The Blind Man of Seville

by Robert Wilson

  Falcón reached the patio just as the fixed-line phone rang again. He went back, snatched the receiver to his ear. Silence.

  ‘Diga.’

  ‘What do you think of Ramón Salgado now, Tío Javier?’

  ‘Hola, Sergio,’ he said, the only thing that broke through the adrenalin burst.

  ‘Don’t call me that.’

  ‘Then don’t call me uncle,’ said Javier.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question about your old friend’s Hieronymous Bosch collection … the perfect place to keep them, wasn’t it?’

  ‘They were obscene, but, you know, we have laws in this country against child abuse and we have appropriate and severe punishment for offenders. You don’t have to …’

  ‘I see where you’re going now, Inspector Jefe. Raúl’s liking for young girls and Ramón’s for tortured boys … very interesting.’

  ‘And Eduardo Carvajal.’

  Silence.

  ‘Stop the killing, Sergio,’ said Falcón. ‘You don’t have to do this any more.’

  ‘I haven’t killed any one,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had to.’

  ‘How’s your thumb?’ asked Falcón, and the phone went dead.

  He clenched the receiver to his head. He’d lost him. All the questions and strategies arrived in his head seconds late. He slammed the phone down and went to meet Lobo.

  As he walked up Calle Pedro del Toro he thought about the quality of that silence when he’d said the name Eduardo Carvajal. It was the silence of someone who’d never heard the name before and he knew that he was heading into another dead end.

  The Plaza de Armas had been Seville’s main station but had now been converted into housing for aimless people to wander about the shops, cafés and fast-food bars located there. Lobo was sitting on his own at a table close to the old entrance. He had two cups of coffee in front of him and he was wearing a coat that was too heavy for the weather.

  ‘You look worn out, Inspector Jefe,’ said Lobo.

  ‘I’ve just been talking to our killer.’

  ‘Is he still enjoying himself?’

  ‘I wasn’t ready for him after all the calls I’ve had this morning,’ said Falcón. ‘He confused me by calling me “uncle” and I didn’t even have the presence of mind to ask him how he’d got my number.’

  ‘Which number?’

  ‘My father’s old number … he never gave it out.’

  ‘Perhaps he found it in Ramón Salgado’s house.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  Falcón briefed him on the calls. Lobo played the edge of the table with his fingers.

  ‘He sounded surprised at the connection you’d made,’ said Lobo.

  ‘I admit, it’s unnerved me.’

  ‘And no news from Sra Jiménez on the relationship between her husband and Carvajal, except to become furious at the implication,’ said Lobo. ‘What are you going to do now, Inspector Jefe?’

  ‘I think I’ll still send the computer down to Vice, there may be a link to Carvajal via the material.’

  ‘The reason we’re here may have something to do with this,’ said Lobo. ‘The name MCA Consultores has come back to me from a different source. There’s been a leak. Have you spoken to anybody?’

  ‘I mentioned some of the directors’ names to Sra Jiménez, but not the company,’ said Falcón. ‘And when I saw the nature of the material on Salgado’s computer I decided to tell Juez Calderón about my new theory, which involved mentioning MCA to him.’

  ‘Then that is our leak,’ said Lobo. ‘That is how it got back to Comisario León, which is very interesting.’

  ‘Would Juez Calderón have told Dr Spinola or Fiscal Jefe Bellido?’

  ‘How do you think Juez Calderón became a judge before his thirty-sixth birthday?’ asked Lobo.

  ‘He seems very capable.’

  ‘He is, but his father is also married to Dr Spinola’s youngest sister. They are family.’

  ‘So how did MCA come back to you?’ asked Falcón.

  ‘We are all at the mercy of our secretaries,’ said Lobo.

  ‘And how will this affect my investigation?’

  ‘Whatever happens, we will be getting an indication of the level of guilt,’ said Lobo.

  26

  Saturday, 21st April 2001, Salgado’s gallery, Calle Zaragoza, Seville

  The gallery was open but empty. Upstairs Ramírez and Greta were sitting next to each other going through the lists of artists that she’d given him the day before. She was looking down and speaking. He was admiring the top of her head. They jerked apart as Falcón reached the top of the stairs and he was sure he heard the snap of sexual elastic. He asked Greta if she would leave them to talk for a moment.

