Death in Seville

by David Hewson

  He was pushing now, pushing to the far side of the street in any case, just because that seemed to be the right thing to do. The crush had slowed a little, it was easier to stay upright. It had been through the worst, probably, the wave had hit it as the crowd had funnelled into the narrow street, then the tremors had barrelled backwards and forwards through the mass of people, pushing them, shoving them, wherever it wanted.

  From behind he could hear the screaming, loud and terrified and persistent. He did not want to turn around and look.

  His feet hit the kerb, he stumbled, someone shoved his broad back from behind. His mind filled with a vivid, colourful picture. He was falling, falling forwards, hands outstretched, falling flat on the ground, ready to be trampled by the screaming masses behind. But then some automatic pilot took over. His legs caught up with him. His head jerked upright, the breath came streaming into his lungs, hot and painful. He looked up, saw it and found, in the midst of the throng, that he could still think.

  It was the kind of sign you still found outside old-fashioned ironmongers. A giant pair of scissors, maybe ten feet long, fashioned out of cast iron, black and ancient. The sign was set so that the blades were half-open. On the side of the wall, two great circles marked the handles. They disappeared into the brickwork through a fastening he couldn’t see. Maybe a couple of screws. Maybe something stronger. Torrillo didn’t give it a thought.

  He was close in to the edge of the street. He pushed out his right hand in a momentary gap between the bodies and felt the wall scrape the skin of his knuckles. He edged his way into the side. Now there was no one between the brickwork and him. Just the steady, insistent push of people from behind, the tramp of feet, from somewhere off the sound of crying.

  He slowed a little, just enough so that the bodies behind were pushing him a shade harder, so that there was a small gap between him and the shape in front. The huge ornamental scissors were silhouetted in the street lights. They seemed bigger than he first thought and he felt grateful: something that size would have to be secured properly into the wall.

  One chance, he said to himself, as the big shadow loomed overhead.

  Then he jumped, hands high above him, reaching, reaching, reaching.

  Torrillo’s strong fingers gripped the old, rusted metal of the lower blade, held on to the blunt edge. He could feel his legs hitting heads and shoulders in the crowd below, heard them cursing him, tried to pull himself up as quickly as he could to stop the catastrophe getting worse. The big iron sign moved slightly, with a tremor, on the wall as he struggled to get higher, there was the groan of ancient fixings starting to move. His muscles ached. His arms seemed about to be ripped from his shoulders.

  ‘Don’t fall,’ the big cop muttered to himself.

  His hands found the top of the lower circular handle. He jerked himself up higher, reached up and found the upper one. Now the pain was real. It shot down his arms, from the shoulder to the elbow, and maybe something – some sinew, some muscle – was damaged. Scrambling, he managed to get his feet onto the frame of the sign. It was holding. It would hold.

  The stream of people was still rushing beneath him. No one seemed to have fallen as a result of his efforts to get out of the crowd. He made himself secure, one great arm gripped around the ironwork, then tried to look round. The street looked like a battlefield as the fighting drew to a close. The great crush of the crowd was nearly past him. In a few seconds it would be safe to get down again. But in the wake of the floodtide bodies were strewn everywhere. Some moved, making low, soft moans. Others were still. Far off, close to the street entrance, Torrillo could make out a small pocket of white motionless on the ground. Choirboys, he thought, and the enormity of what had happened began to hover around the edge of his mind.

  Then he changed his position again, found a firmer footing, worked his way around to look back along the full length of the street. He was a good three yards off the ground. The moon had come out from behind a cloud. It cast a chill silver light on the scene. Torrillo was reminded of some picture he had once looked at in a gallery when he was a kid. Maybe it was Goya. Whatever it was, it had given him nightmares for weeks. This was what it came to, it said. This was where you ended up.

  He jerked his head further to the left and felt the tendons straining in his neck. By the door to Maria’s apartment the lane was clear. Apart from a single, dark figure waiting outside.

