The Silent and the Damned (27 page)

'I did.'

'So he went to the trouble of breaking the seal because it was psychologically important for him to drown himself in shit… his own shit,' she said. 'I'm sure the pills and alcohol would have done the job on their own.'

'Alcohol can induce vomiting.'

'All right. So he was making sure of it as well… but he could have used the pool. Less private, but it was good enough for his dogs.'

'Assuage my guilt, Alicia. Give me a theory,' he said.

'As you know, there's been a build-up of events even before you started coming to see him about Rafael Vega,' she said. 'His son has been jailed in a high-profile case for a nasty crime. He himself was ostracized by his community so that he had to leave his apartment, and there's a story behind that which you still don't know. He's moved here to a place which, on the face of it, suits him. A garden city, a wealthy community, peace and quiet. But it didn't turn out like that. He felt dislocated and craved the involvement of the barrio. The house he bought developed an unpleasant and antisocial problem. To us that would seem an irritating and expensive inconvenience, but to Pablo Ortega it probably achieved some sort of significance in his mind. Then his neighbour died…'

'He wanted to know if Sr Vega had committed suicide.'

'So it was already on his mind,' said Alicia. 'I've left out the fact that his son didn't want to see him either… another isolating factor. Then Javier Falcón arrived on the scene, perceiving an injustice in Sebastián's case and wanting to help. As you know, from your own experience, you can't help without stirring things up. And what came to the surface of Pablo Ortega's mind? Whatever it was, he didn't want to know about it. He didn't think it worth staying alive to face it. So, not only does he
not
bring the difficult things to the surface, he actually submerges himself. He drowns his memories in his own ordure. His sweet and innocent dogs did not get that treatment.'

Falcón shook his head in dismay.

'You were asking him about his son, Javier, and you said you were putting pressure on him through your investigation. What did you suspect him of having done?'

'I don't want to talk about that just yet. It would help if you came to this with an open mind,' he said. 'That is, if you want to be involved. It doesn't have to be any of your business.'

'I'm involved,' she said. 'I'd like to know what the letters say. And it might be interesting to know what he had in his collection.'

A patrol car pulled up outside the house.

'We've got to do our work first,' he said. 'But I don't think this will take very long.'

An ambulance parked up behind the patrol car. Felipe and Jorge turned up a few minutes later, along with the Juez de Guardia, Juan Romero. There was a quick conference about the relevance of this suicide to the Vega case. Calderón called Romero who gave him Falcón's verbal report. It was decided to treat them separately. Cristina Ferrera arrived in time to hear the decision.

Falcón gave them a tour of the crime scene via the dead dogs by the pool and the interior of the house. Felipe took the crime scene shots while Jorge inspected the dogs and scraped meat from between their teeth. Ferrera checked the telephone for messages and asked the phone company for a breakdown of calls in and out. She searched for a mobile.

The ambulancemen came in and decided that Ortega's body had been weighted to keep it submerged and would have to be winched out via a pulley in the ceiling. They went to get a block and tackle. Felipe and Jorge moved in and bagged all the evidence before moving on to the bedroom. The Médico Forense arrived and sat chatting with Alicia Aguado by the pool while he waited for the body to be lifted out.

Felipe handed over the letters to Falcón unopened in evidence bags. The ambulancemen chipped away at the ceiling until they found a reinforced concrete beam and started drilling. Falcón took the letters into the sitting room to read. Ferrera hadn't found the mobile. He sent her out to speak to the neighbours to see what

Ortega's movements had been in the last twenty-four hours.

27th July 2002

Dear Javier,

I think you must have realized now that I chose you and I am sorry if this has upset you. You are the professional and, as I said, I like you and I want this, the last scene of my final act, to pass safely into your hands.

Just in case there is some doubt, or some opportunistic burglar has happened on the scene and messed up my tragedy, I would like to declare unequivocally that I have taken my own life. This was not a snap decision. It was certainly not provoked by any recent developments but is a culmination of events. I have come to the end of my road and found it a cul- de-sac, with no possibility of retracing my steps and doing all the things that I should have done. It was a dead end with only one exit and I chose it with clear eyes, if not a clear conscience.

