The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

by Robert Wilson

  'Have you noticed any regular visitors to the house or any unusual ones?' said Falcón. 'Any night-time visitors?'

  'Look, I know I'm here all the time, especially these days with the work not coming my way, but I don't spend my days looking over the fence or squinting between the blinds.'

  'What do you do with your time?'

  'Yes, well, I spend an uncomfortable amount of it inside my own head. More than I should or want to.'

  'What did you do last night?'

  'I got drunk on my own. A bad habit, I know. I fell asleep right here and woke up freezing cold from the air conditioning at five in the morning.'

  'When I asked you about visitors to the Vegas, I didn't mean anything

  'Look, the only regulars I saw were Lucia's parents and the tough bitch from across the road who used to take care of the kid occasionally.'

  'The tough bitch?'

  'Consuelo Jiménez. You don't want to cross her, Javier. She's the kind that only smiles when she's got a man's balls in a vice.'

  'You've had some disagreements?'

  'No, no, I just recognize the type.'

  'What type is that?' asked Falcón, unable to resist the question.

  'The type that doesn't like men but is unfortunately not a lesbian and finds they have to go to men for their demeaning sexual needs. This leaves them in a permanent state of resentment and anger.'

  Falcón chewed the end of his pen to stop himself smiling. It sounded as if the great Pablo Ortega had offered his outstanding services and been rebuffed.

  'She likes children, that one,' said Ortega. 'She likes little boys running around her legs. The more the better. But as soon as they grow hair…'

  Ortega grabbed a great tuft of his white chest hair and flicked his head up in disdain. It was a perfect cameo, in which male foolishness and female pride met in the same body. Falcón laughed. Ortega basked in the acclaim from his audience of one.

  'You know,' he said, topping up his glass with Cruzcampo, offering it to Falcón who refused, 'the best way to meet women?'

  Falcón shook his head.

  'Dogs.'

  'You have dogs?'

  'I have two pugs. A big, burly male called Pavarotti and a smaller, darker-faced female called Callas.'

  'Do they sing?'

  'No, they crap all over the garden.'

  'Where do you keep them?'

  'Not in here with my collection all over the floor. They'll cock their leg over a masterpiece and I'll do something unforgivable.'

  'Your collection?'

  'You don't think I live in this sort of mess all the time? I had to move my collection in here when the cesspit cracked,' said Ortega. 'Anyway, let me finish with the dogs. Pugs are the perfect way to start talking to a lone woman. They're small, unthreatening, a little ugly and amusing. Perfect. They always work with women and children. The children can't resist them.'

  'Is that how you met Consuelo Jiménez?'

  'And Lucia Vega,' he said, winking.

  'Perhaps you don't realize this… I should have made it clear… Sra Vega has been murdered.'

  'Murdered?' he said, getting to his feet, beer spilling into his lap.

  'She was suffocated with her pillow…'

  'You mean he killed her and then himself? What about the boy?'

  'He was at Sra Jiménez's house at the time.'

  'My God… this is a tragedy,' he said, going to the window, thumping it with his fist and looking out into the garden for some reassurance.

  'What you were saying about Sra Vega… You didn't have an affair with her, did you?'

  'An affair?' he said, terrible things now occurring to him. 'No, no, no que no. I just met her on that little bit of park, walking the dogs. She's not really my type. She was rather fascinated by my celebrity, that was all.'

  'What did you talk about?'

  'I don't remember. I think she'd seen me in a play or… What did we talk about?'

  'When did this happen?'

  'March some time.'

  'You winked when you mentioned her name.'

  'That was just some ridiculous braggadocio on my part.'

  Falcón's pen hovered over his notebook. He was running some memory footage of fifteen months ago through his mind. The photographs that Raúl Jiménez had hanging on his wall behind his desk in the apartment in the Edificio Presidente. Celebrities who'd dined at his restaurants, but also the people from the town hall, the policemen and the judiciary. And that was where he'd seen Pablo Ortega's face before.

  'You knew Raúl Jiménez,' said Falcón.

  'Well, I occasionally ate at his restaurants,' said Ortega, relieved.

