The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

Chapter 24

Monday, 29th July 2002

Falcón woke up from his siesta and slapped the alarm dead. He lay in the darkened room arms flung out, panting as if he'd surfaced, lungs bursting, from a deep lake. Something had hardened in his mind. What before had been a vague dislike of Ignacio Ortega had taken shape and become a determined mass that was going to put the child molester away for as long as possible. He was enjoying the anger just as Ferrera had when she'd first become a policewoman, roaming the streets of Cadiz, hoping to find those two brutes who'd raped her.

He showered, thinking about Ignacio Ortega. There was cunning in him. All those easy lies he'd told in their first meeting. The learned presentation of half- truths. He wondered if this had all started from envy – 'I was just an electrician and he was a famous actor.' Two men coming from the same brutal childhood, one becomes a famous actor who escapes into roles, while the other, anonymous and filled with hate, desecrates the innocence of children. Was there some strange balancing out going on in Ignacio's head?

As he dressed he remembered the point that had occurred to him whilst talking to Ramírez about the names in Vega's address book. There had been only one Ortega in it and no initial. He drove to the Jefatura, brought the address book up from the evidence room. He was right, no initial and the number, which was for a mobile, belonged to Ignacio. Another thought. He called Carlos Vázquez.

'Who does Vega Construcciones use to install the air-conditioning systems in their buildings?'

'It's put out to tender,' said Vázquez. 'There are four or five companies who compete with each other for the business.'

'Does any one company win more tenders than the others?'

'I'd say that seventy per cent of the work is done by AAC, Aire Acondicionado Central de Sevilla. It's run by a man called Ignacio Ortega, who only ever overprices himself if he can't do the work.'

He called Vega Construcciones and asked for Marty Krugman; still not there. Krugman answered his mobile. He seemed to be in heavy traffic from the noise. The signal was bad.

'I'm not supposed to be talking to you, Inspector Jefe, remember?' he said cheerfully. 'I haven't spoken to our cold, eastern friends yet.'

'Just one question about the Russian projects: who did you get to tender for the air-conditioning systems?'

'I didn't,' said Krugman. 'Rafael told me to use a company called AAC.'

'You didn't get a competitive quote?'

'He said the client had already authorized it.'

'How do you understand that?'

'It normally means that AAC is owed a favour, probably because they've done another job very cheaply for them.'

'Do you know Ignacio Ortega of AAC?'

'Sure, I've met him. He does a lot of work for the company. He's hard-nosed,' said Krugman. 'Is he related to Pablo?'

'They're brothers.'

'They don't look it.'

'What can you tell me about Ignacio and Sr Vega – their relationship?'

'Nothing.'

'Were they close?'

'I told you, Inspector Jefe…' said Krugman, and Falcón missed the end of the sentence as the signal started to break up.

'Can we talk face to face about this?' asked Falcón, thinking now more about what Guzmán had been saying.

'It won't make any difference,' said Krugman. 'And anyway, I'm busy now.'

'Where are you? I'll come to you. We'll have a beer before dinner.'

'Now you love me, Inspector Jefe. What have I done?'

'I just want to talk,' said Falcón, shouting through the fracturing signal.

'I told you the Russians haven't contacted me yet.'

'This isn't about the Russians.'

'What is it about then?'

'I can't say… I mean, it's more about the Americans.'

'I'm getting nostalgic for those Cold War days,' said

Krugman. 'You know, it's an interesting thing… the Russians are a much more effective force as the Mob than they ever were as communists.'

The signal collapsed. Falcón redialled. Not available. Ramírez put his head in the office. Falcón briefed him on Salvador and Ignacio Ortega while he sat listening with his face all pushed up by his hand, mouth open, intelligent-looking. Before he could ask any questions Falcón briefed him about the conversation with Guzmán, which left him with his eyelids at half mast.

'Joder,' he said, after some time, the Sevillano not particularly impressed by the developments. 'Have you talked to Krugman about this?'

'I've just lost the signal to his mobile, and anyway I need to sit in front of him if I'm going to talk to him about extra-curricular activity for the CIA.'

'I don't believe it,' said Ramírez. 'I think Virgilio Guzmán lives in a fantasy world of conspiracy theories. We're in Seville here, not Bilbao. He's had his head turned by all that spying on ETA and the Guardia Civil.'

'Come on, José Luis, he's a respected professional.'

'So was Alberto Montes,' said Ramírez. 'What do you think Guzmán's doing down here?'

'Something with less pressure than when he was in Madrid,' said Falcón.

'In my opinion,' said Ramírez, winding his finger around his temple, 'the guy's lost it.'

