The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

by Robert Wilson

  'You were done for dealing, weren't you?'

  'I was, but I wasn't dealing. I was just caught with too much on me. That was why I only got four years.'

  'Was Pablo disappointed in you?'

  'The only time he got angry with me was when I stole something from his collection,' said Salvador. 'It was a just a drawing, some smudges on paper. I sold

  it for twenty thousand pesetas' worth of gear. Pablo said it was worth three hundred thousand.'

  'He wasn't angry?'

  'He was furious. But, you know, he never hit me, and by my father's standards he was well within his rights to flay me alive.'

  'And after that you did the deal?'

  'Once he'd calmed down and got the drawing back.'

  'How much did you see of Sebastián in that time?'

  'A fair amount when Sebastián started at the Bellas Artes. Then I didn't see him for a bit until I heard Pablo had bought him a small apartment on Jesus del Gran Poder. I used to go there to get off the street to shoot up. When Pablo found out, he built another clause into our deal. I had to promise not to see Sebastián until I was clean. Pablo said he was in a fragile state and he didn't want to add drugs to the problem.'

  'Did you keep to that?'

  'Sebastián was never interested in drugs. He had other strategies for blocking out the world.'

  'Like what?'

  'He called it "a retreat into beauty and innocence". He had a room in his apartment which he'd soundproofed and blocked out the light. I used to shoot up in there. He painted luminous points on the ceiling. It was like being wrapped in a velvet night. He used to lie in there and listen to his music and the tapes he'd made of himself reading poetry.'

  'When did he make this room?'

  'As soon as Pablo bought the apartment… five or six years ago.'

  'Why did he buy him the apartment?'

  'They were finding it difficult to live together. They used to fight… verbally. Then they stopped talking to each other.'

  'Did Pablo ever beat Sebastián?'

  'Not that I saw or heard about.'

  'What about your father?'

  Silence.

  'I mean when he was living with your family,' said Falcón.

  Salvador seemed to be having trouble with his breathing. He began to hyperventilate. Ferrera got behind him and calmed him down with her hands on his shoulders.

  'Would you like to help Sebastián?' asked Falcón.

  Salvador nodded.

  'There's nothing to be ashamed of in here,' said Falcón. 'Anything you say will only be used to help Sebastián.'

  'But there is something to be ashamed of in here -' he said, suddenly livid, thumping himself in the chest.

  'We're not here to judge you. This isn't a trial of morality,' said Ferrera. 'Things happen to us when we're young and we have no way of -'

  'What happened to you?' said Salvador viciously, pulling himself away from her touch. 'What the fuck has ever happened to you? You're a fucking policewoman. Nothing has happened to you. You don't know anything that happens out there. You come from the safe world. I can smell it on you – your soap. You leave the safe world and just ruffle the surface of things where we live, catching people doing their little wrongs. You have no idea what it's like on the other side.'

  She moved back from him. Falcón thought she was shocked at first, but she was just asserting her presence. She was telling Salvador something with her silence and he couldn't look at her. The atmosphere in the interrogation room was more dramatic than if she'd stripped naked.

  'You think because of the way I look and the job I do that nothing has ever happened to me?'

  'Go on then,' said Salvador, goading her, 'tell me what's happened to you, little policewoman.'

  Silence, as Ferrera weighed things in her mind.

  'I don't have to tell you this,' she said, 'and it's not something I particularly want my superior officer to know about me. But I am going to tell you because you need to know that shameful things happen to others, even little policewomen, and they can be talked about and people will not judge. Are you listening to me, Salvador?'

  They made eye contact and he nodded.

  'Before I became a policewoman I was training to be a nun. The Inspector Jefe knows that much about me. He also knows I met a man and that I became pregnant. It meant that I stopped my training and got married. But there's something else he doesn't know, which I am very ashamed of and it will cost me a lot to say it in front of him.'

  Salvador didn't respond. The silence was ringing in the room. Ferrera breathed in. Falcón wasn't sure he wanted to hear this, but it was too late. She was determined.

