The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

helped by the fact that nobody much liked Pablo Ortega. He was an arrogant prick who thought the whole world loved him.'

The sweat cooled quickly on Falcon's body as he sat in Calderon's office, waiting for him to come back from another meeting. As Calderon took his seat it was clear that whatever had been troubling him over the past days had gone. He was his usual solid self. The certainty had returned.

Falcon told him he was finished with the Vega case, that he'd found out everything there was to know about him, except who'd killed him. He gave Calderon a compilation report on what he'd learnt from Mark Flowers and Virgilio Guzman.

'Have you checked this 'recording' of Marty Krugman in the American Consulate from the night of Sr Vega's death?'

'Comisario Lobo is going to talk the whole issue through with the Consul,' said Falcon. 'I don't expect to hear whether that recording existed or not.'

'So you think Marty Krugman killed Rafael Vega?'

'I do,' said Falcon. 'And despite his wife's denial on Monday night, I think she drove him to kill Reza Sangari.'

'If he hadn't killed Reza Sangari you don't think he'd have been able to kill Rafael Vega?'

'I don't think he was developing a taste for it, but there's no doubt that he'd been excited by the power he felt from his first experience,' said Falcon. 'And when he found out who Vega really was, whether by his own deduction or being told by Mark Flowers, he felt he had the power to do it again. I think he killed Sangari passionately and Vega intellectually.'

'And Sra Vega?'

'That was the problem. Krugman knew Mario was staying at Sra Jimenez's house so he didn't have to worry about the boy. He also knew that Lucia Vega was a heavy sleeper. He and Rafael had long discussions sometimes in Vega's house and they never disturbed her, but he didn't know that she took two sleeping tablets a night to knock herself out – the second one at around three in the morning. So when Rafael Vega went into his death agonies she probably came downstairs, saw the horror and ran back up to the bedroom with Krugman in pursuit. That's why her jaw was broken. She was screaming and he hit her. Then he had to kill her, too, which would explain why Krugman was so unstable from the outset.'

'And all these threats from the Russians?'

'Perhaps they were just trying to discourage us from investigating too hard and finding out about their money- laundering arrangements.'

'Is that all?' asked Calderon. 'That's a bit heavy- handed, don't you think?'

'They're heavy-handed people,' said Falcon.

'You're depressed, Javier.'

And you're not, thought Falcon, but he said: 'I failed in the Vega case. I failed to prevent the Krugmans from dying before my very eyes and… yes, well, my psychologist tells me it's bad to use the word 'fail' with the first person singular, so I'll shut up.'

'I've heard rumblings,' said Calderon.

'It's lunchtime.'

'Tectonic rumblings coming from the Jefatura,' said Calderon. 'Heads will roll. Jobs will be lost. Pensions terminated.'

'Because Montes jumped out of his office window?'

'That was the start of it,' said Calderon, back to enjoying himself in the intrigue of the moment. 'What about Martinez and Altozano?'

Falcon shrugged. Calderon could find out for himself why the Russians were really threatening.

'You know something, Javier, don't you?'

'So do you,' he said, oddly irritated by the familiarity.

'I know the Juez Decano and the Fiscal Jefe had a meeting behind closed doors for one hour this morning, and you don't often get them in the same building in the same room.'

'Those rumblings you heard are the sound of the powers that control us closing ranks,' said Falcon.

'Tell me,' said Calderon.

'We're the blind, the deaf and the dumb today, Esteban,' he said, and got to his feet. 'I'd still like that search warrant for Vega's safe-deposit box. We might as well satisfy our curiosity.'

'I'll have that ready for you this afternoon,' said

Calderon, checking his watch, joining him at the door. 'I'll walk down with you. Ines and I have got some shopping to do.'

They went downstairs and through the bear pit of justice, where people bowed and scraped to the young judge. He was back in his element. The horrors were off the horizon. They went through security. Ines was on the other side. Falcon kissed her hello. She put an arm around Calderon's back and he pulled her to his chest, kissed her on the head. Ines gave Falcon a tinkling wave before she turned with a little back kick of her high heels and a big, happy smile thrown over her shoulder. Her hair swung across her back like the girls' in the shampoo ads.

Falcon watched them go and tried to imagine what could have possibly passed between them since that fatal Monday night. And with that thought came the answer: absolutely nothing. They had clung to each other in the terror of their possible loneliness, wished it all away and thrown their arms open to what life had been before. Was that the man that Isabel Cano had said was on the hunt for difference? Was that the woman whose stamp of approval Falcon had thought he so desperately needed? He watched them heading towards the city and a life of small, hurtful destructions.

Consuelo called, asking to meet for lunch. She sounded as she had done last night – distant and preoccupied. They agreed to meet at his home on Calle Bailen and he would do the cooking. Falcon bought food in the Corte Ingles on his way home. He emptied his mind in the kitchen. He sliced onions, fried them slowly in olive oil until caramelized. He boiled up potatoes and poured oloroso sherry over the onions and reduced it to a syrup. He cleaned and seasoned the tuna, made a salad. He arranged the prawns with wedges of lemon and mayonnaise. He drank chilled manzanilla and sat in the shade on the patio to wait for Consuelo.

She arrived at two o'clock. As soon as he let her into the house he knew that something was wrong. She was closed off, shut in. He'd had this feeling from women before, a sense that everything will be withheld until the air is cleared. Her mouth did not respond to his kiss. Her body kept its distance. He felt the quickening plummet in his stomach of the lover who is about to be told something very kindly. He led her to the kitchen as if they were condemned and this was their last meal.

They ate the prawns and drank manzanilla while he told her that the Vega case was officially closed. He got up to fry the tuna steaks. He reheated the oloroso syrup and poured it over the fish. He sat down with the pan between them unable to bear it any longer.

'You've got tired of me already,' he said, serving her a steak.

'Quite the opposite,' she said.

'Or is it my profession?' he said. 'I know you've come here to tell me something, because I've been told this sort of thing before.'

'You're right, but it's not because I'm tired of you,' she said.

'Is it because of what happened on Sunday? I can understand that. I know how important your children are to you. I'd have been -'

'I've learnt to recognize what I want, Javier,' she said, shaking her head. 'It's taken me a lifetime but I have learned that valuable lesson.'

'Not many people do,' said Falcon, serving himself a tuna steak, which now looked banal on his plate.

'I used to be a romantic. You're talking to a woman who once fell in love with a duke, remember? Even when I came down here, I still entertained those romantic illusions. Once I had my children I realized I didn't need to fool myself any more. They gave me all the love, the real unconditional kind, that I needed and I returned it doubled. I had an affair to satisfy my physical needs. You met him – that idiot Basilio Lucena – and you understood the relationship that we had. It wasn't love. It was much less complicated and manageable than that.'

'You don't have to let me down lightly' said Falcon. 'You can just say: 'I don't want to do this any more.''

'This is me being honest with a man for the first time in my life,' she said, looking him straight in the eye.