The Ignorance of Blood (36 page)

‘The voice was right,’ she said quietly. ‘We have no idea who we're dealing with. No rules. No code. No reason. It's like trying to negotiate more time from Death.’

‘And the voice wanted us to find that out for ourselves,’ said Falcón.

‘The voice is cruel,’ she said, ‘but not quite as cruel as the other voice.’

‘The other voice is speaking from a position of weakness.’

‘I'm talking about the voice inside my head,’ said Consuelo. ‘I am beyond reason, Javier. You cannot hear what we've just heard and stay reasonable. What chemicals those screams have released into my bloodstream, I do not know, but I am not the same. I have irrevocably changed in the space of quarter of an hour.’

‘Don't let it make up your mind.’

‘You're used to this, Javier.’

‘Nobody gets used to this,’ he said, thinking about Marisa Moreno, the grey foot in the black lake, the head on the wooden statue.

‘The only way to deal with a monster like Donstov,’ said Consuelo, fists clenched, knuckles white with rage, ‘is to set the dogs on him.’

‘And Darío?’

‘I can't think that he'd be in any more danger than he is now.’

They stood. She brushed herself down, sat on the edge of the desk.

‘I'll get hold of the disks,’ said Falcón.

She could see the damage it was doing him to go against the grain, but that he was willing. From her side there wasn't a scintilla of doubt.

‘You know that once we've taken this road there's no going back,’ said Falcón. ‘And there might be no
coming
back either. You've got two other sons to …’

‘Do you want me to sign a release form?’ she said, eyes locked on to his.

‘I'm not going to fail you, Consuelo,’ said Falcón. ‘I would corrupt myself. I would even hand over the money, if I had it. I would ruin my career. I'd let them drum me out of the force to spend the rest of my days in jail and ignominy, if I could be certain that Darío would come out of this all right.’

She held his face, kissed him.

‘So we call Revnik,’ said Falcón, righting the chair, sitting her down.

‘I'm sorry, Javier. I know what this is costing you,’ she said, and dialled the number, put the phone on loudspeaker with the dictaphone running.

‘Diga,’
said the voice.

‘We spoke to Yuri Donstov's people,’ said Consuelo.

‘And?’

‘He said I would have to raise the money myself.’

‘How long did he give you?’

‘A week.’

‘Interesting,’ said the voice. ‘He must be suffering. What about the disks?’

‘He wants them by midday, and he insisted on the originals.’

‘Of course, things can be cut out of copies,’ said the voice. ‘Did you speak to your son?’

‘When I asked for proof of my son's welfare, he responded by cutting off his toe.’

‘It was probably just a bit of theatre,’ said the voice.

‘You didn't hear the screams.’

‘Does this mean you would like us to act for you in this business?’

‘Some questions,’ said Consuelo. ‘Do you know where my son is being held?’

‘Not yet, but we have our people on the inside.’

‘And they don't know?’

‘Donstov is being very careful about who knows what. All we know is that the boy is not being held in Donstov's headquarters in Seville. Once we get inside, we will find the answer.’

‘What is the “small reward” you mentioned before?’ asked Consuelo.

‘The original disks.’

‘Wait,’ said Consuelo.

She put the call on hold, clicked off the loudspeaker, clenched her fists and rested her forehead on her wrists. The torment of impossible decisions.

‘I know that I'm being given three options,’ she said, before Falcón could get a word out. ‘The monstrous Donstov, the impenetrable Revnik, or the slow, indecisive forces of law and order. The first one is unacceptable. The third is precluded by the first because we have been given less than twelve hours. That means we have to go with the second option with all its unpredictabilities. We can agonize but it won't change anything.’

They looked at the phone. She hit the hold and loudspeaker buttons.

‘We'll bring the disks to you when you've made Darío safe,’ said Consuelo.

‘We would need the disks in advance,’ said the voice.

‘Unacceptable,’ said Consuelo.

‘Hold the line.’

The phone went dead.

‘They'll need the disks featuring the I4IT and Horizonte people prior to six p.m.,’ said Falcón. ‘Without them they can't affect whatever the deal is between the consortium and the mayor's office. Offer them a random selection of half the disks. See what they say.’

The voice came back.

‘Each disk is numbered in felt-tip pen from one to twenty-seven. We will accept half the disks, from one to eight and twenty-two to twenty-seven inclusive.’

‘When do you plan to act?’ asked Falcón.

‘Call this number again in fifteen minutes.’

The line went dead. They sat back, exhausted.

‘What's on the disks they've just asked for?’

Ramírez was in bed when Falcon called. He told him all he could remember was that the first unidentified guy was on the first disk and that the final two disks were ‘locked’, requiring a password and encryption software. The techies were working on it. He hung up.

Falcón and Consuelo mused about the nature of the valuable data locked up on the last two disks and lapsed into silence again – the tension so unbearable that talk was becoming an irritation. The restaurant noise reasserted itself like a subliminal tease, reminding them that this was the life they should be having.

Her mobile rang in her handbag.

‘It must be Donstov's people,’ she said, and took the call.

‘Any progress, Señora Jiménez?’

‘You'll have the disks by midday.’

‘So you've already been in contact with Inspector Jefe Falcón?’

‘He's here now.’

‘Señor Donstov would like to give you an incentive to act quickly,’ said the voice. ‘If you can bring us the disks before dawn today, Señor Donstov will release your son on receipt of just four million euros and you still have a week to raise the money.’

‘Will I be able to see my son?’

