Calle Blanca Paloma. They walked past the van at 6 p.m. just as it had arrived. Two guys got out. They were talking in Arabic. They didn’t take anything out of the back. They went up to Calle Los Romeros and turned right.’
‘Descriptions?’
‘Both late twenties. One with a shaved head, black T-shirt. The other with more of a square head, with black hair, cut short at the sides and combed back on top. She said he was very good looking, but had bad teeth. He wore a faded denim jacket, white T-shirt, and she remembers he had very flashy trainers.’
‘Did she see the van move again from that position?’
‘She keeps an eye on this car park, looking out for when her husband comes home. She said it hadn’t moved by the time he came in at 9.15 p.m.’
The police were letting people through the cordon so that they could get back into their homes to start clearing up the damage. There was a large crowd gathered outside the chemist’s at the junction of Calle Blanca Paloma with Calle Los Romeros. They were angry with the police for not letting them back into any part of the block attached to the destroyed building, which was still too dangerous. Falcón tried talking to people in the crowd, but they couldn’t give a damn about Peugeot Partners.
Pneumatic drills started up on the other side of the block. Falcón and Ferrera crossed Calle Los Romeros to another apartment building, whose glass was more or less intact. The apartments on the first two floors were still empty. On the third floor a child led Falcón into a living room, where a woman was sweeping up glass around a pile of cardboard boxes. She had moved in at the weekend but the removal company hadn’t been able to deliver until yesterday. He asked his question about the white van and the two guys.
‘Do you think I’d be sitting on the balcony watching the traffic with all this lot to unpack?’ she said. ‘I’ve had to give up two days’ work because these people can’t deliver on time.’
‘Do you know who was in here before you?’
‘It was empty,’ she said. ‘Nobody had been living here for three months. The letting agency on Avenida San Lazaro said we were the first to see it.’
‘Was there anything left here when you first arrived?’ asked Falcón, looking out of the living-room balcony on to Calle Los Romeros and the rubble of the destroyed building.
‘There was no furniture, if that’s what you mean,’ she said. ‘There was a sack of rubbish in the kitchen.’
‘What sort of rubbish?’
‘People have been killed. Children have been killed,’ she said, aghast, pulling her own child to her side. ‘And you’re asking me what sort of rubbish I found here when I moved in?’
‘Police work can seem like a mysterious business,’ said Falcón. ‘If you can remember noticing anything it might help.’
‘As it happens, I had to tie the bag up and throw it out, so I know that it was a pizza carton, a couple of beer cans, some cigarette butts, ash and empty packets and a newspaper, the ABC, I think. Anything else?’
‘That’s very good, because now we know that, although this place was empty for three months, somebody had been here, spending quite some time in this apartment, and that could be interesting for us.’
He crossed the landing to the apartment opposite. A woman in her sixties lived there.
‘Your new neighbour has just told me that her apartment had been empty for the last three months,’ he said.
‘Not quite empty,’ she said. ‘When the previous family moved out, about four months ago, some very smart businessmen came round, on maybe three or four occasions. Then, about three months ago, a small van turned up and unloaded a bed, two chairs and a table. Nothing else. After that, young men would turn up in pairs, and spend three or four hours at a time during the day, doing God knows what. They never spent the night there, but from dawn until dusk there was always someone in that apartment.’
‘Did the same guys come back again, or were they different every time?’
‘I think there might have been as many as twenty.’
‘Did they bring anything with them?’
‘Briefcases, newspapers, groceries.’
‘Did you ever talk to them?’
‘Of course. I asked them what they were doing and they just said that they were having meetings,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t that worried. They didn’t look like druggies. They didn’t play loud music or have parties; in fact, quite the opposite.’
‘Did their routine change over the months?’
‘Nobody came during Semana Santa and the Feria.’
‘Did you ever see inside the apartment when they were there?’
‘In the beginning I offered them something to eat, but they always very politely refused. They never let me inside.’
‘And they never let on about what these meetings were about?’
‘They were such straight, conservative young men, I thought they might be a religious group.’
‘What happened when they left?’
‘One day a van arrived and took away the furniture and that was it.’
‘When was that?’
‘Last Friday…the second of June.’
Falcón called Ferrera and told her to keep at it while he went to talk to the letting agency down the street on Avenida de San Lazaro.
The woman in the letting agency had been responsible for selling the property three months ago and renting it out at the end of last week. It had not been bought by a private buyer but a computer company called Informáticalidad. All her dealings were through the Financial Director, Pedro Plata.
Falcón took down the address. Ramírez called him as he was walking back up Calle Los Romeros towards the bombed building.
‘Comisario Elvira has just told me that the Madrid police have picked up Mohammed Soumaya at his shop. He lent the van to his nephew. He was surprised to hear that it was in Seville. His nephew had told him he was just going to use it for some local deliveries,’ said Ramírez. ‘They’re following up on the nephew now. His name is Trabelsi Amar.’
‘Are they sending us shots of him?’
‘We’ve asked for them,’ said Ramírez. ‘By the way, they’ve just installed an Arabic speaker in the Jefatura, after receiving more than a dozen calls from our friends across the water. They all say the same thing and the translation is: “We will not rest until Andalucía is back in the bosom of Islam.”’
‘Have you ever heard of a company called Informáticalidad?’ asked Falcón.
‘Never,’ said Ramírez, totally uninterested. ‘There’s one last bit of news for you. They’ve identified the explosive found in the back of the Peugeot Partner. It’s called cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine.’
