The Ignoranceof Blood jf-4

by Robert Wilson

  The phone rang in his office, the scrambled line to the CNI. Falcon asked Ramirez to email the close-up shot of the unidentified male to his computer.

  'I spoke to MI5 about Yacoub,' said Pablo. 'Of course they knew about him coming in on that flight, but they've lost him.'

  'Lost him? What do you mean?'

  'They followed him. He took the metro into London. They lost him at Russell Square.'

  'So Yacoub realized he was being tailed and lost them, which means he now knows, or will assume, that I've talked.'

  'Not necessarily. It's not the first time the British have taken an interest in Yacoub. What it does mean is that he didn't want them to know what he was doing,' said Pablo. 'We've now seen that his name has appeared on a manifest on a flight from London to Malaga tomorrow evening.'

  'What does any of this mean?'

  'It might mean that we have a rogue agent on our hands. On the other hand, it might just be that he is having to behave in a certain way because of pressure from the GICM,' said Pablo. 'What we have to do now is find out in whose interests he's working.'

  'How are you going to do that?'

  'Through you. But we're still thinking about it,' said Pablo. 'There's something else. An unidentified male has turned up in Yacoub's house in Rabat. He seems to be family, but the Moroccans haven't been able to place him yet and they don't want to go in there and spoil our show.'

  'Can't they check his papers when he comes out of the house?'

  'If he came out, they would, but he doesn't,' said Pablo. 'There's a shot of him on our website. Take a look. You might know him from that holiday you took with Yacoub down in Essaouira. By the way, you haven't communicated with Yacoub through the CNI website for three weeks.'

  'He hasn't communicated with me.'

  'But before that you were in regular contact.'

  'Given his domestic situation, he's got to be more careful now.'

  'That's what we're thinking here,' said Pablo. 'Anything else?'

  'I'm working on a potential breakthrough in the Seville bombing. We've come across some disks in the possession of a known Russian mafioso showing men having sex with prostitutes,' said Falcon. 'You remember the two ringleaders of the conspiracy: Lucrecio Arenas and Cesar Benito?'

  'Benito was an architect for the Horizonte Group and Arenas was the CEO of their bankers, Banco Omni,' said Pablo.

  'That's right. We never managed to find anything in either company that linked them to the conspiracy, but we're equally sure they weren't motivated by their Catholic beliefs,' said Falcon. 'I've isolated a male from the disks we found in the Russian mafioso's possession. Our two Organized Crime specialists from the Costa del Sol have been able to identify more than sixty people from these disks, but not this guy, and it occurs to me he may be an outsider.'

  'And you think this may link the Russian mafia to Horizonte and Banco Omni?'

  'It might do, if this guy happens to be in the hierarchy of either company or of Horizonte's holding company, an American-based investment group called I4IT,' said Falcon. 'The problem is that I know from my earlier investigations into these two companies how camera-shy their personnel are, and that you probably have access to… certain files that I don't. He might even be a foreigner.'

  'You want me to see if I can match him?' said Pablo. 'For you, Javier, anything.'

  They hung up. Falcon emailed the facial close-up of the male having sex with Margarita to the CNI website and, while there, checked the photo of the guy staying at Yacoub's house, but didn't recognize him.

  'Send me those shots of the other two guys you haven't been able to identify from the Russian's disks,' Falcon shouted through to Vicente Cortes in the adjoining office.

  The three faces came up on his screen. He inspected them carefully. Ramirez came in and stood by the window.

  'This guy – "Unidentified B". He doesn't look Spanish to me,' said Falcon.

  'No,' said Ramirez flatly, looking over his shoulder.

  'The other two could be Spanish or Hispanic,' said Falcon, 'but this guy looks American.'

  'American?' said Cortes, appearing at the door. 'How can you tell he's American from a grainy shot like that?'

  'He doesn't look like a man whose face is burdened by centuries of history,' said Falcon. 'He has the innocence of someone who's spent his life embracing the future.'

  'Even if he is fucking a teenager in the ass,' said Ramirez grimly.

  'You can tell all that from this shot?' said Cortes, leaning over Falcon's desk.

  'Look at his hair,' said Falcon. 'We don't have hair like that any more in Europe. That's what I would call American corporate hair. It's very conservative.'

