'Given his domestic situation, he's got to be more careful now.'
'That's what we're thinking here,' said Pablo. 'Anything else?'
'I'm working on a potential breakthrough in the Seville bombing. We've come across some disks in the possession of a known Russian mafioso showing men having sex with prostitutes,' said Falcon. 'You remember the two ringleaders of the conspiracy: Lucrecio Arenas and Cesar Benito?'
'Benito was an architect for the Horizonte Group and Arenas was the CEO of their bankers, Banco Omni,' said Pablo.
'That's right. We never managed to find anything in either company that linked them to the conspiracy, but we're equally sure they weren't motivated by their Catholic beliefs,' said Falcon. 'I've isolated a male from the disks we found in the Russian mafioso's possession. Our two Organized Crime specialists from the Costa del Sol have been able to identify more than sixty people from these disks, but not this guy, and it occurs to me he may be an outsider.'
'And you think this may link the Russian mafia to Horizonte and Banco Omni?'
'It might do, if this guy happens to be in the hierarchy of either company or of Horizonte's holding company, an American-based investment group called I4IT,' said Falcon. 'The problem is that I know from my earlier investigations into these two companies how camera-shy their personnel are, and that you probably have access to… certain files that I don't. He might even be a foreigner.'
'You want me to see if I can match him?' said Pablo. 'For you, Javier, anything.'
They hung up. Falcon emailed the facial close-up of the male having sex with Margarita to the CNI website and, while there, checked the photo of the guy staying at Yacoub's house, but didn't recognize him.
'Send me those shots of the other two guys you haven't been able to identify from the Russian's disks,' Falcon shouted through to Vicente Cortes in the adjoining office.
The three faces came up on his screen. He inspected them carefully. Ramirez came in and stood by the window.
'This guy – 'Unidentified B'. He doesn't look Spanish to me,' said Falcon.
'No,' said Ramirez flatly, looking over his shoulder.
'The other two could be Spanish or Hispanic,' said Falcon, 'but this guy looks American.'
'American?' said Cortes, appearing at the door. 'How can you tell he's American from a grainy shot like that?'
'He doesn't look like a man whose face is burdened by centuries of history,' said Falcon. 'He has the innocence of someone who's spent his life embracing the future.'
'Even if he is fucking a teenager in the ass,' said Ramirez grimly.
'You can tell all that from this shot?' said Cortes, leaning over Falcon's desk.
'Look at his hair,' said Falcon. 'We don't have hair like that any more in Europe. That's what I would call American corporate hair. It's very conservative.'
'You should see the full clip. It doesn't even move during sex,' said Ramirez, looking out of the window. 'By the time he'd finished with that poor kid he should have had hair like a wrestler's, and yet… maybe it's a rug?'
'Possibly.'
The phone with the scrambled line to the CNI rang.
Ramirez took Cortes by the arm, led him out. Ferrera leaned in and closed the door.
'We want you to go to London,' said Pablo.
'I can't.'
'We've already spoken to Comisario Elvira.'
'I've just told you, things are breaking here. I feel as if I'm finally getting inside. I can't leave now,' said Falcon. 'And if I go to London, Yacoub will know I've spoken to you. He'll see it as a breach of trust.'
'You're going to see the British counter-terrorism squad, SO15, in New Scotland Yard. A guy called Douglas Hamilton. He will brief you. When you make contact with Yacoub you'll tell him why you're in London, which is to find out what the fuck he is doing losing an MI5 tail. That is not the kind of behaviour we expect from one of our 'untrained' agents,' said Pablo. 'You understand me, Javier? And look, you'll be away from your desk for the rest of today only. We've got you on to a scheduled flight in an hour's time and we'll make sure you get an early-evening flight back.'
'All right,' said Falcon. 'I'm sending you another two shots of men from the Russian's disks who we can't identify. One of them I'm sure is an American.'
'Don't talk to your friend Flowers about any of this.'
'Are you going to say that every time I say the word 'American'?'
'Mark Flowers is a very experienced operative. He has an instinct for when things are happening. I'd be very surprised if you didn't hear from him by the end of the day.'
'So what is happening?'
'Did you take a look at the mystery man who appeared in Yacoub's house?' asked Pablo, ignoring the question.
'Never seen him before,' said Falcon.
They hung up. Falcon stared grimly at the phone, not wanting any of this other, even more complicated, stuff. He called for Ferrera.
'I'm going to be out until this evening,' he said. 'I want you to go back to Marisa and work on her. Do everything you can to get her into your confidence. She has to tell us who is putting pressure on her.'
He sat back, tried to breathe down the stress, closed his eyes, thought about Consuelo's goodbye kiss. Everything had been in that kiss. The full complexity of a woman joining her life to his. Then he thought about football in the garden with Dario and remembered the boy's instinctive trust of him the night before, his head on Falcon's chest. The boy had done something for him, brought back memories of his own trust in his mother; those goodnight kisses in Tangier. It bound him to Dario in a way that made him feel both strong and vulnerable. He opened his eyes, placed his hands on the desk, squared his shoulders and, as he raised himself to go to the airport, he suddenly realized what was happening. The process of Javier Falcon becoming a parent had begun, and that was what was different in Consuelo: she'd decided to let him all the way into her life. 'You again,' said Marisa, seeing Cristina Ferrera through the door, open a crack. 'I don't know what the matter is with you people. Half Seville could be robbed and raped, and you'd still come knocking at my door.'
'That would be because it's my job to investigate murder,' said Ferrera, 'rather than anything else.'
Marisa looked her up and down. Her eyes were glazed. Maybe she was drunk or stoned.
'Specially selected,' said Marisa.
'For what?' asked Ferrera, sweat gathering under her eyes.
'Come in,' said Marisa, voice suddenly bored, walking away from the door.
She was wearing bikini briefs only. She picked up a cigar stub, lit it, leaned against the work bench and blew out smoke.
'Sweet and virginal,' she said.
'I used to be a nun,' said Ferrera. 'Maybe that's got something to do with it.'
Marisa snorted laughter, which came out on a long plume of smoke from her nose.
'You've got to be kidding.'
Ferrera stared her down, saw the half-bottle of Havana Club and a can of Coke behind her.
'I'll put on a top,' said Marisa, found a T-shirt, fought her way into it.
'Your boss…' she said, and losing her way she rubbished the air with her cigar stub. 'Whatever his name is. He's a clever guy, that one. You don't see many cops like him. You don't see many Sevillanos like him. A clever guy. He's sent you here on your own. He's thinking all the time. He comes in here, looks at my pieces… doesn't say a word. Thinking. Thinking. And he works things out. And that's why you're here, isn't it? The ex-nun. Everything is calculated.'
'I wasn't a great nun,' said Ferrera, cutting through the drunken babble.
'No? Why not? You look perfect,' said Marisa. 'I bet you only get guys you like coming after you.'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'I get all sorts of people coming after me,' she said, to herself. 'Tell me why things didn't work out for you as a nun.'
'I was raped by a couple of guys in Cadiz one night,' said Ferrera, matter of fact. 'I was on my way to see my
