'I'm not going to get back until ten thirty tonight at the earliest,' said Falcon. 'Let me talk to her… in private.'
'Hold on a second, Javier.'
While listening to the extended muffled conversation at the other end, Falcon tried to think of consoling things to say to Consuelo, but he knew that no words of comfort ever worked in these situations.
'Cristina's found a couple living in an apartment block on Avenida de Eduardo Dato. They have a perfect view of the Sevilla FC stadium and the shop,' said Ramirez. 'They saw two people dressed in black jackets, black jeans and baseball caps with a small boy in between them, who was wearing a Sevilla FC scarf, but appeared to be struggling and not particularly happy. One of the adults was carrying a box. When they arrived at a car parked in front of the couple's block, one of the adults got in the back with the boy. The one carrying the box threw it on the ground, got in the driver's seat and drove off. They managed to see that it was a red Fiat Punto and had an old Seville number plate. Cristina's recovered the box, which contained a pair of football boots bought today from a shop called Decimas.'
'Take that news and the football boots in to Consuelo and the GRUME officers,' said Falcon, 'and let me speak to Cristina.'
Ferrera came on the line.
'Did you go and see Marisa?' asked Falcon.
'This morning, just after you left.'
'Every time I went to see Marisa I got a threatening phone call afterwards.'
'And you think they've taken their threat one step further.'
'I know they have,' said Falcon. 'I went to see Marisa late last night and I got a call just before I met Consuelo for dinner about ten minutes after midnight. The voice told me that something would happen and when it did I would know that it was my fault and I would recognize it. These people know me. They know my vulnerabilities. Whoever is coercing Marisa has kidnapped Dario. It's the next logical step.'
Falcon was talking to her in his usual measured way, but for the first time in four years working for him, she could hear a trembling at the edges of his voice that told her he was afraid. She knew he was close to the boy. He was always asking her questions about what her own son was like at eight years old; what he was interested in, what he liked to do. Her boss was learning how to be a father, and he'd just been thrown in the deep end.
'I'll go and see Marisa again,' she said.
'How was she the last time?'
'She was in a state. Drunk on rum. She was just opening up to me when she got a call. Then she fell to pieces, couldn't get rid of me quick enough.'
'Go and see her now, Cristina,' he said. 'As soon as possible. Get the pressure back on her. Tell her they've kidnapped a child. Work on her emotions. Make her… suffer. Do whatever you have to.'
'I'll do it. Don't worry,' she said. 'But what about the GRUME officers? Technically, it's their investigation. We're only involved because Consuelo called Ramirez when she was trying to find you.'
'We'd already started a line of inquiry with Marisa Moreno. She is a suspect in a conspiracy to murder case. GRUME will obviously have to be kept informed, but you are going to lose valuable time bringing them up to speed. So you go to see Marisa and I will explain our position to GRUME. Now let me speak to Consuelo while Ramirez is talking to GRUME about what you found out from that couple on Avenida de Eduardo Dato,' said Falcon. 'That was good, fast work, Cristina.'
Ferrera called Consuelo into the empty corridor, handed her the phone.
'Where are you?' she said, hugging the phone to her cheek.
'I can't tell you. It's not police business and I can't talk about it. All I can say is that I'm a flight away and I'm on the road to the airport. I'll be with you before midnight.'
'Cristina found witnesses who saw two people leading Dario away. I've seen the football boots. They're the ones I just bought for him,' she said, the emotion constricting her throat, having to squeeze the words past the barrier. 'They were leading Dario away, Javier.'
Consuelo was not prepared for this. Now that she was talking to him, all the powers that made her such a formidable person to deal with in business, that enabled her to run her complicated life, that made people sit up in the presence of her personality, deserted her. She found herself in the same state she'd been in with Alicia Aguado, holding her hand; the lost little girl, the troubled teenager, the adult gone awry, the mature woman on the edge of insanity.
