'Has anyone made a delivery like that before?'
'Not in those quantities. People have brought in bags of food to give to the Imam…you know, it's part of our duty to give to those less fortunate than ourselves.'
'When did they leave?'
'They stayed about an hour.'
'What about the men who came in on Friday?'
'They were inspectors from the council. They went all over the mosque. They discussed things with the Imam and then they left.'
'What about the power cut?'
'That was on Saturday night. I wasn't there. The Imam was on his own. He said that there was a big bang and the lights went out. That's what he told us the following morning, when we had to pray in the dark.'
'And the electricians came in on Monday to fix it?'
'A man came on his own at eight thirty. Then three other men came two hours later to do the work.'
'Were they Spanish?'
'They were speaking Spanish.'
'What did they do?'
'The fuse box was burned out, so they put in a new one. Then they put in a power socket in the storeroom.'
'What sort of work was that?'
'They cut a channel in the brickwork from a socket in the Imam's office, through the wall and into the storeroom. They put in some grey flexible tubing, fed in the wire and then cemented it all up.'
Merizak had seen the blue transit van, which he described as battered, but he hadn't seen any markings or the registration number.
'How did the Imam pay for the work?'
'Cash.'
'Do you know where he got the phone number of this company?'
'No.'
'Would you recognize the electricians, council inspectors and two young men if you saw them again?'
'Yes, but I can't describe them to you very well.'
'You've been listening to the news?'
'They don't know what they're talking about,' said Merizak. 'It makes me very angry. A bomb explodes and it is automatically Islamic militants.'
'Have you ever heard of Los Martires Islamicos para la Liberacion de Andalucia?'
'The first time was on the news today. It's an invention of the media to discredit Islam.'
'Have you ever heard of the Imam preaching militant ideology in the mosque?'
'Quite the opposite.'
'I'm told that the Imam was a very capable linguist.'
'He learnt Spanish very quickly. They said his apartment was full of French and English books. He spoke German, too. He spoke on the telephone using languages I'd never heard before. He told me that one of them was Turkish. Some people came here in February and stayed with him for a week and that was another strange language. Somebody said it was Pashto, and that the men were from Afghanistan.'
14
Seville-Tuesday, 6th June 2006, 18.30 hrs
The offices of the ABC newspaper, a glass cylinder on the Isla de la Cartuja, had been as close to bedlam as a hysterical business like journalism could get. Angel Zarrias watched from the edge of the newsroom as journalists roared down telephones, bawled at assistants and harangued each other.
Through the flickering computer screens, the phone lines stretched to snapping point and the triangles formed by hands slapped to foreheads, Angel was watching the open door of the editor's office. He was biding his time. This was the newshounds' moment. It was their job to find the stories, which the editor would knit together to construct the right image and tone, for the new history of a city in crisis.
On the way from Manuela's apartment to the ABC offices he'd asked the taxi to drop him off in a street near the Maestranza bullring where his friend Eduardo Rivero lived and which also housed the headquarters of his political party: Fuerza Andalucia. He'd been dining with Eduardo Rivero and the new sponsors of Fuerza Andalucia last night. A momentous decision had been made, which he hadn't been able to share with Manuela until it became official today. He had also not been able to tell her that he was now going to be working more for Fuerza Andalucia than the ABC. He had a lot more important things on his mind than grumbling about same-sex marriages in his daily political column.
Rivero's impressive house bore all the hallmarks of his traditional upbringing and thinking. Its facade was painted to a deep terracotta finish, the window surrounds were picked out in ochre and all caged in magnificent wrought-iron grilles. The main door was three metres high, built out of oak, varnished to the colour of chestnuts and studded with brass medallions. It opened on to a huge marble-flagged patio, in which Rivero had departed briefly from tradition by planting two squares of box hedge. In the centre of each was a statue; to the left was Apollo and to the right Dionysus, and in between was the massive bowl of a white marble fountain, whose restrained trickles of water held the house, despite these pagan idols, in a state of religious obeisance.
The front of the house was the party headquarters, with the administration below and the policy-making and political discussions going on above. Angel took the stairs just inside the main door, which led up to Rivero's office. They were waiting for him; Rivero and his second-in-command, the much younger Jesus Alarcon.
Unusually, he and Rivero were sitting together in the middle of the room, with the boss's wood and leather armchair empty behind his colossal English oak desk. They all shook hands. Rivero, the same age as Angel, seemed remarkably relaxed. He wasn't even wearing a tie, his jacket was hanging off the back of his chair. He was smiling beneath an ebullient white moustache. He did not look as if scandal had come anywhere near him.
'Like any good journalist, Angel, you've arrived at the crucial moment,' said Rivero. 'A decision has been made.'
'I don't believe it,' said Angel.
'Well, you'll have to believe it, because it's true,' said Rivero. 'I'd like you to meet the new leader of Fuerza Andalucia, Jesus Alarcon. Effective as from five minutes ago.'
'I think that's a bold and brilliant decision,' said Angel, shaking them both by the hand and embracing them. 'And one you've been keeping very quiet.'
'The committee voted on it last night before we met for dinner,' said Rivero. 'I didn't want to break the news until I had asked Jesus and he'd accepted. Something was going to have to happen before the 2007 campaign and, with this morning's explosion, that campaign will be starting today-and what better way to kick it off than with a new leader?'
Alarcon's expression was a mask of seriousness that bore all the weight and lines of the gravity that the situation demanded, but it could not hide what came shining out from within. His grey suit, dark tie and white shirt could not contain his sense of achievement. He was the schoolboy at the prize-giving, who'd already been told that he had won the top award.
Angel Zarrias had known Jesus Alarcon since the year 2000, when he'd been introduced to him by his old friend, Lucrecio Arenas the Chief Executive Officer of the Banco Omni in Madrid. In the last six years Angel had drawn Jesus into Eduardo Rivero's orbit and gradually eased him into positions of greater importance within the party. Angel had never had any doubt about Alarcon's brains, his political commitment or astuteness, but, as an old PR man, he had been worried by his lack of charisma. But the final wresting of the leadership from Rivero's trembling clutches had wrought an extraordinary change in the younger man. Physically he was the same, but his confidence had become dazzlingly palpable. Angel couldn't help himself. He embraced Jesus once again as the new leader of Fuerza Andalucia.
'As you know,' said Rivero, 'in the last three elections there has been steady growth in our share of the vote,
