'The fire in the Sierra de Aracena?'
'It's destroyed 2,500 hectares and the wind is still blowing up there,' she said. 'The firefighters say it was arson. You wonder what the matter is with people.'
'Tell me about Russia. I'm interested in Russia.'
'It's more about statistics.'
'They're the worst thing about the news,' said Falcon. 'I think editors have a dictum: 'If you haven't got a story, give them a statistic.' They know that our imagination will do the rest.'
'These are the Russian statistics,' she said, reading. 'The number of illegitimate births doubled between 1970 and 1995. This meant that by 1997 twenty-five per cent of all births were illegitimate. Most of the illegitimate children were born to single mothers who couldn't keep themselves alive and look after a child at the same time, so they abandoned them. In December 2000 the Orthodox Church reckoned that there were between two and five million vagabond children in Russia.'
'Ah, right, your obsession with children,' said Falcon. 'Two to five million.'
'Now for the only good statistic. The fertility rate in Russia is nearly the lowest in the world. Nearly. And it was then that I realized why this article has been written in a Spanish newspaper because the only country with a fertility rate lower than Russia is
'Spain,' said Falcon.
'That's why your timing was perfect,' said Consuelo. 'I'd just started on that Sunday thinking, that the whole world has gone wrong.'
'I have a temporary solution to the world crisis.'
'Tell me.'
'Manzanilla. A swim. Paella. Rosado. And a long siesta that goes right through to Monday.'
He woke up in the night disturbed by a vivid dream. He was walking down a path in a dense wood. Coming towards him were two children, a boy and a girl, of around twelve years old who he knew were brother and sister. Walking between them was a totemic bird wearing a frightening mask. As they met, the bird explained: 'I need these two lives.' The look on the children's faces was one of unbearable dread and he felt himself powerless to help. He thought it had woken him up until, as he lay there, he realized that the television was on downstairs. Voices were speaking in American-English. Consuelo was still asleep next to him.
The light from the TV pulsated in the dark as he entered the living room. He turned it off with the remote. It felt warm and he noticed that the sliding door to the pool was open about half a metre.
He turned on the light. Consuelo came down the stairs still half asleep.
'What's going on?'
'The TV was on,' said Falcon. 'Did we leave that door open?'
Consuelo was suddenly awake, her eyes wide open. She pointed and let out a shout as if there was something bad in the room.
He followed her finger. Lying on the coffee table was a group photograph of her children. Someone had drawn a large red cross on the glass.
Chapter 20
The news told him that the fire was still burning outside Almonaster la Real as Falcon made his way to the Jefatura. Fifty kilometre per hour winds were not making the firefighters' task any easier and they were having to let it burn rather than actively save the forest.
He went straight up to the office of his immediate boss, Comisario Elvira, whose secretary sent him in. Elvira sat at his desk. He was a small, neat man with a pencil moustache and black hair, which he kept in a side parting made with the same laser precision as the Prime Minister's. He was a completely different animal to his predecessor, Andres Lobo, who seemed to have a greater understanding of the primordial mire from which men came. Elvira was a man who kept his pencils straight.
Falcon gave a verbal report of his weekend's work and put in a request for some discreet police protection for Consuelo Jimenez's children, who were down at the coast near Marbella with her sister.
'Were you staying with Sra Jimenez last night?' asked Elvira.
Falcon faltered. Nothing was sacred in the Jefatura.
This has not been the first threat since the beginning of the Vega investigation,' said Falcon, evasive on that point. 'I met her for lunch on Saturday and she told me someone from the Jefatura had given her an envelope for me. This photograph was inside.'
Elvira drew the evidence bag towards him and inspected Nadia tied to the chair.
'This Ukrainian woman disappeared after helping us with our inquiries,' said Falcon.
'Anything else?'
'Day one a car with stolen plates followed me to my house. Day two I found a photograph of my ex-wife stuck on the board above my desk at home with a pin through her throat.'
'These Russians are people who seem to know your situation, Inspector Jefe,' said Elvira. 'What are you doing about these threats?'
'I think the design of the threats is to put pressure on me directly,' said Falcon. 'If there had been an initial threat which had been developed I would be more concerned, but each one has been different and specific to my situation. They are trying to distract me from my purpose and get me to refocus my attention away from the Vega inquiry.'
'So you're not tempted to reassign any of your resources?'
'If, by that, you mean will I take responsibility for maintaining the small resource at my disposal on the Vega case, then, yes, I will.'
'Just out of interest, have you eliminated Sra Jimenez from your inquiries?'
'We have no suspect, no witness and no motive.'
'And another thing… Pablo Ortega – I understand you took a psychologist there with the intention of trying to help his son. She also accompanied you to the prison. Is there any connection between this case and the Vegas' deaths?'
Silence. Falcon shifted in his chair.
'Inspector Jefe?'
'I don't know.'
'But you think there is… something?'
'It needs more work,' said Falcon, 'which means more time.'
'We have confidence in your abilities and we support you in your endeavours,' said Elvira, 'as long as you do nothing to discredit the force. I'll call the Jefatura in Malaga and arrange for an officer to keep an eye on Sra Jimenez's sister and the children.'
Falcon went back down to his office with one of Elvira's comments niggling in his mind. These Russians know your situation. They do. How do they know it?
'Did you find Pablo Ortega's mobile?' Falcon asked Cristina Ferrera, as he passed through to his office.
'I'm working on the numbers now,' she said. 'He seemed to have used his fixed line for incoming calls only. The mobile was his first choice for making calls.'
'I want to know who he spoke to in the hours before he died,' he said.
'What about the key found in Vega's freezer?' asked Ramirez.
'She can work on that afterwards,' said Falcon. 'What about Vega's ID?'
'It's taking time. They've gone as far back as they can with the computer. Now they're working through manually kept ledgers.'
'And the Argentinians?' asked Falcon, as he dialled Carlos Vazquez's number.
'They're short-staffed because of the holidays,' said Ramirez, coming into Falcon's office. 'They've sent the details back to Buenos Aires.'
