through the bars of the gate, Jesus Alarcon would have stayed in his bed, called the police and begged for special forces.
A light came on outside the front of the house. The door opened. Alarcon, in a silk dressing gown, pointed the remote at the gate. Fernando flinched, as if being shot at. The gate rumbled back on its rails. Fernando slipped through the gap and walked quickly up to the house. Alarcon had already turned back to the front door, holding out an arm, which he expected to fit around Fernando's shoulders and welcome him into his home.
Moths swirled around the porch light, maddened by the prospect of a greater darkness, which never materialized. Alarcon was still too groggy to recognize the level of intent moving up on him. He was astonished to feel a fistful of his dressing-gown collar grabbed from behind and the front door reeling away from him as Fernando, with the hardened strength of a manual worker, swung him round. Alarcon lost his footing and fell to his knees. Fernando yanked him backwards and trapped his head between his thighs. He had the gun out of his waistband. Alarcon reached back, grabbing at Fernando's trousers and polo shirt. Fernando showed him the gun, poked the barrel into the socket of his eye so that Alarcon gasped with pain.
'You see that?' said Fernando. 'You see it, you little fucker?'
Alarcon was paralysed with fear. His voice, with his neck pulled taut, produced only a grunt. Fernando pushed the gun between Alarcon's lips, felt the barrel rattle across his teeth and sensed the steel mushing into the softness of his tongue.
'Feel it. Taste it. You know what it is now.'
He wrenched the gun out of his mouth, taking a chip of tooth with it. He jammed the barrel into the back of Alarcon's neck.
'Are you ready? Say your prayers, Jesus, because you're going to meet your namesake.'
Fernando pulled the trigger, the gun pressed hard against Alarcon's shaking neck. There was a dry click. A gasp from Alarcon and a stink rose up from behind him as he loosed his bowels into his pyjamas.
'That was for Gloria,' said Fernando. 'Now you know her fear.'
Fernando moved the gun round to Alarcon's temple, screwed it into the top of his sideburn so that Alarcon winced away from it. Another dry click and a sob from Alarcon.
'That was for my little Pedro,' said Fernando, coughing against the emotion rising in his throat. 'He didn't know fear. He was too young to know it. Too innocent. Now look at the gun, Jesus. You see the cylinder. Two empty chambers and four full ones. We're going upstairs now and you're going to watch me shoot your wife and two children, just so you know how it feels.'
'What are you doing, Fernando?' said Alarcon, finding his voice and his presence of mind, now that the rush of the initial onslaught was past. 'What the fuck are you doing?'
'You and your friends. You're all the same. There's no difference between you and any other politician. You're all liars, cheats and egomaniacs. I don't know how I fell for your stupid, fucking line. Jesus Alarcon, the man who will talk to you without cameras, without the photo opportunity, without his beautiful profile in mind.'
'What are you talking about, Fernando? What have I done? How have I lied and cheated?' said Alarcon, pleading.
'You killed my wife and child,' said Fernando. 'And then, because you needed me, you made me your friend.'
'How did I kill them?'
'I read it in the police notes. You were all in it. Rivero, Zarrias, Cardenas. You planted the bomb in the mosque. You killed my wife and son. You killed all those people. And for what?'
'Fernando?'
He looked up. A different voice from beyond the gate. Female. Not in his head. The blood was simmering in his brain, bubbling and popping in such arterial rage that he'd become confused.
'Gloria?' he said.
'It's me, Cristina,' she said. 'I'm here with Inspector Jefe Falcon. We want you to put the gun down, Fernando. This is not how you resolve things. You've misunderstood…'
'No, no. That is not true. I have finally understood only too well. You listen. You listen to my 'friend', Jesus Alarcon.'
Fernando knelt down by the side of Alarcon and whispered harshly in his ear.
'I am not going to shoot you or your family on one condition,' he said. 'The condition is that you must tell them the truth. They're the cops. They know what the truth is. You're going to tell them the truth for the first time with your gilded politician's lips. Tell them how you planted the bomb and you will live to see the rest of this day. If you don't, I will shoot you and, when you are dead, I will go inside and find Monica and shoot her, too. Go on, tell them.'
Fernando stood up and prodded Alarcon in the neck with the gun. Alarcon cleared his throat.
'The truth,' said Fernando, 'or I'm sending you into the dark. Tell them.'
Alarcon crossed himself.
'He has asked me to tell you the truth about the bomb,' said Alarcon, his head hung on to his chest, his arms limp by his sides. 'If I fail to tell you the truth he says he will shoot me and then my wife. I can only tell you what I know, which may not be the whole truth, but only a part of it.'
Fernando stood back, arm straight. He rested the gun barrel on the crown of Alarcon's head.
'I had nothing to do with the planting of any bomb in that mosque, so help me God,' said Alarcon.
37
Seville-Friday, 9th June 2006, 05.03 hrs
There was no gunshot. A force travelled from Alarcon's head, up the gun barrel, through Fernando's hand, arm and shoulder and into his mind. It made his upper body shudder so that the gun barrel drifted from its aim, and had to be retrained on to Alarcon's crown, not once or twice, but three times. His finger caressed the trigger with each retraining of the revolver. He blinked, took in huge gulps of air and looked down on the man, who a few moments ago had been the object of his deepest hatred. He couldn't do it. Alarcon's words had somehow drained all his resolve. It was the miracle cure for the malignancy of his revenge. He knew with absolute certainty that he had heard the truth.
At first light, with the sky turning from midnight blue to anil, Fernando dropped his arm and let it hang with the weight of the gun. Ferrera stepped forward and removed it from his slack grasp and holstered it. She moved him away from behind Alarcon, who fell forwards on to all fours.
'Take Fernando to the car,' said Falcon. 'Cuff him.'
Alarcon was dry retching and sobbing at the sudden release of tension. Falcon got him to his feet and took him to where his wife was standing, wide-eyed, features rigid, by the front door. Falcon asked for the bathroom. The request brought Monica Alarcon back to reality. She led Falcon and her husband upstairs to where the children were standing, one holding a fluffy tiger, the other a small blue blanket, uncomprehending of the adult drama. Monica got the kids back into their bedroom. She joined Falcon in the bathroom where her husband was struggling to undo the buttons on his pyjamas. Falcon told her to strip her husband's clothes off and get him into the shower. He would wait downstairs in the kitchen.
Exhaustion leaned on Falcon like a big, stupid dog. He shut the front door and sat at the kitchen table, staring into the garden, with only one thought shuttling backwards and forwards through his mind. Jesus Alarcon was not part of the conspiracy. It looked as if he was their compliant and ignorant front man.
Monica came back down to the kitchen and offered him a coffee. She was shaken, her hands trembled over the crockery. She had to ask him to work the espresso machine.
'Did he have a gun?' she asked. 'Did Fernando have a gun?'
'Your husband handled himself very well,' said Falcon, nodding.
'But Fernando and Jesus were getting on so well.'
'Fernando read something he shouldn't have done and misunderstood an observation as a fact,' said Falcon. 'Your husband's courage meant that it didn't end in tragedy.'
'We both admired Fernando so much for the way in which he was managing his terrible loss,' she said. 'I had