  'You should see the full clip. It doesn't even move during sex,' said Ramirez, looking out of the window. 'By the time he'd finished with that poor kid he should have had hair like a wrestler's, and yet… maybe it's a rug?'

  'Possibly.'

  The phone with the scrambled line to the CNI rang.

  Ramirez took Cortes by the arm, led him out. Ferrera leaned in and closed the door.

  'We want you to go to London,' said Pablo.

  'I can't.'

  'We've already spoken to Comisario Elvira.'

  'I've just told you, things are breaking here. I feel as if I'm finally getting inside. I can't leave now,' said Falcon. 'And if I go to London, Yacoub will know I've spoken to you. He'll see it as a breach of trust.'

  'You're going to see the British counter-terrorism squad, SO15, in New Scotland Yard. A guy called Douglas Hamilton. He will brief you. When you make contact with Yacoub you'll tell him why you're in London, which is to find out what the fuck he is doing losing an MI5 tail. That is not the kind of behaviour we expect from one of our "untrained" agents,' said Pablo. 'You understand me, Javier? And look, you'll be away from your desk for the rest of today only. We've got you on to a scheduled flight in an hour's time and we'll make sure you get an early-evening flight back.'

  'All right,' said Falcon. 'I'm sending you another two shots of men from the Russian's disks who we can't identify. One of them I'm sure is an American.'

  'Don't talk to your friend Flowers about any of this.'

  'Are you going to say that every time I say the word "American"?'

  'Mark Flowers is a very experienced operative. He has an instinct for when things are happening. I'd be very surprised if you didn't hear from him by the end of the day.'

  'So what is happening?'

  'Did you take a look at the mystery man who appeared in Yacoub's house?' asked Pablo, ignoring the question.

  'Never seen him before,' said Falcon.

  They hung up. Falcon stared grimly at the phone, not wanting any of this other, even more complicated, stuff. He called for Ferrera.

  'I'm going to be out until this evening,' he said. 'I want you to go back to Marisa and work on her. Do everything you can to get her into your confidence. She has to tell us who is putting pressure on her.'

  He sat back, tried to breathe down the stress, closed his eyes, thought about Consuelo's goodbye kiss. Everything had been in that kiss. The full complexity of a woman joining her life to his. Then he thought about football in the garden with Dario and remembered the boy's instinctive trust of him the night before, his head on Falcon's chest. The boy had done something for him, brought back memories of his own trust in his mother; those goodnight kisses in Tangier. It bound him to Dario in a way that made him feel both strong and vulnerable. He opened his eyes, placed his hands on the desk, squared his shoulders and, as he raised himself to go to the airport, he suddenly realized what was happening. The process of Javier Falcon becoming a parent had begun, and that was what was different in Consuelo: she'd decided to let him all the way into her life. 'You again,' said Marisa, seeing Cristina Ferrera through the door, open a crack. 'I don't know what the matter is with you people. Half Seville could be robbed and raped, and you'd still come knocking at my door.'

  'That would be because it's my job to investigate
murder,' said Ferrera, 'rather than anything else.'

  Marisa looked her up and down. Her eyes were glazed. Maybe she was drunk or stoned.

  'Specially selected,' said Marisa.

  'For what?' asked Ferrera, sweat gathering under her eyes.

  'Come in,' said Marisa, voice suddenly bored, walking away from the door.

  She was wearing bikini briefs only. She picked up a cigar stub, lit it, leaned against the work bench and blew out smoke.

  'Sweet and virginal,' she said.

  'I used to be a nun,' said Ferrera. 'Maybe that's got something to do with it.'

  Marisa snorted laughter, which came out on a long plume of smoke from her nose.

  'You've got to be kidding.'

  Ferrera stared her down, saw the half-bottle of Havana Club and a can of Coke behind her.

  'I'll put on a top,' said Marisa, found a T-shirt, fought her way into it.

  'Your boss…' she said, and losing her way she rubbished the air with her cigar stub. 'Whatever his name is. He's a clever guy, that one. You don't see many cops like him. You don't see many Sevillanos like him. A clever guy. He's sent you here on your own. He's thinking all the time. He comes in here, looks at my pieces… doesn't say a word. Thinking. Thinking. And he works things out. And that's why you're here, isn't it? The ex-nun. Everything is calculated.'

