The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

Chapter 19

Sunday, 28th July 2002

In the morning Falcón was woken by a call from Ignacio Ortega, who he'd finally managed to contact late the previous night and who had now arrived in Seville. He wanted to visit his brother's house. They arranged to meet at midday.

Falcón and Consuelo had a breakfast of huevos rancheros. She was still stunned after hearing about Pablo Ortega's death. The local news on the radio featured Ortega's suicide and an item about a massive forest fire, which had started last night and was now burning out of control near a town called Almonaster la Real in the Sierra de Aracena. Consuelo turned it off. She didn't need her Sunday ruined any more than it was.

At midday Falcón crossed the road, let himself in to Pablo Ortega's garden and opened up the house. He turned on the air conditioning, shut the door to the room where Pablo had died and jammed a damp towel at its base in an attempt to reduce the terrible stink. He checked the fridge for beer.

Ignacio arrived and knocked at the sliding doors. They shook hands. He looked younger than Pablo, but not by much. He was bald but hadn't made the drastic error of trying to plaster his still dark hair from one side over to the other, although the idea had possibly occurred to him. He was slimmer and fitter than his brother but had no presence whatsoever. This was a man who would disappear in a room and Falcón understood why he'd asked his brother to come to his business functions. He badly needed to borrow some charisma.

Ortega apologized for ruining his Sunday but he'd felt a need to see the place where his brother had died. Falcón said he was going to be busy the following day and mentioned the identification of the body and where that would take place. They agreed a time. Falcón offered him a drink and they opened up a litre bottle of Cruzcampo from the fridge. The beer seemed to make Ignacio emotional. He had to wipe away tears and stare at the floor.

'You were close,' said Falcón.

'He was my only brother,' said Ignacio, 'but I didn't see much of him. He was a famous man travelling the world, while I sold and installed air-conditioning systems. Our paths didn't cross that often.'

'You must have seen him more often since Sebastián's trial. He hasn't been working so much and there's been this problem with the house.'

'That's true,' said Ortega, pulling out a pack of Ducados and lighting one. 'He'd been going through a rough time, but… I tried to help him with this problem. I sent someone round the other day. I can't believe… it just seems so strange that he's not here.'

'I went to see Sebastián in prison yesterday,' said Falcón.

Ignacio looked up with watery eyes as if he was going to get more information.

'That was a difficult relationship,' he said. 'Father and son.'

'Any reason for that?'

'Our own father… he was a very difficult man.'

'In what way?'

'He'd had a hard life,' said Ignacio. 'We don't know what happened to him exactly. There was nobody left to tell us except him, and he never talked about anything. Our mother only told us that his village was caught up in the Nationalist advance during the Civil War and that the Moors did terrible things to people. As far as Pablo and I were concerned the worst thing they did was to let him survive.'

'Pablo was the eldest?'

'Our parents married the year the war ended and Pablo was born the year after that.'

'And you?'

'I was born in 1944,' he said.

'Those were hard times in this part of the country.'

'We had nothing… like everybody else had nothing. So it was hard, but nobody was alone in their poverty. That wouldn't explain why our father was so brutal with us. Pablo always bore the brunt of it. He said that it was those years dealing with our father that made him into an actor. It wasn't a great childhood. Pablo said it was why he never wanted kids.'

'But he did,' said Falcón. 'And you?'

'I've got two… they're grown up now,' he said.

'Do they live in Seville?'

'My daughter is married and lives in California. My son… my son is still here.'

'Does he work with you?'

'No,' said Ignacio, his mouth snapping shut, dismissing the notion.

'What does he do?' asked Falcón, more to be polite than to intrude.

'He buys and sells things… I'm not really sure what.'

'You mean you don't see so much of him?'

'He has his own life, his own friends. I think I represent something that he wants to rebel against… respectability or… I don't know.'

'So what about Pablo's relationship with Sebastián? Was that coloured by the fact that he didn't want children in the first place?'

'Is there a problem here?' asked Ignacio, squinting up from his glass of beer.

'A problem?' said Falcón.

'All these questions… very personal family questions,' said Ignacio. 'Is there some doubt about what happened here?'

'Not what, but why it happened,' said Falcón. 'We're interested in what triggered your brother's suicide. It might have a bearing on another case.'

'Which case is that?'

'His next-door neighbour's.'

'I heard about that. There was a piece about it in the Diario de Sevilla.'

'You knew him, of course.'

'I… I did know him,' said Ignacio, faltering as if this was not something he immediately wanted to admit. 'And I read there was some doubt about what had happened in his case… but I don't really see how Pablo's death could possibly be linked.'

