'Del Rey only found out afterwards that someone had leaked the Arabic script.'
'Del Rey should never have presented the truth of the situation: that there is still considerable confusion about what went on in that mosque. He should have pressed home the certainties. If, in the end, the truth happens to be something else, you just change your story. Your investigation lost a lot of its credibility when your spokesman was arrested for murder. The only chance of regaining that credibility lies in confirming the public's suspicions. The interviewer knew that the public would be in no mood to be told that there might be a homegrown element to this terrorist plot.'
'Elvira has trouble deciding when to use what kind of truth so that his investigation can get on with the business of finding out what actually happened,' said Falcon.
'Politics is great preparation for that,' said Angel.
'So you think Jesus Alarcon has got what it takes?'
'He's made a good start, but it's too early to say. It's what's going to happen six or seven months from now that's important,' said Angel. 'He's riding a big wave of public emotion now, but even the biggest waves end up as ripples on the beach.'
'He could always go back to the Banco Omni if it didn't work out.'
'They wouldn't have him,' said Angel. 'You don't leave the Banco Omni. Once they've given you a job, they take you into their confidence. If you leave them and become an outsider, that's where you remain.'
'So, Jesus is taking some risks.'
'Not really. He had a good introduction from my friend, who thinks very highly of him. He'll find him something else to do if it all comes to nothing.'
'Have I met this mysterious friend of yours?'
'Lucrecio Arenas? I don't know. Manuela's met him. He's not so mysterious now that he's retired.'
'You mean he was mysterious before?'
'Banco Omni is a private bank. It runs a hefty percentage of the Catholic Church's finances. It's a secretive organization. You won't even see any photographs of Banco Omni executives. I did a specific PR job for them, but I only got that job because of Lucrecio. I found out nothing about the organization, other than what I needed to know in order to perform my task,' said Angel. 'Why are we talking about Banco Omni?'
'Because Jesus Alarcon is the man of the moment,' said Falcon. 'After Esteban Calderon.'
'Ah, yes. You still haven't told me what you want to see me about,' said Angel.
'I'm sounding you out, Angel,' said Falcon, shrugging. 'I told Elvira about our conversation earlier today when you offered to help us, but he's wary. I want to be able to go back to him and make him feel better about employing your talents. He just needs to be pushed, that's all.'
'I'm prepared to help in a crisis,' said Angel. 'But I'm not looking for permanent work.'
'Elvira's problem is that he sees you as a journalist, and therefore the enemy,' said Falcon. 'If I can talk to him about your PR activity and the sort of clients you've represented, that will give him a different perspective.'
'I'll give advice but I won't be employed,' said Angel. 'Some might think there was a conflict of interest.'
'Just give me some other company names that you've worked for,' said Falcon. 'Who was it you represented for their fortieth anniversary?'
'Horizonte. The property company was called Mejorvista and the insurance group was Vigilancia,' said Angel. 'Don't promote me too much, Javier. I've got my work cut out steering Fuerza Andalucia through the media maze.'
'The only thing is that PR is a difficult concept to sell. Other people's press cuttings are meaningless. If I could show Elvira the quality of the people you've worked for, that might help. Have you got shots of the people at Horizonte, or Banco Omni, or something from the Horizonte fortieth anniversary celebrations? You know, pictures of Angel Zarrias with senior executives. Elvira likes tangible things.'
'Of course, Javier, anything for you. Just don't oversell me.'
'We're in crisis,' said Falcon. 'Both our instructing judges have been discredited. We have to rebuild our image before it's too late. Elvira is a good policeman, and I don't want to see him fail just because he doesn't know how to play the media game.'
They went up to the apartment. Manuela wasn't there. It was a huge, four-bedroomed place, with two of the bedrooms used as offices. Angel walked to the wall of his study and pointed at a shot in the middle.
'That's the one you want,' he said, tapping a framed photograph in the centre of the wall. 'That's a rare shot of all the executives of Horizonte and Banco Omni in the same place. It was taken for the fortieth anniversary event. I've got a copy of it somewhere.'
Angel sat at his desk, opened a drawer and went through a stack of photographs. Falcon searched the shot for a likeness of the police artist's drawing of the man seen with Ricardo Gamero.
'Which one is Lucrecio Arenas?' asked Falcon. 'I don't see anybody I recognize here. If I'd met him, where would that have been?'
'He has a house in Seville, although he doesn't live in it for half the year. His wife can't stand the heat so they go and live in some palatial villa, built for them by Mejorvista, down in Marbella,' said Angel. 'You remember that big dinner I had in the Restaurante La Juderia last October? He was there.'
'I was away teaching a course at the police academy.'
Angel gave him the shot and pointed out Lucrecio Arenas, who was in the centre, while Angel was on the very edge of the two rows of men. Arenas had similarities to the police artist's drawing in that he was the right age, but there was no revelatory moment.
'Thanks for this,' said Falcon.
'Don't lose it,' said Angel, who put it in an envelope for him.
'What about this shot of you and King Juan Carlos,' said Falcon. 'Have you got a copy of that?'
They both laughed.
'The King doesn't need me to do his PR for him,' said Angel. 'He's a natural.' 'Are you getting anywhere, Jose Luis?' asked Falcon.
'I can't believe it, but we've drawn a total blank,' said Ramirez. 'If Tateb Hassani was staying with someone in this area, he didn't go for a coffee, he didn't eat a tapa, drink a beer, buy bread, go to the supermarket, get a newspaper-nothing. Nobody has seen this guy before, and he's got a face you don't forget.'
'Any news from Cristina and Emilio?'
'They've seen most of the big houses in the area and there are no box hedges. They've all got internal patios rather than gardens. There's the Convento de San Leandro and the Casa Pilatos, but that doesn't help us much.'
'I want you to find and check out another house. I don't have the address, but it belongs to someone called Lucrecio Arenas,' said Falcon. 'And I spoke to the CNI about the Imam's phone records. They've checked out the electrician's number already. It was a dead end.'
'Can we have a look at those records ourselves?'
'They've become classified documents,' said Falcon, and hung up.
He was on his way to see the security guard who'd finished his shift at the Archaeological Museum and gone home. It was a long drive out to his apartment in the northeast of the city. He took a call from Pablo.
'You're going to be pleased about this,' the CNI man said. 'Our handwriting expert has matched the Arabic script to the notes attached to the architect's drawings of the schools and the biology faculty. He's also matched Tateb Hassani's English script to the annotations in both copies of the Koran. What does this mean, Javier?'
'I'm not absolutely sure of its greater significance, but I'm confident you can tell your code breakers to stop looking for a key to crack the non-existent cipher in those copies of the Koran,' said Falcon. 'I think they were planted in the Peugeot Partner and Miguel Botin's apartment, specifically to confuse us.'
'And that's all you can say for the moment?'
'I'll be seeing you later at my house,' said Falcon. 'I'm hoping it will all be clearer by then.'
The lift to the security guard's apartment on the sixth floor was not working. Falcon was sweating as he rang the doorbell. The wife and kids were despatched to bedrooms and Falcon laid the photograph down on the dining- room table. His heart was beating tight and fast, willing the guard to find Lucrecio Arenas.
'Do you see the older man in this photograph?'
There were two rows of men, about thirty in all. The security guard had done this before. He took two pieces of paper and isolated each face from the rest of the shot and took a good look at it. He started on the left and worked