  Torrillo watched the neon lights play over the shape at the door, then gently let himself to the ground.

  From somewhere far off came the sound of a siren. An ambulance, Torrillo thought. Maybe the emergency button had worked. Even if it hadn’t, something this big would bring them running in any case.

  The vehicle came gently round the corner, wary of the bodies on the streets. Its headlights were the colour of milk. Torrillo followed them and there could be no doubt. The figure outside the apartment was wearing a scarlet penitent’s costume. And it was trying to open the door.

  Without thinking, the big man broke into a run.

  ‘Think,’ said Maria to herself. ‘Think!’

  She put down the phone and stepped back from the window. Then she pulled the dressing gown more tightly around her and knotted the belt firmly at the waist. Suddenly, the street erupted in noise. She looked down and saw the crowd, half-delirious, half-terrified, pouring into the narrow channel below in their hundreds. They formed an entire mass of humanity, an impassable wall of flesh moving, without pause, along its width.

  This was something new. Something he couldn’t have predicted. He was calling from a bar. The nearest was a good 200 yards away, the one that Torrillo had talked about. If he’d been there, then he just might have made it across the street in time. But there were any number of little bars in the neighbourhood. If he’d been anywhere else, the sudden rush of people would have stood between him and the apartment. If he was in that mob, there was no way he could stop. If he was behind, he would have to wait for the street to clear before he could move.

  She went into the kitchen, opened the pine drawer built into the sink unit and looked at what was in there. A medium-length cooking knife, new and shiny, stared up at her. She ran a finger gently along the edge. It was sharp. Sharp enough.

  With the knife tight in her right hand, she went back into the living room and thought about the layout of the apartment. There was no easy access front or back to the windows at first-floor level. No verandas, no overhanging ledges. He would need a ladder to get in that way. It was impossible. She walked into the bedroom, looked at the back window, then slammed it shut. Beyond the glass the night was black and impenetrable. She tried to remember what lay behind the apartment. A yard? Some small huts?

  It didn’t come. She dropped the knife, bent down to try the small chest of drawers by the bed. It was heavy. Straining, she managed to lift one end, then lever the rest onto the bed. She rolled it over, drawers spilling clothes onto the coverlet, rolled it again, then pushed it hard against the window. With some effort, she managed to tip it on end so that the length of the drawers sat upright, leaning against the frame at the top.

  It wouldn’t stop him, she thought. But it would hinder him. And by that time she would be out of the front door.

  She went back to the living room and looked out of the front window. The crowd was still coming into the street in a frenzied crush. Now every emotion had gone except fear and a growing sense of panic. She could see people falling over in the melee, watched the shockwaves of their bodies ripple through the rest of the heaving, shifting crowd.

  For a crazy moment she wondered: Could he have caused this? Is that possible?

  But it didn’t make any sense. Why call? It must have been as big a surprise to him as it was to any of them.

  There were people screaming, others trying to help them, only to find themselves swept away in the crush. She saw one man picked up by the crowd and dashed against the wall, falling senseless to the floor. The entire mass moved as one, shaking itself to pie
ces as it did so.

  She picked up the phone, banged the buttons until she wanted to cry. Still she could hear the sounds of the bar at the other end: pop music, maybe a TV, the sound of voices. The same as before. And if that was the case, the bar couldn’t be too close. The frenzy, the chaos on the street was loud, overwhelming. Even half a street away people there surely would have noticed.

  She looked at the apartment door and felt her heart sink. The lock was a simple one screwed flimsily to the woodwork. Even she could probably kick it off if she wanted to.

  Downstairs, she thought. If she could stop him there . . .

  She opened the apartment door and looked down the long staircase. It was pitch dark. She punched the time switch on the wall, saw the single bulb catch fire, listened to the ticking of the timer in the switch housing. How long did it last? She tried to remember. You hit it downstairs when you came in, you walked up the stairs listening to the rhythm. Just as you got the keys out, the light failed. When she first moved in she had to punch the top switch again and look for the lock. Now she could do it by touch, by memory.