'Pablo knew him as well… through you.'

'Yes, that's right, Pablo would occasionally come with me to functions in the years when I was trying to get the business off the ground,' said Ortega. 'So why do you think Pablo's suicide was connected to Rafael and Lucia Vega's death?'

'I'm looking at it more from the point of view of strange coincidence at this stage,' said Falcón. 'Three people dead within days of each other in a small barrio like this. That's odd. Did one trigger the other? What were the pressures on Pablo in the lead up to his death'

'For a start, I can tell you that Pablo couldn't kill a chicken. It was one of our father's abuses that he used to force him to do it.'

'Rafael Vega drank, or was forced to drink, a bottle of acid.'

'Pablo was a completely non-violent person,' said Ignacio.

'So what do you think could have triggered your brother's fatal decision?'

'There must have been a letter, surely?' said Ignacio.

'The way it happened was that he and I arranged to meet here yesterday morning. He wanted me, as a professional, to find the body. There was a letter to me explaining that, and a short note to Sebastián.'

'But nothing written to me?' said Ignacio, puzzled. 'What did he write to Sebastián?'

'He said he was sorry and asked for his forgiveness,' said Falcón. 'Do you know why he should write something like that?'

Ignacio coughed against some involuntary sobbing. He pressed the beer glass to his forehead as if trying to cram it into his brain. He broke out of it and hung his head, staring at the floor, as if he was thinking of something plausible to say.

'He was probably sorry that he hadn't been able to show his son enough love,' said Ignacio. 'It's all tied up with our father. I think the same happened between me and my son. I failed him, too. Pablo used to say that damage was passed from generation to generation and it was difficult to break the cycle.'

'Pablo had theories about this, did he?'

'Because he read all these books and plays he had intellectual ideas about it. He said that it was an atavistic trait of fathers to make themselves unknowable to their sons in order to retain power in the family or tribe. Showing love weakened that position, so men's instincts were for aggression.'

'Interesting,' said Falcón. 'But it avoids the issue, which is much more personal. Suicide is a personal matter, too, and most of the time in my job it doesn't matter why it happened, but in this case I want to find out.'

'So do I,' said Ignacio. 'We all feel blame when something like this happens.'

'That's why my questions have to be personal,' said Falcón. 'What can you tell me about Pablo's relationship with his wife – Sebastián's mother? He wasn't married before, was he?'

'No, Gloria was his only wife.'

'When did they marry?'

'In 1975.'

'He was thirty-five.'

'I told him he was leaving it too late,' said Ignacio. 'But he had a career, there were actresses, it was a lifestyle.'

'There were lots of girlfriends before Gloria, then?'

Ignacio's hand rasped against his face as he rubbed the nascent bristles. He glanced at Falcón, a quick shift of the eye whites. It lasted only a fraction of a second but it added to Falcón's unease about this man. He began to think that the reason Ignacio had come round here was not so much to mourn his brother or to help Falcón, but to find out how much was known. It nagged at Falcón's mind that Pablo hadn't written a note to his only brother.

'There were a few,' said Ignacio. 'As I said, our paths didn't cross much. I was just an electrician and he was a famous actor.'

'How did Gloria persuade him to have a child?'

'She didn't. She just got pregnant.'

'Do you know why she left Pablo?'

'She was a little puta,' said Ignacio, some vicious- ness on his thin lips. 'She fucked around and then left the country with someone who would give her the fucking she wanted.'

'Are those your own observations?'

'Mine, my wife's, Pablo's. Anybody who met Gloria knew her for what she was. My wife saw it from day one. This was a woman who should not be married and she proved it by leaving everybody… including Sebastián.'

'And Pablo brought up his son on his own?'

'Well, he went away a lot, so a fair amount of the time Sebastián joined our family.'

'Were your kids the same age?'

'I got married young. Our kids were eight and ten years older,' said Ignacio.

'So after Gloria left, you were Sebastián's father a fair amount of the time.'

Ignacio nodded, drank some beer and lit another cigarette.

'That was all twenty years ago,' said Falcón. 'What about Pablo's relationships in that time?'

'I used to see him in Hola! magazine with women, but we never met any of them. After Gloria we only ever saw him on his own,' said Ignacio. 'You're asking a lot of questions about relationships, Inspector Jefe.'

'Failed relationships can make people suicidal, as can, for instance, the possibility of public shame.'

'Or financial ruin,' said Ignacio, pointing at the room with the cracked cesspit. 'Or the end of a great career. Or the accumulation of all these things in a man about to face retirement, maybe illness and certainly death.'

'Are you surprised he killed himself?'

