“I will never do you another favour,” Fermín said and shook his head. Raindrops spattered away from him in all directions, as if he were a dog. “Get wet yourself next time!”
José watched Fermín pull a small folder from under his jacket. It seemed dry, much to José’s surprise. “Three blank birth certificates, as requested.”
José took a quick glance at the paperwork and looked back at his friend. His soaked suit wasn’t the sole sign of trouble. His shirt collar had been torn, his bottom lip cut, his hands red. But José’s own actions were all he worried about at this moment. “Gracias, Fermín I won’t forget this.”
“We could have made money off at least the young baby,” Fermín replied. “Do you want the whore’s children?”
“My wife does, and we can give them a loving home. It’s the least I can do after last night.”
“You don’t owe anyone anything, José. We’re above the law.”
José swallowed and glanced over his shoulder at the stairwell. “I did it again,” he whispered.
“What? Squirted inside your trousers while your wife was still getting her clothes off?” Fermín joked.
José held out a red hand, which matched Fermín’s own bruised digits. “I killed another woman.”
“Did you fuck her, too?”
“No!”
“Can I?”
“Damn it, Fermín, there’s a body under the stairs! Aná, the stupid bitch who lives in the apartment down here heard our phone conversation.”
“You were right to kill her then. Strangled?”
“Bashed her head.”
“Nice, now you won’t mind what I’m about to tell you.”
“What?”
“Doctor Lugo was sick. His wife wouldn’t let me in, so I forced my way into the place. Naturally, by the time the wife had picked herself up off the rug in the hallway, Adán came out of his bedroom, still in his bedclothes, to see what had happened. He got mad, refused the paperwork…”
“So how did you get it?”
“I grabbed a knife and threatened his wife.”
“God in heaven,” José muttered.
“Then it got out of hand.” Fermín paused and dabbed his lip.
“Long story short, Fermín. Did you hurt anyone? What about their daughters? Did they witness this farce?”
“No, none of the girls were there. They’re in for a shock when they get home.”
“Why?”
“I had to hold the knife to Adán’s wife, so he would get the paperwork.”
“Shit, Fermín, I didn’t need it that much! You shouldn’t have done that!”
“I threatened his wife and Adán still wouldn’t do as I asked. He said he wouldn’t help us anymore. He said, for the safety of his family, he would tell our boss what we’ve been doing.”
“What the hell are we going to do?”
“Don’t worry; I stabbed his wife in the stomach. She died fast.”
José felt a pain his head, and saw a flash of white light. His body seemed to be being heading for shock as he tried to process the last few crazy minutes. His throat already felt drier than a desert. “You killed Rosalía?”
“It’s amazing to watch a doctor try to save his own wife. I stabbed her so hard the knife punctured through her back. The sight of that much blood was exhilarating,” Fermín replied with relish.
“How could you?”
“You just bashed your neighbour to death, so your wife can steal babies from a whore.”
“Adán will contact the police and they will come for us! Our own colleagues will be after us!”
“No.” Fermín paused and smiled. José hated the sight of Fermín’s rotting back teeth. “Adán won’t speak, not with a cut throat.”
“You killed him, too?”
“As I said, the daughters will be in for a shock.”
“We can’t leave the bodies there for their children to find!” José cried. He was in danger of yelling in the stairwell, but calm wasn’t an option anymore. “We can’t come back from something like this! A double murder? This can’t be shoved out of sight!”
“Triple murder,” Fermín commented. “We’ve both murdered two people in the last day.”
“What can we do now?”
“I don’t know. Dump the bodies in the river? It’s high right now. They will go straight out to sea.”
“The radio reports said not to worry about the river levels. We can’t rely on the river. Besides, bodies found with bashed skulls and stab wounds won’t be ruled as a drowning.”
“Fancy another ride into the mountains?”
“We need to be on call, in case the river rises any further.”
“Or, we could take these bodies up to the mountains, bury them, all under the guise of being out to help with flood warnings. No one is outside, the rain is horrendous. One more drive into the mountains and our problems could be solved.”
34
Valencia, España ~ Octobre de 1957
José never wanted to see that spot in the Valencian mountains again. He couldn’t be sure they buried Aná, Rosalía and Adán in the same spot Carmelita had been dumped the previous night. Every step on the mountain in the pissing rain seemed identical. Fermín seemed convinced he was going the right way, but José wasn’t so sure. As they slid down the muddy hillside towards the car, José saw a light in the distance; there was a house nearby. They had buried four bodies in someone’s backyard. Someone owned this land. If there was a God, He wouldn’t wash up the bodies with the deluge. Adán ended up decapitated, thanks to the cut throat and rough reburial. Aná’s neck must have been broken; her head rolled around as it became unattached from her body. No one deserved to come across the burial site.
The car inched its way down the road, now little more than a mudslide. The rain eased off, now just a drizzle, enough to make the drive a little less of a battle against death. Every time the car slipped in the mud, José gripped his seat. “Fuck, Fermín, why couldn’t we bury them somewhere easier to navigate?”
