‘Not personally.’
‘Well, he came in and kissed me and said
‘Did your husband know any of this?’
‘Only you, Inspector Jefe,’ she said. ‘Intimacy is easier with those that don’t share your bed. And … I think we recognize each other, don’t we, Don Javier?’
Falcon blinked at her, not sure where she was leading him.
‘We look as if we’re on the inside,’ she said, ‘but we’re not. We’re on the outside looking in, just like your father.’
‘But not your husband,’ he said, to change the subject.
‘Raul? Raul was lost,’ she said. ‘If that was what he was watching when he was with his puta, what does that tell you about him?’
‘Ramirez said it was guilt.’
‘Ramirez isn’t as stupid as he looks,’ she said, ‘… just macho.’
‘You don’t think your husband knew it was you?’ said Falcon.
‘I can’t believe he did. I didn’t get a credit.’
‘He saw the likeness, though.’
She nodded.
‘Do you think that, for Raul, to see someone who looked like his first wife …’
‘… behaving like a puta,’ she added for him.
‘… somehow assuaged his feelings of guilt?’
She shrugged, stood up, smoothed her skirt, said she had to go for lunch.
He walked back to the Edificio de los Juzgados, the day gone grey again, the leaves of the palm trees clacking in the breeze as the clouds reasserted themselves. Ramirez was waiting for him outside the Edificio de los Juzgados with a thick file under his arm. They went through security. He pulled a sheet of paper from the file: an inventory of Raul Jimenez’s possessions in the Mudanzas Triana warehouse.
On the way up to Juez Calderon’s office he read through the inventory, which included a complete home movie kit, an 8mm camera, film canisters, projector and screen. The Juez was waiting for them, standing at his desk, hands planted as if he was thinking about bulldozing them straight back out into the hall.
18
Falcon and Ramirez turned off their mobiles and sat down in front of Calderon, who maintained his businesslike stance until they were comfortable. He lowered himself into his seat as if he was making a tremendous effort to contain his anger.
‘Proceed,’ he said, and steepled his fingers. ‘Let’s start with the latest on the prime suspect.’
‘We have had a major development in that respect,’ said Falcon, and Ramirez on cue slid the two ‘cleaned’ blow-ups of the suspected killer out of the file and handed them to Calderon. ‘We believe that this is our murderer.’
Calderon’s eyes widened as the two sheets came across the desk but regained their grimness when he saw that neither shot was conclusive. Falcon kept up a running commentary on how they’d come across the sighting. His voice seemed disembodied to him, as if he’d become non-human, a robotic word-generator. The bone-deep tiredness was separating him from himself. More phrases toppled from his mouth: ‘ … believed to be male in the age range twenty to forty years old …’ ‘… a further development …’ ‘… a pornographic video …’ ‘… confused our perception of the prime suspect …’ He stopped only when Calderon put his hand up and read the report on the blue movie. The hand dropped. Falcon’s tape started up again, and he wondered how many words a human uttered in a lifetime. ‘The prostitute Eloisa Gomez …’ ‘… missing since last Friday night …’ ‘… contact has been made …’ ‘… stolen mobile …’ ‘… feared murdered …’ All this so long ago and yet so recent, he thought. And the investigation into Raul Jimenez’s private life — the abduction of the boy, the wife’s suicide, the daughter’s madness, the son’s neurosis — a different century, which of course it was. Everything is from a different century now. A great tranche of history has been set adrift, so that we can begin a new accumulation of wrongs without reference …
‘Inspector Jefe,’ said Calderon, ‘your speculation on history is not germane to this investigation.’
‘It isn’t?’ he said, and from his sudden fear that he’d been caught leaking came what he hoped was inspiration. ‘Motive is always historical, unless it’s psychotic. The only question is: how far back do we have to go? Last month, when Raul Jimenez tried to sell his restaurant business to Joaquin Lopez? The last decade, when he was presiding over the Expo ‘92 Building Committee? Or thirty-six years ago, when his son was abducted.’
‘Let’s concentrate on what we have before us,’ said Calderon. ‘You are an Inspector Jefe with five men under you; there’s a limit to what you can achieve with those resources. You have pursued the available leads. You have achieved things — this sighting, for instance. But the most important thing is the apparent audacity of the killer and his inclination to communicate with you. As you have said, in being bold he is making mistakes, which in the case of the funeral was nearly fatal for him. He is sending things to you. He is talking to you.’
‘In the light of Consuelo Jimenez’s reaction to the pornographic movie, are you proposing that we drop our prime suspect?’ asked Ramirez. ‘And wait for the killer to talk to us?’
‘No, Inspector, Consuelo Jimenez provides a focus for the investigation. She is all we’ve got. We believe the killer was not known to the victim. At the moment there are two people with possible motives: Joaquin Lopez of the Cinco Bellotas chain, whose motive is very weak; and Consuelo Jimenez, whose motive is a classic, almost a stereotype. Given her reaction to the video, as described by the Inspector Jefe, she is looking less likely, but this does not take her completely out of the frame. She has done enough to make you believe her capable of at least