My reasons for having taken my own life are the only reasons a suicide can have. I am weak and I am selfish. I have neglected my son. This has been the stamp of all my family and personal relationships and has happened probably because I am consumed by vanity. The reward for this is my loneliness. My son is in prison. My family have grown tired of me. My community has thrown me out. My profession has shunned me. Vanity, in case you do not know this, requires an audience. Life inside my bubble has become intolerable. I have no one to perform to and therefore I am no one.

It probably seems absurd that someone of my fame and in my comfortable circumstances should have chosen this end. I can feel myself on the brink of a long and rambling explanation, but it would only be the Torre Muga speaking. My apologies for the inconvenience, Javier. Please give the other letter to my son, Sebastián. I hope you succeed in helping him where I have so singularly failed.

Con un abrazo,

Pablo Ortega

PS I never showed you my collection. Please enjoy it at your leisure.

PPS Please inform my brother, Ignacio. His number is in the address book on the kitchen table.

Falcón read the letter through several times until his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of an electric winch. He stood at the door as Ortega's stained and bloated body emerged from under the floor. The masked ambulancemen pulled him away from over the hole and lowered him on to the concrete. He had a large flat rock taped to his chest and another one shoved down his blue shorts. Falcón called in the Médico Forense and asked Felipe to take more shots.

He went to sit with Alicia Aguado and read her Ortega's letter.

'I don't think he's as drunk as he makes out.'

'There were three empty bottles of Muga in there.'

'They weren't inside him when he wrote this letter,' she said. 'He's stated his guilt, but he's been very careful not to admit to anything. The denial that his suicide has anything to do with "recent developments" seems to be important.
He
is in denial. He cannot face up to whatever it is that he believes will be revealed by these recent developments.'

'The only recent developments I know about are Rafael Vega's death and me volunteering to help his son.'

Cristina Ferrera came back from talking to the few neighbours she could find. Ortega had walked his dogs yesterday morning. He'd been out in his car twice at about 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Both trips were for about an hour and a half each.

'Would you bother to walk your dogs if you were going to kill them?' asked Falcón.

'It seems to have been a routine,' said Ferrera. 'His neighbour walked his dog at the same time. And even condemned men get fed and exercised.'

'Killing them is to do with his admitted selfishness and vanity. They were a part of him, only he knew how to love them,' said Alicia Aguado. 'You saw him yesterday morning before he went out, Javier. What did you talk about then?'

'I was interested in his relationship with Rafael Vega, how he knew him, whether he'd met him through Raúl Jiménez and whether he knew any of the people around those men. I had a photograph of him with some people at a party which seemed to unnerve him. I also talked to him about his son's case. Then 1 left, but – no, that's not quite right. He told me about a recurring dream, then I left, but I came back to ask him about something I'd forgotten and I saw him sink to his knees in the garden, weeping.'

Alicia Aguado asked about the dream and he described Ortega's vision of himself in a field with his hurting hands.

'I read your report of your first meeting,' said Ferrera. 'He was very different then.'

'Yes, he was much more the actor. Most of that interview was performance,' said Falcón. 'He was more serious in subsequent talks. The pressure was building.'

'What were you being accusatory about, Javier?' asked Aguado.

'I don't want to talk about it until I've got it clear in my mind,' he said. 'I've got a lot more work to do on that.'

Jorge called Falcón over for a crime scene conference. They were convinced it was suicide. They had found nothing to lead them to believe it happened any other way. Ortega's fingerprints were over everything. Juan Romero asked the Médico Forense for his opinion.

'Time of death was about 3 a.m. Cause was drowning. There was a single mark on his forehead which probably happened as he fell into the hole. My pre-lab inspection verdict is that he committed suicide.'

