The Hidden Assassins

by Robert Wilson

  Falcón drove back into the centre of Seville in strange yellowing light as a huge storm cloud, which had been gathering over the Sierra de Aracena, began to encroach on the city from the northwest. The radio told him that there would be an evening of heavy rain. It was probably going to be the last rain before the long hot summer.

  At first he thought that it might be the physical and mental jolt he’d had from colliding with Consuelo that morning which was making him feel anxious. Or was it the change in the atmospheric pressure, or some residual edginess left from seeing the bloated corpse on the dump? As he sat at the traffic lights he realized that it ran deeper than all that. His instinct was telling him that this was the end of an old order and the ominous start of something new. The unidentifiable corpse was like a neurosis; an ugly protrusion prodding the consciousness of the city from a greater horror underneath. It was the sense of that greater horror, with its potential to turn minds, move spirits and change lives that he was finding so disturbing.

  By the time he arrived back at the Jefatura, after a series of meetings with judges in the Edificio de los Juzgados, it was seven o’clock and evening seemed to have come early. The smell of rain was as heavy as metal in the ionized air. The thunder still seemed to be a long way off, but the sky was darkening to a premature night and flashes of lightning startled, like death just missed.

  Pérez and Ferrera were waiting for him in his office. Their eyes followed him as he went to the window and the first heavy drops of rain rapped against the glass. Contentment was a strange human state, he thought, as a light steam rose from the car park. Just at the moment life seemed boring and the desire for change emerged like a brilliant idea, along came a new, sinister vitality and the mind was suddenly scrambling back to what appeared to be prelapsarian bliss.

  ‘What have you got?’ he asked, moving along the window to his desk and collapsing in the chair.

  ‘You didn’t give us a time of death,’ said Ferrera.

  ‘Sorry. Forty-eight hours was the estimate.’

  ‘We found the bins where the envelopes were dumped. They’re in the old city centre, on the corner of a cul-de-sac and Calle Boteros, between the Plaza de la Alfalfa and the Plaza Cristo de Burgos.’

  ‘When do they empty those bins?’

  ‘Every night between eleven and midnight,’ said Pérez.

  ‘So if, as the Médico Forense says, he died some time in the evening of Saturday 3rd June,’ said Ferrera, ‘they probably wouldn’t have been able to dump the body until three in the morning on Sunday.’

  ‘Where are those bins now?’

  ‘We’ve had them sent down to forensics to test for blood traces.’

  ‘But we might be out of luck there,’ said Pérez. ‘Felipe and Jorge have found some black plastic sheeting, which they think was wrapped around the body.’

  ‘Did any of the people you spoke to at the addresses on the envelopes remember seeing any black plastic sheeting in the bottom of one of the bins?’

  ‘We didn’t know about the black plastic sheeting when we interviewed them.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t,’ said Falcón, his brain not concentrated on the details, still drifting about in his earlier unease. ‘Why do you think the body was dumped at three in the morning?’

  ‘Saturday night near the Alfalfa…you know what it’s like around there…all the kids in the bars and out on the streets.’

  ‘Why choose those bins, if it’s so busy?’

  ‘Maybe they know those bins,’ said Pérez. ‘They knew that they could park down a dark, quiet cul-de-sac and what the collection times were. They could plan. Dumping the body would only take a few seconds.’

  ‘Any apartments overlooking the bins?’

  ‘We’ll go around the apartments in the cul-de-sac again tomorrow,’ said Pérez. ‘The apartment with the best view is at the end, but there was nobody at home.’

  A long, pulsating flash of lightning was accompanied by a clap of thunder so loud that it seemed to crack open the sky above their heads. They all instinctively ducked and the Jefatura was plunged into darkness. They fumbled around for a torch, while the rain thrashed against the building and drove in waves across the car park. Ferrera propped a flashlight up against some files and they sat back. More lightning left them blinking, with the window frame burnt on to their retinae. The emergency generators started up in the basement. The lights flickered back on. Falcón’s mobile vibrated on the desktop: a text from the Médico Forense telling him that the autopsy had been completed and he would be free from 8.30 a.m. to discuss it. Falcón sent a text back agreeing to see him first thing. He flung the mobile back on the desk and stared into the wall.

