mobile phone records-we need to have a look at them. One of those numbers he called on Sunday morning belongs to the electrician.'
'I've spoken to Juan about that,' said Pablo. 'Gregorio's checked out all the numbers the Imam called on Sunday morning. The only one he couldn't account for was made to a phone registered in the name of a seventy-four-year- old woman living in Seville Este who has never been an electrician.'
'I'd like access to those records,' said Falcon.
'That's something else for you to talk to your old friend Flowers about,' said Pablo, and hung up.
Falcon sipped his beer and tried to persuade himself that he was calm, and that the present strategy was the right one. He'd taken Serrano and Baena away from their task of touring the building sites looking for the electricians, and had directed them to help Ferrera locate the hedge whose clippings had been dumped with the body. Ramirez and Perez had photographs of Tateb Hassani and were walking the streets around the Alfalfa trying to find anybody who recognized him. This meant that no one from the homicide squad was now working on anything directly linked to the Seville bombing. He wasn't worried about Elvira for the moment. The Comisario had his hands too full of public relations problems to be worried about the gamble Falcon was taking.
'For a man who's supposed to be running the largest criminal investigation in Seville's history, you're looking remarkably relaxed, Javier,' said Angel, taking a seat, ordering a beer.
'We have to present a calm exterior to a nervous population who need to believe that somebody has everything under control,' said Falcon.
'Does that mean that it isn't under control?' asked Angel.
'Comisario Elvira is doing a good job.'
'He might be, from the policeman's point of view,' said Angel. 'But he doesn't imbue the general public with confidence in his ability. He's a public relations disaster, Javier. What was he thinking of, asking that poor bastard… the judge…'
'Sergio del Rey.'
'Yes-him. Putting him on national television when the guy could barely have had time to read the files, let alone comprehend the emotional aspect of the case,' said Angel. 'The Comisario must know by now that television is not about the truth. Is he the kind of guy who watches reality TV and thinks that it is reality?'
'Don't be too hard on him, Angel. He's got a lot of excellent qualities that just don't happen to suit the televisual age.'
'Well, unfortunately, that's the age we're in now,' said Angel. 'Now, Calderon, he was the man. He gave the TV what it craves: drama, humour, emotion and brilliant surface. He was a huge loss to your effort.'
'You said it: 'brilliant surface'. It wasn't so pretty underneath.'
'And how do you think you look now?' asked Angel. 'Remember the London bombings? What was the story that kept rolling out in the days after those attacks? The story that maintained the emotional pitch and focused the emotions? Not the victims. Not the terrorists. Not the bombs and the disruption. That was all part of it, but the big story was the mistaken shooting by plainclothes special policemen of that Brazilian guy, Jean Charles de Menezes.'
'And what's our big story?'
'That's your problem. It's the arrest, under suspicion of his wife's murder, of the Juez de Instruccion of the whole investigation. Have you seen the stuff coming out of the television about Calderon? Just listen…'
The tables around them had filled up and a crowd had gathered outside the open doors of the bar. They were all talking about Esteban Calderon. Did he do it? Didn't he do it?
'Not your investigation. Not the terrorist cells that might be active in Seville at the moment. Not even the little girl who survived the collapse of the building,' said Angel. 'It's all about Esteban Calderon. Tell Comisario Elvira that.'
'I have to say, Angel, that for a man who loves Seville more than almost anyone I know, you seem… buoyant.'
'It's terrible, isn't it? I am. I haven't felt as energized in years. Manuela's infuriated. I think she preferred me when I was dying of boredom.'
'How is she?'
'Depressed. She thinks she's got to sell the house in El Puerto de Santa Maria. In fact she is selling it,' said Angel. 'She's lost her nerve. This whole idea of the Islamic 'liberation' of Andalucia has taken hold in her mind. So now she's selling the gold mine to save the tin and copper mines.'
'There's no talking to her when she's like that,' said Falcon. 'So, why are you so buoyant, Angel?'
'If you're not watching the news very much you probably don't know that my little hobby is doing rather well.'
'You mean Fuerza Andalucia?' said Falcon. 'I saw Jesus Alarcon with Fernando Alanis on television a few hours ago.'
'Did you see the whole thing? It was sensational. After that programme Fuerza Andalucia picked up 14 per cent in the polls. Wildly inaccurate, I know. It's all emotional reaction, but that's 10 per cent more than we've ever polled before, and the Left are floundering.'
'When did you first meet Jesus Alarcon?' asked Falcon, genuinely curious.
'Years ago,' said Angel, 'and I didn't much care for him. He was a bit of a boring banker type and I was dismayed when he said he wanted to go into politics. I didn't think anybody would vote for him. He was a stiff in a suit. And as you know, these days it's not about your policies or your grasp of regional politics, it's all about how you come across. But I've got to know him better since he came down here and, I tell you, this relationship he's developed with Fernando Alanis…it's gold dust. As a PR man, you just dream of something like that.'
'Was that the first time you met him-when you were doing PR work?'
'When I left politics I did a PR commission for Banco Omni.'
'That must have been nice work to walk into,' said Falcon.
'We Catholics stick together,' said Angel, winking. 'Actually, the Chief Executive Officer and I are old friends. We went to school, university, did our national service together. When I finished with those wankers in the Partido Popular, he knew that I wouldn't be able to just 'retire', so he commissioned me and it led to other things. They were the bankers for a group in Barcelona and I did their fortieth anniversary PR for them; then there was an insurance group in Madrid, and a property company on the Costa del Sol. There was a business for me if I could have been bothered with it. But, you know, Javier, corporate PR, it's so…small. You're not going to change the world doing that shit.'
'You didn't change it in politics.'
'To tell you the truth, the PP was no different. It was like working for a huge corporation: play safe, toe the party line, everything happening by millimetres, no striding out to new horizons and changing the way people think and live.'
'Who wants change?' said Falcon. 'Most people hate change so much that we have to have wars and revolutions to bring it about.'
'But look at us now, Javier, talking like this in a bar,' said Angel. 'Why? Because we're in crisis. Our way of life is being threatened.'
'You said it yourself, Angel. Most people can't cope with it, so what do they talk about?'
'You're right. It's Esteban Calderon on everybody's lips,' said Angel. 'But at least it's not the usual trivia. It's tragedy. It's hubris bringing down the great man.'
'So what would you tell Comisario Elvira to do now?' asked Falcon.
'Aha! Is this what it's all about, Javier?' said Angel, smirking. 'You've brought me down here to get some free advice for your boss.'
'I want the PR man's take on the world.'
'You have to focus, and you have to focus on certainty. Because of the nature of the attack it's been difficult for you, but now you've finally got into the mosque it's time for you to reveal more and be specific. The evacuations of the schools and university buildings, what's that all about? People need a bone to chew on; uncertainty creates rumour, which does nothing to quell panic. Juez del Rey's mistake was that he hadn't taken the pulse of the city, so when he started spreading uncertainty again…'
'It was the interviewer's question that spread uncertainty,' said Falcon.
'That wasn't the way the viewers saw it.'
