The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

by Robert Wilson

  'We need Juez Calderón to sign off the levantamiento del cadáver,' said the Médico Forense. 'We can't find him.'

  Falcón called Sra Jiménez on his way over to the Krugmans to tell her about Sra Vega's parents and the imminent arrival of Lucia's sister from Madrid. Mario had collapsed with exhaustion and was now sleeping. She asked him over for a drink in the heat.

  'I've still got things to do,' he said.

  'I'll be here all day,' she said. 'I'm not going to work.'

  Marty Krugman answered the door stretching as if he'd been dozing on the sofa. Falcón asked after the judge. Marty pointed upstairs and dragged himself back to his sofa, barefoot, his jeans hanging off his backside. Falcón followed the sound of voices speaking English.

  Calderón was quite fluent and had the eagerness of a leaping puppy.

  'Yes, yes,' he said. 'I can see that. The sense of deracination is palpable.'

  Falcón sighed. Art conversations. He knocked on the door. Maddy tore it open with a sardonic smile on her face. Calderón's eyes behind her right shoulder were staring, wild with dilated pupils. It put Falcón on the back foot for a moment.

  'Inspector Jefe,' she said. 'Juez Calderón and I were having such an interesting conversation, weren't we?'

  Falcón apologized for interrupting but the judge was needed to sign off the second body. Calderón pulled himself together piece by piece, as if he was picking up his clothes in a strange woman's bedroom.

  'Your mobile was switched off,' said Falcón.

  Maddy raised an eyebrow. Calderón looked around the room to make sure he was leaving nothing incriminating. He gave an uncomfortably protracted goodbye speech whilst holding on to Sra Krugman's hand, which he kissed at the end. He shambled down the stairs like a schoolboy with a decent report in his satchel and stopped halfway.

  'You're not coming, Inspector Jefe?'

  'I've a question for Sra Krugman.'

  Calderón made it clear he would wait.

  'You must go off and do your work, Juez,' said Maddy, giving him a dismissive little wave.

  A herd of emotions ravaged Calderón's face. Hope, delight, disappointment, longing, jealousy, anger and resignation. They left him trampled. He stumbled down the remaining stairs unable to coordinate his feet.

  'Your question, Inspector Jefe?' she said, her look as level as the sea's horizon.

  He asked to see the shots of Sr Vega in his garden again. She went into the darkroom and laid the prints out on the table. Falcón pointed to the top corner of the shots.

  'Smoke,' he said.

  'He was burning stuff,' she said. 'He quite often burnt papers down there.'

  'How often?'

  'Since the beginning of the year… quite a lot.'

  'And all your shots are…'

  'From this year,' she said. 'Although he didn't become a regular down at the river until March.'

  'You knew he was disturbed by something,' said Falcón, annoyed by her now.

  'I told you, it's not my business,' she said. 'And you seem to be confused yourself as to whether it's suicide or murder.'

  He turned without a word and headed for the door.

  'He's a very sensitive and intelligent man, the Juez,' she said.

  'He's a good man,' said Falcón. 'And he's a happy man, too.'

  'They're a rarity once they get over thirty,' said Maddy.

  'Why do you say that?'

  'I see more men down at the river than I do women.'

  'Women have a talent for remaining connected to the world,' said Falcón. 'They find it easier to talk.'

  'There's no secret to it,' said Maddy. 'We just get on with it. Men, like Marty for instance, get sidelined by trying to answer unanswerable questions. They allow things to complicate in their minds.'

  Falcón nodded and set off down the stairs. She stood at the top, folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the wall.

  'So, why is the Juez so happy?'

  'He's getting married later this year,' said Falcón, without turning.

  'Do you know her?' she asked. 'Is she nice?'

  'Yes,' said Falcón, and he turned to the door.

  'Lighten up' she said in English. 'Hasta luego, Inspector Jefe.'

