he'd been photographed and given an orange short-sleeve shirt. The relief of finally being left alone, with no possessions, his belt removed, and just a pack of cigarettes, was immense. His tiredness drew him to the bed. He kicked off his loafers and sank back on the hard bunk and fell into a dreamless sleep, until he was woken at three in the afternoon for lunch. He'd eaten and applied his ferocious intellect to what he was going to say in his interview with the detective before falling into this dazed state of looking at the squares of light on the wall. It was unexpectedly pleasant to be released from the oppression of time. At five o'clock the guard came to tell him that Inspector Jefe Luis Zorrita was ready to interview him.
'You are, of course, allowed to have your lawyer present,' said Zorrita, coming into the interview room.
'I am a lawyer,' said Calderon, still with all his precrime arrogance. 'Let's get on with it.'
Zorrita made the introductions to the tape and asked Calderon to confirm that he'd been given the opportunity to have a lawyer present, and had declined.
'I didn't want to talk to you until I'd had the full autopsy report from the Medico Forense,' said Zorrita. 'Now I've got that and had the opportunity to conduct my preliminary enquiries…'
'What sort of preliminary enquiries?' asked Calderon, just to show that he wasn't going to be passive.
'I've more or less established what you and your wife had been doing over the last twenty-four hours before her murder.'
'More or less?'
'There are still some details to fill in on what your wife was doing yesterday afternoon. That's all,' said Zorrita. 'So what I'd like you to do, Sr Calderon, is to tell me, in your own words, what happened last night.'
'From what time?'
'Well, let's start from the moment you left the Canal Sur studios and arrived at your lover's apartment,' said Zorrita. 'The time before that is well accounted for.'
'My lover?'
'That was the word Marisa Moreno used to describe your relationship,' said Zorrita, looking through his notes. 'She was firm about not wanting to be called your mistress.'
That admission from Marisa made him feel quite sentimental. How ridiculous it was that a police enquiry had drawn that from her. Having not thought about her very much since being arrested, he suddenly missed her.
'Is that a fair description?' asked Zorrita. 'From your point of view?'
'Yes, I would say that we were lovers. We'd known each other for nine months or so.'
'It would explain why she was doing her best to protect you.'
'Protect me?'
'She was trying to make out that you'd left her apartment later than you had, which would have made it more difficult for you to have murdered your wife…'
'I did not kill my wife,' said Calderon, summoning the full severity of his professional voice.
'…but she 'forgot' that she'd called a taxi for you and that we can access all the phone records, as well as the cab company logs, and talk to the driver himself, of course. So her attempts to help you were, I'm afraid, quite futile.'
The interview was not following the pattern that Calderon had outlined to himself in his lawyer's mind while lying on his bunk. He'd witnessed only a few police interrogations in his time as a judge and so had little idea of the way in which they moved. It was for this reason that, barely a minute into his interview with Zorrita, he was in a quandary. Warmed by the thought that Marisa had called him her lover, but chilled by the idea that she believed he needed her help, which had ugly implications. The effect of these two extremes of temperature alive in his body was to undermine his equilibrium. His thoughts would not line up in their usual orderly fashion, but seemed to mill around, like shoals of children careering around the school playground.
'So, Sr Calderon, please tell me when you arrived at your lover's apartment.'
'It must have been about 12.45.'
'And what did you do?'
'We went out on to the balcony and made love.'
'Made love?' said Zorrita, deadpan. 'You didn't indulge in anal sex, by any chance?'
'Certainly not.'
'You seem very firm about that,' said Zorrita. 'And I only ask you such a personal question because the autopsy revealed that your wife seemed to be accustomed to being penetrated in this fashion.'
Panic rose in Calderon's chest. He had lost control of the interview in a matter of a few exchanges. His arrogance had cost him dear. His assumption that he could trounce Zorrita in any mind or word game had proved to be wide of the mark. This was a man who was used to the wiliness of criminals, and had come to the interview with a clear strategy, which made Calderon's analytical brain seem worthless.
'We made love,' said Calderon, unable to add anything more without making it sound like some biological transaction.
'Would you say that these two relationships generally worked in this fashion?' asked Zorrita. 'You treated your lover with respect and admiration, while abusing your wife as if she was some cheap whore.'
Outrage was the first emotion that leapt into Calderon's throat, but he was learning. He saw Zorrita's two interrogating weapons: emotional stabs, followed by logical bludgeon.
'I did not treat my wife like a cheap whore.'
'You're right, of course, because not even a cheap whore allows herself to be beaten up and sodomized for no money at all.'
Silence. Calderon gripped the edge of the table so hard his nails whitened with the pressure. Zorrita was unconcerned.
'At least you don't have the temerity to deny that you treated your wife in such shameful fashion,' said Zorrita. 'I presume your lover didn't know these two sides to your personality?'
'Who the fuck do you think you are, to presume to know anything about my relationship with my wife, or my lover?' said Calderon through lips gone bloodless with rage. 'Some fucking Inspector Jefe, come down from Madrid…'
'Now I can see why your wife would be terrified of you, Sr Calderon,' said Zorrita. 'Underneath that brilliant legal mind, you're a very angry man.'
'I am not fucking angry,' said Calderon, pounding the table hard enough to jog a hank of his hair loose. 'You are goading me, Inspector Jefe.'
'If I'm goading you, I'm not doing it by shouting at you or insulting you. I'm only doing it by asking you questions based on proven fact. The autopsy has revealed that you sodomized your wife and that you beat her up so badly that some of her vital organs were damaged. There's also a history of humiliation, which even extended to pursuing an affair with another woman on the same day that you announced your engagement to your wife.'
'Who've you been talking to?' asked Calderon, still unable to control his fury.
'As you know, I've only had today to work on this case, but I've managed to talk to your lover, which was a very interesting conversation, and a number of your colleagues and your wife's colleagues. I've also spoken to some of the secretaries in the Edificio de los Juzgados and the Palacio de Justicia, and the security guards, of course, who see everything. Of the twenty-odd interviews I've conducted so far, not one person has been prepared to defend your behaviour. The least emotional description of your activities was 'an incorrigible womanizer'.'
'What was so interesting about your conversation with Marisa?' asked Calderon, unable to resist the bait of that remark.
'She was telling me about a conversation you had about marriage. Do you remember that?' asked Zorrita.
Calderon blinked against the rush of memory; too much had happened in too short a time.
'The reason you married Ines…Maddy Krugman? How Ines represented stability after that…catastrophic affair?'
'What are you trying to do here, Inspector Jefe?'
'Jog your memory, Sr Calderon. You were there, I wasn't. I've only spoken to Marisa. You talked about 'the bourgeois institution of marriage' and how she, Marisa, wasn't interested in it. You agreed with her, didn't you?'
'What do you mean?' asked Calderon.
'You weren't happy in your marriage, but you didn't want to get divorced. Why was that?' asked Zorrita.
Calderon couldn't believe it. He was in the elephant pit again. He pulled himself together this time.