  ‘You seem a little uneasy, Inspector Jefe,’ said Pérez, who had a habit of stating the obvious, while Falcón had a habit of ignoring him.

  ‘We have an unidentified corpse, which could prove to be unidentifiable,’ said Falcón, marshalling his thoughts, trying to give Pérez and Ferrera a focus for their investigative work. ‘How many people do you think were involved in this murder?’

  ‘A minimum of two,’ said Ferrera.

  ‘Killing, scalping, severing hands, burning off features with acid…yes, why did they cut off his hands when they could have easily burnt off his prints with acid?’

  ‘Something significant about his hands,’ said Pérez.

  Falcón and Ferrera exchanged a look.

  ‘Keep thinking, Emilio,’ said Falcón. ‘Anyway, it was planned and premeditated and it was important that his identity was not known. Why?’

  ‘Because the identity of the corpse will point to the killers,’ said Pérez. ‘Most victims are killed by people—’

  ‘Or?’ said Falcón. ‘If there was no obvious link?’

  ‘The identity of the victim and/or knowledge of his skills might jeopardize a future operation,’ said Ferrera.

  ‘Good. Now tell me how many people you really think it took to dispose of that body in one of those bins,’ said Falcón. ‘They’re chest high to a normal person and the whole thing has got to be done in seconds.’

  ‘Three to deal with the body and two for lookout,’ said Pérez.

  ‘If you tipped the bin over to the edge of the car boot it could be done with two men,’ said Ferrera. ‘Anybody coming down Calle Boteros at that time would be drunk and shouting. You might need a driver in the car. Three maximum.’

  ‘Three or five, what does that tell you?’

  ‘It’s a gang,’ said Pérez.

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Drugs?’ he said. ‘Cutting off his hands, burning off his face…’

  ‘Drug runners don’t normally sew people into shrouds,’ said Falcón. ‘They tend to shoot people and there was no bullet hole…not even a knife wound.’

  ‘It didn’t seem like an execution,’ said Ferrera, ‘more like a regrettable necessity.’

  Falcón told them they were to revisit all the apartments overlooking the bins first thing in the morning before everybody went to work. They were to establish if there was black plastic sheeting in any of the bins and if a car was seen or heard at around three in the morning on Sunday.

  Down in the forensic lab, Felipe and Jorge had the tables pushed back and the black plastic sheet laid out on the floor. The two large bins from Calle Boteros were already in the corner, taped shut. Jorge was at a microscope while Felipe was on all fours on the plastic sheet, wearing his custom-made magnifying spectacles.

  ‘We’ve got a blood group match from the victim to the white shroud and to the black plastic sheet. We hope to have a DNA match by tomorrow morning,’ said Jorge. ‘It looks to me as if they put him face down on the plastic to do the surgery.’ He gave Falcón the measurements between a saliva deposit and some blood deposits and two pubic hairs which all conformed to the victim’s height.

  ‘We’re running DNA tests on those, too,’ he said.

  ‘What about the acid on the face?’

  ‘That must have been done elsewhere an
d rinsed off. There’s no sign of it.’

  ‘Any prints?’

  ‘No fingerprints, just a footprint in the top left quadrant,’ said Felipe. ‘Jorge has matched it to a Nike trainer, as worn by thousands of people.’

  ‘Are you going to be able to look at those bins tonight?’

  ‘We’ll take a look, but if he was well wrapped up I don’t hold out much hope for blood or saliva,’ said Felipe.

  ‘Have you run a check on missing persons?’ asked Jorge.

  ‘We don’t even know if he was Spanish yet,’ said Falcón. ‘I’m seeing the Médico Forense tomorrow morning. Let’s hope there are some distinguishing marks.’

  ‘His pubic hair was dark,’ said Jorge, grinning. ‘And his blood group was O positive…if that’s any help?’

  ‘Keep up the brilliant work,’ said Falcón.