  Chapter 6

  Wednesday, 24th July 2002

  Falcón understood those words perfectly and he strode back to the Vegas' house in a fury that was only broken by the sight of the maid walking off towards Avenida de Kansas City. He caught up with her and asked her whether she'd bought any drain cleaner recently. She hadn't, ever. He asked her when was the last time she'd cleaned the kitchen floor. Sra Vega, who was obsessed with the idea that Mario would catch germs from a dirty floor, had insisted that it was done three times a day. Mario had already gone across to Consuelo Jiménez's house before she cleaned the floor for the last time yesterday evening.

  The ambulance containing the two bodies pulled away as he arrived back at the Vegas' house. The front door was open. Calderón was smoking in the hallway. Felipe and Jorge nodded to him as they left with their forensic kits and evidence bags. Falcón closed the door behind them against the heat.

  'What did you ask her?' said Calderón, pushing himself away from the wall.

  'I saw from the barbecue that Vega had been burning papers. I wanted to see if he was burning anything in the shots she had taken of him,' said Falcón. 'He was.'

  'Is that all?' said Calderón, both accusing and mocking.

  Falcón's anger came back to him.

  'Did you get anywhere with her, Esteban?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'You were over there for half an hour with your mobile switched off. I assumed you were talking about something with an important bearing on the investigation.'

  Calderón dragged hard on his cigarette, drew in the smoke with a rush of air.

  'Did she say what we talked about?'

  'I heard you talking about her photographs as I came up the stairs,' said Falcón.

  'They're very good,' said Calderón, nodding gravely. 'She's a very talented woman.'

  'You're the one who called her a "paparazzo of the emotions".'

  'That was before she talked to me about her work,' he said, flicking his cigarette fingers at Falcón. 'It's the thinking behind the photographs that makes them what they are.'

  'So they're not Hola! with feelings?' said Falcón.

  'Very good, Javier. I'll remember that one,' said Calderón. 'Anything else?'

  'We'll talk after the autopsy reports have come out,' said Falcón. 'I'll meet Sra Vega's sister off the AVE and take her to Sra Jiménez later this evening.'

  Calderón nodded without knowing what Falcón was talking about.

  'I'll talk to Sr Ortega now… he's the other neighbour,' said Falcón, unable to resist the sarcasm.

  'I know who Sr Ortega is,' said Calderón.

  Falcón went to the front door. By the time he turned back Calderón was already lost in labyrinthine i thoughts.

  'I meant what I said this morning, Esteban.'

  'What was that?'

  'I think you and Inés will be very happy together,'] said Falcón. 'You're very well suited.' 'You're right,' he said. 'We are. Thanks.' 'You'd better come with me,' said Falcón. 'I'm going to lock up now.'

  They left the house and parted ways in the drive. Falcón shut the electric gates with a remote he'd picked up from the kitchen. The entrance to Ortega's house was to the left of the Vegas' driveway and covered by a large creeper. He watched Calderón from its shade. The man hovered by his car and appeared to be checking his mobile for messages. He headed off in the direction of the Krugmans' house, stopped, paced about and gnawed on his thumbnail. Falcón shook his head, rang Ortega's bell and introduced himself over the intercom. Calderón threw his hands up and went back to his car.

  'That's the way, Esteban,' said Falcón to himself. 'Don't even think about it.'

  The smell of raw sewage had already reached Falcón's nostrils as he stood by the gate. Or
tega buzzed him in to a stink gross enough to make him gag. Large bluebottles cruised the air as threatening as heavy bombers. Brown stains crept up the walls of the corner of the house where a large crack had appeared in the facade. The air seethed with the busy richness of decay. Ortega appeared from around the side of the house which overlooked the lawn.

  'I don't use the front door,' said Ortega, whose hand grip was bone-cracking. 'As you can tell, I have a problem with that side of the house.'

  Pablo Ortega's whole body expressed itself in that handshake. He was compact, unyielding and electric. His hair was long, thick and completely white and fell below the neck of his collarless shirt. His moustache was equally impressive, but had yellowed from smoking. Two creases ran from the entradas of his hairline to his eyebrows and had the effect of pulling Falcón into his dark brown eyes.

  'You've only just moved in, haven't you?' asked Falcón.

