The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

by Robert Wilson

  'And nobody would see you,' said Falcón. 'Unless you got caught at the traffic lights on el Torneo.'

  'So how did you find out about the car?'

  'Consuelo saw him driving it once in town,' said Falcón. 'Do you know a lawyer called Ranz Costa?'

  'He's not one of the regular criminal lawyers.'

  'See if you can get a meeting with him for later this morning,' said Falcón. 'He's Pablo Ortega's lawyer.'

  Ramírez punched the numbers into his mobile. Ranz Costa had an office back across the river in Triana. He said he could fit them in for five or ten minutes any time this morning.

  They parked in Calle Marqués de Paradas, picked up some latex gloves and a sheaf of evidence bags and walked down the ramp into the basement car park. The supervisor took them to the car, which was an old blue Peugeot 505 diesel estate. The rear number plate was nearly invisible because of dust.

  'He was using this off road,' said Ramírez, snapping on his gloves. 'Felipe can analyse this dust, can't he?'

  'Do you keep a key for this?' Falcón asked the supervisor, who shook his head, chewing on a toothpick.

  'You want to get in the car?' he asked.

  'No,' said Ramírez, 'he wants to unlock your brain to see what that fluttering noise is.'

  'He doesn't bite,' said Falcón, 'unless you move suddenly.'

  The supervisor removed his very unimpressed face from Ramírez and whistled. Two boys appeared in shorts and trainers and nothing else. The supervisor told them to open the car. One produced a screwdriver and the other unbent a length of wire from his pocket. The kid with the screwdriver jammed it in the door and levered the corner open, the kid with the wire flipped the lock. It took two seconds.

  'I like a bit of finesse,' said Ramírez, flexing his gloved hands. 'None of that skeleton-key shit.'

  'Did Sr Vega ever ask you to wash the car?'

  The supervisor, an expert in the small talents of life, flipped the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other for an answer.

  The car's interior was covered with a thin film of dust, even the passenger and rear seats, indicating that Vega always travelled alone when he used this car. There were documents in the glove compartment, two door keys on a ring with no tag in the ashtray, and a single card for a hostal residencia in a village called Fuenteheridos in the district of Aracena.

  They closed the car, told the supervisor not to touch it and that they'd send a truck to pick it up. Ramírez brushed some dust off the bumper into an evidence bag. On the way back to Falcón's car Cristina Ferrera called to say that Pablo Ortega had made four outgoing calls on the Friday evening before his suicide. The two earliest calls had lasted thirty seconds each and were to a builder and someone called Marciano Ruiz. The third call was a twelve minute one to Ignacio Ortega. The last call was to Ranz Costa and had lasted two minutes.

  Ramírez called the builder who said that Ortega had called to cancel their meeting. Falcón knew the theatre director Marciano Ruiz so he called him as they went up to Ranz Costa's offices. Ortega had left an obscene message on his answering machine.

  'So what's the link between Pablo Ortega's suicide and Vega's death?' asked Ramírez.

  'On paper, nothing other than that they knew each other and were immediate neighbours.'

  'But your guts are telling you something different?'

  They were shown in to Ranz Costa's office. He was a big bear of a man who, even in severe air conditioning, sweated heavily.

  'You had a call from Pablo Ortega on Friday evening,' said Falcón. 'What was that about?'

  'He thanked me for re-drafting his will and for the copy I'd sent him by courier that afternoon.'

  'When did he instruct you to re-draft the will?'

  'Thursday morning,' said Ranz Costa. 'I now understand the urgency for the document.'

  'Have you spoken to Ignacio Ortega this morning?'

  'In fact he called me last night. He wanted to know if his brother had written a letter to me. I said that all communication had been over the phone or in person.'

  'Did he ask you about the contents of the will?'

  'I started to tell him that his brother had changed the will, but he seemed to know that already. That didn't seem to be his concern.'

  'Did the changes benefit him in any way?'

  'No,' said Ranz Costa, shifting his weight to the other buttock as client confidentiality began to be infringed.

  'You know the next question,' said Ramírez.

