The Ignorance of Blood (37 page)

‘And it's much closer to the amount of money that he knows I can raise,’ said Consuelo. ‘Which is why I'm thinking: why did Donstov release the pressure on me?’

‘This doesn't feel like a release to me. If anything, he's racked it up. He's making us act quicker. He's given us less time to plan.’

‘What about this: when I told him that another group had claimed they were holding Darío, it made him suspect that we'd formed the sort of relationship we have.’

‘So, he gets us to speed up,’ said Falcón. ‘And, at the same time, he confirms that we still believe him and haven't fallen for the other side's bluff.’

They arrived at the petrol station where they'd been told to wait, Falcon filled up and extracted a couple of
café solos
from the machine, took them back to the car. They parked in front of the neighbouring
hostal.
He changed his shirt. They stared out into the dark and sipped coffee.

‘If we get through this I'm never going to the Costa del Sol ever again in my life,’ said Consuelo.

‘Nothing's changed in the Costa del Sol for the last forty years. Why withdraw your custom now?’

‘Because it's only now that I've faced up to what these
people have being doing,’ said Consuelo. ‘Almost every apartment building, every development, every golf course, marina, fun park, casino – every source of recreation for visiting tourists is built on the profit from human misery. Hundreds of thousands of girls being forced to work in the
puti clubs.
Hundreds of thousands of addicts sticking themselves with needles. Hundreds of thousands of brainless, decadent fools snorting white powder up their noses so that they can dance and fuck all night long. And that's not counting any of the migrants, who are washed up dead on the glorious beaches. It makes me sick and I'm not going to do it any more. I'm not going to do it any fucking more.’

She jabbed her heel down in the footwell with each vehement syllable. Falcón reached out to calm her down and it was then that the mobile rang. She grabbed it off the dashboard. The irritating sound of an SMS arriving filled the car.

Donstov's man sending a text.

‘They're telling us to go north, direction Mérida.’

Falcón pulled away from the
hostal
with a squeal from the tyres and crossed the hot road, turning left.

‘Do you think our friends can “hear” a text?’ asked Consuelo, nervous, sneaking a glance at Falcón's impassive face.

‘Technology is not my strong point,’ he said, suppressing a sense of the complete madness of what they were doing. ‘We have to believe that they know their work.’

After ten kilometres they were told to leave the main road north and, following endless instructions from texts sent on the mobile, they drove down narrow rough roads with patched tarmac, through small villages with just a couple of street lights, up hills with deep blackness on either side while the smell of the rock rose, the stone pines cooling, the wild herbs and the dry earth wafted through the half-open windows. Consuelo writhed in her seat, staring out of the front and side, checking the rear-view mirror.

‘If Revnik's men were following us and we could see
them, they'd be visible to Donstov's people, too,’ said Falcón. ‘So keep calm, Consuelo. Look ahead.’

‘Where the hell are we?’

The tyres rumbled over the roads. A sign. Castelblanco de los Arroyos. Turn left. Darkness again.

‘How long have we been driving?’ she asked.

‘Forty minutes.’

She rested a hand on his forearm.

‘There's nothing out there. There's nobody with us. There can't be anybody in this blackness. They'd see any headlights coming from kilometres away,’ she said, losing heart. ‘We're going to have to prolong this thing as much as we can.’

‘It'll take time for them to go through the disks,’ said Falcón.

The mobile rang, this time it was a call. Donstov's man.

‘You'll see a sign to the Embalse de la Cala on the left. Take it, and tell me when you get there.’

Four minutes.

‘We're here.’

‘Take the second track on the right.’

They came off the tarmac on to a dirt road.

‘Hand-painted sign:
Granja de las Once Higeras.
Follow it.’

They followed the signs through the tall grasses and low, wide-spread holm oaks. It went on for kilometres until they came through an open gate to a single-storey house. The headlights brushed over the whitewashed walls, the shuttered and barred windows, the door with red paint peeling off it.

‘Put the car in the barn,’ said the voice. ‘Leave the keys in the ignition. Come out with your hands up … hold the disks on your head. Stand in front of the garage, legs apart.’

In the barn was a yellow rusting digger. Consuelo felt the warmth of its engine radiating towards her.

She and Javier stood a few metres from the back of the car, hands on heads. Two men in baseball caps, indiscernible behind their torch beams, approached the car. They had kerchiefs pulled up over their faces. One went into the garage
while the other gave Falcón a thorough pat-down, put a sleeping mask over his eyes. He heard the boot pop open and, a few seconds later, close. The man came out of the garage, closed the doors. The second man moved over to Consuelo, crouched down behind her. She should have worn trousers. He started at her ankles, pen torch in his mouth.

‘You can see I'm not hiding anything down there,’ she said.

No response. The hands went up her skirt. She gritted her teeth as fingers and thumbs reached up to her crotch, over her buttocks, came back down again. Small of the back, stomach, cupped her breasts, a little grunt at her shoulder. He slipped a sleeping mask over her eyes, too.

‘Come with me,’ he said, and took Consuelo's arm.

The other man took care of Falcón. They headed for the low farmhouse. Their heads were pushed down as they entered the low doorway.

‘Sit.’

They were pressed down into chairs. The one doing the talking was the Cuban they'd spoken to on the phone. Falcón had the small box of disks on his lap now. He did not like the sleeping mask, had not been prepared for it.

‘I don't know how I'm going to be able to see my son with this thing on,’ said Consuelo, ‘so I'm taking it off.’

‘Wait!’ said the Cuban.

‘Careful, Consuelo,’ said Falcón.

‘I'm not doing this blindfolded,’ she said and ripped off the mask.

