The Blind Man of Seville

Victoria. They crossed the road into the square, which was full of stalls selling cheap jewellery and shawls, CDs, leather bags and wallets. The group disappeared into Marks & Spencer’s. The family group were shown again and again until two of the three men were stifling yawns amidst the shopping malls, the beach gatherings, the paseos in the Plaza de Espana and the Parque de Maria Luisa.

‘Is he just showing us he did his homework?’ asked Ramirez.

‘Impressively dull, isn’t it?’ said Falcon, not finding it so, finding himself oddly fascinated by the altering dynamics of the family group in the different locations. He was drawn to the idea of the family, especially this apparently happy one, and what it would be like to have one himself, which led him to think how it was that he had singularly failed in this capacity.

Only a change in the direction of the movie snapped him back. It was the first piece of footage where the family didn’t appear as a group. Raul Jimenez and his boys were at the Betis football stadium on a day when, it was clear from the scarves, they were playing Sevilla — the local derby.

‘I remember that day,’ said Calderon.

‘We lost 4–0,’ said Ramirez.

‘You lost,’ said Calderon. ‘We won.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Ramirez.

‘Who do you support, Inspector Jefe?’ asked Calderon.

Falcon didn’t react. No interest. Ramirez glanced over his shoulder, uncomfortable with his presence.

The camera cut to the Edificio Presidente. Consuelo Jimenez on her own, getting into a taxi. Cut to her paying the taxi off in a tree-lined street, waiting some moments while the car pulled away before crossing the road and walking up several steps to a house.

‘Where’s that?’ asked Calderon.

‘He’ll tell us,’ said Falcon.

A series of cuts showed Consuelo Jimenez arriving at the same house on different days, in different clothes. Then the house number — 17. And the street name — Calle Rio de la Plata.

‘That’s in El Porvenir,’ said Ramirez.

‘This is the future,’ said Calderon. ‘I think we have a lover here.’

Cut to night-time and the rear of a large E-Class Mercedes with a Seville number plate. The image held for some time.

‘He doesn’t move his plot on very well,’ said Calderon, reaching his boredom threshold quickly.

‘Suspense,’ said Falcon.

Finally Raul Jimenez got out of the car, locked it, stepped out of the street lighting and into the dark. Cut to a fire burning in the night, figures standing around the leaping flames. Women in short skirts, some with their suspenders and stocking tops showing. One of them turned, bent over and put her bottom to the fire.

Raul Jimenez appeared at the edge of the fire. An inaudible discussion ensued. He strode back to the Mercedes with one of the women following, stumbling in her high heels over the rough ground.

‘That’s the Alameda,’ said Ramirez.

‘Only the cheapest for Raul Jimenez,’ said Falcon.

Jimenez pushed the girl into the back seat, holding her head down as if she were a police suspect. He looked up and around and followed her in. The frame held the rear door of the Mercedes, shadowy movements beyond the glass. No more than a minute passed and Jimenez got out of the car, straightened his fly and held out a note to the girl, who took it. Jimenez got back into the driver’s seat. The car pulled away. The girl spat a fat gob on to the dirt, cleared her throat and spat again.

‘That was quick,’ said Ramirez, predictable.

More night-time footage followed. The pattern was the same, until an abrupt change of scene put the camera in a corridor with light falling into it from an open door at the end on the left. The camera moved down the corridor gradually revealing a lighter square on the wall at the end with a hook above it. The three men were suddenly transfixed, as they knew they were looking at the corridor outside the room where they were sitting. Ramirez’s hand twitched in that direction. The camera shook. The suspense tightened as the three lawmen’s heads surged with the horror of what they might be about to see. The camera reached the edge of light, its microphone picked up some groaning from the room, a shuddering, whimpering moan of someone who might be in terrible agony. Falcon wanted to swallow but his throat refused. He had no spit.

‘Joder,’ said Ramirez, to break the tension.

The camera panned and they were in the room. Falcon was so spooked that he half expected to see the three of them sitting there, watching the box. The camera focused first on the TV, which, at this remove, was running with waves and flickering but not so much that they couldn’t see the graphic performance of a woman masturbating and felating a man whose bare buttocks clenched and unclenched in time.

The camera pulled back to a wide shot, Falcon still blinking at the confusion of sound and expected image. Kneeling on the Persian carpet looking up at the TV screen was Raul Jimenez, shirt-tails hanging over his backside, socks halfway up his calves and his trousers in a pile behind him. On all fours in front of him was a girl with long black hair, whose still head informed Falcon that she was staring at a fixed point, thinking herself elsewhere. She was making the appropriate encouraging noises. Then her head began to turn and the camera spun wildly out of the room.

Falcon was on his feet, thighs crashing into the edge of the desk.

‘He was there,’ he said. ‘He was … I mean, he was here all the time.’

Ramirez and Calderon jerked in their seats at Falcon’s outburst. Calderon ran his hand through his hair, visibly shaken. He checked the door from where the camera had just been looking into the room. Falcon’s mind bolted, didn’t know what it was looking at any more. Image or reality. He started, went on to his back foot, tried to shake