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

'Dourado was going to help us. I know it. I was there. I saw the printouts. He talked me through them. I should have taken a fucking copy.'

'He didn't look scared to me,' said Falcón. 'Vázquez seemed scared, but Dourado looked cheerful.'

'They know what they're doing, these Russians,' said Ramírez. 'Vázquez thinks he's in charge, so they get him by the balls and squeeze hard. With Golden Boy, they need his knowledge of the computer system, so they tickle his.'

Falcón tried not to allow these images to infect his imagination. He said he'd go and talk to Krugman while Ramírez went back to the Jefatura and pushed Elvira to make FBI contact.

Krugman was standing at his office window, looking out through a pair of binoculars. Falcón knocked. Krugman beckoned him in. The man seemed strangely energized, his eyes were bright, pupils dilated and sparkling.

'You're still running your Russian projects,' said Falcón.

'That's right.'

'Have they contacted you by any chance?'

'Of course they have. They've got a twenty million euro investment there, you don't let that sort of money run around on its own.'

'That's interesting,' said Falcón. 'Were you aware of any financial irregularities…?'

'That's business. I'm an architect.'

'Were you aware of illegal labour on the sites?'

'Yes. There's illegal labour on all building sites.'

'Are you prepared to sign -?'

'Don't be a crazy fool, Inspector Jefe. I'm trying to help.'

'When did you speak to the Russians?'

'Yesterday.'

'What did you discuss?'

'They told me to carry on running the projects, but said that I shouldn't talk to the police. I told them that I would have to speak to the police because they were coming to my house and office all the time. They said that I shouldn't talk about the projects.'

'What language were you speaking?'

'English. They don't speak Spanish.'

'Do you know who you're dealing with, Sr Krugman?'

'Not personally, but I used to work in New York City and I've come across the Russian mafia before in my own back yard. They're powerful people who, with a few exceptions, are quite reasonable as long as you see things their way. You could try taking them on if you thought it would serve a very important purpose. But in the end you're looking for Sr Vega's murderer, or the reason he committed suicide, and I doubt they're going to be able to help you, because I'm pretty sure that the very last thing they wanted was for Sr Vega to die.'

Falcón nodded. Krugman sat back in his chair.

'What were you looking at with the binoculars?'

'Just keeping an eye on things, Inspector Jefe,' he said, very seriously, then he laughed. 'Only kidding. I bought them today. I'm just seeing what I can see.'

Falcón stood up to leave. He was disturbed by Krugman's evangelical look.

'Have you seen my wife recently?' asked Marty, as Falcón held out his hand.

'I saw her in the street on Saturday,' said Falcón.

'Where was that?'

'In a tile shop in Calle Bailén, near my house.'

'You know she's really very fascinated by you, Inspector Jefe.'

'Only because she has some rather strange specialist interests,' said Falcón. 'Personally, I don't like her intrusions.'

'I thought it was just a few snaps of you on the bridge,' said Krugman. 'Or was it more than that?'

'That was enough,' said Falcón, 'to make me feel as if she was trying to take something from me.'

'Well, that's Maddy's unique problem,' said Krugman. 'As your friend, the judge, will find out.'

Krugman turned to the window and put the binoculars to his face.

Monday, 29th July 2002

Back at the Jefatura Ramírez sat smoking in the outer office. He said that Cristina Ferrera was on her way back with Salvador Ortega, who'd been found in a 'shooting gallery' in the Poligono San Pablo. He also informed him that Virgilio Guzmán, the crime editor for the Diario de Sevilla, was being patient in his office. This was unnerving because Virgilio Guzmán did not do stories any more.

Virgilio Guzmán was a few years younger than Falcón but his life and work had aged him considerably. Before coming down to Seville he had been in Bilbao and Madrid, covering ETA terrorist activity. His ambition and tenacity had cost him his marriage, the constant tension had left him with high blood pressure and heart arrhythmia and, he believed, not seeing his six-year-old son had given him colon cancer, from which he'd made a full recovery at the cost of a length of his guts. He'd had to leave the fear of his work to live in fear of his anatomy.

It had changed him. His wife had left him before the cancer diagnosis because he was too hard a man.

Now he had softened, not to mush just to flesh and blood but it had not dulled any of his journalistic sharpness. He had the vital journalist's tool: an infallible nose for when things were not right. And he knew that the first suicide by a senior officer in the Jefatura meant that something, somewhere, was rotten. He was polite. He asked if he could put the dictaphone on the desk between them. He clicked it on and sat back with his notebook.

Falcón did not say a word. He made an instant decision about Guzmán – this was a man he could trust and not just by reputation alone. He also thought, and he sniffed at his own naivety on this matter, that with only forty-eight hours left to make a case for Vega's murder, Guzmán, with his extensive experience, might be able to bring different information to the game which could develop into different leads and directions. All this might cost him something from the Montes inquiry, but then the exposure of corruption, and its cutting out, should be a good thing – shouldn't it?

'So, Inspector Jefe, I understand that you are conducting the investigation into the death of your colleague, Inspector Jefe Alberto Montes?'

Falcón said nothing for two long minutes during which Guzmán looked up, blinking like a subterranean animal.

'I'm sorry, Inspector Jefe,' he said, shrugging into the flak jacket of his journalistic hardness, 'but that's the easiest opening question I can think of.'

Falcón leaned over and turned off the dictaphone.

'You know with that machine on I can only tell you the facts of the case.'

'Well, that's a start,' said Guzmán, 'and then it will be up to me to extract the rest. That's how it goes where I come from.'

'You know the facts already,' said Falcón. 'They are the newsworthy event of a police officer's fall to his death. It's the why that contains the human story.'

'And what makes you think I'm looking for a human story and not, say, "a catalogue of corruption that reaches to the heart of regional government" story?'

'It's possible that you'll end up with that sort of story, but you have to start with the human story to get there. You have to understand the thoughts that led a respected officer, who'd never shown any suicidal tendency, to take such drastic action.'

'Do I?' said Guzmán. 'Normally we journalists, or rather journalists of my reputation, deal in facts. We report facts, we build on facts, we create a greater fact from the smaller facts we discover.'

'Then turn on your machine and I will give you the fully corroborated facts of the death of a fellow officer who was much admired by his squad and superiors.'

Guzmán laid down his notebook and pen on the desk and sat back assessing Falcón. He sensed that there were possibilities for him here if he could find the right words, and that the possibilities might not be only work related. He had arrived in Seville alone, admired and, he thought, respected by his fellow journalists, but alone. He could use a friend, and that was the possibility he saw on the other side of the desk.