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

She threw up her hands and said she'd draft a letter

for him to read. He offered to take her for a drink and a tapa in El Cairo but she declined.

'I'd offer you a drink here, but I don't keep any in the office,' she said.

'Let's go to El Cairo, then,' said Falcón.

'I don't want what we're going to talk about now to have any chance of local broadcast.'

'Have we got anything else to talk about?'

'What you mentioned to me this morning.'

'Esteban Calderón,' said Falcón, sitting back down.

'Did you ask me about him now because he's going to get married to Inés?'

'They announced it on Wednesday,' he said.

'Do you remember who handled your divorce with Inés?'

'You did.'

'So why is Esteban's history any business of yours?'

'I'm concerned… for Inés.'

'Do you think that Inés is some kind of innocent little sweetie who needs to be protected?' said Isabel. 'Because I can tell you she's not. This house you're so keen to give away to Manuela… I had to fight tooth and nail to stop Inés from claiming half of it. You don't have to worry about her, she knows everything there is to know about Esteban Calderón, I can assure you.'

Falcón nodded as small worlds, previously closed to him, opened up.

'You called Esteban a hunter this morning. What's he hunting?'

'Difference. He doesn't know that yet,' said Isabel. 'But that's what he's always been looking for.'

'And what is this difference?'

'Someone whose face he cannot read and whose mind he doesn't understand,' said Isabel. 'Women have always thrown themselves at Esteban. They've tended to be women from his professional life. They all have legal minds. He knows their architecture from the moment they walk into the room. He plays with them in the hope that they will not be as they seem. Then he finds that they're the same as all the others and he gets bored. The hunt starts again. He's doomed to the relentless movement of a shark, that man.'

Falcón drove out of the darkening city, the real world brutalized by the heat seemed very distant as his hands shifted automatically from gear stick to steering wheel within the cool cockpit of the car. The street lights sliced shadows across the window as he drove down the banks of oleander on Avenida de Kansas City. Neon made promises out of the darkness and high palms held up the tent of the night sky. Nothing reached him apart from the red and green of the traffic lights. He lived in his head while his automaton drove him to Santa Clara. Isabel's words about Calderón and Inés ran through his mind like a news bar in lights. Falcón knew he'd been through a patch of madness, but now he was confronting the extraordinary lunacy of the perfectly sane people around him.

The only thing they had not discussed was the brief glimpse she'd given Falcón that morning of the hurt that had come to the surface at the mention of Calderón's name. He now realized that it had nothing to do with Calderón himself. The judge had become insignificant in Isabel's mind. What had surfaced was the memory of her betrayal as a wife and mother, who had been prepared to jeopardize her husband and family. What she'd shown him was the savage regret which had been lashed to that memory.

He had to pull off the Avenida de Kansas City beneath the red hovering neon of La Casera to take a call from Cristina Ferrera, who'd spoken to Sr Cabello. Falcón opened up his city map and marked off the plots of land Cabello had sold to Vega and the two major developments that were opened up by their sale. Before he hung up he told her to keep an eye on Nadia.

It was only after this call that he began to wonder what he was doing going for dinner with Consuelo.

Friday, 26th July 2002

As he pulled up outside Pablo Ortega's house he remembered Montes standing at his window. He should have asked him about the Russians. He called the Jefatura and got a mobile number for Montes.

Montes answered the call. From the background noise he was clearly in a bar, and in their first exchange revealed himself to be very drunk.

'This is Javier Falcón from the Grupo de Homicidios,' he said. 'We spoke yesterday…'

'Did we?'

'In your office. We spoke about Eduardo Carvajal and Sebastián Ortega.'

'I can't hear you,' said Montes.

Music and voices blared.

'Shut the fuck up!' Montes roared, to total indifference. 'Momentito.'

Traffic noise. A car horn.

'Can you hear me, Inspector Jefe?' said Falcón.

'Who are you?'

Falcón started again. Montes apologized elaborately. Now he remembered perfectly.

'We also talked about the Russian mafia.'

'I don't think so.'

'You explained the people-trafficking business.'

'Ah, yes, yes, the people… business.'

'I have a question. There are two Russians who are connected to my investigation into the death of Sr Vega, the constructor – you remember?'

Silence. He shouted Montes's name.

'I'm waiting for the question,' Montes said.

'Do the names Vladimir Ivanov and Mikhail Zelenov mean anything to you?'

Concentrated nasal breathing came over the ether.

'Did you hear me?' asked Falcón.

'I heard you. They don't mean anything to me, but my memory is not what it should be. I've had a couple of beers, you see, and I'm not at my best tonight.'

'We'll talk Monday then,' said Falcón, and hung up.

Falcón had a strong sense of circling, as if he was a bird of prey high up in the thermals and there were things going on down in the terrestrial world that could be of interest. He leaned against the roof of his car, tapping his forehead with his mobile. It was unusual for Montes, a married man, to be drunk early on a Friday evening in a crowded bar, probably alone. Was that an evasive reaction to the two names? Had he seemed drunker at the end of the conversation than he was at the beginning?

Ortega buzzed him into his stinking, flyblown courtyard. He wasn't as edgy as he'd been on the phone because he'd reached the affable stage of drunkenness. He was wearing a voluminous white shirt untucked over blue shorts. He offered Falcón a drink. He himself was sipping from a massive glass of red wine.

'Torre Muga,' he said. 'Very good. Would you like some?'

'Just a beer,' said Falcón.

'A few prawns with your beer?' he asked. 'Some jamon… Iberico de bellota? I bought it today in the Corte Ingles.'

Ortega went to the kitchen and came back fully supplied.

'I'm sorry I was sharp with you on the phone,' he said.

'I shouldn't be bothering you with these things on a Friday night.'

'I only go out at the weekend if I'm working,' said Ortega, who had been completely smoothed out by the excellence of the Torre Muga. 'I'm a very bad member of the audience. I see all the techniques. I never lose myself in the play. I prefer reading books. I'm sorry if I'm rambling, this is my second glass and, as you can see, they are quite some glasses. I must find a cigar. Have you read a book by… it'll come to me.'

He found the cigar box amongst the clutter.

'Cohibas,' he said. 'I have a friend who goes to Cuba regularly.'

'No, thank you,' said Falcón.

'I don't give away my Cohibas easily.'

'I don't smoke.'

'Take one for a friend,' said Ortega. 'I'm sure even cops have friends. As long as you don't give it to that cabron Juez Calderón.'

'He's not a friend,' said Falcón.

Ortega slipped the cigar into Falcón's top pocket.

'Glad to hear it,' he said, moving off. 'A Heart So White. That was the book. Javier Marias is the author. Have you read that?'

'Some time ago.'

'I don't know how I could forget the title. It's from Macbeth, of course,' said Ortega. 'After Macbeth has killed the king he returns with the bloody daggers, which he is supposed to have left in the servants' quarters. His wife is furious and tells him he has to go back. He refuses and she has to go. When she returns, she says: