Читать книгу The Blind Man of Seville - Robert Thomas Wilson, Robert Wilson - Страница 11

Thursday, 12th April 2001, Edificio de los Juzgados, Seville

‘I think Eloisa Gómez let him in,’ said Ramírez as they crossed the river.

‘Baena and Serrano haven’t got anybody outside the Edificio Presidente,’ said Falcón. ‘And I prefer that scenario to the killer climbing up the lifting gear and hiding in the apartment for half a day, even though it was empty apart from a short visit from Sra Jiménez. Was the girl scared?’

‘Didn’t say a word to me after we finished the interrogation.’

‘Does she believe us?’

‘Who knows?’

The Edificio de los Juzgados was next to the Palacio de Justicia, just opposite the Jardines de Murillo. It was well past five o’clock when Falcón and Ramírez parked up at the back of the court building. Falcón, who hated to be late, wanted to break the comb that Ramírez was putting through his black, brilliantined hair into ten little pieces. His murderous glare had no effect on the Inspector, who considered that they were early and his coiffure a priority — there could be secretaries about.

The two men in their dark suits, white shirts and sunglasses went to the front of the dull grey building — the monochrome of justice in the garden city. They put their briefcases through the X-ray machine and showed their ID. The place was quiet; almost everything happened in the morning. They went upstairs to Juez Calderón’s office on the first floor. The building was dark, even grim, on the inside. Nothing pretty about justice even when it was good and true.

Ramírez asked about Lobo and Falcón told him that pressure was already coming down from Comisario León and mentioned the corruption angle. Ramírez looked bored.

Calderón was not in his office. Ramírez slumped in a chair and played with a gold ring he had on his middle finger which was set with three diamonds. The ring had always bothered Falcón, too feminine for the mahogany muscularity of Ramírez.

‘We’re going to have to make something of that time-wasting maricón, Lucena,’ said Ramírez brutally, ‘or we’re going to look like incompetents in our first meeting with the new boy.’

Falcón let his eyes ripple over the book-lined room. Ramírez stretched out.

‘You know, I think even if you fuck both women and men, that deep down you’re a maricón,’ he said.

‘Even if it was just a one-off?’ said Falcón.

‘It’s not something you can experiment with, Inspector Jefe. It’s in your genes. If you can even think about it … you’re a maricón.’

‘Let’s not get into this with Juez Calderón.’

The young judge arrived at a quarter to six, sat at his desk and got straight down to business. He was now in the role of the Juez de Instrucción, which meant that he had ultimate responsibility for the direction of the case and bringing the necessary evidence for a conviction successfully to court.

‘What have we got?’ he asked.

Ramírez yawned. Calderón lit a cigarette, chucked the pack at Ramírez, who took one. They smoked while Falcón wondered how these two men had got to know each other … until he remembered the football. Betis losing 4–0 on the day the killer shot his movie of Raúl and his sons. Where did that ease come from? He tried to remember if he’d ever had it. He must have done and lost it somewhere in his youth when his work had become too serious, or perhaps he’d become too serious about his work?

‘Who’s going to begin?’ asked Calderón.

‘Let’s start with the body,’ said Falcón, and gave a resumé of the autopsy.

‘How did he think the eyelids were removed?’ asked Calderón.

‘Initial incision by scalpel, and the cutting done by scissors. He thought it was a good job.’

‘And we think this was done to force him to watch something on the television?’

‘The severity of the self-inflicted wounds would suggest that the man was horrified by what had been done to him as well as what he was being forced to watch,’ said Falcón.

‘I’d go along with that,’ said Calderón, unconsciously fingering his eyelids. ‘Any thoughts on what the killer showed him?’

Ramírez shook his head. No room for that sort of conjecture in his hard cranium.

‘I think we only know our own worst nightmares, not those of others,’ said Falcón, trying not to be patronizing.

‘Yes, I hate rats,’ said Calderón cheerfully.

‘My wife can’t be in the same room as a spider,’ said Ramírez, ‘ … even if it’s on television.’

The two men laughed.

‘This is something a little stronger than a phobia,’ said Falcón, stuck in the schoolmaster role. ‘And conjecture isn’t going to help us right now, we need to concentrate more on motive.’

‘Motive,’ said Calderón, nodding the task into himself. ‘You’ve spoken to Sra Jiménez?’

‘She gave me her motive for killing her husband or having him killed,’ said Falcón. ‘Their marriage was not successful, she had a lover, and she and the children would inherit everything.’

