'Mama?'
'What, Dario?'
'You're not listening to me.'
'I am, sweetie, it's just that Mama's thinking, too.'
'Mama?'
'Yes.'
'You missed the turning.'
She squeezed his knee so that he yelped and made the complicated series of turns to get back to the Nervion Plaza parking.
'Mama?' said Dario, as they descended into the underground car park, ground to a halt in the queue to go in.
'What is it, darling?' said Consuelo, feeling that the first three inquiring 'Mama's' had been a prelude to some big, burning question, dying to be asked.
'Do you still love me now that Javi is with us?'
She looked at him, big eyes beseeching her, felt her insides collapse. How do we know these things? Even at eight years old he can tell something important might be swerving away from him. She stroked his head and cheek.
'But you're my little man,' she said. 'The most important one in the world.'
Dario smiled, that small confrontation with sadness instantly forgotten. He pushed his fists between his knees and hunched his shoulders up to his ears as his world fell back into place. The driver of the black Jaguar didn't say a word. The car sped along the M4 motorway into London. Falcon was cold, underdressed for the season, and he was feeling a Spaniard's uneasiness for silence in company, until he remembered his father, Francisco, telling him that the English liked to talk about the weather. But as he looked out on to the dull, grey, flat landscape overhung by dull, grey, pendulous clouds, he could find nothing to say about it. Couldn't imagine what anybody would find to say about it. He put his face close to the window to help him perceive what a local person might see in such unmitigated dullness and thought it might be what you couldn't see.
'When did you last see the sun shine?' he asked, in perfect English, his breath fogging the glass.
'Sorry, mate,' said the driver, 'don't speak Spanish. Go to Mallorca every year for my holidays, but still don't speak a word.'
Falcon checked him for irony but could tell, even from the back of the man's head and his quick glance at the rear-view, that he was totally good-natured.
'It's not our strong point either,' said Falcon. 'Languages.'
The driver whipped round in his seat as if to check he still had the same passenger.
'Oh, right,' he said. 'Yeah, no. You're pretty good. Where d'you learn to speak English like that?'
'English lessons,' said Falcon.
'Well, that's cheating, innit?' said the driver, and they both laughed, although Falcon wasn't quite sure why.
The traffic seized up as they came into the city. The driver turned off the Cromwell Road; twenty minutes later they went past the famous revolving sign of New Scotland Yard.
Falcon introduced himself at reception, handed over his ID and police card. He went through security and was met at the lifts by a uniformed officer. They went up to the fifth floor. Douglas Hamilton met him off the lift, took him into a meeting room where there was another man in his late thirties.
'This is Rodney from MI5,' said Hamilton. 'Take a seat. Flight OK?'
'Not your sort of temperature, eh, Javier?' said Rodney, releasing Falcon's ice-cold hand.
Finally, the weather, thought Falcon.
'Pablo forgot to tell me it was already winter here,' he said.
'This is our bloody summer,' said Hamilton.
'You ever been to the Irish bar in Seville, down by the cathedral?' asked Rodney.
'Only if someone was murdered there,' said Falcon.
They laughed. The room relaxed. They were going to understand each other.
'You run Yacoub Diouri,' said Rodney, 'but you're a police officer.'
'Yacoub is a friend of mine. He said he would supply information to the CNI only on condition that I was his main contact.'
'How long have you known him?'
'Four years,' said Falcon. 'We first met in September 2002.'
'And when was the last time you saw him before yesterday?'
'We spent some time on holiday together in August.'
'And his son, Abdullah, was with you?'
'It was a family holiday.'
'And how did Abdullah appear to you then?'
'As I would have expected the son of a wealthy member of the Moroccan elite,' said Falcon.
'Spoilt brat?' asked Hamilton.
'Not exactly. He didn't behave any differently to a Spanish boy of his age. He was very attached to his computer, bored by the beach, but he's a good kid.'
'Was he devout?'
'No more than the rest of the family, who take their religion very seriously. As far as I know, he wasn't leaving dinner early to go and study the Qur'an, but then Yacoub said his browser was full of 'Islamic' sites, so maybe that's what he was doing.'
'Did he drink?' asked Rodney. 'Alcohol?'
'Yes,' said Falcon, feeling the strange weight of this question. 'Yacoub, Abdullah and I would share a bottle of wine at dinner.'
'Just one bottle between three?' said Rodney, whose top button was undone and the knot of his tie off centre.
There was a grunt of laughter from Hamilton.
'If I hadn't been there they wouldn't have drunk alcohol,' said Falcon. 'It was just to make me comfortable as their guest.'
'Has Abdullah ever joined Yacoub on any of his business trips to the UK?' asked Hamilton.
'I think so. I seem to remember Yacoub talking about taking Abdullah to the Tate Modern to see the Edward Hopper exhibition. That was before I recruited Yacoub.'
'Did you know that Abdullah was in London now?'
'No. In fact yesterday Yacoub told me he was in a training camp for GICM mujahideen back in Morocco. He also told me that he himself was returning to Rabat…'
'Pablo briefed us,' said Rodney, nodding.
'Have you found him yet?' asked Falcon, and Rodney glared. 'Pablo said you'd lost Yacoub, or rather Yacoub had lost your…'
'We picked him up again about an hour ago,' said Rodney. 'It was just him. Abdullah stayed in the hotel. It's not the first time he's lost one of our tails, you know that.'
'Do you follow him every time he comes to London?'
'We do now,' said Hamilton. 'Since the first time he lost a tail, back in July.'
'July?' said Falcon, amazed. 'That was only a month after I recruited him.'
'That's the question,' said Rodney, shifting in his seat, pulling his tie back to centre. 'How was an amateur able to take us to the cleaners so easily?'
'Take you to the cleaners?' said Falcon, puzzled.
'Fool us,' said Hamilton, clarifying.
'How could a fucking jeans manufacturer from Rabat take on MI5 and make us look stupid?' said Rodney.
'And the answer is…?' said Hamilton, not wanting Rodney's testiness to get a foothold.
'He's been very well trained,' said Rodney. 'And we don't believe he learnt that in a month.'
'If he did, it was auto-didactic,' said Falcon.
'You what?' said Rodney.
