the ridiculous and illogical thought that the young judge might now be able to agree with Ines and say: ‘Yes, Javier Falcon has got no heart.’
24
Calderon took notes as Falcon spoke. At the end he lit a cigarette while Falcon looked out on to Salgado’s abundant garden.
‘Is this what you came to talk to me about yesterday?’ asked Calderon.
‘I think you’ll agree there are some sensitive points to this theory,’ said Falcon. ‘And when I saw Dr Spinola coming out …’
‘Dr Spinola was
‘He was in Raul Jimenez’s celebrity photographs. There’s a tenuous connection. It had to be thought about,’ said Falcon, sensing Calderon’s resistance, and his own pathetic need to side with him. ‘You will also notice that the proof of Raul Jimenez being involved in child abuse is circumstantial and weak. I only mentioned it because of the convicted paedophile ring in which Carvajal was involved and what we have discovered here today.’
‘So, do you think we’re looking for an abused boy and do you think Consuelo Jimenez is involved?’ asked Calderon.
‘Sergio is male. He was somehow able to make a connection with Eloisa Gomez, possibly through empathy … as another forastero. I have not read Carvajal’s case notes so I don’t know what his predilections were, but Salgado seemed to be interested in boys and Jimenez in girls.’
‘In that case Sergio is either acting alone as an avenger of the abused or, quite possibly, he’s having his targets pointed out to him,’ said Calderon.
‘Consuelo Jimenez loves her children. Admittedly, they are all boys but if she found any pornography in her husband’s collection which was in any way related to child abuse, I am sure she would not tolerate it. She knew Ramon Salgado …’
‘But how could she possibly know
‘That, I don’t know. I am only theorizing about her capability, not proving her involvement,’ said Falcon. ‘She has been evasive about all her husband’s business affairs. When I demonstrated some knowledge to her about MCA Consultores she wouldn’t speak without her lawyer present. She is a determined woman and although she says she abhors violence she did strike Basilio Lucena hard enough to draw blood. She is intelligent and calculating. In her defence it’s possible she knew nothing about MCA and was just being cautious. She has also offered to find out about her husband’s relationship with Carvajal.’
‘It’s flimsy, Inspector Jefe. As you said earlier, she could just be protecting her privacy, as well as her inheritance and that of her children. She struck Lucena, but that was under extreme provocation, given the dangers of his promiscuity. Intelligence and calculation are prerequisites for success in business.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ said Falcon, loathing the obsequiousness that had crept into his own voice. ‘Are we agreed that the murders are connected, Juez? I mean we’re not looking at a series of random acts. This is multiple murder but not serial killing.’
Calderon pinched the cartilage of his ear and stared through the glass desktop.
‘The punishment that Sergio has meted out to his two primary victims is consistent with what you’d expect of somebody who’d suffered sexual abuse,’ said Calderon. ‘The victims are clearly targeted and there is a link in that they knew each other. I agree with you that Sergio forces them to confront their deepest horrors. The removal of the eyelids and the subsequent mutilation both victims inflicted on themselves would indicate this. The question is: how does Sergio know these things? This is not available information. This is profoundly personal stuff. It is secret history. How does Sergio get inside people’s heads?’
Falcon told him about the local policeman’s burglary investigation.
‘Well, if he did spend the weekend here that would suggest that he’d already targeted Salgado, perhaps he even knew this man’s particular horror and he was just looking for the means to bring it back to him.’
‘He’s obsessed with film,’ said Falcon. ‘He sees it like memory.’
‘You know how it is … films and dreams. People are always getting those words muddled up,’ said Calderon. ‘It’s understandable. The enclosed darkness of the cinema, the images. It’s not so different to what you’d see in your sleep.’
‘We talked about his creativity before,’ said Falcon. ‘He is doing what every artist wants to do. He gets inside people’s heads and makes them see things differently or, in fact, he makes them see what they already know but in a different light. And he has to be creative about it because people don’t hold records of their horrors, do they?’
They bury them,’ said Calderon.
‘Maybe this is the nature of evil,’ said Falcon. ‘The genius of evil.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because it’s beyond our imagination.’
Calderon turned in his seat to the four Falcon nudes.
‘Fortunately there are other types of genius,’ he said. ‘To balance out the evil ones.’
‘In my father’s case, I think he wished he’d never had it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he lost it,’ said Falcon. ‘If he’d never had it … he wouldn’t have gone through the rest of his life with that sense of loss.’
