'That was a rape charge,' said Falcon. 'I remember Comisario Elvira mentioning it when I gave him my first report on Vasili Lukyanov's accident.'
'So Sokolov was into sexually assaulting women on that occasion?' said Ramirez.
'I think he was more interested in violence against women,' said Cortes. 'I'll check the case history and get back to you.'
'Well, that's progress on Marisa Moreno,' said Parrado. 'If we can match the DNA and find the suspects.'
'We've done some limited work on that,' said Ramirez. 'Before the incident in Las Tres Mil occurred, our two detectives, Serrano and Baena, were in Seville Este, trying to find out where one of these Russian groups are holed up.'
'Why Seville Este?'
'We believe that Vasili Lukyanov was defecting from Leonid Revnik to join a renegade gang run by Yuri Donstov. The GPS in Lukyanov's Range Rover had an address in Calle Garlopa in Seville Este.'
'Any sightings of Yuri Donstov?' asked Falcon. 'Or any Russians?'
'There are a lot of apartment blocks on Calle Garlopa and, so far, no Russians and no reports of having seen any.'
'It was probably just a meeting point,' said Cortes. 'I can't see him putting an address into his GPS. They've been more careful since Operation Wasp.'
'I have a source who tells me that Yuri Donstov could be in the Poligono San Pablo,' said Falcon.
'They don't advertise their whereabouts,' said Diaz.
'Let's move on to the two murders in Las Tres Mil,' said Parrado. 'Sub-Inspector Emilio Perez is the investigating officer, I believe.'
'I'm not in possession of a fully confirmed ballistics report yet,' said Perez, starting off in his characteristic fashion.
'But you have what we need to know, Emilio, so tell us that,' said Ramirez.
'Oh, right, Inspector. The autopsy revealed that the two dead bodies were killed by nine-millimetre rounds, which we assume were fired from the same gun, but this has not been confirmed yet.'
Ramirez tried to speed him up with quick turns of his fingers.
'The weapon found at the scene was a Beretta 84FS Cheetah. This is a.380-calibre weapon and only one round had been fired, which was found embedded in the living-room wall opposite the window. I have the plan here.'
'Keep going, Emilio,' said Ramirez.
'It is believed that this round wounded the assailant holding the nine-millimetre weapon. Preliminary findings from the autopsy reveal that the trajectory of the bullets entering Miguel Estevez, the Cuban victim, meant that the gun was fired from the floor, which encourages us to believe that the shooter has been injured. The first bullet smashed Estevez's spinal column at the sixth vertebra, the second hit his fourth rib and penetrated his heart.'
'Blood?' said Ramirez.
'Three blood samples were recovered from the apartment. One belongs to Miguel Estevez, the second to Julia Valdes, who was El Pulmon's girlfriend, and the third is unknown, but corresponds to the samples found on the floor and wall of the living room where the.380 round was found, the threshold of the door to the bedroom from where Julia Valdes was shot, the stairs up to the apartment block and the pavement outside. They're working on generating the DNA now. We have not had time to derive El Pulmon's DNA from hair and bristles found in his bathroom, but we believe that…'
'He wouldn't shoot his own girlfriend,' said Ramirez. 'What about the Beretta?'
'Ballistics say that it was fired lying flat on the table with the screw within the trigger guard. There were other screws holding the barrel in place. They think it was covered by the magazine. The recoil had sent the gun back to the window.'
'The knife?'
'The hunting knife had Estevez's fingerprints on the handle. The knife which stabbed him was not found.'
'Conclusion?'
'The first shot from the Beretta injured the shooter. Estevez tried to stab El Pulmon, who in turn stabbed him and then turned the Cuban so that he was between El Pulmon and the injured man on the floor. The shooter hit Estevez twice. Powder burns on the shirt suggest that the second shot was fired as Estevez was pushed back on to the shooter. El Pulmon escaped. The shooter then killed Julia Valdes and left the apartment himself.'
'Good,' said Ramirez. 'Any witnesses?'
'Just the one,' said Perez. 'Carlos Puerta, one of El Pulmon's clients, who the Inspector Jefe mentioned earlier.'
'Four gunshots go off in an apartment in the middle of the barrio and we have only one witness?' said Juez Parrado.
'It's Las Tres Mil,' said Perez, hopelessly. 'The only person who was prepared to say anything was the tenant above El Pulmon, who told us he'd heard the gunshots at about one p.m. When it comes to seeing people running around with blood all over them, especially when drugs are involved, then everybody is suddenly deaf and blind in Las Tres Mil.'
'So what did Carlos Puerta see?'
'He saw two men pull up in a dark blue car. He didn't notice the model or the number plate. They went into the building. One fits the description of the Cuban, Miguel Estevez, and the other this person we now know is the Russian weightlifter, Nikita Sokolov,' said Perez. 'He heard three shots. Puerta saw El Pulmon run out wearing a T- shirt covered in blood and heard a fourth gunshot. Then the weightlifter came out, got into the car and drove off.'
'And Carlos Puerta didn't report the shooting?' asked Parrado.
'He's a junkie,' said Perez, by way of explanation.
'What about El Pulmon?' asked Falcon. 'He being our most valuable witness of all.'
'I spoke to Serrano and Baena before I came here and they've come up against the same brick wall,' said Perez. 'El Pulmon was late with his product, so there would have been plenty of his clients out on the street. He'd also have been running and with Estevez's blood down his front. There must have been fifty people who saw him. Only Carlos Puerta has come forward.'
'So why was Puerta prepared to talk?' asked Parrado.
'He said he was a friend of El Pulmon,' said Falcon. 'He was very upset about the girl, Julia Valdes, getting killed. There's more to his story than he's prepared to admit, but getting it out of him is a different matter.'
'I'll go back to him later this evening or tomorrow with the Narcs,' said Perez.
'So, Puerta is unreliable, which means we have to find El Pulmon,' said Parrado.
'If I was El Pulmon, I would go to ground as far away from my regular haunts as possible,' said Ramirez.
'We do know he owned a car,' said Perez, 'but it's not in Las Tres Mil any more. Traffic are looking for it.'
'In that case he could be out of Seville by now,' said Ramirez.
'He used to be a novillero,' said Falcon. 'Find the name of his sponsor and see if he has any old friends in that community.'
'He hasn't been in the bullfight game for years,' said Perez.
'Work back, Emilio,' said Falcon. 'He's not going to go anywhere near his drug contacts. Family is equally unlikely. So it's old friends, and the ones from the bullfight game are the most likely to stick by him in his hour of need.'
'Especially if they've got gypsy blood as well,' said Ramirez.
'I'd like the DNA from the blood samples belonging to the nine-millimetre shooter,' said Cortes. 'If, as I'm hoping, we've still got Sokolov's DNA on file and we can get a match, that would put him at the crime scene in Las Tres Mil and then the girl who saw him in Calle Bustos Tavera would put him at the Marisa Moreno scene, too.'
'I'm not sure the witness we've got, who saw him and his two 'comrades' in Calle Bustos Tavera, is reliable enough for court,' said Ramirez.
'Why not?' asked Parrado.
'Saturday night – she'd been using drugs.'
'If we can put Sokolov there, it will at least inform us,' said Cortes.
'Both Marisa and El Pulmon had direct contact with Russians. We believe that Marisa had been coerced,
