The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

'I'm looking at it more from the point of view of strange coincidence at this stage,' said Falcón. 'Three people dead within days of each other in a small barrio like this. That's odd. Did one trigger the other? What were the pressures on Pablo in the lead up to his death'

'For a start, I can tell you that Pablo couldn't kill a chicken. It was one of our father's abuses that he used to force him to do it.'

'Rafael Vega drank, or was forced to drink, a bottle of acid.'

'Pablo was a completely non-violent person,' said Ignacio.

'So what do you think could have triggered your brother's fatal decision?'

'There must have been a letter, surely?' said Ignacio.

'The way it happened was that he and I arranged to meet here yesterday morning. He wanted me, as a professional, to find the body. There was a letter to me explaining that, and a short note to Sebastián.'

'But nothing written to me?' said Ignacio, puzzled. 'What did he write to Sebastián?'

'He said he was sorry and asked for his forgiveness,' said Falcón. 'Do you know why he should write something like that?'

Ignacio coughed against some involuntary sobbing. He pressed the beer glass to his forehead as if trying to cram it into his brain. He broke out of it and hung his head, staring at the floor, as if he was thinking of something plausible to say.

'He was probably sorry that he hadn't been able to show his son enough love,' said Ignacio. 'It's all tied up with our father. I think the same happened between me and my son. I failed him, too. Pablo used to say that damage was passed from generation to generation and it was difficult to break the cycle.'

'Pablo had theories about this, did he?'

'Because he read all these books and plays he had intellectual ideas about it. He said that it was an atavistic trait of fathers to make themselves unknowable to their sons in order to retain power in the family or tribe. Showing love weakened that position, so men's instincts were for aggression.'

'Interesting,' said Falcón. 'But it avoids the issue, which is much more personal. Suicide is a personal matter, too, and most of the time in my job it doesn't matter why it happened, but in this case I want to find out.'

'So do I,' said Ignacio. 'We all feel blame when something like this happens.'

'That's why my questions have to be personal,' said Falcón. 'What can you tell me about Pablo's relationship with his wife – Sebastián's mother? He wasn't married before, was he?'

'No, Gloria was his only wife.'

'When did they marry?'

'In 1975.'

'He was thirty-five.'

'I told him he was leaving it too late,' said Ignacio. 'But he had a career, there were actresses, it was a lifestyle.'

'There were lots of girlfriends before Gloria, then?'

Ignacio's hand rasped against his face as he rubbed the nascent bristles. He glanced at Falcón, a quick shift of the eye whites. It lasted only a fraction of a second but it added to Falcón's unease about this man. He began to think that the reason Ignacio had come round here was not so much to mourn his brother or to help Falcón, but to find out how much was known. It nagged at Falcón's mind that Pablo hadn't written a note to his only brother.

'There were a few,' said Ignacio. 'As I said, our paths didn't cross much. I was just an electrician and he was a famous actor.'

'How did Gloria persuade him to have a child?'

'She didn't. She just got pregnant.'

'Do you know why she left Pablo?'

'She was a little puta,' said Ignacio, some vicious- ness on his thin lips. 'She fucked around and then left the country with someone who would give her the fucking she wanted.'

'Are those your own observations?'

'Mine, my wife's, Pablo's. Anybody who met Gloria knew her for what she was. My wife saw it from day one. This was a woman who should not be married and she proved it by leaving everybody… including Sebastián.'

'And Pablo brought up his son on his own?'

'Well, he went away a lot, so a fair amount of the time Sebastián joined our family.'

'Were your kids the same age?'

'I got married young. Our kids were eight and ten years older,' said Ignacio.

'So after Gloria left, you were Sebastián's father a fair amount of the time.'

Ignacio nodded, drank some beer and lit another cigarette.

'That was all twenty years ago,' said Falcón. 'What about Pablo's relationships in that time?'

'I used to see him in Hola! magazine with women, but we never met any of them. After Gloria we only ever saw him on his own,' said Ignacio. 'You're asking a lot of questions about relationships, Inspector Jefe.'

'Failed relationships can make people suicidal, as can, for instance, the possibility of public shame.'

'Or financial ruin,' said Ignacio, pointing at the room with the cracked cesspit. 'Or the end of a great career. Or the accumulation of all these things in a man about to face retirement, maybe illness and certainly death.'

'Are you surprised he killed himself?'

'Yes, I am. He'd suffered a lot recently with his son's trial, moving house, the building problem here, his fading career, but he was dealing with it all. He was a mentally resilient person. He wouldn't have survived my father's beatings without having reserves. I can't think what would have made him take such drastic action.'

'This is a difficult question,' said Falcón, 'but did you have any reason to question your brother's sexual orientation?'

'No, I didn't,' he said, flat and hard.

'You seem very certain.'

'As certain as I can be,' said Ignacio. 'And remember he was a public figure with photographers on his back. They'd have loved to tell the world that Pablo Ortega was a maricdn.'

'But if something like that was about to be revealed, do you think he could have taken it? Would that have been enough to tip him over the edge, given his other problems?'

'You still haven't told me how he did it.'

Falcón gave him the gruesome details. Ignacio's body shook with emotion. He became ugly with grief. He buried his face in his hands, the cigarette burning out of the back of his fingers.

'Did Pablo ever show you his art collection?' asked Falcón, to ease him out of his distress.

'He showed it to me, but I didn't take much notice of that arty stuff he was into.'

'Did you ever see this piece?' asked Falcón, drawing the Indian erotic painting out from behind the Francisco Falcón landscape.

'Oof!' said Ignacio, admiring. 'Chance would be a fine thing… But doesn't that prove something to you, Inspector Jefe?'

'It's the only painting to feature a woman,' said Falcón, thinking that he'd gone off on the wrong tack here. This was not going to work with Ignacio Ortega.

'The painting in front of it,' said Ignacio, looking around his legs, 'that's got your name on it – Falcón.'

Something lit up in Ignacio's mind and Falcón realized with dismay that he'd possibly ruined the whole interrogation. Nobody had missed the story of Francisco Falcón.

'Now, Pablo did tell me about that business,' said Ignacio. 'He knew Francisco Falcón personally… and the thing about him was that he did turn out to be a maricon. And you're the Inspector Jefe, who, if I remember rightly, was his son.'

'No, he wasn't my father.'

'Now I understand. That's why you think Pablo's a maricon, isn't it? Because your father was one, too. You think they're -'

'He wasn't my father and I don't think that at all. It's a theory.'

'It's rubbish. The next thing you'll be telling me is that Rafael was one, too, and they were having a "relationship" and he couldn't bear -'

'Are you surprised that Pablo didn't leave you a letter?' asked Falcón, trying to retrieve the situation, wanting to needle Ignacio at the same time.