The old man hesitated before replying. “No one, except my son Ricardo but then he hasn’t been here for years. We don’t speak.”

“I think you are mistaken, Señor Gonzales, and, what’s more, I think you’ll find he was here just a few days ago.”

Chapter Eleven

11 January 2012

Buenos Aires

Matias Paz decided it was time to update Franklin on the investigation. He wished he had better news to report but at least they were making progress. Although his iPhone looked like a regular model, it was able to encrypt calls to certain dedicated numbers. He placed the call to San Francisco.

Richard Franklin picked up after just two rings.

“Señor Franklin, we have discovered the identity of one of the bank thieves, Ricardo Gonzales. It appears there were three in the gang and we have found what we think is one third of the haul. Unfortunately, it didn’t contain the contents of your box.”

Franklin snapped down the phone. “What about finding the names and whereabouts of the other two?”

“Very shortly, we plan to have an in-depth conversation with Señor Gonzales and I’m sure he will be very helpful in that matter.”

* * *

Vargas was sitting at his desk, working his way through the latest reports when his number two, Juan Torres, burst through the office door.

“Sir, there’s been a homicide in La Boca. A shooting of an eighty-two-year-old wheelchair user in his home.”

Vargas looked up from the folder that contained the latest transcripts of interviews with a number of the safe-deposit-box holders. “Juan, why would the murder of an old man in his wheelchair be of interest to us?”

“Because, sir, he wasn’t killed in his chair. His body was found by a council carer in his garden shed, along with millions of dollars’ worth of stolen property.”

By the time Vargas and Torres arrived at the small house in La Boca, the pathologist was already on-site, working in the shed. He was accompanied by a local policeman, Miguel Vega, who had received the initial call.

Vargas surveyed the surreal scene inside the shed. Gonzales’s body was lying in the centre of the floor. Surrounding it were neatly stacked piles of cash, jewels, small paintings and paper bonds. The piles of cash were subdivided by currency and he estimated there must be at least a million dollars in a single pile stacked in one of the corners.

“What can you tell us, officer?”

Vega was kneeling on the floor, looking through a pile of government bonds. He stood up before addressing his superior.