'He wrote another article about you,' said Falcón. 'You might not have seen it.'
'That was the only show I ever did in St Louis. First and last.'
'This wasn't to do with the arts. It was a local news story.'
'I only went back to St Louis to see my parents for Thanksgiving and Christmas.'
'When did you say your mother died?'
'I didn't,' she said, 'but it was on December 3rd 2000. You know who you remind me of, Inspector Jefe?'
'Americans only seem to know one Spaniard and I don't look anything like Antonio Banderas.'
'Columbo,' she said, not thinking this at all but wanting to get back at him. 'A much better-looking Columbo. You ask a load of questions that don't seem to have any bearing on the case and then, bang, you nail the culprit.'
'Fictional police work is always more entertaining than the real thing.'
'Marty said from the beginning that you weren't like any cop he'd ever seen.'
'And I suppose he'd have come across quite a few in the months before you arrived here?'
She rested her chin on her thumb and tapped her nose with her finger.
'You never said what Dan Fineman wrote about, Inspector Jefe.'
'How you were helping the FBI with their inquiries into the murder of your ex-lover, Reza Sangari.'
'You're a very thorough person,' she said.
'You looked me up on the internet,' said Falcón. 'I looked you up.'
'Then you won't need to ask me anything,' she said. 'And, anyway, none of it's relevant to what happened to the Vegas.'
'Have you had any other affairs since you've been married to your husband?' he asked.
She narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips and smoked about two centimetres in a single drag.
'Are you seriously trying to put me and Rafael together, Inspector Jefe?' she asked. 'Is that how your mind works? You see a pathetically obvious pattern in things and your policeman's brain snaps the two together.'
Falcón sat still, his eyes fixed on her, waiting for the cracks to appear. Instead, something dawned in her face and she sat up on the edge of the sofa.
'I've got it,' she said. 'How stupid of me. Columbo - disconnected questions. This is about the judge, isn't it? You think I'm embarking on an affair with Juez Calderón. And, yes, I read the story… Javier Falcón. His fiancé is your ex-wife. Is that what this is all about'
There was some colour in Maddy Krugman's cheeks. She was angry. Falcón wouldn't have minded blocking out the glare coming from her green eyes, the flames of her red hair. He realized that the two of them were prepared to hurt each other and she didn't mind the idea of that.
'Now that I've discovered that your motive for leaving America was a little more complicated than you've led me to believe, I have to look at things from a different perspective.'
'So what was all that stuff about Esteban?'
'You mentioned him, not me,' he said. 'I was interested because he decided to postpone a meeting he had with me yesterday. I now find out it was because he was with you.'
'Do you still love your ex-wife, Inspector Jefe?'
'That's got nothing to do with anything.'
'Why are you so curious about Esteban?' she asked. 'It shouldn't be any of your business what he does with his private life. And you shouldn't give a damn about your ex-wife… but you do.'
'They're getting married. I'm under no illusions.'
'You've given yourself away, Inspector Jefe,' she said. 'You're under no illusions, but you wouldn't mind the chance, I bet.'
'You're like a defence lawyer putting words into the mouth of a prosecution witness.'
'And you've got nobody to object to,' she said, looking sadly around the living room before fixing on him again, 'Any woman over the age of twenty would take one look at Esteban Calderón and know him for what he is.'
'Which is?'
'A ladies' man who's always looking,' she said. 'You don't see it because you're not the type. I hope your ex-wife isn't a romantic.'
'And what if she is?'
'She'd be under the illusion that she could make that kind of man change,' she said. 'But I can promise you one thing… she knows what he's like. No woman could miss it. Why do you think Esteban was around here with his tail wagging on the first day of your investigation?'
'How does your husband take that sort of thing?' asked Falcón.
'Marty's got nothing to worry about,' she said. 'He trusts me.'
'How did he take Reza Sangari?'
Silence, while Maddy stubbed out the cigarette with a dozen precise little stabs at the ashtray.
