The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

by Robert Wilson

Maddy sat up and frowned to herself.

  'People don't talk much on commuter trains and they don't normally ask you how you feel about your country, but this guy for some reason wanted to know all the famous theories of Marty Krugman. He wanted to know how good an American I was. He wanted to know how strong my fear was, how ravenous my greed. I think, looking back on it, I qualified on the grounds of fear. I told him that I wanted America to remain the most powerful nation of earth because I know where I stand with them at the helm. We met again some days later and went for a walk in Bryant Park behind the New York Public Library. It was freezing cold. There's a good place to eat lunch there – the Bryant Grill. And it was there that this man revealed that he understood the nature of my problem and that he could solve it.'

  'What was this man's name?' asked Falcón, looking at Maddy.

  'Foley Macnamara,' said Marty, without missing a beat.

  Maddy blinked, mouth open a crack.

  'We became regulars at the Bryant Grill. Foley told me how important presentation was in the maintenance of control. How the ends justify the means, and how the means necessarily have to be outrageous and quite ruthlessly executed in order to remind those with delusions of power who they're up against. He said that this was a big part of the Agency's job: to maintain image, to hold loyalty to the brand.'

  'The Agency?' said Maddy, incredulous. 'What agency, Marty?'

  'That was when I asked him whether he was with the CIA, and he said he was not.'

  'Oh, shit, Marty… no,' said Maddy. 'You've finally fucking flipped. The Agency. Jesus Christ.'

  'He said he was a consultant and that he provided information for certain departments. He said that he only worked in the business and political arenas, never military.

  'He liked my profile: I'd never worked for the government, I had a well-documented career as an architect, I already spoke near-perfect Spanish. All they wanted me to do was go to Seville, make contact with an estate agency and they would put us next to Rafael Vega.'

  'For a start, Marty, we did not intend to go to Seville. If you remember, we took a small house in Provence. That was where we were going to spend a year, to try and live the life of that stupid fucking book - if you remember.'

  'But we went to Barcelona to see my old pal Gaudi and we ended up in Seville, Maddy,' he said. 'All I had to do was to keep up the flow of information about Vega, his situation, what he was thinking and any plans he might have. In return, the thrust of the Reza Sangari Investigation would be redirected. We would be free to leave the country and restart our lives. No admission of guilt was implied.'

  'This is crazy,' said Maddy, burying her face in her hands. 'You can't tell these people this stuff.'

  'Did you know who you were spying on?' asked Falcón.

  'I only found that out as things started to develop in Rafael Vega's life. The theory being that, the less I knew, the more convincing I could be.'

  'Who was your contact here in Seville?'

  'His code name was "Romany". I used to meet him down by the river, between the bridges.'

  'Did he give you Rafael Vega's real identity?'

  'Don't tell me you believe this stuff, Inspector Jefe?' said Maddy. 'Because I can tell you… I mean, this proves that we are dealing with an insane person here.'

  'I learnt everything about him myself,' said Marty, ignoring her. 'Which meant I learnt nothing for months. We discussed all sorts of things, but he never talked about himself. He was completely watertight until the end of last year when for the first time he got really drunk in my company and started to talk about his "other life". I didn't learn everything in one go. I had to piece it together from a series of discussions, but what was causing his distress was that he'd been married before, to a woman who'd died some years ago in Cartagena in Colombia. They'd had a daughter, who had subsequently married and had children herself. He'd kept in touch with his daughter and the news he'd received at the end of last year was that she, her husband and the children had been killed when a truck had forced their car off the road. It was a- devastating blow and, of course, he had no one to talk to except me.'

  'Did he believe it was a genuine accident?' asked Falcón.

  'In his confused and stricken state the real paranoia of the man came out,' said Marty. 'He didn't know whether it was his enemies coming back at him or just divine retribution.'

  'So he told you what he'd been doing in his "other life"?' asked Falcón. 'Why he'd had to cut himself off from his wife and daughter?'

  'Not exactly,' said Marty. 'He told me he'd started seeing faces from his past.'

  Maddy spread her hands as if this was proof of the man's complete delusion.