Falcon, after that little logistical exchange, came to an unexpected halt in the face of his insurmountable guilt. All that cold, black hideousness that he'd felt on reading her messages rose in his chest. She was coming to him for help, for comfort, for solutions. And all he could think of was that he was the cause of her terrible predicament. He could feel her desperation, her need to melt into him, but, having wanted that more than anything else in his life this morning, he now found he was insoluble to her substance.
'This is what you have to do,' said Falcon, whose only recourse was to the professional in him. 'There's going to be CCTV footage of the two people…'
'The Nervion Plaza's CCTV doesn't go out that far.'
'Those two people will have had to come into the shopping centre to find you. They will have been looking at you for some time before they saw their opportunity. You have to look at all the available footage and find them. Then when you've found them you have to think where you've seen them before, because, Consuelo, those two people have been somewhere in your life. They might have been at the very periphery of it, but they have been there. Nobody can do what they've just done without any planning, without having watched you and Dario for some time.'
'But maybe somebody else did all that and these people just did the… the abducting.'
'That's possible, but at some stage those people will have had to see their target. You should talk to the school, take Inspector Jefe Tirado with you and talk to the teachers and other children, not just the ones in his class.'
'I need you here, Javier,' she said.
'And I'm going to be there, but in the meantime this is the most important moment. Remember that. The first hours are critical. You have to clear your mind of everything and concentrate only on what can help us find Dario.'
A deep breath from Consuelo.
'You're right,' she said.
'When you see those two people on the CCTV footage – and I promise you, they will be there – they might not be in their baseball caps, or they might be in reversible jackets, but they will be there, Consuelo. You will have seen them.'
'I've seen them,' she said.
'What do you mean?'
'I remember now. Two men. They looked straight at me when I was on the phone in Decimas, waiting to pay for the football boots. I noticed their look.'
'Think about them when you're looking at the CCTV footage. Ask the security people to play the footage from outside Decimas first and when you see those two men look at everything about them. The way they walk, their size, height, clothes, hands and feet, jewellery – anything that will give you a clue, that will jog your memory of where you have seen them before. That's all you do, Consuelo, think about that, answer the questions from Inspector Jefe Tirado and nothing else. I'll be back tonight and we'll find him.'
'Javier?'
'Yes.'
'I love you,' she said. 'You again,' said Marisa, face impassive, rubbery with alcohol, her eyes rheumy. 'Still haven't found anything better to do?'
She let the door fall back, revealed herself in bikini briefs again, a fat smouldering joint in her fingers. The smell of rum was strong, its sweetness mixed in with the hashish.
'Come in, little nun, come in. I'm not going to bite you.'
Marisa walked extravagantly to the work bench, swivelled and landed heavily on a stool. She swayed backwards and managed to sweep up a glass of Cuba libre and sipped it with distaste. It was warm and sticky. She licked her lips.
'What you looking at?' she asked, her face weak and evil by turns.
'You.'
Marisa posed with her legs spread, ran a finger under the waistband of her briefs.
'Fancy a bit of that?' she asked. 'Bet you had to do a bit of that in nun school, or whatever they call it.'
'Shut up, Marisa,' said Cristina. 'I'll make some coffee.'
'Your boss,' said Marisa, adopting a mock sexualized tone, 'the Inspector Jefe – he knows why he sent you here. He thinks I'm into that. Hates men, loves -'
Marisa stopped dead as Cristina lashed her across the face with her open palm. It knocked her off the stool. She dropped the joint, hunted for it among the wood shavings, replugged it into her mouth, got to her feet blinking, tears streaking her cheeks. Cristina made the coffee, forced her to drink water, got her into a T-shirt and a robe.
'No amount of alcohol or dope is going to stop you thinking about what you've got on your mind, Marisa.'
'How the fuck do you know what I've got on my mind?'
Cristina got up close, grabbed hold of Marisa's chin, made those lazy eyes pop open. She took the joint from her fingers, crushed it underfoot.