  'I wasn't a great nun,' said Ferrera, cutting through the drunken babble.

  'No? Why not? You look perfect,' said Marisa. 'I bet you only get guys you like coming after you.'

  'What's that supposed to mean?'

  'I get all sorts of people coming after me,' she said, to herself. 'Tell me why things didn't work out for you as a nun.'

  'I was raped by a couple of guys in Cadiz one night,' said Ferrera, matter of fact. 'I was on my way to see my boyfriend. That's it. That's all you need to know. It wasn't working out for me as a nun. I had weaknesses.'

  Marisa spat out some tobacco from the ragged end of her cigar stub.

  'Even that's calculated,' she said nastily.

  'The only thing that the Inspector Jefe has calculated is that you don't like men very much, so he sent me… a woman.'

  'An ex-nun who's been raped.'

  'He didn't expect me to tell you that.'

  'So why did you?'

  'To show you that I'm not the sweet, virginal little woman you think you see,' said Ferrera. 'I've suffered… maybe not as much, or as continuously, as Margarita is suffering, but enough to know what it's like to be a piece of meat.'

  'Drink?' asked Marisa, as if Ferrera's words had signalled something.

  'No, thanks,' said Ferrera.

  Marisa poured herself a hefty measure of rum and topped it off with Coke.

  'Take a seat,' she said, pointing at a cheap, low stool. 'You look hot.'

  Ferrera sat in the smell of her soap and deodorant mixed with sweat.

  'Do you always drink while you work?' she asked.

  'Never,' said Marisa, relighting her cigar stub.

  'So you're not working?'

  'I'd work if people didn't keep interrupting me.'

  'Other people?' asked Ferrera. 'Apart from us?'

  Marisa nodded. Drank some more.

  'It's not just that he thinks I hate men…' she said, pointing at Ferrera with her cigar stub. 'And I don't hate men. How can I hate them? Only men can satisfy me. I only fuck with men, so how can I hate them? You? Do you only fuck with men? After what those guys did to you?'

  'So what else is it?' asked Ferrera, feeling Marisa's drunken mind swerving away from her.

  'He thinks I killed her,' said Marisa. 'The Inspector Jefe thinks I killed his wife. I mean his ex-wife, Esteban's wife.'

  'He doesn't think that.'

  'Did you know her?'

  'Ines?' asked Ferrera, shaking her head.

  'I don't know why your Inspector Jefe married that one,' said Marisa, pointing to her head, blowing her brains out. 'There was nothing inside.'

  'We all make mistakes,' said Ferrera, some of her own and their consequences flashing through her mind.

  'She was right for Esteban,' said Marisa. 'Absolutely right.'

  'Why do you say that?'

  'Another empty vessel,' said Marisa, knocking on the side of her work bench. 'A hollow man.'

  'So why did you like Esteban?'

  'It's more to do with why did Esteban like me,' said Marisa. 'I was just there. He came after me. It didn't matter what I thought. That's what Sevillano guys are like. They come after you. They don't need any encouragement.'

  'And Cuban guys are different?'

  'They seem to know when you're not right for them. They see who you are.'

  'But you didn't turn Esteban down.'

  'I tell you, Esteban is not my kind of guy,' said Marisa, and her face struggled against the alcohol into a sneer.

  'So what happened?'

  'He pursued me.'

  'You look as if you're old enough to be able to tell a guy that his interest is going to get him nowhere.'

  'Unless…' Marisa said, holding up her finger.

  Some tinny Cuban music started up in the back of the workshop. Marisa staggered off amongst the clutter and picked up her mobile phone. Ferrera gritted her teeth, the moment lost again. Marisa retreated into the darkness and listened intently without saying a word. After some long, silent minutes she dropped the phone and skittered away from it as if she'd suddenly realized it was emitting poison into her ear.

