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CHAPTER 1

Wednesday, 24th July 2002

'I want my mummy. I want my mummy.'

Consuelo Jiménez opened her eyes to a child's face only centimetres from her own, which lay half buried in the pillow. Her eyelashes scratched the cotton slip. The child's fingers grabbed at the flesh of her upper arm.

'I want my mummy.'

'All right, Mario. Let's go and find Mummy,' she said, thinking this is too early for anybody. 'You know she's only just across the street, don't you? You can stay here with Matías, have some breakfast, play a little ...'

'I want my mummy.'

The child's fingers dug into her arm with some urgency and she stroked his hair and kissed him on the forehead.

She didn't want to cross the street in her nightclothes, like some working-class woman needing something from the shops, but the child was tugging at her, wheedling. She slipped on a white silk dressing gown over her cotton pyjamas and fitted her feet into some gold sandals. She ran her hands through her hair while Mario sheafed her dressing gown and started hauling her away like some stevedore down at the docks.

Taking his hand she led him down the stairs one at a time. They left the chill of the air-conditioned house and the heat, even this early in the morning, was solid and unwavering with not even a lick of freshness from the dawn after another oppressive night. She crossed the empty street. Palm trees hung limp and frazzled as if sleep had not come easily to this neighbourhood. The only sound out on the tarmac came from the air conditioner's fans blowing more hot, unwanted air into the suffocating atmosphere of the exclusive neighbourhood of Santa Clara on the outskirts of Seville.

Water dripped from a split unit on a high balcony of the Vegas' house as she half dragged Mario, who'd become suddenly cumbersome and difficult as if he'd changed his mind about his mummy. The drips clattered on the leaves of the abundant vegetation, the sound thick as blood in the hideous heat. Sweat beaded on Consuelo's forehead. She felt nauseous at the thought of the rest of the day, the heat building on weeks of torrid weather. She keyed in the code number on the pad by the outer gate and stepped into the driveway. Mario ran to the house and pushed against the front door bumping his head against the woodwork. She rang the doorbell, whose electronic chime sounded like a distant cathedral bell in the silent, double-glazed house. No answer. A trickle of sweat found its way between her breasts. Mario pounded the door with his small fist, which made the sound of a dull ache, persistent as chronic grief.

It was just after eight in the morning. She licked at the sweat forming on her top lip.

The maid arrived at the gate. She had no keys. Sra Vega was normally awake early, she said. They heard the gardener, an Ukrainian called Sergei, digging at the side of the house. They startled him and he gripped his mattock like a weapon until he saw the two women. Sweat careened down his pectorals and the ridges of muscle on his naked torso to his shorts. He had been working since 6 a.m. and had heard nothing. As far as he knew the car was still in the garage.

Consuelo left Mario with the maid and took Sergei to the back of the house. He climbed up on to the verandah outside the sitting room and peered through the sliding doors and blinds. The doors were locked. He climbed over the railing of the verandah and leaned across to look in the kitchen window, which was raised above the garden. His head started back with shock.

'What is it?' asked Consuelo.

'I don't know,' he said. 'Sr Vega lying on the floor. He not moving.'

Consuelo took the maid and Mario back across the street to her house. The child knew that things were not right and started to cry. The maid could not console him and he fought his way out of her arms. Consuelo made the call. Zero-Nine-One. She lit a cigarette and tried to concentrate while she looked at the helpless maid hovering over the child, who'd thrown a tantrum and was now a writhing, thrashing animal on the floor, howling himself to silence. Consuelo reported the incident to the telephone centre at the Jefatura, gave her name, address and contact number. She slammed the phone down and went to the child, took his kicks and thumps and pulled him to her, held him against her and whispered his name over and over in his ear until he went limp.

She put him in her bed upstairs, got dressed and called the maid to come and keep an eye on him. Mario slept. Consuelo looked at him intently as she brushed her hair. The maid sat on the corner of the bed, unhappy at being caught up in somebody else's tragedy, knowing that it would infect her own life.

A patrol car pulled up in the street outside the Vegas' house. Consuelo went out to meet the policeman and took him to the back of the house where he climbed up on to the verandah. He asked her where the gardener had gone. She walked down the lawn to a small building at the bottom where Sergei had his quarters. He wasn't there. She went back to the house. The policeman hammered on the kitchen window and then radioed information back to the Jefatura. He climbed down from the verandah.

'Do you know where Sra Vega is?' he asked.

'She should be in there. That's where she was last night when I called her to tell her that her son would stay the night with my boys,' said Consuelo. 'Why were you knocking on the window?'

'No sense in smashing the door down if he's just drunk and fallen asleep on the floor.'

'Drunk?'

'There's a bottle on the floor next to his body.'

'I've known him for years and I've never seen him incapable ... never.'

'Maybe he's different when he's on his own.'

'So what have you done about it?' said Consuelo, the testy Madrileña trying to keep her shrillness down in front of the more relaxed style of the local policeman.

