answer from her office. Ramirez and Ferrera turned up as he was leaving. He told Ramirez that Calderon wanted to see him alone and that he should keep trawling through Vega's offices while the rest of the squad went door-to- door looking for Sergei and/or the mystery woman he'd been seen talking to.
The Edificio de los Juzgados was building up for an active morning. The stink of humanity sweating in hope and fear had reached an animal intensity and there was no air-conditioning unit in the world that could cope. Falcon went up to Calderon's first-floor office, which overlooked the car park and the El Prado de San Sebastian bus station. The judge was smoking. There were six butts already in the ashtray, each one smoked down to the filter. Falcon closed the door. Calderon's eyes were smudged dark underneath. He still had the intense look of someone returning to civilization after an experience in the wild. Falcon laid the autopsies and police reports in front of him and sat down.
Calderon read fast, his lawyer's brain taking in the large quantities of detailed information. He sat back with a freshly lit cigarette and sized up Falcon. He seemed on the brink of saying something personal but veered away from it as if this might be too confrontational too early.
'What do you make of all this then, Javier?' he asked. 'The foundations for the building of a murder case haven't exactly been laid by these autopsies. I'm surprised the Medico Forense wasn't prepared to commit himself more at this stage.'
'Officially,' said Falcon. 'Unofficially, like all of us at the Jefatura, he's extremely doubtful that it was suicide, which is why he doesn't want to release Sr Vega's body for burial just yet.'
'Let's look at the mental states of the deceased,' said Calderon. 'Sra Vega had a serious enough condition that she was taking lithium. Her husband was not only behaving strangely, as we've seen in Madeleine Krugman's photographs, but had also been to see two, possibly three doctors about his anxiety.'
Falcon knew that Calderon had wanted to say her name, had felt the need for its sweetness on his lips and tongue. It decided him that the internet downloads in his briefcase should stay there.
'The crime scene…' Falcon started.
'Yes, the crime scene,' said Calderon. 'That seems to be explicable in any number of ways. Suicide or murder, with between one and three people involved in the deaths. You have no suspects. There's not even the vaguest mention of a motive in any report. You have no witnesses. Sergei the gardener is still missing.'
'We're working on that. We have a photo ID and we know he was seen talking to a woman in a bar near the Vegas' house quite recently. We're also going door-to-door in Santa Clara and the Poligono San Pablo,' said Falcon. 'As far as motive goes, we're going to have to work hard on the Russian angle and -'
'Let's not get too excited about the Russians until we know who they are and we've seen the extent of their involvement from the accountant's reports. I know there's a lot of money-laundering going on in Marbella and places along the Costa del Sol, but so far all we've had here in Seville is a sighting by Pablo Ortega of a few Russians making a social visit seven months ago.'
'I was followed home on Wednesday night by a blue Seat with plates stolen in Marbella, and there's Russian and Ukrainian illegal labour on Vega's building sites,' said Falcon. 'There are enough questions over the state of the crime scene, the state of the body, the deceased's relationship with his son and potentially harmful outside influences to justify further inquiry.'
'OK, I take your point about the Russians. Let's try and work that up into something,' said Calderon. 'Sticking with the suicide angle for the moment, what about the boy?'
'Vega's domestic circumstances were not totally desperate. Even Sr Cabello, who has no love for his son-in- law, conceded that Vega was very fond of the boy,' said Falcon.
'He drank acid rather than shoot himself with a gun, which could indicate that he was punishing himself for unknown sins and protecting his son from possibly seeing a violent death. Maybe he killed himself precisely because there was something he couldn't bear his son to know about him,' said Calderon. 'If you had a son, Javier, what could you not bear him to know about you?'
'If he knew that I was a war criminal, I'd find it difficult to face him,' said Falcon. 'The difference between the war criminal and the murderer is that self-knowledge could be possible. Once history had moved on, the war criminal might see that he had been persuaded through a combination of political thought, national fervour and fear to have gone from being an ordinary man to becoming a merciless killer with a sense of duty to the regime and self-righteousness. Later in life, especially if he was being hunted down, he might reflect on what he'd done and feel a deep sense of shame. I could not imagine looking into my son's eyes and have him know that I was capable of such mercilessness.'
Silence. More smoking from the judge.
'We're doing what two law men should never do,' said Calderon.
'Back to business,' said Falcon. 'We found a false passport in one of Vega's freezers. It's Argentinian in the name of Emilio Cruz. We're checking that out and Rafael Vega's ID.'
Calderon nodded, crushed out his cigarette, lit another.
'Vazquez said that Vega's parents were 'killed', implying they did not die of natural causes,' said Falcon. 'Who were they? What happened to them? That could be interesting.'
'For background, yes,' said Calderon.
'And there something else that's not in the report. I found a file in Vega's study entitled
'There's your war crimes, Javier.'
'- Baltasar Garzon and the Belgian justice system,' said Falcon. 'This is very specific material for someone in the construction industry, even if he did have an interest in current affairs. Put this together with the strange note in his hand at time of death and the false passport, and maybe we're looking at someone who had sensitive information which could do damage to people.'
'Both the Krugmans and Ortega mentioned some anti-American sentiment in their interviews,' said Calderon.
'It didn't seem to be as general as that. I think Vega's anger was more directed towards government. Marty Krugman even said he was pro-America.'
'Whatever, I only mentioned that because the US administration are against the ICC, which is directly related to the post 9/11 world, and there's Vega's weird note, as you said.'
'I read something about that in
'The bland reason is that the US government doesn't want any of its citizens unfairly prosecuted,' said Calderon. 'The more piquant reason is that the world after 9/11 is in need of more policing. The cops are the US military. The Americans want to reserve the right to decide what's fair. They also don't want any member of the administration indicted for war crimes. They are the most powerful nation on Earth, they're exerting influence wherever they can. Plenty of people don't like their tactics – 'If you don't support us, we'll cut military aid.' But it's a complex world. Just as one person's freedom fighter is another's terrorist, so one person's fair military target is another's atrocity.'
'Then don't you think an interesting line of inquiry could be to look at why Vega had the remotest interest in the ICC and other judicial systems?'
'I don't know what he was expecting from it, because the ICC only came into being on 1st July this year and it can't look at crimes committed before that date. The Belgian justice system and Baltasar Garzon just means you've got to steer clear of Europe if you're worried about being indicted or arrested. So don't narrow your vision too much, Javier,' said Calderon. 'Keep concentrating on the details as well. Has any muriatic acid been found on the property?'
'Not yet. We haven't been able to fully search the property. My squad is spread all over the place trying to find Sergei as well as looking into Vega's business.'
'You know what I'm looking for: motive, suspect, reliable witness,' said Calderon. 'What I don't want to hear about are things that weren't there. If you don't find any muriatic acid it's only an indicator, it doesn't mean anything. No more… ghosts.'
Calderon did a passable imitation of a man drowning at his desk.
'This is why we don't like talking about our hunches in front of judges.'
'I'm being glib,' said Calderon. 'I know you're concentrated on the realities and the facts, but at the moment all we've got is nuance and hint – Russian mafia involvement, Vega's obsession with international courts, the Carvajal
