The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

by Robert Wilson

'This isn't about my work.'

  'Unfortunately this is about mine. I have to get on, Sra Krugman. So, if you'll excuse me…' he said.

  The front doorbell rang. He went to open it.

  'I locked myself out. Inspector Jefe,' said Ferrera.

  Maddy Krugman sauntered out between them. Ferrera followed Falcón to the study where he sat back in the chair.

  'Tell me,' he said, staring out of the window, wondering what Maddy Krugman was after.

  'Sra Vega was a manic depressive,' said Ferrera.

  'We know she had trouble sleeping.'

  'There's quite a range of drugs in his bedside table.'

  'That was locked, as I remember, and the keys are here.'

  'Lithium, for instance,' said Ferrera. 'He was probably handing the drugs out to her… or so he thought. I found a duplicate key in her wardrobe, along with a secret stash of eighteen sleeping pills. There's plenty of evidence of obsessive-compulsive behaviour in there, too. I also found a lot of chocolate in the fridge and more ice cream in the freezer than a small child could possibly eat.'

  'What about her relationship with her husband?'

  'I doubt they were having sex, given her condition and the fact that he was handing out the drugs to her,' said Ferrera. 'He was probably getting his sex from elsewhere… but that didn't stop her buying an extensive range of sexy underwear.'

  'What about the child?'

  'She had a picture of her and the child just after the birth on her bedside table. She looks fantastic – radiant, beautiful and proud. I think it's a photograph she looked at a lot. It reminded her of the woman she used to be.'

  'Postnatal depression?'

  'Could be,' said Ferrera. 'She didn't go out much. There's stacks of mail-order catalogues under the bed.'

  'She let the child sleep over at a neighbour's house quite often.'

  'Difficult to cope when your life runs away from you like that,' said Ferrera, her eyes dropping to the lipstick-smeared coffee cup. 'Was she that neighbour?'

  'No, another one,' said Falcón, shaking his head.

  'She didn't look the mothering type.'

  'So what do you think happened here?' asked Falcón.

  'There's enough despair in this house to lead you to believe that having decided to kill himself he would have had to kill her to put her out of her misery.'

  'Why did he dislocate her jaw?'

  'To knock her out?'

  'Doesn't that seem too violent? She was probably groggy with sleep anyway.'

  'Perhaps he did it as a way of finding the violence in himself,' said Ferrera.

  'Or perhaps she heard the death agonies of her husband and surprised the murderer, who then had to deal with her,' said Falcón.

  'Where's the pad Sr Vega wrote his note on?'

  'Good question. It hasn't been found. But it's possible that it was an old piece of paper he had in his dressing- gown pocket.'

  'Who bought the drain cleaner?'

  'Not the maid,' said Falcón.

  'Do we know when it was bought?'

  'Not yet, but if it was from a supermarket it won't be much help.'

  'It looks as if Sra Vega was on her own that night, indulging herself as usual,' said Ferrera. 'She spends a lot of time on her own and she's well prepared for it.'

  'You're always on your own with mental illness,' said Falcón.

  'She has a box of her favourite videos and DVDs. All romantic stuff. There's a DVD still in the machine. She gets the call from her neighbour so the child is taken care of. She has no responsibilities. When did her husband get home?'

  'I'm told it was normally quite late… around midnight.'

  'That would fit: put off coming home to the despair for as long as possible,' said Ferrera. 'Sra Vega probably didn't like seeing him anyway. She heard the car… or maybe not through these windows. So she more likely heard him come into the house from the garage. She turned off the DVD and ran upstairs leaving her slippers. He eventually joined her in bed, or at least…'

  'How do you know he joined her? His pillow was undented in the crime scene shots.'

  'But the sheets and covers were pulled out… so he might have been about to join her…'

  'And then been distracted by something else.'

  'Do we know from the phone company if there were any more calls after the neighbour rang about the child?'

  'Not yet. You can work on that when we get back.'

  'The only other oddity I've come across is that in the crime scene photographs he's got his watch on with the face on the outside of his wrist, but in the photos I've seen elsewhere in the house he always wore it with the face on the underside of his wrist.'