  'I remember you from one of his photographs he kept at home… celebrities and important people.'

  'I can't think how that happened. Raúl Jiménez loathed the theatre… Unless, of course, that's it, my brother, Ignacio, he knew Raúl. My brother's company installs air-conditioning systems. Ignacio would ask me to receptions when he wanted to impress people. That must have been it.'

  'So you knew Consuelo Jiménez before you moved here?'

  'By sight, ' said Ortega.

  'Have you ever managed to interest Sra Krugman in your dogs?'

  'My God, Javier, you're a different breed to the other policemen I've had to deal with.'

  'We're just people.'

  'The ones I've spoken to are much more methodical,' said Ortega. 'That's an observation, not a criticism.'

  'Murder is the greatest aberration of human nature, it brings out some ingenious subterfuges,' said Falcón. 'Methodical thinking does not survive well in that illusory world.'

  'Acting is the most ingenious subterfuge of all time,' said Ortega. 'Sometimes it's so ingenious we end up not knowing who the fuck we are any more.'

  'You should meet some of the murderers I've put away,' said Falcón. 'Some of them have perfected the art of denial to the degree of absolute truth.'

  Ortega blinked at that – a horror he hadn't considered before.

  'I have to go,' said Falcón.

  'You asked me about Sra Krugman and the dogs,' he said, a little desperately.

  'She doesn't look like a dog person to me.'

  'You're right… Now, if I'd had a leopard in a diamond collar…'

  They left via the sliding doors into the garden. Ortega walked Falcón round to the front gate. They stood in the quiet street away from the stink. A large black car rolled slowly past before picking up speed heading in the direction of Avenida de Kansas City. Ortega followed it with his eyes.

  'You know you were asking me about unusual visitors to the Vegas' house?' he said. 'That car's reminded me. That was a BMW 7 series and there was one of those parked outside their house on 6th January.'

  'La Noche de Reyes.'

  'Which is why I remember the date,' said Ortega. 'But I also remember it because of the nationality of the occupants. These guys were unusual. One was huge – fat, powerful, dark-haired and brutal looking. The other one was still heavy and muscular, but he looked a little more human than his friend and he was fair-haired. They spoke and I don't know what was said, but because I'd been to St Petersburg last year I knew that they were Russians.'

  Consuelo Jiménez's three children and Mario were playing in the pool in the late afternoon. The screaming, shouting and indefatigable mutual bombardment arrived heavily muffled through the double glazing. Only the occasional patter of water on the glass reminded them of the severity of the child artillery barrage. Javier nursed another beer. Consuelo was halfway down a glass of tinto de verano, a mix of red wine, ice and Casera. She smoked, clicking her thumbnail. Her foot, as always when distracted, was nodding.

  'I see you've let Mario join in,' said Falcón.

  'I thought it best to let him lose himself in play for a bit,' she said. The swimming ban was Rafael's obsession and there doesn't seem much point…'

  'I can't remember when I had that kind of energy,' said Falcón.

  'There's nothing more beautif
ul than a child, eyes stung with chlorine, lashes spiked, body trembling under towel with hunger and tiredness. It overwhelms me with happiness.'

  'You don't mind me claiming my drink now?' said Falcón. 'When I come back with Mario's aunt… I mean, I'll have to take her back to her parents' house, it wouldn't be the same.'

  'As what?'

  'As seeing you like this.'

  'I have one major advantage over everyone else in this investigation of yours,' said Consuelo. 'I know how you work, Inspector Jefe.'

  'You did invite me for a drink.'

  'We're all part of your world now,' she said. 'Helpless under your merciless observation. How did you get on with the others?'

  'I've just spent the last hour or so with Pablo Ortega.'

  'Performing, as ever,' said Consuelo. 'I could never marry an actor. I'm a monogamist and they can make a bed feel very crowded.'

  'I wouldn't know.'

  'No actresses before you married that little truth- seeker… What was her name? Inés. Of course…'

  Consuelo stopped.

  'Sorry, I should have remembered about Juez Calderón.'

  'This is the first time I've worked with him since your husband's murder,' said Falcón. 'He told me today that he and Inés were getting married.'

