The Hidden Assassins. Robert Thomas Wilson

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.’

      ‘And what’s that?’

      ‘Otherwise known as RDX. Research and Development Explosive,’ said Ramírez, in a wobbly English accent. ‘Its other names are cyclonite and hexogen. It’s top-quality military explosive—the sort of thing you’d find in artillery shells.’

       9

       Seville—Tuesday, 6th June 2006, 12.45 hrs

      Ferrera had found one occupant who’d given her a sighting of the Peugeot Partner late yesterday afternoon, Monday 5th June. The van had stopped on Calle Los Romeros, opposite the mosque, and two men had unloaded four cardboard boxes and some blue plastic carrier bags. The only description of the men was that they were young and well built and were wearing T-shirts and jeans. The boxes were heavy enough that they could only be carried one at a time. Everything was taken into the mosque. Both men came out and drove away in the van. Falcón told her to keep looking for witnesses and if necessary to go down to the hospital.

      Back in the car park the Mayor and the deputies from the Andalucían Parliament had gone and Comisario Elvira and Juez Calderón were coming to the end of an impromptu press conference. Another body had been found on the seventh floor. The rescue workers had not made contact with anybody alive in the rubble. Pneumatic drills were being used to expose the steel netting in the reinforced concrete floors and oxyacetylene torches and motorized cutters were breaking up the floors into slabs. These slabs were being lifted away by the crane and put into tippers. With each piece of information given, more questions came at them. Elvira was visibly irritated by it all, but Calderón was playing at the top of his game and the journalists loved him. They were more than happy to concentrate on the good-looking, charismatic Calderón when finally Elvira took his leave and headed into the pre-school, where they’d set up a temporary headquarters in the undamaged classrooms at the back.

      The journalists recognized Falcón and came after him, preventing him from following Elvira. Microphones butted his face. Cameras were thrust between heads. What’s the name of the explosive again? Where did it come from? Are the terrorists still alive? Is there a cell still operating in Seville? What have you got to say about the evacuations in the city centre? Has there been another bomb? Has anybody claimed responsibility for the attack? Falcón had to force his way out of the scrum and it took three policemen to push the journalists back from the pre-school entrance. Falcón was straightening himself up in the corridor when Calderón burst through the roaring crowd at the gates.

      ‘Joder,’ he said, remaking his tie, ‘they’re like a pack of jackals.’

      ‘Ramírez just told me about the explosive.’

      ‘They keep asking me about that. I haven’t heard anything.’

      ‘The common name is RDX or hexogen.’

      ‘Hexogen?’ said Calderón. ‘Wasn’t that what the Chechen rebels used to blow up those apartment blocks in Moscow back in 1999?’

      ‘The military use it in artillery shells.’

      ‘I