  Maria pushed her fingernails deep into her palms. She could feel them digging in like spikes. She thought she might have drawn blood, but it didn’t matter. She had to check the front door. She had to convince herself it was secure.

  Holding the kitchen knife in front of her, she walked down the narrow, straight staircase, staring at the heavy wooden door at the end. Nothing moved there. There was nowhere he could hide. He was not in the apartment. If she could make sure the front door was double-locked from the inside, there was no way he could get in. And once she’d fixed the front door, she was going back upstairs, back into the living room, waiting for the crowd to subside, and then screaming out of the window until the cops came. Given the mess in the street, that wasn’t going to take long.

  Maria got to the bottom of the stairs, heard the sound of the top switch slowing down from behind her, looked to one side, then punched the lower timer. It started ticking like an overheated insect and she looked at the door.

  This was a real lock, built into the wood, big and brass and solid. She tried to remember what she’d been told when she moved in. You turned the key twice from the outside to activate the deadlock. From the inside, you pushed over the small brass latch button and it locked into place. Once you did that, it was secure. She was safe. Normally she never bothered. It didn’t seem necessary.

  She tucked the knife into her dressing-gown pocket, reached up and flicked the brass button. It moved half an inch to the right and clicked into some kind of socket. She took her fingers away and then watched, astonished, as it sprang back to its original position.

  ‘Shit,’ she said and pushed it over once more. She felt something hard and metallic grip the button on the inside, then again she felt it let go, let the whole thing slip back to where it was before. She held the button in place and tried to open the lock with the door latch. It stayed blocked. Then she let the button go back to the original position, the position it wanted to be in, and tried the latch again. It moved, so easily you could open it with a little finger. She peered closely at the shiny metal around the button. It was covered with scratches. The kind of scratches you got from a metal screwdriver.

  Automatically Maria pushed the button back and held it there. She couldn’t work out how this could be possible. The lock wasn’t broken. It had been fixed to be like this. He’d planned to come in this way, planned to get in through the front door. Was planning to do so now.

  She held it tightly in place with her right hand, felt for the pocket with her left, and pulled out the knife. And the thought hit her almost instantly. She couldn’t stand like this for long. It just wasn’t possible.

  A noise came to her, from behind, familiar, unremarkable. The sound of a timer winding down, the ticks dying away, one by one until the interval was half a second, then a second, then two.

  The light went out and she found herself in perfect darkness, feeling the cold sweat running down her forehead and stinging her eyes, naked under her flimsy night clothing.

  When it came it was a simple, practical decision, the kind she might make in a supermarket or on a motorway. She couldn’t see, not a single thing, and the darkness was becoming disorienting. She could feel her balance slipping as she lost her bearings inside the vast black pit that had become her world. If she didn’t move soon, now, she’d never reach the light switch at all. And he would come in, through the door, the blinding light of the street behind him, ready to strike.

  Maria wiped her forehead with the back of her left forearm, thought carefully about where the light switch was positioned in relation to the door, let go of the button and punched hard on the wall to her left. Her knuckles hit hard plaster and she could feel the tears of pain spring into her eyes. She stamped the wall again, and again. Still the switch eluded her and the more she tried, the more confused she became. Within moments she was on the floor, crying, trying to work out which way was left, which way was right, which way up, which down. The world had become an ocean of blackness, devoid of size, as big as the cosmos, as tiny as an atom. She cowered in it, blind and panting, hunched on the floor, making her eyes ache as she fought to distinguish a shape in the dark ahead.

  Briefly, yet it seemed as if it lasted forever, she was aware of herself, of everything about her, the blood that coursed through her veins, roared in her ears, the breath in her lungs, the spittle in her mouth. Everything seemed palpable and real, a small, extant piece in a complex whole.