  'In dreams?' asked Falcón.

  'I think they started as dreams and then dream and reality began to merge and that's what was frightening him. While they were dream faces he found himself intrigued by why his mind had marked them out. Once he started to see these same faces on living people, he thought he was going mad. He wouldn't go and see anybody about it. He said that he'd started taking something for his anxiety. But the faces kept coming at him in parks, shops, cafes, and still he couldn't work out who they were.

  'It came out that he'd been in the military,' said Marty. 'And using some very simple powers of deduction I reasoned that he'd been involved in the Chilean military take-over of 1973. I put it to him that some very unpleasant things happened in the process of the Pinochet revolution and that perhaps these faces were from people who'd suffered at the hands of the new regime. And as I was saying this I knew I'd hit home. He retreated into his head and spoke to himself and I heard him say: "They were the ones who didn't ask for their mothers." I think that they were people he'd tortured.'

  'Was that why you killed him, Marty?' asked Falcón.

  'I understand your need to tidy things up, Inspector Jefe,' said Marty. 'So pin the killing on me if you must. But this was a man who was going to do the job himself.'

  'What about the Agency?' said Maddy, more provocatively this time.

  'They didn't want him dead,' said Marty. 'They still hadn't found out what they wanted to know.'

  'And what was that?' asked Falcón.

  'They didn't know. They were just sure he had something that could be damaging to them or their interests.'

  'Do you think these people are going to believe that bullshit?' said Maddy, hitting high, screechy notes. 'My husband is a CIA undercover agent? You're pathetic, Marty Krugman. You are fucking pathetic and always have been.'

  'And now, gentlemen,' said Marty. 'This is over.'

  The bullet entered her chest to the right of her left breast. Marty slid to the floor with his back against the wall. He put the barrel of the gun into his mouth. Falcón threw himself at Marty, trying to knock the gun away, but everything had been calculated. Marty pulled the trigger and the white wall spattered red behind him.

  Chapter 26

  Tuesday, 30th July 2002

  Not much strength is required to throw off a cotton sheet, but Falcón couldn't find it. His arms had been weakened by last night's failures. He was glad he'd already written his report; his fingers felt like squid. Comisario Elvira had insisted on him faxing the report through, after he'd delivered his verbal account while driving Calderón back to his apartment.

  Snapshots of last night's events flipped through his mind. The close-up of the light going out in Marty Krugman's eyes. Calderón paralysed on the sofa, his face full of horror at the blood spreading out into Maddy Krugman's silk top. The young patrolman surveying the carnage in the room and gagging into his hand. Garcia pushing past them to shake his head at the human mess. The three of them going downstairs, Calderón holding on to the bannister. The police marksman, unused, sitting in the front of Garcia's car with his case on his knees. The drive back with Calderón on the mobile, giving Inés a monosyllabic account. Inés in strappy, pointy, high-heeled shoes, standing in the glare of the headlights in the street outside the apartment building. Calderón, with his ha
nds weighing thirty kilos apiece by his sides, as Inés engulfed him in her arms. Their faces as he moved off – hers with lower lip trembling, eyes sparkling with tears, and his lifeless apart from one shift of the eyes to the corners, which said: 'You've seen me, Javier Falcón, now go, get away, let me be.'

  The distance that seven hours of deep, anaesthetic sleep had put between him and these events had made them seem like a journalist's account of a crime committed in the 1950s. He felt different, as if a surgeon had mistakenly removed something that had never troubled him, and the result was going to change his life.

  His conversation with Consuelo came back to him. He'd called her lying in bed, just moments before he blacked out. The last exchange:

  'Marty Krugman was clearly insane,' she said.

  'Was he?'

  He drove to the Jefatura, black and sick in his stomach, as if he'd drunk coffee on a bad hangover. He gripped the steering wheel tightly. As he came into the empty outer office he saw Ramírez standing at the window, leaning forward, supporting himself on his hands.

  'I heard about last night's disaster,' said Ramírez. 'Are you all right?'

  Falcón nodded, more or less.

