The Blind Man of Seville

‘I think he was in awe of your experience in these matters.’

‘Do you have any opinion about the cause and time of death?’ asked Falcon.

‘The time, about four, four-thirty this morning. The cause, well, vamos a ver, the man was over seventy years old, he had been overweight, he was a heavy smoker of cigarettes which he preferred with the filter removed and, as a restaurateur, someone who enjoyed a glass of wine or two. Even a young and fit man might have found it difficult to sustain these injuries, that physical and mental distress, without going into deep shock. He died of heart failure, I’m sure of it. The autopsy will confirm that … or not.’

The Medico Forense finished, flustered by the steadiness of Falcon’s look and annoyed by his own idiocy at the end. He left the frame, which was instantly reoccupied by Calderon and Ramirez.

‘Let’s get started,’ said Calderon.

‘Who called the emergency services?’ asked Falcon.

‘The conserje,’ said Calderon. The concierge. ‘After the maid had …’

‘After the maid had let herself in, seen the body, ran out of the apartment, and taken the lift back down to the ground floor …?’

‘… and hammered hysterically on the door of the conserje’s flat,’ finished Calderon, irritated by Falcon cutting in. ‘It took him some minutes to get any sense out of her and then he called 091.’

‘Did the conserje come up here?’

‘Not until the first patrol car arrived and sealed off the crime scene.’

Was the door open?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the maid … now?’

‘Under sedation in the Hospital de la Virgen de la Macarena.’

‘Inspector Ramirez …’

‘Yes, Inspector Jefe …’

All exchanges between Falcon and Ramirez started like this. It was his way of reminding the Inspector Jefe that Falcon had moved down from Madrid and stolen the job that Ramirez had always assumed would be his.

‘Ask Sub-Inspector Perez to go down to the hospital and as soon as the maid … Does she have a name?’

‘Dolores Oliva.’

‘As soon as she is sensible … he should ask her if she noticed anything strange … Well, you know the questions. And ask her how many times she turned the key in the lock to open the door and what exactly were her movements before she found the body.’

Ramirez repeated this back to him.

‘Have we found Sra Jimenez and the children yet?’ asked Falcon.

‘We think they’re in the Hotel Colon.’

‘On Calle Bailen?’ asked Falcon, the five-star hotel where all the toreros stayed, only fifty metres from his own … from his late father’s house — a coincidence without being one.

‘A car has been sent,’ said Calderon. ‘I’d like to complete the levantamiento del cadaver as soon as possible and get the body down to the Instituto Anatomico Forense before we bring Sra Jimenez up here.’

Falcon nodded. Calderon left them to it. The two Policia Cientifica, Felipe in his mid fifties and Jorge in his late twenties, moved in murmuring buenos dias. Falcon stared at the TV plug lying on the floor and decided not to mention it. They photographed the room and, between them, began to put together a scenario, while Jorge took Jimenez’s fingerprints and Felipe dusted the TV/video cabinet and the two empty slipcases on top. They agreed on its normal position and the fact that Jimenez would usually have been watching it from a leather scoop chair whose swivel base when lifted revealed a circular mark on the parquet. The killer had incapacitated Jimenez, swivelled the leather chair, which was unsuitable for his purposes, and moved one of the high-backed guest chairs so that he could shift the body in one turning movement. The killer had then secured the wrists to the arms of the chair, stripped the socks off the feet, stuffed them in Jimenez’s mouth and secured the ankles. He then manoeuvred the chair by pivoting it on its legs until he achieved the ideal position.

‘His shoes are under here,’ said Jorge, nodding to the footwell of the desk. ‘One pair of ox-blood loafers with tassels.’

Falcon pointed to a well-worn patch on the parquet in front of the leather scoop. ‘He liked to kick off his shoes and sit in front of the TV rubbing his feet on the wooden floor.’

‘While he watched dirty movies,’ said Felipe, dusting one of the slipcases. ‘This one’s called Cara o Culo.’ Face or Arse I.

‘The position of the chair?’ asked Jorge. ‘Why move all this furniture around?’

Javier Falcon walked to the door, turned and held his arms open to the forensics.

‘Maximum impact.’

‘A real showman,’ said Felipe, nodding. ‘This other slipcase has La Familia Jimenez written on it in red felt-tip and there’s a cassette in the machine with the same title, same handwriting.’

‘That doesn’t sound too horrific,’ said Falcon, and they all looked at Raul Jimenez’s blood-streaked terror before going back to their work.

‘He didn’t enjoy the show,’ said Felipe.