“I disagree; you’re a beautiful woman who does not look as if she has four children.”
“Cycling will do that. Even the sanest woman needs an hour on her bike now and then.”
“I think you worry too much.”
Luna just shrugged. It was the same discussion that had gone around in circles for years. “So, how did you get Paco to come today? And he is going to Jerez? It will be the first fight he attends since Inés passed.”
“I didn’t do anything, nor anyone else. Paco simply announced last night he wanted to visit Jerez with us. He wanted to surprise Caya.”
“Paco has succeeded. I need to get the children to school, so I’ll leave Caya and Paco in your hands.”
“Lucky me,” Miguel muttered under his breath as they went back to the high-ceiling living room. “Already I have to deal with six hours of arguing in the van!”
“It’s the same as we always take!” Cayetano yelled at his father. “I haven’t added any extra suits to the travel wardrobe.”
“But you don’t need six suits for Jerez, and you always fight in royal blue there. There no need to take the red or purple,” Paco said, waving his arms at the suits still not packed for the journey.
“But…”
“But nothing, boy.”
“I hate to break up the party, but I need to leave. Is the Rebelión van parked on the driveway?” Luna asked.
“No,” Paco said. “Do you need to take the boys to school?”
“Yes, can I leave Paquito and Scarlett here, or are you leaving soon? I will be away for ten minutes.”
“Team Beltrán won’t leave until ten,” Miguel told her. “I’ll babysit for you so these two can keep arguing.”
“Time to go,” Luna called up the stairs and noted Enzo’s shoes had found their way onto his feet.
“What’s this about you and Darren?” Cayetano asked Luna as Giacomo and Enzo brought Paquito down the stairs and dashed to their waiting bags in the kitchen. “Giacomo said he heard you talking about working for Darren.”
“A bullfighter’s wife holding down a job?” Paco said. “Times have changed.”
“Indeed, welcome to the 21st century. You’re a little late but still welcome,” Luna frowned and folded her arms. “Most wives work since a bullfighter’s wage doesn’t set the world on fire. A lucky few bullfighters earn well. Anyway, Giacomo knows nothing.”
“Neither do I and I’m your husband.”
“I’m glad we had this chat in private.” Luna’s sarcasm sounded sharp.
“Leave the girl alone,” Paco warned his son.
“Five minutes back and you’re already bossing me around!” Cayetano shot back.
“And you can thank Luna for her wise words. Luna is the reason I’m here.”
“I’m happy for you, Paco,” Luna said and unfolded her arms. “Darren made me an offer to have a few weeks work in France when he cycles the Tour. I’m sure the pair of you could watch the four children, ¿no?”
Cayetano and Paco looked at one another but said nothing.
“The silence is reassuring,” Luna continued. “Caya, they are your children.”
“I realise that, it’s just…”
“You’ve never taken the children anywhere in the five years you’ve spent as Giacomo and Enzo’s father, and two years since Paquito and Scarlett were born. Perhaps retirement will enlighten you.”
Paco chuckled, a deep, throaty sound no one had heard in a long time. “My son learns something new every day.”
“Does everyone think me a bad father?” Cayetano scoffed.
“No, darling,” Luna said with a grin. “Just an absent one, thanks to bullfighting. Paco, please, talk this one into enjoying his fight in Jerez tomorrow, rather than worrying about the future.”
“We live in Spain, everyone worries about the future. It’s become a national pastime thanks to the economy,” Miguel said.
“Take a break for one day,” Luna suggested.
“I agree,” Paco said. “We’ll need you, Luna, and the children for a photo shoot at Rebelión soon. Jaime and Hector have arranged an interview with one of those celebrity magazines.”
“Oh joy.”
“Hurry up, Mamá!” Giacomo called from the entranceway.
“I have my task masters,” Luna mumbled.
“See? You don’t need to get a job,” Cayetano said with an air of authority. “You’re already a master of this world, just like my Mamá was once, God rest her soul.”
