The Ignorance of Blood

‘Will you still talk to me when you've been photographed by Hola?’ he said. ‘Consuelo Jiménez in her glorious home, surrounded by her beautiful children.’

‘And my lover … the cop?’ she said, looking at him sadly. ‘I might have to let you go unless you learn how to sail a yacht.’

That was the first time she'd called him her lover and she knew it. He finished his beer, took her empty glass and put them on a ledge. She took his arm and they walked across the square to the restaurant.

They knew her in the restaurant, which despite its Arabic name had a neo-classical feel to it – all pillars and marble and strong white nappery, with no such thing as a round plate. The chef came out to greet her and two glasses of cava, on the house, arrived at their table. There was a lull in the restaurant hubbub as the other diners looked at them, recognized their faces from distant scandalous news stories; moments later they were forgotten and the cacophony resumed. Consuelo ordered for both of them. He liked it when she took over. They drank the cava. He wished they were at home and he could lean over and kiss her throat. They talked about the future, which was a good sign.

The starter arrived. Three tapas on an oblong plate: a tiny filo pastry money bag containing soft goat's cheese, a crisp toast of duck liver set in sticky sweet quince jam, and a shot-glass of white garlic and almond soup with an orb of melon ice cream floating at the top and flakes of wind-dried tuna nestling in the bottom. Each one went off in his mouth like a firecracker.

‘This is oral sex,’ said Consuelo.

Plates were removed with their empty flutes. A bottle of 2004 Pesquera from the Ribeiro del Duero was opened, decanted and glasses filled with the dark red wine. They talked about the impossibility of going back to live in Madrid after the lotus life of Seville.

She'd ordered him duck breast, which was presented in a fan with a mound of couscous. Consuelo had the sea bass with crisp silver skin in a delicate white sauce. He felt her calf rub against his and they decided to forgo the dessert and get a taxi instead.

They practically lay down in the back and he kissed her neck as the street lights flashed overhead and the young people outside made their moves from the bars to the clubs. The lights were still on at her neighbour's house and the daughter let them in. Falcón lifted Darío from the bed. He was fast asleep.

As they walked across to Consuelo's house the boy came awake.

‘Hola, Javi,’ he said sleepily and thumped his blond head into Falcón's chest and left it there, as if he was listening to his heart. The trust nearly broke Falcón apart. They went upstairs where he poured the boy into his bed. Darío's eyelids fluttered against the weight of sleep.

‘Football tomorrow,’ he murmured. ‘You promised.’

‘Penalty shoot-out,’ said Falcón, pulling up the bedclothes, kissing him on the forehead.

‘Goodnight, Javi.’

Falcón stood at the door while Consuelo knelt and kissed her son goodnight, stroked his head; he felt the complicated pang of being a parent, or of never having been one.

They went downstairs. She poured a whisky for Falcón, made herself a gin and tonic. He could see her properly now for the first time that night. Those slim, muscular legs, a subtle line running down her calf. He found himself wanting to kiss the backs of her knees.

There had been a difference in her touch tonight. It wasn't as if they hadn't made love since they'd got back together after the Seville bombing. She hadn't been restrained in that department, although, what with the summer holiday and the kids being around, there hadn't been much opportunity. The first time they'd got together, a couple of years ago, it had been different. They'd both been a little wild then after a long drought. This time they'd been feeling their way around each other tentatively. They needed reassurance that this was the right thing to be doing. But tonight he'd felt a difference. She was letting him in. Maybe it was Alicia, her psychologist, telling her she should let herself go, not just physically this time, but emotionally, too.

‘What's going on in there?’ asked Consuelo.

‘Nothing.’

‘All men say that when they're thinking dirty thoughts.’

‘I was thinking how magnificent that meal was.’

‘Then they lie to you.’

‘How is it that you always know what I'm thinking?’

‘Because you are completely in my thrall,’ she said.

‘You really want to know what I was thinking?’

‘Only if it's about me.’

‘I was controlling a powerful desire to kiss the back of your knees.’

A slow smile crept across her face as a thrill streaked down the back of her thighs.

‘I like a bit of patience in a man,’ she said, sipping her drink, the ice cubes rolling and tickling the glass.

‘The trick of the patient man is to recognize boredom before it sets in.’

She stifled a fake yawn.

‘Joder,’ he said, getting to his feet.

They kissed and ran upstairs, leaving their drinks quaking on the table.

She stepped out of her pink dress and a small pair of knickers. It was all she had to do. He wrenched at his hands caught in the cuffs of his shirt, kicked off his shoes. She sat on the edge of the bed with her hands on her knees, tanned all over except a small white triangle. After some ferocious moments with his clothes he was naked, went over to her, stood between her legs. She stroked him, looking up at his agony. Her lips were moist, still with the vestiges of the peachy lipstick that matched her fingernails. She reached up from his thighs, over his abdomen, to his chest. Her hands slipped round his back and she dug her nails into his skin. As he felt her mouth on him, her nails clawed their way down to his buttocks. He was hanging on to his patience by the skin of his teeth.

She fell back on to the bed, rolled on to her front, looked over her shoulder at him and pointed at the backs of her knees. His thighs shivered as he knelt on the bed. He kissed her Achilles tendon, her calf, the back of one knee, then the other. He worked his way up her hamstrings, which trembled under his lips. She raised her buttocks to him, reached behind her for him, patience out of the question now. They shunted together, his hands full of her. She gripped the sheets in her fists. And all the hell of the day just fell away from them.

They lay where they'd collapsed, still joined, the room lit only by the glow of street light coming in through the blinds.

‘You're different tonight,’ said Falcón, stroking her stomach, kissing her between the shoulder blades, welded to her by their sweat.

‘I feel different.’

‘It was like two years ago.’

She stared into the dark, her vision still green at the edges, as if recovering from an intense light.

‘Something happened?’ he asked.

‘I'm ready,’ she said.

‘Why now?’

He felt her shrug under his hands.

‘Maybe it's because my children are leaving me,’ she said.

‘Darío still needs you.’

‘And his Javi,’ she said. ‘He loves you. I can tell.’

‘And I love him,’ said Falcón. ‘And I love you, too.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said, I love you, too … always have done.’