The Blind Man of Seville

by Robert Wilson

  ‘Do we know where this house is?’ asked Calderón.

  ‘Yes, we do,’ said Falcón. ‘It’s my house … my late father’s house. Salgado was my father’s agent.’

  ‘If your father is dead,’ said Calderón, stopping the film, ‘why was Salgado …?’

  ‘He was always trying to get access to my father’s old studio. He had his reasons, which he never told me.’

  ‘Were you ever in when he called?’ asked Ramírez.

  ‘Sometimes. I never answered the door. I didn’t like Ramón Salgado. He bored me and I avoided him whenever possible.’

  Calderón restarted the movie. Salgado appeared at the intersection of a street. Above his head was a sign to the Hotel París and Falcón knew that he was standing on Calle Bailén looking in the direction of the house. Salgado set off. The camera followed him as he weaved through people bustling in the streets. Salgado was following somebody else. It was only as they came up to Marqués de Paradas that they could see that he was pursuing Falcón himself. They watched him go into the Café San Bernardo, which had an entrance on Calle Julio César. Salgado took the entrance on Marqués de Paradas and a ‘chance’ meeting ensued. The camera even came into the café, sat down and watched them talking at the bar. The barman set down a café solo for Falcón and a larger cup and saucer for Salgado. He returned with a steel jug of hot milk. Falcón recoiled as it was poured into Salgado’s cup.

  ‘What was all that about?’ asked Ramírez. ‘Did he say something to you?’

  ‘He’s always asking the same thing. “Can I just have a look in your father’s …”’

  ‘But why did you step back as if …?’

  ‘That’s nothing, I just don’t like milk. It’s an allergy or something.’

  ‘Now we’re at the cemetery,’ said Calderón.

  ‘This is the Jiménez funeral,’ said Ramírez. ‘That’s me by the cypress filming the mourners.’

  The film showed Falcón and Salgado in conversation and then it stopped abruptly. Calderón sat back.

  ‘Sergio seems to think that you are Salgado’s only family, Inspector Jefe,’ said Calderón.

  ‘Salgado had a sister,’ said Falcón. ‘He’d just installed her in a home in Madrid.’

  ‘Was there anything different about that last meeting after the funeral?’ asked Calderón.

  ‘He offered me information on Raúl Jiménez in exchange for access to the studio. He also said he didn’t want anything from the studio but just to spend some time in there. I’d always thought he wanted to put on a final Francisco Falcón show, but he insisted that that was not the case. He made it sound as if it was something nostalgic’

  ‘What sort of information?’

  ‘He knew Raúl Jiménez and his wife. He implied that he knew who the man’s enemies were. He said that he picked up privileged information from the moneyed clients who frequented his gallery. He implied that he could point me in the right direction, towards people who had trusted Raúl Jiménez and been let down by him. We also covered such topics as the cleaning of black pesetas before the new euro currency comes in, how the restaurant business created black pesetas and how property and art were good havens for them. He was making everything sound full of promise, but I know Ramón Salgado …’

  ‘And you have no idea what he wanted from your father’s studio?’ asked Calderón.

  ‘Possibly there’s a skeleton buried in all that paper,’ said Falcón, ‘but I doubt I will ever find it.’

  ‘How well did Salgado know Consuelo Jiménez?’

  ‘I know for certain that he introduced her to my father and that she bought paintings from him on three occasions. I am also convinced that Consuelo Jiménez knew Ramón Salgado from the Madrid art world and that it might even have been Salgado who introduced her to Raúl Jiménez at the Feria de Abril in 1989. She has not been clear about her relationship with Ramón Salgado from the beginning. This could be just her protecting her privacy — she really does not like our intrusions — or it could be that Salgado did know things about Raúl Jiménez and she wanted to keep us away from him. She referred to “a friend of her husband’s from the Tangier days”, who I am sure is Salgado. This would mean that the two men had known each other for over forty years.’

  There’s a motive in there somewhere, isn’t there?’ said Calderón.

  ‘She’s had Salgado done as well,’ said Ramírez. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions yet, Inspector,’ said Calderón. ‘It’s something worth pursuing, that’s all. We should look at this sight lesson now.’