'We nearly didn't make it through,' she said, looking up with her eyes magnified by impending tears. 'That was my first and last affair.'
'Were you still seeing Reza Sangari when he was murdered?'
She shook her head, slowly.
'Did you contemplate leaving your husband for Reza Sangari?'
She nodded.
'And what happened?'
'That is private,' she said.
'I'm sure you had to tell the FBI everything… or did they respect your privacy?'
'It upsets me. I don't want to talk about it.'
'Did you find out about the other women?' asked Falcón, riding over her sensitivities.
'Yes,' she said. 'They were younger than me. They had more resilience.'
'And why, when you see so clearly what sort of a man Esteban Calderón is, did you not spot Reza Sangari?'
'I made the crucial mistake of falling completely and madly in love with him.'
She paced the room, her nerves getting the better of her.
'I used to go into New York City twice a week,' she said. 'I had work from a couple of magazines and I used a studio which happened to be close to Reza's warehouse. He came to the studio one day with a model I was using for a shoot. The model was flying out to LA straight afterwards. Reza asked me out to lunch. By the end of that afternoon we'd had food, wine and he'd made love to me on a pile of pure silk carpets from Qom. That's what it was like. Nothing was ordinary. He was beautiful and I fell for him like I've never fallen for anybody in my life.'
'The model you were using that day, was her name Françoise Lascombs?'
'Yes.'
'She must have been around once she came back from LA. Didn't you see her?'
'Reza was very good at keeping all aspects of his love life separate. And you know how it is with these men - when you were with him you were the only person in the world who mattered. I wasn't thinking of anybody else and certainly not the invisible competition.'
'But you did find out about them?'
'About six months after we started, when I was so in love with him I didn't know what to do with myself, I went into the city on an odd day. I didn't intend to see him but inevitably I ended up at his warehouse. As I went for his doorbell a woman came out and I recognized that happy spring in her step. I didn't go up. I went across the street and stood in a doorway. I was shaking. I don't know whether you know what that sort of betrayal is like - a really appalling sense of breakage. My organs felt lacerated. It took me an hour to stop shaking. Then I decided I would go up and finish with him and, as I crossed the street, another woman converged on his door. I couldn't believe it. I didn't go up. I somehow managed to get home and collapsed. I never saw him again and then somebody killed him over a weekend and they took four days to find the body.'
'And they never found the murderer?'
'It was a long and painful investigation. Never was so much pressure put on so many relationships by the death of one man. The media were on top of it too, because Françoise Lascombs had just become Estee Lauder's girl. The FBI probably had about ten suspects, but they couldn't pin it on any of them. Then they discovered his coke habit. He had something like two hundred grammes in his apartment. I never knew about it, but I suppose he had to be on something just to maintain that lifestyle. They thought that something must have gone wrong in a deal.'
'Wha
t do you think?'
'I think about a lot of things - what the affair did to Marty, what it did to me, and I think about Reza and the madness of those months - but I don't let myself think about his end, who killed him or why, because that's where insanity lies.'
'You never suspected Marty?'
'You're kidding - the weekend he was killed I was still struggling to be without Reza. I couldn't bear to be on my own. Marty and I were drunk and stoned and watching old movies. Then, on the Wednesday, the FBI came calling and everything changed.'
'Well… it explains your fascination with the internal struggle.'
'It also explains why I'm disdainful of everything I did before I came here,' she said. 'Dan Fineman was right. I remember his headline, it played on the title of the show: "Short on content, small in stature".'
'You said Sr Vega used to come here for dinner… quite often on his own,' said Falcón. 'That's unusual for a Spanish man with a family.'
'You're so transparent, Inspector Jefe,' she said. 'And you've insinuated that before.'
'These aren't trick questions, Sra Krugman,' he said. 'Nor do they necessarily imply any impropriety on your part. I'm just asking if you think he was in love with you, or infatuated with you, as a lot of men seem to be.'