“We don’t need to get caught,” Fermín said as he leaned forward over his steering wheel in an attempt to see the road in the dark. “We’re doing God’s work, José. Remember that, God’s work. These people these anti-Francoists, whores, they mean nothing. We haven’t done anything wrong. Out here, in the isolation, God’s work has been done.”
“Then why are we risking death out in the middle of nowhere to hide the evidence?”
“Stop getting so caught up in the details, José. You wanted those babies, and now you have them.”
As they entered the village of Náquera, part way down the mountain, José shivered in his uniform. “Something is wrong here. Very wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, no one is here, no lights are on in the houses. The village is deserted, in silence.”
But not for long. The sound of water took over the silence inside the car as they rounded a corner to cross the tiny river that ran through the village. Fermín slammed on the brakes, and they slid to a stop. The bridge had already been inundated by water flowing down the mountain.
“What the hell are we going to do?” José cried.
“Stay calm,” Fermín said, and put the car into gear. “We can get through the water.”
“The water is too fast to drive through; it will wash us away.”
“The barrier of the bridge may save us if I’m wrong.”
José gripped the door handle as they pushed through the water. He watched water begin to pour under the door, and he lifted his feet in panic. But Fermín was correct; they managed to cross the river with little trouble.
“See?” Fermín reasoned as he struggled to change gear with the wet clutch. “I told you we could do it.”
“What if the water rises further? All the people will be washed away.”
“That’s what I thought when we drove through Serra, but you were too busy panicking to notice.”
“We need to go home
. If this water washes down to the city, the river will burst its banks.”
“Never mind what’s flowing down the Sierra Calderona. This will flow into the river that flows out to Sagunto. It will be their problem, not Valencia’s.”
“How do we know it’s not worse in Valencia? We need to get back; we may be needed.”
“If the river bursts, there’s nothing we can do.”
“But my family is there, Fermín!”
“On the fourth floor, so don’t worry. Consuela and Inés will be fine.”
José shook his head and tuned the radio until he could pick up the faint signal of Valencia Sur. The monotone announcer talked about rain, the rivers, and various other things going in the city, but all seemed calm. José looked out and noticed the rain had stopped; maybe things weren’t so bad after all.
The short drive from Náquera to Bétera near the base of the mountain took twenty minutes on the winding and slippery road. Bétera, too, had been plunged into darkness.
“Where is everyone?” José pondered and glanced at his watch. 22:30.
“I’m guessing they have no power!” Fermín cried and slammed the brakes again. The street before them had filled with water, only ankle deep, but still, enough to be worried.
“The river through here must have burst!” José said and looked around the car. A few shacks dotted the landscape; the village itself resided over the river.
“It’s not too bad,” Fermín said and began edging the car through the fast flowing water. “We might be okay.”
“That tiny bridge won’t take us to safety.”
“Safety? José, the Turia plains are as flat as a ten-year-old girl’s tits. If the river bursts, we can kiss goodbye any chance of going home, never mind just getting through the pointless village of Bétera.”
“I’m sure the good citizens of the Bétera wouldn’t agree.”
They stopped at the edge the river, and the lights of the soaked car looked over the cascading water. The bridge was visible just under the water. Waves of dirty water lapped over the edges and added to the stream making its way towards dark single-level homes.
“It’s now or never,” Fermín said, and swallowed hard. “Do we try to drive over the water?”
“The water must be up to the windows of the car already!”
“No, it’s not that bad.”
“We could die right now.”
“We could stay here, hope the water eases, but I don’t like the odds.”
‘Atención, atención, atención… this is a significant announcement for all those in the Valencia area. Officials have received reports of a flood heading for the city of Valencia, after the villages of Pedralba and Vilamarxant washed away around thirty minutes ago. All those near the Manises dam, and onwards through the Valencia city area are advised to evacuate the immediate vicinity. The water level will rise and potentially flood the city in one hour’
José looked away from the radio as the monotone announcer became filled with panic. He looked at his friend, who looked just as worried. “We need to be in Valencia!” he cried. “We need to help people!”
Fermín banged his foot on the accelerator and the car burst into the water on the bridge. He drove as far right on the bridge as possible, but the water shoved the car to the left the moment they moved onto the bridge. Fermín struggled against the water, and José could see the edge of the bridge right next to him, only a few meters away. Death in the dark water did its best to entice the officers over the edge. It felt like the longest 100 metres of José’s life as the fragile Puente de la Carraixet delivered them to the safety of the Bétera township. But as the water continued to spill over the banks, safety wouldn’t exist for long.
They drove at high speed, José clinging on as the water receded behind them. The village people might have their own authorities to help them, and perhaps many had already found a way to leave the area.
“At least the rain has stopped,” Fermín muttered as he kept his eyes fixed on the narrow road ahead of him.
“It’s at least another twenty kilometres to the city,” José replied. “They need to know the Barranco del Carraixet is bursting its banks.”