  9

  Consuelo's house, Santa Clara, Seville – Saturday, 16th September 2006,10.30 hrs

  Consuelo was having trouble getting Dario out of the house and into the car. She was on the phone, talking to the estate agent in Madrid who'd found her 'the perfect property' in the Lavapies district of the city. He was selling it hard because he was pushing something that was 'off brief'. Dario was on the computer, playing his favourite soccer game. He was impervious to her occasional shouts to turn the damn thing off, and he only complied when she appeared over his shoulder to wrestle the mouse from his hand. The electricity demands at the airport were such that the air-conditioning was not working at its optimum level. Looking out on to the taxiways where the aircraft unpeeled their tyres from the searing tarmac, Falcon held his jacket slung over his shoulder and put in a call to the only person he wanted to talk to.

  'I'm stuck in traffic,' said Consuelo. 'Dario, will you please just sit down. This is Javi.'

  'Hola, Javi,' shouted Dario.

  'We're on our way to the Nervion Plaza. The only place in the world where we're allowed to buy football boots. You know, the pilgrimage to Sevilla FC.'

  'I'm going to be out of town again today,' said Falcon, 'but I want to see you tonight.'

  'Do you want to see Javi tonight?'

  'Ye-e-es!' roared Dario.

  'I think that sounds as if it would be acceptable.'

  'I love you,' said Falcon, trying that out again, seeing if she would react this time.

  'What was that?'

  'You heard.'

  'The line's breaking up.'

  'I love you, Consuelo,' he said, and it made him feel young and foolish.

  She laughed.

  'Let's go!' roared Dario.

  'Traffic's moving,' she said. 'Hasta pronto.'

  The phone clicked off. He was disappointed. He'd wanted to hear it from her lips, but she wasn't quite ready for that yet, admitting to love in front of her youngest son. He put his hands up on the glass, stared out into the wavering heat and felt a great sense of longing in his chest. How the hell would you fall in love if you were blind? thought Consuelo, phone in her lap, traffic at a standstill again. Smell would be important. Not the quality of a man's aftershave, although that in itself would tell you something, but rather his… musk. Nothing sharp or rancid and not soapy or fragrant, but not too manly either. Voice, too, would have powerful effects. You wouldn't want to listen to somebody whiny or booming, nothing guttural or sibilant. Then there was touch: the feel of a
man's hand. No limpness, pudginess, nor clamminess. Dry and strong, but not crushing. Delicate, but not effeminate. Electric, but not furtive. And then there were the lips. The crucial mouth. How his lips fitted on to yours. Just the right amount of give. Not hard, unyielding, nor soft and mushy. Kissing blind would tell you everything. Is that why we close our eyes?

  'Mama?' said Dario.

  Consuelo wasn't listening. She was too engrossed in her imagination, thinking how well Javier scored on smell, voice and touch. She'd never believed, after her marriage to Raul Jimenez, that she would ever think these foolish things again.

  'Mama?'

  'What, Dario?'

  'You're not listening to me.'

  'I am, sweetie, it's just that Mama's thinking, too.'

  'Mama?'

  'Yes.'

  'You missed the turning.'

  She squeezed his knee so that he yelped and made the complicated series of turns to get back to the Nervion Plaza parking.

  'Mama?' said Dario, as they descended into the underground car park, ground to a halt in the queue to go in.

  'What is it, darling?' said Consuelo, feeling that the first three inquiring 'Mama's' had been a prelude to some big, burning question, dying to be asked.

  'Do you still love me now that Javi is with us?'

  She looked at him, big eyes beseeching her, felt her insides collapse. How do we know these things? Even at eight years old he can tell something important might be swerving away from him. She stroked his head and cheek.

  'But you're my little man,' she said. 'The most important one in the world.'

  Dario smiled, that small confrontation with sadness instantly forgotten. He pushed his fists between his knees and hunched his shoulders up to his ears as his world fell back into place. The driver of the black Jaguar didn't say a word. The car sped along the M4 motorway into London. Falcon was cold, underdressed for the season, and he was feeling a Spaniard's uneasiness for silence in company, until he remembered his father, Francisco, telling him that the English liked to talk about the weather. But as he looked out on to the dull, grey, flat landscape overhung by dull, grey, pendulous clouds, he could find nothing to say about it. Couldn't imagine what anybody would find to say about it. He put his face close to the window to help him perceive what a local person might see in such unmitigated dullness and thought it might be what you couldn't see.