Robert Wilson - The Blind Man of Seville

‘Without a doubt,’ she said, ‘especially the last few days when everybody comes from out of town.’

‘One of your clients was Raúl Jiménez. You went to see him last night in his apartment in the Edificio Presidente.’

‘I knew him as Rafael. Don Rafael.’

‘You’d met him before?’

‘He’s a regular.’

‘In his apartment?’

‘Last night was maybe the third or fourth time in his apartment. Normally it’s the back of his car.’

‘So how did it work this time?’ asked Ramírez.

‘He called the mobile. My group of girls bought three mobiles last year.’

‘What time?’

‘I didn’t take the call. I was with someone else … but it must have been midnight. The first time.’

‘The first time?’

‘He only wanted to speak to me, so he called again around twelve-fifteen. He asked me to come to his apartment. I told him I was making a lot of money on the plaza and he asked me how much I wanted. I told him one hundred thousand.’

Ramírez roared with laughter.

‘That’s Semana Santa for you,’ he said. ‘The prices are ridiculous.’

The girl laughed too, relaxed a notch.

‘Don’t tell me he paid that,’ said Ramírez.

‘We settled on fifty.’

‘Joder.’

‘How did you get there?’ asked Falcón, trying to settle it down again.

‘Taxi,’ she said, lighting up a Fortuna.

‘What time did it drop you off?’

‘Just after half past twelve.’

‘Anybody around?’

‘Not that I saw.’

‘What about in the building?’

‘I didn’t even see the conserje, which I was glad about. There was no one in the lift or on the landing and he let me in before I rang the bell, as if he’d been watching me through the spy hole.’

‘You didn’t hear him unlock the door?’

‘He just opened it.’

‘Did he lock it once you were inside?’

‘Yes. I didn’t like that, but he left the keys in the door so I didn’t protest.’

‘What did you notice about the apartment?’

‘It was almost empty. He told me he was moving. I asked him where and he didn’t answer. Other things on his mind.’

‘Talk us through it,’ said Ramírez.

She grinned, shook her head as if men the world over were all the same.

‘I followed him up the corridor into his study. There was a TV on in the corner with an old movie playing. He took a video out of the desk and loaded it into the machine. He asked me to wear a thick blue skirt which came down to my knees and a blue jumper over my blouse. He told me to tie my hair in bunches. I was wearing a long black wig,’ she said. ‘He preferred brunettes.’

‘Did you see him take a pill?’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t notice anything strange apart from the place being empty?’

‘Like what?’

‘Anything that made you feel nervous?’

She thought about it, wanting to help. She held up a finger. They leaned forward.

‘He wasn’t wearing any shoes,’ she said, ‘but that didn’t exactly make me panic.’

They slumped back in their chairs.

‘Hey! It’s your fault. You’re making me see things where there’s nothing.’

‘Keep going,’ said Ramírez.

‘I asked him for my money. He gave me some five thousand notes which I counted. He picked up the remote and a porno movie started up on the TV. He took off his trousers. I mean he dropped his trousers and stepped out of them. And we got down to it.’

‘What about the windows?’ asked Ramírez.

‘What about them?’

‘You were facing the windows.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He assumes you were facing the windows,’ said Falcón.

‘The curtains were drawn,’ she said, suspicious now.

‘So you had sex with him,’ said Ramírez. ‘How long did it last?’

‘Longer than I expected.’

‘Is that why you turned round?’ asked Ramírez.

The brown eyes hardened in her head. These were not the usual games.

‘Who are you?’ she said.

‘Inspector Ramírez,’ he said, dry as fino.

‘We’re from the Grupo de Homicidios,’ said Falcón.

‘Somebody killed him?’ she asked, her head switching between the two men, who nodded.

‘The person who killed him was in the apartment while you were there.’

She wrenched the cigarette from her mouth, puffed hard.

‘How do you know?’

Ramírez had prepared the tape earlier and clicked the remote so that the screen was instantly filled with the empty corridor, the bare hook, the light falling from the study doorway while the soundtrack blared the mixture of the two fake ecstasies. The hairs came up on Falcón’s neck. The girl was transfixed. The camera turned the corner and she saw herself kneeling in front of Raúl Jiménez, who was staring up at the screen while she confronted the curtains. As her head turned, the camera toppled back into the darkness.

The girl knocked her chair back flat and paced the room. Ramírez returned the screen to black.

‘That is very weird,’ she said, pointing at the screen with her cigarette fingers.

‘Did you notice anything?’ asked Falcón.

‘I don’t know whether you’ve put things into my head, but I do remember something now,’ she said, closing her eyes. ‘It was just a change of light, a shadow wobbling. In my business that’s what I’m frightened of … when the shadows move.’

‘When darkness has a life of its own,’ said Falcón, the words out unsupervised so that Ramírez and the girl checked him for oddness. ‘But you didn’t react … to these shadow moves?’

‘I thought it was something in my head and anyway I think he reached his moment about then and that distracted me.’

‘And afterwards?’

‘I cleaned up in his bathroom and left.’

‘Did he lock the door behind you?’

‘Yes. The same as when he locked it the first time. Five or six turns. I heard him take the keys out, too. Then the lift came.’

‘What time was it?’

‘I don’t think it was much after one o’clock. I was back in the Alameda with another client by half-past one.’

‘Fifty thousand,’ said Ramírez. ‘That’s a good hourly rate.’

‘It might take you a while before you could earn that amount,’ she said, and they both laughed.

‘What’s your mobile number?’ asked Falcón, and they both laughed again until they saw he was serious and Eloisa rattled it out for him.

‘So,’ said Ramírez, still good-humoured, ‘that seems to be everything … except I’m sure she’s left something out, aren’t you, Inspector Jefe?’

Falcón didn’t react to Ramírez’s brutal game. The girl looked away from him and back to where she’d suddenly felt the threat.

‘I’ve told you everything that happened,’ she said.

‘Except the most important thing,’ said Ramírez. ‘You didn’t tell us when you let him into the apartment.’

It took a few seconds for the implication of that mild statement to penetrate and then her face went as hard as a death mask.

‘I thought you were too good to be true,’ she said.

‘I’m not good,’ said Ramírez, ‘and nor are you. You know what the guy did — the one you let into the apartment? He tortured an old man to death. He put your Don Rafael through some of the worst suffering that we’ve ever come across in our police careers. No, it wasn’t just a shot to the head, not a knife in the heart, but slow, brutal … torture.’

‘I didn’t let anyone into that apartment.’

‘You said he left the keys in the door,’ said Falcón.

‘I didn’t let anyone into that apartment.’

‘You said you saw something,’ said Ramírez.

‘You made me think I saw something, but I didn’t.’