The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

'None of my business… officially,' said Montes. 'But personally I think his vanity got the better of him. He was riding high after your case. The media coverage of that was incredible. He's young, good-looking, good family with all the right connections and… Yes, well, that's it.'

'What were you going to say?'

'I only just remembered in time about his new wife… I'm sorry.'

'So that's got out already, has it?'

'We knew it before he did.'

'Do you think Juez Calderon knew the reality of the case?'

'I don't know what went through his mind. There were lots of unofficial discussions about it between him and my men. He said that he thought the whole thing was a ludicrous fantasy planted in the boy's head by a manipulative brute. The court would not believe a word of it. He said it would be better for the boy to give a clearer and less ambiguous account of what had happened to him. The investigators talked to the parents and the boy did what he was told.'

'Where were you in all this?'

'Off sick. Hernia operation.'

'It doesn't sound as if justice was done.'

'To be fair, as I told you earlier, Sebastian Ortega did not contest any of the facts that came out in the boy's video interview shown in court. He did not defend himself at all. There should be the possibility of an appeal, but as far as I know Sebastian Ortega does not want that. I get the impression that for some reason Sebastian is where he wants to be.'

'Do you think he should get some psychological help?'

'Yes, but he won't. I'm told he doesn't speak any more. He's gone into solitary confinement and communicates the absolute minimum.'

Falcon stood up to leave.

'Tell me, do you recognize any of the men in this photograph?' he said, and laid down the Ortega shot on Montes's desk.

'My God, there he is, the hijo de puta. That's Eduardo Carvajal. And if I'm not mistaken he's talking to Pablo Ortega and somebody I can't see,' said Montes. 'I should get him out of my sight unless you want to see a grown man cry, Inspector Jefe.'

'Thanks for that,' said Falcon, picking up the photograph.

They shook hands and he headed for the door.

'What work did Eduardo Carvajal do, by the way?' he said, reaching for the door handle.

'He was a property consultant,' said Montes, whose face had turned haggard again after its relative calm during the Ortega discussion. 'He used to work for Raul Jimenez, here in Seville in the construction business, until the late seventies, early eighties. He was from a wealthy family who had a lot of property in the Marbella area. When he left Raul Jimenez he developed that land and sold it off. He made contacts. He knew all the right people. He started finding holiday companies plots of land to build hotels. He had the town halls eating out of his hand, so all the building permissions and the licences went through and he had the connections for the finance. He made a fortune.'

'So his big promise to you was entirely believable?'

'Completely.'

Falcon nodded, opened the door.

'On the Ortega case,' said Montes. 'I don't attach any blame to my men – which doesn't mean I haven't spoken to them about how to handle it next time, but you need to be strong to stand up to the sort of gilded personality that is Juez Calderon.'

'And it's his job to put together a case that will give the fiscales the best chance of success in court,' said Falcon. 'That's where very tricky moral decisions have to be made and Juez Calderon is a very able man.'

'You like him, Inspector Jefe,' said Montes. 'I'd never have thought it.'

'I've only worked with him once… on the Raul Jimenez case. He handled it very well. He handled me very well when I was not in a fit state to be running an investigation.'

'Success changes a man,' said Montes. 'Some people are destined for a very high form of it. Others, like me, have reached their level and have to be content with it or go mad. Juez Calderon isn't even forty years old and yet he's achieved things that some judges never do in an entire career. It's a hard act to maintain… to reach even greater heights. Sometimes things have to be forced a little so that the star's distinctive glow retains its brightness. Judgement is affected by ambition and mistakes get made. People like that fall very hard and fast. Do you know why, Inspector Jefe?'

'Because people like to see them broken,' said Falcon.

'I think there are plenty of people out there waiting,' said Montes.

Chapter 10

Thursday, 25th July 2002

On the way back downstairs he stopped off and picked up Sebastian Ortega's file to take back home with him. In the office Ramirez was still hammering out his report with his big intrusive forefingers. Cristina Ferrera had spoken to the phone company and found that the last call received at the Vegas' house had been from Consuelo Jimenez at around 11 p.m. She'd typed up her report and left. Falcon sat opposite Ramirez, who glared at the screen like a critic inserting exquisitely savage remarks into a review.

'Anything I should know about Rafael Vega's business?'

'He employed Russian and Ukrainian labour,' said Ramirez. 'Some legal like Sergei, some not.'

'How did you find out about the non-legal labour?'

'They didn't turn up for work today – or rather they were told to go away when they did, and that left two projects with skeleton crews.'

'What about the offices?'

'Vazquez wouldn't let us search without a warrant, but he was quite accommodating about Sergei.'

'Did he have anything to say about the labour force?'

'Not his concern. He wasn't running Vega Construcciones day to day. He was just the lawyer… with a non executive role on the board, which, since Vega's death, has become executive.'

'Did you see the accountant – Sr Dourado?'

'The Golden Boy. Yes, we saw him. He explained the business to us and showed us the accounts.'

'Did he explain how the illegal labour force was being dealt with in the numbers?'

'We're not at the specifics stage of the investigation. We were talking in more general terms about structure, finding out if the company was solvent, if there were any financial time bombs, or if there was some nasty penalty clause from a project which was eating into profits.'

'Talk me through the structure of the company.'

'Vega Construcciones is the holding company for a collection of separate projects. Each project is a company with its own board, comprising a representative from Vega Construcciones, someone from the investors/venture capitalists, and someone from the financial institution providing the backing. I suppose it's to stop a fuck-up in one project bringing down the whole company,' said Ramirez. 'Anyway, the holding company has shown a decent profit for the last three years and there didn't seem to be anything going badly wrong with any of the current projects. There was no catastrophe pending. If it was a business problem that resulted in his death, it's more likely to have been something to do with the partners in the projects.'

'Did you see any names?'

'Not yet,' said Ramirez. 'How did it go at the Instituto?'

'Take a look when you're finished. There's nothing really meaty in there that would persuade a judge that it was definitely a murder. We're going to have to work hard to find a motive from Vega's three closest neighbours, who all seemed to be benefiting from their relationship with him and who were all at home last night asleep, as you'd expect. That's why we have to find Sergei. He was closest to the crime scene. If anybody saw anything, he