  Ramírez took the card out of the evidence bag. There were two names written on the reverse side. Francisco Falcón and H. Bosch.

  ‘The card was tucked under the keyboard of the computer,’ said Falcón. ‘They could be access codes to files.’

  Calderón double-clicked on the hard-disk icon and a box appeared demanding an access code. He typed in Francisco Falcón. The hard disk opened up to reveal twenty folders with nothing unusual about their names — Letters, Clients, Accounts, Expenses … They clicked them all open but only ‘Drawings’ demanded another access code. They typed in H. Bosch and it opened up another series of files. Calderón opened a file at random. It contained hundreds of photographs, each initialled and dated.

  ‘I hope we don’t have to go through Salgado’s entire collection of drawings to find what Sergio wants us to find,’ said Calderón.

  Falcón scrolled down the list to the bottom.

  ‘Those last five are movies,’ said Calderón.

  ‘Maybe the photographs aren’t so innocent,’ said Ramírez.

  ‘They could be for insurance purposes,’ said Falcón.

  Ramírez grabbed the mouse and double-clicked on the movie icon. The men flinched at the opening image of the movie which was framed by a small screen. It was of a boy tied face down on an old-fashioned leather gym horse. His face although slack and glazed over from drugs, still showed the worm of fear.

  ‘We don’t need to see any more of this,’ said Falcón.

  ‘Check one of the photographs,’ said Calderón. ‘All these files could be disguised.’

  Ramírez opened one up. They all flinched again and gasped in disgust. That was enough for them and they shut the computer down.

  ‘We’d better let Vice take a look at this,’ said Falcón.

  ‘And where does this take us?’ said Calderón. ‘Why did Sergio draw our attention to that?’

  ‘It was a sight lesson,’ said Falcón. ‘He was just showing us the true nature of the man. If before you thought that Ramón Salgado was an elderly, lonely, wealthy, well-connected, respectable director of a prestigious gallery in Seville, then now you think differently.’

  ‘I think it’s a blind alley,’ said Ramírez. ‘It’s just another way to send us off on the wrong track. It’s no coincidence that Sra Jiménez is intimately connected to both victims.’

  ‘There was a third victim as well,’ said Falcón.

  ‘You know what I mean, Inspector Jefe,’ said Ramírez. ‘The puta was an unfortunate casualty and another way to confuse our investigation as well as use up our time. Consuelo Jiménez had all the information to set up her husband and, by the sound of it, Ramón Salgado, too. I still think we should take her down to the Jefatura and put her under some real pressure.’

  ‘Before we even think about bringing her in for questioning I would suggest that we search this house from top to bottom and send a team round to the gallery on Calle Zaragoza,’ said Falcón. ‘To take her on you need ammunition.’

  ‘And what are we looking for, Inspector Jefe?’ asked Ramírez.

  ‘We’re looking for an ugly connection between Consuelo Jiménez and Ramón Salgado,’ said Falcón. ‘So, leave Fernández interviewing the neighbours here and take Serrano and Baena with you up to the top of the house and start working your way down behind Felipe and Jorge.’

  Ramírez left the room. Falcón closed the door behind h
im, went back to Calderón sitting at the desk.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you in private for a moment,’ said Falcón.

  ‘Look, er … Don Jav—, Inspector Jefe,’ said Calderón, unprepared for this moment, the private and the official clashing in his mind. ‘I don’t know what happened last night. I don’t know what Inés said to you. I know, of course, that you … but she told me that it was finished, that you were divorced. I think you have to … I don’t know … I mean … What were you doing there last night?’

  Falcón was rooted to the spot. The morning had been so full that he hadn’t even thought about Inés. What he’d wanted to talk about in private was MCA Consultores S.A. and nothing to do with his private life. He stared into the floor, desperate for a time collapse that would bring him round a week later on another case with a different judge. It didn’t come and he found himself in one of those titanic struggles of the sort he watched suspects go through on their way to confession. He wanted to say something. He wanted to somehow address the complexity of his recent experience, to show that he, like Calderón, was capable of overcoming this embarrassing situation, but all he came up against was an immense entanglement. Falcón sensed himself in retreat. He fingered the buttons on his jacket as if to make sure they were well fastened.

