'I'll get back to you when I know more.'
Falcon went back to Zorrita, apologized. Zorrita waved it away. Falcon told him about the last time he'd seen Ines. How she'd unexpectedly turned up at his house on Tuesday night, swearing about her husband and his endless affairs.
'Did you like Esteban Calderon?' asked Zorrita.
'I used to. People were surprised. I only found out much later that he and Ines had been having an affair for the last part of our short married life,' said Falcon. 'I thought he was an intelligent, well-informed, cultured person and he probably still is. But he's also arrogant, ambitious, narcissistic, and a lot of other adjectives that I can't retrieve from my brain at the moment.'
'Interesting,' said Zorrita, 'because he asked me if you'd go and see him.'
'What for?' asked Falcon. 'He knows I can't talk about his case.'
'He said he wants to explain something to you.'
'I'm not sure that's a good idea.'
'It's up to you,' said Zorrita. 'It won't bother me.'
'Off the record,' said Falcon. 'Did he break down and confess?'
'Nearly,' said Zorrita. 'There was a breakdown, but not in the usual way. Rather than his conscience forcing out the truth, it was more as if he suddenly doubted himself. To start with he was all arrogance and determined resistance. He refused a lawyer, which meant I could be quite brutal with him about the way he'd abused his wife. I think he was unaware of the intensity of his rage, the savagery it unleashed and the damage he'd done to her. He was shocked by the autopsy details and that's when his certainty really wavered and he began to believe that he could have done it.
'He described arriving at his apartment as if he was telling me about a movie and there was some confusion about how the script played out. At first he said that he'd seen Ines standing by the sink, but then he changed his mind. In the end, I think there were two Calderons. The judge and this other person, who was locked up most of the time but would come out and take over.'
'Ines said he needed psychological help,' said Falcon, 'but I don't think she had something as serious as schizophrenia in mind.'
'Not clinical schizophrenia,' said Zorrita. 'There's a beast inside most of us, it just never gets to see the light of day. For whatever reason, Calderon's beast got out of the cage.'
'You're convinced he did it?'
'I'm certain there was nobody else involved, so the only question is whether it was premeditated or accidental,' said Zorrita. 'I don't think his lover stood to gain anything out of Ines's death. She didn't want to marry him. She's not the marrying kind. She admitted that they'd had a 'joke' about 'the bourgeois solution to a bourgeois institution' being murder, but I don't think it was her intention that he should go off and kill his wife. He'll try to make out it was accidental, although no court is going to like the sound of how he abused her beforehand.'
Zorrita finished his beer. Falcon walked him to the door. Ramirez called again. Zorrita walked off into the night with a wave.
'OK, Cesar Benito is the Chief Executive of a construction company called Construcciones PLM S.A. He is on the board of directors of Horizonte, in charge of their property services division, which includes companies like Mejorvista and Playadoro. The other guy, Agustin Cardenas, is a bit more interesting. He's a qualified surgeon who runs his own cosmetic surgery clinics in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville. He is also on the board of Horizonte, in charge of their medical services division, which runs Quirurgicalidad, Ecograficalidad and Optivision.'
'It looks like a gathering of the conspiracy to plan their next move now that the first phase has been successfully completed,' said Falcon.
'But I'm not convinced that we've got the full picture,' said Ramirez. 'I can see Rivero, Zarrias, Alarcon and Cardenas poisoning Hassani, and probably Cardenas did the work on the corpse, but none of these guys fits the descriptions of any of the men in the Mercedes E500 who dumped the body.'
'And who planted the bomb, or gave orders for it to be planted?'
'There's a missing element,' said Ramirez. 'I can see the money and the power and a certain amount of ruthlessness to deal with Tateb Hassani. But how could you get somebody to do the work in the mosque and rely on them to keep their mouths shut?'
'The only way to find that out is to put them under pressure in the Jefatura,' said Falcon, hearing the doorbell. 'Give Elvira an update. I've got a meeting with the CNI here. And tell Cristina she has to get a sighting of Tateb Hassani, as late on Saturday evening as possible. It's important that we have that before we talk to Rivero.'
Pablo and Gregorio went straight to the computer. Gregorio set to work, booting up the computer and getting access to the CNI's encrypted site, through which they would 'chat' to Yacoub Diouri.
'We've arranged for you to talk to Yacoub at 23.00 hours every night, unless you agree not to beforehand. That's 23.00 Spanish time, which is 21.00 Moroccan time,' said Pablo. 'Obviously you have to be on your own to do this, nobody even in the house with you. The way in which you recognize each other is that each time you make contact you will start with a paragraph of incidental chat in which you will include a phrase from this book-'
Pablo handed him a copy of Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me by Javier Marias.
'On the first day he will choose a phrase from the opening paragraph of page one, and you will respond with a phrase from the closing paragraph of page one,' said Pablo. 'Once you've recognized each other you can talk freely.'
'What if he doesn't use the phrase?'
'The most important thing is that you do not remind him and you don't respond with any classified information. You include your introductory phrase in your opening paragraph and if he still doesn't rectify the situation you log off. You must then not communicate with him until we've checked out his status,' said Pablo. 'The other thing is: no printouts. We will have a record on our website, which you will not be able to access unless we are here with you.'
'I still don't understand how you know that Yacoub will be accepted so easily into the GICM,' said Falcon.
'We didn't say that,' said Pablo. 'We said that he would be accepted into the radical element of the mosque in Sale. You have to remember Yacoub's history; what his real father, Raul Jimenez, did and how his surrogate father, Abdullah Diouri, retaliated. That did not happen in a bubble. The whole family knew about it. That is the source of a certain amount of sympathy with some of the more radical elements of Islam. Don't ask any more…let's just see whether Yacoub has made contact with the radical element in the mosque and, if he has, how quickly he'll be put in touch with the high command of the GICM.'
'So what is the purpose of my conversation with him?'
'At this stage, to let him know that you're here,' said Pablo. 'Ultimately, we want to find out what was supposed to happen here in Seville and whether they still have the capability to make it happen, but we might have to be satisfied with confirmation of the history at this stage.'
The communication started at 23.03. They made their introductions and Falcon asked his first question.
'How's your first day been back at school?'
'It's more like the first day as a new member of a club. Everybody's sizing me up, some are friendly, others suspicious and a few are unfriendly. It's like in any organization, I've come in at a certain level and been welcomed by my equals, but I'm despised as a usurper by those who thought they were becoming important. There's a hierarchy here. There has to be. It's an organization with a military wing. The striking difference is that the commander-in-chief is not a man, but Allah. No action by this group, or any of the others that they read about, is referred to without mention of the ultimate source of the commands. We're constantly reminded that we're involved in a Holy War. It is powerful and inspirational and I've come back feeling dazed. Home seems strange, or rather, extremely banal after a day spent with people so certain of their place and destiny in the will of Allah. I can see how powerfully this would work on a young mind. They're also clever at depersonalizing the enemy, who are rarely specific people-unless you count Tony Blair and George Bush-but rather the decadence and godlessness that has engulfed the West. I suppose it's easier to bomb decadence and godlessness than it is men, women and children.'
'Any talk about what happened in Seville on 6th June?'
'They talk about nothing else. The Spanish satellite news is avidly watched for more information, but it's not so easy to work out the extent of their involvement.'
'Any talk about Djamel Hammad and Smail Saoudi and what they were doing bringing 100 kilos of hexogen to