'An ambulance was dispatched as soon as you made your call and now the Inspector Jefe del Grupo de Homicidios has been notified.'

'One moment he's drunk and the next he's been murdered.'

'There's a body lying on the floor,' said the patrolman, annoyed with her now. 'He's not moving and he's not responding to noise. I have -'

'Don't you think you should try and get in there and see if he's still alive? He's not moving or responding but he might still be breathing.'

Indecision flitted across the patrolman's face. He was saved by the arrival of the ambulance. Between them the paramedics and the patrolman found that the house was completely sealed back and front. More cars arrived outside the front of the house.

Inspector Jefe Javier Falcón had finished his breakfast and was sitting in his study in the centre of his enormous, inherited eighteenth-century house in Seville's old city. He was finishing his coffee and looking at the manual to a digital camera he'd bought a week ago. The glass door of the study opened on to the patio. The thick walls and traditional design of the house meant that air conditioning was rarely needed. Water trickled in the marble fountain without distracting him. His powers of concentration had come back to him after a turbulent year in his personal life. His mobile vibrated on the desk. He sighed as he answered it. This was the time for dead bodies to be discovered. He walked out into the cloister around the patio and leant against one the pillars supporting the gallery above. He listened to the blunt facts stripped of any tragedy and went back into his study. He wrote down an address - Santa Clara - it didn't sound like a place where anything bad could happen.

He put the mobile in the pocket of his chinos, picked up his car keys and went to open up the colossal wooden doors to his house. He drove his Seat out between the orange trees flanking the entrance and went back to close the doors.

The air conditioning blasted into his chest. He set off down the narrow cobbled streets and broke out into the Plaza del Museo de Bellas Artes with its high trees surrounded by white and ochre façades and the terracotta brick of the museum. He came out of the old city heading for the river and cut right on to Avenida del Torneo. The vague outlines of Calatrava's 'Harp' bridge were visible in the distance through the morning's haze. He swung away from it and into the new city, grinding through the streets and buildings around the Santa Justa station. He headed out past the endless high-rise blocks of the Avenida de Kansas City thinking about the exclusive barrio where he was heading.

The Garden City of Santa Clara had been planned by the Americans to quarter their officers after the Strategic Air Command base was established near Seville, following Franco's signing of the Defense Pact of 1953. Some of the bungalows retained their 1950s aspect, others had been Hispanicized and a few, owned by the wealthy, had been torn down and rebuilt from scratch into palatial mansions. As far as Falcón remembered none of these changes had quite managed to rid the area of a pervasive unreality. It was to do with the houses being on their individual plots of land, together but isolated, which was not a Spanish phenomenon but rather like a suburban American estate. It was also, unlike the rest of Seville, almost eerily quiet.

Falcón parked in the shade of some overhanging greenery outside the modern house on Calle Frey Francisco de Pareja. Despite the terracotta brick façade and some ornate touches, it had the solidity of a fortress. He forced his foot not to falter at the first man he saw as he walked through the gate: Juez de Guardia Esteban Calderón, the duty judge. He hadn't worked with Calderón for over a year but that history was still fresh. They shook hands, clapped each other on the shoulder. He was astonished to find that the woman standing next to the judge was Consuelo Jiménez, who was a part of that same history. She was different from the middle-class woman he'd met the year before when he'd investigated her husband's murder. Her hair was now loose and with a more modern cut and she wore less make-up and jewellery. He couldn't understand what she doing was here.

The paramedics went back to their ambulance and pulled out a stretcher on a trolley. Falcón shook hands with the Médico Forense and the judge's secretary while Calderón asked the patrolman if there was any evidence of breaking and entering. The patrolman gave his report.

Consuelo Jiménez was fascinated by the new Javier Falcón. The Inspector Jefe was not wearing his trademark suit. He wore chinos and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just below the elbows. He looked younger with his grey hair cut very short, a uniform length all over. Perhaps it was his seasonal style but she didn't think so. Falcón was feeling the weight of her interest. He disguised his unease by introducing another of his officers, Sub-Inspector Pérez. There was a moment of nervous confusion in which Pérez moved off.

'You're wondering what I'm doing here,' she said. 'I live across the street. I discovered the ... I was with the gardener when he discovered Sr Vega lying on the kitchen floor.'

'But I thought you bought a house in Heliopolis?'

'Well, technically, it was Raúl who bought the house in Heliopolis ... before he died,' she said. 'He wanted to be near his beloved Bétis stadium and I have no interest in football.'

'And how long have you been living here?'

'Nearly a year.'

'And you discovered the body.'

'The gardener did, and we don't know that he's dead yet.'

'Does anybody keep a spare set of keys?'

'I doubt it,' she said.

'I'd better take a look at the body,' said Falcón.

Sr Vega was lying on his back. His dressing gown and pyjamas had come off his shoulders and were constricting his arms. His chest was bare and there seemed to be abrasions on the pectorals and abdomen. He had scratch marks at his throat. The man's face was pale and looked hard, the lips were grey and yellowish.

