part…What did the other part want?
The whore wasn't there. It was hot. The street signs told her it was 39°C at 11.45. She walked through the Barrio Santa Cruz, amongst the ambling tourists. How was she going to find the whore? The painkillers were good. Her mind floated free of her body. Reality eased off a few notches. It hadn't occurred to her that painkillers killed all manner of pain.
Her lips tingled and did not feel like her own. Street sounds came to her muffled, her vision was soft focus. She was being drawn along by a great multitude of people who were crowding into the Avenida de la Constitucion and heading for the Plaza Nueva. They carried banners, which she couldn't read because they were turned away from her. In the square there were hundreds of placards held up in the air, which said simply: PAZ. Peace. Yes, she would like some of that.
The clock struck midday and the crowd fell totally silent. She walked amongst them, wondering what had happened, looking into their faces for signs. They returned her gaze, stone-faced. The traffic noise had stopped, too. There was only the sound of birds. It was quite beautiful, she thought, that people should be gathering together to ask for peace. She wandered out of the square just as people returned to a state of animation and the murmur of humanity rose up behind her. She went down Calle Zaragoza thinking she would go to El Cairo for something to eat. They liked her in El Cairo. She thought they liked her in El Cairo. But everybody liked everybody else in bars in Seville.
It was then that she saw the whore. Not the whore herself, but a photograph. She stepped back into the street, confused. Could whores do that now? Advertise themselves in shop windows? They pipe porn into your living room after midnight now, but do they let whores tout for business like this? She was surprised to find it was an art gallery.
A car gave her a light toot. She stepped back up to the window. She read the card next to the photograph: Marisa. Just that-Marisa. How old was she? The card didn't say. That's what everybody wants to know these days. How old are you? They want to see your beauty. They need to know your age. And if you're talented, that's a bonus, but the first two are crucial for the marketing.
Beyond the window display was a young woman at a desk. Ines went in. She heard her heels on the marble floor. She'd forgotten to look at the whore's work, but she was committed now.
'I love that Marisa,' she heard herself say. 'I just love her.'
The young woman was pleased. Ines was well dressed and seemed harebrained enough to pay the ridiculous prices. They veered off together to admire Marisa's work-two woodcarvings. Ines encouraged the woman to talk, and in a matter of minutes had found out where Marisa had her workshop.
Ines had no idea what she should do with this information. She went to El Cairo and ordered a stuffed piquillo pepper and a glass of water. She toyed with the bright red pepper, which looked obscene, like a pointed, inquisitive tongue looking for a moist aperture. She hacked it up and forked it into her cottonwool mouth.
She went home, turned on the air conditioning and lay on the bed. She slept and woke up in the chill of the apartment, having dreamt and been left with an overwhelming sense of loneliness. She had never been as lonely as in that dream. It occurred to her that she would only be as lonely as that in death.
The painkillers had worn off and she was stiff with cold. She realized that she was talking to herself and was fascinated to know what she'd been saying.
It was 4.30 in the afternoon. She should go to the office and work on the case, but there didn't seem much point now. For some reason tomorrow had begun to seem unlikely.
She heard herself say: 'Don't be ridiculous.' She went to the kitchen and drank water and swallowed more painkillers. She came out of the apartment and into the street, which was thick with heat after the thin, chilled air inside. She caught a cab and heard her voice ask the cab driver to take her to Calle Bustos Tavera. Why had she asked to be taken there? There was nothing to be gained…
There was something jutting out of the gathered neck of her handbag, which she held on her lap. She didn't recognize what it was. She pulled open the bag and saw a steel button set flush in a black handle and a straight steel blade next to her hairbrush. She looked up at the driver, their eyes connected via the rear-view mirror.
'Have you seen that?' said the driver.
'What?' said Ines, in shock at the sight of the knife. But he was pointing out of the window.
'People hanging hams outside their front doors,' he said. 'If they can't afford them, they're hanging pictures of hams. A ham manufacturer in Andalucia is distributing them. This guy on the radio was saying it's a passive form of protest. It goes back to the fifteenth century when the Moors were driven out of Andalucia and the Catholic Kings promoted the cooking and eating of pork to signify the end of Islamic domination. They're calling today El Dia de los Jamones. What do you think of that?'
'I think…I don't know what I think,' said Ines, fingering the knife handle.
The driver switched the radio to another station. Flamenco music filled the cab.
'I can't listen to too much talk about the bomb,' he said. 'It makes me wonder who I've got in the back of my cab.'
22
Seville-Wednesday, 7th June 2006, 16.00 hrs
Yesterday's emotionally charged workload, followed by the three evening meetings, an uneven night's sleep, the flight and the tension caused by the uncertainty of his mission had left Falcon completely drained. He'd briefly told Pablo that Yacoub had agreed to act for them, but not without conditions, then he'd hit his seat in the Lear jet and passed out instantly.
They landed at Seville airport just before 2.30 p.m. and split up agreeing to meet later that night. Back at home, Falcon showered and changed. His housekeeper had left him a fish stew, which he ate with a glass of cold red wine. He called Ramirez, who told him there was to be another big meeting at 4.30 p.m. and gave him a very thin update, of which the best news was that Lourdes, the girl they'd pulled out of the wreckage yesterday, had regained consciousness for a few minutes just after midday. She was going to be all right. There was no news on the electricians or the council inspectors, except that Elvira had arranged a press release and there'd been announcements on TV and radio. Nothing extraordinary had come out of the interviews with the Informaticalidad sales reps. The one remarkable element in Ramirez's report was his praise for Juez Calderon, who had been handling a very aggressive media.
'You know I don't like him,' said Ramirez, 'but he's been doing a very good job. Since our big news yesterday the investigation has been completely stalled, but Calderon is making us look competent.'
'Realistically, what's the earliest we can expect to get to the epicentre of the bomb?' asked Falcon.
'Not before 9 a.m. tomorrow,' said Ramirez. 'Once they get down to the rubble directly over the mosque they're going to be working by hand, under bomb squad and forensic supervision. That's going to take time and the conditions are going to be horrible. In fact, they already are. The stink down there gets into you like a virus.' 'It's been confirmed with 99 per cent certainty that one of the dead in the mosque is a CGI source,' said Comisario Elvira, opening the 4.30 p.m. meeting. 'We won't have complete confirmation until the DNA samples are matched to those taken from his apartment.'
'And what was he doing in there?' asked Calderon.
'Inspector Jefe Barros has the report,' said Elvira.
'His name is Miguel Botin, he's Spanish, thirty-two years old and a resident of Seville,' said Barros.
'Esperanza-the woman who gave Comisario Elvira the list of men believed to be in the mosque-she had a partner who was in the destroyed building,' said Falcon. 'Was that Miguel Botin?'
'Yes,' said Barros. 'He converted to Islam eleven years ago. His family came from Madrid and his brother lost a foot in the March 11th bombings. Miguel Botin was recruited by one of my agents in November 2004 and became active just over fourteen months ago, in April 2005.'
The only noise in the pre-school classroom was from the mobile air-conditioning units. Even the steady grinding of the machinery outside had receded as Barros began his report.
'For the first eight months Botin had very little to tell us. The members of the congregation, most of whom were of non-Spanish origin, were all good Muslims and none of them were in the slightest bit radical. They were all
