'But I thought you bought a house in Heliopolis?'

'Well, technically, it was Raúl who bought the house in Heliopolis… before he died,' she said. 'He wanted to be near his beloved Bétis stadium and I have no interest in football.'

'And how long have you been living here?'

'Nearly a year.'

'And you discovered the body'

'The gardener did, and we don't know that he's dead yet.'

'Does anybody keep a spare set of keys?'

'I doubt it,' she said.

'I'd better take a look at the body,' said Falcón.

Sr Vega was lying on his back. His dressing gown and pyjamas had come off his shoulders and were constricting his arms. His chest was bare and there seemed to be abrasions on the pectorals and abdomen. He had scratch marks at his throat. The man's face was pale and looked hard, the lips were grey and yellowish.

Falcón went back to Juez Calderón and the Médico Forense.

'He looks dead to me, but perhaps you'd like to take a look before we break down one of the doors,' he said. 'Do we know where his wife is?'

Consuelo explained the situation again.

'I think we have to go in,' said Falcón.

'You might have a job on your hands,' said Sra Jiménez. 'Lucia had new windows put in before last winter. They're double glazed with bulletproof glass. And that front door, if it's properly locked, you'd be better off going through solid wall.'

'You know this house?'

A woman appeared in the driveway. She was difficult to miss because she had red hair, green eyes and skin so white it was painful to look at in the brutality of the sunlight.

'Hola, Consuelo,' she said, homing in on her amongst all the official faces.

'Hola, Maddy,' said Consuelo, who introduced her to everybody as Madeleine Krugman, Sra Vega's next- door neighbour.