'Yes, I am. He'd suffered a lot recently with his son's trial, moving house, the building problem here, his fading career, but he was dealing with it all. He was a mentally resilient person. He wouldn't have survived my father's beatings without having reserves. I can't think what would have made him take such drastic action.'

'This is a difficult question,' said Falcón, 'but did you have any reason to question your brother's sexual orientation?'

'No, I didn't,' he said, flat and hard.

'You seem very certain.'

'As certain as I can be,' said Ignacio. 'And remember he was a public figure with photographers on his back. They'd have loved to tell the world that Pablo Ortega was a maricdn.'

'But if something like that was about to be revealed, do you think he could have taken it? Would that have been enough to tip him over the edge, given his other problems?'

'You still haven't told me how he did it.'

Falcón gave him the gruesome details. Ignacio's body shook with emotion. He became ugly with grief. He buried his face in his hands, the cigarette burning out of the back of his fingers.

'Did Pablo ever show you his art collection?' asked Falcón, to ease him out of his distress.

'He showed it to me, but I didn't take much notice of that arty stuff he was into.'

'Did you ever see this piece?' asked Falcón, drawing the Indian erotic painting out from behind the Francisco Falcón landscape.

'Oof!' said Ignacio, admiring. 'Chance would be a fine thing… But doesn't that prove something to you, Inspector Jefe?'

'It's the only painting to feature a woman,' said Falcón, thinking that he'd gone off on the wrong tack here. This was not going to work with Ignacio Ortega.

'The painting in front of it,' said Ignacio, looking around his legs, 'that's got your name on it – Falcón.'

Something lit up in Ignacio's mind and Falcón realized with dismay that he'd possibly ruined the whole interrogation. Nobody had missed the story of Francisco Falcón.

'Now, Pablo did tell me about that business,' said Ignacio. 'He knew Francisco Falcón personally… and the thing about him was that he did turn out to be a maricon. And you're the Inspector Jefe, who, if I remember rightly, was his son.'

'No, he wasn't my father.'

'Now I understand. That's why you think Pablo's a maricon, isn't it? Because your father was one, too. You think they're -'

'He wasn't my father and I don't think that at all. It's a theory.'

'It's rubbish. The next thing you'll be telling me is that Rafael was one, too, and they were having a "relationship" and he couldn't bear -'

'Are you surprised that Pablo didn't leave you a letter?' asked Falcón, trying to retrieve the situation, wanting to needle Ignacio at the same time.

'I am… Yes, I am.'

'When was the last time you talked?'

'Just before I went away on holiday,' he said. 'I wanted to know if he'd made any progress on the cesspit, and I had someone in mind who might have a different approach to the problem.'

'When we gave Sebastián the letter from his father he batted it off the table, as if he didn't want to know. Then he broke down very badly and had to be wheeled back to his cell,' said Falcón. 'You were a father to him, as you've said, can you explain any of that? He seems to despise Pablo, and yet he was devastated by his death.'

'I can't tell you any more than I have already,' said Ignacio. 'All I can say is that Sebastián was a very complicated boy. It didn't help that his mother left him. It probably wasn't good for his father to have been away so much. I'm not qualified to explain that sort of reaction.'

'Have you been to see him in jail?'

'Pablo said he wasn't seeing anybody. I sent my wife out to the prison in the hope she could talk to him, but he refused to see her as well.'

'What about before he was sent to prison? He was a young man who didn't need looking after any more when Pablo was away. Did you see him then?'

'We saw him. He came for lunch sometimes when he was at the Bellas Artes… before he dropped out.'

'Why did he drop out?'

'It was a pity. Pablo said he was very good. There was no apparent reason. He just lost interest in it.'

'When did Gloria die?'

'Some time around 1995 or 1996.'

'Was that when Sebastián finished with his art course? He'd have been about twenty.'

'That's true. I'd forgotten that. He'd been seeing her every year since he was about sixteen. He'd go to the USA every summer.'

'He looked like her, didn't he? More like her than Pablo.'

Ignacio shrugged, a sharp jerk as if a fly was irritating him. Falcón could see the questions building up in the man's head.

'In the letter he wrote to you, Inspector Jefe, did Pablo mention me?'

'He put a note at the bottom asking that you be informed,' said Falcón. 'He might have posted something to you. If he did, we'd be very interested to see it.'

Ignacio, having sat on the edge of his seat the whole interview, eased back into his chair.

'I suppose he could have posted something to his lawyer as well,' said Falcón. 'Do you know which lawyer is holding the will?'

Ignacio hunched forward again at this question.

'Ranz Costa,' he said, his mind elsewhere. 'Ranz

Costa did the deed on this property, so I'm sure he's got the will.'

