The Blind Man of Seville

‘You shouldn’t watch if you can’t take it,’ said Jorge from under the desk.

‘I’ve never liked horror,’ said Falcon.

‘Me neither,’ said Jorge. ‘I can’t take all that … that …’

‘That what?’ asked Falcon, surprised to find himself interested.

‘I don’t know … the normality, the portentous normality.’

‘We all need a little fear to keep us going,’ said Falcon, looking down his red tie, the sweat tumbling out of his forehead again.

There was a thump from under the desk as Jorge’s head hit the underside.

‘Joder.’ Fuck. ‘You know what this is?’ said Jorge, backing out from under the desk. This is a chunk of Raul Jimenez’s tongue.’

Silence from the three men.

‘Bag it,’ said Falcon.

‘We’re not going to find any prints,’ said Felipe. ‘These slipcases are clean, as is the video, TV, the cabinet and the remote. This guy was prepared for his work.’

‘Guy?’ asked Falcon. ‘We haven’t talked about that yet.’

Felipe fitted a pair of custom-made magnifying glasses to his face and began a minute inspection of the carpet.

Falcon was amazed at the two forensics. He was sure they’d never seen anything as gruesome as this in their careers, not down here, not in Seville. And yet, here they were … He took a perfect square of ironed handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed his brow. No, it wasn’t Felipe and Jorge’s problem. It was his. They behaved like this because this was how he normally behaved and had told them it was the only way to work in a murder investigation. Cold. Objective. Dispassionate. Detective work, he could hear himself in the lecture theatre back in the academy, is unemotional work.

So what was different about Raul Jimenez? Why this sweat on a cool, clear April morning? He knew what they called him behind his back down at the Jefatura Superior de Policia on Calle Blas Infante. El Lagarto. The Lizard. He’d liked to think it was because of his physical stillness, his passive features, his tendency to look intensely at people while he listened to them. Ines, his ex-wife, his recently divorced wife, had cleared up that misunderstanding for him. ‘You’re cold, Javier Falcon. You’re a cold fish. You have no heart.’ Then what is this thing thundering away in my chest? He jabbed himself in the lapel with his thumb, found himself with his jaw clenched and Felipe looking up with fish aquarium eyes from the carpet.

‘I have a hair, Inspector Jefe,’ he said. ‘Thirty centimetres.’

‘Colour?’

‘Black.’

Falcon went to the desk and checked the photograph of La Familia Jimenez. Consuelo Jimenez stood in a floor- length fur coat, her blonde hair piled high as confectionery while her three sons cheesed at the camera.

‘Bag it,’ he said, and called for the Medico Forense. In the photograph Raul Jimenez stood next to his wife with his horse teeth grinning, his sagging cheeks looking like a grandfather and his wife, a daughter. Late marriage. Money. Connections. Falcon looked into Consuelo Jimenez’s brilliant smile.

‘Good carpet, this,’ said Felipe. ‘Silk. Thousand knots per centimetre. Good tight pile so that everything sits nicely on top.’

‘How much do you think Raul Jimenez weighs?’ Falcon asked the Medico Forense.

‘Now I’d say somewhere between seventy-five and eighty kilos, but from the slack in his chest and waist I’d say he’s been up in the high nineties.’

‘Heart condition?’

‘His doctor will know if his wife doesn’t.’

‘Do you think a woman could lift him out of that low leather scoop and put him in that high-backed chair?’

‘A woman?’ asked the Medico Forense. ‘You think a woman did that to him?’

‘That was not the question, Doctor.’

The Medico Forense stiffened as Falcon made him feel stupid a second time.

‘I’ve seen trained nurses lift heavier men than that. Live men, of course, which is easier … but I don’t see why not.’

Falcon turned away, dismissing him.

‘You should ask Jorge about trained nurses, Inspector Jefe,’ said Felipe, arse up in the air, practically sniffing the carpet.

‘Shut up,’ said Jorge, tired of this one.

‘I understand it’s all to do with the hips,’ said Felipe, ‘and the counterweight of the buttocks.’

‘That’s only theory. Inspector Jefe,’ said Jorge. ‘He’s never had the benefit of practical experience.’

‘How would you know?’ said Felipe, kneeling up, grabbing an imaginary rump and giving it some swift thrusts with his groin. ‘I had a youth, too.’

‘Not much of one in your day,’ said Jorge. ‘They were all tight as clams, weren’t they?’

‘Spanish girls were,’ said Felipe. ‘But I come from Alicante. Benidorm was just down