  'Doubly insensitive of me,' said Consuelo. 'But, my God, that's going to be quite a truth-seeking union. A juez and a fiscal. Their first born is going to have to become a priest.'

  Falcón grunted out a laugh.

  'There's nothing you can do about it, Javier,' she said. 'You might as well laugh.'

  'Lighten up,' said Falcón. 'That's what Sra Krugman told me to do.'

  'She's not exactly a comedy show herself.'

  'Has she shown you her photographs?'

  'So sad,' said Consuelo, making the face of the unhappy clown. 'I've had all that bullshit up to here.'

  'Juez Calderón was rather impressed by them,' said Falcón.

  'By her ass, you mean.'

  'Yes, even all the many Pablo Ortegas stepped down off the pedestal of his ego to pant at her.'

  'I knew you had it in you,' said Consuelo.

  'I'm angry with Maddy Krugman,' he said. 'And I don't like her.'

  'When a man says that it normally means he fancies her.'

  'I'll be joining a long queue.'

  'And Juez Calderón will be in front of you.'

  'You noticed.'

  A spectacular bomb by one of the children drenched the window. Consuelo went outside and told them to calm down. Falcón was aware of Mario looking at her as if she was a goddess. She came back in. By the time she'd closed the door the madness had restarted.

  'It's a pity that they have to become us,' she said, looking back to the pool.

  'You're not so bad,' said Falcón, the crass words out of his mouth so fast he stared bug-eyed at them, like a disgrace on the carpet. 'I mean, when I said that… I meant you were…'

  'Relax, Javier,' she said. 'Drink some more beer.'

  Falcón gulped down the Cruzcampo, bit into a fat olive and put the stone in the tray.

  'Did Pablo Ortega ever make a pass at you?' he asked.

  'Was that what you were trying to do then?'

  'No, that was… that was me thinking something and it coming out.'

  'Yes, well… "You're not so bad,'" she said, quoting him back. 'You'll have to do a lot better than that to improve your sex life. What did Pablo Ortega tell you?'

  'How he used his dogs to chat up women.'

  'You talked about him panting after Maddy and chatting up women, but I've always assumed he was a closet gay, or maybe just not that interested in sex,' she said. 'The kids love Pavarotti and Callas, but he's never made a pass at me, and I imagine you wouldn't miss a pass from Pablo Ortega when it happened.'

  'Why do you think he's gay?'

  'It's just a feeling that comes off him when he's with women. He likes them, but he's not interested in them sexually. It's not just me. I've seen him with Maddy as well. He's not panting. He's showing off. He's reminding everybody that he's still potent but it's got nothing to do with sex.'

  'He referred to you as a tough bitch,' said Falcón. 'I thought it was because you'd turned him down.'

  'Well, I am a tough bitch, but I've never been one with him. In fact I've thought that we always got on very well,' she said. 'Since he moved out here he's been coming round for drinks, playing football with the kids, swimming…'

  'It was unmistakably sexual. He said you only smiled when you had a man's balls in a vice – that sort of thing.'

  Consuelo spurted laughter, but she was annoyed, too.

  'I can only think that he believes that this is manly talk and that it would never get back to me,' said Consuelo. 'He's underestimated your capacity for intimacy, Javier. But then I suppose intimacy between a cop and a… whatever. He probably thought he was safe.'

  'He knew Raúl, didn't he?' said Falcón. 'I remember seeing him in the photographs behind the desk in your old apartment, but not in the celebrity section.'

  'Pablo's brother was the connection,' she said. 'Ignacio had worked for Raúl.'

  'I'd like to see Raúl's photographs again, if that's possible.'

  'I’ll let them know at the office,' she said.

  The commercial world of cars – Repsol, Firestone, Renault – flashed past as he drove down Avenida de Kansas City. While the buildings beyond the windscreen throbbed with expended energy, Falcón puzzled over his intimacy with Consuelo Jiménez. He felt comfortable with her. Despite what she referred to as the detective/suspect dynamic, she was now integrated into his past. He thought about her sitting on her sofa in the cool of her house, nodding her foot at the glass, laughing with the children as she rubbed them down with their towels, leading them off to the kitchen for food while he drove into the writhing beast of the metropolis which, beaten by heat, lay panting in its pen.

