The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

'The positive side of this incident is that it seems to indicate that by pinning Ines by her throat to your board you're releasing yourself from this hold you believe she has over you.'

'Well, that's one interpretation,' said Falcon. 'There could be some darker ones.'

'Don't dwell on it. You're on the move. Keep up the momentum.'

'All right, let's talk about something else – Sebastian Ortega. What do you think about his behaviour, psychologically? Why did he do what he did?'

'I'd need to know a lot more about him and the case before I ventured an opinion on that.'

'My theory is that he was reliving an ideal,' said Falcon. 'He was being to the boy what he'd wanted his father to be to him.'

'I can't comment.'

'I'm not asking you for a serious professional opinion.'

'And I don't give amateur ones.'

'OK, so what shall we talk about that's not Ines?'

'Talk to me some more about Juez Calderon.'

'I don't know what I think about him any more,' he said. 'I'm confused. Initially I was attracted by his intelligence and sensitivity. Then I found out that he had a relationship with Ines, which I couldn't and can't talk about with him. Now they're getting married. I've watched his star consistently rising, but then I hear from others that it's vanity propelling this trajectory…'

'I think you missed something out.'

'I don't think so.'

'Has Juez Calderon done something to you?'

'Not to me,' said Falcon. 'I can't talk about it yet.'

'Not even to your clinical psychologist, who you've been seeing for over a year?'

'No… not yet. I can't be certain about it,' said Falcon. 'It could have just been a moment's madness, now forgotten, or there could be clearer intent.'

'To do someone wrong?'

'Not wrong exactly… although it would be wrong,' said Falcon. 'All I can promise you is that it has nothing to do with me.'

The appointment finished soon after. Before walking Javier to the door she deviated to a cabinet, fumbled around and took out a dictaphone.

'I don't mind thinking about Sebastian Ortega for you,' she said. 'My summer is quiet. Since my blindness has become complete I've been getting agoraphobic. The idea of hundreds of people on the beach, and me amongst them, makes me feel nervous. I'm staying in town, despite the heat. Put everything you know down on tape and I'll listen to it.'

She gave him the dictaphone and some tapes. Javier shook her cool white hand, their professional relationship never having got beyond this formality, apart from some madness on his part in the early stages of treatment. But this time she pulled him to her and kissed him on both cheeks.

'Good night, Javier,' she said, as he walked down the stairs. 'And remember: the important thing is that you're a good man.'

Falcon left the coolness of her consulting room and stepped into the thick heat in the street. He walked and did what Alicia had told him not to do. He dwelt on that photograph of Ines pinned to his board. Without thinking, he crossed a road and found himself in front of the Old Tobacco Factory, which had now been incorporated into the university. He'd overshot the Edificio de los Juzgados where he'd parked the car. He crossed Avenida del Cid and backtracked through the walkways of the Palacio de Justicia. Someone called his name. The sound of the voice was like a woman's hands coming up his chest from behind. The skipping heels on the pavement told him before he'd turned that he was going to see Ines.

'Congratulations,' he said, his lips fluffing the word.

She looked blank as they kissed hello.

'Esteban told me yesterday,' said Falcon.

She put her hand to her mouth as if that would obscure her memory struggle and then rolled her eyes.

'I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking,' she said. 'Thank you, Javier.'

'I'm very happy for you,' he said. 'Isn't it a bit late for you to be working?'

'Esteban told me to meet him here at 9.30. Have you seen him today?' she asked.

'He postponed our meeting until tomorrow.'

'He's always here at this time of night. I don't know what could…'

'What did the security guard say?'

'That he left at six and hasn't been back.'

'You've tried his mobile?'

'It's switched off. He switches it off all the time now. Too many people want to talk to him,' she said.

'Well… can I give you a lift somewhere?'

Ines left a message with the security guard and they got into Falcon's car. They drove down Cristobal Colon and agreed to have a tapa in El Cairo on Reyes Catolicos.

They sat at the bar and ordered beers and a tapa of piquillo peppers stuffed with hake. He asked her about the wedding. She spoke with her mind only half on the job, looking at every face that walked by the window. Falcon sipped his beer and murmured encouragement until she turned on him and gripped his knee with her long white manicured nails.

'Has he been all right?' she asked. 'You know… in his work.'

'I don't know. I've been working this case with him out in Santa Clara, but only since yesterday.'

'Santa Clara?'

'At the end of Avenida de Kansas City.'

'I know where Santa Clara is,' she said, annoyed, but her irritation instantly broke and she was staring at him with her big brown eyes in the way that she did when she wanted something. 'He said… he said…'

'What, Ines?'

'Nothing,' she said, and released his knee. 'He seems a little anxious recently.'

'Only because he's made it official now: the announcement.'

'What difference does that make?' she said, hanging on Falcon's every syllable, desperate for insight into the male psyche.

'You know… total commitment… no going back.'

'He was committed before.'

'It's official… confirmed to the world. It can make a man nervous, that sort of thing. You know, The End of Youth. No more playing around. Family. Adult responsibilities – all that stuff.'

'I see,' she said, not seeing it at all. 'You mean there's doubt?'

'No, no, no que no,' said Falcon. 'There's no doubt, just a nervousness at the prospect of change. He's thirty- seven, never been married before. It's just a reaction to the future physical and emotional upheaval.'

'Physical?' she said, sitting on the edge of her seat.

'You're not going to stay in his apartment, are you?' said Falcon. 'You'll get a house… start a family.'

'Did Esteban talk to you about this?' she said, searching his face for the least sign of a tic.

'I'm the last person…'

'We'd always said that we'd buy a place in the centre of town,' she said. 'We wanted to be in the old city in a big house like yours… maybe not so mad and enormous, but in that classic style. I've been looking for months… mostly at old properties that need work, and guess what Esteban said last night?'

'That he's found somewhere?' said Falcon, unable to stop the thought flashing through his mind that Ines had only married him for his house.

'That he wants to live in Santa Clara.'

Falcon stared into those big frightened eyes and felt something like slow-motion wreckage forming in his mind. Consonants caught in his throat like fish bones.

'Exactly,' she said, leaning back, almost in triumph, 'it's the antithesis of what we'd always talked about.'

Falcon drained his beer, ordered more, stuffed the pepper into his mouth messily.

'What does it mean, Javier?'