‘The lover,’ said Calderón, ‘did you speak to him?’

‘We did, because he was recorded as entering the Edificio Presidente about half an hour before Raúl Jiménez was murdered. He’s also a lecturer in biochemistry at the university.’

‘Opportunity and expertise,’ said Calderón.

‘As well as access to chloroform and lab instruments,’ said Ramírez, so that Calderón had to check him for irony or stupidity.

‘So?’ asked Calderón, hands open, waiting for the obvious.

Falcón gave him the bad news that Lucena was on his way up to Marciano Ruíz’s apartment on the eighth floor.

‘I know that name,’ said Calderón. ‘Isn’t he a theatre director?’

‘And a well-known mariquita,’ finished Ramírez.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Calderón.

‘He was fucking them both,’ said Ramírez. ‘He said he was fucking her because she reminded him of his mother.’

‘What’s all this about?’

‘Lucena was trying to offend Inspector Ramírez,’ said Falcón.

‘But not you,’ said Calderón smoothly. ‘Are you going to arrest him?’

‘First of all, I don’t think these people are stupid enough to walk into the security cameras … ‘

‘Unless they’re being very intelligent and subtle about it,’ said Calderón. ‘For instance, we never see the lover in the Familia Jiménez movie, do we? We only see his address.’

‘You’re forgetting the prostitute, Eloisa Gómez,’ said Falcón. ‘If Lucena was the killer he would have been in the apartment, filming her having sex with Raúl Jiménez as we saw on the movie. The girl was taped leaving the building at three minutes past one and was back on the Alameda at one-thirty. Basilio Lucena was still in the Hotel Colón with Sra Jiménez. I’ve worked on the timings to see if it’s still possible, and it is, but highly improbable.’

‘Well, that was nearly exciting,’ said Calderón. ‘When did Lucena leave the building?’

‘No record,’ said Falcón. ‘He says he left in the morning with Marciano Ruíz.’

‘Why no record?’

‘The camera links in the garage had been cut,’ said Ramírez, which was news to Falcón. ‘According to the Policía Científica they were severed with pliers.’

‘So that was the way in?’ asked Calderón, trying to get through to more interesting information.

‘It was definitely the way out,’ said Falcón. ‘The problem, though, was not just to get into the building without being seen, but to get into the apartment as well. Raúl Jiménez was very security conscious. He always locked his door, which needed five turns of the key — and that was confirmed by the prostitute, who heard him while she was waiting for the lift.’

‘So how did the killer get in?’

Falcón gave him the theory of the lifting gear on the back of the Mudanzas Triana removals truck. Calderón played with that idea in his head.

‘So he gets into the apartment, which admittedly is empty, but he hides in it for twelve hours and he’s even brought his video camera with him to record Raúl Jiménez with a whore? That doesn’t sound …’

‘If that was the case, I don’t think that part of it was planned,’ said Falcón. ‘I think he did that in a moment of arrogance. He wanted to show us that he’d been there all the time. If he hadn’t filmed them we’d have known much less. We’d probably still be wasting our time with Basilio Lucena. So we can thank the killer for that small slip, along with the forgotten chloroform rag, because with each of these mistakes he’s telling us something about himself.’

‘That he’s an amateur,’ said Calderón.

‘But an amateur with nerve,’ said Falcón, ‘He’ll take risks and he likes to tease.’

‘Psychopathic?’

‘Driven and playful,’ replied Falcón. ‘With not a lot to lose.’

‘And some surgical expertise,’ said Ramírez.

Falcón gave him the second scenario — Eloisa Gómez letting in her lover or low-life friend to kill Raúl Jiménez.

‘Nothing was stolen,’ said Ramírez. ‘The place was practically empty, so the only reason for getting in there was to kill Raúl Jiménez.’

‘How did she stand up to the interrogation?’

‘She toughed it out,’ said Ramírez.

‘You’ll go back to her though, won’t you?’ said Calderón.

In the quiet that followed their nods Falcón gave Calderón a short report about his discussion with Lobo on the level of corruption in the building of Expo ‘92 and Raúl Jiménez’s involvement. He mentioned the warning he was given by the Comisario.

‘If there’s corruption associated with this murder I have to be free to talk about it,’ said Calderón, eyes alight, suddenly the crusading judge.

