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

He dressed and left the house. He needed another coffee before he went to pick up Alicia Aguado. He bought El Pais and went to the Cafe San Bernardo and ordered a cafe solo at the bar. Cristina Ferrera called from the Vega Construcciones offices giving him the details of the original owner of the plots who'd sold out to the Russians. Unfortunately the man was on holiday in South America and would not be back until September. She also mentioned that the accountant had hacked into Vega's address book and had found a number for the Russians. A single number for both Russians and it was in Vilamoura in the Algarve, Portugal.

He closed down the phone and tried to read his newspaper, but this time, rather than the humiliation of learning about a tawdry affair running through his mind, he found memories of last night surfacing. The sight of Consuelo astride him, the small strip of her pubic hair hovering over him. Her unswerving stare as she eased him into her. Her words: 'I want to see you inside me.' Christ. His throat was too tight for him to swallow. The newsprint blurred. He had to shake himself back into real life, the cafe, people sitting around.

Sex mattered to Consuelo. She was good at it. When her orgasm was coming she let out a kind of low, feline growl and when she came it was with a massive grunt of effort, like a sprinter hitting the finishing line. She liked to be on top and when it was over she knelt above him, hair hanging down, some of it plastered to her face, panting, unconscious to the world, her breasts shuddering with each breath. He thought sex with Inés had been good. He thought they had hit it off in bed. But now he realized there had been something withdrawn about her, something held back. It was as if she couldn't let herself go to the animal edge of her being. Something in her head told her that this was not quite how she should behave.

Was that true? Is this what the mind does when you've been drawn to another partner? Persuade you that the last one wasn't up to much? Maybe that was what Calderón had seen as well. That with Inés there is none of that difference that Isabel Cano spoke about. Inés is beautiful, intelligent and attractive, but he knows how it's all going to unfold. And it was at that moment, just as his mobile had started to vibrate in his pocket, that he realized it was over. It was none of his business. It didn't matter to him any more. He didn't give a shit about Inés or Calderón or what the hell happened to them in their miserable lives. Something gave way inside him. He had a physical sensation of release, of tension breaking, of ropes flying off and whipping back into the night. He grinned and looked around himself at the whole cafe's magnificent unconcern and then took the call from Alicia Aguado asking him where the hell he was.

Because this wasn't a consultation they kissed hello and she immediately noticed a difference in him.

'You're happy,' she said.

'A few things have fallen into place.'

'You've had some sex.'

'I don't believe you can tell that,' he said. 'And anyway, this isn't an appointment.'

They drove out to Santa Clara for the meeting with Pablo Ortega. There was no answer when Falcón rang the bell by the gate, but he noticed that the wooden door had been left open. They coughed at the stench from the cesspit which Falcón had warned her about. Aguado held on to Falcón's elbow as they made their way to the kitchen on the other side of the house. There was no sign of Ortega and it was past eleven o'clock.

'He's probably walking the dogs,' said Falcón. 'We'll take a seat in the shade by the pool and wait for him.'

'I don't know how he can live with that stink.'

'Don't worry you don't notice it inside. He's had that part of the house sealed off.'

'Walking into that everyday would make me suicidal.'

'Well, Pablo Ortega is not a happy man.'

He sat her down at the table by the pool and walked along the edge towards the deep end. He stood on the small diving board and looked down. There seemed to be a sack sitting on the bottom. He found a pole lying by the side of the pool. It had a net at one end and a hook at the other.

'What are you doing, Javier?' asked Alicia, concerned by his silent activity.

'There's a sack in the bottom of the pool. Something like an old fertilizer bag.'

The sack was heavy. He had to push it along the bottom to the edge of the pool and then drag it down to the shallow end where he pulled it out. It must have weighed thirty kilos. He undid the twine at the neck of the sack and gasped at its horrific contents.

'What is it?' said Alicia, on her feet, disorientated by the sounds he was making, panicked.

'It's Pavarotti and Callas,' said Falcón. 'Ortega's dogs. This doesn't look good.'

'Someone has drowned his dogs?' she said.

'No,' he said. 'I think he's drowned his own dogs.'

Falcón told her to stay sitting by the pool. He went to the kitchen door, which was shut but not locked. He opened it and the horrific stink of the cesspit was thick in the room. There were two empty bottles of Torre Muga on the table. He went into the sitting room where there was another empty bottle of wine and the box of Cohibas Ortega had offered him last night. No glass. The smell of raw sewage was more powerful and he realized that the seal to the other part of the house had been broken. The door to the hallway was open and across the corridor the door to the room with the cracked cesspit was ajar.

On the floor in the corridor was an empty bottle of Nembutal with no top. He pushed the door open. There were wooden boards and plastic sheeting thrown against the wall, which had a large subsidence crack in it. A hole in the floor had been opened up by workmen so that they could inspect the damage. Fragments of Ortega's shattered wine glass were all over the bare concrete and tiles. There was a burnt- out cigar stub as well. In the hole, just below the surface of the sewage, was the white and yellow sole of Pablo Ortega's right foot. Falcón called the Jefatura on his mobile. He specifically asked that Juez Calderón be notified as the death might be relevant to the Vega case. He also asked for Cristina Ferrera but instructed that Ramírez should be left alone.

He backed out of the room and went up the corridor to the master bedroom. On the smooth untouched burgundy cover of the bed were two letters, one addressed to Javier Falcón and the other to Sebastián Ortega. He left them where they were and went back to Alicia Aguado, who was still sitting by the pool, very frightened. He told her that Pablo Ortega appeared to have committed suicide.

'I can't believe this,' said Falcón. 'I saw him last night and he was on his way to becoming very drunk, but he was affable, charming, generous. He even said that after our meeting today he was going to show me his collection.'

'His mind was made up,' said Alicia, who was holding on to herself as if she was freezing cold in 42°C.

'Damn,' said Falcón to himself, 'I can't help feeling responsible for this. I've stirred things up and it's -'

'Nobody is responsible for another person killing themselves,' said Alicia firmly. 'He has a whole history that won't have been changed, or even particularly stirred up, by talking to Javier Falcón for a couple of hours.'

'Of course, I know that. I suppose what I mean is that I've precipitated it by pushing him too hard.'

'You mean you weren't just talking to him about Sebastián?'

'I thought he had information that might help my investigation.'

'Was he a suspect?'

'Not exactly a suspect. I could just see that I was making him nervous. The questions I was asking him, whether they were about his son or the Rafael Vega case, for some reason disturbed him.'

'Just out of interest, from the psychological point of view,' she said, 'how did he kill himself?'