  'I come from Cadiz. It's a port town with some rough people. I was staying with my mother, who did not know that I'd met this man. I'd reached the point where I was going to have to tell the nuns what had happened in my life, and I decided I would go and see the man I loved and talk to him first. I was still a virgin because I believed in the sanctity of marriage and that I should come whole to it. On the way to my lover's apartment that night I was attacked by two men who raped me. It was very quick. I didn't resist. I was pathetically small and weak in their hands. In a matter of ten minutes they did what they wanted with me and left me totally defiled. I staggered back to my mother's apartment. She was already asleep. I showered and got into bed shaking and shattered. I woke up hoping it had been a bad dream, but I was aching all over and full of shame. A week later, when the bruising had died down I went to bed with my lover. The day after that I told the nuns I was leaving. I am still not completely sure who is the father of my first child.'

  She eased her leg back until she felt the seat of the chair and dropped down into it so that it rocked. She seemed exhausted. Salvador's eyes fell away from hers to the cigarette in his hand, which trembled.

  'The reason I don't see my father any more is that I hate him,' he said. 'I hate him with a hate so massive that if I saw him I'd commit an act of serious violence. I hate him because he is a betrayer of trust, and not just any trust. He is the betrayer of the greatest trust available to human beings – the trust between parent and child. He beat me to keep me scared. To stop me from even thinking about telling anyone what he was doing to me. He beat me because he knew the legend of his beatings would be passed around the neighbourhood and all the kids would be scared of him, too. And when they came to the house he was so sweet to them they let him do whatever he wanted, but they never dared talk. Those men ruined you. My own father ruined me until I was twelve years old. Then it stopped. I thought I could deal with it. I thought I could smoke it away. Smoke away my childhood and get clear of him and start my own life. It might have been possible. But then Uncle Pablo brought Sebastián to the house. And that is my shame. That is why I am like this. Because I said nothing while my father did to Sebastián what he'd done to me. I should… I should have protected him. I should, as you say, have been his elder brother. But I wasn't. I was a coward. And I saw him ruined.'

  After some minutes real life creaked back into the room. One of the lights buzzed. The tape machine tickered.

  'When did you last see your Uncle Pablo?' asked Falcón.

  'I saw him on Friday morning, just for half an hour. He gave me some money. We talked. He asked me whether I knew why Sebastián had done the things that he'd done. I knew what he was getting at, what he wanted from me. But I couldn't tell him what I've just told you. I couldn't admit how I'd failed to Sebastián's father, my uncle, who had helped me so much. I think he'd already worked it out or he'd known it all along and hadn't been able to believe it of his own brother. He was looking to me for the final corroboration of the facts. I should have been able to tell him, but I didn't. At the end of our talk he hugged me and kissed my head. He hadn't done that since I was a small boy. I cried into his shirt. We walked to the door of the apartment and he patted the side of my face with one of his massive hands and he said: "Don't judge your father too harshly. He had a hard life. He took all the beat
ings for us when we were children. All of them. He was a tough little bastard. He took it all in silence."'

  'Do you know why Sebastián did what he did?' asked Falcón.

  'I hadn't seen him for some time before that. The agreement, remember? I didn't want to break that part of it. Once you've found trust, you try not to blow it.'

  'Were you surprised by Sebastián's crime?'

  'I couldn't believe it. I couldn't think what could possibly have happened in his mind in the years I hadn't seen him. It went against everything I knew about him.'

  'Two more questions,' said Falcón, turning the tape machine off, 'and then that's it. I've asked a clinical psychologist to talk to Sebastián to see if we can unblock his mind. It would help if I could play this tape of what you've just told me. She'll be the only one to hear it and she might want to talk to you or get you to help Sebastián in some way.'

  'No problem,' he said.

  'The next question is more difficult,' said Falcón. 'Your father has done some very bad things…'

  'No,' said Salvador, his face hardening to wood, 'you can't make me do that.'

  On the way back to the Poligono San Pablo Falcón sat in the back with Salvador and worked out a way to contact him in case Alicia needed his help. He also mentioned that Pablo had left him something in his will and told him to get in touch with Ranz Costa.

