The Silent and the Damned. Robert Thomas Wilson

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 was doing 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