The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

by Robert Wilson

  'He's disappeared.'

  'What do we know about him?'

  'His name is Sergei,' she said. 'He's Russian or Ukrainian. We share him. The Vegas, the Krugmans, Pablo Ortega and me.'

  'Pablo Ortega… the actor?' asked Calderón.

  'Yes, he's just moved here,' she said. 'He's not very happy.'

  'That doesn't surprise me.'

  'Of course, it was you, wasn't it, Juez Calderón, who put his son in jail for twelve years?' said Consuelo. 'Terrible case that, terrible. But I didn't mean that when

  I said… although I'm sure that's a contributing factor. There's a problem with his house and he finds the area a bit… dead after living in the centre of town.'

  'Why did he move?' asked Falcón.

  'Nobody in the barrio would talk to him any more.'

  'Because of what his son did?' said Falcón. 'I don't remember this case…'

  'Ortega's son kidnapped an eight-year-old boy,' said Calderón. 'He tied him up and abused him over several days.'

  'But didn't kill him?' asked Falcón.

  'The boy escaped,' said Calderón.

  'In fact it was stranger than that,' said Consuelo. 'Ortega's son released him and then sat on the bed in the soundproofed room he'd prepared for the kidnap and waited for the police to arrive. He was lucky they got to him first.'

  'They say he's having a hard time of it in prison,' said Calderón.

  'I can't find any pity for people who destroy the innocence of children,' said Consuelo, savagely. 'They deserve everything they get.'

  Madeleine Krugman returned with the telephone number. She was now wearing sunglasses as if protecting herself from her own painful whiteness.

  'No name?' said Falcón, punching the number into his mobile.

  'My husband says his name is Carlos Vázquez.' '

  'And where's your husband?'

  'At home.'

  'When did Sr Vega give you this number?'

  'Before he went to join Lucia and Mario on holiday last summer.' 'Is Mario the child who slept at your house last night, Sra Jiménez?'

  'Yes.'

  'Do the Vegas have any family in the Seville area?'

  'Lucia's parents.'

  Falcón broke away from the group and asked to speak to the lawyer.

  'I am Inspector Jefe Javier Falcón,' he said. 'Your client, Sr Rafael Vega, is lying on his kitchen floor incapacitated, possibly dead. We need to get into his house.'

  A long silence while Vázquez digested this devastating news.

  'I'll be there in ten minutes,' he said. 'I advise you not to try to break in, Inspector Jefe, because it will certainly take you much longer.'

  Falcón looked up at the impregnable house. There were two security cameras on the corners. He found two more at the back of the building.

  'It seems the Vegas were very security conscious,' he said, rejoining the group. 'Cameras. Bulletproof windows. Solid front door.'

  'He's a wealthy man,' said Consuelo.

  'And Lucia is… well, neurotic to say the least,' said Maddy Krugman.

  'Did you know Sr Vega before you moved here, Sra Jiménez?' asked Falcón.

  'Of course. He told me that the house I eventually bought was going to come up for sale before it appeared on the market.'

  'Were you friends or business associates?'

  'Both.'

  'What's his business?'

  'Construction,' said Madeleine. 'That's why the house is built like a fort.'

  'He's a client of mine at the restaurant in El Porvenir, ' said Consuelo. 'But I also knew him through Raúl. They were in the same business, as you know. They joined forces once on some developments in Triana years ago.'

  'Did you know him just as a neighbour, Sra Krugman?'

  'My husband is an architect. He's working on some projects for Sr Vega.'

  A large silver Mercedes pulled up outside the house. A short, stocky man in a white long-sleeve shirt, dark tie and grey trousers got out. He introduced himself as Carlos Vázquez and ran his fingers through his prematurely white hair. He handed the keys to Falcón, who opened the door with a single turn. It had not been double locked.

