The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

Falcon showed him the photograph of Nadia Kouzmikheva. Ramirez beat the wall with the side of his fist.

'Somebody handed that in an envelope to Consuelo Jimenez in a bar. They asked her to give it to me,' Falcon said, and then held up a silencing finger. 'I've got a question about company cars in Vega Construcciones,' he said into the phone.

'There weren't any,' said Vazquez. 'Rafael had a policy of no company cars. Everybody used their own and claimed back their expenses.'

'But presumably there were some pool cars that the company personnel could use for jobs?'

'No. Vega Construcciones used to own lots of vehicles and equipment, but in the end they became too expensive to run. So, from a few years ago, Rafael cut everything back to just the basic equipment required, got rid of all the vehicles and started hiring whatever was needed. Site engineers, architects – everybody uses their own vehicles.'

'Did Sr Vega keep an old car himself for knocking around on the building sites?'

'Not that I know of.'

Falcon hung up.

'Consuelo Jimenez,' said Ramirez, grinning.

'Don't start, Jose Luis,' said Falcon, putting a call through to Vega Construcciones.

'Why is Cristina working on Pablo Ortega when we know what happened to him?' said Ramirez.

'Call it instinct,' said Falcon. 'What I want you to tell me is who, in the Jefatura, could be talking to the Russians about me?'

He asked for the building supervisor, who confirmed that no cars were kept in the car park other than those personally owned by employees, and that Sr Vega had only one car, which used to be a Mercedes but was now a Jaguar. He hung up and told Ramirez of the threats made to him so far in the investigation and Elvira's comment.

'Why does it have to be someone from the Jefatura? You've been followed from day one. Anybody could be tapping into your mobile calls. Everybody in Seville knows your story.'

Falcon and Ramirez started calling around the car parks in Seville asking if Rafael Vega or Emilio Cruz held an account with any of them. Half an hour later, the car park under the Hotel Plaza de Armas, on Calle Marques de Paradas, confirmed that Rafael Vega had an annual account which he paid for in cash.

He set off with Ramirez, who retuned the radio away from the news and a series of interviews with locals talking about the forest fire burning outside Almonaster la Real. Alejandro Sanz's plaintive voice filled the car.

'Any news on your daughter, Jose Luis?' asked Falcon.

'It's going to take longer than they thought,' he said, and switched the subject. 'This car park is perfect for getting out of town quickly.'

'And nobody would see you,' said Falcon. 'Unless you got caught at the traffic lights on el Torneo.'

'So how did you find out about the car?'

'Consuelo saw him driving it once in town,' said Falcon. 'Do you know a lawyer called Ranz Costa?'

'He's not one of the regular criminal lawyers.'

'See if you can get a meeting with him for later this morning,' said Falcon. 'He's Pablo Ortega's lawyer.'

Ramirez punched the numbers into his mobile. Ranz Costa had an office back across the river in Triana. He said he could fit them in for five or ten minutes any time this morning.

They parked in Calle Marques de Paradas, picked up some latex gloves and a sheaf of evidence bags and walked down the ramp into the basement car park. The supervisor took them to the car, which was an old blue Peugeot 505 diesel estate. The rear number plate was nearly invisible because of dust.

'He was using this off road,' said Ramirez, snapping on his gloves. 'Felipe can analyse this dust, can't he?'

'Do you keep a key for this?' Falcon asked the supervisor, who shook his head, chewing on a toothpick.

'You want to get in the car?' he asked.

'No,' said Ramirez, 'he wants to unlock your brain to see what that fluttering noise is.'

'He doesn't bite,' said Falcon, 'unless you move suddenly.'

The supervisor removed his very unimpressed face from Ramirez and whistled. Two boys appeared in shorts and trainers and nothing else. The supervisor told them to open the car. One produced a screwdriver and the other unbent a length of wire from his pocket. The kid with the screwdriver jammed it in the door and levered the corner open, the kid with the wire flipped the lock. It took two seconds.

'I like a bit of finesse,' said Ramirez, flexing his gloved hands. 'None of that skeleton-key shit.'

'Did Sr Vega ever ask you to wash the car?'

The supervisor, an expert in the small talents of life, flipped the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other for an answer.

The car's interior was covered with a thin film of dust, even the passenger and rear seats, indicating that Vega always travelled alone when he used this car. There were documents in the glove compartment, two door keys on a ring with no tag in the ashtray, and a single card for a hostal residencia in a village called Fuenteheridos in the district of Aracena.

They closed the car, told the supervisor not to touch it and that they'd send a truck to pick it up. Ramirez brushed some dust off the bumper into an evidence bag. On the way back to Falcon's car Cristina Ferrera called to say that Pablo Ortega had made four outgoing calls on the Friday evening before his suicide. The two earliest calls had lasted thirty seconds each and were to a builder and someone called Marciano Ruiz. The third call was a twelve minute one to Ignacio Ortega. The last call was to Ranz Costa and had lasted two minutes.

Ramirez called the builder who said that Ortega had called to cancel their meeting. Falcon knew the theatre director Marciano Ruiz so he called him as they went up to Ranz Costa's offices. Ortega had left an obscene message on his answering machine.

'So what's the link between Pablo Ortega's suicide and Vega's death?' asked Ramirez.

'On paper, nothing other than that they knew each other and were immediate neighbours.'

'But your guts are telling you something different?'

They were shown in to Ranz Costa's office. He was a big bear of a man who, even in severe air conditioning, sweated heavily.

'You had a call from Pablo Ortega on Friday evening,' said Falcon. 'What was that about?'

'He thanked me for re-drafting his will and for the copy I'd sent him by courier that afternoon.'

'When did he instruct you to re-draft the will?'

'Thursday morning,' said Ranz Costa. 'I now understand the urgency for the document.'

'Have you spoken to Ignacio Ortega this morning?'

'In fact he called me last night. He wanted to know if his brother had written a letter to me. I said that all communication had been over the phone or in person.'

'Did he ask you about the contents of the will?'

'I started to tell him that his brother had changed the will, but he seemed to know that already. That didn't seem to be his concern.'

'Did the changes benefit him in any way?'

'No,' said Ranz Costa, shifting his weight to the other buttock as client confidentiality began to be infringed.

'You know the next question,' said Ramirez.

'The property in the will was changed to the new house in Santa Clara and Ignacio was no longer to be one of the beneficiaries.'

'Who are the beneficiaries?'

'Primarily Sebastian, who is now to receive everything except for two cash sums to be paid to Ignacio's children.'

'What do you know about Ignacio's son, Salvador?' asked Falcon. 'Apart from the fact that he's a heroin addict living in Seville.'

'He's thirty-four years old. The last address I have for him is in the Poligono San Pablo. I've had to arrange a defence for him twice on drug-dealing charges. He survived the first and I got him a reduced sentence on the second for which he served four years. He was released two years ago and I haven't heard from him since.'

'Do Ignacio and Salvador speak?'

'No, but Pablo and Salvador did.'