to show the world what he was really like and draw some daily remorse from him until the damage faded. But he’d hit her under the arch of her ribs, kicked her in the side.
Her chest creaked as she found the motor memory to breathe again. She felt her husband’s hand at the back of her head, stroking. You see, he did love her. Now for the remorse and the tenderness. This was just another fling…But he wasn’t stroking her, he was reaching into her hair, he was sheafing it. His nails dug into her scalp. He shook her head as if she were a dog, caught by the scruff, and stood up from his crouch. She hadn’t found her feet and she hung from his hand. He dragged her from the kitchen, hauled her down the corridor and flung her at the bed. She bounced and rolled off to the side. Three strides and he was on her again. She scrambled under the bed.
It hadn’t worked out as she’d thought. His hand reached for her under the bed, grabbing at her nightdress. She flinched away from it. His face appeared, hideous with rage. He stood up. His feet moved off. She watched them, as if they were loaded weapons. They left the room. He swore and slammed the door. Her scalp burned. Her fear was overriding all other emotions. She couldn’t scream, she couldn’t cry.
Under the bed was good. There were childhood memories of safety, of observing in secrecy, but they couldn’t contain her confusion. Her brain lunged at what she wanted to be certainties, but they wouldn’t support her. Instead she found herself trying to accommodate his behaviour. She had proved his infidelity to him. She had humiliated him. He was angry because he felt guilty. That was natural. You lashed out at the one you loved. That was it, wasn’t it? He didn’t want to be whoring with that black bitch. He just couldn’t help himself. He was an alpha male, a virile, high-octane performer. She shouldn’t be so hard on him. She held on to her side and squeezed her eyes shut at a jab of pain in her kidney.
The door swung open, the feet came back into the room. His presence made her shrink. He took fresh socks and pants from the drawer and put them on. He stepped into a pair of trousers and took a crisp, white shirt, ironed by the laundry where he still sent his clothes. He shook it out and drove his arms into the sleeves, shot the cuffs. He whipped a crimson tie into a perfect knot. He was efficient, vigorous and precise. He rammed those brutal feet into a pair of shoes, threw on a jacket—his savagery now perfectly disguised.
‘I’m working late tonight,’ he said, his tone back to normal.
The apartment door clicked shut. Inés crawled out from under the bed and flopped against the wall. She sat with her legs splayed out, her hands helpless by her sides. The first sob jolted her away from the wall.
Seville—Tuesday, 6th June 2006, 06.30 hrs
Falcón came to in the profound darkness of his shuttered bedroom. He lay there in his private universe, contemplating last night’s events. After the disappointment at Consuelo’s restaurant the drink with Laura had gone better than expected. They’d agreed to see each other as friends. She was only a little offended that he was ending their affair with, as he’d told her, no other prospect in sight.
He showered and put on a dark suit and white shirt and folded a tie into his pocket. He had meetings planned all morning after he’d been to see the Médico Forense. It was a morning of shimmering brilliance, with not a cloud in the sky. The rain had cleansed the atmosphere of all that puzzling electricity.
A temperature gauge outside in the street told him it was 16°C while the radio warned that a great heat was about to descend on Seville and by evening they should expect temperatures in excess of 36°C.
The Forensic Institute was next to the Hospital de la Macarena behind the Andalucían Parliament, which itself looked across the road to the Basilica de la Macarena, just inside the old city walls. At 8.15 a.m. Falcón was early, but the Médico Forense had already arrived.
Dr Pintado had the file open on his desk and was reminding himself of the detail of the autopsy. They shook hands, sat down and he resumed his reading.
‘What I concentrated on in this case,’ he said, still scanning the pages, ‘apart from the cause of death, which was straightforward—he was poisoned with potassium cyanide—was giving you as much help as possible on the identification of the body.’
‘Potassium cyanide?’ said Falcón. ‘That’s not exactly in keeping with the ruthlessness of the post-mortem operations. Was it injected?’
‘No, ingested,’ said Pintado, other things on his mind. ‘The face…I might be able to help you with that, or rather I have a friend who is interested in helping. You remember I was telling you about a case I handled in Bilbao, where they made a facial model from a skull found in a shallow grave?’
‘It cost a fortune.’
‘That’s right, and you don’t get resources like that for any old murder.’
‘So how much does your friend cost?’
‘He’s free.’
‘And who is he?’
‘He’s a sort of sculptor, but he’s not that interested in the body, just faces.’
‘Would I have heard of him?’
‘No. He’s strictly amateur. His name is Miguel Covo. He’s seventy-four years old and retired,’ said Pintado. ‘But he’s been working with faces for nearly sixty years. He builds them out of clay, makes moulds for wax, and carves them out of stone, although that’s quite a recent development.’
‘What’s he proposing and why is it free?’
‘Well, he’s never done this kind of thing before, but he wants to try,’ said Pintado. ‘I let him take a plaster cast of the head last night.’
‘OK, so there’s no decision,’ said Falcón.
‘He’ll make up a half-dozen models, do some sketches and then start working up the face. He’ll paint it, too, and give it hair—real hair. His studio can give you the creeps, especially if he likes you and introduces you to his mother.’
‘I’ve always got on well with mothers.’
‘He keeps her in a cupboard,’ said Dr Pintado. ‘Just a model of her, I mean.’
‘It would be cruel to keep a woman in her nineties in a cupboard.’
‘She died when he was small, which was when his fascination with faces started. He wanted the photographs of her to be more real. So he recreated her. It was the only time he fashioned a body. She’s in that cupboard with real hair, make-up, her own clothes and shoes.’
‘So, he’s weird, too?’
‘Of course he is,’ said Pintado, ‘but likeably weird. You might not want to invite him to dinner with the Comisario and his wife, though.’
‘Why not?’ said Falcón. ‘It would make a change from the opera.’
‘Anyway, he’ll call you when he has something, but…not tomorrow.’
‘What else have you got?’
‘It’s
