The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

'It was the same as always,' she said.

'She didn't ask to speak to the boy or

Consuelo leaned forward, dug her elbows into her thighs and wept. Falcón got to his feet, went to her and gave her a handkerchief. He patted her between the shoulder blades.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'The minutiae lead to bigger things.'

He took the cigarette from her hand and crushed it out in the ashtray. Consuelo recovered. Falcón returned to his chair.

'Since Raúl's death I get very emotional about children. All children.'

'It must have been hard for your boys.'

'It was, but they showed remarkable resilience. I think I felt more for their loss than they did. It's surprising the route that grief takes,' she said. 'But now I find myself constantly pledging money to kids who've been orphaned by AIDS in Africa, to children who've been exploited in India and the Far East, to street children in Mexico City and São Paulo, the rehabilitation of boy soldiers… It just pours out of me and I have no idea why this should suddenly have happened.'

'Didn't Raúl leave some money to Los Niños de la Calle, the street children charity?'

'I think it was something deeper than that.'

'Guilt money for… Arturo? That son of his who was kidnapped and never seen…'

'Don't start me off again,' she said. 'I can't stop thinking about that.'

'OK. Something else,' he said. 'Lucia has a sister in Madrid, doesn't she? She should be able to look after Mario.'

'Yes, she's got two children, one who's Mario's age. I'll miss him,' she said. 'Losing your father is bad enough, but to lose a mother as well is a catastrophe, especially at that age.'

'You adapt,' said Falcón, feeling the stab of his own experience. 'The survival instinct hasn't been undermined. You accept love from wherever it comes.'

They stared at each other, minds orbiting around the concept of the parental void, until Consuelo went to the bathroom. As the taps ran Falcón slumped back in his chair, already exhausted. He had to find the stamina for this work again or perhaps try to find new ways of keeping the worlds he pried into at a distance.

'So what do you think happened in that house last night?' said Consuelo, face repaired.

'It looks as if Sr Vega smothered his wife and then killed himself by drinking a bottle of drain cleaner,' said Falcón. 'Official cause of death will be established later. If the scenario is as it appears we'll expect to find pillow material under Sr Vega's fingernails… that sort of thing, which will give us -'

'And if you don't?'

Then we'll have to look deeper,' said Falcón. 'We're already… puzzled.'

'By the new car and the fact he was going on holiday?'

'Suicides rarely advertise what they're about to do. They carry on as normal. Think how many times you've heard the relatives of victims say, "But he seemed so calm and normal,"' said Falcón. 'It's because they've made up their minds and it's given them some peace at last. No, we're puzzled by the scenario and by the strange note.'

'He wrote a suicide note?'

'Not exactly. In his fist he had a piece of paper on which was written in English "… the thin air you breathe from 9/11 until the end…"' said Falcón. 'Does that mean anything to you?'

'Well, it's not explaining anything, is it?' she said. 'Why 9/11?'

'One of the forensics said he was probably bankrolling al-Qaeda,' said Falcón. 'As a joke.'

'Except… aren't we being led to believe that anything is possible these days?'

'Did Sr Vega seem unstable to you in any way?'

'Rafael seemed to be completely stable,' said Consuelo. 'Lucia was the unstable one. She was a depressive, with occasional bouts of manic compulsive behaviour. Have you seen her wardrobe?

'A lot of shoes.'

'Many of them were the same design and colour, as were her dresses. If she liked something she'd buy three straight off. She was on medication.'

'So, if he was in crisis, given his nature, he would be unlikely to turn to anyone outside the family and he wouldn't have been able to talk to his wife.'

'The restaurant business has taught me not to judge people's lives from the outside. Couples, even crazy ones, have ways of communicating, some of which are not attractive, but they work.'

'What about their domestic situation? You saw that, too.'

'I did, but a third party always changes the dynamics. People start behaving.'

'Is that a general or specific observation?'

'I meant it specifically but it can be applied generally,' she said. 'And that felt like the second time you've tried to insinuate that I might have been having an affair with Sr Vega.'

'Did it?' said Falcón. 'Well, I didn't mean to be specific. I was just thinking that under those stressful circumstances a lover might have been a possibility, and that would have changed mental and marital landscapes.'

'Not Rafael,' she said, shaking her head. 'He's not the type.'

'Who is the type?'

She tapped a cigarette on the box, lit it and blew smoke at the glass.

'Your Inspector Ramírez is the type,' she said. 'Where is he, by the way?'

'He's taken his daughter to have some medical tests.'

'Not serious, I hope.'

'They don't know,' said Falcón. 'But you're right about Ramírez, he was always a player… combing his hair for the secretaries in the Edificio de los Juzgados.'

'Maybe the work he did gave him an eye for the vulnerable,' she said. 'That's another definition of the type.'

'But not, apparently, Rafael Vega. The Butcher.'

'You said it. That's a pastime that really doesn't go with lovemaking: "Do you want to see my latest cuts?"'

'What did you make of all that?'

'I used him. His beef always tasted better. Almost all the steaks served in my restaurants are cut by him.'

'And psychologically…?'

'It ran in the family. I don't think it's any more than that. If his father had been a carpenter…'

'Of course, some spare-time cabinet making. But butchery…?'

'It gave Lucia the creeps, but then… she had her sensitivities.'

'She was squeamish, as well?'

'Squeamish, nervous, depressed, unable to sleep. She used to take two sleeping pills a night. One to knock her out and then another when she woke up at three or four in the morning.'

'Bulletproof windows,' said Falcón.

'She needed total silence to sleep. The house was hermetically sealed. Once you were inside there was no sense of the outside world. No wonder she was a little crazy. Sometimes when she opened the door I expected a rush of air as if the pressures were different inside.'

'In a world of glibness and fun she doesn't sound like much fun,' said Falcón.

'There you go again, Javier. That's number three,' she said. 'Anyway, she was glib. She used the material and the trivial to hold her life together. She found relationships complicated. Even Mario could be too much for her at times, which was why she was so happy for him to come over here. But that's not to say he wasn't the focus of her life.'

'So how did Sr Vega fit into his family?'

'I don't think they were expecting a child. I didn't see them much at that time, but I seem to remember it was a shock,' she said. 'Anyway, a marriage changes after a child. Perhaps you'll find that out for yourself one day, Javier.'

'You pretend not to understand what I'm doing but you know I have to do this. I have to look for the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in a situation,' said Falcón, sounding oversensitive even to himself. 'My questions can be ugly, but then it's not so nice to have a double murderer out there leaving a crime scene to look like a suicide pact.'

'It's OK, Javier, I can take it,' said Consuelo. 'Despite the attractions of the detective/suspect dynamic I'd rather you eliminated me from your inquiries with whatever ugly questions you have to ask. I have a good memory and I did not enjoy being accused of Raúl's murder.'

'Well, these are just the preliminaries. I'm hoping for some harder facts on which to base my suspicions about the way in which the Vegas died. So you'll be seeing me again.'