  A sign outside the Estacion de Santa Justa at the end of Avenida de Kansas City told him it was 44°C. He parked and staggered through the torpid air into the station. He called Perez, who told him that he'd persuaded Sr Cabello to leave his wife in intensive care. He was now in Sr Cabello's apartment in Calle de Felipe II in El Porvenir, waiting for the first female member of the Grupo de Homicidios, Policía Cristina Ferrera, to replace him.

  Falcón stood at the gates of the platform for the Madrid AVE, with a handwritten piece of paper asking for Carmen Ortiz. A woman with black hair and big brown eyes floating in a pale frightened face approached him. She had two children with her and 'distraught' seemed a mild adjective for her condition.

  He drove back to Santa Clara. Carmen Ortiz talked at full tilt all the way, primarily about her husband, who was on a business trip to Barcelona and wouldn't be able to fly down until the following morning. The children sat looking out of the windows as if they were being moved to a more secure prison. Falcón murmured encouragement while Sra Ortiz flooded out the silence.

  Consuelo came to the door with Mario clamped to her like a chimpanzee. The boy, after the swim, had retreated into a vulnerable silence. He transferred himself to Carmen with a swiftness that showed his need for human contact. Carmen amazed them with her limitless memory for all kinds of detail from her journey. Consuelo listened, knowing Carmen Ortiz's purpose, which was not to allow one moment's silence in which the calamity of the day could jam its wedge and lever time open to reveal Mario's future of despair and loneliness.

  They went to the car. The whole family sat in the back. The children stroked Mario as if he was a damaged kitten. Consuelo leant in and kissed him hard on the head. Falcón almost heard the physical wrench as she pulled back from the car. He knew about the sickening sense of plummet that was forming in the boy's stomach as he started his free fall into motherless chaos. The routine of love was over. The woman who made you has gone. He was filled with pity for the boy. He drove off with his bruised cargo back into the pulsating city.

  He took them up to Sr Cabello's apartment,
carrying the luggage. They arrived in the apartment like nomads. Sr Cabello sat in a rocking chair with unblinking eyes. His grandchildren animated his lips to a tremble. Mario kicked and fought to hold on to his aunt. Perez had gone. Falcón and Ferrera withdrew and a whimpering sense of impending doom welled up in the destroyed family.

  They went down in the lift. Ferrera sighed with her head to one side as if the pain of the exchange had found its way into her neck and cricked it for good. They drove in silence into the centre of town where Falcón was going to drop her off. She shut the car door and walked back to a crossing. Falcón pulled out and drove around the Plaza Nueva. He turned right into Calle Mendez Nunez and waited by El Corte Ingles. As he veered away from the Plaza de la Magdalena and prepared to turn down Calle Bailén his mobile went off.

  'I don't want to sound like an idiot in my first week,' said Cristina Ferrera, 'but I think you're being followed. It was a blue Seat Cordoba two cars behind you. I got the plates.'

  'Phone them through to the Jefatura and get them to give me a call,' said Falcón. 'I'll check it out.'

  In the fading light he could still distinguish colour and he picked out the Seat, now only a single car behind him, as he eased past the Hotel Colón. He drove past the tile shop just before his house and turned up the short driveway and parked between the orange trees. He got out. The blue Seat stopped in front of him. It seemed to be a full car. He walked towards it and the car, in no hurry, pulled slowly away. He even had time to see the plates before it turned left past the Hotel Londres on the corner.

  The Jefatura called him on his mobile and told him that the registration number reported by Cristina Ferrera did not match a blue Seat Cordoba. He told them to report it to the traffic police to see if they could get lucky.

  He opened up the doors to his house, parked the car and closed them. He felt uneasy. His flesh crawled. He stood in the patio and looked around, listening as if he might be being burgled. The noise of distant traffic came to him. He went to the kitchen. Encarnación, his housekeeper, had left him some fish stew in the fridge. He boiled some rice, warmed the stew and drank a glass of cold white wine. He ate facing the door in a strange state of expectancy.