‘You are, of course,’ said Falcón. ‘But there are some sensitive issues here and important people, who, even if they’re clean, might not like the associations. You remember who was in those photographs from your side: Bellido and Spinola, to name two.’

‘It’s ten years old, anyway,’ said Calderón, idealism instantly doused.

‘That’s not so long to hold a grudge,’ said Falcón, and the two men looked at him as if he might be holding several simultaneously.

Falcón gave a report on his conversation with Consuelo Jiménez and handed over the print-out of the address book, mentioning that the killer had stolen Raúl Jiménez’s mobile. Calderón ran his finger down the list. Ramírez yawned and lit another cigarette.

‘So what you’re saying,’ said Calderón, ‘is that despite that terrible scenario the killer left in the apartment, despite all the interviews and statements so far … we actually have no definite leads?’

‘We still have Sra Consuelo Jiménez as the prime suspect. She is the only one with defined motive and she has the means to execute it. Eloisa Gómez is a possible accomplice to a murderer acting on his own.’

‘Or not,’ said Calderón. ‘The killer could still be paid for by Sra Jiménez and, if that’s the case, I’m sure she wouldn’t want to draw attention to herself by giving the killer his own key. She would have told him to find his own way in.’

‘And he’d use the prostitute or the lifting gear?’ asked Ramírez. ‘I know what I’d do.’

‘If he used the girl to get in why would he film her?’ asked Calderón. ‘That doesn’t make sense. It makes more sense the other way round — to show us how brilliant he is.’

‘There’s possibilities and improbabilities in both scenarios,’ said Falcón.

‘Do you both have Sra Jiménez down as a serious candidate for having her husband killed?’

Ramírez said yes, Falcón no.

‘Which way do you want to take the case, Inspector Jefe?’

Falcón cracked his knuckles one by one. Calderón winced. Falcón didn’t want to have to come clean just yet about what his instinct was telling him. He needed more time to think. There were enough extraordinary things about this case already without him suggesting that they take a look at what had happened to Raúl Jiménez in the late 1960s. But he was the leader and as such he had to have the ideas.

‘We should work on both scenarios and on Raúl Jiménez’s address list,’ he said. ‘I think we have to maintain a presence in and around the building to try to find a witness who will corroborate one theory of the killer’s entry and possibly give us a description. We need to interview the removals company. And we should keep the pressure up on both Consuelo Jiménez and Eloisa Gómez.’

There was no argument from Calderón.

They were driving back to the Jefatura on Blas Infante. Ramírez was at the wheel. As they crossed the river to the Plaza de Cuba, the advertisement for Cruzcampo beer triggered a sudden parched quality to the Inspector’s throat. He wouldn’t mind one, he thought, but not with Falcón. He wanted to drink with somebody more convivial than Falcón.

What do you think, Inspector Jefe?’ he asked, jerking Falcón out of his reflection on how awkward his first meeting with the young judge had been.

‘I think more or less what I said to Juez Calderón.’

‘No, no, I don’t think so,’ said Ramírez, tapping the steering wheel. ‘I know you, Inspector Jefe.’

That turned Falcón in his seat. The idea that Ramírez had the first idea on how his mind worked was nearly laughable to him.

‘Tell me, Inspector,’ he said.

‘You were telling him things while you were thinking something else,’ replied Ramírez. ‘I mean, you know that going through that address book is going to be as big a waste of time as, say, interviewing those kids that Sra Jiménez fired.’

‘I don’t know that,’ said Falcón. ‘And you know that the basics have to be done. We have to be seen to be thorough.’

‘But you don’t think there’s a connection, do you?’

‘I’ve an open mind.’

‘This is the work of a psychopath and you know it, Inspector Jefe.’

‘If I was a psychopath and I enjoyed killing people, I wouldn’t choose an apartment on the sixth floor of the Edificio Presidente with all the complications it-entailed.’

‘He likes to show off.’

‘He’s studied these people. He’s got to know his target. He’s been specific,’ said Falcón. ‘He will have seen them visiting their new house. He will have seen the removals people coming to the apartment …’

‘We need to talk to them first thing tomorrow,’ said Ramírez. ‘Missing overalls, that sort of thing.’

‘It’s Viernes Santo tomorrow,’ said Falcón. Good Friday.

Ramírez pulled into the car park at the back of the Jefatura.

‘Motive,’ he said, getting out of the car. ‘Why are you taking the bitch out of the frame?’

‘The bitch?’

