Robert Wilson - The Hidden Assassins

'We now have a name for that body. He's called Tateb Hassani,' said Falcon. 'You didn't sound very sure of that word "reliable".'

'He drinks, which is never a good thing for a court to hear, and I'm not sure we could ever get him to court anyway.'

'Tell me what the guy saw and we'll worry about his credentials if it gets us anywhere.'

'He lives in an apartment at the end of a cul-de-sac just off Calle Boteros. His daughter owns the third and fourth floors of this building. She lives on the third and her father lives above. Both apartments have the perfect view of those bins on the corner of Calle Boteros.'

'I'm sure that's why the daughter bought them,' said Falcon. 'And what's this guy doing awake at three in the morning, looking out of his window?'

'He's an insomniac, or rather he can't sleep at night, only during the day,' she said. 'He sleeps from eight until four. The daughter wouldn't let me disturb him until she'd given him lunch. She knows that if she breaks his routine it'll be hell for her for a week.'

'He goes straight into lunch?' said Falcon. 'She doesn't give him breakfast?'

'He likes to drink wine, so she gives him something substantial to eat with it.'

'So, what's his problem exactly?'

'Quite unusual for a Sevillano: he's agoraphobic. He can't go outside and he can't bear more than two people in a room.'

'I see the problem with the court appearance now,' said Falcon. 'Anyway, he was awake at three in the morning, but not so drunk that he couldn't see what was going on by the bins.'

'He was drunk, but he says it doesn't affect his vision,' said Ferrera. 'Just after three o'clock on Sunday morning, he saw a large, dark estate car pull into the cul-de-sac and reverse back towards the bins. The driver and passenger got out of the front, both male, and a third man got out of the back. The driver stood in the middle of Calle Boteros, and looked up and down. The other men opened the boot. They checked the bins, which were empty at that time of night, tipped one of them on its side and leaned it against the rear of the car. They reached into the back and dragged something into the bin. They manoeuvred the bin, which now appeared heavy, back up to the pavement and returned to the rear of the car. They removed two black bin liners, which the witness described as bulky but light, and swung them into the bin on top of whatever they'd just put in there. They closed the bin. The driver slammed the boot shut. They got back into the car, reversed into Calle Boteros and headed off in the direction of the Alfalfa.'

'Could he give you anything on the three men?'

'He thought, from the way they moved, that the two guys who did the work were young-by that he meant around thirty. The driver was older, thicker around the waist. They were all dressed in dark clothes, but seemed to be wearing what looked like white gloves. I assume he means latex gloves. The driver and one of the younger men had dark hair and the third was either bald or had had his head shaved.'

'Not bad for an old drunk in an attic,' said Falcon.

'There's some street lighting on that corner,' said Ferrera. 'But, still…not bad for someone who his daughter says will drink until he falls over.'

'Just don't include that in his witness statement,' said Falcon. 'What about these two "bulky but light" bin liners they threw on top of the body?'

'He thought they probably contained something like gardening detritus-hedge clippings, that sort of thing.'

'Why?'

'He's seen that sort of stuff thrown in there before, but at the end of the afternoon, not at three in the morning.'

'Have you found any large houses in that area which might have that quantity of gardening detritus?' asked Falcon. 'It's mostly apartments around the Alfalfa.'

'They could have picked up a couple of bin liners of stuff from anywhere,' said Ferrera.

'If they'd done that, those bin liners would have come out first, whereas, according to your friend, they dealt with "something heavy" first.'

'I'll see what I can find.'

'Come to think of it, Felipe and Jorge said they had a bin liner of clippings that they'd picked up near the body on the rubbish dump,' said Falcon. 'I'll see if they've had time to have a look at it, yet.'

Ramirez called as Falcon was on his way out to the forensics' tent.

'The Imam's mobile phone records,' said Ramirez. 'The CNI have got them and they won't release them to me. Or rather, Pablo said he would look into it, but now he doesn't take or return my calls.'

'I'll see what I can do,' said Falcon.

The forensic tent was filled with more than twenty masked and boiler-suited individuals who were impossible to differentiate. Falcon called Felipe and told him to come outside. Felipe remembered the gardening detritus, which he'd also had a chance to look at.

'It was all from the same type of hedge,' he said. 'The kind they use in ornamental gardens. Box hedge. Small, shiny, dark green leaves.'

'How fresh was it?'

'It had been cut that weekend. Friday afternoon or Saturday.'

'Any idea how much hedge we'd be looking at?'

'Remember, that might have been just part of the clippings,' said Felipe. 'And I live in an apartment. Hedges are not my speciality.' Calderon was lying on the fold-down bed in his police cell. His head was resting on his hands, while his eyes stared at four squares of white sunlight high on the wall above the door. When he closed his eyes the four squares burned red on the inside of his eyelids. If he looked into the darkness of the cell they smouldered greenly. He was calm enough for this. He had been calm since the moment he'd been caught trying to get rid of Ines. Get rid of Ines? How had that phrase broken its way into his lexicon?

They'd brought him down to the Jefatura in the early-morning summer light. He was shirtless because the forensics had bagged that horrifically blood-stained garment. The cops had the air conditioning on even at that hour and his nipples were hard and he was shivering. As they crossed the river, two rowing eights, out for early training, slipped under the bridge and he had the sensation of an enormous weight coming off his shoulders. The relaxing of the muscles in his neck and between his scapulae was almost erotic. It was a powerful post-fear drug that his body chemistry had concocted, and it had the awkward result of arousing him.

He had gone through the process of incarceration dumbly, like an animal for slaughter, moving from transport, to pen, to holding cell with no idea of the implications. A DNA swab had been taken from the inside of his cheek, he'd been photographed and given an orange short-sleeve shirt. The relief of finally being left alone, with no possessions, his belt removed, and just a pack of cigarettes, was immense. His tiredness drew him to the bed. He kicked off his loafers and sank back on the hard bunk and fell into a dreamless sleep, until he was woken at three in the afternoon for lunch. He'd eaten and applied his ferocious intellect to what he was going to say in his interview with the detective before falling into this dazed state of looking at the squares of light on the wall. It was unexpectedly pleasant to be released from the oppression of time. At five o'clock the guard came to tell him that Inspector Jefe Luis Zorrita was ready to interview him.

'You are, of course, allowed to have your lawyer present,' said Zorrita, coming into the interview room.

'I am a lawyer,' said Calderon, still with all his precrime arrogance. 'Let's get on with it.'

Zorrita made the introductions to the tape and asked Calderon to confirm that he'd been given the opportunity to have a lawyer present, and had declined.

'I didn't want to talk to you until I'd had the full autopsy report from the Medico Forense,' said Zorrita. 'Now I've got that and had the opportunity to conduct my preliminary enquiries…'