  'What do you conclude from that?'

  'It either worked its way round in his struggle with himself or an assailant,' said Ferrera, 'or the watch has come off and been put back on his wrist by somebody who doesn't know how he wears it.'

  'Why would someone want to do that?'

  'Well… if it came off as a result of a struggle with an assailant whose ultimate aim was to make this look like a suicide it would be less indicative of another person's presence if the watch was on his wrist rather than on the floor.'

  'What sort of a strap did his watch have?'

  'It seems to be a metal bracelet type, which can come off easily in a struggle or just as easily work its way round a wrist, so

  'Whatever… that was a good piece of observation,' said Falcón. 'It might not help us form a case for murder, but it is indicative of the strange circumstances of the crime scene. Now all we've got to do is find the incontrovertible proof that will convince Juez Calderón that we have a case. We know Sr Vega was burning things at the bottom of the garden. What does that imply to you?'

  'He was getting rid of things in preparation for something.'

  'They were personal things, letters and photographs, and they caused him great distress.'

  'So he didn't want them discovered. He was hiding them and now…'

  'If you were Sr Vega and you wanted to hide something, where would you put it?'

  'In my territory – either here in my study or in the butcher's room.'

  'I've searched the study,' said Falcón.

  They went into the butcher's room. Ferrera turned on the harsh neon lights and Falcón walked around the wooden chopping block putting on latex gloves. They opened up the first freezer cabinet and he started taking out the blocks of meat. When all the meat was out of the cabinets Ferrera crawled into the dark frozen holes with a pen torch in her mouth and a knife to scrape away at the frost on the sides of the freezers. At the back in a corner of the second freezer she found what they were looking for. A plastic package encrusted in ice. She passed it out. They returned the meat to the cabinets.

  The package was a small freezer bag with a wire twist at its neck. Inside was an Argentinian passport issued in Buenos Aires in May 2000 in the name of

  Emilio Cruz. The photo was of Rafael Vega in a pair of old-fashioned heavy-framed glasses. There was also a single key with no label.

  This was an escape route,' said Falcón. 'What are the implications of that?'

  'Well, if he had an escape route into the life of Emilio Cruz,' said Ferrera, 'then he'd probably already escaped into the life of Rafael Vega.'

  'So we now check Vega's ID card right back to its original issuing office,' said Falcón.

  Chapter 8

  Thursday, 25th July 2002

  In Consuelo Jiménez's office they sorted through her husband's old photos, finding ones that included Pablo Ortega and/or Rafael Vega. They headed out of the old city to Dr Rodríguez's surgery, which was in a barrio next to Nervión. On the way the Médico Forense called Falcón to say that the autopsies were complete and both bodies ready for identification. Ferrera called Carmen Ortiz and told her to prepare herself to go down to the Institute Anatómico Forense.

  Dr Rodríguez was running late and Falcón sat down with El Pais. He skimmed past a photo of six drowned Moroccan
s on the beach at Tarifa, victims of another failed attempt to get into Europe. His eye settled on an article about the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague, or rather a sidebar which was giving an update on a strange continuing phenomenon. Since the beginning of July, when the Rome Statute of the permanent International Criminal Court had entered into force, the Americans, for reasons that were not clear, had been persuading governments who had signed the treaty to declare that they would not press or put up for trial any US citizen for prosecution by the ICC. They gave a list of the countries wavering under American pressure but no more information. The nurse called him in to Dr Rodríguez's consulting room.

  The doctor was in his late thirties. He dried his hands on paper towels while inspecting Falcón's credentials. They sat. Falcón told him of Sr Vega's death. The doctor pulled up Vega's file on the computer.

  'On 5th July this year you had an appointment with Sr Vega,' said Falcón. 'As far as I can tell, that was the only time you saw him this year.'

  'It was the only time ever. He was a new patient. His records came to me from Dr Alvarez.'

  'His diary showed that he had an appointment with a Dr Diego before he came to you.'