Luna left her husband without another word and headed outside to where her enormous Audi awaited. Gone were the days of her tiny car and being a nervous driver; four kids and a celebrity husband meant Luna had ended up with a huge car. Just another item that betrayed who Luna felt she was. But when living in La Moraleja, appearances needed to be maintained. Cayetano Beltrán’s wife couldn’t be seen driving just any old car. She glanced down at her clothes, just jeans and a long-sleeve shirt, in the design of Darren’s cycling team. The other school children got dropped off by nannies, grandparents or parents heading into the office for the day.
Luna’s phone rang as she got behind the wheel. “We’ll never get there at this rate,” Enzo moaned.
“I never realised you loved school so much,” Luna wisecracked. “Straighten your collar.” She took the call behind the wheel while the children buckled their seatbelts. “¿Si?”
“Luna, it’s Jorge Arias, from the historical memory association.”
“Jorge! Good morning, it’s been a while.” Jorge Arias had been the one to help Luna uncover the four bodies in Escondrijo’s mass grave four years ago, when she had her accident. Jorge had gone on to recover all four bodies and all associated items found at the scene. But four years on, all the bodies lay in a lab outside Madrid.
“Could we talk about Escondrijo? I’m sure you’re busy…”
Cayetano was the one who didn’t like to discuss the bodies found at Escondrijo, or the bodies of both his and Luna’s grandparents, still buried there. But Cayetano would be off to Jerez with the bullfighting circus. “On the contrary, Jorge, I have all the time in the world.”
~~~
Plaza Isabel II, a small square near the royal palace, bustled with life in the early afternoon. The Teatro Real, a coffin-shaped theatre looked shut tight, and its arch entries locked. Luna dodged a wad of people who were hurrying from the Operá Metro exits in the centre of the plaza and headed to the restaurant on the corner. Luna could already see her lunch companion sitting at a table outside the entrance, under shade of a dark umbrella. Madrid could be a real mixed bag in May, but the weather was warm for a change.
“Sorry about the touristy location,” Jorge apologised as Luna parked her wide double pram next to the small metal table and kissed Jorge’s cheeks. “I had to meet someone earlier, and they didn’t know Madrid. I had to meet them in an easy, open location. If I had taken them to my local bar, they would still be searching the streets now.”
“No problem,” Luna said as she adjusted the sun cover on the double pram. She used it more for keeping the hands of older ladies from getting in the pram as opposed to the sun. Scarlett and Paquito were both sound asleep after a long walk around the jammed streets of Madrid. The intense noise and bustle of the city didn’t faze them at all, unlike their mother. “It’s a shame it’s too early for vermouth.”
“Indeed. This place is the real deal when it comes to vermouth from the barrel.” Jorge glanced at his watch. “Yeah, too early. I’ve ordered coffee, juice and tortilla. I hope that’s okay.”
“Sure.” Luna glanced at Jorge’s black T-shirt, emblazoned with the purple, gold and red logo of the historical memory association, where he worked. Jorge’s dark brown hair looked in need of a trim. “Thanks for your call, Jorge. I know it’s been a while…”
“Not at all; for me, time has flown by.”
“I asked you to come to Valencia and dig up bodies, and then just left them with you.”
Jorge chuckled as
the waiter delivered their snacks with a frown; digging up bodies wasn’t typical restaurant conversation. At almost 40, the unusual career choice showed on Jorge’s face. He paused until the waiter left before he spoke again. “The four bodies we found at Escondrijo are perfectly safe with us at the lab. Have you thought any more about digging up your grandfather and Cayetano’s grandmother?”
“I confess I haven’t. I’m ashamed of how long this has all drawn out.”
“It’s not an easy choice, and the whole affair caused your family much distress. Plus you had a massive head trauma and then two more children. Children always make people re-evaluate. Sometimes the past needs to stay quiet for the future to flourish.”
“Isn’t your association doing the exact opposite by exposing the past to let people move into the future?” Luna sipped her coffee, always too bitter for her taste. Even after all this time in Spain, the cheap torrefacto coffee still didn’t agree with her.