  The house seemed bleak and freezing after the heat of the street. Falcón asked Juez Calderón if he and the forensics could take a quick look before the Médico Forense started his work. He took Felipe and Jorge to the edge of the tiled floor of the kitchen. They looked, nodded to each other and backed away. Calderón had to prevent Carlos Vázquez from entering the kitchen and contaminating the crime scene. The lawyer didn't look as if he was used to having a hand placed on his chest by anybody but his wife in bed. The Médico Forense, already gloved, was ushered in. While he checked for a pulse and took the temperature of the body Falcón went outside and asked Consuelo and Madeleine if they would be available for interviews later. He made a note that Consuelo was still taking care of Vega's son, Mario.

  The Médico Forense murmured into his dictaphone as he checked the ears, nose, eyes and mouth of the victim. He took a pair of tweezers and turned over the plastic bottle which lay close to the body's outstretched hand. It was a litre of drain cleaner.

  Falcón backed away down the corridor and checked the downstairs rooms. The dining room was ultra modern. The table was a thick single sheet of opaque green glass mounted on two stainless steel arches. It was fully laid for ten people. The chairs were white, the floor was white, the walls and light fixtures were also white. In the chill of the air conditioning the dining experience must have been like the inside of a fridge, without the clutter of butter trays and old food. It did not seem to Falcón that any entertaining had ever taken place in this room.

  The living room by comparison was like the inside of a confused person's head. Every surface was covered in bric-a-brac – souvenirs from around the world. Falcón saw holidays in which Vega obsessively filmed with the latest technology while his wife devastated the tourist shops. On the mid section of the sofa was a cordless phone, a box of chocolates with half a tray uneaten and three remotes for satellite, DVD and video. On the floor was a pair of pink fluffy slippers. The lights were off, as was the television.

  Each of the stairs up to the bedrooms was made out of a slab of absolute black granite. He checked the glass- smooth surfaces as he moved slowly upwards. Nothing. The floor at the top of the stairs was made of black granite inlaid with diamonds of white marble. He was drawn to the door of the master bedroom. The double bed was occupied. A pillow lay over the face of the occupant whose arms lay outside the light duvet on the bed. There was a slim band of a wristwatch on an arm flung out as if reaching for help. A single visible foot had bright-red toenails. He went to the bedside and checked for a pulse while looking down on the two depressions in the pillow. Lucia Vega was dead, too.

  There were three other rooms upstairs, all with bathrooms. One was empty, another had a double bed and the last belonged to Mario. The ceiling of the boy's room was painted with a night sky. An old, one-armed teddy bear lay face up on the bed.

  Falcón reported the second dead body to Juez Calderón. The Médico Forense was kneeling by Sr Vega's side and working at prising his fingers apart.

  'There seems to be a note in Sr Vega's right hand,' said Calderón. 'The body's cooled down quickly in the air con and I want him to get it out without tearing it. Any first thoughts, Inspector Jefe?'

  'On the face of it, it looks like a suicide pact. He's smothered his wife and then drunk some drain cleaner, although that's a nasty, lingering way to kill yourself.'

  'Pact? What makes you think there was an agreement?'

  'I'm just saying that's what it looks like,' said Falcón. The fact that the little boy was left out of it might indicate some collusion. A mother wouldn't be able to bear the thought of the death of her own child.'

  'And a father could?'

  'It depends on the pressure. If there's the possibility of financial or moral disgrace he might not want his male child to see that or live with the knowledge of it. He w
ould see killing him as a favour. Men have killed their entire families because they think they have failed them and that it's better nobody survives bearing their name and its shame.'

  'But you have your doubts?' said Calderón.

  'Suicide, whether it's a pact or not, is rarely a spontaneous thing and there are some spontaneous elements to this crime scene. First, the door was not securely locked. Consuelo Jiménez had called to say that Mario had fallen asleep so they were sure he wasn't going to return, but they didn't double lock the door.'

  The door was shut, that was enough.'

  'If you're about to do something unnatural you would put yourself behind locked doors to make absolutely certain there was no possibility of interruption. It's a psychological necessity. Serious suicides normally take full precautions.'

  'What else?'

  'The way everything has just been left here: the phone, the chocolates, the slippers. There seems to be a lack of premeditation.'

  'Well, certainly on her part,' said Calderón.