  ‘We’ve drawn blood,’ said Falcón, which got Ramírez’s attention.

  ‘In Salgado’s house?’

  ‘On the floor and in his mouth.’

  ‘In his mouth?’

  ‘Salgado bit Sergio when he was stuffing the socks back in his mouth.’

  Ramírez sat back and smiled with his arms open wide.

  ‘All we’ve got to do now is find him,’ he said. ‘Still, at least Juez Calderón will be happy to know that, when we do, he’s got a case.’

  ‘Work with Greta …’

  ‘It’s been a pleasure.’

  ‘Develop a list of all artists who’ve used film or video in their works with addresses in either Seville or Madrid.’

  ‘Madrid?’

  ‘He posted us something from Madrid. He might still have an address there.’

  ‘What age group are we looking at?’

  ‘Take it up to forty-five just to be safe … as long as they’re fit and healthy,’ said Falcón. ‘Do you know anybody in Vice who would look through that material on Salgado’s computer and give us an opinion on where it’s come from?’

  Ramírez nodded, always a man who built up favours. They ran through Sergio’s profile just to be sure. Falcón turned at the stairs as he was leaving.

  ‘If Greta knows anybody on that shortlist who has had any kind of French education, or spent time in France or North Africa, highlight them.’

  Falcón stepped over the police tape at Salgado’s house and let himself in. The house was empty and, devoid of the activity of the crime scene, lifeless. There wasn’t even any sadness. There was just the sterility of a man of borrowed tastes. The walls had been repainted downstairs. There was no bric-a-brac, no photographs, no clutter. The furniture was all clean lines. Only one painting hung in the living room, an almost colourless acrylic abstract. In the study, in the middle of the bookcase, was the only photograph on display — Francisco Falcón and Ramón Salgado, arms around each other, smiling.

  He went upstairs to the room at the top, which gave out on to the small roof terrace, where they believed Sergio had got in. Felipe and Jorge had left the room exactly as they’d found it. Even the key to the door was still on the floor where it had originally been. He blinked at it and called Felipe on his mobile and asked him where he’d left the key.

  ‘We put it back in the door rather than risk having it kicked about on the floor,’ he said.

  ‘In that case … he’s been back,’ said Falcón.

  ‘Where was the key?’

  ‘On the floor by the door where we first found it,’ said Falcón. ‘Why would anyone come back to the scene of the crime, Felipe?’

  ‘Because they’d left something there?’ said Felipe.

  ‘That means he’s lost something,’ said Falcón, and a high palm in the neighbouring garden swayed in the breeze and rattled its leaves. The hairs came up on Falcón’s neck and he listened hard. He wouldn’t still be here? Not in daylight. He began a slow methodical search of the house. It was empty. He went back to the room where Salgado’s body had been found. He stood in front of the desk and replayed the scene in his imagination.

  Salgado came round as Sergio was stuffing the socks back into his mouth. He bit him. Sergio retaliated by hitting him three times in
the face. Then he pulled back, holding his wounded thumb or forefinger. Where would he go? The kitchen was the nearest place. He went to the sink where he tore off the latex glove and washed the wound. He was probably in a panic and still bleeding with nothing to cover the cut, no plasters around here.

  Kitchen roll. He’d have torn off a piece of kitchen roll, covered the wound and gone up to the bathroom. He’d be rattled by now, his nerve not quite as solid as it had been before. He might have been angry, too. He’d have wanted to finish the thing and get out as fast as possible. So he’d go back to Salgado, set up the terrible contraption, make his phone call and watch him die. Then he’d leave, fast.

  Why did he call this morning? Was he worried? When did he end the call? When I asked him about his thumb. Did that give him the answer? It must have done. He knew that I didn’t know it had been his finger.

  Images shunted in Falcón’s brain. Reels of memory unspooled their secrets. His mother coming in to the bathroom to wash him in his bath, rub his back with soap. She was all ready to go out to a party. She took off her rings and set them in a seashell on the edge of the bath.