  ‘It had not been my intention to talk about that at this juncture,’ he said, appalled at the pomposity and restraint in his words. ‘My only concerns are professional.’

  He hated himself instantly and Calderón’s dislike of him hit him like a bad stink. He’d been given a civilized opportunity to come to an understanding and he’d shown it the cold heel of one of his laced-up shoes and now it was irretrievable.

  ‘What was it that you had on your mind, Inspector Jefe?’ said Calderón, crossing his legs with glacial calm.

  Everything had gone to ashes in that instant. Falcón had failed on the human level with Calderón and it had tarnished his professional credibility. He sensed that there would be resistance to his ideas and perhaps worse: the man’s antipathy would turn against him. Calderón would never be an ally and any ideas that Falcón put to him might be furnishing an enemy with the means to destroy him. But he couldn’t help himself and he realized that it wasn’t his professionalism that made him tell Calderón about MCA Consultores S.A., it was his failure. It was because of the ridiculous and illogical thought that the young judge might now be able to agree with Inés and say: ‘Yes, Javier Falcón has got no heart.’

  24

  Friday, 20th April 2001, Ramón Salgado’s House, El Porvenir, Seville

  Calderón took notes as Falcón spoke. At the end he lit a cigarette while Falcón looked out on to Salgado’s abundant garden.

  ‘Is this what you came to talk to me about yesterday?’ asked Calderón.

  ‘I think you’ll agree there are some sensitive points to this theory,’ said Falcón. ‘And when I saw Dr Spinola coming out …’

  ‘Dr Spinola was not on that list of directors,’ said Calderón sharply.

  ‘He was in Raúl Jiménez’s celebrity photographs. There’s a tenuous connection. It had to be thought about,’ said Falcón, sensing Calderón’s resistance, and his own pathetic need to side with him. ‘You will also notice that the proof of Raúl Jiménez being involved in child abuse is circumstantial and weak. I only mentioned it because of the convicted paedophile ring in which Carvajal was involved and what we have discovered here today.’

  ‘So, do you think we’re looking for an abused boy and do you think Consuelo Jiménez is involved?’ asked Calderón.

  ‘Sergio is male. He was somehow able to make a connection with Eloisa Gómez, possibly through empathy … as another forastero. I have not read Carvajal’s case notes so I don’t know what his predilections were, but Salgado seemed to be interested in boys and Jiménez in girls.’

  ‘In that case Sergio is either acting alone as an avenger of the abused or, quite possibly, he’s having his targets pointed out to him,’ said Calderón.

  ‘Consuelo Jiménez loves her children. Admittedly, they are all boys but if she found any pornography in her husband’s collection which was in any way related to child abuse, I am sure she would not tolerate it. She knew Ramón Salgado …’

  ‘But how could she possibly know this about him?’ said Calderón, tapping the computer.

  ‘That, I don’t know. I am only theorizing about her capability, not proving her involvement,’ said Falcón. ‘She has been evasive about all her husband’s business affairs. When I demonstrated some knowledge to her about MCA Consultores she wouldn’t speak without her lawyer present. She is a determined woman and although she says she abhors violence she did strike Basilio Lucena hard enough to draw blood. She is intelligent and calculating. In her defence it’s possible she knew nothing about MCA and was just being cautious. She has also offered to find out about her husband’s relationship with Carvajal.’

  ‘It’s flimsy, Inspector Jefe. As you said earlier, she could just be protecting her privacy, as well as her inheritance and that of her children. She struck Lucena, but that was under extreme provocation, given the dangers of his promiscuity. Intelligence and calculation are prerequisites for success in business.’

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ said Falcón, loathing the obsequiousness that had crept into his own voice. ‘Are we agreed that the murders are connected, Juez? I mean we’re not looking at a series of random acts. This is multiple murder but not serial killing.’

  Calderón pinched the cartilage of his ear and stared through the glass desktop.

  ‘The punishment that Sergio has meted out to his two primary victims is consistent with what you’d expect of somebody who’d suffered sexual abuse,’ said Calderón. ‘The victims are clearly targeted and there is a link in that they knew each other. I agree with you that Sergio forces them to confront their deepest horrors. The removal of the eyelids and the subsequent mutilation both victims inflicted on themselves would indicate this. The question is: how does Sergio know these things? This is not available information. This is profoundly personal stuff. It is secret history. How does Sergio get inside people’s heads?’

