The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

by Robert Wilson

  'Who is "us"?' asked Falcón.

  'That is all I'm saying on the matter,' said Flowers. 'You told me that your concern was whether Krugman killed him, and I can tell you that he didn't. Be satisfied.'

  'How can I be sure of that?'

  'Because Marty Krugman was with me on the night that Rafael Vega died, from between two and five o'clock in the morning,' said Flowers. 'I have a timed and dated recording of that meeting because it took place in the American Consulate.'

  Chapter 29

  Wednesday, 31st July 2002

  On the way to the Jefatura Falcón stopped for a cafe solo on the Avenida de Argentina. He felt bleary and down like everybody else in the bar. The heat had wrung all the natural alegria out of the Sevillanos, leaving some introverted version of themselves to wander the streets and populate the bars.

  There was no sign of Ramírez or Ferrera in the office. He took the audio tapes of the interviews with the arsonists and the original videotape stolen from the Montes finca and went up to Elvira's office. He met Ramírez coming down.

  'I spoke to the arsonists again and asked them how they knew Montes,' said Ramírez. 'Twenty years ago Montes used to run a youth football side for disadvantaged kids. They were on his team. I've just checked it with the inspector from GRUME and I've had a proper look at their files. Montes was involved in helping them with all their brushes with the law.'

  'Did they know Montes had killed himself?'

  Ramírez shook his head, wished him good luck with Elvira.

  He was not allowed in to see the Comisario, not even into the secretary's office. She put him in the corridor with the single-word explanation: Lobo.

  Ten minutes later he was called in. Lobo stood by the window, arms folded across his chest – tense, angry. Elvira sat at his desk, his face drawn, as if he'd been there all night.

  'What have you got for us?' asked Lobo, leaping the chain of command in his fury.

  'Two audio recordings of the arsonists -'

  'Did they name Ignacio Ortega?'

  'No, they named Alberto Montes.'

  Lobo pounded Elvira's table with three devastating blows that jumped his pencils into disarray.

  'What else?' said Lobo.

  'One video tape with footage from a hidden camera in the finca, showing four men participating in sexual acts with minors.'

  'Are any of them known to us?'

  'There's a defence lawyer and a TV presenter.'

  'Joder,' said Lobo.

  'Ramírez can identify one of the other men – a businessman who comes from his barrio. The fourth is unknown.'

  'Who knows about this tape?'

  'Ramírez and myself.'

  'Keep it that way,' said Lobo, still brutal with rage.

  'What about the arsonists?' asked Elvira.

  'I don't think they knew what they'd stolen.'

  'So, the only link between Ignacio Ortega and Montes's finca is that he installed the air-conditioning units,' said Elvira. 'You have no proof that he was procuring children from the Russians for use at the finca. And you have no proof that he brought clients to the finca to participate in sexual acts with minors.'

  'That is correct,' said Falcón, knowing this had all gone wrong before he'd even started. 'The only way I could establish that he was taking clients to the finca is by speaking to the men on the tape.'

  'Is there anything on the video that proves the footage comes from the Montes finca?' asked Lobo.

  'That's difficult to say now that the building has been completely gutted by fire.'

  'Have you had a report back from Felipe and Jorge about their findings?'

  'Not yet. They probably stayed up in the sierra last night. They were still working at seven o'clock in the evening when I left. The lab technicians here will be working their way through the first batch of evidence. Hopefully there will be some surviving fingerprints on-'

  'I tried to call you last night,' said Lobo.

  'I had my mobile switched off,' said Falcón. 'I was working on my other case – Rafael Vega.'

  'What progress there?'

  Falcón gave his report on his meeting with Mark Flowers.

  'I think I should have a meeting with the American Consul about that,' said Lobo.

  'How does that leave you with your investigation?' asked Elvira.

  'Juez Calderón gave me forty-eight hours. My time is up. I'm finished. I have no suspects and, unless Sergei the gardener turns up, I have no possible witnesses or leads,' said Falcón.

  'What about this safe-deposit box key you found in Vega's house?' asked Elvira.

