'Thirty-three.'
'You're a Sevillano. You've never lived anywhere else?'
'That's right.'
'Still got friends from your childhood?'
'Pedro. Pedro's the only one.'
'You're the same age?'
He nodded, unable to think where this was going.
'When was the last time you saw your old childhood friend Salvador Ortega?'
Carlos was stunned. He sat there blinking, uncomprehending.
'I don't know anybody called Salvador Ortega,' he said.
Falcon felt something cold developing in his stomach.
'Was the name of the man who gave you fifteen hundred euros to burn down the finca Ignacio Ortega?'
Carlos shook his head. Falcon looked into his eyes and knew that he'd never heard that name before, that it inspired no fear, no dread and no horrific memories.
'Tell me the name of the man who paid you to burn down the finca. Speak clearly, please.'
'Alberto Montes.'
Falcon left the room and knocked on Ramirez's door. He leaned against the wall in the corridor feeling sick.
'You got him already?' asked Ramirez, closing the door.
'I didn't get the right result, though,' said Falcon. 'I should have thought this out properly. I've been believing in my own stupid instinct too much. He's just named Alberto Montes.'
'Joder,' said Ramirez, thumping the wall.
'And now it's all fallen into place,' said Falcon. 'This is precisely what Montes would have done. He'd panic, or his self-disgust would finally get the better of him, or both, and he'd just want to get rid of the problem. Burn the place down. Except… the whole sierra caught fire, thousands of hectares were destroyed. And he'd blown it again. That's why he jumped.
'The day I saw Ignacio Ortega I knew he was a cunning little bastard and I didn't think. He's on a different level. The reason why we're getting the pressure is that he's told those people to put pressure on us. He would never do anything as stupid and unsubtle as arson. He's gone straight to the top of his client list and told them to stop us dead, or face the consequences.'
Carlos and Pedro were sent back down to the cells without writing their statements. Falcon took the audio tape of Carlos's confession and kept it with him. He picked up Maddy Krugman's laptop from the evidence room. Ramirez went home. They reconvened at Falcon's house and copied the tape. It was grim viewing, but they realized it was the product of a secret camera hidden in the wall of one particular room. It featured only four clients. The businessman from Ramirez's barrio, a well-known defence lawyer, a TV presenter and an unknown.
'This is how the Russians get things done,' said Ramirez, as they packed everything away. 'I don't know why they do it. I'm not a clever lawyer or businessman and I can't think of any sexual excitement that would induce me to expose myself to such risk.'
'This isn't about sex,' said Falcon. 'This is about damage. Having had damage done to you, or doing damage to others. Sex is a long way from what's going on on that tape.'
'Whatever,' said Ramirez, pouring out another two beers. 'We've done this. We've made the copy of the tape. And now what? We're fucked, aren't we? This isn't going anywhere. As soon as it comes out that Montes paid the arsonists, we're dead in the water. We have to keep our mouths shut or they go through us with a hobnail enema.'
'Elvira gave me a lecture about not being too zealous in the pursuit of justice in this case,' said Falcon. 'Institutions are protected by powerful people who want to hold on to power and they will ensure that I never get what I want. But when you see something like this, and that finca out in the sierra, and you begin to understand the level of corruption that made it possible, I start thinking that maybe we should clear the whole lot out and start again. I've realized that I'm very naive when it comes to these elevated heights of operation.'
'Well, you know who that will include, if you want to clear out the old,' said Ramirez, tapping his chest. 'My past is not so sweet. I think that priest I confessed to aged a decade when he heard me out.'
'What are we talking about, Jose Luis? A few favours from hookers?'
'It's not good,' he said, shrugging. 'In this sort of atmosphere, nobody gets let off.'
'You're not in the same league as these people.'
'And you know what it is about these people?' said Ramirez, the beer hitting his empty stomach. 'That cabron from the barrio – he's successful, wealthy, has a couple of houses here, some more on the coast, a yacht, a speedboat, more cars than trousers, and yet he still wants more. You see, there's only so much lobster you can eat, only so much champagne you can drink, only so many pretty girls you can fuck for money… and then what?'
'The excitement of the forbidden fruit,' said Falcon. 'So, maybe I was wrong, before. Maybe it isn't about damage, at this level. Maybe it's about power. The power to do these things with impunity.'
'I'd better go. I can see where this evening is heading,' said Ramirez. 'But I tell you, once they get hold of the Montes shit, they're going to make sure we live in fear.'
'Did you see the printouts Cristina found of Marty Krugman?'
'I didn't recognize the guy he was talking to.'
'He's called Mark Flowers,' said Falcon. 'He's the communications officer at the American Consulate.'
'Hah! Not so crazy Krugman.'
'There's probably a very reasonable explanation for it.'
'They were lovers,' said Ramirez. 'Good night.'
Desperate for some good news, Falcon called Alicia Aguado and was glad to find her still elated after her session with Sebastian Ortega. The first big step had been taken. He'd revealed the extent of the sexual abuse he'd suffered at the hands of Ignacio Ortega. Despite the horror of what the boy had been through, the breakthrough had made her happy – the healing process had started. Falcon longed for that sort of job satisfaction. Instead, on nights like these, with the arrowroot stalks of fortune up in the air, he could only see his work as a desperate shoring-up of the breakdowns, a sticky plaster applied to the gourd-sized stinking abscess in the body of society. He wished her well and hung up.
He hid the video behind two locked doors in Francisco's old studio. Back in the study, he checked he had Krugman's house keys, the laptop, the printout of Mark Flowers, and his loaded revolver. He drove out to Santa Clara and parked his car in Consuelo's driveway. He went in to explain his night's work to her and she insisted on feeding him. She was not herself. She was listless, quiet, distracted, even depressed. She said she was missing her children, that she was worried about them even with the police protection, but there seemed to be something else as well. At 10.30 p.m. he walked across to the Krugmans' house, let himself in and went upstairs and put Maddy Krugman's laptop back in her work room. He went to the bedroom, switched off his mobile, lay down and dozed fitfully.
At two o'clock in the morning his eyes opened to a sharp click from downstairs. He waited and listened to the complete silence of a good thief at work. There was no sound for several minutes. Then a flashlight came on in the corridor outside the bedroom. He was a first- rate, methodical thief, not a cheap, rowdy one, prone to defecating on the floor. He went into Maddy Krugman's work room. There was a sound like a nylon zip opening as the thief booted up the laptop.
Even breathing sounds loud when a good thief is at work. But while he was waiting for the laptop to boot up he was using the time to go through the physical prints. Falcon used that noise to get off the bed, wait for the feeling to come back into his right hand, take out his revolver and walk down the corridor towards the light bouncing in the room.
'Are you looking for this?' he asked, holding out his gun.
The thief looked up from the laptop, whose screen lit his irritation. He sat back on Maddy's work stool and put his hands on his close-cropped head and looked bored.
'I'm not interested in you,' said Falcon. 'I'm interested in what you do when you've found what he wants.'
'I call him and we meet down by the river.'
'Call him and tell him you got lucky,' said Falcon. 'Slow movements.'
