edificio de los Juzgados. A few minutes later Ines reappeared through that door followed by Esteban Calderon. She waited, kissed him on the lips, took him by the arm and headed off down the colonnade towards Calle Menendez Pelayo.
Had they kissed? Was that a trick of the light?
His powers of dissuasion failed him. It had been too clear. And in the slanting shadows of the neoclassical columns he came across another anomaly of logic. The faultiness of human wiring that could shortcircuit even the clearest of thoughts. He did not love her. He felt no rancour. They were beyond repair. So why did he feel his blood, his organs, his sinew and tendon consumed by a monstrous jealousy?
Falcon ran to his car, drove back to the Jefatura clenching the steering wheel so tight that he had difficulty unbending his fingers to write his report. He tried to read other reports. It was impossible. His concentration flitted between the wreckage of his investigation and his inexplicable certainty of Calderon’s indefatigable sexual athleticism.
A tranche of time disappeared. A journey was lost. One moment he was straining over those reports and the next he was sitting with Alicia Aguado, her fingers feathering over his wrist.
‘You’re upset,’ she said.
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘At work?’
Laughter spurted from him like projectile vomit. He was hysterical in seconds, the laughter so intense that it wasn’t coming from him — he was the laughter. She let go of him as he threw himself on the sofa, stomach straining. It passed. He wiped away the tears, apologized and sat back down.
‘Busy … that word is such an absurd understatement for the description of my day,’ he said. ‘I never knew a madman’s life was packed so tight. I’m cramming an entire life into every tiny space I can find. Nobody can say anything to me without a whole world being dredged up. While a judge sits in his office, talking about his favourite movie moment, I’m running along a beach, splish-splashing through the waves, being launched high up in the air and squealing.’
‘By your mother?’
Falcon faltered.
‘Now that is odd,’ he said.
Silence.
‘It came back to me with the clarity of a dream,’ he said. ‘Except now I realize there was one feature missing, but I’ve got it now. I was being thrown up in the air by a man.’
‘Your father?’
‘No, no. He’s a stranger.’
‘You’ve never seen him before?’
‘He’s Moroccan. I think he must have been a friend of my mother’s.’
‘Was that unusual?’
‘No, no. Moroccans are very friendly people. They love to talk. They’re very curious and inquisitive. They have an amazing facility …’
‘I meant for your mother, a married woman, to be meeting a stranger on the beach. Allowing her son to be thrown up in the air by him.’
