‘I went back to Seville and I heard at the Bellas Artes that he was still taking on students for a few weeks at a time. I called him. He remembered me and I volunteered to be his companion. He was frail after the heart attack and I had the run of his studio. The storeroom he kept locked, but I soon opened it. And there I found all the confirmation I needed, through the stunning mediocrity of his attempts to reproduce my grandfather’s work, and then again in the journals. I read them all and when I finished I stole the crucial diary and walked out. I never went back. I never spoke to him again. I was mad with rage. I was going to publish the journal, to show the world the real Francisco Falcon … but then he died.’
‘Why didn’t you publish it anyway?’
‘I could see the whole thing being taken away from me,’ said Julio. ‘I wanted to have control.’
‘But then something must have happened.’
‘Why?’
‘For it to have become your project.’
‘Nothing happened,’ said Julio. ‘That’s the nature of the creative process. One day I decided it would be interesting to know everything about Raul Jimenez and Ramon Salgado. The men as they are today. So, I started filming
‘And what about Marta?’
‘It’s amazing how once you start working on something these things find you, rather than you finding them. I knew, from the journals, that she was in Ciempozuelos. I was very interested to see her, to find out about her, but I had no way of doing that without drawing attention to myself. At the time I was doing some freelance computer effects work for a film company up in Madrid and one of the directors asked if any of us would be interested in helping some mental patients in Ciempozuelos with some art therapy. I volunteered, but Marta was not one of the patients involved in the course. I still had to find her.’
‘And that’s why you became Ahmed’s friend?’
‘Once I saw that metal trunk under her bed I knew I had to get inside it and Ahmed was my only chance. I have a talent for friendship, especially with people like Ahmed — you know, forasteros … like me.’
‘Like Eloisa.’
‘Yes,’ said Julio smoothly. ‘Ahmed showed me Marta’s file and once I read the letter from Jose Manuel Jimenez’s psychoanalyst, I knew I had a project.’
‘And where did you get the idea of killing people?’
‘From you, when I found out that you were the Inspector Jefe del Grupo de Homicidios de Sevilla,’ said Julio. ‘To have the son of the great Francisco Falcon investigating the crimes of his father seemed too perfect an opportunity to miss. It made sense of the whole idea.’
‘That was not a rational decision.’
‘Artists don’t have rational minds. How am I supposed to disturb the minds of others if my own is a flat calm?’
‘Killing is not art.’
‘You missed out the word “real”,’ said Julio, on his feet, the pupils in his eyes suddenly massive and shiny black, but not seeing out, only sucking in. ‘You should have said Real Killing is not Art or … or … Killing is not Real Art.’
‘Sit down, Julio. Just sit down for a moment … we haven’t finished,’ said Javier.
‘You know, the problem is,’ said Julio, ‘is … is … that I see things too clearly now. I can’t seem to lower my visual scale. Once you kill somebody everything becomes intensely real, and it’s unbearable. Did you know that, my uncle, did you know that?’
‘That’s right, I
‘That’s why I didn’t kill you. I only tried to do you good. To save you from your blindness.’
‘Yes, I can see now and I’m grateful,’ said Javier. ‘There’s just one more thing I need to know from you.’
‘It’s all been said and done and written and filmed … there’s only one thing left now,’ he said.
He went behind Falcon and pivoted the chair around so that it was facing the opposite wall. On the desk was the glass of almond milk, the leather-bound journal and his police revolver. Julio took a knife and cut through the flex securing Falcon’s right hand.
‘I have to go now,’ he said, throwing the knife on to the desk. ‘You know what you have to do. You shouldn’t have to face any more of this than you’ve had to.’
Their eyes met and turned to the revolver sitting on top of the journal, next to the glass of milk — the reminder of all that he had done and all that he had lost.
‘There’s your solution,’ said Julio. ‘The only way to close everything down and leave it behind for ever.’
Sweat came up on Falcon’s hands, trickled from the hairline. How could he still have so much juice in him? He picked up the revolver, flicked open the barrel and saw all the chambers were full. He thumbed the safety off. He looked down at the gun in his trembling hand and brought it slowly up to his face. Suicide had its attractions for him at that moment. It was the simplest solution in the face of this sudden nothingness. His past gone and the future frail and uncertain. His father’s love … never there. Only hate, which he, Javier, had fuelled … just by living. And, yes, who was he now? Was he still even Javier Falcon? The threads that held him together were guilt and grief; tug at them and he would fall apart. And now it could all be over. With one small pull of the trigger he could blow away the reservoir of all his pain.
A wall in his memory suddenly gave way and, rather than more suffering flooding through to his tangled mind, he remembered that kiss, the one from his mother, that had marked him with her love forever. And, under the remembered pressure of her lips, he found out who he was, recalled the boy he had been for her. It undid something, unravelled part of the vast knot, and he was suddenly able to see clear lines of thought that were not