  'Nine months ago… and six weeks later, this shit happens. The house used to have two rooms built over a cesspit, which holds the sewage for the four houses you can see around us. Then the previous owners built another two rooms on top of them and, with the extra weight, six fucking weeks after they sold me the house, the roof of the cesspit cracked, the wall subsided and now I've got the shit of four houses bubbling up through the floor.'

  'Expensive.'

  'I have to take down that side of the house, repair the cesspit, strengthen it so it can take the additional weight and then rebuild,' said Ortega. 'My brother sent somebody round who's told me I'm looking at a bill for twenty million, or whatever the fuck that is in euros.'

  'Insurance?'

  'I'm an artist. I didn't get round to signing the vital piece of paper until it was too late.'

  'Bad luck.'

  Tin an expert in that particular commodity,' he said. 'As I know you are. We've met before.'

  'We have?'

  'I came to the house on Calle Bailén. You were seventeen or eighteen.'

  'Most of Seville's artistic community passed through that house at some stage or other. I'm sorry I don't remember.'

  'Bad business, that,' said Ortega, putting a hand on Falcón's shoulder. 'I'd never have believed it. You've been through the media mill. I've read everything, of course. Couldn't resist it. Drink?'

  Pablo Ortega was wearing blue knee-length shorts and black espadrilles. He walked with his feet splayed and had immense, bulbous calf muscles, which looked as if they could support him through long stage runs.

  They entered round the back of the house through the kitchen. Falcón sat in the living room while Ortega fetched beer and Casera. The room was chill and odourless apart from the smell of old cigar butts. It was stuffed full of furniture, paintings, books, pottery, glassware and rugs. On the floor leaning against an oak chest was a Francisco Falcón landscape. Javier looked at it and felt nothing.

  'Charisma,' said Ortega, returning with beer, olives and capers, and nodding at the painting, 'is like a force field. You don't see it and yet it has the power to suspend everybody's normal levels of perception. Now that the world has been told that the emperor has no clothes it's easy, and all those art historians that Francisco so despised are endlessly writing about what an evident departure the four nudes were from his other work. I'm with Francisco. They're contemptible.

  They delighted in his fall but do not see that now all they're doing is writing about their own failures. Charisma. We are kept in such an ordinary state of boredom that anybody who can light up our life in any way is treated like a god.'

  'Francisco used to substitute the word "genius" for "charisma",' said Falcón.

  'If you have mastered the art of charisma you don't even need genius.'

  'He certainly knew that.'

  'Quite right,' said Ortega, guffawing back into the armchair.

  'We should get down to business,' said Falcón.

  'Yes, well I knew something was going on when I saw that rat-faced bastard out there, smug and comfortable in his expensive lightweight suit,' said Ortega. 'I'm always suspicious of people who dress well for their work. They want to dazzle with their carapace while their emptiness seethes with all forms of dark life.'

  Falcón scratched his neck at Ortega's melodrama.

  'Who are we talking about?'

  'That… that cabron… Juez Calderón,' said Ortega. 'It even rhymes.'

  'Ah yes, the court case with your son. I didn't…'

  'He was the cabron who made sure that Sebastián went down for such a long time,' said Ortega. 'He was the cabron who pushed for the maximum sentence. That man is just the letter of the law and nothing else. He is all sword and no scales and, in my humble opinion, for justice to be justice you have to have both.'

  'I was only told about your son's case this morning.'

  'It was everywhere,' said Ortega, incredulous. 'Pablo Ortega's son arrested. Pablo Ortega's son accused. Pablo

  Ortega's son blah, blah, blah. Always Pablo Ortega's son… never Sebastián Ortega.'

  'I was preoccupied at the time,' said Falcón. 'I had no mind for current affairs.'

  The media monster ate its fill,' said Ortega, snarling and scoffing at the end of his cigar.

  'Do you see your son at all?'

  'He won't see anybody. He's shut himself off from the rest of the world.'

  'And his mother?'

  'His mother walked out on him… walked out on us, when he was only eight years old,' said Ortega. 'She ran off to America with some fool with a big dick… and then she died.'

  'When was that?'

