Robert Wilson - The Ignorance of Blood

On his way out of the apartment he looked back at her, standing alone in the middle of the room. He believed her. And for some reason he couldn't help but pity her, too.

Back in his car he wanted to hang on to see who turned up to take her out. Then he saw her on the roof terrace, looking down at him with the mobile to her ear. He didn't want to keep Consuelo waiting. He pulled away, drove back home where he had a quick shower to try to wash off all that police work. He changed his clothes and ten minutes later he was on his way to the Plaza San Lorenzo. The cab dropped him off in the square, which was full of people ambling about in the warm night under the high trees, with the impressive terracotta brick façade of the church of Jesús del Gran Poder behind. His police mobile vibrated in his pocket. He took the call without thinking, resigned to his fate.

‘Listen,’ said the voice. ‘You'll realize when you've gone too far with this because something will happen. And when it does, you will know that you are to blame. You will recognize it. But there'll be no discussion and no negotiation because, Inspector Jefe Javier Falcón, you will never hear from us again.’

Dead. No number. He wrote the words he'd heard in a notebook he always carried with him. Having just seen Marisa he'd expected that call, but now that it had come he did not feel strengthened by it. Its psychology had unnerved him. That was the calculation of the voice, but his anticipation of it should have protected him. It hadn't. Like a probing question from the blind psychologist, Alicia Aguado, the voice had lifted the lid on something and, despite not knowing its precise nature, he dreaded it coming to the surface.

The Bar La Eslava was packed. Consuelo was standing outside, smoking and sipping a glass of manzanilla. Sevillanos were not known for respecting other people's personal space, but they'd made an exception for Consuelo. Her charisma seemed to create a forcefield. Her short blonde hair stood out under the street lights. She made the simple wild pink mini-dress she was wearing look even more expensive than it was and her high heels made her slim, strong legs look even longer. Falcón was glad he'd taken the time to shower and change. He walked through the crowd towards her and she didn't see him until he was on her.

They kissed. He tasted her peachy lipstick, put his hands around her slim waist, felt her contours fitting into his. He inhaled her smell, felt the sharp prick of her diamond-stud earring in his cheek as his lips found her neck.

‘Are you all right?’ she said, running a hand up the back of his head so that electricity earthed through his heels.

‘More than all right now,’ he said, as her hands travelled the outline of his shoulders and his blood went live. Her thigh slipped between his legs. His stomach leapt, cock stirred, perfume shunted into his head and he became human for the first time that day.

They parted, feeling the eyes of the people around them.

‘I'll get a beer,’ he said.

‘I've booked us a table across the road,’ she said.

The bar was heaving and noisier than the trading floor of a metal exchange. He fought his way in. He knew the owner, who was serving. A guy he didn't immediately recognize grabbed him around the shoulders. ‘Hola, Javier. Que tal?’ The owner handed him a beer, refused payment. Two women kissed him on his way through. He was sure he knew one of them. He squeezed back out into the street.

‘I didn't know you were going to Madrid today,’ said Consuelo.

She knew Yacoub, but not that he was Falcón's spy.

‘I had a meeting with another cop about all that stuff in June,’ said Falcón, keeping it vague, but still stumbling around in the memory of his meeting with Yacoub, Marisa, that second phone call.

‘You were looking as if you'd had a hard day.’

He took out his mobile, turned it off.

‘That helps,’ he said, sipping his beer. ‘How about you?’

‘I had some interesting conversations with a couple of estate agents and I had a session with Alicia.’

‘How's that going?’

‘I'm nearly sane,’ she said, smiling, blue eyes widening hysterically. ‘Only another year to go.’

They laughed.

‘I saw Esteban Calderón today.’

‘I'm not as nuts as he is,’ said Consuelo.

‘The prison governor called me on the way up to Madrid to say he'd put in a request to see Alicia.’

‘I don't know if even she could sort out his madness,’ said Consuelo.

‘That was the first time I'd seen him since it happened,’ said Falcón. ‘He didn't look good.’

‘If what he's got in his mind has started to come out in his face, he should be looking terrible,’ she said.

‘Are you moving?’ he asked.

‘Moving?’

‘The estate agents,’ said Falcón. ‘You're not bored of Santa Clara already?’

‘My business expansion plans.’

‘Seville not big enough for all your ideas?’

‘Maybe not, but how about Madrid or Valencia? What do you think?’

‘Will you still talk to me when you've been photographed by Hola?’ he said. ‘Consuelo Jiménez in her glorious home, surrounded by her beautiful children.’

‘And my lover … the cop?’ she said, looking at him sadly. ‘I might have to let you go unless you learn how to sail a yacht.’

That was the first time she'd called him her lover and she knew it. He finished his beer, took her empty glass and put them on a ledge. She took his arm and they walked across the square to the restaurant.

They knew her in the restaurant, which despite its Arabic name had a neo-classical feel to it – all pillars and marble and strong white nappery, with no such thing as a round plate. The chef came out to greet her and two glasses of cava, on the house, arrived at their table. There was a lull in the restaurant hubbub as the other diners looked at them, recognized their faces from distant scandalous news stories; moments later they were forgotten and the cacophony resumed. Consuelo ordered for both of them. He liked it when she took over. They drank the cava. He wished they were at home and he could lean over and kiss her throat. They talked about the future, which was a good sign.

The starter arrived. Three tapas on an oblong plate: a tiny filo pastry money bag containing soft goat's cheese, a crisp toast of duck liver set in sticky sweet quince jam, and a shot-glass of white garlic and almond soup with an orb of melon ice cream floating at the top and flakes of wind-dried tuna nestling in the bottom. Each one went off in his mouth like a firecracker.

‘This is oral sex,’ said Consuelo.

Plates were removed with their empty flutes. A bottle of 2004 Pesquera from the Ribeiro del Duero was opened, decanted and glasses filled with the dark red wine. They talked about the impossibility of going back to live in Madrid after the lotus life of Seville.

She'd ordered him duck breast, which was presented in a fan with a mound of couscous. Consuelo had the sea bass with crisp silver skin in a delicate white sauce. He felt her calf rub against his and they decided to forgo the dessert and get a taxi instead.

They practically lay down in the back and he kissed her neck as the street lights flashed overhead and the young people outside made their moves from the bars to the clubs. The lights were still on at her neighbour's house and the daughter let them in. Falcón lifted Darío from the bed. He was fast asleep.

As they walked across to Consuelo's house the boy came awake.

‘Hola , Javi,’ he said sleepily and thumped his blond head into Falcón's chest and left it there, as if he was listening to his heart. The trust nearly broke Falcón apart. They went upstairs where he poured the boy into his bed. Darío's eyelids fluttered against the weight of sleep.