The Silent and the Damned (50 page)

'The detective work by you and your squad has been excellent,' said Lobo, which flattery Falcón took to be a bad sign.

'You think so?' said Falcón. 'To me it's been a remarkable catalogue of failures. I have no killer for Vega and a landscape littered with dead bodies.'

'You've cracked a major paedophile network.'

'I don't think I
cracked
it, exactly. Ignacio Ortega has been ahead of me all the way, as is proven by the fact that I have nothing on him, other than his installation of the air-conditioning units in the finca, and the late Alberto Montes has been tripping me up with his every action,' said Falcón. 'Now Ortega is laughing in my face and the Russians are still out there, free as birds, to continue their trafficking of adults and children for sexual purposes.'

'Ignacio Ortega is finished. He's a marked man. Nobody will go anywhere near him.'

'Applause,' said Falcón. 'He's still living in his comfortable house, running his successful business. He'll keep his head down for a few years and then, because of the nature of his particular obsession, he'll be back. That sort of person has a compulsion to desecrate innocence and it's no less strong than the serial killer's compulsion to feel fresh bodies struggling for life in his hands. And, I don't need to tell you, Comisario, that Ignacio Ortega is just one little link that we've managed to temporarily cut. The big monster, the Russian mafia, is still out there, spreading its tentacles over the whole of Europe. Despite what the public relations section of your mind is telling you, this is one of our most significant failures. And it's a failure that is being perpetrated by the very administration who are supposed to be supporting us.'

'I might as well tell you that Montes's wife was caught retrieving a box from a storage warehouse which contained one hundred and eighty thousand euros,' said Lobo. 'But we're satisfied from the interviews we've conducted so far that he was acting alone.'

'More applause,' said Falcón. 'What are we going to say to the stunned population of Almonaster la Real about the two bodies, the boy and the girl, found dead at the finca? What's going to happen to the four men on the tape? What's going to happen to the other children -'

'Felipe and Jorge will make a full report of their findings,' said Lobo methodically, 'and that will form a part, as will every aspect of your investigation, of a file which Comisario Elvira will present to me. We are already conducting an internal investigation within the Jefatura. We've named the fourth man on the tape. Everything has been documented.'

'And there'll be a reading of it in the Andalucían parliament?'

Silence.

'And all these people will appear in court?'

'The reason why we have an organized society and not chaotic anarchy is that people believe in our institutions,' said Lobo. 'When Franco died in 1975, what happened to all his institutions? What happened to the

Guardia Civil? You can't tear them apart and throw them all out, for the simple reason that they are the only people who know how to run things. So what do you do? You curb their powers, you control their recruitment, you
change
the institution, from the inside out. That's why people believe in us now. That's why they no longer fear us. That's why the Guardia Civil no longer operates as a secret police force.'

'Talk to Virgilio Guzmán about that,' said Falcón. 'The point is that nobody from this case is going to face justice, not because they don't deserve to, but because our institution has dirty linen and the administration that controls us is using that, because theirs is even dirtier.'

'They're all marked men,' said Lobo. 'You'll see – people will lose their power, have contracts taken away from them, lose their status… they will suffer.'

'They might not realize their ambitions, which will be their little tragedy,' said Falcón, 'but they'll remain at liberty, which will be ours.'

'So you believe that we should expose everybody, reveal the corruption within -'

'Yes,' said Falcón. 'And start again.'

'All those years as a cop and you've learnt nothing about human nature,' said Lobo. 'How long will it be before the Russian mafia starts working on the next generation?'

'I'm having my say, Comisario, that's all,' said Falcón, feeling that weakness coming back into his arms.

'You know, Javier, this is not something peculiar to Spain,' said Lobo. 'It's happening all over the world. We've just had the CIA on our doorstep, and what were they doing? Preserving their institutions.

Maintaining the dignity of office of the President of the United States and the Secretary of State.'

'Is that what the Consul told you?'

'In so many words,' said Lobo.