  Then she heard nothing but silence. Even past the door, the street seemed quiet. The world paused, held its breath.

  Shrieking, as much from fury as from fear, she dropped the knife and began to hammer the wall with both hands, searching for the light, the magic she thought might disperse the darkness forever.

  The switch smashed underneath her fist. A sudden, swift, blinding radiance filled the narrow hallway and then she heard the sound – so familiar, so frightening – a key turning in a lock, the door opening slowly, steadily, behind her.

  Half-crouching on the floor, Maria turned round, looked up and saw the night obscured by redness.

  THIRTY-THREE

  ‘I knew this was a stupid idea,’ gasped Quemada. ‘Tempting fate. Why do they always wait till you have a beer in front of you? Then call . . . If only we’d picked somewhere nearer the station.’

  They were running, a solid half-trot, jackets flapping around their waists, down the darkened shopping arcade, aiming for the street at the end. From around the end of the street came the cacophony of an ambulance.

  ‘Jesus!’ grunted Velasco, out of breath. ‘Will you quit moaning? How was I to know?’

  The two men came to the end of the wide arcade, stopped, stood motionless, panting, hands on their waists, looking at the devastation. Looking at the bodies, some still, some moving. The air was filled with an uncanny, quiet moaning.

  ‘Good God,’ said Quemada. ‘Looks like a bomb went off. Did they say on the radio what it was?’

  ‘Some sort of crowd panic. That’s all.’

  There was the sound of more ambulances now, from the opposite end of the street.

  ‘I came bottom in first aid,’ said Quemada. ‘Let’s leave it to the medics.’

  ‘That’ll look real good.’

  ‘Well, let’s ask them what we can do. In situations like this, my feeling is you leave it to the experts.’

  ‘Yeah . . .’ said Velasco.

  But he was thinking about something else.

  ‘Say . . .’ He pointed down the narrow lane, to the opposite side of the pavement. ‘You see that?’

  Quemada followed the line of his finger. A huge figure was running along the pavement, faster than seemed possible for his bulk, arms pumping, head rolling like a charging steer.

  ‘That’s Bear,’ the detective muttered.

  Automatically he began moving, barely noticing that Velasco had resumed his ungainly jog behind him, watch
ful, wondering, sweat standing out on his forehead, the moisture clinging to his body.

  As he ran Quemada reached inside his jacket, undid the holster, then pulled out a .38 police pistol. Without thinking, Velasco did the same, and they ran on, slowly, steadily, towards the pool of light that had engulfed Torrillo.

  ‘You hear that?’ panted Quemada.

  ‘Yeah . . .’ said Velasco, and tightened his grip on the gun.

  As they got closer, they could hear the sound of someone screaming.

  Out of instinct more than thought she rolled to the left on the hard, dusty floor of the hallway.

  She heard a whistling noise fly past her head, heard something bang into the woodwork and thought: the dart. The first missed. It was light now, the bright, harsh light of a bare electric bulb too powerful for the job.

  ‘No!’ she screamed. ‘No!’

  She could feel his presence a few feet away, sense his confusion. When he came through the door and the light suddenly burst into life, she had this momentary vision of him, tall, erect, but shapeless. It was as if there was no face beneath the cowl, no form beneath the fabric. The redness, amorphous and malevolent, was everything, a creature in itself. Then the dart missed. The ritual failed, if only for a moment. He didn’t step forward and try to harm her in some other way. He stayed a good six feet distant and she saw him fumbling in the coat for something else. It came to her: he will not come close, he will not approach until he has wounded in some other way. There was a mechanism, an obsessive procedure, and he had to follow it.

  Until he found the next part of the process, the next step in her slaughter, she was safe, able to think about how to defend herself. The silver of the kitchen blade flashed on the dusty floor. She rolled again, turned 360 degrees across the dry, grey linoleum, turned face down again straight in front of the door, now only a stride away from him, the knife a few inches to her right. Her hand went out to grab it, fingers outstretched.