'Is this based on any empirical research, or just your gut feeling?' asked Falcón. 'What about Guzmán's theory on the piece of paper in Vega's hand? Is that bullshit as well?'

'No, that sounds right. I like that. It doesn't help us, but I like it,' said Ramírez.

'It does help us; it narrows the search down for the FBI,' said Falcón. 'Have you heard from them yet?'

Ramírez shook his head.

'I want to find Krugman,' said Falcón.

'You're beginning to think that he killed Vega.'

'I have an open mind. He had the opportunity, given I hat Vega would have let him into his house at that time in the morning. And now we've got a possible motive, even if you do think it's Guzmán's fantasy,' said Falcón. 'I'm also worried about Krugman. When I went to see him after we'd been to talk to Dourado, he seemed unstable. He was looking out of the window using a pair of binoculars.'

'Probably trying to see if his wife is fucking Juez Calderón, which is why we're not getting our search warrant.'

'So you do think that Vega was "operating" in some way,' said Falcón. And you do think that what he has in his safe-deposit box is going to be important for us. You just don't think that Krugman -'

'Well, I wouldn't use Krugman for fucking anything, let alone an "operation",' said Ramírez. 'He's too unpredictable. There's too much going on in his brain. But if you let me have his mobile number I'll get the boys in the telephone centre to keep trying it, and if he answers we'll track it.'

'Is anything happening with the Montes inquiry?'

'We're still waiting for Elvira to give us another pair of hands.'

'Did the lawyer come back on the property he added to the list of assets in Montes's will?'

'Yes, I'm getting the Aracena town hall to check out if there was a building project on the property.'

'It's up in the sierra, is it?'

The phone rang. Ramírez picked it up, listened, said ' that Falcón was on his way and put it down.

'Alicia Aguado,' he said.

'I'd like you to check where exactly Ignacio Ortega ' was on the night that Rafael Vega was murdered.'

'I thought he was at the beach.'

'He didn't come into the frame until his brother died. I contacted him via his mobile. We've never checked him out properly.'

He drove to Calle Vidrio and sat at traffic lights with his hands pattering nervously on the steering wheel. A sense of doom stacked up inside him, while outside the relentless heat bore down on the straining city.

He played the tape of Salvador Ortega's interview to Alicia Aguado as they drove out to the prison. It took the whole journey. They sat in the car park listening to the end and some silence until the tape clicked off.

'I asked him if he'd testify against his father,' said Falcón. 'He refused.'

'People like Ignacio Ortega retain tremendous power over their victims, and the victims never lose their fear of the molester,' said Aguado as they got out of the car.

They walked up to the prison. She held his arm.

'I spoke to a friend of mine who works at the prison,' she said. 'He assesses disturbed prisoners, but he wasn't on Sebastián's case when he applied for solitary confinement, although he did hear about it. There was no sign of any disturbing behaviour. Sebastián was

Intelligent, friendly and completely benign – which I realize doesn't necessarily mean anything. But he did say something interesting. They all thought that Sebastián was not only happy to be where he was, he was also relieved.'

'To be away from the other inmates?'

'He couldn't say. He just said he was relieved,' she said. 'And, by the way, I'd like to talk to Sebastián alone. But if there's a room where you could observe from the outside, I'd be interested in you seeing the session.'

The director met them and arranged for the interview to be held in one of the 'safe' cells, where prisoners who were considered a possible danger to themselves were put for observation. There was CCTV and audio tape available. Two chairs were brought into the cell and placed side by side in opposite directions, to resemble the S-shaped chair in Alicia Aguado's consulting room. She sat facing the door. Sebastián was brought in and sat facing the wall. The door was shut, but it had a large reinforced observation panel. Falcón sat outside.

Alicia Aguado started off by explaining her method. Sebastián looked into the side of her face, valuing her words with the intensity of a lover. He bared his wrist to her and she laid her fingers on his pulse. He stroked her two fingernails with the tip of his finger.

'I'm glad you came back,' he said, 'but I'm not sure what you're doing here.'

'It's not unusual for prisoners who've suffered distressing news to be given a psychological assessment.'

'I didn't think I'd given them any cause to be concerned. I was upset, that's true. But now I'm calm.'

'It was a very strong reaction and you are a prisoner in solitary confinement. The authorities are concerned about the effects of distress, reactions to it and the possible reverberations in the prisoner's mind.'

'How did you go blind?' he asked. 'I don't think you've always been blind, have you?'

'No. I have a condition called retinitis pigmentosa.'

'I knew a girl at the Bellas Artes who had that,' he said. 'She was painting, painting, painting like mad… to get all the colours down before she went blind, because afterwards she'd have to stick to monochrome. I like that idea, cramming all the colour into the early years, before simplifying it in later life.'

