comfort. Lobo commanded respect. He induced fear. Nobody took his huge frame and coarse cumin complexion lightly. He was the most senior policeman in Seville and yet he seemed to be a man just managing to keep the lid on an extremely violent temperament.
On the raised platform were six chairs set behind two tables, on which had been placed six microphones. The six stars of the press conference-Comisarios Lobo and Elvira, Juez del Rey, the Magistrado Juez Decano de Sevilla Spinola, Inspectors Jefe Barros and Falcon-were standing in the wings, occupying themselves with the folded lengths of card on which their names were printed. Del Rey had arrived only five minutes earlier, having taken a cab straight from the Estacion Santa Justa. He looked remarkably calm for a man who'd been woken up at 6.15 in the morning and told to catch the next AVE train to Seville and take control of the largest criminal investigation Andalucia had ever seen.
At exactly 9.30 Lobo led them out, like a cadre of gladiators being presented to the public. There was a clatter of shutters and flickering of flashes from the photojournalists. Lobo sat in the middle, held up a large finger and surveyed his audience, who instantly battened down to total silence.
'The prime objective of this press conference is to introduce the new team who will be conducting the investigation into the Seville bombing, now referred to as 6th June.'
He presented each member of the team, explaining their role. There was a human tremor at the introduction of Sergio del Rey as the new judge directing the investigation, which meant that Falcon's role was lost in the aftershock.
'Where's Juez Calderon?' shouted a voice from the back of the room.
Lobo's huge finger was raised once again, this time with a slightly admonishing edge to it. Silence fell.
'The Magistrado Juez Decano de Sevilla will now explain the reason behind the change in our Juez de Instruccion.'
Spinola stood up and gave a similar, terse and factual description of the events of the early morning down by the Guadalquivir river as Elvira had done an hour earlier. When he'd finished there was a missed beat and then a roar, as of a crowd in an enclosed basketball arena who'd just witnessed a heinous foul. Their hands came out waving pens, notebooks, and dictaphones. When their shouting failed to penetrate they started screaming, like maddened traders in the bear pit of a crashing bourse. It was impossible to hear any questions. Lobo stood. The Colossus of the Jefatura made no impact. The scandal was just too vast, and the herd too demented, to care about his immense authority. The journalists rushed the platform. Falcon was grateful for the barrier of the table. Lobo was decisive. The six men left the stage just managing not to break into a run for the door at the back. Barros was the last man out and he had to wrest his arm from the clutches of a woman's bloodred nails. The door was shut and locked by security. The journalists hammered from the other side. The double doors seemed to swell, as if they might be about to burst open.
'There's no talking to them,' said Lobo. 'And, anyway, there's nothing to be said beyond that statement. We'll hold another press conference later and ask them to present their questions beforehand.'
They left the building and all except Lobo, Elvira and Spinola were driven back to the pre-school. Juez del Rey still hadn't completed his reading of the case file, which was already huge. He said he'd need until midday to complete it and then he would like a meeting with the investigating team.
Falcon called Dr Pintado, the Medico Forense who'd handled the unidentified corpse from the dump, and asked for Miguel Covo's number, saying he had to see anything that the sculptor had been able to accomplish as soon as possible. Pintado said that Covo would call if he had anything to show.
A call came through on his personal mobile. It was Angel. He should have turned the damn thing off.
'I was there,' said Angel. 'I've never seen anything like that in my life.'
'I thought we were going to have to fire tear gas at you lot,' said Falcon, trying to keep it light.
'This is a disaster for your investigation.'
'Juez del Rey is a very capable man.'
'You're talking to me, Javier-Angel Zarrias: public relations expert. What you've got on your hands is…'
'We know, but what can we do? We can't turn the clock back and bring Ines back to life.'
'I'm sorry,' he said, her name reminding him to be solicitous. 'I'm really sorry, Javier. I just got carried away with the madness in there. It must have been hard for you. Not even your experience could have prepared you for that.'
The saliva thickened in Falcon's mouth as the bitterness of his grief hit him again in another unexpected wave. He was surprised. He'd thought he'd rid himself of all emotional entanglements with Ines and yet here were these odd residues. He'd loved her, or at least he thought he'd loved her, and he was amazed at how that seemed to have stood the test of her cruelty and selfishness.
'What can I do for you, Angel?' he said, businesslike.
'Look, Javier, I'm not a fool. I know you can't talk about anything even if you did know what had happened,' he said. 'I just want you to know that the ABC is on your side. I've spoken to the editor. If Comisario Elvira needs help we're prepared to give our full support.'
'I'll tell him, Angel,' said Falcon. 'I've got to go now, I've got another call.'
Falcon closed down that mobile and opened the other. It was the sculptor, Miguel Covo. He had something to show him. He gave Falcon directions to his workshop. Falcon said he could be there in ten minutes. He called Elvira on the way and mentioned the conversation with Angel Zarrias.
'Nothing comes for free in this world,' said Elvira, 'but we are going to need all the help we can get. I've just read the autopsy report and…I'm sorry, Javier, I shouldn't have mentioned that.'
'I saw her,' said Falcon, his stomach lurching.
But he didn't want to hear it. He'd read autopsies before of battered wives and girlfriends and been stunned at the body's capacity to absorb punishment and still keep going. He tuned himself out from Elvira's voice. He really didn't want to know what Ines had suffered.
'…a civilized man, a respected and brilliant legal mind, a cultured person. We used to bump into each other at the opera. There's no telling, Javier. It's a terrifying thought that even these certainties cannot be trusted.'
'Perhaps I shouldn't have told you about Angel Zarrias's offer.'
'I don't follow you.'
'That's Angel Zarrias's talent. He has a genius for the manipulation of image.'
'The suspicion is going to be that we knew about Calderon's behaviour and condoned it with our silence because of his exceptional ability,' said Elvira, who seemed more panicked by the power of the media now that he'd lost Calderon, his brilliant front man. 'Things are going to come out once Inspector Jefe Zorrita starts digging. And then there'll be all the women he was…you know…'
'Fucking?'
'That wasn't the word I was after, but, yes, I understand it wasn't just one or two,' said Elvira. 'Less scrupulous newspapers than the ABC might get hold of them and there'll be more stories stretching back over the years…We'll all look complete idiots, or worse, for not having spotted the flaws in his character beforehand.'
'None of us did know about it,' said Falcon. 'So we shouldn't feel guilty about presenting our case. And it's the way of the world that these things have to be conducted through the media. But at least some good will come out of it.'
'How's that?'
'It will change people's perceptions. They'll now know that anyone can be an abuser of women. It's not the preserve of uneducated brutes with no self-control, but possibly civilized, cultured, intelligent men who can be moved to tears by Tosca.'
They hung up. Covo's workshop was near the Plaza de Pelicano, an ugly, modern square of 1970s apartment blocks, whose central sitting area had become a place where dog owners brought their pets to shit. Falcon parked outside Covo's studio in an adjacent compound of small workshops and took a digital camera out of the glove compartment.
'I used to keep it all in the house,' said Covo, as he led Falcon through a steel-caged door into a room that was completely bare of any decoration and had only a table and two chairs. 'But my wife started to complain when I worked my way into other rooms.'
Covo made some strong coffee and broke the filter off a Ducado and lit it. His head was shaved to a fine white bristle all over. He wore half-moon glasses with gold rims, so that he looked like an accountant from the neck up. He was slim with a nut-brown body, and his arms and legs were all sinew and wiry muscle. This was all visible
