not his family, early in the morning. The room service boy had just wheeled in the trolley and Benito was flicking through Saturday's ABC and chewing on a croissant when there was another knock at the door. It was so soon after the room service boy had left that he assumed it was him coming back for some reason. He didn't look through the spy hole. He wouldn't have seen anybody if he had.
He opened the door on to an empty corridor. His head was just coming forward to look out when the edge of a hand swung into him with rapid and lethal force, chopping across his Adam's apple and windpipe and making a loud cracking noise. He fell backwards into the room, spluttering flakes of croissant over the front of his bathrobe. His heels worked furrows into the carpet as he tried to draw air into his lungs. The door closed. Benito's feet slowed after a minute and then stopped working. There was a gargling rattle from his collapsed throat and his hands lost all grip. He didn't feel the fingers searching for a neck pulse or the light touch of the card placed on his chest.
The door of the hotel room reopened and closed with a Do not disturb sign swinging on the handle. The air conditioning breathed easily in the hush of the empty corridor, while unclaimed newspapers hung in plastic bags from other, indifferent, doors. At 9.30 a.m. Falcon had taken a break from his interview with Agustin Cardenas and called Ramirez out to give him the news of the recording Cardenas had made, hoping it could be used to apply pressure on Angel Zarrias. Cardenas was taken back down to the cells while Falcon went to his office to call Elvira to get the Madrid police to pick up the recording from Cardenas's rented flat, while simultaneously arresting Cesar Benito in the Holiday Inn.
It was Ferrera, calling him from a cafe on the Avenida de San Lazaro, who told him to look at the latest news on Canal Sur. Falcon ran through the Jefatura and burst into the communications room just in time to see a shot of Marbella disappear from the television screen, to be replaced by the newsreader who repeated the breaking news item: Lucrecio Arenas had been found by his maid floating face down in his swimming pool at 9.05 that morning. He had been shot three times in the back.
His mobile vibrated and he took the call from Elvira.
'I've just seen it,' he said. 'Lucrecio Arenas in his pool.'
'They got Cesar Benito in his hotel in Madrid as well,' said Elvira. 'That's going to come through in the next few minutes.'
It took another five minutes for the Benito item to break. A TVE camera crew got to the Holiday Inn before Canal Sur reached Arenas's villa in Marbella. It took a further half an hour before their camera crew pushed a lens into the face of the maid, who'd only just recovered from the hysteria of finding her boss dead in the pool. The newsreaders jumped between the two dramas. Falcon called Ramirez out of the interview room to let him know, went back to his office and slumped in his chair, all the enthusiasm of the morning gone.
His first thoughts were that this was the end. It didn't matter what they found out now from Cardenas and Zarrias, it was all immaterial. He stared at his reflection in the dead, grey computer screen and it started him thinking in a slightly less linear way about what had happened. He made some uncomfortable connections, which made him furious and then another idea came to him, which frightened him into calming down. He got the communications room to send a patrol car to Alarcon's house in El Porvenir. He called Jesus Alarcon. His wife, Monica, answered the phone.
'You've heard the news,' he said.
'He can't speak to you now,' said Monica. 'He's too upset. You know Lucrecio was like a father to him.'
'First thing: none of you are to go outside,' said Falcon. 'Lock all the doors and windows and go upstairs. Don't answer the door. I'm sending a patrol car round there now.'
Silence from Monica.
'I'll tell you what it's about when I get there,' said Falcon. 'Did Jesus speak to Lucrecio Arenas yesterday?'
'Yes, they met.'
'I'm coming round now. Lock all the doors. Don't let anybody in.'
On the way to El Porvenir, Falcon called Elvira and asked for armed guards to protect Alarcon and his family. The request was granted immediately.
'There's more stuff coming out all the time,' said Elvira, 'but I can't talk about it on the phone. I'm coming in.'
'I'm on my way to see Alarcon,' said Falcon.
'Do we know where Alarcon was on the night of Tateb Hassani's murder?'
'He was at a wedding in Madrid.'
'So you think he's clean?'
'I know he's clean,' said Falcon. 'I've got a special insight.'
'Special insights, even your special insights, don't always look good in police reports,' said Elvira.
The street was empty of people and Falcon parked behind the patrol car, which was already outside the metal sliding gate of Alarcon's house. Monica buzzed him in. Falcon had a good look around before he went through the front door, which he closed and triple locked. He went to the back of the house and checked all the doors and windows.
'We're just being careful,' said Falcon. 'We don't know who we're dealing with yet and we're not sure whether Jesus is on their list. So we're putting you under armed guard until we know.'
'He's in the kitchen,' she said, looking sick with fear.
She went upstairs to sit with the children.
Alarcon was sitting at the kitchen table with an untouched espresso in front of him. He had his arms stretched out on the table, fists clenched, staring into space. He only came out of his trance when Falcon broke into the frame of his vision and offered his condolences.
'I know he was important to you,' said Falcon.
Alarcon nodded. He didn't look as if he'd slept much. He made light knocking noises with his fists on the tabletop.
'Did you speak to Arenas yesterday?' asked Falcon.
Alarcon nodded.
'How did he react to the information I gave you?'
'Lucrecio had reached the point in his life and business career where he no longer had to bother with detail,' said Alarcon. 'He had people who did the detail. I shouldn't think he'd seen a bill for the last twenty-five years, or read a contract, or even been aware of the tonnage of paperwork involved in a modern merger or acquisition. His desk is always clean. It doesn't even have a phone on it since he discovered that the only people he wants to talk to are on his mobile. He never learnt how to use a computer.'
'What are you telling me, Jesus?' said Falcon, impatient now. 'That the services of Tateb Hassani and his consequent murder were 'details' that did not concern Lucrecio Arenas?'
'I'm telling you that he's the sort of man who will listen to the business news, with all its astonishing up-to- the-minute detail, even a channel like Bloomberg, which is right on top of its subject, and laugh,' said Alarcon. 'Then he'll tell you what's really happening, because he is talking to the people who are actually making it happen, and you realize that the so-called news is just a bit of detail that a journalist has either picked up or been given.'
'So what did you talk about?'
'We talked about power.'
'That doesn't sound as if it's going to help me.'
'No, but it has been an enormous help to me,' said Alarcon. 'I'll be resigning from the leadership of Fuerza Andalucia and returning to my business career. My statement to the media will take place at eleven o'clock this morning. There's nothing left, Javier. Fuerza Andalucia is over.'
'So, what did he tell you about power?'
'That all the things that matter to me about politics, such as people, health, education, religion…all these things are details, and none of it can happen without power.'
'I think I can grasp that.' 'There's a saying in business, that what happens in the USA takes about five years to start happening here,' said Alarcon. 'Lucrecio told me: look at the Bush administration and understand that you only achieve power in a democracy with an enormous sense of indebtedness.'
'You owe favours to all the people who've made it possible for you to reach high office,' said Falcon.
'You owe them so much that you begin to find that their needs are shaping your policies.'
Three armed police arrived as Falcon left. Falcon drove back to the Jefatura, amazed at his naivety in thinking that Jesus Alarcon would be able to get anything approaching an admission from an animal like Lucrecio