'But not you, Inspector Jefe. I've noticed that,' she said. 'Perhaps your lust is directed elsewhere… maybe that's it, yes, maybe you just don't like me… Your friend Consuelo doesn't like me either.'
'My friend?'
'Or is she a little more passionate than a friend?'
'Do you think Sr Vega was interested in you sexually?' asked Falcón, shouldering through her insinuations. 'You went to see bullfights together.'
'Rafael liked to be accompanied by a pretty woman. That's it. Nothing happened. In the same way that nothing ever happens with the gas man either.'
'Did you know if you had an effect on Sr Vega's mind?'
'You think I was the cause of his disturbed state,' she said. 'You think he was burning papers down the bottom of his garden because of me. You're crazy.'
'He was a man trapped in difficult marital circumstances. He had a wife who was severely depressed, but they had a son together they both loved. He wasn't going to break up his family, but his relationship with his wife was limited by her condition.'
'It's a plausible theory… except I think I was a side attraction for Rafael. His main interest was talking things over with Marty. I mean, Marty would always meet us after the bullfight for tapas, then we'd have dinner and, I'm telling you, those two were still talking long after I went to bed.'
'About what?'
'Their favourite topic. The United States of America.'
'Had Sr Vega lived in America?'
'He spoke American English and he talked about Miami a lot, but he didn't react well to direct questions, so I'm not sure. But Marty's convinced that he'd lived there. Unlike most Europeans, he wasn't full of the usual cliches on the American way of life,' she said. 'He enjoyed talking with Marty because Marty isn't that interested in personal details. Marty was happy to talk about theories, thoughts and ideas without having to know where the guy lived or his favourite colour.'
'Did they talk in Spanish or English?'
'Spanish until they got on the brandy, and then English. Marty's Spanish fell apart with alcohol.'
'Did Sr Vega ever get drunk?'
'I was in bed. Ask Marty.'
'When was the last time Sr Vega and Marty had one of these evenings?'
'The really long sessions happened during the Feria. They'd be up until dawn then.'
Falcón finished his coffee, got to his feet.
'I don't know whether I'll invite you again, if all you're going to do is interrogate me,' she said. 'Esteban doesn't interrogate me.'
'It's not his job to interrogate you. I'm the one who has to go digging in the dirt.'
'And you find out a few things about Esteban on the way.'
'His private life is not my concern.'
'You're used to keeping yourself in tight, aren't you, Inspector Jefe?'
'It's best not to let my sort of job and social life bleed into each other.'
'Very funny, Inspector Jefe,' she said. 'You do have a social life, then? Most cops don't. I understand their lives are full of broken relationships, separations from their kids, alcoholism and depression.'
Falcón couldn't help thinking that he scored two, maybe three, out of four.
'Thank you for your time,' he said.
'We should try meeting socially, just to see if we really get along without all this stuff getting in the way,' she said. 'I'm interested in the cop with artistic vision. Or is your mind made up about me? I'd hate you to think I was some stereotype, like the femme fatale.'
'I'll go back the way I came,' he said, heading for the sliding doors out into the garden, and he could tell he'd annoyed her.
'Columbo always left his last question for the doorstep,' she said to the back of his head.
'I'm not Columbo,' he said, and sealed her back in with the sliding door.
* * *
Chapter 13
Friday. 26th July 2002
On the way back to pick up the evidence bag containing the bottle of muriatic acid, his mobile vibrated in his pocket.
'Digame, José Luis,' he said.
'They've found a Ukrainian hooker in the Poligono San Pablo who they're pretty sure is Sergei's mystery friend,' said Ramírez. 'She doesn't speak much Spanish, but she reacted to the photo of Sergei when they showed it to her.'
'Take her down to the Jefatura and get a translator,' said Falcón. 'Don't interrogate her until I get there.'
'It's nearly lunchtime.'
'Do what you can.'
