The Ignorance of Blood by Robert Wilson Read Free Book Online

judge, and our strongest performer in front of the media, arrested for the murder of his wife,’ said Falcón. ‘Losing you pretty well derailed the whole process. If your disgrace was planned, then Marisa was crucial to its execution.’
‘I'll speak to her,’ said Calderón, nodding, his face hardening.
‘You won't,’ said Falcón. ‘We've stopped her visits. You're too desperate, Esteban. I don't want you to give anythingaway. What you've got to do is unlock your mind and see if you can find any detail that might help me. And it might be advisable to get a professional in to do that for you.’
‘Ah!’ said Calderón, getting it finally. ‘The shrink.’

4
Puti Club, Estepona, Costa del Sol – Friday, 15th September 2006, 14.35 hrs
Leonid Revnik was still sitting at Vasili Lukyanov's desk in the club, but this time he was waiting for news from Viktor Belenki, his second-in-command. When Revnik had taken control of the Costa del Sol after the police had mounted Operation Wasp in 2005, he'd got Belenki to run the construction businesses through which they laundered most of the proceeds of their drugs and prostitution trade. Belenki had just the right veneer of the good-looking, successful businessman and he spoke fluent Spanish, too. The veneer, though, was only an expensive suit thick, as Viktor Belenki was a violent brute with access to a rage so incandescent that even Revnik's most psychopathic henchmen were afraid of him. Belenki could also be very friendly and extremely generous, especially if you jumped when he told you to. This meant that he had developed good contacts in the Guardia Civil, some of whom had thick wads of Belenki's euros hidden in their garages. Leonid Revnik was hoping that Belenki could tell him where the money and disks that Lukyanov had stolen from the puti club safe had ended up.He was on his third cigar of the day. The empty safe was still gaping. The air-con was on the blink and he was uncomfortably hot. The mobile on the desk rang.
‘Viktor,’ said Revnik.
‘It's taken some time to get this information because it's out of the normal area of my guy's jurisdiction,’ said Belenki. ‘The Guardia Civil who went to the scene of the accident came from a town outside Seville called Utrera. When they found the money they called the police headquarters in Seville and, because it was clear that this wasn't just any old guy who'd died in a car accident, they went to the top for instructions: Comisario Elvira.’
‘Shit,’ said Revnik.
‘And he put it in the hands of Inspector Jefe Javier Falcón. Remember him?’
‘Everybody remembers him from the bombing in June,’ said Revnik. ‘So where's it all gone?’
‘It's in the Jefatura in Seville.’
‘Have we still got somebody in there?’
‘That's how I know where everything is.’
‘Right, so how do we get it out?’
‘You can say goodbye to the money,’ said Belenki. ‘Once the forensics have been over it, they'll stick it in the bank – unless you want to hold up a Prosegur van.’
‘I don't give a fuck about the money. I mean, I do, but … you're right. The disks, they're a different matter,’ said Revnik. ‘What can we get on Falcón?’
‘You're not going to be able to buy him, that's for sure.’
‘So what else?’
‘There's always the woman,’ said Belenki. ‘Consuelo Jiménez.’
‘Ah, yes, the woman,’ said Revnik.
At the traffic lights Falcón searched his eyes in the rear-view mirror, trying to find the evidence of obsession Calderónhad seen there. He didn't really need to look at the tell-tale blackberry smudges; he knew from the slight gaucherie in his left hand, and that feeling of wearing someone else's right leg, that what was cradled in his mind was beginning to have physical manifestations.
Work had sat on Falcón's shoulders like an overweight, badly packed rucksack, and it never slipped off, not even at night. In the mornings he opened an eye, his face crushed hard into the pillow after snatching