Juez Romero signed off the levantamiento del cadáver. Falcón told him that he would inform the next of kin as the dead man had requested. The paramedics removed the body and those of the two dogs. Felipe and Jorge left. Falcón told Ferrera to follow up on the phone numbers on Monday and let her go. He went to the kitchen, found the address book and called Ignacio Ortega on his mobile, which was turned off. He told Romero they would delay telling the press about Ortega's death until his brother had been informed.

The ambulance and cars moved off towards Avenida de Kansas City. A patrol car remained with an officer to keep an eye on the house. The news announcement of Ortega's death might arouse public interest. Falcón offered to take Alicia Aguado home but she was keen to hear a description of the Ortega collection mentioned in the suicide letter.

The collection, which Ortega had moved into the living room when the cesspit cracked, was distributed around one end of the room, the small pieces on tables, the bigger carvings on the floor and the paintings leaning up against the walls. There was a sheet of paper taped to an antique table in the living room listing all the pieces in the collection with their purchase dates and prices. Falcón ran his eye down the eighteen pieces on the list to the Francisco Falcón painting he'd seen on his first visit.

'This is interesting,' he said. 'Ortega bought the Francisco Falcón painting on 15th May 2001. That was
after
he'd been revealed as a fraud. And he picked it up for a quarter of a million pesetas.'

'What did they used to sell for?'

'He'd have had to pay around two million,' said Falcón. 'It was a good buy because they've come back up again now. The old-fashioned collectors wanted to get rid of everything they had by Francisco Falcón when the news first broke. But now there's a different market for the work. They're a sort of post-modern crowd who have a new take on "What is real art?" Between them and the infamy hunters and the celebrity criminal ghouls they've rebuilt the price.'

'So he knew Francisco, but only bought one of his paintings once he'd been exposed,' said Aguado. 'That's telling us something.'

He told her about the Picasso drawing of a centaur and how Ortega used it as a test.

'Talk me down the list,' she said. 'I'll stop you if I need more information.'

'Two carved African ebony figures of boys holding spears, Ivory Coast. One mask, Zaire.'

'Describe the mask, Javier,' she said. 'Actors are experts on masks.'

'It's sixty centimetres long, twenty wide. It has red hair, two slit eyes and a long nose. There's pieces of bone and shards of mirror stuck in the mouth like teeth. It's a pretty terrifying thing, but beautifully shaped. Bought in New York in 1996 for nine hundred and fifty dollars.'

'It sounds like a witch doctor's mask. Carry on.'

'The next four are Meissen figurines, all male.'

'I hate figurines,' she said.

'One mirror, full length with a rococo gilt frame. Paris. 1984. Nine thousand francs.'

'Something to look at himself in with a halo of gold.'

'A Roman glass bottle, opaque with the colours of the rainbow. A set of eight silver coins, also Roman. One gilt chair – Louis XV. London 1982. For which he paid nine thousand pounds.'

'That's expensive enough to be his throne.'

'One horse, bronze at full gallop – Roman. One bull's head – Greek. One shard of pottery of a boy running – Greek. A piece by Manuel Rivera called
Anatomia en el Espejo.'

'Anatomy through a mirror? What's that?'

'Metal fabrics on wood. Mirror image. Difficult to describe,' said Falcón. 'There's also a painting here by Zobel called
Dry Garden
and an Indian erotic painting.'

'What sort of eroticism?'

'A pretty graphic depiction of a man with an oversized penis having sex with a woman,' said Falcón. 'And that's it.'

'A very complicated man with his figures, masks and mirrors,' she said. 'Is there any indication as to how the collection was originally set out?'

Falcón looked through the drawers of the antique desk and found a series of photographs of the collection, each one dated on the back. In all of them Pablo Ortega was seated on the Louis XV chair. He found the most recent shot, which included all the pieces except the Indian erotic painting and the Zobel. Then he realized that the Zobel was positioned so that Ortega was looking at it and the Indian painting was such a recent acquisition it hadn't been included. He described the layout to Alicia Aguado.