'I've known him for years and I've never seen him incapable… never.'
'Maybe he's different when he's on his own.'
'So what have you done about it?' said Consuelo, the testy Madrilena trying to keep her shrillness down in front of the more relaxed style of the local policeman.
'An ambulance was dispatched as soon as you made your call and now the Inspector Jefe del Grupo de Homicidios has been notified.'
'One moment he's drunk and the next he's been murdered.'
'There's a body lying on the floor,' said the patrolman, annoyed with her now. 'He's not moving and he's not responding to noise. I have -'
'Don't you think you should try and get in there and see if he's still alive? He's not moving or responding but he might still be breathing.'
Indecision flitted across the patrolman's face. He was saved by the arrival of the ambulance. Between them the paramedics and the patrolman found that the house was completely sealed back and front. More cars arrived outside the front of the house.
Inspector Jefe Javier Falcón had finished his breakfast and was sitting in his study in the centre of his enormous, inherited eighteenth-century house in Seville's old city. He was finishing his coffee and looking at the manual to a digital camera he'd bought a week ago. The glass door of the study opened on to the patio. The thick walls and traditional design of the house meant that air conditioning was rarely needed. Water trickled in the marble fountain without distracting him. His powers of concentration had come back to him after a turbulent year in his personal life. His mobile vibrated on the desk. He sighed as he answered it. This was the time for dead bodies to be discovered. He walked out into the cloister around the patio and leant against one the pillars supporting the gallery above. He listened to the blunt facts stripped of any tragedy and went back into his study. He wrote down an address – Santa Clara – it didn't sound like a place where anything bad could happen.
He put the mobile in the pocket of his chinos, picked up his car keys and went to open up the colossal wooden doors to his house. He drove his Seat out between the orange trees flanking the entrance and went back to close the doors.
The air conditioning blasted into his chest. He set off down the narrow cobbled streets and broke out into the Plaza del Museo de Bellas Artes with its high trees surrounded by white and ochre facades and the terracotta brick of the museum. He came out of the old city heading for the river and cut right on to Avenida del Torneo. The vague outlines of Calatrava's 'Harp' bridge were visible in the distance through the morning's haze. He swung away from it and into the new city, grinding through the streets and buildings around the Santa Justa station. He headed out past the endless high-rise blocks of the Avenida de Kansas City thinking about the exclusive barrio where he was heading.
The Garden City of Santa Clara had been planned by the Americans to quarter their officers after the Strategic Air Command base was established near Seville, following Franco's signing of the Defense Pact of 1953. Some of the bungalows retained their 1950s aspect, others had been Hispanicized and a few, owned by the wealthy, had been torn down and rebuilt from scratch into palatial mansions. As far as Falcón remembered none of these changes had quite managed to rid the area of a pervasive unreality. It was to do with the houses being on their individual plots of land, together but isolated, which was not a Spanish phenomenon but rather like a suburban American estate. It was also, unlike the rest of Seville, almost eerily quiet.
Falcón parked in the shade of some overhanging greenery outside the modern house on Calle Frey Francisco de Pareja. Despite the terracotta brick facade and some ornate touches, it had the solidity of a fortress. He forced his foot not to falter at the first man he saw as he walked through the gate: Juez de Guardia Esteban Calderón, the duty judge. He hadn't worked with Calderón for over a year but that history was still fresh. They shook hands, clapped each other on the shoulder. He was astonished to find that the woman standing next to the judge was Consuelo Jiménez, who was a part of that same history. She was different from the middle-class woman he'd met the year before when he'd investigated her husband's murder. Her hair was now loose and with a more modern cut and she wore less make-up and jewellery. He couldn't understand what she was doing here.
The paramedics went back to their ambulance and pulled out a stretcher on a trolley. Falcón shook hands with the Médico Forense and the judge's secretary while Calderón asked the patrolman if there was any evidence of breaking and entering. The patrolman gave his report.
Consuelo Jiménez was fascinated by the new Javier Falcón. The Inspector Jefe was not wearing his trademark suit. He wore chinos and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just below the elbows. He looked younger with his grey hair cut very short, a uniform length all over. Perhaps it was his seasonal style but she didn't think so. Falcón was feeling the weight of her interest. He disguised his unease by introducing another of his officers, Sub-Inspector Perez. There was a moment of nervous confusion in which Perez moved off.
'You're wondering what I'm doing here,' she said. 'I live across the street. I discovered the… I was with the gardener when he discovered Sr Vega lying on the kitchen floor.'
'But I thought you bought a house in Heliopolis?'
'Well, technically, it was Raúl who bought the house in Heliopolis… before he died,' she said. 'He wanted to be near his beloved Bétis stadium and I have no interest in football.'
'And how long have you been living here?'
'Nearly a year.'
'And you discovered the body'
'The gardener did, and we don't know that he's dead yet.'
'Does anybody keep a spare set of keys?'
'I doubt it,' she said.
'I'd better take a look at the body,' said Falcón.
Sr Vega was lying on his back. His dressing gown and pyjamas had come off his shoulders and were constricting his arms. His chest was bare and there seemed to be abrasions on the pectorals and abdomen. He had scratch marks at his throat. The man's face was pale and looked hard, the lips were grey and yellowish.
Falcón went back to Juez Calderón and the Médico Forense.
'He looks dead to me, but perhaps you'd like to take a look before we break down one of the doors,' he said. 'Do we know where his wife is?'
Consuelo explained the situation again.
'I think we have to go in,' said Falcón.
'You might have a job on your hands,' said Sra Jiménez. 'Lucia had new windows put in before last winter. They're double glazed with bulletproof glass. And that front door, if it's properly locked, you'd be better off going through solid wall.'
'You know this house?'
A woman appeared in the driveway. She was difficult to miss because she had red hair, green eyes and skin so white it was painful to look at in the brutality of the sunlight.
'Hola, Consuelo,' she said, homing in on her amongst all the official faces.
'Hola, Maddy,' said Consuelo, who introduced her to everybody as Madeleine Krugman, Sra Vega's next- door neighbour.
'Is there something wrong with Lucia or Rafael? I saw the ambulance. Can I do anything?'
All eyes were on Madeleine Krugman, and not just because she spoke Spanish with an American accent. She was tall and slender with a full bust, an unstarved bottom and the innate ability to give dull men extravagant imaginations. Only Falcón and Calderón had sufficient testosterone control to be able to look her in the eye, and that required concentration. Consuelo's nostrils flared with irritation.
'We need to get into this house very urgently, Sra Krugman,' said Calderón. 'Do you have a set of keys?'
'I don't, but… what's the matter with Rafael and Lucia?'
'Rafael's lying on the kitchen floor not moving,' said Consuelo. 'We don't know about Lucia.'
Madeleine Krugman's short intake of breath revealed a straight line of white teeth broken only by two sharp incisors. For a fraction of a second the invisible plates in the lithosphere of her face seemed to spasm.