  'Elvira's already been on the phone, asking to see you as soon as you come in.'

  The Comisario was standing at his window, hands behind his back, looking across Calle Bias Infante to the Parque de los Principes. His predecessor, Lobo, used to do the same thing – drawing the illusion of power from surveying a domain.

  'Take a seat, Inspector Jefe,' he said, nipping behind his desk, swift and agile, giving his moustache a finger and thumb wipe. 'I've read your report and Juez Calderón's, which arrived first thing this morning. I've already been in touch with the American Consul and he's asked for copies. They should come back to us this morning on the CIA nonsense. They won't want to let that notion build up any authority in our ranks.'

  'So you don't give it any credibility, sir?'

  'Sounds like the ravings of a deranged mind to me,' said Elvira. 'But then again, when I heard that our government had sent death squads to wipe out ETA terrorist cells I didn't believe that either… I couldn't believe it. So, officially, I would call myself sceptical, whilst privately thinking the whole story completely fantastical.'

  'He was deranged,' said Falcón. 'There's no doubt about that. But you can't totally write him off. I'm sure the FBI don't let people off the hook that easily and what he told me about Reza Sangari matches what I found out myself. I see no reason why he should lie about killing the man – unless that, too, was some fantasy which, in his confused mind, he hoped would draw his very strange wife back to him. The stuff he spouted about the Agency… Who knows. I'm sure his wife didn't believe a word of it. It'll be interesting to see what Virgilio Guzmán comes back with on the profile of Miguel Velasco.'

  'What's Guzmán got to do with it?'

  'He's a Chilean. He has expatriate contacts who can help with that sort of material,' said Falcón. 'One thing

  I do know about these dream faces he mentioned is that Pablo Ortega saw Vega badly spooked in the Corte Ingles one day and I imagine that he'd been seeing one of his visions.'

  'You've got to be careful with Virgilio Guzmán,' said Elvira. 'There are people who say that he can't seem to take anything at face value any more. He's sees a conspiracy theory in everything.'

  'He clarified the 9/11 element of the "suicide note" and that helped with the identification of Rafael Vega.'

  'I thought he came to see you about Montes's suicide?'

  'He did. The inclusion of Eduardo Carvajal's name in Vega's address book was why I'd gone to see Montes in the first place,' said Falcón. 'Montes mentioned Russian mafia involvement in the sex trade, and the next thing I find is a Russian connection to Vega. I ask Montes about these Russians and very soon after that he killed himself.'

  'And you talked to Guzmán about this?'

  'I gave it to him as context, but we had an agreement that he would not write about anything circumstantial, only the provable facts. And, as yet, we have nothing that links Montes to the Russians.'

  'You're making me very nervous, Inspector Jefe. The Montes suicide is an internal matter at the moment. If there is corruption within the force we have to be extremely careful about how it is handled.'

  'A journalist was sent to talk to me in my position as the investigating officer. I was not briefed on what could, or could not, be discussed with him. I believe, with someone of the reputation of Virgilio Guzmán, that transparency is the best policy. Have you read the Diario de Sevilla today?'

  'Yes. There was a very extensive report on the career of Inspector Jefe Montes.'

  Falcón nodded, waited, but nothing more was said.

  'I think you should search the Krugmans' house before the Americans come back to us,' said Elvira. 'I've already arranged a warrant.'

  Falcón headed for the door. Elvira spoke to the back of his head.

  'If Virgilio Guzmán approaches you on the events of last night I'd like you to be very oblique about why Juez Calderón was in the apartment. I don't want a scandal about the Juez de Instruccion having had an affair with the deceased.'

  'Has he admitted to that?'

  'I asked for a separate statement on that subject. He seems to have been obsessed by her,' said Elvira, who added without looking up from his papers: 'I'm surprised that you didn't mention in your statement his action of bravery at the end.'

  'His bravery?' asked Falcón.

  '"As Krugman raised his gun to fire,"' said Elvira, reading from Calderón's statement, '"I threw myself towards him in the hope of distracting his aim. The bullet hit Sra Krugman in the chest. Inspector Jefe Falcón was unable to prevent Sr Krugman from putting the gun into his mouth and killing himself."'