  'The property in the will was changed to the new house in Santa Clara and Ignacio was no longer to be one of the beneficiaries.'

  'Who are the beneficiaries?'

  'Primarily Sebastián, who is now to receive everything except for two cash sums to be paid to Ignacio's children.'

  'What do you know about Ignacio's son, Salvador?' asked Falcón. 'Apart from the fact that he's a heroin addict living in Seville.'

  'He's thirty-four years old. The last address I have for him is in the Poligono San Pablo. I've had to arrange a defence for him twice on drug-dealing charges. He survived the first and I got him a reduced sentence on the second for which he served four years. He was released two years ago and I haven't heard from him since.'

  'Do Ignacio and Salvador speak?'

  'No, but Pablo and Salvador did.'

  'A last question on the will and we'll leave you alone,' said Falcón. 'Ignacio was a wealthy man, I doubt he was expecting any money from his brother.'

  'He'd always wanted the Louis XV chair from Pablo's collection.'

  Falcón grunted as he remembered Ignacio's professed lack of interest in the collection.

  'So why had the brothers fallen out?' asked Ramírez.

  'I just do the legal documents,' said Ranz Costa. 'I never involve myself…'

  He didn't finish. The two lawmen had already left his office.

  On the way down from Ranz Costa's office Falcón called Ignacio to remind him about the body identification. He also called Inspector Jefe Montes and said that he'd like to drop by later on that morning and talk about the two Russian names he'd mentioned to him on Friday evening. Montes said he could drop in any time, he wasn't going anywhere.

  Falcón took Ramírez back to the Jefatura. He wanted Felipe to analyse the dust sample while Ramírez followed up on the hostal residencia in Fuenteheridos. Falcón drove to the Instituto Anatómico Forense.

  Ignacio Ortega and Falcón stood in the room with the curtain drawn over the glass panel. They waited in silence while the body was brought up from the morgue and the Médico Forense prepared the paperwork.

  'When did you say was the last time you spoke to Pablo?' asked Falcón.

  The night before I went away,' he said.

  'Pablo's mobile telephone company has informed us that you had a twelve-minute call with him on the evening before he died. Can you explain that to me, Sr Ortega?'

  Silence while Ignacio looked at the unopened curtain.

  'Ranz Costa told us that Pablo changed his will before he died. Do you know what those changes were?'

  Ignacio nodded.

  'Was that what was discussed in the phone call he made to you on Friday evening?'

  Ignacio's head stayed still.

  'I was surprised at how you seemed more concerned about whether your brother had written to you, and what he had written to Sebastián, than you were by the fact of his suicide,' said Falcón, thinking this was a man who needed to be riled up.

  That turned Ignacio, whose two eyes punched into Falcón's face like industrial riveters.

  'You have no right to talk to me like that,' he said. 'I am not one of your suspects. I have not been accused of anything. My brother killed himself. I am dealing with that in my own private way, which is no business of yours. You're as curious to know why he killed himself as I am, but you have no right to poke your nose into my family affairs unless you can prove that I was in some way responsible for my brother's death when I was on the coast at the time.'

  'Y
ou lied to me about the last time you spoke to your brother,' said Falcón. 'Detectives never like being lied to. We get suspicious and think you have something to hide.'

  'I have nothing to hide. My conscience is clear. What family matters passed between Pablo and me are private.'

  'You know, we're thinking of reopening Sebastián's case, as well as giving him some psychological help…'

  'You can do what you like, Inspector Jefe.'

  The Médico Forense informed them that the body was now ready. Ignacio turned to the curtains, which opened. He confirmed his brother's identity, signed the papers and left without another word or glance in Falcón's direction.

  Falcón drove back to the Jefatura with three thoughts knocking around in his head. Why did Ignacio Ortega bother him so much? It was clear he hadn't killed his brother, but there was something locked up in the man's head that made Falcón think that he had some responsibility. How do you crack a hard nut like Ignacio Ortega? And how do you find out what the dead men have locked away in their heads? Police work might be easier if it were possible to download the mind's contents on to screen. The software of life. What would that look like? Fact distorted by emotion. Reality transformed by illusion. Truth painted over by denial. That would take some program to disentangle.