  It was still raining, but in a discouragingly sensible way after the reckless madness of the initial downpour. Falcón did some paperwork with his mind elsewhere. He turned away from his computer and stared at the reflection of his office in the dark window. The fluorescent light shivered. Pellets of rain drummed against the glass as if a lunatic wanted to attract his attention. Falcón was surprised at himself. He’d been such a scientific investigator in the past, always keen to get his hands on autopsy reports and forensic evidence. Now he spent more time tuning in to his intuition. He tried to persuade himself that it was experience but sometimes it seemed like laziness. A buzz from his mobile jolted him: a text from his current girlfriend, Laura, inviting him to dinner. He looked down at the screen and found himself unconsciously rubbing the arm which had made contact with Consuelo’s body in the entrance of the café. He hesitated as he reached for the mobile to reply. Why, suddenly, was everything so much more complicated? He’d wait until he got back home.

  The traffic was slow in the rain. The radio news commented on the successful parading of the Virgin of Rocío, which had taken place that day. Falcón crossed the river and joined the metal snake heading north. He sat at the traffic lights and scribbled a note without thinking before filtering right down Calle Reyes Católicos. From there he drove into the maze of streets where he lived in the massive, rambling house he’d inherited six years ago. He parked up between the orange trees that led to the entrance of the house on Calle Bailén but didn’t get out. He was wrestling with his uneasiness again and this time it was to do with Consuelo—what he’d seen in her face that morning. They’d both been startled, but it hadn’t just been shock that had registered in her eyes. It was anguish.

  He got out of the car, opened the smaller door within the brass-studded oak portal and went through to the patio, where the marble flags still glistened from the rain. A blinking light beyond the glass door to his study told him that he had two phone messages. He hit the button and stood in the dark looking out through the cloister at the bronze running boy in the fountain. The voice of his Moroccan friend, Yacoub Diouri, filled the room. He greeted Javier in Arabic and then slipped into perfect Spanish. He was flying to Madrid on his way to Paris next weekend and wondered if they could meet up. Was that coincidence or synchronicity? The only reason he’d met Yacoub Diouri, one of the few men he’d become close to, was because of Consuelo Jiménez. That was the thing about intuition, you began to believe that everything had significance.

  The second message was from Laura, who still wanted to know if he would be coming for dinner that night; it would be just the two of them. He smiled at that. His relationship with Laura was not exclusive. She had other male companions she saw regularly and that had suited him…until now when, for no apparent reason, it was different. Paella and spending the night with Laura suddenly seemed ridiculous.

  He called her and said that he wouldn’t be able to make dinner but that he would drop by for a drink later.

  There was no food in the house. His housekeeper had assumed he would go out for dinner. He hadn’t eaten all day. The body on the dump had interrupted his lunch plans and ruined his appetite. Now he was hungry. He went for a walk. The streets were fresh after the rain and full of people. He didn’t really start thinking where he was going until he found himself heading round the back of the Omnium Sanctorum church. Only then did he admit that he was going to eat at Consuelo’s new restaurant.

  The waiter brought him a menu and he ordered immediately. The pan de casa arrived quickly; thinly sliced ham sitting on a spread of salmorejo on toast. He enjoyed it with a beer. Feeling suddenly bold he took out one of his cards and wrote on the back: I am eating here and wondered if you would join me for a glass of wine. Javier. When the waiter came back with the revuelto de setas, scrambled eggs and mushrooms, he poured a glass of red rioja and Javier gave him the card.

  Later the waiter returned with some tiny lamb chops and topped up his glass of wine.

  ‘She’s not in,’ he said. ‘I’ve left the card on her desk so that she knows you were here.’

  Falcón knew he was lying. It was one of the few advantages of being a detective. He ate the chops feeling privately foolish that he’d believed in the synchronicity of the moment. He sipped at his third glass of wine and ordered coffee. By 10.40 p.m. he was out in the street again. He leaned against the wall opposite the entrance to the restaurant, thinking that he might catch her on the way out.

  As he stood there waiting patiently he covered a lot of ground in his head. It was amazing how little thought he’d given to his inner life since he’d stopped seeing his shrink four years ago.

  And when, an hour later, he gave up his vigil he knew precisely what he was going to do. He was determined to finish his superficial relationship with Laura and, if his world of work would let him, he would devote himself to bringing Consuelo back into his life.

