The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

The Cabellos lived in the penthouse of a block built in the seventies in the upmarket barrio of El Porvenir, opposite the bingo hall on Calle de Felipe II.

'You're never too rich to play bingo,' said Falcón, as they went up to the apartment where Carmen Ortiz was having a hysterical attack. She was in the bedroom with her husband, who had arrived from Barcelona that morning. The Ortiz children, with Mario between them, were sitting on the sofa, subdued. It was the old man, Sr Cabello, who'd answered the door. He led them into the sitting room. Ferrera knelt down with the children and had them playing and giggling in a matter of moments. Sr Cabello went to find his daughter but returned with his son-in-law. They went into the kitchen.

'She doesn't want to see the bodies,' said the son- in-law.

'They'll be behind a glass panel,' said Falcón. 'They'll look as if they're asleep.'

'I'll go,' said Sr Cabello, composed and determined.

'How is your wife?' asked Falcón.

'Stable, but still in intensive care, unconscious. I'd appreciate it if you could take me to the hospital afterwards.'

Falcón sat in the back of the car with Sr Cabello while Ferrera took on the pre-lunch traffic. The old man rested his worker's hands in his lap and stared straight into the intricacies of Ferrera's pinned-up plait.

'When was the last time you saw Lucia?' asked Falcón.

'We were there for Sunday lunch.'

'With Sr Vega?'

'He came for lunch. He'd been out driving his new car.'

'How was your daughter?'

'I think you already know by now that she was not well. She has not been well since Mario was born,' he said. 'It was never easy to see her in that state, but there was nothing extraordinary about that particular lunch. It was the same as always.'

'I am going to have to ask you some questions which might be painful,' said Falcón. 'You are the closest family and it is only through you that we can begin to understand the domestic situation between your daughter and Sr Vega.'

'Did he kill her?' asked Sr Cabello, turning his wounded eyes on Falcón for the first time.

'We don't know. We're hoping for clarification from the autopsy. Do you think he could have killed her?'

'That man was capable of anything,' said Sr Cabello, with no drama, mere fact.

Falcón waited in silence.

'He was a cold man,' said Sr Cabello, 'a ruthless man, a man that never allowed anyone too close. He never talked about his dead parents, or any member of his family. He did not love my daughter, even before her problems when she was a beautiful young woman… when… when she…'

Sr Cabello closed his eyes to memories, his jaw muscles worked over his grief.

'Were you aware of any difference in your son-in- law's behaviour since the beginning of this year?'

'Only that he was even more withdrawn than usual,' said Sr Cabello. 'Whole meals would pass in silence.'

'Did you remark on it?'

'He said it was work, that he was managing too many projects at once. We didn't believe him. My wife was sure he had a woman somewhere and it had all gone wrong.'

'Why did she think that?'

'No reason. She's a woman. She sees things I don't see. She sensed that the trouble was in the heart and not the head.'

'Was there anything specific that led you to believe that he had a mistress?'

'He was not often at home with Lucia. She would go to bed before he arrived back from whatever he was doing and sometimes he would be gone by the time she woke up,' said Sr Cabello. 'So there was that, and the way he had always been with our daughter.'

'His neighbours said that Mario appeared to be very ' important to him.'

'That is true. He was very fond of the boy… and Lucia found it difficult to cope with his energy as that puta of a disease took hold of her mind,' said Cabello. 'No, I don't say that he was all bad, and certainly he would not have appeared bad to an outsider. He understood the necessity for charm. It was only by living close to him that you saw his true nature.'

'When did you spend time with him?'

'On holidays down at the coast. He was supposed to be relaxed then, but in many ways he was worse. Constant company made him uneasy. I think the idea of family made him sick.'

'Do you know what happened to his parents?'

'He said they were killed in a car accident when he was nineteen years old.'

'You know more than his lawyer.'

'He wouldn't tell Carlos Vázquez that sort of thing.'

'He told him that his father had been a butcher,' said Falcón. 'And how he used to punish him.'

'You've seen the room he has in his house,' said Cabello. 'He gave Carlos Vázquez an explanation. He never told me what his father had done to him. You see, he is not a normal man. He is at heart a suspicious man, because he believes that people are like he is himself.'

'Lucia didn't like the butchery?'

'That only started after Mario was born. Before then she didn't mind.'

'Were you surprised that she wanted to marry him?'

'It was a difficult time.'

They were stopped at a traffic light. An African boy walked between the cars, hatless in the full sun, selling newspapers. Sr Cabello seemed to need movement to get himself talking. The lights changed.

'As I told you, Lucia was a beautiful woman,' said Cabello, embarking on a story that he'd built inside himself over years. 'There was no shortage of men who wanted to marry her… and she married a man whose father had a large farm outside Cordoba. They went to live in a house on the farm and they were very happy, until Lucia did not conceive. She went for tests. They told her that there was nothing wrong with her and that perhaps they should consider IVF. The husband refused. Lucia always thought that he was afraid to find that he had a problem. Things were said in the heat of the moment that could not be undone and the marriage was dissolved. Lucia came back to live with us. She was twenty-eight years old by now and had missed out on the best of her generation.

'I still owned these pieces of agricultural land in and around Seville. They weren't big pieces of land, but some of them were strategic – without them an area could not be successfully developed. A lot of developers knocked on my door and one of the most persistent was a nameless person represented by Carlos Vázquez.

'Lucia had been working for the Banco de Bilbao. They had a caseta at the Feria de Abril every year. Lucia was a beautiful dancer. She lived for the Feria de Abril and went every night, all night. She looked forward to that time of year. It was a week in which she could forget about all her problems and be herself. That's where she met him. He was an important client at the bank.'

'He was twenty years older than her,' said Falcón.

'She'd missed out on her own generation. All the eligible men were taken. She had no interest in what was left. Then an important man took an interest in her. Her superiors at the bank were happy about it. They started to take notice of her. She was promoted. He was already wealthy. He had found his place in the world. There was certainty with him. All these things were very seductive to someone who thought they'd been left on the shelf.'

'What did you think?'

'We told her to make sure that a man of that age still wanted to have a family.'

'Were you surprised that he hadn't been married before?'

'But he had been married before, Inspector Jefe.'

'Yes, I forgot, Sr Vázquez mentioned a death certificate that had to be supplied.'

'We know only that she came from Mexico City. She might have been Mexican, but we're not sure. As always with Rafael, we were told the minimum that was relevant to us.'

'Were you concerned that his reticence was because of a criminal past?'

'Well now, Inspector Jefe, you have uncovered my shame. I was prepared to overlook his reticence. My financial circumstances then were not like they are now. I had land, but no job. Capital, but no income. Rafael Vega solved those difficulties for me. He made me a partner in a business that paid a large sum of money for several plots of my land. We built apartments financed by the Banco de Bilbao and rented them out. He made me wealthy and gave me an income. That's how an old farmer like me lives in a penthouse in El Porvenir.'