  'It belongs to a box kept in the name of Emilio Cruz at the Banco Banesto. Juez Calderón has not had time to supply a search warrant yet.'

  'You'll keep us informed when he does,' said Elvira.

  'You might have to content yourself with the fact that Rafael Vega was a bad man who either punished himself or got what he deserved,' said Lobo.

  'I expect Juez Calderón to terminate the case when I see him later this morning,' said Falcón. 'In terms of connecting Ignacio Ortega to the finca, we have one final possibility with the two bodies buried on the property.'

  'Any thoughts about what happened there?'

  'In the corner of one cell by the bed I found an inscription scratched into the wall in Cyrillic script. I'm having it translated. I suspect that it has something to do with the large stain in the middle of the floor, which I did not see until all contents were removed. The stain is likely to be blood. A sample of the concrete is being tested. In the mattress of the same room I found a piece of glass. I assume there was another piece which was used by the occupants of the cell to slash their wrists. I suspect that these two bodies were suicides.

  'A local Juez de Instruction was being used at the crime scene at the finca. I would suggest that a Juez de Instruction is appointed to oversee the case here, as this is where all the evidence will be processed and will be where we hope to convict Ignacio Ortega.'

  'That is being discussed with the Juez Decano de Sevilla at the moment,' said Elvira. 'What do you intend to do now, Inspector Jefe?'

  'The obvious move is to establish a link to Ignacio Ortega by questioning one or more of the men on the video tape. Once he's confirmed as the central figure in this paedophile network we can bring him in and proceed in the direction of the Russian mafiosi – Vladimir Ivanov and Mikhail Zelenov,' said Falcón. 'I realize that the last element in that very ugly equation might be the most difficult to satisfy.'

  Elvira's drawn features eased away from the intensity of Falcón's glare. They both ended up looking at the darkening cumin complexion of Lobo's furious face.

  'For the moment, Inspector Jefe,' he said, 'in the light of what you've just told us about one of our senior officer's involvement in this case, I am going to ask you to do nothing and say nothing.'

  In the silence that followed that request, which included a weighty admission, the questions started stacking up in Falcón's mind. He couldn't ask a single one. He said good morning and went to the desk to pick up the tapes.

  'Best to leave those,' said Lobo.

  Falcón's hand withdrew as if the wolf had snapped.

  Down in the outer office Ramírez was sitting with his feet up, smoking. He put a finger to his lips, nodded next door and mouthed the words Virgilio Guzmán.

  'I can't talk to you now, Virgilio,' said Falcón, walking behind Guzmán and into his chair.

  'About what?'

  'Anything.'

  'What about Alfonso Martinez and Enrique Altozano?'

  'One is in intensive care, the other has disappeared.'

  'Enrique Altozano miraculously reappeared this morning,' said Guzmán. 'Doesn't that sound like someone who's been told the coast is clear?'

  'It can sound like anything to speculative minds.'

  'All right,' said Guzmán. 'Shall I tell you about Miguel Velasco?'

  'I already know about him.'

  'What do you know?'

 
'That he was in the Chilean military…'

  'That's a bit vague.'

  'Is it going to help me to know any more than that?'

  'I'll give you the short history and then you tell me,' said Guzmán. 'He was born in 1944, the son of a Santiago butcher. He was an alumnus of the Catholic University and a member of Patria y Libertad. His mother died in 1967 from a heart attack. He joined the Chilean military in 1969. After the coup he was transferred to the force that was eventually to become the DINA in June 1974. His father, who did not like Allende's politics but also did not agree with the Pinochet coup, disappeared in October 1973 and was never seen again. During his service with the DINA he became one of the chief interrogators at the Villa Grimaldi and a close personal friend of the Head of the DINA – Colonel Manuel Contreras.'

  'That note he held in his hand when he died, I heard that it was an inscription on a cell wall in the Villa Grimaldi,' said Falcón. 'I was also told he was known by the MIR as El Salido.'

