The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

at some of Francisco Falcon's paintings of Seville.

'Are these…?'

'They're his real work,' he said, giving her a glass of manzanilla. 'He didn't have to cheat to do these. He was better than that, though. This was his subconscious mind belittling him. If he'd kept at it he'd have painted bare- breasted gypsies and doe-eyed children piddling into fountains.'

'What about your work?'

'I don't have any.'

'I read that you were a photographer.'

'I was interested in the concept of photography as memory,' he said. 'I had no talent for the art. What about you? How do you see it? What do you see as the point of photographing disturbed and anguished people?'

'What bullshit did I give you before?'

'I don't remember… probably something about capturing the moment,' said Falcon, remembering that, in fact, that had been his bullshit.

They walked back to the table. He leaned against a pillar. She sat, crossed her legs and sipped the manzanilla.

'I'm empathizing,' she said, and Falcon knew he wasn't going to hear anything that would make any difference to him. 'When I see people like that I remember the prison of my own anguish and the pain I caused Marty. There's an emotional response. I was surprised, once I started looking, how many of us there were out there. The shots are of individuals, but once you assemble them in a room they become like a tribe. They are an expression of the reality of the human condition. Shit – it doesn't matter how hard I try it always sounds like gallery talk. Don't you find that? Words have a way of flattening things out.'

He nodded, bored by her already. He wondered what Calderon. saw in her, apart from the blue veins under the white skin, cold as marble. This one was living life out as a project. Falcon stifled a yawn.

'You're not listening to me,' she said.

He came round to find her standing quite close to him, close enough for him to see the red blood spots in the green of her iris. She licked her lips, applying some natural gloss. Her sexuality, in which she was so confident, shimmered beneath the silk of her loose blouse. She moved her head, a slight tilt, to tell him that he could kiss her now, while her eyes said that this could turn into something frantic on the marble flags of the patio if he wanted. He turned his head away. He was slightly revolted by her.

'I was half listening,' he said, 'but I've got a lot on my mind and I'm meeting someone for lunch, so I should really be getting on.'

'I must go, too,' she said. 'I have to get back.'

Her hands trembled with rage as she picked up her bag of hand-painted tiles. He thought she might throw them at his head, one by one. There was something destructive in her nature. She was like a spoilt child who would break things just so that others couldn't enjoy them.

The walk to the front door was punctuated by the anger of her heels on the marble. She kept ahead of him so that he couldn't see her humiliation while she gathered up the fragments of the face she had lost and rearranged them into disdain. He opened the door, she shook his hand and headed off towards the Hotel Colon.

The Casa Ricardo was on Hernan Cortes at the meeting of three streets. It was a bar that could only exist in Seville, where the religious and the secular constantly rub shoulders. Every centimetre of the walls in the bar and small restaurant at the back was covered in framed photographs of the Virgin, the brotherhoods and all the paraphernalia of Semana Santa. The sound system played processional marches from Holy Week while people leaned against the bar drinking beers, eating olives and jamon.

Consuelo was waiting for him at a table in the back with a chilled half-bottle of manzanilla. They kissed each other on the mouth as if they'd been lovers for months.

'You look tense,' she said.

He tried to think of something other than Pablo Ortega, which he couldn't talk about.

'It's just developments. We keep finding things out about Rafael Vega that make him more of a mystery man.'

'Well, we all knew he was a secretive guy,' said Consuelo. 'I once saw him leave his house in his car, the Mercedes he had before he bought the Jaguar. And an hour later I was in town at a traffic light and this old dusty Citroen or Peugeot Estate pulls up alongside me and in the driver's seat was Rafael. If it had been anybody else I'd have knocked on the window and said hello, but with Rafael, I don't know… you just didn't intrude on Rafael.'

'Did you ever ask him about it?'

'First of all he never responded to direct questioning and, anyway, so what if he's in a different car? I just assumed it was an office car he used for going out to building sites.'

'You're probably right, it's nothing. You get to the point where every little thing has meaning.'

They ordered a revuelto de bacalao, some clams and langoustines, a bright orange bowl of salmorejo and grilled red peppers spiked with garlic. Consuelo filled their glasses. Falcon calmed down.

'I've just had a… confrontation with Maddy Krugman.'

'That puta americana didn't come to your house on your day off?' asked Consuelo.

'She ambushed me in the street,' he said. 'That's the third time. She's come round twice when I've been to the Vegas' house… offering coffee, wanting to talk.'

'Joder, Javier, she's stalking you.'

'There's something of the vampire about her, except she doesn't feed on blood.'

'My God, you let her get that close?'

'I think she feeds on what she doesn't have herself,' said Falcon. 'Her talk is full of arty phraseology about 'empathizing', and 'emotional response' and 'the prison of her anguish', but she has no idea what they mean. So when she sees people who are really suffering she photographs it, captures it to try and make it hers. When I lived in Tangier the Moroccans believed that photographers were stealing their souls. And that's what Maddy Krugman does. She's sinister.'

'You're making her sound like your prime suspect.'

'Maybe I'll send her to the prison of her anguish.'

Consuelo pulled him to her and kissed him hard on the mouth.

'What was that for?'

'You don't have to know everything.'

'I'm an Inspector Jefe, it's in my nature.'

The food arrived. Consuelo released him and poured more manzanilla. Before they started eating he beckoned her forward across the table so that they were cheek to cheek.

'I can't say this too loudly in here,' said Falcon, his lips just brushing her ear, 'but there's another reason why I'm looking a bit tense. It's just that… I'm falling in love with you.'

She kissed his cheek, held his hand.

'How do you know?'

'Because when I came in here and saw you waiting for me I've never felt so happy to know that the empty chair was mine.'

'You're all right,' she said. 'You can stay.'

He sat back, held his glass up to her and drank.

They chose a bottle of white wine to drink with the sea bass they'd ordered after the starters.

'I'm sorry, I forgot,' she said, going through her handbag. 'Somebody from your office…'

'My office?'

'I assumed he was from the Jefatura. He told me to give you this -'

She handed over an envelope.

'Nobody knows I'm here,' said Falcon, 'except you. Tell me what he said again.'

'He said, 'I understand you're meeting Inspector Jefe Falcon here. Could you please make sure he gets this.' And he gave me that envelope.'

'He was Spanish?'

'Sevillano.'

Falcon turned the white envelope over in his hands. It was very thin. He held it up to the light and could see