'I believe that once you've made a commitment before God, in church, you should adhere to it,' he said.
'But that wasn't what you said to your lover, was it?'
'What did I say to her?'
'You said: 'It's not so easy.' What did you mean by that, Sr Calderon? It's not as if we're living in fear of excommunication any more. Breaking your vows wasn't your concern. So what were you worried about?'
Even Calderon's giant brain couldn't compute the numerous possible answers to this question in less than half a minute. Zorrita sat back and watched the judge agonize over everything except the truth of the matter.
'It's not that difficult a question,' said Zorrita, after a full minute's silence. 'Everybody knows what the repercussions of divorce are. If you want to extricate yourself from a legal commitment, you're going to lose out. What were you afraid of losing, Sr Calderon?'
Put like that, it didn't seem so bad. Yes, it was a common fear for men facing divorce. And he was no different.
'The usual things,' he said, finally. 'I was worried about my financial situation and my apartment. It was never a serious possibility. Ines was the only woman I'd ever…'
'Were you concerned, as well, that it might affect your social status, and perhaps your job?' asked Zorrita. 'I understand your wife had been very supportive of you after the Maddy Krugman debacle. Your colleagues said she helped you to get your career back on track.'
His colleagues had said that?
'There was never any serious threat to my career,' said Calderon. 'There was no question that I would be appointed as the Juez de Instruccion for something as important as the Seville bombing, for instance.'
'Your lover offered you a solution to the problem, though, didn't she?' said Zorrita.
'What problem?' said Calderon, confused. 'I just said there was no problem with my career, and Marisa-'
'The awkward problem of the divorce.'
Silence. Calderon's memory baffled around his head, like a moth seeking the light.
''The bourgeois solution to the bourgeois problem',' said Zorrita.
'Oh, you mean that I could kill her,' said Calderon, snorting with derisive laughter. 'That was just a silly joke.'
'Yes, on her part,' said Zorrita. 'But how did it affect your mind? That's the question.'
'It was ridiculous. An absurdity. We both laughed at it.'
'That's what Marisa said, but how did it affect your mind?'
Silence.
'It never, for one moment, entered my mind to kill my wife,' said Calderon. 'And I didn't kill her.'
'When did you first beat your wife, Sr Calderon?'
This interview was like a steeplechase, with the fences getting higher as he progressed around the course. Zorrita watched the internal struggle that he'd seen so many times before: the unacceptable truth, followed by the necessary delusion, and the attempt to construct a lie from those two unreliable sources.
'Had you beaten her before the beginning of this week?' asked Zorrita.
'No,' he said firmly, but instantly realized that it implied some admission of guilt.
'That's cleared something up,' said Zorrita, making a note. 'It was difficult for the Medico Forense to establish the occurrence of the first beating you gave her because, well, as I understand it, old bruising isn't as easy to measure as say…body temperature. Dating old bruising is a difficult business…as is organ rupture and internal bleeding.'
'Look,' said Calderon, inwardly gasping at these shocking revelations, 'I know what you're trying to do.'
'I'd really like to establish a specific time when you first beat Ines. Was it Sunday night or Monday morning?'
'They weren't beatings, they were accidents,' said Calderon, aghast that he'd used the plural now. 'And, whatever the case, it does not mean that I murdered my wife…I didn't.'
'But did the first beating occur on Sunday or Monday?' asked Zorrita. 'Or was it Tuesday? Of course, you used the plural. So it was probably Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and then, finally and tragically, Wednesday, and we'll never be able to attribute what bruise to which day. What time did you get back on Tuesday morning, having spent the night with Marisa?'
'It was around 6.30 a.m.'
'Well, that squares with what Marisa said. And was Ines asleep?'
'I thought she was.'
'But she wasn't,' said Zorrita. 'She woke up, didn't she? And what did she do?'
'All right, she found my digital camera and started downloading the images I had on it. They included two shots of Marisa.'
'You must have been very angry when you found out. When you came across her in the act, caught her red- handed,' said Zorrita, not quite able to ease back on his relish. 'She was very fragile, your wife, wasn't she? The Medico Forense estimates her weight before the catastrophic blood loss as 47 kilos.'
'Look, we were in the kitchen, I just brushed her aside,' said Calderon. 'I didn't realize my own strength or her fragility. She fell awkwardly against the kitchen counter. It's made out of granite.'
'But that doesn't explain the fist mark on her abdomen, or the toe mark over her left kidney, or the amount of her hair we've found distributed around your apartment.'
Calderon sat back. His hands fell from the edge of the table. He was not a career criminal and he was finding resistance very hard work. The only time he could remember having to trump up such a quantity of lies was when he'd been a small boy.
'As I swept her aside I must have tapped her diaphragm. She hit the counter and came down on my foot.'
'The autopsy found a ruptured spleen and a bleeding kidney,' said Zorrita. 'I think it was less of a tap and more of a punch, wasn't it, Sr Calderon? The Medico Forense thinks from the shape of the bruise around her loin area and the darker red imprint of a toenail, that it was more of a kick with a bare foot than someone 'falling' on to a foot, which would, of course, be flat on the floor.'
Silence.
'And all that took place on Tuesday morning?'
'Yes,' said Calderon.
'How long was that after your lover's little joke about solving the problem of your divorce?'
'Her joke had nothing to do with that.'
'All right, when was the next time you beat your wife?' asked Zorrita. 'Was it after you found out that your wife and lover had accidentally met in the Murillo Gardens?'
'How the fuck do you know that?' asked Calderon.
'I asked Marisa if she'd ever met your wife,' said Zorrita, 'and she started off by lying to me. Why did she do that, do you think?'
'I don't know.'
'She said she hadn't, but you know, I've been interviewing liars more than half my working life and after a while it's like dealing with children; you become so practised at reading the signs that their attempts become laughable. So why do you think she lied on your behalf?'
'On my behalf?' asked Calderon. 'She didn't do anything on my behalf.'
'Why didn't she want me to know that she had had this…vocal confrontation with your late wife?'
'I've no idea.'
'Because she was still angry about it, Sr Calderon, that's why,' said Zorrita. 'And if she was angry about being insulted by your wife, about being called a whore, in public, by your wife…I'm wondering how she made you feel about it…Well, she told me.'
'She told you?'
'Oh, she tried to protect you again, Sr Calderon. She tried to make it sound like nothing. She kept repeating: 'Esteban's not a violent man,' that you were just 'annoyed', but I think she also realized just how very, very angry you were. What did you do on the night that Marisa told you Ines had called her a whore?'
More silence from Calderon. He'd never found it so difficult to articulate. He was too stoked up with emotion to find the right reply.
'Was that the night you came home and pummelled your wife's breasts and whipped her with your belt so that