'I suppose he's on holiday?'

'He's my lawyer, too. He doesn't go on holiday until August,' said Ignacio, standing up, putting his beer down, crushing out the cigarette. 'Do you mind if I take a quick look around? Just to see my brother's place and things.'

'The room where he died is still officially a crime scene, so you'd better not go in there,' said Falcón.

Ignacio went off into the house. Falcón waited and went to the corridor. Ignacio was in the bedroom. The door was open a crack. Ignacio was madly searching the room. He went under the bed. He lifted the mattress. He surveyed the room, mouth set, eyes penetrating- He went through the clothes in the wardrobe, checked the pockets. Falcón backed down the hall and resumed his seat.

They left the house soon after. Falcón locked up and watched Ignacio's silver Mercedes disappear into the heat. He went back to Consuelo, who opened the door with the El Mundo Sunday magazine hanging from her fingers. They went into the living room where they both collapsed on the sofa.

'How's Ignacio taking it?' she asked.

'Do you know Ignacio Ortega?'

'I've met him at Raúl's construction industry functions. I spent more time with his wife than I did with him. He's a rather uninteresting self-made man with not a grain of culture in him. Given Pablo's talent and intellectual capacity… you can barely believe they're brothers.'

'Do you know anything about his son?'

'I know his name is Salvador and that he's a heroin addict. He lives somewhere in Seville.'

'Ah, well, that's a little more than Ignacio was prepared to admit.'

'That's what you find out when you talk to the wife.'

'How is he with his wife?'

'He's not what you'd call a "new man". He's of the macho generation. The wife does what she's told,' said Consuelo. 'She was scared of him. If we were talking and he joined us, she'd shut up.'

'Anyway, it's Sunday,' said Falcón, waving it all away. 'Let's try and forget about it for the rest of the day.'

'Well, I'm glad you came back,' she said. 'I was about to fall into a Sunday depression. You stopped me reading about Russia. No, that's not quite true. I turned on the news to try to stop thinking about Russia and I found myself looking at the forest fire, which didn't help. The noise of it. I've never heard fire before, Javier. It was like a beast crashing through the woods.'

'The fire in the Sierra de Aracena?'

'It's destroyed 2,500 hectares and the wind is still blowing up there,' she said. 'The firefighters say it was arson. You wonder what the matter is with people.'

'Tell me about Russia. I'm interested in Russia.'

'It's more about statistics.'

'They're the worst thing about the news,' said Falcón. 'I think editors have a dictum: "If you haven't got a story, give them a statistic." They know that our imagination will do the rest.'

'These are the Russian statistics,' she said, reading. 'The number of illegitimate births doubled between 1970 and 1995. This meant that by 1997 twenty-five per cent of all births were illegitimate. Most of the illegitimate children were born to single mothers who couldn't keep themselves alive and look after a child at the same time, so they abandoned them. In December 2000 the Orthodox Church reckoned that there were between two and five million vagabond children in Russia.'

'Ah, right, your obsession with children,' said Falcón. 'Two to five million.'

'Now for the only good statistic. The fertility rate in Russia is nearly the lowest in the world. Nearly. And it was then that I realized why this article has been written in a Spanish newspaper because the only country with a fertility rate lower than Russia is

'Spain,' said Falcón.

'That's why your timing was perfect,' said Consuelo. 'I'd just started on that Sunday thinking, that the whole world has gone wrong.'

'I have a temporary solution to the world crisis.'

'Tell me.'

'Manzanilla. A swim. Paella. Rosado. And a long siesta that goes right through to Monday.'

He woke up in the night disturbed by a vivid dream. He was walking down a path in a dense wood. Coming towards him were two children, a boy and a girl, of around twelve years old who he knew were brother and sister. Walking between them was a totemic bird wearing a frightening mask. As they met, the bird explained: 'I need these two lives.' The look on the children's faces was one of unbearable dread and he felt himself powerless to help. He thought it had woken him up until, as he lay there, he realized that the television was on downstairs. Voices were speaking in American-English. Consuelo was still asleep next to him.

The light from the TV pulsated in the dark as he entered the living room. He turned it off with the remote. It felt warm and he noticed that the sliding door to the pool was open about half a metre.

He turned on the light. Consuelo came down the stairs still half asleep.

'What's going on?'

'The TV was on,' said Falcón. 'Did we leave that door open?'

Consuelo was suddenly awake, her eyes wide open. She pointed and let out a shout as if there was something bad in the room.

He followed her finger. Lying on the coffee table was a group photograph of her children. Someone had drawn a large red cross on the glass.