  They dropped him on the outskirts of the barrio. Ferrera kissed him on both cheeks. Falcón sat up front.

  They watched Salvador's jittery walk, an undone j shoelace from his busted trainers lashing his thin scabby i calves.

  'You didn't have to do that,' said Falcón, as Ferrera i turned the car round.

  'Kiss him?' she said. 'That was the least he deserved.'!

  'I meant you didn't have to tell your story to make him tell his,' he said. 'Becoming a nun, answering that vocation is, I imagine, a process – revealing and cleansing yourself before God. Police work is a vocation, too, but there's no God that you have to reveal yourself to.'

  'Inspector jefes are quite high up,' she said, smiling. 'And, anyway, it was a practice run for the real thing. I still have to tell my husband.'

  Chapter 24

  Monday, 29th July 2002

  Falcón woke up from his siesta and slapped the alarm dead. He lay in the darkened room arms flung out, panting as if he'd surfaced, lungs bursting, from a deep lake. Something had hardened in his mind. What before had been a vague dislike of Ignacio Ortega had taken shape and become a determined mass that was going to put the child molester away for as long as possible. He was enjoying the anger just as Ferrera had when she'd first become a policewoman, roaming the streets of Cadiz, hoping to find those two brutes who'd raped her.

  He showered, thinking about Ignacio Ortega. There was cunning in him. All those easy lies he'd told in their first meeting. The learned presentation of half- truths. He wondered if this had all started from envy – 'I was just an electrician and he was a famous actor.' Two men coming from the same brutal childhood, one becomes a famous actor who escapes into roles, while the other, anonymous and filled with hate, desecrates the innocence of children. Was there some strange balancing out going on in Ignacio's head?

  As he dressed he remembered the point that had occurred to him whilst talking to Ramírez about the names in Vega's address book. There had been only one Ortega in it and no initial. He drove to the Jefatura, brought the address book up from the evidence room. He was right, no initial and the number, which was for a mobile, belonged to Ignacio. Another thought. He called Carlos Vázquez.

  'Who does Vega Construcciones use to install the air-conditioning systems in their buildings?'

  'It's put out to tender,' said Vázquez. 'There are four or five companies who compete with each other for the business.'

  'Does any one company win more tenders than the others?'

  'I'd say that seventy per cent of the work is done by AAC, Aire Acondicionado Central de Sevilla. It's run by a man called Ignacio Ortega, who only ever overprices himself if he can't do the work.'

  He called Vega Construcciones and asked for Marty Krugman; still not there. Krugman answered his mobile. He seemed to be in heavy traffic from the noise. The signal was bad.

  'I'm not supposed to be talking to you, Inspector Jefe, remember?' he said cheerfully. 'I haven't spoken to our cold, eastern friends yet.'

  'Just one question about the Russian projects: who did you get to tender for the air-conditioning systems?'

  'I didn't,' said Krugman. 'Rafael told me to use a company called AAC.'

  'You didn't get a competitive quote?'

  'He said the client had already authorized it.'

  'How do you understand that?'

  'It normally means that AAC is owed a favour, probably because they've done another job very cheaply for them.'

  'Do you know Ignacio Ortega of AAC?'

  'Sure, I've met him. He does a lot of work for the company. He's hard-nosed,' said Krugman. 'Is he related to Pablo?'

  'They're brothers.'

  'They don't look it.'

  'What can you tell me about Ignacio and Sr Vega – their relationship?'

  'Nothing.'

  'Were they close?'

  'I told you, Inspector Jefe…' said Krugman, and Falcón missed the end of the sentence as the signal started to break up.

  'Can we talk face to face about this?' asked Falcón, thinking now more about what Guzmán had been saying.

  'It won't make any difference,' said Krugman. 'And anyway, I'm busy now.'

  'Where are you? I'll come to you. We'll have a beer before dinner.'

  'Now you love me, Inspector Jefe. What have I done?'

  'I just want to talk,' said Falcón, shouting through the fracturing signal.