  'Perhaps you didn't hear about his work at the Venda Sexy,' said Guzmán. 'That was the name of a torture centre at 3037 Calle Iran, in the Quflu quarter of Santiago de Chile. It was also known as La Discoteca because loud music was heard coming from it day and night. Before Miguel Velasco was moved to the Villa Grimaldi he devised the techniques practised there. He forced family members to watch and participate in taboo sexual acts such as incest and paedophilia. Sometimes he would encourage his fellow torturers to join in.'

  That helps explain things… or rather, not explain but…'

  Tell me.'

  'Finish the biography, Virgilio.'

  'He was an outstanding interrogator, and from the Villa Grimaldi he was moved to one of the active cells in Operation Condor, specializing in kidnappings, interrogations and assassinations abroad. In 1978 he was moved to the Chilean Embassy in Stockholm, where he headed covert operations against the Chilean expatriate community. He transferred back into the military in late 1979 and it's believed that he received some CIA training prior to developing a lucrative "drugs for arms" business. That trade was exposed in 1981 and there followed a trial in which he acted as a witness for the prosecution. In 1982 he was put into a witness protection programme, from which he disappeared almost immediately.'

  'Stockholm?' asked Falcón.

  'The Swedish Prime Minister, Olaf Palme, was vociferous in his disgust at the Pinochet regime. In the days after September 11th, the Swedish Ambassador in Santiago, Harald Edelstam, ran around the capital extending asylum to anyone who was resisting the coup and so Stockholm, naturally, became a centre for a European anti-Pinochet movement. A DINA/CNI cell was set up there to run drug-smuggling operations in Europe and to spy on Chilean expatriates.'

  'Interesting… but none of it helps me any more,' said Falcón. 'That case is about to be closed.'

  'I can sense some disappointment in you, Javier.'

  'You can sense what you like, Virgilio, I've got nothing to talk to you about.'

  'People think I'm a bore, because a lot of my sentences start with the phrase "When I was working the death squads story…"' said Guzmán.

  Ramírez grunted his agreement from the outer office.

  'You must have learned a lot…'

  'During that investigation I always managed to turn up in people's offices at crucial times,' said Guzmán. 'Call it Zeitgeist or tapping into the collective unconscious. Do you believe in all that crap, Javier?'

  'Yes.'

  'You've become monosyllabic, Javier. It's one of the first signs.'

  'Of what?'

  'That I haven't lost my sense of timing,' said Guzmán. 'What do you think the collective unconscious is?'

  'I'm not in the mood, Virgilio.'

  'Where have I heard that before?'

  'In your own bed,' Ramírez shouted from the outer office.

  'Have a go, Javier.'

  'You're not going to talk your way in here,' said Falcón, pushing over a note with his home address and 10 p.m. written on it.

  'Do you know why I left Madrid?' said Guzmán, ignoring the note. 'I was pushed. If you ask people why, they'll tell you that I'd started to live in a hall of mirrors. I didn't know what was real any more. I was paranoid. But the reality was that I was pushed because

  I'd become a zealot. I got that way because the stories I would run with always had something that made me writhe with rage. I couldn't control it. I'd become the worst thing possible – the emotional journalist.'

  'We don't allow that in the police force, either… or we all start cracking up.'

  'It's an incurable disease,' said Guzmán. 'I know that now, because when I read what Velasco used to get up to in the Venda Sexy I hit that same white-hot vein of rage. That's what he used to do to human beings. Not just torture them, but fill them with his own appalling corruption. And the next thing I know I'm back to thinking that was Pinochet. That's what Pinochet thought of human beings. And why was he there? Because Nixon and Kissinger wanted him there. They would rather have someone who promoted the electrocution of genitals, the raping of women, the abuse of children than… than what? Than a tubby, bespectacled little Marxist who was going to make life difficult for the rich. Now you see my problem, Javier. I have become what my bosses used to call me – my own worst enemy. You're not allowed to feel, you're only allowed to report the facts. But, you see, it's in that feeling that my instinct lies and it hasn't failed me, because I know that the rage I felt when I found out about Miguel Velasco's speciality guided me here this morning. And it's guided me here because it wants my nose to be in the door of the cover-up as it slams shut.'

