The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

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

The supervisor removed his very unimpressed face from Ramírez 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 Ramírez, 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. Ramírez brushed some dust off the bumper into an evidence bag. On the way back to Falcón'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.

Ramírez called the builder who said that Ortega had called to cancel their meeting. Falcón 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 Ramírez.

'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 Falcón. '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 Ramírez.

'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 Sebastián, 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 Falcón. '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.'

'A last question on the will and we'll leave you alone,' said Falcón. 'Ignacio was a wealthy man, I doubt he was expecting any money from his brother.'

'He'd always wanted the Louis XV chair from Pablo's collection.'

Falcón grunted as he remembered Ignacio's professed lack of interest in the collection.

'So why had the brothers fallen out?' asked Ramírez.

'I just do the legal documents,' said Ranz Costa. 'I never involve myself…'

He didn't finish. The two lawmen had already left his office.

On the way down from Ranz Costa's office Falcón called Ignacio to remind him about the body identification. He also called Inspector Jefe Montes and said that he'd like to drop by later on that morning and talk about the two Russian names he'd mentioned to him on Friday evening. Montes said he could drop in any time, he wasn't going anywhere.

Falcón took Ramírez back to the Jefatura. He wanted Felipe to analyse the dust sample while Ramírez followed up on the hostal residencia in Fuenteheridos. Falcón drove to the Instituto Anatómico Forense.

Ignacio Ortega and Falcón stood in the room with the curtain drawn over the glass panel. They waited in silence while the body was brought up from the morgue and the Médico Forense prepared the paperwork.

'When did you say was the last time you spoke to Pablo?' asked Falcón.

The night before I went away,' he said.

'Pablo's mobile telephone company has informed us that you had a twelve-minute call with him on the evening before he died. Can you explain that to me, Sr Ortega?'

Silence while Ignacio looked at the unopened curtain.

'Ranz Costa told us that Pablo changed his will before he died. Do you know what those changes were?'

Ignacio nodded.

'Was that what was discussed in the phone call he made to you on Friday evening?'

Ignacio's head stayed still.

'I was surprised at how you seemed more concerned about whether your brother had written to you, and what he had written to Sebastián, than you were by the fact of his suicide,' said Falcón, thinking this was a man who needed to be riled up.

That turned Ignacio, whose two eyes punched into Falcón's face like industrial riveters.

'You have no right to talk to me like that,' he said. 'I am not one of your suspects. I have not been accused of anything. My brother killed himself. I am dealing with that in my own private way, which is no business of yours. You're as curious to know why he killed himself as I am, but you have no right to poke your nose into my family affairs unless you can prove that I was in some way responsible for my brother's death when I was on the coast at the time.'

'You lied to me about the last time you spoke to your brother,' said Falcón. 'Detectives never like being lied to. We get suspicious and think you have something to hide.'

'I have nothing to hide. My conscience is clear. What family matters passed between Pablo and me are private.'

'You know, we're thinking of reopening Sebastián's case, as well as giving him some psychological help…'

'You can do what you like, Inspector Jefe.'

The Médico Forense informed them that the body was now ready. Ignacio turned to the curtains, which opened. He confirmed his brother's identity, signed the papers and left without another word or glance in Falcón's direction.

Falcón drove back to the Jefatura with three thoughts knocking around in his head. Why did Ignacio Ortega bother him so much? It was clear he hadn't killed his brother, but there was something locked up in the man's head that made Falcón think that he had some responsibility. How do you crack a hard nut like Ignacio Ortega? And how do you find out what the dead men have locked away in their heads? Police work might be easier if it were possible to download the mind's contents on to screen. The software of life. What would that look like? Fact distorted by emotion. Reality transformed by illusion. Truth painted over by denial. That would take some program to disentangle.