'So you didn't see the "recording" that Flowers said proved Krugman's innocence?'

'The Consul confirmed that it existed.'

'Such trust between institutional powers!' said Falcón. 'You didn't see that recording because there isn't one. Flowers gave Krugman an alibi because it was probably his decision to end the uncertainty about what secrets Vega was holding – the man had become too unstable to predict. I think Krugman killed him when Flowers gave him the man's real identity and – let's have a moment's silence for the forgotten Lucia – he also had to kill his completely innocent wife.'

'I cannot call the integrity of the US Consul into question to his face, Javier,' said Lobo, annoyed now.

'I know these things, Comisario. I'm naive in the workings of power but not totally inexperienced. But every time something like this happens – and let's remember the financial impropriety of your predecessor, which put you in the exalted office you hold now. Every time something like this happens, a little of that dirt rubs off on me. I scrub and I scrub, but there's always that understain showing through. I start thinking I'll have to get back into my suits, just to give myself the illusion that good can still prevail.'

'We need men like you and Inspector Ramírez, Javier,' said Lobo. 'Don't be in any doubt about that.'

'Do you? I'm not so sure. The tools of the good are so pathetic and predictable when compared to those of the bad,' said Falcón. 'If we're these dirty people with a deep understanding of ingrained dirt from our years working in these corrupted institutions, maybe we should learn something from that. All this first-hand knowledge of the forces of darkness should not go to waste.'

'Well, that
is
a dangerous path to tread,' said Lobo.

Back in the office Ramírez and Ferrera looked up for the chink of hope. Falcón stood before them and opened his hands to show the emptiness within. He went into his office. There was a small piece of paper in the middle of his desk on which he knew was written the translation of the inscription found at the finca. He put his hands on either side of it and braced himself to read it.

I'm sorry, Mummy, but we cannot do this any more.

He left the office without a word and went to pick up Alicia Aguado. He was glad to be with her. She was happy and looking forward to her next session with Sebastián. She was pleased by his progress. Pablo's death had released him from his past and he was revealing things in days that would normally have taken months to extract.

When they arrived in the observation cell it was obvious that Sebastián was glad to see her. He sat and bared his wrist, impatient. Falcón could hardly concentrate on their discussion. His conversation with Lobo was still spiralling through his mind and forming a triple helix with Ignacio Ortega and the Russians. Every avenue of contact to the Russians had been cut – Vega, Montes and Krugman were all dead and Vázquez paralysed with fear. The only way left was the darkest path of all, through Ignacio Ortega, and that was where the three strands of his triple helix met – Lobo's last words to him.

Some intensity from the observation cell broke through to him and he concentrated on the dialogue for a moment.

'How old were you?' asked Aguado.

'I was fifteen. It wasn't an easy time for me. School was difficult. My home life was constantly disrupted. I was unhappy.'

'Tell me how it came out.'

'We were driving to Huelva. He was appearing in a play there and we were going to carry on to Tavira in Portugal and spend the weekend on the beach.'

'Why did you choose that moment?'

'I didn't choose it. I got angry with him. I got angry with him telling me what a wonderful guy his brother was. How considerate he was. How helpful. My father was useless at running his finances and Ignacio was constantly helping him out. He also sent electricians and plumbers around to the house to do repairs. He even rewired the house free of charge. It was nothing to Ignacio. It didn't cost him anything. He put it all through his company. But my father thought he was a great guy for doing all this. He didn't see what Ignacio was up to. He didn't see how much his brother loathed him, how much he despised him for his talent and his fame. So in one of these moments, when Pablo was polishing away at his brother's gilded image, I told him.'

'Can you remember your exact words?'