'You're still interested in art?'

'Not to do it. I like to look at it.'

'I heard you were very good.'

'Who from?'

'Your uncle,' she said, and frowned, adjusted her fingers on his wrist.

'My uncle knows nothing about art. He has zero aesthetic sense. If he thought my work had been good, I would be worried. He's the sort of person who has concrete lions mounted on his gate posts. He hangs lurid tinted landscapes on his walls. He likes to spend his money on very expensive sound systems, but he has no taste in music. He thinks that Julio Iglesias should be sanctified and that Placido Domingo should learn some decent songs. He has an ear so finely tuned that it can perceive the slightest defect in his hifi speaker's output, but he can't hear a single note,' said Sebastián, who hadn't stopped looking at Alicia Aguado for a moment. 'I'd like to know your first name, Dra Aguado.'

'Alicia,' she said.

'What's it like being in the dark all the time, Alicia?' he said. 'I like being in the dark. I had a room where I could shut out all light and noise, and I used to lie on the bed with a sleeping mask on. It was velvet on the inside. It sat over my eyes, soft and warm as a cat. But what's it like having no choice, being in the dark but with no escape into the light? I think I should like It.'

'Why?' asked Alicia. 'It makes life very difficult.'

'No, no, Alicia, I disagree. It simplifies things. We are bombarded by too many images and ideas and words and thoughts and tastes and textures. Take away one of the major senses and think how much time that frees up. You can concentrate on sound. Touch will be so exciting because your fingers will never be bored by what the mind is telling them to expect. Taste will be an adventure. The only give-away is smell, the delicious smell of your food. I envy you, because you will rediscover life in all its richness.'

'How can you envy me that,' she said, 'after what you have done to yourself?'

'What have I done to myself?'

'You've closed yourself off from the world. You've decided that you want nothing of life in all its richness.'

'Are they really concerned for me after my father's death?' he asked.

'I'm worried about you.'

'Yes, you are. I can tell,' he said. 'And that's the thing, if I was blind I would know your beauty, and the ability to see you would only interfere with the purity of that.'

'You were very upset by your father's death and yet you ignored the letter he'd written to you.'

'It's not that unusual to hold two conflicting emotions in your mind at the same time. I loved him and I hated him.'

'Why did you love him?'

'Because he needed it. He had plenty of adoration, but almost no love. He was addicted to the adoration, which he mistook for love. When there was no adoration he felt unloved. So I loved him because he needed to be loved.'

'And why did you hate him?'

'Because he couldn't love me back. He hugged and kissed me, and then put me to one side, like a doll, to go and find what he thought was the real love. He did it because it was less complicated. That's why he had the dogs, Pavarotti and Callas: he liked that uncomplicated giving and receiving of love.'

'We talked to your cousin, Salvador.'

'Salvador,' he said. 'The saviour who cannot be saved.'

'Or the saviour who was unable to save?'

'I don't know what you mean by that.'

'Do you ever think about your mother?'

'Every day.'

'And what do you think about her?'

'I think about how she was misunderstood.'

'But you don't think of maternal love?'

'I do think of that, yes, but in remembering it I always find that the next thought was how she was misunderstood. It sticks in a son's mind to hear his mother referred to as a whore. She wasn't a whore. She loved my father and admired him. He never reciprocated. He went off to claim his fame in Spain and around the world. And she found other people to love.'

'You didn't think that she'd abandoned you?'

'Yes, I did. I was only eight years old. But I found out later that she couldn't stay with my father and she couldn't take me with her because he would not consent to it. Her life was on the move. Her boyfriend was a film director. I didn't hear that from my family. From them I heard she was a whore.'

'How did you fit in with your new family after she'd gone?'

'My new family?'

'Your uncle and aunt. You spent a lot of time with them.'

'I spent more time with my father than I did with them.'

'But what was it like living with them?'

Falcón's mobile vibrated on his thigh. He went up the corridor to take the call from Ramírez.

'The FBI have come back with a perfect match on Vega,' he said. 'Size, age, eye colour, blood group all fit and he's a Chilean national. They sent a picture back of him with more hair and a full beard. The shot was taken in 1980 when he was thirty-six years old. He's ex-Chilean military, ex-DINA and he was last seen in September 1982 when he absconded from a witness protection programme.'

'Why was he being protected?'

'It says that he testified in a drug-trafficking case, that's all.'

'Do they give a name?'

'His original name, that is prior to the witness protection programme, was Miguel Velasco.'

