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

'I've always worked alone,' he said, after a minute's thought. 'I've had to, because working with somebody and their unpredictability in threatening situations was too dangerous. I only ever wanted to be responsible for my own thoughts and actions and not the victim of others'. I've spent too long in the company of men of violence to be thoughtless.'

'In a human story such as this, there's always tragedy,' said Falcón. 'People feel hurt and betrayed, while others suffer loss and grief.'

'If you remember, Inspector Jefe, I worked on the story of the Guardia Civil death squads sent out by the government to remove ETA terrorist cells. I understand the tragedy of a betrayal of values on the large and the human scale. The repercussions were felt everywhere.'

'Conjecture is something that police officers have to indulge in to find a direction for their investigation, but it is not something that's allowable in court,' said Falcón.

'I told you about my belief in facts,' said Guzmán, 'but you didn't seem to like it so much then.'

'Information is a two-way street,' said Falcón, smiling for the first time.

'Agreed.'

'If you discover something inflammatory you will always tell me before it appears in your newspaper.'

'I'll tell you, but I won't change it.'

'The facts: I didn't know Montes until I went to see him last week. I was and still am investigating the death of Rafael Vega.'

'The suspicious suicide out at Santa Clara,' said Guzmán, picking up his notebook and pointing the pen at Falcón. 'Pablo Ortega's neighbour. Crisis in the Garden City – that's not a headline, by the way.'

'I came across a couple of names in an address book, one of whom was Eduardo Carvajal,' said Falcón.

'The paedophile ring leader who died in a car crash,' said Guzmán. 'I always remember things that stink. Is your inquiry going to crack open that cesspit as well?'

Falcón held up a hand, already nervous that he'd made some pact with the devil.

'I knew the name from a previous investigation so I went to see Montes and asked him about Carvajal. He was the investigating officer on the Carvajal paedophile ring.'

'Right. I get it. Very interesting,' said Guzmán, terrifying Falcón with the rapacity of his brain.

Falcón tried to slow his own brain down as he detailed his conversation with Montes about Carvajal procuring from the Russian mafia, the people-trafficking business and its influence on the sex industry. He told him about the two projects owned by Ivanov and Zelenov and managed by Vega Construcciones, and how he'd twice spoken to Montes about the Russians, once when Montes had been very drunk, to see if the names meant anything to him.

'I was due to talk to him this morning,' said Falcón, 'but I didn't make it in time.'

'Do you think he'd been corrupted?' asked Guzmán.

'I have no evidence for it, apart from his sense of timing and his suicide note, which, in my opinion, has some ugly subtext,' said Falcón, handing him the letter. 'For your eyes only.'

Guzmán read the letter, tilting his head from side to' side as if his factual brain wasn't inclined to agree with Falcón's more creative interpretation. He gave it back.

'What was the other name in Vega's address book that caught your attention?' asked Guzmán.

'The late Ramon Salgado,' said Falcón. 'It could be completely innocent because Salgado had supplied a painting for Vega's office building. But after Salgado's murder last year we found some very distressing child pornography on his computer.'

'There are some big gaps to fill here,' said Guzmán. 'What are your theories?'

Falcón stayed him with his hand again. There were complications, he said, and gave him the secret life of Rafael Vega.

'We're hoping that he has a record with the FBI and that they might be able to help us identify him,' said Falcón.

'So you think he might have had a past that's caught up with him?' said Guzmán. 'Which would be a separate theory to some kind of link to the Carvajal paedophile ring?'

'The situation has been complicated with each new development in Vega's secret life,' said Falcón. 'My original theory came when those names jumped out at me from his address book. After I'd talked to Montes the first time, and then found a connection between Vega and the Russians, I began to think that Vega had possibly replaced Carvajal as the procurer for the paedophile rings. But the major problem with that theory is that I have no proof of Vega's interest in paedophilia, only his connection to people who were, and the extremely advantageous nature of the deals he was giving the Russians.'

'What made the Vega suicide look suspicious to you?' asked Guzmán.

'The method, the cleanliness of the crime scene and, although there was a note, it was not what I would call a suicide note. First of all, it was in English. Secondly, it was only a partial sentence. And later we found that he had traced over the indentations of his own handwriting, as if he was trying to find out what he himself had written.'

'What were the words?'

"'… in the thin air you breathe from 9/11 until

'9/11?' said Guzmán.

'We're assuming that he'd taken up the American way of writing the date.'

'When you were talking me through his secret life you mentioned the American connection, which made you think that he was probably of Central or South American origin. Well, you know, most people forget this since the events of last year in New York, but there were two 9/11s. Where do you think I come from, Inspector Jefe?'

'You've got a Madrid accent.'

'I've lived in Madrid nearly all my life,' he said, 'so most people forget that I'm actually Chilean. The first 9/11, the one that nobody now will ever remember, was 11th September 1973. That was the day that they bombed the Moneda Palace, killed Salvador Allende and General Augusto Pinochet took power.'

Falcón held on to the arms of his chair, looked into Guzmán's eyes and knew, as his organs seemed to realign out of their planetary chaos, that he was right.

'I was fifteen years old,' said Guzmán, whose face for a moment looked like that of a drowning man with his life flashing before him. 'It was also the last day that I saw my parents. I heard later that they were last seen in the football stadium, if you know what that means.'

Falcón nodded. He'd read about the horrors of the Santiago football stadium.

'A week later I'd been taken out of Santiago and was living in Madrid with my aunt. I only found out later what happened in the football stadium,' he said. 'So people say 9/11 to me and I never think of the twin towers and New York City, I think of the day a bunch of US-sponsored, CIA-backed terrorists murdered democracy in my own country.'

'Wait one moment,' said Falcón.

He went next door. Ramírez was hunched over the keyboard.

'Has Elvira come back with the FBI contact?'

'I'm just pasting Vega's photograph into the e-mail,' said Ramírez.

'You can now add that we believe him to have been a Chilean national.'

Falcón went back into his office and apologized to Guzmán, who was standing at the window, hands behind his back.

'I'm getting old, Inspector Jefe,' he said. 'Since I arrived in Seville my brain seems to have changed. I can't seem to remember anything of my day to day life. I see movies which I can't tell you anything about. I read books by writers I can't recall. And yet those days in Santiago before I left are pin-sharp in my mind. And they come at me like a film in the dark. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I'm at the end of my career and all that stuff. You know, it was the whole reason I became the kind of journalist I was.'

'And you still are,' said Falcón. 'Although I was surprised to see you here. I didn't think you did stories any more. I thought you were the editor.'