The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

'Kidney stones, Inspector Jefe,' he said. 'They get me every summer. I've been told to drink six litres of water a day. What can I do for you?'

'Eduardo Carvajal,' said Falcón. 'Remember him?'

'He's burnt on my heart, that guy. He was going to make me famous,' said Montes. 'Why has his name suddenly reappeared?'

'I'm investigating the deaths of Rafael and Lucia Vega.'

'Rafael Vega… the constructor?' said Montes.

'Do you know him?'

'I don't get invited to his caseta in the Feria, but I know who he is,' said Montes. 'Did somebody kill him?'

'That's what we're trying to find out. While I was going through his address book I came across Carvajal and it was a name that rang bells from that case I investigated last year – he was known to, and a friend of, Raúl Jiménez. I didn't have time to dig him up then so I thought I'd try now,' said Falcón. 'How was he going to make you famous?'

'He said he was going to give me all the names of everybody who'd been a part of his paedophile ring… ever. He promised me the biggest coup of my career. Politicians, actors, lawyers, councillors, businessmen. He said he would bring me the golden key which would open up high society and reveal it for the rotten, stinking egg it really was. And I believed him. I genuinely thought he was going to come through with the information.'

'But he died in a car crash before he could deliver.'

'Well, he came off the road,' said Montes. 'It was late at night, there was alcohol in his system and it was a very tricky series of bends from Ronda to San Pedro de Alcántara… but we'll never know.'

'What does that mean?'

'All this is pretty well known, Inspector Jefe. By the time I'd been notified, he'd been buried and the car was a block in a breaker's yard about that big -' said Montes, holding his hands fifty centimetres apart.

'But some people were convicted, weren't they?'

Montes held up four fat fingers with a cigarette burning amongst them.

'And they couldn't help you in the same way that Carvajal could?'

'They only knew each other. They were one cell in the ring,' said Montes. 'They're careful, these people. It's no different to a terrorist outfit or a resistance movement.'

'How did you get to them in the first place?'

'I'm ashamed to have to tell you it was through the FBI,' said Montes. 'We can't even crack our own paedophile rings.'

'So it was international?'

'That's the internet for you,' said Montes. 'The FBI were running a sting operation. They found a couple in Idaho who were managing a child porn site and they took it over. They picked up addresses from all over the world and informed the local authorities in each country. It's good to know that there are a lot of scared paedophiles out there, but I don't think we'll pull in any of the people that Carvajal knew. I'm sure that's all finished.'

'Why?'

'Carvajal was the key man. He was procuring. They knew him. He knew them. But they didn't know each other. There's nothing to hold it together.'

'But what was Carvajal doing out of custody on his own?'

'That was part of the deal negotiated with his lawyer. He was going to pull all the different cells together and we were going to scoop the lot in a series of raids.'

'Did you find out how he was procuring?'

'Not that it did us much good,' said Montes, nodding.

'It was something that was just starting then. The Russian mafia involvement in people trafficking. Prostitution became a big thing for them because they could control the supply. To control the drugs trade they had to fight for territory because they didn't have home-grown heroin or cocaine, but with prostitution they had the goods from the word go. And what's more they found that it was less dangerous and just as lucrative. There was a Romanian girl in here last week who'd been bought and sold seven times. Believe me, Inspector Jefe, we've come full circle and we're back in the slave-trade era.'

'Do you mind just giving me a little resume about that?'

'The ex-Soviet states are full of people. A lot of them are able and intelligent – university lecturers, technical college instructors, builders, public servants – but hardly any of them can make a living in the post Soviet era. They're trying to live off fifteen to twenty euros a month. We in Europe, and especially in countries like Italy and Spain, don't have enough people. I've read reports saying that Spain needs an extra quarter of a million people a year just to keep the country functioning and pay taxes so that the state has money to give me a pension. Supply-and-demand economies are the easiest to understand and are immediately exploited.

'You need a visa to get into Europe. I've heard a lot of Ukrainians cross the border into Poland and get their visas from the embassies in Warsaw. Portugal offers visas quite easily. Spain, because of our Moroccan problem, is more difficult, but it's easy enough to enrol in a language school or something like that. Of course, you need help to do this. This is where the mafia steps in. They will facilitate your journey. They will get you a visa. They will arrange transport. They will charge you a minimum of a thousand dollars per head… I can see you're thinking, Inspector Jefe.'

'Fifty people on a bus, less a few thousand in expenses,' said Falcón. 'It's not difficult to see how well that works.'

'They're taking at least forty-five thousand dollars a busload,' said Montes. 'But it doesn't stop there because with a bit of intimidation these are people who can also be put to work for you when they reach their destination. The mafia gangs pick them off. The women and children go into prostitution and the men go into forced labour. It's happening everywhere – London, Paris, Berlin, Prague. A friend of mine was on holiday outside Barcelona last month and on the road going into Roses there was a line of beautiful girls waving him down… and they weren't hitchhikers.'

'What sort of work do the men get put into?'

'Factory work, sweatshops, building sites, warehouses, driving jobs – anything menial. They're even in the greenhouses in the flatlands out towards Huelva. There are girls out there, too.

'Four or five years ago prostitution was something you came across only if you wanted to, or if you took a wrong turn in the city. The red-light districts were confined. Now you can go to a garage in the middle of nowhere and find a girl "working".'

Montes lit another cigarette while crushing out the one he'd been smoking.

'Now I know that I'm too old for this work. It's not a challenge any more. It's something that's become overwhelming, something that's got the better of me,' said Montes. 'You said you had another question, Inspector Jefe. Hurry up before I lose myself in despair and throw myself into the car park.'

Falcón faltered over that because he could see the man's weariness, feel his ingrained fatigue and colossal disappointment.

'Just kidding, Inspector Jefe,' said Montes. 'I'm too close to the end. I feel sorry for the mid-career guys. They've got a long haul.'

'I was going to ask you about Sebastián Ortega, but it can wait for another time.'

'No, no… it's no problem, really, Inspector Jefe. I just need my annual holiday,' said Montes. 'Sebastián Ortega – what about him?'

'Pablo Ortega is Rafael Vega's next-door neighbour. The Juez de Instrucción on the case is Esteban Calderón.'

'Aha, yes, well, I shouldn't bring those two together in the same room.'