boyfriend. That's it. That's all you need to know. It wasn't working out for me as a nun. I had weaknesses.'
Marisa spat out some tobacco from the ragged end of her cigar stub.
'Even that's calculated,' she said nastily.
'The only thing that the Inspector Jefe has calculated is that you don't like men very much, so he sent me… a woman.'
'An ex-nun who's been raped.'
'He didn't expect me to tell you that.'
'So why did you?'
'To show you that I'm not the sweet, virginal little woman you think you see,' said Ferrera. 'I've suffered… maybe not as much, or as continuously, as Margarita is suffering, but enough to know what it's like to be a piece of meat.'
'Drink?' asked Marisa, as if Ferrera's words had signalled something.
'No, thanks,' said Ferrera.
Marisa poured herself a hefty measure of rum and topped it off with Coke.
'Take a seat,' she said, pointing at a cheap, low stool. 'You look hot.'
Ferrera sat in the smell of her soap and deodorant mixed with sweat.
'Do you always drink while you work?' she asked.
'Never,' said Marisa, relighting her cigar stub.
'So you're not working?'
'I'd work if people didn't keep interrupting me.'
'Other people?' asked Ferrera. 'Apart from us?'
Marisa nodded. Drank some more.
'It's not just that he thinks I hate men…' she said, pointing at Ferrera with her cigar stub. 'And I don't hate men. How can I hate them? Only men can satisfy me. I only fuck with men, so how can I hate them? You? Do you only fuck with men? After what those guys did to you?'
'So what else is it?' asked Ferrera, feeling Marisa's drunken mind swerving away from her.
'He thinks I killed her,' said Marisa. 'The Inspector Jefe thinks I killed his wife. I mean his ex-wife, Esteban's wife.'
'He doesn't think that.'
'Did you know her?'
'Ines?' asked Ferrera, shaking her head.
'I don't know why your Inspector Jefe married that one,' said Marisa, pointing to her head, blowing her brains out. 'There was nothing inside.'
'We all make mistakes,' said Ferrera, some of her own and their consequences flashing through her mind.
'She was right for Esteban,' said Marisa. 'Absolutely right.'
'Why do you say that?'
'Another empty vessel,' said Marisa, knocking on the side of her work bench. 'A hollow man.'
'So why did you like Esteban?'
'It's more to do with why did Esteban like me,' said Marisa. 'I was just there. He came after me. It didn't matter what I thought. That's what Sevillano guys are like. They come after you. They don't need any encouragement.'
'And Cuban guys are different?'
'They seem to know when you're not right for them. They see who you are.'
'But you didn't turn Esteban down.'
'I tell you, Esteban is not my kind of guy,' said Marisa, and her face struggled against the alcohol into a sneer.
'So what happened?'
'He pursued me.'
'You look as if you're old enough to be able to tell a guy that his interest is going to get him nowhere.'
'Unless…' Marisa said, holding up her finger.
Some tinny Cuban music started up in the back of the workshop. Marisa staggered off amongst the clutter and picked up her mobile phone. Ferrera gritted her teeth, the moment lost again. Marisa retreated into the darkness and listened intently without saying a word. After some long, silent minutes she dropped the phone and skittered away from it as if she'd suddenly realized it was emitting poison into her ear.
9
Consuelo's house, Santa Clara, Seville – Saturday, 16th September 2006,10.30 hrs
Consuelo was having trouble getting Dario out of the house and into the car. She was on the phone, talking to the estate agent in Madrid who'd found her 'the perfect property' in the Lavapies district of the city. He was selling it hard because he was pushing something that was 'off brief'. Dario was on the computer, playing his favourite soccer game. He was impervious to her occasional shouts to turn the damn thing off, and he only complied when she appeared over his shoulder to wrestle the mouse from his hand. The electricity demands at the airport were such that the air-conditioning was not working at its optimum level. Looking out on to the taxiways where the aircraft unpeeled their tyres from the searing tarmac, Falcon held his jacket slung over his shoulder and put in a call to the only person he wanted to talk to.
'I'm stuck in traffic,' said Consuelo. 'Dario, will you please just sit down. This is Javi.'
'Hola, Javi,' shouted Dario.
'We're on our way to the Nervion Plaza. The only place in the world where we're allowed to buy football boots. You know, the pilgrimage to Sevilla FC.'
'I'm going to be out of town again today,' said Falcon, 'but I want to see you tonight.'
'Do you want to see Javi tonight?'
'Ye-e-es!' roared Dario.
'I think that sounds as if it would be acceptable.'
'I love you,' said Falcon, trying that out again, seeing if she would react this time.
'What was that?'
'You heard.'
'The line's breaking up.'
'I love you, Consuelo,' he said, and it made him feel young and foolish.
She laughed.
'Let's go!' roared Dario.
'Traffic's moving,' she said. 'Hasta pronto.'
The phone clicked off. He was disappointed. He'd wanted to hear it from her lips, but she wasn't quite ready for that yet, admitting to love in front of her youngest son. He put his hands up on the glass, stared out into the wavering heat and felt a great sense of longing in his chest. How the hell would you fall in love if you were blind? thought Consuelo, phone in her lap, traffic at a standstill again. Smell would be important. Not the quality of a man's aftershave, although that in itself would tell you something, but rather his… musk. Nothing sharp or rancid and not soapy or fragrant, but not too manly either. Voice, too, would have powerful effects. You wouldn't want to listen to somebody whiny or booming, nothing guttural or sibilant. Then there was touch: the feel of a man's hand. No limpness, pudginess, nor clamminess. Dry and strong, but not crushing. Delicate, but not effeminate. Electric, but not furtive. And then there were the lips. The crucial mouth. How his lips fitted on to yours. Just the right amount of give. Not hard, unyielding, nor soft and mushy. Kissing blind would tell you everything. Is that why we close our eyes?
'Mama?' said Dario.
Consuelo wasn't listening. She was too engrossed in her imagination, thinking how well Javier scored on smell, voice and touch. She'd never believed, after her marriage to Raul Jimenez, that she would ever think these foolish things again.
