The Blind Man of Seville

‘Maybe not. You’d want to keep it whole and original,’ said Jorge.

‘I think this is more likely to have belonged to a woman who died,’ said Falcon. ‘This is an heirloom.’

‘But you still haven’t answered your question,’ said Felipe. ‘Why would a man wear a woman’s ring? It must have some significance.’

‘Ramirez wears a woman’s ring,’ said Jorge. ‘Ask him.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Haven’t you ever wondered why he wears that ring with the three little diamonds set in gold? I mean … especially Ramirez. So I asked him one night in a bar,’ said Jorge. ‘It was his grandmother’s ring. He didn’t have any sisters. He had it enlarged. He was very close to his grandmother.’

‘What does that tell us about Sergio?’

‘He didn’t have any sisters,’ said Jorge, and the forensics laughed.

‘Do we know anybody who can tell us about silver?’ asked Falcon.

‘We’ve used an old jeweller in town before. He’s retired now but he still has a workshop on the Plaza del Pan. I don’t know if you’ll find him there on a Saturday afternoon, though.’

The workshop was shut and nobody in the neighbouring shops had a home address or telephone number. Falcon tried other jewellers, but they were either busy or incompetent. He went back to Calle Zaragoza and knocked on the gallery door this time, in case Ramirez had advanced things with Greta. The door was locked. The other shops around were shutting for lunch.

He took out the evidence bag with the ring in it and something came back to him, fast moving, flashing like a jig in water to a fish’s eye. He lost it in the gloom and remembered his father saying that they were the ideas that were worth something, the ones that came up from the depths and disappeared. He put the bag back in his pocket. The woman locking the shop next door told him that Greta had probably gone to El Cairo for something to eat.

Ramirez and Greta were there at the bar, eating tapas: squid and red peppers stuffed with hake. They sipped beer. Their knees were touching. Falcon showed Ramirez the ring. He took it and held it up to the light while Falcon briefed him on it.

‘He didn’t come back for it because it was valuable,’ said Ramirez. ‘Silver and a sapphire aren’t so expensive.’

‘It has to be significant,’ said Falcon. ‘That’s why he called me this morning. He needed to know if I’d found it.’

‘You think he was worried that we’d somehow understand the significance of it?’

‘There’s evident history to it. Just the fact that it’s a woman’s ring enlarged to fit a man’s finger gives it a story.’

‘But what is the story and how or why should we understand it?’

‘Remember the call when he told me he had a story to tell and I wouldn’t be able to stop him?’ said Falcon. ‘This is part of that story and I think we’ve got our hands on it too early. If we crack the story of the ring we will know too much about his work. It will point us to him in some way.’

‘But we don’t know it,’ said Ramirez, baffled by the importance that Falcon was attaching to this small piece of evidence.

‘But we will know it,’ said Falcon, backing away to the door. ‘We will find it out.’

He stumbled out into the street, their two faces imprinted on his mind. Greta appeared concerned, Ramirez clearly thought him deranged.

Back at the house on Calle Bailen he went straight up to the studio. He knew the rest of the house was empty of his father’s effects. Encarnacion had dealt with everything in the weeks after his death. He opened up the shutters in the room and paced around the cluttered tables in the middle. He was working on the memory he’d had of his mother bathing him with her rings removed. Where was all her jewellery? Of course, Manuela would have it. He called her on his mobile. She said she’d never seen any of it. She’d been too small for jewellery when Mama had died and later, when she’d asked her father where it had all gone, he confessed to having lost it in the move from Tangier.

‘Lost it?’ said Falcon. ‘You don’t lose your wife’s jewellery.’

‘You know how it was between him and me,’ said Manuela. ‘He was convinced that I was only interested in money so if I asked for things he would always make me grovel. Well, over mother’s jewellery, I didn’t give him the satisfaction. None of it was that special as far as I remember.’

‘What do you remember of it?’

‘She liked rings and brooches but not bracelets or necklaces. She said they were the chains to enslave you. She never had her ears pierced either, so she only had clasp earrings. She didn’t like expensive stuff and, because she was dark, she preferred silver. I think the only gold ring she had was her wedding band,’ she said, as if she’d been expecting the question. ‘Why, little brother, do you need to know this on a Saturday afternoon?’

‘I need to remember something.’

‘What?’

‘If I knew that …’

‘I’m joking, Javier,’ she said. ‘You need to calm down. You’re taking your work too … personally. Get some distance from it, hijo. Paco told me you’d forgotten about lunch tomorrow.’

‘Are you coming as well?’

‘Yes, and I’m bringing Alejandro and his sister.’