‘I’m sleeping very well.’
‘Are you taking any medication?’
‘No,’ he said fluently.
‘Have you noticed anything different in your bodily functions?’ asked Rato. ‘Sweating. Diarrhoea. Loss of appetite.’
‘No.’
‘What about mental functions?’
‘No.’
‘Any cyclical thinking, memory loss, obsessive tendencies … like washing your hands again and again?’
‘No.’
‘Any joint pains? Shoulders, knees?’
‘No.’
‘Can you think why anybody inside or outside the Jefatura might have become concerned about your behaviour recently?’
More panic surged through him. The diarrhoea he’d just denied suddenly became a possibility.
‘No, I can’t,’ he said.
‘Stress acts on people in different ways, Inspector Jefe, but the fundamentals are the same. Mild forms of stress — overwork with a problem at home — can induce physical reactions to make you stop. A pain in the knee is not unusual. Extreme forms of stress release the same atavistic mechanism known as “fight or flight” — that burst of adrenalin which will give you the strength to strike out or run away. We are no longer in the wild, but our urban jungle can induce the same reaction. The combined pressure of a heavy workload with distressing details, the death of a parent and the divorce of a wife, can trigger a permanent adrenalin rush. Blood pressure goes up. Weight goes down as appetite is suppressed. The brain speeds up. Sleep becomes elusive. The body reacts as if the mind has encountered something to be feared. There’s sweating, anxiety, rising to panic, followed by memory loss, and obsessive circular thinking. Inspector Jefe, you have all the symptoms of a man under great stress. Tell me, when was the last time you took an afternoon off work?’
‘I’m taking one off this afternoon.’
‘When was the last time?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Since you arrived in Seville nearly three years ago you haven’t taken any time off apart from a single two-week holiday,’ said Dr Rato. ‘What was your work load before you took on this latest investigation?’
Blank. Panic splashed like ether against his chest.
‘I’ll tell you, Inspector Jefe,’ said Rato. ‘You investigated fifteen murders last year as against thirty-four in your last year in Madrid.’
‘What’s your point, Doctor?’
‘Do you think you’re hiding in your work?’
‘Hiding?’
‘There are attractive things even about the ugly work you have to do. There’s routine. There’s structure. You have colleagues. And it is endless, if you want it to be. You could fill your year with paperwork alone, I imagine.’
‘True.’
‘Real life is messy. Relationships don’t work out. Friends come and go. And, at our age, people start dying. We have to face loss, change and disappointment, but within all this there’s the possibility of joy. However it is only achieved by making a connection. When was the last time you had sex?’
Another jolting question, that nearly had Falcon out of his seat and pacing the room.
‘That wasn’t supposed to be offensive,’ said the doctor.
‘No, of course, I just haven’t been asked that question since I was at university.’
‘No male friends have asked you that question?’
Male friends, thought Falcon. Female friends, even. It nearly squeezed a tear up to his eye, the thought that he had no friends. It seemed impossible that his life had slipped away from him like this without him noticing. When was the last time he’d had a friend? He hit the blank wall of his memory until he thought that Calderon could have been a friend.
‘When was the last time you had sex?’ asked the doctor again.
‘With my wife.’
‘When did you separate?’
Blank.
‘Last year,’ said Falcon, struggling.
‘Month?’
‘May.’
‘It was in July, which was probably why you didn’t take a holiday,’ said Dr Rato. ‘When was the last time you