  Falcón went back to the sink in the kitchen. He understood it now. That was how Salgado hung on for three punches to the face. The ring was giving him purchase. He must have dragged the ring over the knuckle and when Sergio stripped off the torn glove it fell in the sink. Or did it? It was a stainless-steel sink. The noise of a metal ring hitting the sink, that would have drawn his attention — but if it went straight down the plug hole … He put his fingers to the hole. It had a rubber flap surrounding it. No noise. It would have gone straight down into the waste-disposal unit. He took out his pen torch. There was nothing visible in the hole. He called Felipe again and asked him about the sink, which the forensic admitted to giving only a visual inspection.

  There was an unused box of tools in a cupboard under the stairs. In forty minutes Falcón had disconnected the waste-disposal unit and removed it whole. He drove it round to the Jefatura. Felipe and Jorge were still working. They cracked open the unit’s housing and dismantled the grinders, which seemed to be jammed. They scraped out all the vegetable matter on to a sheet of glass and Jorge teased it all apart and there it was: one silver ring, mangled.

  ‘He must have tried to get it out,’ said Felipe. ‘Failed, decided to mangle it and that seized up the unit. Then he’d have had to face stripping it down, so he left it.’

  ‘Can you straighten it out, see what it looks like?’ said Falcón.

  Felipe set to work and almost immediately asked Jorge to go back to the vegetable matter in the waste unit. He’d found evidence of a setting, which meant that a stone must be missing.

  ‘The odd thing about this,’ said Felipe, ‘is that I’m sure that this was a woman’s ring originally. Look —’

  He had the ring under a microscope and when Falcón looked down it he pointed to the band of the ring.

  ‘A different quality of silver has been used to enlarge it,’ said Felipe. ‘You can see where it’s been cut and the new metal inserted. It’s been well done. The only difference is in the colour of the silver.’

  ‘What do you know about silver?’

  Felipe shook his head. Jorge announced he’d found the stone. It was a small sapphire. They mounted the ring on some plasticine and laid the stone in its setting.

  ‘That is a woman’s ring, no doubt about it,’ said Felipe.

  ‘Why does a man wear a woman’s ring?’

  ‘A lover?’ said Felipe.

  ‘If a woman gave you a ring as a token, would you wear it? Would you go to the trouble of enlarging it and wearing it?’ asked Falcón.

  ‘Maybe not. You’d want to keep it whole and original,’ said Jorge.

  ‘I think this is more likely to have belonged to a woman who died,’ said Falcón. ‘This is an heirloom.’

  ‘But you still haven’t answered your question,’ said Felipe. ‘Why would a man wear a woman’s ring? It must have some significance.’

  ‘Ramírez wears a woman’s ring,’ said Jorge. ‘Ask him.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Haven’t you ever wondered why he wears that ring with the three little diamonds set in gold? I mean … especially Ramírez. So I asked him one night in a bar,’ said Jorge. ‘It was his grandmother’s ring. He didn’t have any sisters. He had it enlarged. He was very close to his grandmother.’

  ‘What does that tell us about Sergio?’

  ‘He didn’t have any sisters,’ said Jorge, and the forensics laughed.

  ‘Do we know anybody who can tell us about silver?’ asked Falcón.

  ‘We’ve used an old jeweller in town before. He’s retired now but he still has a workshop on the Plaza del Pan. I don’t know if you’ll find him there on a Saturday afternoon, though.’

  The workshop was shut and nobody in the neighbouring shops had a home address or telephone number. Falcón tried other jewellers, but they were either busy or incompetent. He went back to Calle Zaragoza and knocked on the gallery door this time, in case Ramírez had advanced things with Greta. The door was locked. The other shops around were shutting for lunch.

  He took out the evidence bag with the ring in it and something came back to him, fast moving, flashing like a jig in water to a fish’s eye. He lost it in the gloom and remembered his father saying that they were the ideas that were worth something, the ones that came up from the depths and disappeared. He put the bag back in his pocket. The woman locking the shop next door told him that Greta had probably gone to El Cairo for something to eat.