  'Four years ago. Breast cancer. It affected Sebastián very badly.'

  'So he knew her?'

  'He spent every summer with her from the age of sixteen onwards,' said Ortega, stabbing the air with his cigar. 'None of this was taken into consideration when that cabron

  He ran out of steam, shifted in his chair, his face crumpled in disgust.

  'It was a very serious crime,' said Falcón.

  'I realize that,' said Ortega, loudly. 'It's just that the court refused to accept any mitigating circumstances. Sebastián's state of mind, for instance. He was clearly mentally deranged. How do you explain the behaviour of someone who kidnaps a boy, abuses him, lets him go and then gives himself up? When his time came to defend himself in court he said nothing, he refused to dispute any point of the boy's statement… he took it all. None of that makes any sense to me. I am not an expert, but even I can see he needs treatment, not prison, violence and solitary confinement.'

  'Have you appealed?'

  'It all takes time,' said Ortega, 'and money, of course, which has not been easy. I had to move from my house…'

  'Why?'

  'My life was made impossible. They wouldn't serve me in the cafes or the shops. People would cross the street if they saw me. For my son's sins I was being ostracized. It was intolerable. I had to get out. And now here I am… alone with only the shit and stink of others for company.'

  'Do you know Sr Vega?' asked Falcón, seizing his opportunity.

  'I know him. He introduced himself about a week after I moved in here. I rather admired him for that. He knew why I'd ended up here. There were photographers in the street. He walked straight past them, welcomed me and offered me the use of his gardener. I asked him over for a drink occasionally and when I had the trouble with the cesspit he gave his opinion, sent round a surveyor and costed it all out for me for nothing.'

  'What did you talk about over drinks?'

  'Nothing personal, which was a relief. I thought he might be… you know, when people come round to your door and want to be your friend. I thought he might have a prurient interest in my son's misfortunes or want to associate himself with me in some way… there are plenty of people out there who'd like to add another dimension to their social standing.

  But Rafael, despite his apparent charm, was enclosed… everything went in but not a lot came out on a personal level. If you wanted to talk about politics, that was a different matter. We talked abou
t America after September 11th, for instance. That was interesting because he was always very right wing. I mean, he thought Jose Maria Aznar a little too communist for his liking. But then the World Trade Centre came down and he maintained that the Americans had that coming to them.'

  'He didn't like Americans?' asked Falcón.

  'No, no, no, que no. He liked Americans. He was very friendly with that couple from next door. Marty is working for him and I'm sure Rafael was interested in fucking his wife.'

  'Really?'

  'No, I was just being mischievous, or perhaps giving you a more general truth. We'd all like to fuck Maddy Krugman. Have you seen her?'

  Falcón nodded.

  'What do you think?'

  'Why did he think the Americans had it coming to them?'

  'He said they were always messing about in other people's politics and when you do that things blow up in your face.'

  'Nothing specific then, just bar talk?'

  'But quite surprising, given that he liked Americans and he was going there on holiday this summer,' said Ortega, kissing the end of his cigar. 'Another thing he said about Americans was that they're your friends while you're useful to them, and as soon as you stop making money for them or giving them help, they drop you like a stone. Their loyalty is measured, it has no faith in it. I think those were his words.'

  'What did you make of that?'

  'Judging by his vehemence it seemed to come from direct experience, probably in business, but I never found out what that was.'

  'How often have you seen him this year?'

  'Two or three times, mostly to do with the cesspit.'

  'Did you notice any difference in him since last year?'

  Silence, while Ortega smoked with narrowing eyes.

  'Has he killed himself?'

  'That's what we're trying to determine,' said Falcón. 'So far we have discovered that there was a change in him at the end of last year. He became more preoccupied. He was burning papers at the bottom of his garden.'

  'I didn't notice anything, but then our relationship was not intimate. The only thing I remember was in the Corte Ingles in Nervion one day. I came across him picking over leather wallets or something. As I approached to say hello he looked up at me and I could see he was completely spooked, as if I was the ghost of a long-lost relative. I veered away and we didn't speak. That was probably the last time I saw him. A week ago.'