  'The notes came from Dr Alvarez. Maybe he saw a Dr Diego and decided that he wasn't right for him.'

  'Was there any indication from the consultation or the notes sent to you by Dr Alvarez that Sr Vega was suicidal?'

  'He had some hypertension, but nothing catastrophic. He was suffering from anxiety and he described a number of incidents which sounded like classic panic attacks. He assumed the cause was from pressure of work. According to Dr Alvarez's notes he'd been suffering mild anxiety since the beginning of the year, but it wasn't sufficiently serious to prescribe anything.'

  'Did Dr Alvarez mention that Sr Vega's wife had an advanced mental illness? She was taking lithium.'

  'He didn't, which I presume means he didn't know about it,' said Rodríguez. 'That would certainly have contributed to Sr Vega's stress.'

  'Do you know why Sr Vega stopped seeing Dr Alvarez?'

  'There's nothing specific in the notes, but I noticed that Dr Alvarez had been recommending some psychological therapy. When I put this to him myself he was very resistant to the idea, so it's possible they had a disagreement about that.'

  'So the mild anxiety was probably developing into something more serious and he was hoping for a different approach from you?'

  'My approach was to reduce his anxiety with a mild drug and then, when he was feeling more in control, persuade him into some form of therapy.'

  'Did he talk about any sleep problems?'

  'He mentioned a sleepwalking incident. His wife had woken up at three in the morning to see him leaving the bedroom. When she questioned him about it the next day he had no recollection of it.'

  'So he did talk about his wife?'

  'When describing that incident, yes, but he also said his wife could not be relied upon because she took sleeping pills. There was something else that had happened, which had convinced him that the sleepwalking had occurred, but he wouldn't be drawn on it,' said Rodríguez. 'It was the first consultation, remember. I thought there would be time to coax things out of him later.'

  'Did you think he was a danger to himself?'

  'Obviously I didn't. Mental disturbances of the sort he was suffering are not uncommon. I have to make decisions on the basis of a snapshot of a man's life. He was not extremely agitated, nor was he preternaturally calm – those two extremes being indicators of danger.

  There was no history of depression. He had come to me from someone else. He seemed to be trying to tackle his problem. He wanted something to reduce his level of anxiety and he didn't want another panic attack. These are all positive signs.'

  'It sounds as if he wanted a quick fix. No therapy.'

  'Men are more resistant to the idea of discussing their private thoughts or shameful deeds with someone else,' said Rodríguez. 'If their problems can be solved with a pill, so much the better. There are plenty of doctors who believe we are bundles of chemicals and that psychopharmacology is the answer.'

  'So, in your opinion, Sr Vega was troubled but not suicidal?'

  'It would have been good to have known about his wife,' said Rodríguez. 'If you have pressure at work and no respite at home and possibly no love… that is a situation that can tip a troubled mind into despair.'

  Falcón sat wedged into the corner of the car, Ferrera driving. He was already questioning his instincts on day two of the investigation. So far there was no conclusive evidence to support a murder inquiry. The suicide option was looking stronger with every interview. Even if there were no matching fibres from the pillow found under Sr Vega's fingernails that was still only an indicator that somebody else might have been there. It wasn't positive proof.

  Ramírez called from the offices of Vega Construcciones to say that Sergei was a legal immigrant and Serrano and Baena now had a photograph and were circulating with it around Santa Clara and the Poligono San Pablo.

  The Cabellos lived in the penthouse of a block built in the seventies in the upmarket barrio of El Porvenir, opposite the bingo hall on Calle de Felipe II.

  'You're never too rich to play bingo,' said Falcón, as they went up to the apartment where Carmen Ortiz was having a hysterical attack. She was in the bedroom with her husband, who had arrived from Barcelona that morning. The Ortiz children, with Mario between them, were sitting on the sofa, subdued. It was the old man, Sr Cabello, who'd answered the door. He led them into the sitting room. Ferrera knelt down with the children and had them playing and giggling in a matter of moments. Sr Cabello went to find his daughter but returned with his son-in-law. They went into the kitchen.