  Guzmán snatched up the note, kicked back his chair and stormed out.

  Ramírez loomed large in the doorway, looking back at the vapour trail left by Guzmán in the outer office.

  'He's going to do himself some harm if he carries on like that,' said Ramírez. 'Is he right?'

  'Did you see me come back with anything?' asked Falcón, opening his hands to show no tapes.

  'Lobo's a good man,' said Ramírez, pointing a big finger at him. 'He won't let us down.'

  'Lobo's a good man in a different position,' said Falcón. 'You don't get to be Jefe Superior de la Policía de Sevilla unless people want you to be. He has political pressure on his shoulders and he has a big mess in his own house, left by Alberto Montes.'

  'What about the bodies of those two kids up in the Sierra de Aracena? They've been seen. Everybody knows about them. No one can hide that sort of thing.'

  'If they were local kids, then of course not. But who are they?' said Falcón. 'They've been dead a year. The only piece of really usable evidence we've got from the house is the video tape and, as Lobo pointed out, we can't even prove that what they were doing took place in Montes's finca. Our only chance is if we're allowed to interview those people on the tape.'

  Ramírez walked over to the window and put his hands up against the glass.

  'First of all we had to listen to Nadia Kouzmikheva's story and do nothing. Now we're going to watch these cabrones walk away, too?'

  'Nothing is certain.'

  'We have the tape,' said Ramírez.

  'After what Montes has done we have to be very careful about the tape,' said Falcón. 'That is not something to proceed with lightly. Now I'm going out.'

  'Where to?'

  'To do something that I hope will make me feel better about myself.'

  On the way out of the office he bumped into Cristina Ferrera, who had been to see the Russian translator about the inscription on the wall of the finca.

  'Leave it on my desk,' said Falcón. 'I can't bear to look at it.'

  Falcón drove across the river and along Avenida del Torneo. As the road swung away from the river towards La Macarena he turned right and into La Alameda. He parked and walked along Calle Jesus del Gran Poder. This was Pablo Ortega's old barrio. He was looking for a house on Calle Lumbreras, which belonged to the parents of the boy, Manolo Lopez, who had been the victim in Sebastián Ortega's ca
se. He had not called ahead because he didn't think the parents would welcome this new intrusion, especially given what he'd heard about the father's health problems.

  He walked through the cooking smells of olive oil and garlic and up to the house where the boy's parents lived. It was a small apartment building in need of repair and paint. He rang the doorbell. Sra Lopez answered it and stared hard at his police ID. She didn't want him to come in, but couldn't find the confidence to ask him to leave them alone. The apartment was small, airless and very hot. Sra Lopez sat him down at a table with a lace cover and a bowl of plastic flowers and went to bring her husband. The room was full of Mariolatry. Virgins hung on walls, found themselves cornered on bookshelves and blessed stacks of magazines. A candle burned in a niche.

  Sra Lopez steered her husband into the room as if he was a lame cow in need of milking. He looked to be in his late forties but was very unsteady on his feet, which made him seem older. She got him into a chair. One arm seemed to be dead, hanging useless at his side. He picked up Falcón's ID card with a shaky hand.

  'Homicidios?' he said.

  'Not on this occasion,' said Falcón. 'I wanted to talk to you about your son's kidnapping.'

  'I can't talk about that,' he said, and immediately started to get to his feet.

  His wife helped him out of the room. Falcón watched the complicated process in a state of increasing desolation.

  'He can't talk about it,' she said, coming back to the table. 'He hasn't been the same since… since…'

  'Since Manolo disappeared?'

  'No, no… it was afterwards. It was after the trial that he lost his job. His legs started to behave strangely, they felt as if they had ants crawling all over them. He became unsteady. One hand started shaking, the other arm seemed to give up. Now he does nothing all day. He moves from here to the bedroom and back… that's it.'

  'But Manolo is all right, isn't he?'

  'He's fine. It's as if it never happened. He's on holiday… camping with his nephews and cousins.'

  'So, you have much older children as well?'

  'I had a boy and a girl when I was eighteen and nineteen, and then twenty years later Manolo came along.'