'Is that when people walk their dogs?'
'Old people who can't sleep do, especially in this heat.'
'How did he report it?'
'He called in on his mobile, told me what he was seeing, gave me the registration number and hung up.'
'Name and address?'
'Didn't have time to ask him.'
'Don't talk to anyone about this,' said Falcon. 'Call the patrolmen and tell them there is to be radio silence on this matter until I've spoken to Comisario Elvira.'
The bedroom seemed to fill up with the catastrophe of scandal. Falcon went out on to the gallery overlooking the patio. The morning was warm. He felt sick. He called Elvira, gave him some seconds to wake up and then told him the news in the most measured tone he could muster. Falcon broke the ensuing silence himself, by telling Elvira how many people, at this point, knew what had taken place.
'We have to get him, the body and the car off the street as soon as possible, whatever happens,' said Elvira. 'And we need a judge and a Medico Forense to do that.'
'Juez Romero is reliable and neither a friend, nor enemy, of Esteban Calderon.'
'This mustn't look like a cover-up,' said Elvira, almost to himself.
'This isn't something that can be covered up,' said Falcon.
'We have to do things absolutely by the book. The investigation might have to be taken off your hands, given Esteban Calderon's status.'
'I think it better for me to initiate the proceedings,' said Falcon.
'Let's go for normal procedure, but nobody, absolutely nobody, is to talk about this. We must have no leaks until we can get a press statement together. I'll speak to Comisario Lobo. Tell the communications officer to make the usual calls but not, under any circumstances, to inform the press. If it gets out before we're ready there'll be hell to pay.'
'The only person we can't control is the anonymous caller who reported the incident,' said Falcon.
'Well, he shouldn't know who it was he was reporting, should he?' said Elvira.
This was too big a scandal to contain. Elvira was asking too much. This was going to come sweating out of the Jefatura walls. Falcon called the communications centre, gave the instructions and asked the officer to call Felipe and Jorge to the crime scene. He showered, standing under the drilling water, trying to think of any plausible, innocent explanation for Calderon being discovered down by the river with a dead body.
It was 5.30 and the dawn was well advanced by the time he walked across the Plaza de Armas to the incident. The traffic on the Torneo was still very light. A patrol car had parked at the top of the ramp and some cones had been put out to stop any traffic from turning down the road. The duty judge was already at the scene, as was a police photographer, who was taking some shots. Jorge and Felipe arrived and were allowed down the ramp.
There was no sign of Calderon. Two patrolmen were making sure no early-morning joggers came past the scene along the riverbank. The duty judge told Falcon that Calderon was sitting in the back of the patrol car with one of the policemen who'd first come across the incident.
'We're just waiting for a Medico Forense to arrive and inspect the body.'
A set of tyres squeaked at the top of the ramp and a car rolled down and parked up. The Medico Forense got out with his bag. He was already dressed in a white hooded boiler suit and had a mask hanging from his neck. He shook hands, put on gloves, and they proceeded to the body. An ambulance arrived with no siren or flashing lights.
The Medico Forense used a scalpel to cut the tape wrapped around the body. He worked from the feet up to the head. He laid open the hessian sheet. The head wrapped in the black bin liner looked sinister, as if the body had been the subject of some sexual deviancy. Falcon started to feel dizzy. The Medico Forense murmured into his dictaphone about the heavy bruising on the torso. He put his scalpel through the cooking string at the neck of the body and eased away the bin liner. A darkening at the edges of his vision made Falcon clutch at the duty judge's sleeve.
'Are you all right, Inspector Jefe?' he asked.
Under the bin liner the head was wrapped in a towel. The front was white, with blood smears over it. The Medico Forense lifted up one corner of the towel and folded it back. The outline of the face was visible, as under a shroud. He pulled away the other corner of the towel and Falcon dropped unconscious to the floor, with the features of his ex-wife imprinted on his retina. Falcon came to on the ground. The duty judge had managed to catch him and break his fall. The paramedics from the ambulance were over him. He heard the duty judge above their heads.
'He's in shock. This is his ex-wife. He shouldn't really be here.'
The paramedics helped him up. The Medico Forense continued to murmur into his dictaphone. He checked the thermometer, made a calculation and muttered the time of death.
Tears welled up as Falcon looked down once more on Ines's inert body. This was a scene from her life that he'd never imagined-her death. Over the years he'd done a lot of thinking and talking about Ines. He'd relived their life together ten times over, until he'd nearly driven Alicia Aguado insane. He'd only been able to get rid of her permanent occupation of his mind by finally seeing her for what she was, and realizing how badly she'd behaved and treated him. But this was not how it should have ended. No amount of selfishness deserved this.
The paramedics moved him away from the body and got him sitting on the low wall by the river, away from where the Medico Forense was working. Falcon breathed deeply. The duty judge came over.
'You can't handle this case,' he said.
'I'll call Comisario Elvira,' said Falcon, nodding. 'He'll appoint somebody from the outside. My entire squad is an interested party.'
Elvira was speechless until he finally managed to come up with his condolences. The catastrophe was so much worse than he'd imagined and, as he spoke, first to Falcon and then the duty judge, the hideousness of the morning press conference began to spread like a malignancy through his innards.
The duty judge finished the call and handed the mobile back to Falcon. They shook hands. Falcon took one last look at the body. Her face was perfect and undamaged. He shook his head in disbelief and had an image from years ago, when he'd come across Ines in the street. She'd been laughing; laughing so hard that she was doubled up with her hair flung forward, staggering backwards on her high heels.
He turned away and left the scene. He walked past the patrol car where Calderon was being held. The door was open. The radio squawked. Calderon's wrists were cuffed, his torn and bleeding hands lay in his lap. He stared straight ahead and his vision did not deviate even when Falcon leaned in.
'Esteban,' said Falcon.
Calderon turned to him, and said the sentence that Falcon had heard more times from the mouths of murderers than any other.
'I didn't do it.'
26
Seville-Thursday, 8th June 2006, 08.04 hrs
The classroom in the pre-school had been reglazed and new blinds put up. The air conditioners were already working full blast, which was the only way to keep the sulphurous stink of the corrupted bodies still in the destroyed apartment building at a bearable level. It was already past eight o'clock and still Comisario Elvira had not arrived. Everybody was tired, but there was a buzz of expectation in the room.
'Something's happened,' said Ramirez, 'and I've got the feeling it's something big. What do you think, Javier?'
Falcon couldn't speak.
'Where's Juez Calderon?' said Ramirez. 'That's what makes me think it's big. He's the man for the press conference.'
Falcon nodded, appalled to silence by what he'd seen down by the river. The door opened and Elvira came in and made his way to the blackboard at the far end of the room, followed by three men. Already present at the meeting were Pablo and Gregorio from the CNI, Inspector Jefe Ramon Barros and one of his senior officers from the
