He clicked through all twelve messages hoping that this was just the first panicked text and that by number twelve he'd get 'Dario found. See you tonight.' Instead he pieced together the chain of events and the last message read: 'WHERE ARE YOU? I NEED YOU HERE.' It was timed 17.08. His insides felt hideously cold, as ugly thoughts stirred at the back of his mind. Ramirez was still in the corridor outside the director's office waiting for news when he took Falcon's call. He gave him the update, told him that Consuelo was with the GRUME officers.
'I'm not going to get back until ten thirty tonight at the earliest,' said Falcon. 'Let me talk to her… in private.'
'Hold on a second, Javier.'
While listening to the extended muffled conversation at the other end, Falcon tried to think of consoling things to say to Consuelo, but he knew that no words of comfort ever worked in these situations.
'Cristina's found a couple living in an apartment block on Avenida de Eduardo Dato. They have a perfect view of the Sevilla FC stadium and the shop,' said Ramirez. 'They saw two people dressed in black jackets, black jeans and baseball caps with a small boy in between them, who was wearing a Sevilla FC scarf, but appeared to be struggling and not particularly happy. One of the adults was carrying a box. When they arrived at a car parked in front of the couple's block, one of the adults got in the back with the boy. The one carrying the box threw it on the ground, got in the driver's seat and drove off. They managed to see that it was a red Fiat Punto and had an old Seville number plate. Cristina's recovered the box, which contained a pair of football boots bought today from a shop called Decimas.'
'Take that news and the football boots in to Consuelo and the GRUME officers,' said Falcon, 'and let me speak to Cristina.'
Ferrera came on the line.
'Did you go and see Marisa?' asked Falcon.
'This morning, just after you left.'
'Every time I went to see Marisa I got a threatening phone call afterwards.'
'And you think they've taken their threat one step further.'
'I know they have,' said Falcon. 'I went to see Marisa late last night and I got a call just before I met Consuelo for dinner about ten minutes after midnight. The voice told me that something would happen and when it did I would know that it was my fault and I would recognize it. These people know me. They know my vulnerabilities. Whoever is coercing Marisa has kidnapped Dario. It's the next logical step.'
Falcon was talking to her in his usual measured way, but for the first time in four years working for him, she could hear a trembling at the edges of his voice that told her he was afraid. She knew he was close to the boy. He was always asking her questions about what her own son was like at eight years old; what he was interested in, what he liked to do. Her boss was learning how to be a father, and he'd just been thrown in the deep end.
'I'll go and see Marisa again,' she said.
'How was she the last time?'
'She was in a state. Drunk on rum. She was just opening up to me when she got a call. Then she fell to pieces, couldn't get rid of me quick enough.'
'Go and see her now, Cristina,' he said. 'As soon as possible. Get the pressure back on her. Tell her they've kidnapped a child. Work on her emotions. Make her… suffer. Do whatever you have to.'
'I'll do it. Don't worry,' she said. 'But what about the GRUME officers? Technically, it's their investigation. We're only involved because Consuelo called Ramirez when she was trying to find you.'
'We'd already started a line of inquiry with Marisa Moreno. She is a suspect in a conspiracy to murder case. GRUME will obviously have to be kept informed, but you are going to lose valuable time bringing them up to speed. So you go to see Marisa and I will explain our position to GRUME. Now let me speak to Consuelo while Ramirez is talking to GRUME about what you found out from that couple on Avenida de Eduardo Dato,' said Falcon. 'That was good, fast work, Cristina.'
Ferrera called Consuelo into the empty corridor, handed her the phone.
'Where are you?' she said, hugging the phone to her cheek.
'I can't tell you. It's not police business and I can't talk about it. All I can say is that I'm a flight away and I'm on the road to the airport. I'll be with you before midnight.'
'Cristina found witnesses who saw two people leading Dario away. I've seen the football boots. They're the ones I just bought for him,' she said, the emotion constricting her throat, having to squeeze the words past the barrier. 'They were leading Dario away, Javier.'
Consuelo was not prepared for this. Now that she was talking to him, all the powers that made her such a formidable person to deal with in business, that enabled her to run her complicated life, that made people sit up in the presence of her personality, deserted her. She found herself in the same state she'd been in with Alicia Aguado, holding her hand; the lost little girl, the troubled teenager, the adult gone awry, the mature woman on the edge of insanity.
Falcon, after that little logistical exchange, came to an unexpected halt in the face of his insurmountable guilt. All that cold, black hideousness that he'd felt on reading her messages rose in his chest. She was coming to him for help, for comfort, for solutions. And all he could think of was that he was the cause of her terrible predicament. He could feel her desperation, her need to melt into him, but, having wanted that more than anything else in his life this morning, he now found he was insoluble to her substance.
'This is what you have to do,' said Falcon, whose only recourse was to the professional in him. 'There's going to be CCTV footage of the two people…'
'The Nervion Plaza's CCTV doesn't go out that far.'
'Those two people will have had to come into the shopping centre to find you. They will have been looking at you for some time before they saw their opportunity. You have to look at all the available footage and find them. Then when you've found them you have to think where you've seen them before, because, Consuelo, those two people have been somewhere in your life. They might have been at the very periphery of it, but they have been there. Nobody can do what they've just done without any planning, without having watched you and Dario for some time.'
'But maybe somebody else did all that and these people just did the… the abducting.'
'That's possible, but at some stage those people will have had to see their target. You should talk to the school, take Inspector Jefe Tirado with you and talk to the teachers and other children, not just the ones in his class.'
'I need you here, Javier,' she said.
'And I'm going to be there, but in the meantime this is the most important moment. Remember that. The first hours are critical. You have to clear your mind of everything and concentrate only on what can help us find Dario.'
A deep breath from Consuelo.
'You're right,' she said.
'When you see those two people on the CCTV footage – and I promise you, they will be there – they might not be in their baseball caps, or they might be in reversible jackets, but they will be there, Consuelo. You will have seen them.'
'I've seen them,' she said.
'What do you mean?'
'I remember now. Two men. They looked straight at me when I was on the phone in Decimas, waiting to pay for the football boots. I noticed their look.'
'Think about them when you're looking at the CCTV footage. Ask the security people to play the footage from outside Decimas first and when you see those two men look at everything about them. The way they walk, their size, height, clothes, hands and feet, jewellery – anything that will give you a clue, that will jog your memory of where you have seen them before. That's all you do, Consuelo, think about that, answer the questions from Inspector Jefe Tirado and nothing else. I'll be back tonight and we'll find him.'
'Javier?'
'Yes.'
'I love you,' she said. 'You again,' said Marisa, face impassive, rubbery with alcohol, her eyes rheumy. 'Still haven't found anything better to do?'
She let the door fall back, revealed herself in bikini briefs again, a fat smouldering joint in her fingers. The smell
