‘A few more than usual trying to get some money together for Easter and the Feria.’
‘Twenty?’
‘More like ten.’
‘What did they look like?’
‘Well, fortunately they were all short and fat, otherwise I’d have a job recalling them all for you.’
‘Look, funny guy,’ said Ramirez, getting his finger out, ‘somebody came in here, picked up some information about the job you were doing in the Edificio Presidente and used it to get himself into an apartment there and torture an old man to death. So try a little harder for us.’
‘You didn’t say he was tortured to death,’ said Bravo.
‘I still don’t remember,’ said the foreman.
‘Maybe they were immigrants,’ said Ramirez.
‘Some of them might have been.’
‘Moroccans, maybe, who work for no money.’
‘We don’t employ —’ started Bravo.
‘We heard you the first time,’ said Ramirez. ‘I didn’t believe you then. So, look, if you want a quiet life with no visits from Immigration, then start thinking, start remembering who’s been in here since last Friday and if you saw anyone taking a particular interest in that whiteboard.’
‘Because,’ said Falcon, nodding at the foreman, ‘you’re the only person we’ve met who’s probably seen this killer, talked to him.’
‘And you know … that’s something the killer might start thinking, too,’ said Ramirez.
11
‘He was right — Sr Bravo,’ said Ramirez. ‘It’s too obvious a connection but the killer could be one of his workers.’
‘But only if the second scenario, where Eloisa Gomez lets the killer into the apartment, is the correct one,’ said Falcon. ‘If he got in using the lifting gear he’d have been missing from work in the afternoon. We’re going to have to interview every worker and put more pressure on the girl.’
‘You know what I don’t like about this guy?’ said Ramirez. ‘Our killer?’
Falcon didn’t answer, stared out of the window at the different bars and cafes flashing past on Calle San Jacinto as they headed back up to the river through Triana. He was suddenly depressed by the way his investigation was coming down to the sort of minutiae of everyday life encountered in removals companies.
‘He’s lucky,’ finished Ramirez. ‘He’s very lucky, Inspector Jefe.’
‘Let’s hope he’s relying on it,’ said Falcon, savage and morose. He was jittery from the coffee on an empty stomach and flat from lack of sleep and still no break in the case. His men on the street in Los Remedios hadn’t come up with anybody, not one person, who even remembered seeing the removals truck and the lifting gear.
‘What does that mean, Inspector Jefe?’
‘People who rely on their luck always rely on it until well after it has run out. Like gamblers,’ said Falcon. ‘They’re ultimately stupid people.’
‘Now you’re implying something, Inspector Jefe.’
‘Am I? I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t think he’s finished, do you? This killer.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You think he wants to test his luck some more … to see how far he can go.’
Falcon didn’t like this about Ramirez. The good cop in him who never stopped, who constantly observed, picked over words, levered up sentences. And now he was doing it to him.
‘You talk about “he”,’ said Falcon, a diversionary tactic, ‘but we haven’t even got that far.’
Ramirez grinned as they crossed the Puente de Isabel II and headed north along the east bank of the river towards San Jeronimo and the cemetery.
‘You know we’re wasting our time here, don’t you, Inspector Jefe?’
‘No, I don’t. Where do you think we’re going to get our break? We haven’t got it in any of the obvious places — on the body, in the apartment, in the Edificio Presidente, outside it, in the removals company — none of these places.’
‘You know I called you yesterday?’ said Ramirez, changing tack.
‘I didn’t pick up any messages until this morning.’
‘It was just that I was thinking you were right, Inspector Jefe,’ said Ramirez.
Falcon looked across at him slowly, nothing furtive, as if he was just taking in the view of the ‘92 Expo site, La Isla Magica looking totally mundane across the sluggish, grey river. Ramirez never thought anybody was right, least