'Every time the Inspector Jefe has come to see you he's taken a threatening phone call afterwards from the same people holding Margarita,' she said. 'He got a call last night. They told him something bad was going to happen. And this morning the Inspector Jefe's partner is in the Nervion Plaza, and what happens, Marisa? Are you listening to me?'
She nodded, Cristina was hurting her.
'They kidnapped her son. Eight years old. They led him off, stuffed him in the back of a car,' said Cristina. 'So now, because you won't talk to us, an innocent child is suffering. And you know what these people are like, don't you, Marisa?'
Marisa jerked her head back, tore her chin out of Cristina's grip, paced the floor with her arms over her head, trying to close it all out.
'Eight-year-old little boy,' said Cristina. 'And you know what they said, Marisa? They said that we would never hear from them again. So, because you won't talk, the little boy's gone and we will never get him back. Not unless you -'
Marisa stamped her foot, clenched her fists, looked up to an unseen, uncaring God.
'That's the point, little nun,' she said. 'They'd do anything, these people. You know, they have guys who don't care one way or the other. A girl, a baby, an eight-year-old boy – it doesn't make any difference to them. And if I speak to you, if I say one word…'
'We can protect you. I can have a patrol car around here -'
'You can protect me,' said Marisa. 'You can put me in a concrete bunker for the rest of my life and that would give them pleasure because they would know that all I'd think about would be Margarita and the terrible things they would do to her. That is how these people operate. Why do you think they've got her anyway? An innocent teenager.'
'I'm listening, Marisa.'
'When my father died, he had a debt on his club in Gijon. My mother scraped together money from wherever she could to pay them. Then she got ill. They took Margarita to clear the debt,' said Marisa. 'But you see, we didn't really owe them money. They had my father's club. They had made money out of him all his life, even when he was on the Sugar Board in Cuba. But then they saw some helpless women and they invented a debt, an unrepayable debt. My sister will whore for them until she's finished. And when she's dried out and gaping from the drugs and the endless fucking, they'll kick her out on to the street and let her live in the gutter. To them, livestock has more value.'
12
Flight London/Seville – Saturday, 16th September 2006, 20.15 hrs
He hadn't been able to respond. He'd waited for those words all this time and when they'd come he couldn't say them back. Why not? Because the words that had so comforted her and elicited those heavily guarded and locked-away sentiments had come from the office of Inspector Jefe Javier Falcon. He'd said those words to hundreds of people staring down the empty luge run that opened up when they learned that somebody close to them had been murdered. It had been taught to him by a retired Norwegian detective at the police academy back in the 1980s. When Per Aarvik had told them that the luge run was unavoidable for those closest to the victim, he'd had to start by describing what a luge run was. Its icy insanity sounded terrifying to a class of Spanish twenty-year-olds. And, as Per Aarvik said, everybody went through it, but if you wanted someone to be of use to you in your investigation you had to focus their mind, steady their nerve, point them in the right direction and, by the time you let them go, make them believe that you would be with them to the end. If you said it right, if you believed in it yourself, they would love you as they would close family.
Consuelo loved him for the course he'd done at the police academy. Per would have been proud.
Clear the mind. This is avoidance thinking. He could see what was happening to him. The stress of the flight had been terrible, even though, with the plane full, they'd had to put him in business class. He'd sipped a whisky and water, gnawed on his thumbnail and writhed deeper into his luxurious seat at the thought of Dario in the hands of strangers. She would know as soon as she looked into his face that he was guilty, that he was the cause of her most loved son's abduction.
If he told her she would not forgive him.
If he didn't tell her she would never forgive him.
There was only hope in the first course of action.
And he'd have to find the boy.
He called Cristina Ferrera as he trotted through the arrivals hall at Seville airport. It was 10.35 p.m., he'd lost an hour to the time difference. Ferrera had stayed with Marisa for two hours and the Cuban hadn't cracked. She'd walked her home, given her some aspirin and put her to bed. Marisa hadn't even been prepared to confirm that it was the Russians who'd taken her sister and who were putting her under such extreme pressure not to talk. She wouldn't admit to knowing Vasili Lukyanov. She wouldn't talk about the purpose of her relationship with Calderon. She'd never got drunk enough to forget her fear.
