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

'What about the bodies of those two kids up in the Sierra de Aracena? They've been seen. Everybody knows about them. No one can hide that sort of thing.'

'If they were local kids, then of course not. But who are they?' said Falcón. 'They've been dead a year. The only piece of really usable evidence we've got from the house is the video tape and, as Lobo pointed out, we can't even prove that what they were doing took place in Montes's finca. Our only chance is if we're allowed to interview those people on the tape.'

Ramírez walked over to the window and put his hands up against the glass.

'First of all we had to listen to Nadia Kouzmikheva's story and do nothing. Now we're going to watch these cabrones walk away, too?'

'Nothing is certain.'

'We have the tape,' said Ramírez.

'After what Montes has done we have to be very careful about the tape,' said Falcón. 'That is not something to proceed with lightly. Now I'm going out.'

'Where to?'

'To do something that I hope will make me feel better about myself.'

On the way out of the office he bumped into Cristina Ferrera, who had been to see the Russian translator about the inscription on the wall of the finca.

'Leave it on my desk,' said Falcón. 'I can't bear to look at it.'

Falcón drove across the river and along Avenida del Torneo. As the road swung away from the river towards La Macarena he turned right and into La Alameda. He parked and walked along Calle Jesus del Gran Poder. This was Pablo Ortega's old barrio. He was looking for a house on Calle Lumbreras, which belonged to the parents of the boy, Manolo Lopez, who had been the victim in Sebastián Ortega's case. He had not called ahead because he didn't think the parents would welcome this new intrusion, especially given what he'd heard about the father's health problems.

He walked through the cooking smells of olive oil and garlic and up to the house where the boy's parents lived. It was a small apartment building in need of repair and paint. He rang the doorbell. Sra Lopez answered it and stared hard at his police ID. She didn't want him to come in, but couldn't find the confidence to ask him to leave them alone. The apartment was small, airless and very hot. Sra Lopez sat him down at a table with a lace cover and a bowl of plastic flowers and went to bring her husband. The room was full of Mariolatry. Virgins hung on walls, found themselves cornered on bookshelves and blessed stacks of magazines. A candle burned in a niche.

Sra Lopez steered her husband into the room as if he was a lame cow in need of milking. He looked to be in his late forties but was very unsteady on his feet, which made him seem older. She got him into a chair. One arm seemed to be dead, hanging useless at his side. He picked up Falcón's ID card with a shaky hand.

'Homicidios?' he said.

'Not on this occasion,' said Falcón. 'I wanted to talk to you about your son's kidnapping.'

'I can't talk about that,' he said, and immediately started to get to his feet.

His wife helped him out of the room. Falcón watched the complicated process in a state of increasing desolation.

'He can't talk about it,' she said, coming back to the table. 'He hasn't been the same since… since…'

'Since Manolo disappeared?'

'No, no… it was afterwards. It was after the trial that he lost his job. His legs started to behave strangely, they felt as if they had ants crawling all over them. He became unsteady. One hand started shaking, the other arm seemed to give up. Now he does nothing all day. He moves from here to the bedroom and back… that's it.'

'But Manolo is all right, isn't he?'

'He's fine. It's as if it never happened. He's on holiday… camping with his nephews and cousins.'

'So, you have much older children as well?'

'I had a boy and a girl when I was eighteen and nineteen, and then twenty years later Manolo came along.'

'Did Manolo have any reaction to what had happened to him?'

'Not exactly to what happened to him,' said Sra Lopez. 'He's always been a happy boy in himself. He was more disturbed by what happened to Sebastián Ortega. He finds it difficult to imagine him in prison.'

'So, what's been bothering your husband?' said Falcón. 'He seems to be the one who has reacted badly.'

'He can't talk about it,' she said. 'It's something to do with what happened with Manolo, but I can't get him to say what it is.'

'Is he ashamed? That's not an unusual reaction.'

'For Manolo? He says not.'

'Would you mind if I talk to him on his own?'

'You won't get anywhere.'

'I have some new information which might help him,' he said.

'The last door to the left at the end of the corridor,' she said.

Sr Lopez was lying on the dark wooden bed under a crucifix. A ceiling fan barely disturbed the thick stale air. He had his eyes closed. One hand twitched where it lay across his stomach. The other lay dead by his side. Falcón touched him on the shoulder. His eyes stared out from a frightened mind.

'All you have to do is listen to me,' said Falcón. 'I am no man's judge. I've come here to try to put things right, that's all.'

Sr Lopez blinked once, as if this was a devised sign language.

'Investigations are strange things,' said Falcón. 'We set off on a journey to find out what happened, only to find that more things happen on the way. Investigations have a life of their own. We think we are running them, but sometimes they run us. When I heard what Sebastián Ortega had done, it had nothing to do with the investigation I was working on, but I was fascinated by it. I was fascinated because in those cases it's very rare for the victim to be allowed to leave and for him to bring the police to where the perpetrator is waiting to be arrested. Do you understand what I'm saying, Sr Lopez?'

He blinked once again. Falcón told him about the Jefatura and how stories circulate and how he'd heard about what had really happened in Manolo's case. The demand for a stronger statement to help the prosecution's case was not an unusual occurrence. That Sebastián would not defend himself against the stronger statement was unforeseen and resulted in a much harsher sentence than the actual crime merited.

'I have no idea what is playing on your mind, Sr Lopez. All I know is – through no fault of your own, and perhaps because of Sebastián's own mental problems – an unnecessarily severe justice has been done. I am here to tell you that, if you so wish, you can help balance the scales. All you have to do is call me. If I do not hear from you, you will never see me again.'

Falcón left his card on the bedside table. Sr Lopez lay on the bed, staring up at the slow fan. On the way out Falcón said goodbye to Sra Lopez, who took him to the door.

'Pablo Ortega told me that he had to leave this barrio because nobody would talk to him any more, or serve him in shops and bars,' said Falcón as he stood on the landing. 'Why was that, Sra Lopez?'

She looked flustered and embarrassed; her hands shifted about, straightening her clothes. She eased herself behind the door and shut it without answering his question.

In the flinching brightness of the street Falcón took a call from Juez Calderón, who wanted to see him about the Vega case. Before he got back into his car he went into a bar on the Alameda and ordered a cafe solo. He showed his police ID and asked the same question of the barman as he had of Sra Lopez. He was an older guy, who looked as if he'd seen a few things in his time as a bar owner at the seedier end of the Alameda.

'We all knew Sebastián,' he said, 'and we liked him. He was a good boy until… he did wrong. When he did what he did, people started to talk about how abusers start out as the abused. Conclusions were drawn and it wasn't helped by the fact that nobody much liked Pablo Ortega. He was an arrogant prick who thought the whole world loved him.'