The Hidden Assassins. Robert Thomas Wilson

truth,’ said Consuelo, with missionary zeal.

      ‘There’s the real truth, and the presentable truth,’ said Aguado. ‘They’re often quite close together, but for a few emotional details.’

      ‘You’ve got me wrong there, Doctor. I’m not like that. I’ve seen things, I’ve done things and I’ve faced up to them all.’

      ‘That is why you’re here.’

      ‘You’re calling me a liar and a coward. You’re telling me I don’t know who I am.’

      ‘I’m asking questions, and you’re doing your best to answer them.’

      ‘But you’ve just told me that what I’m saying and what you’re feeling in my pulse don’t match. Therefore, you are calling me a liar.’

      ‘I think we’ve had enough for today,’ said Aguado. ‘That’s a lot of ground to have covered in the first session. I’d like to see you again very soon. Is this a good time of day for you? The morning or late afternoon is probably the best time in the restaurant business.’

      ‘You think I’m coming back for any more of this shit?’ said Consuelo, heading for the door, swinging her bag over her shoulder. ‘Think again…blind bitch!’

      She slammed the door on the way out and nearly went over on her heel in the cobbled street. She got into her car, jammed the keys into the ignition, but didn’t start the engine. She hung on to the steering wheel, as if it was the only thing that would stop her falling off the edge of her sanity. She cried. She cried until it hurt in exactly the same place as it did when she was watching her children sleeping.

      Angel and Manuela were sitting out on the roof terrace in the early-morning sunshine, having breakfast. Manuela sat in a white towelling robe examining her toes. Angel blinked with irritation as he read one of his articles in the ABC.

      ‘They’ve cut a whole paragraph,’ said Angel. ‘Some stupid sub-editor is making my journalism look like the work of a fool.’

      ‘I can hear myself getting fat,’ said Manuela, barely thinking, her whole being consumed by the business that was to take place later that morning. ‘I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life in a tracksuit.’

      ‘I’m wasting my time,’ said Angel. ‘I’m just messing about, writing drivel for idiots. No wonder they cut it.’

      ‘I’m going to paint my nails,’ said Manuela. ‘What do you think? Pink or red? Or something wild to distract people from my bottom?’

      ‘That’s it,’ said Angel, tossing the newspaper across the terrace. ‘I’m finished with this shit.’

      And that was when they heard it: a distant, but significant, boom. They looked at each other, all immediate concerns gone from their minds. Manuela couldn’t stop herself from saying the obvious.

      ‘What the hell was that?’

      ‘That,’ said Angel, getting to his feet so suddenly that the chair collapsed beneath him, ‘was a large explosion.’

      ‘But where?’

      ‘The sound came from the north.’

      ‘Oh shit, Angel! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!’

      ‘What?’ said Angel, expecting to see her with red nail polish all over her foot.

      ‘It can’t possibly have slipped your mind already,’ said Manuela. ‘We’ve been up half the night talking about it. The two properties in the Plaza Moravia—which is north of where we’re standing now.’

      ‘It wasn’t that close,’ said Angel. ‘That was outside the city walls.’

      ‘That’s the thing about journalists,’ said Manuela, ‘they’re so used to having their fingers on the pulse that they think they know everything, even how far away an explosion is.’

      ‘I’d have said…Oh my God. Do you think that was in the Estación de Santa Justa?’

      ‘That’s east,’ she said, pointing vaguely over the rooftops.

      ‘North is the Parliament building,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘There won’t be anybody there at this time.’

      ‘Apart from a few expendable cleaners,’ said Manuela.

      Angel stood in front of the TV, flicking from channel to channel, until he found Canal Sur.

      ‘We have some breaking news of a large explosion to the north of Seville…somewhere in the area of El Cerezo. Eyewitnesses say that an apartment block has been completely destroyed and a nearby pre-school has been badly damaged. We have no reports of the cause of the explosion or the number of casualties.’

      ‘El Cerezo?’ said Angel. ‘What’s in El Cerezo?’

      ‘Nothing,’ said Manuela. ‘Cheap apartment blocks. It’s probably a gas explosion.’

      ‘You’re right. It’s a residential area.’

      ‘Not every loud noise you hear has to be a bomb.’

      ‘After March 11th and the London bombings, our minds move in natural directions,’ said Angel, opening up a street map of Seville.

      ‘Well, you’re always wanting something to happen and now it has. You’d better find out if it was gas or terrorism. But, whatever you do, Angel, don’t give—’

      ‘El Cerezo is two kilometres from here,’ he said, cutting through her rising hysteria. ‘You said it yourself, it’s a cheap residential area. It’s got nothing to do with what you’re trying to sell in the Plaza Moravia.’

      ‘If that was a terrorist bomb, it doesn’t matter where it went off…the whole city will be nervous. One of my buyers is a foreigner making an investment. Investors react to this kind of thing. Ask me, if you like—I am one.’

      ‘Did the Madrid property market crash after March 11th?’ asked Angel. ‘Keep calm, Manuela. It was probably gas.’

      ‘The bomb could have detonated accidentally while they were preparing it,’ she said. ‘They might have blown themselves up because they realized that they were about to be raided by the police.’

      ‘Call Javier,’ said Angel, stroking the back of her neck. ‘He’ll know something.’

      Falcón called his immediate boss, the Jefe de Brigada de Policía Judicial, Comisario Pedro Elvira, to give his initial report that the Fire Chief was almost certain this level of destruction was caused by a significant bomb, and gave the number of casualties so far.

      Elvira had just come out of a meeting with his boss, Seville’s most senior policeman, the Jefe Superior de la Policía de Sevilla, Comisario Andrés Lobo, who had appointed him to lead the entire investigative operation. He also confirmed that the Magistrado Juez Decano de Sevilla had just appointed Esteban Calderón as the Juez de Instrucción in charge of directing the investigation. Three companies had been contacted to supply demolition crews to start removing the rubble and to work with rescue teams, who were already on their way, to try to find any survivors as quickly as possible.

      Falcón made a number of requests: aerial photography, before the huge crime scene became too contaminated by the rescue and demolition operation. He also asked for a large police presence to cordon off nearly a square kilometre around the building, so that they could investigate every vehicle in the vicinity. If it was a bomb, it had to have been transported and the vehicle could still be there. When they started searching suspect vehicles they would also need a team of forensics and a unit from the bomb squad. Elvira confirmed everything back to him and hung up.

      The Fire Chief was a man in his moment. He’d trained for this terrible day and brought the immediate calamity under control in less than ninety minutes. He accompanied Falcón to the edge of the destruction. On the way he ordered a crew of firemen to stop