'You took her home,' said Falcon. 'That's good.'
'I think I'm all she's got.'
'What are you doing tonight?'
'I'm going to bed so that I can get up tomorrow to take the kids to the beach on the way down to Cadiz for lunch with my mother.'
'Of course you are.'
'And you?'
'I thought I'd do the first shift on a twenty-four-hour surveillance of Marisa Moreno.'
'For which you have no budget,' said Ferrera. 'What about Consuelo?'
'I don't think she'll want to see me for very long.'
'You're going to tell her?'
'The alternative is not an option.'
'I'll go and sit outside Marisa's apartment. Relieve me when you can.'
'What about the kids?'
'My neighbour's good for a few hours, but I'm not going to be able to get to Marisa's immediately,' she said. 'I haven't eaten.'
'As soon as you can.'
Falcon kept on the run to his car where he called Inspector Jefe Tirado from the Crimes Against Children squad. They'd already spoken at Heathrow. Tirado was on the road somewhere.
'I've just left Senora Jimenez,' he said. 'She's with her sister and her other two boys. She's remarkably calm. A doctor's been round to check her out – blood pressure, that kind of thing. She's fine. He's given her some sleeping pills and something for anxiety, which she says she won't take.'
'How's it going on your side?'
'The big news is that we've found them on CCTV.'
'Good footage?'
'Not bad, but not a lot of it. Senora Jimenez has it with her. She's looking at it.'
'Any more witnesses?'
'We haven't been able to add much more detail beyond what Cristina Ferrera found out this morning,' said Tirado. 'We have to hope that when they said they wouldn't make contact they were just adding a level of threat. It would be unusual if they didn't make demands eventually, but I reckon they'll make her sweat until Monday.'
'What about the press?'
'It was too late for the Sunday editions and I w
anted to hold back on the Monday papers, give Senora Jimenez some time to collect herself. It will be big news. We made some announcements on local radio so they're pushing for the story, and I've a feeling that Canal Sur are already sniffing around the Jefatura.'
'I'm going to mount some surveillance on Marisa Moreno.'
'Cristina Ferrera told me about her,' said Tirado. 'So you think the Russians will make contact?'
'Can you spare any manpower for the surveillance?'
'I thought you might ask me that,' he said. 'Look, Javier, you've got a good theory about why the boy was taken, but I can't give up on all other lines of inquiry just yet. If they'd made contact and we were in negotiations, then that would be different. But I've got to find this guy who assaulted her near the Plaza del Pumarejo and, according to her sister, appeared later at her house. I haven't started on her business associates and I haven't even looked at the enemies of Raul Jimenez. And it is his son we're talking about. I never knew the guy, but I've heard he wasn't everybody's friend. You know what they say about revenge.'
Still close to 36°C at 11.00 p.m. Falcon pulled away from the airport with the faint smell of jet fuel coming through the air-con. It made him think of escape. His palms were sweaty. Yes, he wouldn't mind escaping now. He tried to think of things to say to Consuelo. Still nothing believable from the heart came to him. That thoroughfare seemed to be blocked off, barricaded with guilt.
Cars flashed past him on the motorway; he'd slowed to just sixty kilometres per hour, his reluctance for the next scene subconsciously finding its way to his foot. He crossed the ring road. The Barrio de Santa Clara was just there, an enclosed nest of wealth surrounded by industrial zones and the drug dens of Poligono San Pablo.
He parked. Rang the bell at the gate. The front door opened. A silhouette appeared. He walked into her arms like an impostor. Felt her warm breath on his fraudulent neck. Some wetness touched his cheating cheek. He held her. She clung to him tightly. He patted her back, because he'd been told that it reminded everyone of the comforting memory of their mother's beating heart from the womb.
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