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

Falcón nodded, more or less.

'Elvira's already been on the phone, asking to see you as soon as you come in.'

The Comisario was standing at his window, hands behind his back, looking across Calle Bias Infante to the Parque de los Principes. His predecessor, Lobo, used to do the same thing – drawing the illusion of power from surveying a domain.

'Take a seat, Inspector Jefe,' he said, nipping behind his desk, swift and agile, giving his moustache a finger and thumb wipe. 'I've read your report and Juez Calderón's, which arrived first thing this morning. I've already been in touch with the American Consul and he's asked for copies. They should come back to us this morning on the CIA nonsense. They won't want to let that notion build up any authority in our ranks.'

'So you don't give it any credibility, sir?'

'Sounds like the ravings of a deranged mind to me,' said Elvira. 'But then again, when I heard that our government had sent death squads to wipe out ETA terrorist cells I didn't believe that either… I couldn't believe it. So, officially, I would call myself sceptical, whilst privately thinking the whole story completely fantastical.'

'He was deranged,' said Falcón. 'There's no doubt about that. But you can't totally write him off. I'm sure the FBI don't let people off the hook that easily and what he told me about Reza Sangari matches what I found out myself. I see no reason why he should lie about killing the man – unless that, too, was some fantasy which, in his confused mind, he hoped would draw his very strange wife back to him. The stuff he spouted about the Agency… Who knows. I'm sure his wife didn't believe a word of it. It'll be interesting to see what Virgilio Guzmán comes back with on the profile of Miguel Velasco.'

'What's Guzmán got to do with it?'

'He's a Chilean. He has expatriate contacts who can help with that sort of material,' said Falcón. 'One thing

I do know about these dream faces he mentioned is that Pablo Ortega saw Vega badly spooked in the Corte Ingles one day and I imagine that he'd been seeing one of his visions.'

'You've got to be careful with Virgilio Guzmán,' said Elvira. 'There are people who say that he can't seem to take anything at face value any more. He's sees a conspiracy theory in everything.'

'He clarified the 9/11 element of the "suicide note" and that helped with the identification of Rafael Vega.'

'I thought he came to see you about Montes's suicide?'

'He did. The inclusion of Eduardo Carvajal's name in Vega's address book was why I'd gone to see Montes in the first place,' said Falcón. 'Montes mentioned Russian mafia involvement in the sex trade, and the next thing I find is a Russian connection to Vega. I ask Montes about these Russians and very soon after that he killed himself.'

'And you talked to Guzmán about this?'

'I gave it to him as context, but we had an agreement that he would not write about anything circumstantial, only the provable facts. And, as yet, we have nothing that links Montes to the Russians.'

'You're making me very nervous, Inspector Jefe. The Montes suicide is an internal matter at the moment. If there is corruption within the force we have to be extremely careful about how it is handled.'

'A journalist was sent to talk to me in my position as the investigating officer. I was not briefed on what could, or could not, be discussed with him. I believe, with someone of the reputation of Virgilio Guzmán, that transparency is the best policy. Have you read the Diario de Sevilla today?'

'Yes. There was a very extensive report on the career of Inspector Jefe Montes.'

Falcón nodded, waited, but nothing more was said.

'I think you should search the Krugmans' house before the Americans come back to us,' said Elvira. 'I've already arranged a warrant.'

Falcón headed for the door. Elvira spoke to the back of his head.

'If Virgilio Guzmán approaches you on the events of last night I'd like you to be very oblique about why Juez Calderón was in the apartment. I don't want a scandal about the Juez de Instruccion having had an affair with the deceased.'

'Has he admitted to that?'

'I asked for a separate statement on that subject. He seems to have been obsessed by her,' said Elvira, who added without looking up from his papers: 'I'm surprised that you didn't mention in your statement his action of bravery at the end.'

'His bravery?' asked Falcón.

'"As Krugman raised his gun to fire,"' said Elvira, reading from Calderón's statement, '"I threw myself towards him in the hope of distracting his aim. The bullet hit Sra Krugman in the chest. Inspector Jefe Falcón was unable to prevent Sr Krugman from putting the gun into his mouth and killing himself."'

'I'll search the Krugmans' house,' said Falcón, leaving the office.

'Garcia didn't see it either,' said Elvira, as the door closed.

Back in the office Falcón sent Cristina Ferrera off to the lab to pick up the Krugmans' house keys from Felipe and Jorge, who had removed them from the crime scene back in Tabladilla. Ramírez was still slumped at his desk.

'CIA?' he said, incredulous.

Falcón threw up his hands.

'Or not CIA, but some shadowy consultancy connected to the CIA,' he said.

'Fantasy,' said Ramírez.

'Let's say that Guzmán's conspiracy theory is correct. If you were part of the American administration responsible for some very ugly things happening in South America during the seventies, and you were worried that Rafael Vega had something that could prove personal involvement by senior members of the US administration… what would you do?'

'Kill him anyway.'

'That's because you're a ruthless bastard, José Luis,' said Falcón. 'The fact is, you wouldn't use the CIA, would you? You wouldn't have the power to use it. But there must be ex-CIA men with contacts and influence who have "debts". You see what I mean about Crazy Krugman… you can't just dismiss him as a madman.'

'I can,' said Ramírez. 'He's too unstable for that kind of work.'

'What if he's your only option?' said Falcón. 'And what do you make of his final admission, that the Agency didn't want Vega dead because they hadn't found out what they wanted to find out? That's a bit of an anticlimax, isn't it?'

'You mean he was doing all these vital, secret tasks but none of the information he came up with was crucial enough that Vega had to be killed?' said Ramírez. 'Maybe what they were looking for is locked up in Vega's safe-deposit box, for which we still don't have a search warrant.'

'You're beginning to believe, José Luis. You'd better remind Juez Calderón, if he comes in for work today."

The phone rang in the outer office. Ramírez went to answer it while Falcón thought about Krugman. 'They', if they existed, couldn't have been expecting Marty to find papers or a video tape. That would have been too much. What they were looking for were reports on Vega's state of mind. Was this a man about to go to Baltasar Garzón or the Belgian justice system and offer his services, for instance?

'That was the town hall in Aracena,' said Ramírez, leaning against the door jamb. 'They passed a restoration project on Montes's ruined finca valued at twenty million pesetas. A total rebuild, complete remodernization, three-phase electricity – the works.'

Falcón passed the news on to Comisario Elvira, who reacted as if he'd been expecting it all along. He told them to proceed with the Krugman house search. Ferrera came back with the house keys and they drove out to Santa Clara.

The house was cold and silent and looked undisturbed as the three of them snapped on their latex gloves.

'I'll go upstairs,' said Falcón. 'Join me when you've finished down here.'

'What are we looking for?' asked Ferrera.