  Ramírez and Greta were there at the bar, eating tapas: squid and red peppers stuffed with hake. They sipped beer. Their knees were touching. Falcón showed Ramírez the ring. He took it and held it up to the light while Falcón briefed him on it.

  ‘He didn’t come back for it because it was valuable,’ said Ramírez. ‘Silver and a sapphire aren’t so expensive.’

  ‘It has to be significant,’ said Falcón. ‘That’s why he called me this morning. He needed to know if I’d found it.’

  ‘You think he was worried that we’d somehow understand the significance of it?’

  ‘There’s evident history to it. Just the fact that it’s a woman’s ring enlarged to fit a man’s finger gives it a story.’

  ‘But what is the story and how or why should we understand it?’

  ‘Remember the call when he told me he had a story to tell and I wouldn’t be able to stop him?’ said Falcón. ‘This is part of that story and I think we’ve got our hands on it too early. If we crack the story of the ring we will know too much about his work. It will point us to him in some way.’

  ‘But we don’t know it,’ said Ramírez, baffled by the importance that Falcón was attaching to this small piece of evidence.

  ‘But we will know it,’ said Falcón, backing away to the door. ‘We will find it out.’

  He stumbled out into the street, their two faces imprinted on his mind. Greta appeared concerned, Ramírez clearly thought him deranged.

  Back at the house on Calle Bailén he went straight up to the studio. He knew the rest of the house was empty of his father’s effects. Encarnación had dealt with everything in the weeks after his death. He opened up the shutters in the room and paced around the cluttered tables in the middle. He was working on the memory he’d had of his mother bathing him with her rings removed. Where was all her jewellery? Of course, Manuela would have it. He called her on his mobile. She said she’d never seen any of it. She’d been too small for jewellery when Mamá had died and later, when she’d asked her father where it had all gone, he confessed to having lost it in the move from Tangier.

  ‘Lost it?’ said Falcón. ‘You don’t lose your wife’s jewellery.’

  ‘You know how it was between him and me,’ said Manuela. ‘He was convinced that I was only interested in money so if I asked for things he would always make me grovel. Well, over mother’s jewellery, I didn’t give him the satisfaction. None
of it was that special as far as I remember.’

  ‘What do you remember of it?’

  ‘She liked rings and brooches but not bracelets or necklaces. She said they were the chains to enslave you. She never had her ears pierced either, so she only had clasp earrings. She didn’t like expensive stuff and, because she was dark, she preferred silver. I think the only gold ring she had was her wedding band,’ she said, as if she’d been expecting the question. ‘Why, little brother, do you need to know this on a Saturday afternoon?’

  ‘I need to remember something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If I knew that …’

  ‘I’m joking, Javier,’ she said. ‘You need to calm down. You’re taking your work too … personally. Get some distance from it, hijo. Paco told me you’d forgotten about lunch tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you coming as well?’

  ‘Yes, and I’m bringing Alejandro and his sister.’

  He tried to remember the details of Alejandro’s sister’s diet and hung up. He went into the storeroom where he’d discovered the journals and sorted through all the boxes. He found nothing. The only thing he came across that he hadn’t seen before was a roll of five canvases which, as he opened them up, released a small diagram that fell among the boxes. He laid the canvases out in the studio but didn’t recognize them. They weren’t his father’s work. Layers and layers of acrylic paint giving a luminous effect, as of moonlight scarfed by clouds. He rolled them up again.

  It was dark by now and he collapsed to the floor, realizing he’d forgotten to eat and forgotten to go to Salgado’s funeral. He sat against the wall, his hands dangling between his knees. He was becoming an obsessive. The mess of his father’s studio seemed to have got inside his head. His brain was as convoluted as a tangle of fishing line. He called Alicia and ran into her answering machine. He left no message.

  He pulled a book out of the bookcase and realized that there was considerable space behind. His obsession resurfaced. He worked his way up and down the shelves until behind the art books he found a wooden box he recognized from his mother’s dressing table. He even remembered his little fingers amongst the jewels, a treasure chest from an adventure book.