leading instructing judge in Seville,' said Falcon. 'You might not have known about the intended bombing or Ines's murder, but you knew you were giving gangsters access to a very important person in the justice system. Why did you do it? Did they have you on film with your pants down? A single guy? No, I don't think so.'
He shook his head, sniffed. Falcon rummaged through Spinola's jacket, rammed his hands into his trouser pockets. Spinola put up no resistance. Found it. A sachet of white powder.
'Coke?'
Spinola nodded.
'Is that it?' said Falcon. 'You did all this for some coke?'
Spinola stared into the sink, choked up again. He blurted out a few more sobs as the sudden vision of his collapsed career and spoiled life came to him again.
'I don't get paid very much,' he said. 'What little I make, I gamble. You know what gambling is like, Inspector Jefe.'
'Anything else?' asked Falcon, sensing there was more. 'How do you feel about your cousin? The brilliant lawyer.'
Spinola doubled over as if in agony, rested his head on the edge of the sink.
'I've lived in that fucker's shadow all my life,' he said. 'Do you have any idea what it's like to have your father holding up this guy all the time as someone to aspire to, when you know that he's been a first-class bastard all his life?'
'OK,' said Falcon, calming him down. 'Let's think about tonight. You've done something illegal: leaking information on the construction tenders to the I4IT/Horizonte consortium is a criminal offence, and you're going to have to explain that to the mayor – unless he was in on this?'
'No, no, no, que no,' said Spinola emphatically. 'He knows nothing, nor do Agesa or the town planning office.'
'Right,' said Falcon. 'I'm going to take you to the security office, where you'll wait for a guard to take you to the mayor as soon as he arrives. Tonight's event cannot continue under these circumstances, and you've got to do the right thing.'
They looked at each other via the mirror. Spinola nodded. They went back to the office together. Falcon asked the screen supervisor if the mayor's delegation had arrived. No sign. Running late. Falcon needed to get into the Sanchez/Belenki suite and the head of security might be required for that. He got the screen supervisor to call him up and get another guard to take care of Spinola.
'Anybody else arrived yet?'
'Senor and Senora Cano.'
'Regular types?'
'A Spanish couple in their sixties.'
The head of security came back, they went to the Sanchez/Belenki suite, picked up Ferrera standing guard outside on the way. Falcon pressed the buzzer. No answer. Pressed it again. Nothing. The head of security opened the door.
As soon as the air in the room touched Falcon's face he knew they were in trouble. Blood does something to an atmosphere: electrifies it, so that other humans know to tread with care.
The living room was unlit and empty. The terrace doors were open. The night had moved in, moths fluttered and batted against the bedroom door, which showed a crack of low light. The television was on in the next room. Falcon drew his gun, took four paces across the floor, nudged the door open with his foot. A reading lamp was casting light on to Isabel Sanchez's body from the chest down. She was wearing bra and panties only. Perfect figure. Legs so long and slim they reminded him of a foal's. Her head was in darkness. He stepped fully into the room. She didn't move. He turned on the light. That was what was wrong. The vision of beauty they'd seen on the CCTV screens had gone. A hideous black hole where her nose and mouth should have been.
The light was on in the bathroom, too. The sound of the shower. Falcon stepped to his left, leaned in. There was a hole in the glass panel of the shower cabinet, which had several long hairline cracks in it. Beyond was a man slumped against the marble-tiled wall, blood still oozing from a hole in the back of his grey head. The water from the shower cleaned and re-cleaned the constant rivulets of blood that ran down his back.
'Who the fuck is that?' asked the head of security, on his shoulder.
'This is probably Leonid Revnik,' said Falcon.
'He must have been hidden in the back seat, or the boot, when they came in,' said the head of security.
'Cristina, ask one of the security guards to take you down to the lock-up and get Viktor Belenki to confirm who this is in his suite. Be careful. Have your weapon at the ready. There's a killer out there and, given the way he's shot Isabel Sanchez, I think it's Nikita Sokolov Bring Ramirez back with you. Meet in the security office.'
The head of security sent out an alert to all guards in the grounds. Falcon gave him a one-line description of Nikita Sokolov. Using some toilet paper, he turned off the shower over Revnik's inert body.
'He came in from the back terrace,' said the head of security, 'but can't have triggered the light sensor.'
Back in the security office they went straight into the screen room. The screens on the right were all dark. The supervisor had seen nothing.
'If you hug tight to the side of the building it's possible you wouldn't trigger the light sensor,' he said.
'Run the footage on suite number six,' said the head of security.
The supervisor took it back ten minutes. The outside light hadn't come on. They looked closely and could see only a vague dark movement, nothing more.
'Has the mayor's delegation arrived?' asked Falcon.
'Yes, they went straight into the cinema,' said the guard.
'What do you mean? Spinola was supposed to talk to the mayor as soon as he arrived,' said Falcon. 'And what's happened to the guard looking after him?'
'I don't know. I've been watching the screens,' said the supervisor. 'I can't…'
The head of security held up his hand, radioed the guard, asked the question, listened.
'He never showed up. He thought responding to my alert about the weightlifter was more important, and he's out in the grounds looking for him.'
'Find Spinola, you must have him on those screens somewhere. I can't believe you didn't see him leave this office,' said Falcon. 'Why didn't the mayor have drinks and canapes before the viewing?'
'They were running late,' said the supervisor. 'There's a dinner afterwards. All I know is that they were met in the reception area by the guests from the Horizonte/I4IT consortium and they went straight into the cinema.'
Ramirez and Ferrera came in panting and sweating.
'Belenki's confirmed it's Leonid Revnik,' said Ramirez.
'Is Belenki secure?' asked Falcon.
'I've handcuffed him to the bed, and the door to the staff quarters is locked. There's not much else I could do,' said Ramirez.
'We're going to the cinema now,' said Falcon. 'Tell us when you find Spinola.'
The cinema doors were shut. The faint sound of the film presentation came through the wooden soundproofed doors. The head of security tapped Falcon on the shoulder, pointed at the projection room. The lock had been shot out. They all took out their guns. Ramirez shoved against the door. It wouldn't open. There was something jammed up against it on the other side. Between them they forced it open. Apart from a dead body on the floor there was another man, sitting quite calmly with his legs crossed, by the projection equipment.
'Mark,' said Falcon, nodding.
Flowers said nothing, looked tired, bags heavy under his eyes. The dead man had fallen on his side, face turned to the corner of the room.
'Who's this?' asked Falcon.
'I don't know,' said Flowers, sighing, as if this killing had taken something out of him. Falcon knelt over the dead man, who had taken a bullet to the temple. Falcon fingered his hair, felt it was false. He eased up the hair piece, saw that the man had a head shaved down to the skin.
'What happened here, Mark?'
'The projectionist set the film running and I told her to get out. I locked the door after her. A couple of minutes later someone tried the door. There's no peep-hole, so I couldn't check who it was. I stood behind the door. He shot out the lock. The first thing that came in the room was a gun. I recognized it as a nine-millimetre Makarov. Given