  That is a point, of course,' said Falcón.

  'Drain cleaner?' said Calderón. 'Why would you take drain cleaner?'

  'We may find there was something stronger than drain cleaner in the bottle,' said Falcón. 'The reason? Well, he could be meting out punishment to himself… you know, cleaning himself of all his sins. There's also the advantage of it being noiseless and, depending on what else he's taken, irrevocable, too.'

  'Well, that does sound premeditated, Inspector Jefe. So there are both spontaneous and planned elements to these deaths.'

  'All right… if they were lying on the bed together holding hands, dead, with a note pinned to his pyjamas then I'd be happy to treat it as suicide. As it stands, I would prefer to investigate the deaths as murder before deciding.'

  'Perhaps the note in his hand will…' said Calderón. 'But strange to get dressed for bed before you… or is that another psychological necessity? Getting ready for the biggest sleep of all.'

  'Let's hope he was the sort who left his security cameras on and the recorders loaded with tapes,' said Falcón, returning to the pragmatic. 'We should have a look in his study.'

  They crossed the entrance hall and went down a corridor by the stairs. Vega's study was on the right with a view of the street. There was a leather chair tilted back behind a desk, with a framed poster of this year's bullfights held during the Feria de Abril hanging on the wall.

  The desk was a large, empty, light-coloured piece of wood with a laptop and a telephone. Three drawers on castors sat underneath. Behind the door were four black filing cabinets and at the end of the room the recording equipment for the security cameras. There were no LEDs and the plugs were out of the wall sockets. Each recorder had an unused tape inside.

  'This doesn't look good,' said Falcón.

  The filing cabinets were all locked. He pulled at the mobile set of drawers under the desk. Locked. He went upstairs to the bedroom and found a walk-in closet, with his suits and shirts to the right and her dresses and a vast number of shoes (some worryingly similar) to the left. A tall set of drawers had a wallet, set of keys and some change on top.

  One of the keys opened the drawers under the desk. There was nothing unusual in the top two, but as he pulled on the third drawer something at the back butted up against the ream of paper at the front. It was a handgun.

  'I haven't seen many of these,' said Falcón. 'This is a Heckler & Koch 9 mm. You own one of these if you're expecting trouble.'

  'If you had one of those,' said Calderón, 'would you drink a litre of drain cleaner or blow your brains out?'

  'Given the choice…' said Falcón.

  The lawyer appeared in the doorway, his dark brown eyes set hard in his head.

  'You have no right -' he started.

  'This is a murder investigation, Sr Vázquez,' said Falcón. 'Sra Vega is upstairs on the bed, she's been suffocated with a pillow. Any idea why your client should have one of these in his study?'

  Vázquez blinked at the gun.

  'Seville is one of those curious cities where the wealthy and privileged people of Santa Clara are separated from the drug-ridden disadvantaged ones of the Poligono San Pablo by a small barrio, the paper factory and the Calle de Tesalónica. I imagine he had it for his own protection.'

  'Like the security cameras he didn't bother to switch on?' said Falcón.

  Vázquez looked at the inert recorders. His mobile went off playing the first few bars of Carmen. The lawmen grinned at each other. Vázquez went down the hall. Calderón closed the door and Falcón knew what he'd suspected as he'd shaken the Juez's hand that morning – there was news and it was relevant to him.

  'I wanted you to hear this from me,' said Calderón, 'and not the rumour machine in the Jefatura or the Edificio de los Juzgados.'

  Falcón nodded, his larynx suddenly paralysed.

  'Inés and I are getting married at the end of the summer,' said Calderón.

  He'd known this was coming but the news still rooted him to the floor. It seemed like minutes before his feet, moving at the pace of a diver's on the ocean floor, brought him close enough to shake Calderón's hand. He thought about gripping the judge's shoulder in comradely fashion but the bitterness of his disappointment filled his mouth with the taint of a bad olive.

  'Congratulations, Esteban,' he said.

  'We told our families last night,' said Calderón. 'You're the first outsider to know.'

  'You'll make each other very happy,' said Falcón. 'I know.'