'I remember everything as if it just happened,' said Sebastián. 'I said: "You know, when you used to go away on tour and you left me with your brother…" and my father turned to me and smiled and his face was full of love for what he was about to hear – another wonderful thing about Ignacio. It was so pathetic I nearly couldn't bring myself to say it, but my anger got the better of me and I rammed it home. I said:… he used to sexually abuse me every night." He lost control of the car. It came off the road and we ended up in a ditch. He started hitting me, slapping me around the head and face, so I opened the window and clambered out into the ditch. He came after me, heaving open his own door like a man coming out of a tank.

'The thing about my father was that you never knew when he was acting. He could do anger and turn around and do love. But that afternoon there was no mistaking his rage. He caught up with me in the field by the road. He grabbed me by the hair and swung me around. He slapped me about the face and head, with the front and back of his massive hands, until I was a ragdoll. He pulled my face up to his and I saw his sweat and his teeth and his lips stretched white and the smell of his breath as he forced me to take back my words. He made me say to him that I had lied. He made me beg for his forgiveness. And when I did, he gave it to me and said that we would never speak about this day ever again.

'And we didn't. We never really spoke to each other again after that day'

'Do you think he talked to Ignacio about it?'

'I'm sure he didn't. I would have known about it. Ignacio would have come after me to frighten me back into silence.'

They sat quietly for a moment. Alicia weighed the enormity of that day in her mind. Falcón sat outside remembering the dream Pablo had told him and his subsequent collapse on the lawn. He could see the thoughts in Alicia's twitching unseeing eyes. Was this the right time? What should my next question be? What question will unlock the reasoning behind Sebastián's extreme action?

'Have you been thinking over the past few days why your father killed himself?' she asked.

'Yes, I have. I've thought very hard about his note to me,' said Sebastián. 'My father loved words. He loved to talk and write. He liked his own voice. He liked to be verbose. But in that letter he reduced himself to one line.'

Silence. Sebastián's head trembled on his neck.

'And what did that line mean to you?'

'It meant that he believed me.'

'And why do you think he'd come to that conclusion?'

'Before I was convicted, my father had reached a point in his life when he never questioned himself. Whether it was to do with his belief in his own brilliance, or the sycophants around him, I don't know. But he never thought that he might be wrong, or have made a mistake… Until I was arrested. Once they put me in here I refused to see him, so I can't be sure, but I think that was when doubt started to creep into his mind.'

'He had to leave the barrio,' said Alicia. 'He was ostracized.'

'They didn't much like him in the barrio. He thought they all loved him in the same way that all his audiences loved him, but he never bothered with any of them as individual people. They were just there for the further glorification of Pablo Ortega.'

That must have given him reason to doubt.'

'That, and the fact that his work was drying up gave him reason to start living in his own head more. And, as I know, if you do that you come across all sorts of doubts and fears, and they grow large in your loneliness. He probably spoke to Salvador, too. He wasn't a bad man, my father. He took pity on Salvador and helped him with money for his drugs. I doubt Salvador would have told him straight, because of the force of my father's personality and his own fear of Ignacio, but once there was doubt in his mind he might have started to pick up on things. And when they were added to his doubts he might have found the answer to that horrible equation in his head, which was the sum of all his fears. It must have been devastating for him.'

'But don't you think that this was an incredibly drastic action on your part – to put yourself in here?'

'You don't think I did this just to get my father's attention, do you?'

'I don't know why you did this, Sebastián.'

He took his wrist away from her and covered his head with his arms. He rocked to and fro on his chair for several minutes.

'Perhaps we've had enough for today,' she said, finding his shoulder.

He calmed down, disentangled himself. Held out his wrist again.

'I was scared of what I had growing in my own mind,' he said.

'Let's take this up tomorrow,' said Alicia Aguado.

'No, I'd like to try and get this out,' he said, putting her fingers to his wrist. 'I'd read somewhere… I couldn't help reading this sort of thing. The newspapers are full of stories of child abuse and my eyes used to close in on
every
story because I knew they were relevant to me. I extracted things from these stories which created doubt in me, and I began to find a corner of myself that I could no longer trust. It grew from there, until it became a certainty in my head. Only a matter of time before… before…'