Every street, it seemed, was fenced off and taped, bollarded to kingdom come. The air reeked of Roman dust uncaked from subterranean ruins. How could anybody settle down in this tumult of reconstruction? But, of course, everything had its purpose. This was nothing to do with the bombing of a few months ago but the mayoral elections which were to take place in early 2007. So the population had to feel the torment of the incumbent's beneficence.

It was fast work getting out of the city at this time in the morning, still dark, four hours to go before sunrise. He was across the river and out on the ring road in minutes, flying down the motorway towards Jerez de la Frontera inside a quarter of an hour. It wasn't long before he saw the lights: the surgical halogen, the queasy blue, the unnerving red, the slow, revolving, sickly yellow. He pulled up on the hard shoulder behind a huge tow truck. Disembodied luminous jackets floated in the dark. There was hardly any traffic. He crossed the motorway and entered the noise of the generator powering the lights that brutally illuminated the scene. There were three Nissan 4?4s in the white and green of the Guardia Civil, two motorbikes, a red fire engine, a Day-Glo green ambulance, another smaller tow truck, halogen lighting up on stalks, wiring all around, a spray of glass diamonds from the crashed truck's windscreen swept on to the hard shoulder.

The firemen had their cutting tools ready, but were waiting for the law men to show. As Falcon arrived more cars pulled up on the other side. He introduced himself, as did the duty judge, the forensics, Jorge and Felipe, and the medico forense. The Guardia Civil talked them through the accident.

'The Range Rover was driving from Jerez to Seville in the fast lane at an estimated speed of 140 kilometres per hour. The truck was travelling from Seville to Jerez in the nearside lane when the front left tyre burst.