Robert Wilson - The Ignorance of Blood

‘I'm not even going to ask,’ said his friend, who told him he'd probably have to wait until Monday now.

Headlights wavered in the blackness of the countryside and swung away. Someone across the aisle was studying him. He got up, walked down the train to the bar, ordered a beer. What else? He took out his notebook, jotted down his thoughts. Trust. Yacoub had kept on at Falcón about how much he trusted him: ‘The only man I can trust … You always have to be between me and them …’ That was where the cramps had started and when he'd first questioned Yacoub's reliability. ‘You're a good friend. The only true friend I've got.’ It was that line which had allowed the ugliest thought to enter his head: Is he using me? Falcón rewound to a question he'd asked: ‘So where's this influence coming from?’ The shrug. Had someone got to Yacoub? He knew the GICM didn't like his relationship with the inspector jefe. Were they breaking it up, and using young Abdullah to do it?

The notes streamed out of his pen. The swearing. The plan. There was no plan, but Yacoub wanted him involved. Why? ‘You're my friend. I'm in this because of you.’ He'd qualified that blame immediately, but there was no doubt that he wanted Falcón to feel culpable. Then there was Yacoub's vision of his own death. Had he overdone the self-pity? Finally, there was the slip. Was it a slip to reveal that he'd seen Abdullah since he'd gone to the training camp? Yacoub was under pressure. The stress of it created emotional extremes and mistakes were made.

He closed the notebook, took a swig of beer. He breathed back a sense of disequilibrium that he couldn't put his finger on. How do you describe that feeling when it occurs to you that your brother might be exploiting you? There was no word for it. It couldn't be that it was so rare that they hadn't bothered to invent it. People were always exploited and betrayed by those closest to them. But what was the word for the feeling of the victim? The Americans have a good word: suckered. Because the feeling was one of being drained, having the marrow sucked out.

He took out his mobile, and it wasn't just for the usual banal exchange that was played out in trains all over the world; he needed to hear the sound of a voice that he believed in and who believed in him. He called Consuelo. Darío, her youngest boy, the eight-year-old, picked up the phone.

‘Hola , Darío, how's it going?’ he said.

‘Javi-i-i,’ screamed Darío. ‘Mamá, mamá, it's Javi.’

‘Bring the phone to the kitchen,’ said Consuelo.

‘Are you good, Darío?’ asked Falcón.

‘I'm good, Javi. Why aren't you here? You should be here. Mamá's been waiting and waiting…’

‘Bring that phone here, Darío!’

He heard the boy sprinting down the corridor. The phone changed hands.

‘I don't want you thinking I'm sitting around here like some lovesick teenager,’ said Consuelo. ‘Darío's been desperate for you to get here.’

‘I'm on the AVE and running late.’

‘He won't go to bed until you arrive, and we're going shopping tomorrow. New football boots.’

‘I've got to see someone in town before I come out to your place,’ said Falcón. ‘It's going to be after midnight before I get to you.’

‘Maybe we should have dinner out,’ said Consuelo. ‘That's a better idea. I really want him to go to bed now. I'll take him next door. He's in love with their sixteen-year-old daughter. Let's do that, Javier.’

‘Tell him I'll have a kick around with him in the garden tomorrow morning.’

A hesitation.

‘You think you're getting lucky tonight?’ she said quietly, teasing.

They hadn't discussed his staying over. It was part of the new coming together. No assumptions.

‘I've been praying for luck,’ he said. ‘Has Our Lady been good to me?’

Another hesitation.

‘I'll tell Darío,’ she said. ‘But once you've made a promise like that, you've got to be prepared for him to jump on your head at eight in the morning.’

‘Where shall we meet?’

She said she'd arrange everything. All he had to do was meet her in the Bar La Eslava on the Plaza San Lorenzo and they'd take it from there.

Calm restored. He nearly felt like a family man. Consuelo's two older boys, Ricardo and Matías, hadn't been so interested in him. They were fourteen and twelve. But Darío was still keen on the idea of a dad. The boy had brought him closer to Consuelo. She could see that Darío liked him and, although she would never say it, Darío was her favourite. He also distracted them from the seriousness of what they were trying to do, made them feel more casual, less anxious.

And with that thought, sleep finally claimed him.

He woke up sitting in the carriage in the Santa Justa station, with people shuffling out of the train. It was just after 11.30. He left the station, drove to Calle Hiniesta. Falcón wanted to have Marisa sleeping uneasily with the knowledge that after their chat this afternoon he'd taken an anonymous threatening phone call and that he wasn't scared by it.

As he parked at the back of the Santa Isabel church he saw that the light was on in her penthouse apartment, the plants were lit up on her roof terrace. He pressed her buzzer.

‘I'm coming down,’ she said.

‘This is Inspector Jefe Javier Falcón,’ he said.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said, annoyed. ‘I'm on my way out.’

‘We can discuss this in the street, if that's what you want.’

She buzzed the door open. He took the small lift up to her floor. Marisa let him in, closing down her mobile, nervous, as if she'd just asked her date to delay his arrival unless he wanted to meet the police.

‘Going somewhere special?’ asked Falcón, taking in her long, tight turquoise dress, her coppery hair down to her shoulders, the gold earrings, the twenty-odd gold and silver bangles on her arm, an expensive scent.

‘A gallery opening and then dinner.’

She closed the door behind him. Her hands were uneasy at her sides. The bangles rattled. She didn't ask him to sit down.

‘I thought we had a long talk this afternoon,’ she said. ‘You took up an hour of my work-time and now you've moved in on my relaxation…’

‘I had a call from a friend of yours this afternoon.’

‘A friend of mine?’

‘He told me to keep my nose out of your business.’

Her lips opened. No sound came out.

‘It was a couple of hours after we talked,’ said Falcón. ‘I was on my way up to Madrid to see another friend of yours.’

‘I don't know anyone in Madrid.’

‘Inspector Jefe Luis Zorrita?’

‘There's the confusion,’ said Marisa, dredging up some boldness. ‘He's no friend of mine.’

‘He's as interested as I am in your story,’ said Falcón. ‘He's told me I can dig away to my heart's content.’

‘What are you talking about?’ she said, her brow puckering with fury. ‘Story? What story?’

‘We all have stories,’ said Falcón. ‘We all have versions of these stories to suit every occasion. We've got one version of your story, which has put Esteban Calderón in prison. Now we're going to find the real version, and it'll be interesting to see where that puts you.’

Even with the armour of her beauty, her lithe sexuality encased in the aquamarine sheath, he could see that he'd got under her skin. The fever had started. The uncertainty behind the big, brown eyes. His work was done. Now it was time to get out.

‘Tell your friends,’ said Falcón, making powerful eye contact as he walked past her to the door, ‘that I'll be waiting for their next call.’

‘What friends?’ she said to the back of his head. ‘I don't have any friends.’