  'I told you the Russians haven't contacted me yet.'

  'This isn't about the Russians.'

  'What is it about then?'

  'I can't say… I mean, it's more about the Americans.'

  'I'm getting nostalgic for those Cold War days,' said

  Krugman. 'You know, it's an interesting thing… the Russians are a much more effective force as the Mob than they ever were as communists.'

  The signal collapsed. Falcón redialled. Not available. Ramírez put his head in the office. Falcón briefed him on Salvador and Ignacio Ortega while he sat listening with his face all pushed up by his hand, mouth open, intelligent-looking. Before he could ask any questions Falcón briefed him about the conversation with Guzmán, which left him with his eyelids at half mast.

  'Joder,' he said, after some time, the Sevillano not particularly impressed by the developments. 'Have you talked to Krugman about this?'

  'I've just lost the signal to his mobile, and anyway I need to sit in front of him if I'm going to talk to him about extra-curricular activity for the CIA.'

  'I don't believe it,' said Ramírez. 'I think Virgilio Guzmán lives in a fantasy world of conspiracy theories. We're in Seville here, not Bilbao. He's had his head turned by all that spying on ETA and the Guardia Civil.'

  'Come on, José Luis, he's a respected professional.'

  'So was Alberto Montes,' said Ramírez. 'What do you think Guzmán's doing down here?'

  'Something with less pressure than when he was in Madrid,' said Falcón.

  'In my opinion,' said Ramírez, winding his finger around his temple, 'the guy's lost it.'

  'Is this based on any empirical research, or just your gut feeling?' asked Falcón. 'What about Guzmán's theory on the piece of paper in Vega's hand? Is that bullshit as well?'

  'No, that sounds right. I like that. It doesn't help us, but I like it,' said Ramírez.

  'It does help us; it narrows the search down for the FBI,' said Falcón. 'Have you heard from them yet?'

  Ramírez shook his head.

  'I want to find Krugman,' said Falcón.

  'You're beginning to think that he killed Vega.'

  'I have an open mind. He had the opportunity, given I hat Vega would have
let him into his house at that time in the morning. And now we've got a possible motive, even if you do think it's Guzmán's fantasy,' said Falcón. 'I'm also worried about Krugman. When I went to see him after we'd been to talk to Dourado, he seemed unstable. He was looking out of the window using a pair of binoculars.'

  'Probably trying to see if his wife is fucking Juez Calderón, which is why we're not getting our search warrant.'

  'So you do think that Vega was "operating" in some way,' said Falcón. And you do think that what he has in his safe-deposit box is going to be important for us. You just don't think that Krugman -'

  'Well, I wouldn't use Krugman for fucking anything, let alone an "operation",' said Ramírez. 'He's too unpredictable. There's too much going on in his brain. But if you let me have his mobile number I'll get the boys in the telephone centre to keep trying it, and if he answers we'll track it.'

  'Is anything happening with the Montes inquiry?'

  'We're still waiting for Elvira to give us another pair of hands.'

  'Did the lawyer come back on the property he added to the list of assets in Montes's will?'

  'Yes, I'm getting the Aracena town hall to check out if there was a building project on the property.'

  'It's up in the sierra, is it?'

  The phone rang. Ramírez picked it up, listened, said ' that Falcón was on his way and put it down.

  'Alicia Aguado,' he said.

  'I'd like you to check where exactly Ignacio Ortega ' was on the night that Rafael Vega was murdered.'

  'I thought he was at the beach.'

  'He didn't come into the frame until his brother died. I contacted him via his mobile. We've never checked him out properly.'

  He drove to Calle Vidrio and sat at traffic lights with his hands pattering nervously on the steering wheel. A sense of doom stacked up inside him, while outside the relentless heat bore down on the straining city.

  He played the tape of Salvador Ortega's interview to Alicia Aguado as they drove out to the prison. It took the whole journey. They sat in the car park listening to the end and some silence until the tape clicked off.

  'I asked him if he'd testify against his father,' said Falcón. 'He refused.'