The Blind Man of Seville

One of the girls had dark, curly hair. She never looked at the camera. She either stared straight ahead or looked down on the surface of the table she was leaning on, as if it was only a matter of time before she was on the other side of this experience. One hand was balled into a fist of bleak determination. He realized that if the camera’s focus had been pulled close-up on the faces while a voice-over unravelled the lives of the participants, the movie could have had documentary possibilities. Did these people have partners outside this temporary world? Would it be possible to have sex with seven or eight strangers and then go back home for dinner with a boyfriend or girlfriend? Did they have to give up on life to be able to do this work?

A wave of sadness collapsed in his chest.

‘Seen anything?’ asked Ramirez.

‘Nothing relevant,’ said Falcon. ‘I don’t know what we’re looking for.’

‘Is this tio laughing at us?’

‘This is his game and we play it because we learn something about him every time. Let’s go to number four.’

Ramirez rewound the tape, set it to ‘play’. It opened on a party in an apartment. The doorbell rang. The camera followed a girl in tight shorts and a halter-neck top down a corridor. She opened the door and let in two men and two women. Ramirez put his big finger to the screen.

‘Look at her,’ he said.

It was the girl with the curly dark hair and the balled fist, who never looked at the camera.

‘That’s a wig,’ said Ramirez.

The camera followed the group down the corridor to the party, which was now unaccountably out of control with everybody naked and performing. The four new arrivals, rather than running screaming from the apartment, joined in.

‘There she is again,’ said Ramirez.

This time she was stripped to the waist and sitting on the sofa looking up at a man’s bulging trouser front. The camera went in close as the girl’s hands reached for the man’s fly.

‘You know who that is?’ said Ramirez.

‘Incredible.’

‘It is, isn’t it?’ said Ramirez, his satisfaction palpable. ‘She’s younger and sort of fatter, but that is very definitely Sra Consuelo Jimenez.’

17

Tuesday, 17th April 2001, Jefatura, Calle Blas Infante, Seville

They were back in the office. Falcon behind his desk staring at the cassette while Ramirez stood tapping his ring finger against the window, looking out over the car park as if he had the whole lot to sell before the end of the week.

‘At least we know she’s not a virgin,’ said Ramirez.

‘You know what this does?’ said Falcon, batting the cassette across the desk. ‘It does exactly what it’s meant to do. It confuses everything.’

‘It was supposed to teach us something. It was a sight lesson,’ said Ramirez, straightening himself up, shaking his head at the cars, a really impossible task.

‘How does this make you feel about the case you’re building against Consuelo Jimenez?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, turning his back to the window. ‘In one way it supports it and in another it destroys it.’

‘That’s the point,’ said Falcon. ‘It shows she’s capable of stepping outside the boundaries. But why should the killer, supposedly paid for and instructed by her … why should he send us the tape?’

‘Unless he didn’t send it.’

‘Look — Sight Lesson number one: Raul Jimenez with his eyelids cut off. Who else could it be? It’s too knowledgeable.’

Ramirez walked across the room, wagging his ring finger.

‘You said it was designed to confuse, yes?’ he said. ‘Sra Jimenez is under pressure. You’ve spoken to her at length almost every day since the murder.’

‘You think she sent it herself or had it sent?’

‘Look at our reaction. We cannot believe that she would be prepared to expose herself to that extent. But think about it. She appeared in a pornographic movie twenty years ago. Big deal. She probably had her reasons. Cash shortage being the most likely. I mean, what do you want to do? Work as a chambermaid for a decade or suck a few cocks? The only way this movie would have an impact on her life is if we sent it to her friends in Seville with a red circle around her head and “Consuelo Jimenez” flashing on the screen, and if you haven’t got a budget for surveillance, then you certainly haven’t got a budget for that.’

Ramirez couldn’t help himself. That crude, irrepressible pugnacity always found a way out.

‘Maybe there’s another level to this sight lesson,’ said Falcon. ‘I thought this was the sketch that was playing when the killer filmed Raul Jimenez with Eloisa Gomez. What does that say about Raul Jimenez … if he knew who he was watching?’

‘He’s very strange.’