“Sí,” Jorge said and smiled, “however, nothing about digging up murdered relatives is easy.”
“I am not living at Escondrijo. I want to, but I’m not. Paco’s mother has been buried there for 75 years, as has my grandfather. I want to live in the mountains outside Valencia, but life hasn’t been too kind in that regard.”
“Do you feel that the bodies are abandoned at Escondrijo?”
“Yes. At least when Alejandro Beltrán was alive, he cared for the graves. Now, he is dead, and his ashes still aren’t scattered there. But then, my parents are buried in a plot together in New Zealand, and I never see them. My parents have other relatives, but I have abandoned them on the other side of the world.”
“I understand this is an emotional situation.” Jorge could easily sympathise, and understood the guilt in Luna’s voice; he had dug up his own grandfather.
“Perhaps it’s time the bodies got moved.” Luna shrugged and glanced at her babies asleep in their reclined seats, dressed in matching apple-green clothes. “I don’t know. Why did you call me, Jorge?”
“It’s about the other bodies, the 1957 mass grave. I know one body has a DNA link to Cayetano’s cousin, Miguel. I realise announcing that your uncles are not biological related to their parents would be difficult, so you have done nothing. However, this young woman’s body remains in storage. You suspect the identities of the older couple found buried, but we still don’t have a formal identification.”
That was the Valencian family Luna wanted to visit. The only daughter of five to survive the Valencian flood of 1957. This woman’s parents were in a Madrid lab when they could have been in a plot with their four drowned daughters. But announcing they got murdered, not washed out to sea by the floods would do the woman harm and a lot of grief if Luna was wrong about the bodies’ identities.
“The fourth body is the reason for my phone call,” Jorge explained. “The DNA database in Valencia, set up to help stolen babies find their mothers, has found a match with our body number four. A woman in her late fifties has identified as a match. A mother of eight went missing in the 1957 flood, never seen again. Aná’s Munoz’s children, aged between 16 and a newborn, went into an orphanage until they came of age. But the youngest got sold to a family in Valencia. Now, the baby has found all of her siblings, and, it seems you helped to unearth her mother.”
“That’s terrific news! That was what I was hoping for when I had the graves dug up in the first place!”
Jorge’s face burst into a grin and nodded with enthusiasm. “It’s great when we get matches for lost bodies. The body is technically under the care of me at the lab and filed under your name since it’s your land. With your permission, we can sign the paperwork and release the body to the family.”
“Yes, of course,” Luna stumbled. “It’s fantastic news!”
“Señora Ortiz Munoz still lives Valencia, with one of her sisters. The women discovered their father was a man named Simon Ortiz Bedolla, who abandoned their mother, Aná Munoz Aguas, just after the youngest child was born. I have spoken to Señora Ortiz at length. However, she wants to meet with you, to thank you.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“On the contrary, you have served up the final piece in Ortiz Munoz family puzzle. The oldest child is 73 now. Time isn’t on their side.”
“I don’t know how their mother ended up in a grave in the Sierra Calderona.”
“We may never know that.”
“But still, we have made a huge step forward thanks to the DNA database in Valencia. I’m so pleased to hear that all the grief of digging up those graves has brought happiness.”
“It brings me to the other bodies found at Escondrijo.” Jorge leaned forward in his seat, his elbows on the table. “You mentioned you may know the identity of the older couple, and maybe it’s a link we should pursue. I can do it all, of course.”
“I have thought many times about chasing up Montserrat Lugo Sueño, to see if she is the daughter of the couple in the grave.”
“Please, refresh my memory.”
“After the flood of Valencia 1957, the home of Doctor Adán Lugo Gil, a man in his fifties, and his wife, Rosalina Sueño Agron, got submerged. Their bodies were never found, but the bodies of four of their daughters were found. The youngest, a girl of ten named Montserrat, survived the flood and got raised by her aunt.”
