Read Online The Ignorance of Blood by Robert Wilson - Free Book Online

assignation in the gradual process of their coming together.
‘Are you talking about tonight?’ asked Falcón.
‘Earlier.’
‘It sounds like you want me to catch the next possible train.’
‘That would be good,’ said Yacoub. ‘It's that important.’
‘I'll have to work up a plausible reason for…’
‘You're in the middle of an international investigation. There must be a hundred reasons for you to come to Madrid. Call me when you know which train you're on. I'll let you know where I'm going to be. And, Javier … don't tell anyone that you're coming to see me.’
It was strange how, even after all this time, there were still certain moments which demanded an immediate cigarette. He drove to the Santa Justa station, got caught in traffic and called Inspector Jefe Luis Zorrita, said he needed to talk to him about Marisa Moreno's evidence. Did he have some time this evening? Zorrita was surprised; the case was locked off. Falcón said he had other things to discuss as well. They arranged to meet as close to 7 p.m. as possible.
A thought came to him as he replayed Yacoub's conversation. He wondered if this ‘business and personal’ problem was related to Yacoub's homosexuality. Although Yacoub was a happily married man with two children, he had this other secret life which, to the radical Islamic GICM, would be unacceptable.
The traffic opened up. Falcón moved on, put a call through to his second-in-command, Inspector José Luis Ramírez, whose usual stolid pugnacity had given way to a mixture of anger and excitement after viewing the disks they'd found in Vasili Lukyanov's briefcase.
‘You won't believe this shit,’ he said. ‘A councillor with two girls at the same time. A town planner giving it to ateenager in the ass. A building inspector snorting cocaine off a black girl's tits. And that's the mild stuff. This will crack the Costa del Sol wide open, if it gets out.’
‘Don't let it. You know the rules. Only one computer in our department –’
‘Relax, Javier. It's all under control.’
‘I'm not coming back in today,’ said Falcón. ‘Am I going to see you tomorrow?’
‘Elvira's out. It's quiet here. I'll be here in the morning and I'll stay if you want me to, but I'd rather not.’
‘Let's see how it goes,’ said Falcón. ‘I hope you can have a nice weekend.’
‘Hold on a sec, the GRECO guy, Vicente Cortés, was in here earlier looking for you. He wanted to tell you that he's had a report about a Russian who was found up in the hills behind San Pedro de Alcántara, with a nine-millimetre bullet in the back of his head. Alexei Somebody. A big friend of the guy you found on the motorway with a steel rod through his heart. Mean anything?’
‘More to Cortés than to me,’ said Falcón, and hung up.
At the Santa Justa station, Falcón found that the next AVE to Madrid was at 16.30, which would put him there just in time for his meeting with Inspector Jefe Zorrita. He called Yacoub on a phone in the station, trying to work out when he could get back to Seville and whether it would still be possible to make it to Consuelo's for dinner. Wanting that. Needing that. Even though progress was slow.
‘See Zorrita,’ said Yacoub. ‘I'll let you know where to go afterwards.’
Falcón ate something unmemorable, drank a beer, sunk a café solo and boarded the train. He wanted to sleep but there was too much brain interference. A woman sitting opposite him was talking to her daughter on her mobile. She was getting remarried and her daughter wasn't happyabout it. Complicated lives, getting more complicated by the minute.
The prison governor called to say that Esteban Calderón had put in a request to see a psychologist.
The train slashed through the brown, parched plains of northern Andalucía.
Where had the rain gone?
‘He won't see the prison psychologist,’ said the governor. ‘He talks about this woman you know, but he can't remember her name.’
‘Alicia Aguado,’ said Falcón.
‘You're