‘And you?’
‘He was before my time.’
‘Mine, too.’
‘You should dye your hair, Inspector Jefe, I thought you were older.’
They parked up. Falcon called Fernandez on his mobile, told him to go to the Jimenez apartment. He and Sra Jimenez took the lift to the sixth floor, nodded past the policeman at the door. They paced the empty corridor towards the empty hook, that double walk still snagging in Falcon’s brain. They sat down in the study and waited in silence for Fernandez to arrive.
‘Just run your pictures past Sra Jimenez, please,’ he said. ‘In order of appearance on the CCTV tapes.’
Fernandez counted them out, each one getting the negative from Consuelo Jimenez until the last one when her eyes widened and she blinked the double take.
‘Who is that in the picture, Dona Consuelo?’
She looked up at him, entranced, beguiled as if it had been magic.
‘It’s Basilio,’ she said, her mouth not closing.
5
How to play this? Falcon resisted the temptation to run his fingers up the edge of the desk like a concert pianist in full flourish. He rested his chin on his thumb, tensed his jaw and brushed his cheekbone with a finger while the adrenalin flashed down his arteries. This was it, he thought. But how to make it come out? Separate or together? He felt inspired. He decided on the cockpit approach. Throw them in together, let them flap and cut, peck and stab.
‘Sra Jimenez and I are going to El Porvenir,’ he said to Fernandez. ‘Contact Sub Inspector Perez and help him find the prostitute. Tell him we’ve identified the unknowns from the CCTV tapes.’
Sra Jimenez crossed her legs, lit a cigarette. Her foot wouldn’t keep still. Falcon went into the corridor to call Ramirez on his mobile. He wished he liked him more.
Ramirez was bored. He’d taken on the fruitless task of interviewing the fired employees himself and, so far, after two had come up with nothing other than they were glad to get away from Sra Jimenez. Falcon watched her while Ramirez blew off steam. She was clicking the fingernails of her thumb and forefinger, playing things over in her mind. Falcon briefed Ramirez and gave him Basilio Lucena’s address, told him to get down there and be ready to maintain the pressure on the two protagonists.
Falcon took Consuelo Jimenez back across the river to 17 Calle Rio de la Plata. The traffic was heavier around lunchtime. The joggers were out in the park; girls with their hair tied in ponytails bobbed along beyond the railings, gay in the sunshine. These moments of police work were fascinating to him — driving along while a suspect endured some massive internal struggle between denial and truth, between acting out the lie or embracing the relief of retribution and absolution. Where did the impulse come from that started the body chemistry into a decision of such magnitude?
He turned right up Avenida de Portugal behind the high towers of the Plaza de Espana. The building which had been the centrepiece of the ‘29 Expo was so normal to him that he wouldn’t have noticed it except, on this day, with the red brick against the blue sky and the explosive greenery all around, it amazed him. It brought back a memory of his father throwing himself out of his seat as they watched
‘You can talk if you like,’ he said.
She started out aggressive and pulled back after the first syllable. She found a lipstick in her handbag and reshaped her mouth … nicely.
‘I’m as curious as you are,’ she said, which unnerved him.
They parked down the street from the house. No Ramirez. Falcon took out the autopsy report and read it through, blinking in the detail. The instruments used, the technical know-how demonstrated, the chemicals and solutions evident on the victim’s clothes — all reaffirmed his suspicions.
A car pulled up alongside. Ramirez nodded and parked up at the end of the street. He walked back down, through the gateway and rang the bell to number 17. Lucena opened it. There was a discussion. Ramirez showed his ID card. He was let in. Minutes passed. Falcon and Sra Jimenez got out of the car, rang the bell. Lucena came to the door, harassed. He walked straight into Falcon’s eyes and caught the blue flash of his lover’s. The fear was unmistakable, but of what Falcon wasn’t sure. They went in, the man definitely crowded out in his own living room with the pressure of three pairs of eyes on him. Falcon positioned himself next to the television set, which had a video camera connected to it. Ramirez stood by the door. Lucena sat down on the edge of an armchair. Sra Jimenez occupied the sofa opposite, looked at him out of the corner of her eye, crossed her legs and set her foot nodding.
‘We’ve already established from Sra Jimenez that you were with her last night,’ said Falcon. ‘Can you remember when you left?’
‘It was about two o’clock,’ he said, running his hand through his thin, brown hair.
‘Where did you go after leaving the Hotel Colon?’
The foot stopped nodding.
‘I came back here.’
‘Did you leave your house again that night?’
‘No. I went to work this morning.’
