Robert Wilson - The Hidden Assassins

'He was exhausted. He had been completely drained by the experiences of the day. He stumbled into the bedroom, collapsed on to the bed and passed out immediately. He was aware only of pain. He lashed out wildly with his foot. He woke up with no idea where he was. She told him he had to get up. It was past three o'clock. He had to go home. He couldn't wear the same clothes as he had yesterday and appear on television. She called a taxi. She took him down in the lift. He wanted to sleep on her shoulder in the street. The cab arrived and she spoke to the driver. He fell into the back seat and his head rolled back. He was only vaguely aware of movement and of light flashing behind his eyelids. The door opened. Hands pulled at him. He gave the driver his house keys. The driver opened the door to the building. He slapped on the light. They walked up the stairs together. The driver opened the apartment door. Two turns of the lock. The driver went back down the stairs. The hall light went out. He went into the apartment and saw light coming from the kitchen. He was annoyed. He didn't want to see her. He didn't want to have to explain…again. He moved towards the light…'

Calderon paused, because he was suddenly unsure of what he was going to see.

'His foot crossed the edge of the shadow and stepped into the light. He turned into the frame.'

Calderon was blinking at the tears in his eyes. He was so relieved to see her standing there at the sink in her nightdress. She turned when she heard his footfall. He was going to skirt the table and pull her to him and squeeze his love into her, but he couldn't move because when she turned she didn't open her arms to him, she didn't smile, her dark eyes did not glisten with joy…they opened wide with abject terror.

'And what happened?' asked Zorrita.

'What?' asked Calderon, as if coming to.

'You turned into the kitchen doorway and what did you do?' asked Zorrita.

'I don't know,' said Calderon, surprised to find his cheeks wet. He wiped them with the flat of his palms and brushed them down his trousers.

'It's not unusual for people to have blank moments about terrible things that they have done,' said Zorrita. 'Tell me what you saw when you turned into the doorway of the kitchen.'

'She was standing at the kitchen sink,' he said. 'I was so happy to see her.'

'Happy?' said Zorrita. 'I thought you were annoyed.'

'No,' he said, holding his head in his hands. 'No, it was…I was lying on the floor.'

'You were lying on the floor?'

'Yes. I woke up on the floor in the corridor and I went back to the kitchen light and it was then that I saw Ines lying on the floor,' he said. 'There was a terrible quantity of blood and it was very, very red.'

'But how did she end up lying on the floor?' asked Zorrita. 'One moment she was standing and the next she's lying on the floor in a pool of blood. What did you do to her?'

'I don't know that she was standing,' said Calderon, searching his mind for that image to see if it really existed.

'Let me tell you a few facts about your wife's murder, Sr Calderon. As you said, the cab driver opened the door of the apartment for you, with two turns of the key in the lock. That means the door had been double locked from the inside. Your wife was the only person in the apartment.'

'Ye-e-e-s,' said Calderon, concentrating on Zorrita's every syllable, hoping they would give him the vital clue that would unlock his memory.

'When the Medico Forense took your wife's body temperature down by the river it was 36.1°C. She was still warm. The ambient temperature last night was 29°C. That means your wife had just been killed. The autopsy revealed that your wife's skull had been smashed at the back, that there had been a devastating cerebral haemorrhage and two neck vertebrae had been shattered. Examination of the crime scene has revealed blood and hair on the black granite work surface and a further large quantity of blood on the floor next to your wife's head which also contained bone fragments and cerebral matter. The DNA samples taken from your apartment belong only to you and to your wife. The shirt that was taken from you down by the river was covered in your wife's blood. Your wife's body showed indications of your DNA on her face, neck and lower limbs. The scene in the kitchen of your apartment was consistent with someone who had picked Ines up by the shoulders or neck and thrown her down on the granite work surface. Is that what you did, Sr Calderon?'

'I only wanted to embrace her,' said Calderon, whose face had broken up into the ugliness of his inner turmoil. 'I just wanted to hold her close.'

Seville-Thursday, 8th June 2006, 18.30 hrs

The Taberna Coloniales was at the end of the Plaza Cristo de Burgos. There was something colonial about its green windows, long wooden bar and stone floor. It was well known for the excellence of its tapas and it was popular for its traditional interior and the seating outside on the pavement of the plaza. This was Angel and Manuela's local. Falcon didn't want Angel's journalistic nose anywhere near the police work around the destroyed apartment block, nor did he want to have to discuss anything sensitive in the glass cylinder of the ABC offices on the Isla de la Cartuja. Most important of all, he needed to be close to Angel's home so that there would be the least trouble possible for him to give Falcon what he wanted. This was why he was sitting outside the Taberna Coloniales under a calico umbrella, sipping a beer and biting into the chilled flesh of a fat green olive, waiting for Angel to appear.

He took a call from Pablo.

'The Americans have sent over the handwriting samples you asked for-the Arabic and English script belonging to Jack Hansen.'

'He looks more like a Tateb Hassani to me than a Jack Hansen,' said Falcon.

'What do you want us to do with the samples?'

'Ask your handwriting experts to make a comparison between Tateb Hassani's Arabic script and the notes attached to the drawings found in the fireproof box in the mosque. And compare the English script to the handwritten notes in the copies of the Koran found in the Peugeot Partner and Miguel Botin's apartment.'

'You think he was one of them?' asked Pablo. 'I don't get it.'

'Let's make the comparison first and the deductions afterwards,' said Falcon. 'And, by the way, the Imam's mobile phone records-we need to have a look at them. One of those numbers he called on Sunday morning belongs to the electrician.'

'I've spoken to Juan about that,' said Pablo. 'Gregorio's checked out all the numbers the Imam called on Sunday morning. The only one he couldn't account for was made to a phone registered in the name of a seventy-four-year-old woman living in Seville Este who has never been an electrician.'

'I'd like access to those records,' said Falcon.

'That's something else for you to talk to your old friend Flowers about,' said Pablo, and hung up.

Falcon sipped his beer and tried to persuade himself that he was calm, and that the present strategy was the right one. He'd taken Serrano and Baena away from their task of touring the building sites looking for the electricians, and had directed them to help Ferrera locate the hedge whose clippings had been dumped with the body. Ramirez and Perez had photographs of Tateb Hassani and were walking the streets around the Alfalfa trying to find anybody who recognized him. This meant that no one from the homicide squad was now working on anything directly linked to the Seville bombing. He wasn't worried about Elvira for the moment. The Comisario had his hands too full of public relations problems to be worried about the gamble Falcon was taking.

'For a man who's supposed to be running the largest criminal investigation in Seville's history, you're looking remarkably relaxed, Javier,' said Angel, taking a seat, ordering a beer.