Falcón went back to Juez Calderón and the Médico Forense.

'He looks dead to me, but perhaps you'd like to take a look before we break down one of the doors,' he said. 'Do we know where his wife is?'

Consuelo explained the situation again.

'I think we have to go in,' said Falcón.

'You might have a job on your hands,' said Sra Jiménez. 'Lucía had new windows put in before last winter. They're double glazed with bulletproof glass. And that front door, if it's properly locked, you'd be better off going through solid wall.'

'You know this house?'

A woman appeared in the driveway. She was difficult to miss because she had red hair, green eyes and skin so white it was painful to look at in the brutality of the sunlight.

'Hola, Consuelo,' she said, homing in on her amongst all the official faces.

'Hola, Maddy,' said Consuelo, who introduced her to everybody as Madeleine Krugman, Sra Vega's next-door neighbour.

'Is there something wrong with Lucía or Rafael? I saw the ambulance. Can I do anything?'

All eyes were on Madeleine Krugman, and not just because she spoke Spanish with an American accent. She was tall and slender with a full bust, an unstarved bottom and the innate ability to give dull men extravagant imaginations. Only Falcón and Calderón had sufficient testosterone control to be able to look her in the eye, and that required concentration. Consuelo's nostrils flared with irritation.

'We need to get into this house very urgently, Sra Krugman,' said Calderón. 'Do you have a set of keys?'

'I don't, but ... what's the matter with Rafael and Lucía?'

'Rafael's lying on the kitchen floor not moving,' said Consuelo. 'We don't know about Lucía.'

Madeleine Krugman's short intake of breath revealed a straight line of white teeth broken only by two sharp incisors. For a fraction of a second the invisible plates in the lithosphere of her face seemed to spasm.

'I have the telephone number of his lawyer. He gave it to me in case there was a problem with the house while they were on holiday,' she said. 'I'll have to go back home ...'

She backed away and then turned to the gate. All eyes fastened on to her rump, which shivered slightly under the white linen of her flared trousers. A thin red belt like a line of blood encircled her waist. She disappeared behind the wall. Male noises, which had been suspended under the bell jar of her glamour, resumed.

'She's very beautiful, isn't she?' said Consuelo Jiménez, annoyed at her own need to draw attention back to herself.

'Yes,' said Falcón, 'and quite different to the beauty we're accustomed to around here. White. Translucent.'

'Yes,' said Consuelo, 'she's very white.'

'Do we know where the gardener is?' he asked.

'He's disappeared.'

'What do we know about him?'

'His name is Sergei,' she said. 'He's Russian or Ukrainian. We share him. The Vegas, the Krugmans, Pablo Ortega and me.'

'Pablo Ortega ... the actor?' asked Calderón.

'Yes, he's just moved here,' she said. 'He's not very happy.'

'That doesn't surprise me.'

'Of course, it was you, wasn't it, Juez Calderón, who put his son in jail for twelve years?' said Consuelo. 'Terrible case that, terrible. But I didn't mean that when I said ... although I'm sure that's a contributing factor. There's a problem with his house and he finds the area a bit ... dead after living in the centre of town.'

'Why did he move?' asked Falcón.

'Nobody in the barrio would talk to him any more.'

'Because of what his son did?' said Falcón. 'I don't remember this case ...'

'Ortega's son kidnapped an eight-year-old boy,' said Calderón. 'He tied him up and abused him over several days.'

'But didn't kill him?' asked Falcón.

'The boy escaped,' said Calderón.

'In fact it was stranger than that,' said Consuelo.

'Ortega's son released him and then sat on the bed in the soundproofed room he'd prepared for the kidnap and waited for the police to arrive. He was lucky they got to him first.'

'They say he's having a hard time of it in prison,' said Calderón.

'I can't find any pity for people who destroy the innocence of children,' said Consuelo, savagely. 'They deserve everything they get.'

Madeleine Krugman returned with the telephone number. She was now wearing sunglasses as if protecting herself from her own painful whiteness.

'No name?' said Falcón, punching the number into his mobile.

'My husband says his name is Carlos Vázquez.'

'And where's your husband?'

'At home.'

'When did Sr Vega give you this number?'

'Before he went to join Lucía and Mario on holiday last summer.'

'Is Mario the child who slept at your house last night, Sra Jiménez?'

'Yes.'

'Do the Vegas have any family in the Seville area?'

'Lucía's parents.'

Falcón broke away from the group and asked to speak to the lawyer.

'I am Inspector Jefe Javier Falcón,' he said. 'Your client, Sr Rafael Vega, is lying on his kitchen floor incapacitated, possibly dead. We need to get into his house.'

A long silence while Vázquez digested this devastating news.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Vanished Hands"
by .
Copyright © 2004 Robert Wilson.
Excerpted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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