Back in the Jefatura, Nadia Kouzmikheva, dressed in a black mini-skirt, a white halter-neck top and flat shoes with no stockings, paced the floor of the interrogation room while Policía Carlos Serrano watched her through the pane of glass in the door. She'd already gone through three of his cigarettes and he was hoping that the translator was a smoker and would arrive soon.
Ramírez and Falcón walked down the corridor with a female Russian translator from the university. Serrano opened the door for them. Introductions were made. The two women sat together on one side of the table, the men on the other. The translator lit a cigarette. Ramírez looked over his shoulder as if there might be a waiter. Serrano opened the door.
'Another ashtray, Carlos,' Ramírez said.
Falcón explained the purpose of the interview while looking at Nadia's passport and finding the visa, which still had six months to run. The Ukrainian girl's shoulders relaxed a couple of microns.
'She's enrolled in a language school,' said Ramírez.
'We're not here to make your life difficult,' said Falcón to the girl. 'We need your help.'
In the passport photo her hair was dark brown. The roots were still visible under the rough peroxide job she'd presumably done herself. She had green eyes under blue eye shadow which did not quite obscure the fact that her left eye was recovering from some damage. Her skin was white and blotchy as if she had not seen the sun for some months. She had fresh bruises on her upper arms. He smiled to encourage her. She smiled back, revealing a tooth missing from behind the incisor. He positioned the photo of Sergei in the middle of the table.
'Where do you come from in the Ukraine?' he asked.
The translator repeated the question to the side of the girl's head.
'Lvov,' she said, playing with her cigarette in red chapped fingers.
'What did you do in Lvov?'
'I worked in a factory until it closed. Then I did nothing.'
'Sergei came from Lvov… Did you know him?'
'There's nearly a million people in Lvov,' she said.
'But you knew him,' said Falcón.
Silence. More smoking through trembling lips.
'I can see that you are afraid,' said Falcón. 'I can see that you have been beaten by the people you have been
working for. They are probably threatening your family, too. We won't interfere with any of that if you don't want us to. We only want to know about Sergei because he was working for someone who is now dead. He is not a suspect. We want to talk to him to see if he has any information for us. I would like you to tell us how you know Sergei, when you last saw him and what he said to you. Nothing will leave this room. You can return to your apartment when you want.'
He didn't take his eyes off her. She'd learnt some ugly lessons about human beings and she was staring back at him to see if there were cracks in his nature - any faltering, any shift of gaze, any telltale tic - that might mean more pain for her. She looked at her watch, a cheap, pink plastic thing with a big flower for a face.
'I have thirty-eight minutes to get back to my apartment,' she said. 'I'll need a little money to keep people quiet about where I've been.'
'How much?'
'Thirty euros will be enough.'
Falcón unfolded a twenty and a ten and laid them on the table.
'Sergei and I are friends. We come from the same village outside Lvov. He used to work in a technical college teaching mechanics. He earned twenty-seven euros a month,' she said, looking down on the money that Falcón had given her so easily. 'I was earning seventeen euros a month. It wasn't so much a living as a slow death. Sergei came to see me one day, very excited. He'd heard from friends that Portugal was a good place to go to get into Europe, that in Europe you could earn twenty-seven euros a day. We went to the embassy in Warsaw to get our visas and that's where we met the mafia. They got us our visas, they arranged transport. You paid in dollars - eight hundred each. We already knew about the rumours that the mafia were big in Lisbon. We had heard that they take you off the bus, beat you and put the young women into prostitution and the men into slave labour until they've paid off a never-ending debt. So we decided that we would not go to Lisbon. The bus stopped at a service station outside Madrid. I met a Russian girl there in the toilets. She told me not to go to Lisbon and gave me a cigarette. She introduced me to a Spanish man who said he could get me work in a restaurant in Madrid. I asked if he could get Sergei some work and he said that he could wash dishes, no problem. They pay six hundred euros a month. We left the bus.'
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