Robert Wilson - The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

'I have to talk to them,' said Falcón. 'It was the seriousness of Manolo's testimony that resulted in such a heavy prison sentence for Sebastián.'

'Why should he change it?' said Ortega. 'It's his testimony.'

'That's what I have to find out: whether it was his testimony or something that he was encouraged to say by others.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'He's a very young boy. At that age you do what you're told.'

'You know something, Javier, don't you?' said Ortega. 'What do you know?'

'I know that I want to help.'

'Well, I don't like it,' said Ortega. 'And I don't want it to rebound on Sebastián.'

'It can't get any worse for him, Pablo.'

'It'll stir things up…' said Ortega, repeating his fear. He started out angry but then softened. 'Can you just let me think about it for a bit, Javier? I don't want to rush into these things. It's delicate. The media has only just fallen silent. I don't want them on my back again. Is that all right?'

'Don't worry, Pablo. Take your time.'

Ortega blinked at the photograph whose corner Javier was flicking.

'Anything else?' he asked.

'I was confused,' said Falcón, throwing back the pages of his notebook, 'as to your relationship with Rafael Vega. You said: "I knew him. He introduced himself about a week after I moved in here." Does that mean you did know him before you moved here, or that you've only known him since you've lived in Santa Clara?'

Ortega was staring at the photograph face down on the table in front of Falcón as if he was a poker player and it was a draw card whose suit and number he wouldn't mind knowing.

'I did know him before,' he said. 'I suppose I should have said he reintroduced himself. I met him at some party or other. I can't remember whose…'

'Once, twice, three times?'

'It's not so easy for me to remember. I meet so many…'

'You knew Consuelo Jiménez's late husband,' said Falcón.

'Yes, yes, Raúl. That would have been it. They were in the same business. I used to go to the restaurant in El Porvenir. That's what it was.'

'I thought the connection was your brother and his air-conditioning systems?'

'Yes, yes, yes, now I've got it. Of course.'

Falcón gave him the photograph, watching his face as he did so.

'Who are you talking to in that photograph?' asked Falcón.

'God knows,' said Ortega. 'The one you can't see is my brother. I know that from his bald head. This guy… I don't know.'

'It was taken at one of Raúl Jiménez's parties.'

'That doesn't help. I went to dozens of functions. I met hundreds of… All I can say is that he wasn't from my profession. He must be in the construction industry.'

'Raúl divided his friends up into celebrities and… useful people for his businesses,' said Falcón. 'I'm surprised you didn't appear in his celebrity photographs.'

'Raúl Jiménez thought Lorca was a brand of sherry. He'd never been near a theatre in his life. He'd like to think of himself as a friend of Antonio Banderas and Ana Rosa Quintana, but he wasn't. It was all a publicity stunt. I was a… No, let's be accurate: I occasionally gave support to my brother by turning up at functions. I knew Raúl and I'd met Rafael, but I wasn't exactly a friend.'

'Well, thank you for explaining that,' said Falcón. 'I'm sorry to have taken up your time.'

'I'm not sure what you're investigating here, Javier.

One moment we're talking about Rafael's suicide, the next you make it sound as if he's been murdered, and now you're looking at Sebastián's case. And that photograph… that must have been taken years ago, before I put on all this weight.'

'There's no date on it. All I can tell you is that it was taken before 1998.'

'And how do you know that?'

'Because the man you're talking to died in that year.'

'So, you already know who he is?'

Falcón nodded.

'I feel as if I'm being accused of something here,' said Ortega, 'when it's just that my memory has been shot to pieces since this business with Sebastián. I've never used a prompter in my life and then twice in the last year I've come to in front of the camera or on the stage, wondering what the hell I'm doing there. It's… ach… you don't want to know. It's silly stuff. Nothing a cop would be interested in.'

"Try me.'

'It's as if reality keeps breaking through the illusion I'm trying to create.'

'That sounds plausible. You've been through a difficult time.'

'It's never happened before,' said Ortega. 'Not even after Gloria left me. Anyway, forget about it.'

'Not all the work I do is about putting criminals behind bars, Pablo. We're servants of the people, too. That means I also try to help.'

'But can you help me with what's going on in here?' he said, tapping his forehead.

'You have to tell me first.'

'Do you know anything about dreams?' said Ortega.

'I have this one where I'm standing in a field with a cool wind blowing at the sweat on my face. I'm in an incredible rage and my hands are hurting. The palms are stinging and the backs of my fingers feel bruised. There's the sound of traffic and I find that my hands are causing me not physical pain but great personal distress. What do you make of that, Javier?'

'It sounds as if you've been hitting somebody.'

Ortega looked through him, suddenly deep in thought. Falcón said he'd let himself out, but there was no reaction. As Falcón reached the gate he realized that he'd forgotten to ask about Sergei. He went back but stopped at the corner of the house because Ortega was standing on the lawn with his hands reaching up to the sky. He sank to his knees. The dogs came out and snuffled around his thighs. He stroked them and held them to him. He was sobbing. Falcón backed away.

The Vegas' garage with its brand-new Jaguar was cleaner than Sergei's accommodation and Falcón knew that there wasn't going to be any muriatic acid anywhere near this car's paintwork. He went down the garden to the barbecue, thinking that Sergei must have had a place where he kept his gardening tools. There was nothing unplanned about this area of the garden. It had been built by a man who understood how to grill meat. Behind the barbecue area there was thick, almost tropical growth. He went round the back of Sergei's quarters and saw that there was a path into this jungle, which obscured a brick shed. He was furious that this hadn't appeared in Perez's report on his search of the garden.

He found a key in the garage and waded back through the thickening heat. The shed was full of sacks of charcoal and the usual barbecue paraphernalia. Sergei kept his tools at one end, along with some small quantities of building materials. On a shelf above there was paint and other liquids, one of which was an opened plastic bottle of muriatic acid with a centimetre left in the bottom. Falcón went back to the car for an evidence bag and used a pen through the loop handle to lift the bottle into it. As he worked, the light dimmed in the shed.

'You're on your own today, Inspector Jefe,' said Maddy Krugman, startling him.

She stood in the doorway, backlit. He could see every curve and crux of her figure through the diaphanous material of her dress. He looked down at her zebra- skin sandals. She leaned against the door jamb, arms folded.

'I prefer it that way, Sra Krugman,' he said.

'You look like a loner to me,' she said. 'Thinking things out, piecing things together. Building the picture in your head.'

'You're keeping a careful eye on me.'

'I'm bored,' she said. 'I can't go out to take my photographs in this heat. There's nobody around down at the river anyway.'

'Is your husband still working for Vega Construcciones?'

'Sr Vázquez and the finance people called him last night and said that he should continue to manage his projects,' she said. 'They don't seem to be pulling the plug… just yet. Would you like some coffee, Inspector Jefe?'