The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

Jimenez's name was there but had been crossed out. As he turned the pages, names he knew leapt out at him. A lot of them he vaguely recalled from the Raul Jimenez murder investigation – people from the town hall and public works. There was one name though that really took him back to that turbulent time – Eduardo Carvajal. Again it had been crossed out. Like Raul Jimenez, he was dead. Falcon had never found what linked the two men. All he'd discovered was that Jimenez had rewarded Carvajal via a fake consultancy company during Expo '92 and, at the time of his death in a car crash in 1998 on the Costa del Sol, Carvajal was about to face trial on charges relating to a paedophile ring.

Ortega's name was also in the book and the last name to stand out was one that had him pacing around the house, reminding himself that there was no art on the walls of any significance. Ramon Salgado, who had been one of Seville's best-known art dealers, was also in the book, crossed out. Maybe Vega Construcciones had invested in art or bought a piece for their headquarters, but there was also that disturbing memory of the child pornography they'd discovered on Salgado's hard disk after his brutal murder. In these circles everybody knew each other, links in a golden chain of wealth and influence. Another question for Vazquez.

There were no Russian names in the book. He put it back in the filing cabinet. He moved on to another cabinet which contained box files full of blueprints and photographs of buildings. In the bottom drawer of the third cabinet there was a box file with no reference number. It said simply Justicia. In the file there were pages, mostly in English and mostly from this year, which had been extracted from the internet on a range of subjects but primarily concerned with an international system of justice. There were also newspaper articles on the International Criminal Court, the Tribunal that it was designed to replace, the crusading Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon and also the intricacies and possibilities within the Belgian legal system for bringing international war criminals to justice.

The doorbell sounded in the hall. He locked up the cabinet and went to answer it. Sra Krugman was wearing a black linen top and a skirt, bias-cut, with a scarlet silk sash hanging down the side. On the end of her long white arm was a plastic thermos jug.

'I thought you might like some coffee, Inspector Jefe,' she said. 'Spanish strength. None of your American sock water here.'

'I thought there'd been a coffee revolution in America,' he said, thinking other things.

'The levels of penetration have been uneven,' she said. 'It cannot be guaranteed.'

He let her pass, closed the door to the grotesque heat. He didn't want this intrusion. Maddy fetched cups and saucers. He shouted upstairs to Ferrera but she didn't want any coffee. They went into Vega's office and sat at the desk. Maddy smoked and flicked ash into her saucer. She made no attempt at conversation.

Her physical, or rather, sexual presence filled the room. Falcon still felt nauseous and he had nothing to say to her. His mind raced as he drank the coffee.

'Do you like bullfights?' she asked, looking above his head just as the silence had reached screaming point.

'I used to go a lot,' he said, 'but I haven't been since… for well over a year now.'

'Marty wouldn't take me,' she said, 'so I asked Rafael. We went on several occasions. I didn't understand it, but I liked it.'

'A lot of foreigners don't,' said Falcon.

'I was surprised,' she said, 'at how quickly the violence became tolerable. When I saw the first picador's lance go in I didn't think I'd be able to take it. But, you know, it sharpens your sight. You don't realize how soft focus everyday life is until you've been to a bullfight. Everything stands out. Everything is defined. It's as if the sight of blood and the prospect of death wakes up in us something atavistic. I found myself tuning into a different level of awareness, or rather an old one, that the boredom in our lives has gradually smothered. By the third bull I was quite used to it, the brilliance of the blood welling up from a particularly deep lance wound and cascading down the bull's foreleg wasn't just bearable but electrifying. We must be hard-wired for violence and death, don't you think, Inspector Jefe?'

'I remember a sort of ritualistic thrill on the faces of the Moroccans in Tangier when they killed a sheep for the festival of Aid el Kebir,' said Falcon.

'Bullfighting must be an extension of that,' she said. 'There's ritual, theatre, thrills… but there's something else, too. Passion, for instance and, of course… sex.'

'Sex?' he said, the whisky lurching in his stomach.

'Those beautiful guys in their tight costumes performing so gracefully with every muscle in their bodies, in the face of terrible danger… possible death. That is the ultimate in sexiness, don't you think?'

'That's not the way I see it.'

'How do you see it?'

'I go to see the bulls,' said Falcon. 'The bull is always the central figure. It's his tragedy and the greater his nobility the finer his tragedy will be. The torero is there to shape the performance, to bring out the bull's noble qualities and in the end to dispatch him and give us, the audience, our catharsis.'

'You can tell I'm an American,' she said.

'That's not how everybody sees it,' said Falcon. 'Some toreros believe that they are there to dominate the bull, even to humiliate it and showcase their masculine prowess in the process.'

'I've seen that,' she said, 'when they thrust their genitals at the bull.'

'Ye-e-s,' said Falcon nervously. 'Quite often the spectacle is a travesty, even in the best arenas. There have been Ladies Only nights and other…'

'Decadence?' said Maddy, filling in.

'Greek tragedy is quite rare these days,' said Falcon, 'whereas soap opera isn't.'

'So how are we supposed to keep ourselves noble in such a world?'

'You have to concentrate on the big things,' said Falcon. 'Like Love. Compassion. Honour… that sort of stuff.'

'It sounds almost medieval now,' she said.

Silence. He heard Ferrera leave the house. She walked in front of the study window.

'You said something to me yesterday in English?' he said, wanting to get rid of her now.

'I don't remember,' she said. 'Did it make you angry?'

'Lighten up. You told me to lighten up.'

'Yes, well, today's a different day,' she said. 'I read your story on the internet last night.'

'Is that why you've come over this morning?'

'I'm not here to scavenge – whatever you might think of my photographs.'

'I thought the stories of your subjects, the causes of their internal struggle, were not your concern.'

'This isn't about my work.'

'Unfortunately this is about mine. I have to get on, Sra Krugman. So, if you'll excuse me…' he said.

The front doorbell rang. He went to open it.

'I locked myself out. Inspector Jefe,' said Ferrera.

Maddy Krugman sauntered out between them. Ferrera followed Falcon to the study where he sat back in the chair.

'Tell me,' he said, staring out of the window, wondering what Maddy Krugman was after.

'Sra Vega was a manic depressive,' said Ferrera.

'We know she had trouble sleeping.'

'There's quite a range of drugs in his bedside table.'

'That was locked, as I remember, and the keys are here.'

'Lithium, for instance,' said Ferrera. 'He was probably handing the drugs out to her… or so he thought. I found a duplicate key in her wardrobe, along with a secret stash of eighteen sleeping pills. There's plenty of evidence of obsessive-compulsive behaviour in there, too. I also found a lot of chocolate in the fridge and more ice cream in the freezer than a small child could possibly eat.'

'What about her relationship with her husband?'

'I doubt they were having sex, given her condition and the fact that he was handing out the drugs to her,' said Ferrera. 'He was probably getting his sex from elsewhere… but that didn't stop her buying an extensive range of sexy underwear.'

'What about the child?'