“They should already know,” Fermín said without looking at his friend. “Villages further up the river have been getting huge rainfall. Surely someone has alerted people. Places like Segorbe further north can alert people down here, if anyone has a phone. Does this village have a power supply?”
“If the Manises dam is flooding, then Valencia is our main concern,” José said, more to himself than to Fermín. “Jesus, what if the Turia bursts its banks?”
“It has before, plenty of times. We should have waited for the flood waters and just dumped the bodies. Would have saved me a fortune in petrol!”
The impending waters made José forget all about the four bodies slammed into the mud in the Sierra Calderona. All he cared about was being home on Calle de Reloj Viejo with Consuela. “We shouldn’t have come out here. We shouldn’t have left the city.”
“We had no choice! Hours ago there was no warning about flooding. We drove over Puente de Aragon bridge and remarked on the high water level, but it didn’t look as if it were about to explode over the city! We can’t predict the future.”
“Then we need to make our own luck,” José mumbled.
Every village along at the Turia plains had an eerie feel. Each seemed dominated by the sound of the water supply to the area gushing far beyond what the canals had seen before tonight. Moncada, Rocafort, Godella, Burjassot, each village dotted the darkened roads, all sitting prey to rising waters. When they reached the Campanar area on the north side of the Turia, José got a chance to see anything in the lit streets.
“We should go and see if the river can still be crossed,” José said, one hand on the dashboard. He would swim the Turia river now if he had to; the possibility terrified him.
“Let’s try Puente de Serranos,” Fermín said, and steered his car through the narrow sodden streets surrounded by mostly one and two level buildings. He brought the car to a stop on Calle de Sagunto, the small road that led straight over the river and into the heart of the city. A Guardia Civil car blocked the way, but José felt happy to toss anyone aside to get home.
The guard who stood by his car saw José and Fermín jump out in their muddy wet uniforms and smiled in recognition. “Amigos,” he said. “Have you come to help?”
“Who are you?” José asked.
“Teniente Roig. This is my barrio.”
“What needs to be done?” Fermín asked.
“We have gone door-to-door in the last hour, warning people the streets may flood. People are sleeping, or reluctant to leave their homes in the night. Many have no form of transport. Over the river in Valencia, people are safer, but here…”
José followed the trail of words as the officer gestured at the surrounding buildings. This side of the river was nothing like the other. Here, people lived a simpler life, in smaller homes, plenty without basic facilities. Many were labourers in the fields nearby. Some even considered themselves to be in their own town, with Valencia ‘over the river’. If the torrent flooded the area, these people would be in danger. José listened, but nothing could be heard over the roaring river at the end of the street.
“What can we do to help?” José asked with a raised voice.
“At this point, keep people back from the river,” Teniente Roig replied. “The river may not burst its banks, after all, the rain has stopped.”
“We’ve been up in the mountains, and villages are starting to flood. The bridges are already inundated.”
“We can help those from this area, or at least get them as high up as we can. There is nowhere to run. We’ll push people up onto roofs if we have to, and it may happen.”
“I need to cross the river,” José said, with the hope that his stern tone would make his worry clear.
“I’m sorry, we can’t do that. The water is inches from the road and lo
gs have clogged the archways under the bridges, especially Puente de Serranos over here.” The officer gestured over his shoulder. “The bridge has been closed over an hour now.”
José glanced at his watch; 00:05. If the flood did burst over the parapet, it might not reach all the way to his apartment building. It was hundreds of metres from the riverbed. But the roar of the water spoke of anger; José could see lights reflecting off the water in the distance, and the speed was like nothing he had ever seen.
The air filled with a chilling noise; the bell in the tower at the Parroquia de El Salvador y Santa Monica. The church, which looked over the river, was sending a message.
“God in heaven,” the young officer called out. “The bell should only sound if the water rises over the parapet!”
The three sprinted down the lane to Calle de Guadalaviar, but they knew nothing could be done. They stood beside the street that lined the edge of the riverbed and watched as an avalanche of water spilled over the stone edge. It swallowed the road and headed straight towards them. The noise; above the sound of the anger of the water, the trees whipped in the heavy breeze. José felt swallowed up by the disaster before him.
“To the church!” Teniente Roig screamed in terror and Fermín grabbed José’s shirt as he tried to run. The trio were already knee-deep, incapable of moving at any great speed as the strength of the flood pushed at their desperate legs. José heard a shriek, a high pitched noise over the vast furious water and he turned. He saw a girl in the water, already lost to the current, floating in his path.
“Leave her!” Fermín cried. They were only a few steps from the church. Once they opened the large wooden door to the place would be flooded, and they needed to try to shut the water out the moment they got indoors.
“Go!” José cried back to his friend, and started wading out against the torrent. In the streetlights still on around the tiny Plaza de Santa Monica, José could see his chance to intercept the little girl. The moment she fell against him, José lost his footing and fell straight back into the water. His body didn’t even hit the ground; the water was rising at in incomprehensible rate. José gasped as his face reached the surface, and the girl clung to him, desperate to breathe through the muddy wrath trying to drown them.
Secrets of Spain Trilogy Page 74