  Falcón told him about the local policeman’s burglary investigation.

  ‘Well, if he did spend the weekend here that would suggest that he’d already targeted Salgado, perhaps he even knew this man’s particular horror and he was just looking for the means to bring it back to him.’

  ‘He’s obsessed with film,’ said Falcón. ‘He sees it like memory.’

  ‘You know how it is … films and dreams. People are always getting those words muddled up,’ said Calderón. ‘It’s understandable. The enclosed darkness of the cinema, the images. It’s not so different to what you’d see in your sleep.’

  ‘We talked about his creativity before,’ said Falcón. ‘He is doing what every artist wants to do. He gets inside people’s heads and makes them see things differently or, in fact, he makes them see what they already know but in a different light. And he has to be creative about it because people don’t hold records of their horrors, do they?’

  They bury them,’ said Calderón.

  ‘Maybe this is the nature of evil,’ said Falcón. ‘The genius of evil.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Because it’s beyond our imagination.’

  Calderón turned in his seat to the four Falcón nudes.

  ‘Fortunately there are other types of genius,’ he said. ‘To balance out the evil ones.’

  ‘In my father’s case, I think he wished he’d never had it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he lost it,’ said Falcón. ‘If he’d never had it … he wouldn’t have gone through the rest of his life with that sense of loss.’

  Falcón drifted back to the window as the personal reentered their dialogue. He wondered if he could do it now — salvage the situation. If he could talk about his father in this way, why not Inés? Why not bare his neck to this man? There was a knock at the
door. Fernández put his head in.

  ‘Inspector Ramírez has found a trunk up in the attic,’ he said. ‘The lock’s been sawn through and the dust on the surface has been disturbed. Felipe is looking at it for prints.’

  They got the trunk down to the landing after Felipe had declared it clean. It was heavy. They opened it up and parted the brown paper covering the contents — books and old catalogues, copies of a magazine called the Tangier-Riviera, manila envelopes packed thick with photographs. Slotted down the sides were four reels of magnetic tape of the sort used on the old reel-to-reel tape recorders. There was a single can of film but no camera or projection equipment. There was a diary whose first entry was on 2nd April 1966 and which ran out after twenty pages with a final entry on 3rd July 1968.

  Calderón left for a meeting when he saw that the trunk offered no fast solutions. They fixed a meeting for midday on Monday. As Calderón left the house he was confronted by four journalists who were too well informed to be ignored. He held an impromptu press conference in which one of the journalists said that the media was dubbing the killer El Ciego de Sevilla. To which he automatically replied that there was no logic in calling the killer the blind man when, in fact, he was just the opposite.

  ‘So you can confirm that the killer cuts the eyelids off his victims?’ asked the journalist, and the press conference was prematurely terminated.

  Falcón and Ramírez split the workload. Ramírez was happy to take Fernández down to the gallery on Calle Zaragoza when he heard that Salgado had a blonde, blue-eyed secretary called Greta. Baena and Serrano continued the search of the house with Felipe and Jorge while the trunk was taken down to the study and the contents laid out on the desk. A further search of the attic uncovered no camera or projection equipment, but there was an old reel-to-reel tape recorder which Felipe managed to get working.

  The diary seemed the obvious place to start but was very badly kept up. The first entry showed why Salgado had started it. He was happy. He was getting married to a woman called Carmen Blázquez. Falcón, who’d never known that Salgado had had a wife, grunted as he read the words — Salgado already proud, pompous and unctuous at the age of thirty-three. ‘Francisco Falcón has done me the great honour of agreeing to be my testigo. His genius will make the occasion one of the talked-about events of the Seville social calendar.’ It was no wonder he hadn’t kept up the entries. The man had nothing to say. The only time he was moving was when he talked about his new wife. Then, all the artifice was stripped away and he wrote in unembellished prose. ‘I love Carmen more with every day that passes.’ ‘She is a good person, which makes her sound dull but it is her goodness which affects everyone who meets her. As Francisco says: “She makes me forget the uglinesses of my life. When I’m in her company I feel as if I have only ever been a good man.”’