Falcón scribbled on the pad, shoved it in front of Consuelo.

‘Yes,’ said the voice.

‘You have to understand, too, that at such short notice we might not be able to supply
all
the disks. The last two
are in a different department, which the Inspector Jefe does not have access to.’

‘Hold.’

Consuelo tugged a tissue from a box on the desk, wiped the sweat from her eyes and face.

‘When can you get hold of the last two disks? Earliest time?’ asked the voice.

Falcón wrote on the pad, underlined an earlier question she hadn't yet asked.

‘Ten a.m.,’ said Consuelo. ‘And where shall we meet?’

‘Hold.’

They held for what seemed like an interminable amount of time. They didn't speak. Life was suspended. Consuelo imagined herself as a foetus with no concept of time, waiting to be born without even understanding that this was what waiting was.

‘Once you have the first twenty-five disks in your possession,’ said the voice, ‘you will make your way north of Seville on the road to Merida. There is a petrol station where the N433 branches off in the direction of the Sierra de Aracena and Portugal. You will wait for further instructions there.’

The car park was empty, the Jefatura dark and silent. The heat of the day still radiated from the tarmac as Falcón let himself into the back door of the building. He ran upstairs to his office, booted up all the computers, took the key to the evidence room and went back downstairs. He brought all the disks up to the Homicide squad's offices and started burning copies, five at a time, on all computers.

Reasoning that Donstov wouldn't know the difference between the original and a copy of any of the disks, he hunted down a black felt-tip pen. Time, having been unbearably stationary when he was with Consuelo, now raced past at an ungovernable speed. He found a pen in Elvira's secretary's office and sprinted back down to the Homicide department,
nearly lost his footing on the stairs, slowed himself down, didn't want to end up with a cracked skull, lying on the landing for the cleaners to find in the morning.

Thirty-five minutes later and he was on the fourth set of copies. Why wasn't technology faster? He numbered the disks. Sweat poured off him. No air-con and the night-time temperatures still in the thirties. There came a point when all he could do was wait. He swore horribly at the unconcerned computers. He gripped the arms of his chair, wondered what had happened to him. One moment he was drinking beers in the square outside Santa María La Blanca and the next he was going against everything he stood for, but with no gunman holding a barrel to his temple, no lunatic with a knife to his ribs, no fanatic with a bomb strapped to his waist. And yet hell seemed to be imminent. His mobile vibrated.

‘Where
are
you?’ asked Consuelo.

‘Nearly there.’

Final copies. He breathed down the stress. Got the numbers right with the felt-tip pen. Back down to the evidence room, put the originals back in the safe, locked it. Pocketed the evidence-room key. Ran out into the car park. Threw himself into the car, hands slick with sweat, slipping over the gear stick and steering wheel. He turned up the air-con. The cool blasted into his chest. He drove back into town, pulled up outside the restaurant. Consuelo tore open the door, got in. He pulled away.

‘What?’ he said to her questioning eyes.

‘What
have
you been doing?’ she asked. ‘You're soaked to the skin.’

‘There's a shirt in the back seat,’ he said. ‘Revnik. The voice. What did they tell us to do?’

‘They came back with a different plan,’ said Consuelo. ‘Fortunately the same as ours. They wanted us to offer Donstov the disks early. I told them it had already been done. They took it well. They're on the move.’

Falcón drove alongside the river, with the old Expo '92 site on the Isla de la Cartuja just across the water.

‘They
do
know that we've been sent to this petrol station precisely so that Donstov can make sure we're not being followed.’

‘Revnik's voice told me that he has two ex-KGB men working for him,’ said Consuelo. ‘And four years ago the Russian Interior Ministry disbanded a group called the SOBR, a special rapid-reaction unit. All these highly trained guys were suddenly out of a job on a small pension. Revnik has three of them working for him now.’

‘You had quite a conversation with the voice.’

‘He opened up when I told him you'd left to get the disks,’ said Consuelo. ‘I got a guided tour of the Russian mafia. You know, it's not so different to Seville. If you have friends in the right places, it all works.’

‘The town hall hasn't got round to killing people yet.’

‘But most of the Marbella town council are in jail for corruption.’

‘Did the voice tell you anything practical, like how they were going to follow us?’

‘He said they had “listening equipment”. With my mobile number they can pick up my signal and listen in,’ said Consuelo. ‘Doesn't it make you despair when you see such contempt for the forces of law and order?’

He didn't answer.

She squeezed his arm. Falcon turned left, crossed the river over Calatrava's harp bridge, headed away from the lights of the city, past the Olympic stadium and into the darkness.

Barely any traffic. The odd truck. The new motorway bypassing Las Pajanosas was smooth and empty. The lights studding the tarmac were an odd comfort, a show of someone's concern. Consuelo sat with her legs crossed at the ankle, hands in her lap playing with her rings. She had her head tilted back against the head-rest, eyes open,
drinking in the illuminated road. Occasionally she took a deep, quivering breath.

‘I can hear you thinking,’ said Falcon.

‘What is said and demanded in business negotiations is one thing,’ said Consuelo. ‘But there's always a subtext.’

‘You mean, why did the brutal Donstov suddenly become a reasonable human being half an hour later?’ asked Falcón.

‘Is there any significance to him getting those disks seven or eight hours earlier than he originally asked?’ said Consuelo. ‘Why have they halved their demand to four million euros? Why is he being weak?’

‘Maybe the money is much more important to Donstov than we realized,’ said Falcón. ‘Revnik's man thought so.’