  His mobile rang.

  'Diga,' he said.

  'Are you on your way back?' asked Ramírez.

  'I'm on the Plaza de Cuba.'

  'Good, because Inspector Jefe Montes has just jumped out of his second-floor window and landed on his head in the car park.'

  Falcón accelerated down the Avenida de Argentina. His tyres squealed on the hot tarmac as he turned into the Jefatura car park. There was a crowd gathered beneath the window from which he'd seen Montes looking out only last week thinking… thinking: has the moment come?

  The ambulance lights flashed almost invisibly in the glare of the brutally bleaching light that beat down on the scene in the car park. Women's faces stared out from the dark ground-floor office windows, mouths covered. Men stood at first-floor windows, heads viced in their hands, squeezing out this unnatural image. Falcón pushed through the crowd in time to see the paramedics officially give up on the inert Montes. His shoulder and head looked as if they were buried in dark bloody tarmac soft enough to take this terrible indentation. But Falcón knew from the look of it what that body would reveal on the slab: shattered shoulder, compound fracture of the collarbone, broken neck vertebrae, severed spinal cord, smashed skull, catastrophic brain haemorrhage.

  Members of Montes's squad were in the crowd. They were crying. Comisario Elvira came out of the Jefatura and made a carefully designed speech to disperse the crowd. His eyes fell on Falcón. He told him to have photographs taken, the body removed and to make an initial verbal report within the hour. The Juez de Guardia arrived with the Médico Forense.

  As the crowd dispersed, Ferrera took three of them off to make witness statements. Falcón told Ramírez to seal off Montes's office. Felipe took the necessary shots. The paramedics removed the body under instruction from the Juez de Guardia. The crime scene cleaners moved in and washed away the blood, which was already congealing in the sun.

  As Falcón went up to his office to get a fresh notebook, he had a terrible sense of convergence – Vega, Ortega and now Montes. The homicide squad three men short because of the holiday season. Each death not apparently connected and yet somehow being the precursor of the next.

  He found Ferrera, gave her Salvador Ortega's details and told her to speak to someone in the Narcotics squad. A current address was all he wanted. He also told her to check all post offices in the Seville area to see if either Rafael Vega or an Argentinean called Emilio Cruz held a postbox for receiving mail.

  'Is this more important than Rafael Vega's key?'

  'Did you get anywhere with that?'

  'He doesn't have a safe-deposit box in the Banco de Bilbao. That was as far as I got.'

  'Work on the key later,' he said. 'It'll take time.'

  He picked up his notebook and walked slowly up the stairs to the second floor where Ramírez stood with a master key for Montes's office. The members of GRUME were lined up in the corridor, waiting. Felipe came up from the car park sweating with his camera.

  Ramírez opened the door. Felipe took his shots and left. Falcón shut the window. They looked around, sweating, while the air conditioning reasserted itself. On Montes's desk was a sheet of notepaper covered in his handwriting and a sealed envelope addressed to his wife. Falcón and Ramírez moved round to read the writing on the notepaper, which was addressed to 'My Fellow Officers':

  It probably seems ridiculous to you that I should have taken my own life so close to retirement. I should have been able to bear the pressure of my job for a little longer, but I could not. This is no reflection on the men and women with whom it has been my honour to work.

  I joined the police force with the belief that I could do some good. I had a strong sense of the value of the policeman in society. I have not been able to do the good that I intended. I have felt increasingly powerless to act against the new waves of depravity and corruption which are now sweeping through my country and the rest of Europe.

  I have been drinking, hoping that it would dull my senses to what was happening around me. I did not succeed. A growing oppression has weighed down on my shoulders until at times I have felt unable to rise from my chair. I have felt trapped and unable to speak to anyone.

  I only ask that you, my friends, protect my family and forgive me for this last disastrous act of mine.

