ate facing the door in a strange state of expectancy.
After eating he did something that he hadn't done for a long time. He picked up a bottle of whisky and a tumbler of ice and went to his study. He'd installed a grey velvet chaise longue he'd moved down from one of the upstairs rooms. He lay down on it with a good measure of whisky in the glass, which he rested on his chest. He was exhausted by the day's events but sleep, for many reasons, was a long way off. Falcón drank the whisky more methodically than he approached any of his investigations. He knew what he was doing – it takes some purpose to blot out damage. By the bottom of the third glass he'd worked over Mario Vega's new childhood and Sebastián Ortega's difficult life with a famous father. Now it was Inés's turn. But he was lucky. His body wasn't used to this level of alcohol and he quietly passed out with his cheek on the soft grey pelt of the chaise longue.
Chapter 7
Thursday, 25th July 2002
The heat did not back off during the night. By the time Falcón arrived at the Jefatura at 7.30 a.m. the street temperature was 36°C and the atmosphere as oppressive as an old regime. The short walk from his car to the office with a hangover like a hatchet buried in his head left him gasping, with odd flashes of light going off behind his eyes.
At one of the desks in the outer office he was surprised to find Inspector Ramírez already at work, two thick fingers poised over the computer keyboard. Falcón had always doubted that he and Ramírez would ever be friends since he'd taken the job that Ramírez had thought should have been his. But he'd been getting on better with his number two in the last four months since he'd started full-time work again. While Falcón had been suspended from duty due to depressive illness, Ramírez had seized the opportunity for command with both hands, only to find that he didn't like it. Its pressures did not suit his personality. Not only did he lack the necessary creative streak to launch a new investigation, but he could be explosive and divisive. In January Falcón had returned to part-time work. By March he had been reinstated as Inspector Jefe full time and Ramírez had been grateful. These developments had reduced the tension within the squad. They now rarely used each other's ranks in addressing each other in private.
'My God,' said Ramírez, 'what happened to you?'
'Buenos dias, José Luis. It was a bad day for children, yesterday,' said Falcón. 'I got friendly with the whisky again. How did it go at the hospital?'
Ramírez stared up from the desk and Javier had the vertiginous experience of teetering over two dark, empty lift shafts which led directly to this man's pain and intolerable uncertainty.
'I haven't slept,' said Ramírez. 'I've been to early- morning Mass for the first time in thirty years and I've confessed my sins. I've prayed harder than I've ever done in my life – but it doesn't work like that, does it?
This
is my penance. I must watch the sufferings of the innocent.'
He breathed in and covered his cheeks with his hands.
'They're keeping her in for four days to conduct a series of tests,' he said. 'Some of these tests are for very serious conditions like lymphatic cancer and leukaemia. They have no idea what the problem is. She's thirteen years old, Javier, thirteen.'
Ramírez lit a cigarette and smoked with one arm across his chest as if he was holding himself together. He talked about the tests as if he'd already confirmed to himself that she had something serious and the terrible words of future treatment were creeping into his vocabulary – chemotherapy, nausea, hair loss, crashing immune system, risk of infection. Footage came to Falcón's lurid mind of huge-eyed children beneath the perfect domes of their fragile craniums.
His cigarette suddenly tasted foul to Ramírez, who crushed it out and spat the smoke into his lap as if it was responsible for his child's health. Falcón talked him down,
After eating he did something that he hadn't done for a long time. He picked up a bottle of whisky and a tumbler of ice and went to his study. He'd installed a grey velvet chaise longue he'd moved down from one of the upstairs rooms. He lay down on it with a good measure of whisky in the glass, which he rested on his chest. He was exhausted by the day's events but sleep, for many reasons, was a long way off. Falcón drank the whisky more methodically than he approached any of his investigations. He knew what he was doing – it takes some purpose to blot out damage. By the bottom of the third glass he'd worked over Mario Vega's new childhood and Sebastián Ortega's difficult life with a famous father. Now it was Inés's turn. But he was lucky. His body wasn't used to this level of alcohol and he quietly passed out with his cheek on the soft grey pelt of the chaise longue.
Chapter 7
Thursday, 25th July 2002
The heat did not back off during the night. By the time Falcón arrived at the Jefatura at 7.30 a.m. the street temperature was 36°C and the atmosphere as oppressive as an old regime. The short walk from his car to the office with a hangover like a hatchet buried in his head left him gasping, with odd flashes of light going off behind his eyes.
At one of the desks in the outer office he was surprised to find Inspector Ramírez already at work, two thick fingers poised over the computer keyboard. Falcón had always doubted that he and Ramírez would ever be friends since he'd taken the job that Ramírez had thought should have been his. But he'd been getting on better with his number two in the last four months since he'd started full-time work again. While Falcón had been suspended from duty due to depressive illness, Ramírez had seized the opportunity for command with both hands, only to find that he didn't like it. Its pressures did not suit his personality. Not only did he lack the necessary creative streak to launch a new investigation, but he could be explosive and divisive. In January Falcón had returned to part-time work. By March he had been reinstated as Inspector Jefe full time and Ramírez had been grateful. These developments had reduced the tension within the squad. They now rarely used each other's ranks in addressing each other in private.
'My God,' said Ramírez, 'what happened to you?'
'Buenos dias, José Luis. It was a bad day for children, yesterday,' said Falcón. 'I got friendly with the whisky again. How did it go at the hospital?'
Ramírez stared up from the desk and Javier had the vertiginous experience of teetering over two dark, empty lift shafts which led directly to this man's pain and intolerable uncertainty.
'I haven't slept,' said Ramírez. 'I've been to early- morning Mass for the first time in thirty years and I've confessed my sins. I've prayed harder than I've ever done in my life – but it doesn't work like that, does it?
This
is my penance. I must watch the sufferings of the innocent.'
He breathed in and covered his cheeks with his hands.
'They're keeping her in for four days to conduct a series of tests,' he said. 'Some of these tests are for very serious conditions like lymphatic cancer and leukaemia. They have no idea what the problem is. She's thirteen years old, Javier, thirteen.'
Ramírez lit a cigarette and smoked with one arm across his chest as if he was holding himself together. He talked about the tests as if he'd already confirmed to himself that she had something serious and the terrible words of future treatment were creeping into his vocabulary – chemotherapy, nausea, hair loss, crashing immune system, risk of infection. Footage came to Falcón's lurid mind of huge-eyed children beneath the perfect domes of their fragile craniums.
His cigarette suddenly tasted foul to Ramírez, who crushed it out and spat the smoke into his lap as if it was responsible for his child's health. Falcón talked him down,
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