“You think they didn’t drown in the flood, they were murdered.”
“If this Aná Munoz was declared missing presumed dead after the flood, but her body was at Escondrijo, then maybe Adán Lugo and Rosalína Sueño were, too.”
“Suddenly, your theory is looking accurate, thanks to the discovery of Aná’s identity. If you send me the details of your investigations, I will follow it up for you, Luna.”
“Can I come too?”
Jorge swallowed a mouthful of his tortilla and paused. “I don’t see why not. Are you going to be in Valencia soon?”
“Any time you’re free.”
“What about Cayetano?”
“Cayetano is heading to Jerez. It’s hard to keep up with the schedule. I’m on my own a lot of the time. Cayetano never felt comfortable with the graves and the processes. But I have never lost hope.”
“I’ll let you know when I can contact Señora Lugo Sueño then. I find face-to-face is better than email or phone call, especially with something so sensitive.”
“I agree.”
“That just leaves the body of the last woman, still unnamed. What is your families’ theory on her identity?”
“Her identity is still a mystery, Jorge. All we have been able to surmise is that Cayetano’s maternal grandparents, José and Consuela Morales, had a daughter Inés, Cayetano’s mother. Then they somehow gained three more sons while they lived in Valencia. The Morales’ moved to Madrid and raised their family. Then Miguel, son of the oldest boy in question, became a DNA match for the body.”
“The body unidentified is the biological mother of Cayetano’s uncles. Do you think they are ready for the truth? When did their adoptive parents die?”
“In 2010, not long after my head injury. Inés, Cayetano’s mother, died in 2012.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. We need to know if all three are the children of a woman in the grave. Perhaps just one of Cayetano’s uncles is related to this woman.”
“Looking at Pedro, Jaime and Luis is like looking at a triple mirror reflection.”
“Ah,” Jorge said and ran his finger around the edge of his orange juice glass. “Only telling the truth will get this body officially identified.”
“I’ll think about it. Since Inés died, Cayetano’s father Paco has been a mess. It’s all delicate at the moment. Do you need the body moved from the lab?”
“I would like to, yes, if that is not too insensitive. We’ve just unearthed another 80 bodies in Bierzo, a wine region in northwest León. We need all the space we can get, so I’m being pushed to solve some other cases so these bodies can come to Madrid.”
“Eighty bodies. My God
.”
“That’s over 1100 in that one small area alone now. The horror of it all.”
“You need to focus on recovering murdered wartime bodies and need my murders out of the way.”
“Never, Luna. No one death is more or less important than another. Every grave receives the same respect.”
“Then let me donate to the cause. And volunteer my time.”
“Can you do that, with four children?”
“I can make time and bring the children with me. I’m the ultimate multitasker.”
“All help is gratefully received. The grants we get from the UN barely cover costs.”
“Then let’s get busy helping some families.”
8
Valencia, España ~ Septiembre de 1975
“So, where was the bombing?”
Jaime pushed his sunglasses, onto the bridge of his nose, and looked at his younger brother. It was Luis’ first trip to Valencia. The 18-year-old rarely left Rebelión, happy instead to spend time caring for the bulls on the farm. The pair sat perched on enormous circular water fountain in the centre Plaza del Caudillo. They took in the late summer sun while Luis enjoyed a Coke, something José never brought home from Madrid when he ventured into the city.
“It wasn’t a bombing,” Jaime replied, and gestured with the newspaper in his hand. “It was just a fire which hit a gas line. The owners were lucky it wasn’t worse.” Jaime pointed towards Calle de Ruzafa, on the far side of the cavernous plaza surrounded by six and seven storey buildings, to show Luis where all the action had happened. “That street there, the narrow one, and the bar we were in is the semi-circle shaped one on the corner.”
“I wonder if that waitress you mentioned is there, the one who helped Pedro when he had his panic attack.”
“Do you fancy trying your luck on the pretty waitress, Luis?”
Secrets of Spain Trilogy Page 95