  They nodded to each other and disengaged.

  'I'll get back to the Médico Forense,' said the judge and left the room.

  Falcón went to the window, took out his mobile and thumbed up Alicia Aguado's number from the address book. She was the clinical psychologist he'd been seeing for more than a year. His thumb stroked the call button and a flash of anger helped him to resist pressing it. This could wait until their regular weekly appointment the following evening. They'd covered his ex-wife Inés a million times over and she would just chastise him again for not moving on.

  Javier and Inés had settled their differences. It had been a part of the rebuilding process after the Francisco Falcón scandal had broken fifteen months ago.

  Francisco was the world-famous artist whom Javier had always believed to be his father, but who had been revealed as a fraud, a murderer and not his real father after all. Inés had forgiven Javier even before they'd arranged to meet some months after the media frenzy. It had been his coldness, captured by her terrible rhyming mantra, Tú no tienes corazón, Javier Falcón. 'You have no heart, Javier Falcón', that had finished their short marriage. Given his family history it was now clear to her why he should have been deficient in this fundamental human way. Over the last few months of his therapy thoughts of her had subsided, but whenever her name came up there was an unmistakable leap in his stomach. Her terrible accusation still mangled his mind and, in forgiving him she'd become, in his unstable state, someone to whom he had to prove himself.

  And now this. Still, Inés had been seeing the judge for nearly a year and a half. They were the new golden couple not just of the Seville legal system, but of Seville society as well. Their marriage was an inevitability, which didn't made the news any easier to bear.

  Vázquez appeared on his shoulder in the reflection of the glass. Falcón switched back into professional mode.

  'How surprised are you to find your client dead under these strange circumstances, Sr Vázquez?' he asked.

  'Very,' he said.

  'Where's the licence for his gun, by the way?'

  That's his private affair. This is his house. I'm only his lawyer.'

  'But he entrusted you with the keys to his home.'

  'He has no family here. When they went away for the summer they often took Lucia's parents, as well. There is someone in my office all the time. It seemed…'

  'What about the Americans next door?'

  'They've been here barely a year,' said Vázquez. '
He rents that house to them. The husband works for him as an architect. He didn't like people to get too involved in his life. He gave them my telephone number in case of emergencies.'

  'Is Vega Construcciones his only company?'

  'Let's say he's in the property business. He builds and rents out apartments and offices. He constructs industrial property to order. He buys and sells land. He has a number of estate agencies.'

  Falcón sat on the edge of the desk, his foot swinging.

  'This gun, Sr Vázquez, is not for discouraging burglars. It's a gun for stopping a man dead. Even if you clipped a man on the shoulder with a 9 mm bullet from a Heckler 8- Koch you'd probably kill him.'

  'If you were a rich man who wanted to protect his family and home, would you go out and buy a toy or a serious piece of weaponry?'

  'So, as far as you know, Sr Vega is not involved in anything criminal or borderline illegal.'

  'Not that I know of.'

  'And you can think of no reason why anybody would want to kill him?'

  'Look, Inspector Jefe, I'm involved with the legal aspects of my clients' businesses. I rarely get involved in their personal lives unless it has an impact on their business. I know about his company. If he was doing anything else then he was not employing me as his lawyer. If he was having an affair with another man's wife, which I doubt, I wouldn't have known about it.'

  'So what is your reading of this crime scene, Sr Vázquez? Sra Vega upstairs, suffocated by a pillow. Sr Vega downstairs, dead with a litre of drain cleaner by his side. While their son, Mario, is in the hands of a neighbour for the night.'

  Silence. The brown eyes steadied on Falcón's chest.

  'It looks like suicide.'

  'At least one of those deaths has to be a murder.'

  'It looks like Rafael killed his wife and then himself.'

  'Did you ever see any evidence of that level of instability in your late client?'

  'How's anybody supposed to know what goes on inside a man's head?'

  'So, he wasn't looking at business failure or financial ruin?'

  'You'd have to speak to the accountant about that, although the accountant was not the finance director. His knowledge would probably be confined.'