The Blind Man of Seville

her body. Her arms were crossed over her chest, each hand demurely covering a breast. There was a burn mark and deep bruising at her neck. Her face still bore the make-up of her trade. Over each eyelid there was a coin and he could tell by the way the coins had sunk into the sockets that her eyes were missing. It threw him back against the coffin of the dead wife, the pen torch fell from his grip. He crabbed his way out of there and staggered down the steps, shaking himself down, shuddering.

Ramirez was calling the Jefatura incident room, telling them to send a patrol car and the Policia Cientifica but not to bother with the Juez de Guardia because the Juez de Instruccion was already present.

‘What’s it like in there?’ said Calderon, seeing the horror in Falcon’s face.

‘She’s dead,’ he said, ‘and her eyeballs have been removed.’

‘Joder,’ said Calderon, visibly shocked.

‘Sight lesson number two is under the mobile on her stomach. We’ll have to wait for the forensics to come before we go any further.’

Falcon walked away, took some deep breaths. He did a cursory check around the mausoleum and came back to Calderon.

‘We were talking about this guy’s creativity earlier,’ he said. ‘This smacks of improvisation. Somehow I don’t think this was part of the plan. This is just to show us how clever he can be. I think it’s important for him that we know this.’

‘But if she was an accomplice he must have known he was going to have to deal with her?’ said Calderon.

‘Like this? I know it sounds ridiculous, but do you know how difficult it is to get a body into a cemetery? You can’t just walk in with one over your shoulder. Look at these walls. The gates are shut at night. It’s a difficult business. And if she wasn’t his accomplice, he’s gone to the trouble of tracking her down, killing her, disposing of her body in this intricate way and … I think we’ll find out … introducing her into his theme.’

‘His theme?’

‘Sight, vision, illusion, reality.’

‘You think he’s operating alone?’

‘There are still some doubts in me about Consuelo Jimenez, but I respect what you said about giving the investigation focus, because without her we’re in an open sea. My instinct tells me he’s operating alone, but there’s an outside chance he was hired by Consuelo Jimenez, that he’s done his job and developed a taste for the work, and I mean The Work. I think this is like a work of art for him.’

‘So now you think he’s an artist?’

‘He thinks he’s an artist with all his sight lessons and his poetry and “I’ve got a story to tell”.’

‘If she wasn’t his accomplice,’ said Calderon, ‘and she was just in the apartment in his film, and he decided he had to deal with her, how did he track her down?’

‘The girls in the Alameda said that Raul Jimenez called twice because Eloisa Gomez wasn’t there the first time and he was specifically interested in her. So the killer, if he was in the apartment at the time, would have overheard the name. He also stole Raul Jimenez’s mobile. He has her number. But listen … this is interesting. There’s a line in the poem he sent us: “Donde se agitan las sombras.” Where the shadows move. That was Eloisa’s line — it’s what girls like her have to look out for.’

‘Then he’s spoken to her,’ said Calderon. ‘He’s formed some kind of relationship with her.’

‘And that is unusual between a prostitute and a client.’

‘So he did know her.’

‘If she was seeing somebody privately I’m surprised her girlfriends didn’t know about it,’ said Falcon. ‘But then … I think we mishandled her first interview and we’re police, after all. They don’t like us. They don’t feel inclined to talk to us.’

‘Do you think, Inspector Jefe,’ said Calderon, nearly momentous, ‘that we have a serial killer on our hands?’

‘We have a multiple murderer and, with the killing of Eloisa Gomez, I think we have something close to a random act, although, as I said, I think we’ll find that she’s become part of his theme, so it depends how you define random. The planning and motivation that went into the Raul Jimenez killing were absent from this murder. Where there had been logic, method and technique, now we have pure inspiration.’

‘So you think that he will kill again?’

‘I do … but I don’t think it will be random. I think it will fit into the structure of his work. And something fitted with Eloisa Gomez. She’s said something, apart from Donde se agitan las sombras, which has worked within the warped structure of this killer’s mind.

‘If you think about it, these girls, they scratch out their living in some dark and dangerous places. They see aspects of human nature on a daily basis that rarely cross the path of normal people. They need insight to survive their sometimes frightening liaisons. A lot of killers prey on prostitutes. For some men the only thing that these girls arouse is all that is weak in themselves and it makes them angry. Raul Jimenez seemed like a harmless, wealthy guy indulging himself, only we know there was some very perverse wiring in his head.’

‘Well, her instinct worked with him,’ said Calderon. ‘But it failed dramatically with the killer.’

‘He got inside her head. He touched her. She talked to him. Prostitutes survive with their clients by keeping their distance. Intimacy is fatal.’

‘That’s a world you wouldn’t want to live in … where intimacy is fatal,’ said Calderon, and Falcon, who had not made a professional friendship since he’d worked in Barcelona, knew that he liked him.

A patrol car eased up the main avenue of the cemetery, blue lights flashing between the black granite and white marble. Calderon lit a cigarette, smoked it with distaste. Falcon took out his mobile and checked the second message he’d forgotten about in the excitement of the first. It was Dr Fernando Valera telling him he’d arranged an appointment for him with a psychologist and giving an address in Tabladilla.