  'She doesn't want to see the bodies,' said the son- in-law.

  'They'll be behind a glass panel,' said Falcón. 'They'll look as if they're asleep.'

  'I'll go,' said Sr Cabello, composed and determined.

  'How is your wife?' asked Falcón.

  'Stable, but still in intensive care, unconscious. I'd appreciate it if you could take me to the hospital afterwards.'

  Falcón sat in the back of the car with Sr Cabello while Ferrera took on the pre-lunch traffic. The old man rested his worker's hands in his lap and stared straight into the intricacies of Ferrera's pinned-up plait.

  'When was the last time you saw Lucia?' asked Falcón.

  'We were there for Sunday lunch.'

  'With Sr Vega?'

  'He came for lunch. He'd been out driving his new car.'

  'How was your daughter?'

  'I think you already know by now that she was not well. She has not been well since Mario was born,' he said. 'It was never easy to see her in that state, but there was nothing extraordinary about that particular lunch. It was the same as always.'

  'I am going to have to ask you some questions which might be painful,' said Falcón. 'You are the closest family and it is only through you that we can begin to understand the domestic situation between your daughter and Sr Vega.'

  'Did he kill her?' asked Sr Cabello, turning his wounded eyes on Falcón for the first time.

  'We don't know. We're hoping for clarification from the autopsy. Do you think he could have killed her?'

  'That man was capable of anything,' said Sr Cabello, with no drama, mere fact.

  Falcón waited in silence.

  'He was a cold man,' said Sr Cabello, 'a ruthless man, a man that never allowed anyone too close. He never talked about his dead parents, or any member of his family. He did not love my daughter, even before her problems when she was a beautiful young woman… when… when she…'

  Sr Cabello closed his eyes to memories, his jaw muscles worked over his grief.

  'Were you aware of any difference in your son-in- law's behaviour since the beginning of this year?'

  'Only that he was even more withdrawn than usual,' said Sr Cabello. 'Whole meals would pass in silence.'

  'Did yo
u remark on it?'

  'He said it was work, that he was managing too many projects at once. We didn't believe him. My wife was sure he had a woman somewhere and it had all gone wrong.'

  'Why did she think that?'

  'No reason. She's a woman. She sees things I don't see. She sensed that the trouble was in the heart and not the head.'

  'Was there anything specific that led you to believe that he had a mistress?'

  'He was not often at home with Lucia. She would go to bed before he arrived back from whatever he was doing and sometimes he would be gone by the time she woke up,' said Sr Cabello. 'So there was that, and the way he had always been with our daughter.'

  'His neighbours said that Mario appeared to be very ' important to him.'

  'That is true. He was very fond of the boy… and Lucia found it difficult to cope with his energy as that puta of a disease took hold of her mind,' said Cabello. 'No, I don't say that he was all bad, and certainly he would not have appeared bad to an outsider. He understood the necessity for charm. It was only by living close to him that you saw his true nature.'

  'When did you spend time with him?'

  'On holidays down at the coast. He was supposed to be relaxed then, but in many ways he was worse. Constant company made him uneasy. I think the idea of family made him sick.'

  'Do you know what happened to his parents?'

  'He said they were killed in a car accident when he was nineteen years old.'

  'You know more than his lawyer.'

  'He wouldn't tell Carlos Vázquez that sort of thing.'

  'He told him that his father had been a butcher,' said Falcón. 'And how he used to punish him.'

  'You've seen the room he has in his house,' said Cabello. 'He gave Carlos Vázquez an explanation. He never told me what his father had done to him. You see, he is not a normal man. He is at heart a suspicious man, because he believes that people are like he is himself.'

  'Lucia didn't like the butchery?'

  'That only started after Mario was born. Before then she didn't mind.'

  'Were you surprised that she wanted to marry him?'

  'It was a difficult time.'

  They were stopped at a traffic light. An African boy walked between the cars, hatless in the full sun, selling newspapers. Sr Cabello seemed to need movement to get himself talking. The lights changed.