The Blind Man of Seville by Robert Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

‘Having said he didn’t want children, he then completely doted on them and was incredibly, obsessively protective of them. He was security mad. He made sure they were picked up from school. They never walked around alone. They never even played unsupervised. And have you seen the front door to this flat? That was put in after the last one was born. There are six steel bolts within the body of the door, which by five turns of the key are driven into the wall. We don’t even have a door like that to the office and there’s a safe in there.’
    ‘Who normally locked the door at night?’
    ‘He did. Unless he was away and then he’d call me at one or two in the morning to make sure I’d done it.’
    ‘Would he have locked it if he was alone?’
    ‘I’m sure he would have. He was always going on about making it routine so that it would never be forgotten.’
    ‘Did you ever ask him about this unusually obsessive behaviour?’
    ‘I was touched he cared so much about the children.’
    Ramírez called him on his mobile. He’d finished with the removals men. It had taken some time to break them down, but they’d finally admitted that they went for lunch leaving the lifting gear in place because they had one more chest of drawers to bring down. They’d said that the gear wouldn’t work without the truck engine running, but the platform went up on rails, which was as good as a ladder. Once they’d brought the chest of drawers down nobody went back into the apartment. Falcón told him to join Fernández viewing the CCTV tapes with the conserje and hung up.
    ‘I’d like to talk about Basilio Lucena,’ he said.
    ‘There’s nothing to tell.’
    ‘Did you have any plans?’
    ‘Plans?’
    ‘Your husband was an old man. Didn’t it occur to you …?’
    ‘No, it didn’t … ever. Basilio and I have a nice time together. It involves some sex, of course, but it is not a great passion. We don’t love each other.’
    ‘I was thinking back to that duke’s son you mentioned earlier.’
    ‘That was different,’ she said. ‘I have no intention of developing my relationship with Basilio. In fact, I think this might even finish it.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘I should have thought that you, with a famous father, would know how the eyes of society will come down on me. There will be talk and malicious thinking not dissimilar to the suspicions that you are paid by the state to have. It will all be idle … but vicious, and I will protect my children from that.’
    ‘Is it you or your husband who has the enemies?’
    ‘I am perceived as undeserving, as a rider on my husband’s coat-tails, as someone who would have failed in life were it not for Raúl Jiménez. But they will see,’ she said, her jaw muscle tensing in her cheek. ‘They will see.’
    ‘Were you aware of the contents of your husband’s will?’
    ‘I never saw him sign one, but I knew of his intentions,’ she said. ‘Everything would be left to me and the children and there would be some provision made for his daughter, his hermandad and his favourite charity.’
    ‘What was that?’
    ‘Nuevo Futuro, and the particular part of it that interested him was Los Niños de la Calle.’
    ‘Street children?’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘People support charities for reasons. A wife dies of cancer, the husband puts money into cancer research.’
    ‘He said that he began contributing after a trip to Central America. He was very moved by the plight of children orphaned by the civil wars in those countries.’
    ‘Perhaps he himself was orphaned by the Civil War.’
    She shrugged. Falcón’s pen hovered over his notebook where the word putas was underscored.
    ‘And the prostitutes?’ he said, punching the word out into the room. ‘You haven’t seen the section of the video where your husband is filmed frequenting the Alameda. He could have afforded better in less dangerous surroundings. Why do you think …?’
    ‘Don’t ask me why men go to prostitutes,’ she