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

They ordered a revuelto de bacalao, some clams and langoustines, a bright orange bowl of salmorejo and grilled red peppers spiked with garlic. Consuelo filled their glasses. Falcón calmed down.

'I've just had a… confrontation with Maddy Krugman.'

'That puta americana didn't come to your house on your day off?' asked Consuelo.

'She ambushed me in the street,' he said. 'That's the third time. She's come round twice when I've been to the Vegas' house… offering coffee, wanting to talk.'

'Joder, Javier, she's stalking you.'

'There's something of the vampire about her, except she doesn't feed on blood.'

'My God, you let her get that close?'

'I think she feeds on what she doesn't have herself,' said Falcón. 'Her talk is full of arty phraseology about "empathizing", and "emotional response" and "the prison of her anguish", but she has no idea what they mean. So when she sees people who are really suffering she photographs it, captures it to try and make it hers. When I lived in Tangier the Moroccans believed that photographers were stealing their souls. And that's what Maddy Krugman does. She's sinister.'

'You're making her sound like your prime suspect.'

'Maybe I'll send her to the prison of her anguish.'

Consuelo pulled him to her and kissed him hard on the mouth.

'What was that for?'

'You don't have to know everything.'

'I'm an Inspector Jefe, it's in my nature.'

The food arrived. Consuelo released him and poured more manzanilla. Before they started eating he beckoned her forward across the table so that they were cheek to cheek.

'I can't say this too loudly in here,' said Falcón, his lips just brushing her ear, 'but there's another reason why I'm looking a bit tense. It's just that… I'm falling in love with you.'

She kissed his cheek, held his hand.

'How do you know?'

'Because when I came in here and saw you waiting for me I've never felt so happy to know that the empty chair was mine.'

'You're all right,' she said. 'You can stay.'

He sat back, held his glass up to her and drank.

They chose a bottle of white wine to drink with the sea bass they'd ordered after the starters.

'I'm sorry, I forgot,' she said, going through her handbag. 'Somebody from your office…'

'My office?'

'I assumed he was from the Jefatura. He told me to give you this -'

She handed over an envelope.

'Nobody knows I'm here,' said Falcón, 'except you. Tell me what he said again.'

'He said, "I understand you're meeting Inspector Jefe Falcón here. Could you please make sure he gets this." And he gave me that envelope.'

'He was Spanish?'

'Sevillano.'

Falcón turned the white envelope over in his hands. It was very thin. He held it up to the light and could see that it had a single item in it. He knew it was another threat and shouldn't be opened in front of Consuelo. He nodded and put it in his pocket.

He took a taxi home and went straight to his study where he kept latex gloves. He used a paper knife to open the envelope and shook out a photograph which had been folded into a single sheet of paper.

Nadia Kouzmikheva's naked body was very white with the flash from the camera. She was blindfolded and tied to a chair with her arms painfully stretched over the back. On the grimy wall behind her was a single handprint the colour of rust and in black was written: El precio de la came es barato. The price of meat is cheap.

Saturday, 27th July 2002

The sunlight was still bright in the cracks of the wooden shutters as he lay on his bed with the thought of Nadia, blind and vulnerable, sharp in his mind. He'd overcome his initial reaction of horror and brought the analytical part of his brain to bear on the meaning of this latest message. These threats, each one worse than the last, each one digging deeper into his private life and now entangling Consuelo – what was their purpose? The car following him at the end of the first day and the photograph of Inés pinned to his board were designed to unsettle him. They were bold – we can follow you and we don't care if you see us, we can enter your house and we know things about you. The implicit physical threat to Nadia and the inclusion of Consuelo raised the stakes, but what was actually happening here? He gave up on any possibility of sleep and dragged himself to the shower and let the water pummel his head clear of the lunchtime wine. Each threat had only the appearance of boldness. There had been no follow-up to any of them so far. They were trying to distract him… but from what?

He started thinking about Rafael Vega and the Russians. The phrase that Vázquez had used – 'facilitating their business needs' – had snagged in his brain. It was a natural process of the mind to think that a man who'd had questionable dealings with Russian mafiosi and subsequently been found dead would probably have been murdered as a result of some disagreement. In this case, though, it seemed illogical. The Russians were reaping enormous advantages from their dealings with Vega. Why kill him?

There was no reason why Falcón shouldn't believe Vázquez when he said that he had not been involved in the property deals and had no way of contacting the Russians directly. This would fit with Vega's compartmentalizing style of management. Pablo Ortega's sighting of the Russians in Santa Clara seemed to indicate that Ivanov and Zelenov only visited Vega at home. The telephone number programmed into his study phone seemed to confirm that they were not part of any office procedure. That would also explain why the surveillance system had been switched off. Both he and they would not want any record of these visits.

Falcón dressed and went down to his study where he'd put both the envelope and photograph of Nadia in an evidence bag. He leaned back in his chair while fury and frustration did their work on his insides. There was nothing he could do about this. To refocus his investigation on the abduction of Nadia would be futile. He began to think that the Russians wanted to distract him from his inquiries into Vega's death because they were anxious to hide a crime far darker than the possible murder of the constructor.

He remembered his failed call to Ignacio Ortega and made another attempt. Ortega's mobile was still turned off and there was no answer from any of the other numbers he'd taken from Pablo's book. He went to his notebook and looked down the list of things he'd planned to do this morning before he'd been sidetracked by Pablo Ortega's suicide. Interview Marty Krugman.

Marty Krugman was in the Vega Construcciones offices on Avenida de la Republica de Argentina. He was finishing off some drawings on the more powerful computer he had there. He said he'd be quite happy to talk as soon as Falcón could get there. He'd make sure the conserje would let him in. As he spoke Falcón jotted down three topics for Marty Krugman – 9/11, Russians, wife.

The entrance to the Vega Construcciones building was between two large estate agencies which advertised the Vega projects in their windows. The conserje let him in and sent him straight up to Marty Krugman's office.

Marty had his feet up on the desk. He was wearing red basketball pumps. They shook hands.

'Maddy told me you had a conversation about Reza Sangari yesterday,' said Marty.

'That's right,' said Falcón, realizing that the reason why Marty had been so amenable about seeing him on a Saturday evening was that he was angry with him.

'She said you were also implying that she might have been having an affair with Rafael.'

'These questions have to be asked,' said Falcón. 'I was only wondering whether she had had an effect on the stability of Sr Vega's mind.'

'It was a ridiculous question and I resent that you asked it,' said Marty. 'You've got no idea what we went through over Reza Sangari.'