  Falcón read the letter out to the squad members crowding the door. The women cried open-eyed, staring in disbelief. He asked if someone who knew Sra Montes would accompany Ramírez to give her the letter and break the news to her personally. Montes's number two stepped forward and he and Ramírez left.

  There was nothing of interest in the office and the interviews with the various members of the squad, who were all shaken, were monosyllabic. By the time he'd finished, Ramírez was back, having left the inspector of GRUME with Sra Montes. They sealed Montes's office and went back down to their own, where Cristina Ferrera was on the phone. Falcón told her to check for postboxes in the name of Alberto Montes as well. She nodded and scribbled down the name.

  Ramírez followed him into his office and they stood at the window overlooking the car park, which was already clean and dry.

  'You think Montes was on the take?' asked Ramírez.

  'Some of the words he used in his letter were interesting,' said Falcón. 'Like: "I have not been able to do the good I intended", "powerless against corruption", "growing oppression", "trapped" and finally the phrase that really drew my attention: "protect my family". Why should anybody say anything like that? "Look after" maybe, but "protect"? This was a guy whose subconscious was leaking into his everyday life and he couldn't bear it.'

  Ramírez nodded and stared into the car park, imagining himself crumpled, corrupted, damaged beyond repair. The man discarded from life.

  'You didn't get the idea that he was on the take from that letter,' said Ramírez. 'So what else do you know?'

  'I don't know what I know.'

  'Don't start with that shit.'

  'I mean it. I think Montes thought I knew something,' said Falcón.

  'Well, if he was on the take, he's looking like the source for any information the Russians have on you.'

  'Montes thought I was putting pressure on him, which I wasn't. I was just asking him about these Russians… to see if he'd heard of them. Nothing more than that.'

  'His mind did the rest,' said Ramírez.

  'And now I feel like an archaeologist who's found a few unusual shards of pottery and been asked to rebuild a civilization from them.'

  'Tell me the shards,' said Ramírez. 'I'm good at gluing things back together.'

  'I'm almost too embarrassed to tell you,' said Falcón. 'They're hints revived from the old Raúl Jiménez case. Some names from Rafael Vega's add
ress book. The Russian mafia involvement in the two Vega Construcciones projects. Their threats. The timing of Ortega's death. The timing of this suicide today. They're not even solid enough to be called shards, and if they are they might not be from the same pot but just dislocated fragments.'

  'Let's get some things straight in our heads about Vega,' said Ramírez. 'First of all, he's security conscious: the handgun – which I checked and it wasn't licensed – the bulletproof windows, the surveillance system, even if he didn't use it, the front door…'

  'The front door which is normally fully locked at night but which we discovered only shut on the morning of his death.'

  'As was the back door into his garden, meaning…'

  'Possibly indicating,' said Falcón, correcting him, 'that Vega let someone into the house late at night whom he knew.'

  'All his immediate neighbours knew him socially,' said Ramírez, 'but nobody called first to say they were coming round, if indeed they did.'

  'We know from Pablo Ortega that the Russians used to visit him at home,' said Falcón. 'But as Vázquez said, Vega was "facilitating their business needs" so their motive for wanting him removed is not clear. Marty Krugman put up the possibility that Vega was in some way cheating the Russians.'

  'Was that based on anything?'

  'Speculation. I asked him why the mafia might want Vega dead,' said Falcón. 'We should compare the two sets of books on the Russian projects Dourado told you about.'

  'The Russians – and we're pretty sure it is them – are rattled enough to make threats against you and Consuelo Jiménez,' said Ramírez.

  'It's heavy-handed stuff if they're worried about a bit of money-laundering.'

  'Money makes the mafia tick,' said Ramírez.

  'Or is there something worse in the Vega scenario which might come to light in the course of an intrusive murder investigation?'

  'I took a closer look at the Argentinian passport he had in the name of Emilio Cruz this morning,' said Ramírez. 'It also had a valid Moroccan visa in it. In fact, there were five Moroccan visas in there. Four had expired without being used. The fifth was valid until November 2002. That means he could have been in Tangier in five hours by car and ferry, even less by air.