'Send those details to Virgilio Guzmán at the Diario de Sevilla. He said he'd got contacts who can give a profile on any Chilean military or DINA personnel,' said Falcón. 'Any news on Krugman?'

'Nothing yet,' said Ramírez. 'Expect a call from Elvira, he's looking for you.'

Falcón didn't make it back to the session before Elvira called. He told him that after a discussion with Comisario Lobo they had decided that nobody from within the Jefatura was going to be used to monitor Sra Montes's movements. An agent from Internal Affairs was being sent down from Madrid and he would report directly to Elvira on the matter. Falcón was relieved.

Alicia Aguado hadn't managed to draw the interview back to Ignacio since he'd taken Ramírez's call. They were talking about Sebastián's mother's death and its effect on him, and the lack of effect on his father. It had resulted in him leaving home and moving into an apartment his father had bought nearby.

'Were you still seeing your uncle at that stage?' asked Aguado. 'Wasn't he someone…?'

'I would never have spoken to him about my mother. He was not sympathetic to her. He would have derived satisfaction from hearing of her death.'

'You don't think very much of your uncle.'

'We have different sensibilities.'

'What was your uncle like as a father?'

'Ask Salvador.'

'He was a surrogate father to you.'

'I was scared of him. He believed in discipline and total obedience from any child that came into his orbit. He could get angry like you would not believe. The veins stood out on the side of his neck. He had a lump that would come up on his forehead. That's when we knew to hide.'

'Did you talk to your father about your uncle's violent behaviour?'

'Yes. He said he'd had a hard childhood and that it had marked him.'

'Was your uncle ever violent with you?'

'No.'

Alicia Aguado finished the session at that point. Sebastián was reluctant to let her go. Falcón called the guard and picked up the audio tape of the session. They went back to the car in silence. She said she would sleep on the way back. She didn't wake up until they arrived at Calle Vidrio. They went upstairs. She was groggy.

'He tired you out,' said Falcón.

'Sometimes it's like that. The psychologist feels under more pressure than the patient.'

'You seemed perplexed by his pulse at the beginning.'

'To start with he didn't react when I was certain he should have been hitting emotional blips. He seemed to be able to divorce the mental from the physical. I thought he was drugged at first. It'll get better. I'm sure I can open him up. He likes me enough to want to do it.'

He gave her the tape and went back down to the car. As he was about to move off, Inés called him. She was jittery.

'I know I shouldn't be calling you about this,' she said, 'but I know you saw Esteban today.'

'We had a meeting on the Rafael Vega case this morning.'

'Did he seem all right to you?' she asked. 'It's none of my business, I know, but…'

'He looked tired and seemed distracted.'

'Did you talk about anything else apart from the case?'

'I was with Inspector Ramírez,' said Falcón. 'Is something wrong?'

'I haven't seen him since early Saturday morning. He hasn't been back to the apartment. He's turned his mobile off.'

'I know Juez Romero spoke to him on Saturday morning from the crime scene at Pablo Ortega's house,' said Falcón.

'What did he say?' she said urgently. 'Where was he?'

'I don't know.'

'We were supposed to be having Sunday lunch with my parents, but he cancelled. Too much work.'

'You know how it is if he's got a busy Monday morning,' said Falcón.

'His secretary says he hasn't been back to his office since lunch time.'

'That's not so strange.'

'It is for him.'

'I don't know what I can say, Inés. I'm sure he's OK.'

'It's probably nothing,' she said. 'You're right.'

She hung up. He drove back to Calle Bailén and showered and changed. Consuelo asked him over for supper. He left in the dark, listening to the news. The winds had dropped in the Sierra de Aracena and the fire around Almonaster la Real had been brought under control. Three thousand hectares had been burnt and four isolated homes destroyed. Arson was suspected. A shepherd had been arrested. There was to be a full Inquiry starting tomorrow.

He parked outside Consuelo's house. The Krugmans' house was in darkness. On the way to the front door his mobile rang. Ramírez.

'I don't know if this is relevant, but I've just had a call from the Jefatura. They know we're looking for Sr Krugman. A woman has called in from an apartment building in Tabladilla. As she came into her building she noticed a tall foreigner in the foyer. He was sweating and nervous and looking at his watch. He followed her upstairs and stopped on the second floor while she continued to the top floor. He was standing outside an apartment, which she knew was empty because the woman was away on holiday. Twenty minutes later she heard a gun shot from the apartment below hers, which was the same one the foreigner was looking at. They've sent a patrol car round there.'

'Do we know the name of the owner of the apartment where the shot came from?'

'Wait a second…'

Falcón sweated standing in the street.

'I think this is relevant,' said Ramírez. 'The apartment belongs to one Rosario Calderón.'