Robert Wilson - The Blind Man of Seville

‘His shoes are under here,’ said Jorge, nodding to the footwell of the desk. ‘One pair of ox-blood loafers with tassels.’

Falcón pointed to a well-worn patch on the parquet in front of the leather scoop. ‘He liked to kick off his shoes and sit in front of the TV rubbing his feet on the wooden floor.’

‘While he watched dirty movies,’ said Felipe, dusting one of the slipcases. ‘This one’s called Cara o Culo.’ Face or Arse I.

‘The position of the chair?’ asked Jorge. ‘Why move all this furniture around?’

Javier Falcón walked to the door, turned and held his arms open to the forensics.

‘Maximum impact.’

‘A real showman,’ said Felipe, nodding. ‘This other slipcase has La Familia Jiménez written on it in red felt-tip and there’s a cassette in the machine with the same title, same handwriting.’

‘That doesn’t sound too horrific,’ said Falcón, and they all looked at Raúl Jiménez’s blood-streaked terror before going back to their work.

‘He didn’t enjoy the show,’ said Felipe.

‘You shouldn’t watch if you can’t take it,’ said Jorge from under the desk.

‘I’ve never liked horror,’ said Falcón.

‘Me neither,’ said Jorge. ‘I can’t take all that … that …’

‘That what?’ asked Falcón, surprised to find himself interested.

‘I don’t know … the normality, the portentous normality.’

‘We all need a little fear to keep us going,’ said Falcón, looking down his red tie, the sweat tumbling out of his forehead again.

There was a thump from under the desk as Jorge’s head hit the underside.

‘Joder.’ Fuck. ‘You know what this is?’ said Jorge, backing out from under the desk. This is a chunk of Raúl Jiménez’s tongue.’

Silence from the three men.

‘Bag it,’ said Falcón.

‘We’re not going to find any prints,’ said Felipe. ‘These slipcases are clean, as is the video, TV, the cabinet and the remote. This guy was prepared for his work.’

‘Guy?’ asked Falcón. ‘We haven’t talked about that yet.’

Felipe fitted a pair of custom-made magnifying glasses to his face and began a minute inspection of the carpet.

Falcón was amazed at the two forensics. He was sure they’d never seen anything as gruesome as this in their careers, not down here, not in Seville. And yet, here they were … He took a perfect square of ironed handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed his brow. No, it wasn’t Felipe and Jorge’s problem. It was his. They behaved like this because this was how he normally behaved and had told them it was the only way to work in a murder investigation. Cold. Objective. Dispassionate. Detective work, he could hear himself in the lecture theatre back in the academy, is unemotional work.

So what was different about Raúl Jiménez? Why this sweat on a cool, clear April morning? He knew what they called him behind his back down at the Jefatura Superior de Policía on Calle Blas Infante. El Lagarto. The Lizard. He’d liked to think it was because of his physical stillness, his passive features, his tendency to look intensely at people while he listened to them. Inés, his ex-wife, his recently divorced wife, had cleared up that misunderstanding for him. ‘You’re cold, Javier Falcón. You’re a cold fish. You have no heart.’ Then what is this thing thundering away in my chest? He jabbed himself in the lapel with his thumb, found himself with his jaw clenched and Felipe looking up with fish aquarium eyes from the carpet.

‘I have a hair, Inspector Jefe,’ he said. ‘Thirty centimetres.’

‘Colour?’

‘Black.’

Falcón went to the desk and checked the photograph of La Familia Jiménez. Consuelo Jiménez stood in a floor-length fur coat, her blonde hair piled high as confectionery while her three sons cheesed at the camera.

‘Bag it,’ he said, and called for the Médico Forense. In the photograph Raúl Jiménez stood next to his wife with his horse teeth grinning, his sagging cheeks looking like a grandfather and his wife, a daughter. Late marriage. Money. Connections. Falcón looked into Consuelo Jiménez’s brilliant smile.

‘Good carpet, this,’ said Felipe. ‘Silk. Thousand knots per centimetre. Good tight pile so that everything sits nicely on top.’

‘How much do you think Raúl Jiménez weighs?’ Falcón asked the Médico Forense.

‘Now I’d say somewhere between seventy-five and eighty kilos, but from the slack in his chest and waist I’d say he’s been up in the high nineties.’

‘Heart condition?’

‘His doctor will know if his wife doesn’t.’

‘Do you think a woman could lift him out of that low leather scoop and put him in that high-backed chair?’

‘A woman?’ asked the Médico Forense. ‘You think a woman did that to him?’

‘That was not the question, Doctor.’

The Médico Forense stiffened as Falcón made him feel stupid a second time.

‘I’ve seen trained nurses lift heavier men than that. Live men, of course, which is easier … but I don’t see why not.’

Falcón turned away, dismissing him.

‘You should ask Jorge about trained nurses, Inspector Jefe,’ said Felipe, arse up in the air, practically sniffing the carpet.

‘Shut up,’ said Jorge, tired of this one.

‘I understand it’s all to do with the hips,’ said Felipe, ‘and the counterweight of the buttocks.’

‘That’s only theory. Inspector Jefe,’ said Jorge. ‘He’s never had the benefit of practical experience.’

‘How would you know?’ said Felipe, kneeling up, grabbing an imaginary rump and giving it some swift thrusts with his groin. ‘I had a youth, too.’

‘Not much of one in your day,’ said Jorge. ‘They were all tight as clams, weren’t they?’

‘Spanish girls were,’ said Felipe. ‘But I come from Alicante. Benidorm was just down the road. All those English girls in the sixties and seventies …”

‘In your dreams,’ said Jorge.

‘Yes, I’ve always had very exciting dreams,’ said Felipe.

The forensics laughed and Falcón looked down on them as they grovelled on the floor, rootling like pigs after acorns, with football and fucking fighting for supremacy in their brains. He found them faintly disgusting and turned to look at the photos on the wall. Jorge nodded his head at Falcón and mouthed to Felipe: Mariquita. Poof.

They laughed again. Falcón ignored them. His eye, just as it did when he looked at a painting, was drawn to the edges of the photographic display. He moved away from the central celebrity section and found a shot of Raúl Jiménez with his arms around two men who were both taller and bigger than him. On the left was the Jefe Superior de la Policía de Sevilla, Comisario Firmin León and on the right was the Chief Prosecutor, Fiscal Jefe Juan Bellido. A physical pressure came down on Falcón’s shoulders and he shrugged his suit up his collar.

‘Aha! Here we go,’ said Felipe. ‘This is more like it. One pubic hair, Inspector Jefe. Black.’

The three men turned simultaneously to the window because they’d heard muted voices from behind the double-glazing and a mechanical sound like a lift. Beyond the rail of the balcony two men in blue overalls slowly appeared, one with long black hair tied in a ponytail and the other crew cut with a black eye. They were shouting to the team eighteen metres below who were operating the lifting gear.

‘Who are those idiots?’ asked Felipe.

Falcón went out on to the balcony, startling the two men standing on the platform, which had just been raised up a railed ladder from a truck in the street.

‘Who the hell are you?’

‘We’re the removals company,’ they said, and turned their backs to show yellow stencils on their overalls which read Mudanzas Triana Transportes Nacionales e Internacionales.