Falcón removed his as well, just so that the men in the room had too much to do at once, made them indecisive. Two of the Russians already had kerchiefs over their faces, the other two pulled down balaclavas with eye and mouth holes. One of these men stepped forward with a handgun, which he put to Consuelo's forehead. His hand trembled slightly, but with rage rather than fear. He had his finger on the trigger and the safety was off. Consuelo's eyeballs shivered,
her neck tensed and ducked into her shoulder as she felt the barrel touch her skin. The Cuban spoke in Russian. There was a brutal exchange and the man stepped back.

‘If you want to stay alive to see your son then you have to do as you're told,’ said the Cuban. ‘These men do not care one way or the other whether you survive this or not. To them, killing you would be no more trouble than lighting a cigarette.’

The Cuban came round to stand in front of them. He was the only one of the men in the room who was not physically intimidating. He had spectacles above his kerchief.

‘Do not do anything of your own accord. If I ask you to do something, move slowly. Most important: keep calm.’

The four Russians ranged behind him were all heavily built and Falcón knew, just by looking at them, that his fist, even if delivered with maximum force, would make no impression. They had the solidity of labourers. There was nothing gym-built about their physiques, even though two of them were wearing track suits with no vests underneath so that chest hair sprouted out over the zips. Their muscle looked as if it had been generated over decades of not just giving, but also taking, punishment. They all wore heavy gold watches on thick wrists and had messily tattooed hands that looked hardened by the breaking of facial bones.

‘Are we going to meet Señor Donstov?’ asked Falcón.

‘He will arrive in due course,’ said the Cuban. ‘First, we must take a look at the disks.’

‘Before you do anything, I want to see my son.’

‘You will see your son as soon as we have established that these disks are genuine,’ said the Cuban. ‘You can understand that.’

The Cuban pulled out one of the four raffia-seated chairs, sat at the table and opened a laptop. Falcón handed over the disks. There was a room behind where the Cuban was sitting, door closed, and another room behind the four Russians, who were all now smoking. There was no electricity. The room
was lit by an assortment of gas and kerosene lamps, which gave off a harsh white and oily yellow light under the wooden roof. The floor was of unglazed clay tiles, some light and smooth, others dark and roughened from saltpetre coming through. The walls were thick and had not seen whitewash for a few years so that they were flaking and the tiles below were powdered white.

The Cuban worked his way through the twenty-five disks, making notes on a pad as he went. He had the volume turned down so there were no accompanying grunts and groans as he played through the footage, fast-forwarding, playing, fast-forwarding again.

‘What's going to happen here?’ asked Falcón, who'd taken in every detail of the Russians, including the fact that they kept themselves completely separate from their captives. He couldn't put his finger on the meaning of this distance, but he knew it made him feel uneasy.

‘Patience, Inspector Jefe,’ said the Cuban. ‘All will be revealed in due course.’

‘My son isn't here, is he?’ said Consuelo, hysteria rising in her voice. ‘There's something that's telling me he's not in this place. Where is he? What have you done with him?’

‘Your maternal instinct is wrong. He is here,’ said the Cuban, looking at the room beyond where the Russians were standing. ‘He's under sedation. We had to give him a small injection. You can't keep a boy like that still or quiet.’

‘Let me see him then. You've got what you want. You're going through all those disks but you know you've got it all.’

‘I'm just doing what I've been told to do,’ said the Cuban. ‘If I deviate from my orders things will go wrong.’

‘I'm going to see him,’ said Consuelo, and she was up and off her chair and across the room.

The Russians threw down their cigarettes. The one closest to the door drew his gun from behind his back. Two closed in on her. She battered at them with her fists, kicked with
her feet. They were impervious, didn't even close their eyes to her swatting or so much as wince with annoyance. The Cuban spoke in Russian. They picked her up off the floor. Her legs flailed. They brought her back across the room, thumped her in the chair. One raised his terrible hand to her. The Cuban spoke again in Russian.

‘I'm asking them to be gentle with you,’ he said, in Spanish now. ‘If he slapped you, I doubt you'd wake up before next week, or he might just accidentally break your neck. They don't know their own strength, these people.’

‘I don't like this,’ she said, fear in her eyes for the first time and not for her own skin. ‘I don't like this at all.’

‘The only reason you're upset is that you are trying to fight against it,’ said the Cuban. ‘I know it's difficult, but just relax.’

‘Then tell us what's going to happen,’ said Falcón. ‘She'll calm down if you tell her how you're going to proceed.’

‘I will check the disks. I'm more than halfway through them now,’ said the Cuban. ‘When I am satisfied, I will make a call and Señor Donstov will arrive to pick them up. At that moment you will be able to see your son before he is taken away by Señor Donstov. Your son will then remain with him until you comply with the rest of the agreement. Is that all right?’

Falcón and Consuelo exchanged a look. Her head, without the slightest shake, told him that it was
not
all right. That this was all very, very wrong. The Cuban glanced up from the screen. He knew what he had on his hands. He'd been in this situation before. He knew there was nothing a human being intuited better than the approach of their own demise. He knew how all the killing had been done in the world's civil wars; people from the same village killing each other, people who'd known each other and their families since birth killing each other. What they did was herd them together, stick them in pens and thereby diminish their humanity, so that they became nothing more than sheep to be slaughtered. The Cuban saw the same realization dawning on Falcón,
who'd been looking at the Russians, trying to understand them, what they were doing over there. Now Falcón understood their separateness; the distance was so that the slaughtermen didn't smell the sweetness of their humanity and the animal caught no presentiment of the blade.

‘Why are you doing this?’ asked Falcón.