  'I'll search the Krugmans' house,' said Falcón, leaving the office.

  'Garcia didn't see it either,' said Elvira, as the door closed.

  Back in the office Falcón sent Cristina Ferrera off to the lab to pick up the Krugmans' house keys from Felipe and Jorge, who had removed them from the crime scene back in Tabladilla. Ramírez was still slumped at his desk.

  'CIA?' he said, incredulous.

  Falcón threw up his hands.

  'Or not CIA, but some shadowy consultancy connected to the CIA,' he said.

  'Fantasy,' said Ramírez.

  'Let's say that Guzmán's conspiracy theory is correct. If you were part of the American administration responsible for some very ugly things happening in South America during the seventies, and you were worried that Rafael Vega had something that could prove personal involvement by senior members of the US administration… what would you do?'

  'Kill him anyway.'

  'That's because you're a ruthless bastard, José Luis,' said Falcón. 'The fact is, you wouldn't use the CIA, would you? You wouldn't have the power to use it. But there must be ex-CIA men with contacts and influence who have "debts". You see what I mean about Crazy Krugman… you can't just dismiss him as a madman.'

  'I can,' said Ramírez. 'He's too unstable for that kind of work.'

  'What if he's your only option?' said Falcón. 'And what do you make of his final admission, that the Agency didn't want Vega dead because they hadn't found out what they wanted to find out? That's a bit of an anticlimax, isn't it?'

  'You mean he was doing all these vital, secret tasks but none of the information he came up with was crucial enough that Vega had to be killed?' said Ramírez. 'Maybe what they were looking for is locked up in Vega's safe-deposit box, for which we still don't have a search warrant.'

  'You're beginning to believe, José Luis. You'd better remind Juez Calderón, if he comes in for work today."

  The phone rang in the outer office. Ramírez went to answer it while Falcón thought about Krugman. 'They', if they existed, couldn't have been expecting Marty to find papers or a video tape. That would have been too much. What they were looking for were reports on Vega's state of mind. Was this a man about to go to Balta
sar Garzón or the Belgian justice system and offer his services, for instance?

  'That was the town hall in Aracena,' said Ramírez, leaning against the door jamb. 'They passed a restoration project on Montes's ruined finca valued at twenty million pesetas. A total rebuild, complete remodernization, three-phase electricity – the works.'

  Falcón passed the news on to Comisario Elvira, who reacted as if he'd been expecting it all along. He told them to proceed with the Krugman house search. Ferrera came back with the house keys and they drove out to Santa Clara.

  The house was cold and silent and looked undisturbed as the three of them snapped on their latex gloves.

  'I'll go upstairs,' said Falcón. 'Join me when you've finished down here.'

  'What are we looking for?' asked Ferrera.

  'A little note from Dr Kissinger saying, "Keep up the good work,"' said Ramírez. 'That should do it.'

  Falcón went upstairs. The door to Maddy Krugman's exhibition room was open. All the photographs had been removed from the walls and only one exhibit was left on a plinth in the centre of the room. It consisted of a cut-out of a blown-up version of Vega standing barefoot in his garden. The cut-out was encased in Perspex and suspended within the transparent block, like the skeletons of autumn leaves, were the ghostly prints of human hands. They all seemed to be pressing in on the lonely figure, who stood imprisoned, as if by his own history, like an insect in amber. There was a printed card attached to the piece written in Spanish: Las Manos Desaparecidas - The Vanished Hands.

  He went across to her work room. Ferrera was going to have to spend a day going through all the prints, transparencies and negatives, checking every one. Up against the wall were the framed shots which had been hanging in the other room. He flipped through them, looking for the shot she'd taken of him. He found the empty frame. He checked the paper shredder and saw his image hanging in ribbons.

  Marty Krugman had converted one of the other bedrooms into his office. There was a desk, a laptop and a drawing board. Rolls of plans stood in the corners. Falcón went through the desk drawers. He found a school exercise book with what appeared to be a collection of Krugman's odd thoughts jotted down.