‘Those boys I spoke to, the ones who were glad to get away from Consuelo Jiménez, they didn’t have a good word to say about her personally, but professionally, they said she was brilliant.’

‘And that’s unusual in Seville?’ said Falcón.

‘It is for that kind of woman, the wife of a rich husband. Normally they don’t like to get their hands dirty and they’ll only talk to the Marqués y Marquesa de No Sé Que. But Sra Jiménez, apparently, did everything.’

‘Like?’

‘She washed salad, chopped vegetables, cooked revuel-tos, waited at table, went to the market, paid the wages and kept the books, and she did the talking and the greeting, too.’

‘So what’s your point?’

‘She loved that business. She made it her business. The new place they opened in La Macarena — that was her idea. She made all the drawings, supervised the building of the interiors, decorated it, found the right staff — everything. The only thing she didn’t touch was the menu, because she knows that people go there for the menu. Simple, classic Sevillano dishes done to perfection.’

‘You sound as if you’ve been there?’

‘Best salmorejo in Seville. Best pan de casa in Seville. Best jamón, best revueltos, best chuletillas … best everything. And reasonable, too. Not exclusive either, although they always keep a table for the toreros and other idiots.’

Ramírez shouldered through the door at the back of the Jefatura, held it open for Falcón and followed him up the stairs.

‘Where are you taking me on this?’ asked Falcón.

‘How do you think she’d react, say, if her husband decided to sell the business?’ asked Ramírez, which stopped Falcón mid step. ‘I didn’t bring it up in front of Calderón, because I’ve only got those two boys’ word for it.’

‘Now I’m glad it was you who talked to them,’ said Falcón. ‘What did I just say about the basics?’

‘You still won’t get me to work through that address book,’ said Ramírez.

‘So these boys saw Raúl Jiménez talking to somebody?’

‘Have you heard of a restaurant chain called Cinco Bellotas run by a guy called Joaquín López? He’s young, dynamic and he’s got good backing. He’s one of the few people in Seville who could buy and run Raúl Jiménez’s restaurants tomorrow.’

‘Any connection between him and Sra Jiménez?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s a very elaborate plan. Elaborate and gruesome,’ said Falcón, continuing up the stairs, toeing the outer door to his office. ‘Ask yourself this question, Inspector: Who could she possibly have found, and what kind of payment would it have taken, to persuade someone to do all that preliminary filming, get into an apartment like that and torture an old man to death?’

‘Depends how badly she wants it,’ said Ramírez. ‘There’s no innocence there, if you ask me.’

The two men looked out of the window of Falcón’s office at the diminishing ranks of cars in the darkening evening.

‘And, look, the other thing,’ said Falcón, ‘whatever the killer showed Raúl Jiménez was for real. He didn’t want to see it, which was why the killer had to cut …’

Ramírez nodded, sighed, his brainwork done for the day. He lit a cigarette without thinking or remembering that Falcón detested smoking in his office.

‘So what is your angle, Inspector Jefe?’

Falcón found that his focus had shortened. He was no longer staring out over the emptying car park but was looking at his own reflection in the glass. He seemed hollow-eyed, vacant, unseeing, even sinister.

The killer was forcing him to see,’ he said.

‘But what?’

‘We’ve all got something that we’re ashamed of, something that when we think of it we shudder with embarrassment or something worse than embarrassment.’

Ramírez stiffened beside him, the man solidifying, his carapace suddenly there, impenetrable. Nobody tinkered inside Ramírez’s works. Falcón checked him in the glass, decided to make it easier for the Sevillano.

‘You know, like when you were a kid, making a fool of yourself with a girl, or perhaps being cowardly, failing to protect somebody who was your friend, or a moral weakness — not standing up for something you believed in because you could get beaten up. These sorts of things, but transferred to an adult life with adult implications.’

Ramírez looked down at his tie, which was about as introspective as he’d ever been.

‘Do you mean the sort of things that Comisario Lobo warned you about?’

This struck Falcón as brilliantly deflective. Corruption — the manageable stain. Machine wash, rinse and spin. Forgotten. It’s only money. All part of the game.

‘No,’ he said.

Ramírez drifted towards the door, announced that he was packing it in for the day. Falcón dismissed him via the glass.

He was suddenly exhausted. The massive day settled on his shoulders. He closed his eyes and instead of the thought of dinner, a glass of wine and sleep, he found his mind still turning, spiralling around the question:

What could be so terrible?