  2

  Seville—Tuesday, 6th June 2006, 02.00 hrs

  Consuelo Jiménez was sitting in the office of her flagship restaurant, in the heart of La Macarena, the old working-class neighbourhood of Seville. She was in a state of heightened anxiety and the three heavy shots of The Macallan, which she’d taken to drinking at this time of night, were doing nothing to alleviate it. Her state had not been improved by bumping into Javier early in the day and it had been made worse by the knowledge that he’d been eating his dinner barely ten metres from where she was now sitting. His card lay on the desk in front of her.

  She was in possession of a terrible clarity about her mental and physical state. She was not somebody who, having fallen into a trough of despair, lost control of her life and plunged unconsciously into an orgy of self-destruction. She was more meticulous than that, more detached. So detached that at times she’d found herself looking down on her own blonde head as the mind beneath stumbled about in the wreckage of her inner life. It was a very strange state to be in: physically in good shape for her age, mentally still very focused on her business, beautifully turned out as always, but…how to put this? She had no words for what was happening inside her. All she had to describe it was an image from a TV documentary on global warming: vital elements of an ancient glacier’s primitive structure had melted in some unusually fierce summer heat and, without warning, a vast tonnage of ice had collapsed in a protracted roar into a lake below. She knew, from the ghastly plummet in her own organs, that she was watching a pre-figurement of what might happen to her unless she did something fast.

  The whisky glass travelled to her mouth and back to the desk, transported by a hand that she did not feel belonged to her. She was grateful for the ethereal sting of the alcohol because it reminded her that she was still sentient. She was playing with a business card, turning it over and over, rubbing the embossed name and profession with her thumb. Her manager knocked and came in.

  ‘We’re finished now,’ he said. ‘We’ll be locking up in five minutes. There’s nothing left to do here…you should go home.’

  ‘That man who was here earlier, one of the waiters said he was outside. Are you sure he’s gone?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said the manager.
>
  ‘I’ll let myself out of the side door,’ she said, giving him one of her hard, professional looks.

  He backed off. Consuelo was sorry. He was a good man, who knew when a person needed help and also when that help was unacceptable. What was going on inside Consuelo was too personal to be sorted out in an after-hours chat between proprietor and manager. This wasn’t about unpaid bills or difficult clients. This was about…everything.

  She went back to the card. It belonged to a clinical psychologist called Alicia Aguado. Over the last eighteen months Consuelo had made six appointments with this woman and failed to turn up for any of them. She’d given a different name each time she’d made these appointments, but Alicia Aguado had recognized her voice from the first call. Of course she would. She was blind, and the blind develop other senses. On the last two occasions Alicia Aguado had said: ‘If ever you have to see me, you must call. I will fit you in whenever—early morning or late at night. You must realize that I am always here when you need me.’ That had shocked Consuelo. Alicia Aguado knew. Even Consuelo’s iciest professional tone had betrayed her need for help.

  The hand reached for the bottle and refilled the glass. The whisky vaporized into her mind. She also knew why she wanted to see this particular psychologist: Alicia Aguado had treated Javier Falcón. When she’d run into him in the street, it had been like a reminder. But a reminder of what? The ‘fling’ she’d had with him? She only called it a fling because that’s what it looked like from the outside—some days of dinners and wild sex. But she’d broken it off because…She writhed in her chair at the memory. What reason had she given him? Because she was hopeless when in love? She turned into somebody else when she got into a relationship? Whatever it was, she’d invented something unanswerable, refused to see him or answer his calls. And now he was back like an extra motivation.

  She hadn’t been able to ignore a recent and more worrying psychological development, which had started to occur in the brief moments when she wasn’t working with her usual fierce, almost manic, drive. When distracted or tired at the end of the day sex would come into her mind, but like a midnight intruder. She imagined herself having new and vital affairs with strangers. Her fantasies drifted towards rough, possibly dangerous men and assumed pornographic dimensions, with herself at the centre of almost unimaginable goings on. She’d always hated porn, had found it both disgustingly biological and boring, but now, however much she tried to fight it with her intelligence, she was aware of her arousal: saliva in her mouth, the constriction of her throat. And it was happening again, now, even with her mind apparently engaged. She kicked back her chair, tossed Aguado’s card into the gaping hole of her handbag, lunged at her cigarettes, lit up and paced the office floor, smoking too fast and hard.