The Fifth Column

by James Garcia Woods

  But I am, Paco thought. I’d never have believed it was possible to hurt so much.

  “Shouldn’t she be in a hospital?” he demanded.

  “The nearest one to here is in Albacete. If I didn’t even want to run the risk involved in moving her upstairs, I’m not likely to advise you to move her all that way, am I?”

  “We could travel slowly,” Paco said desperately. “We could take care not to do anything which might do her more harm.”

  “Even if you managed to get her there without further harm being done, there’s nothing they could do for her there that we aren’t doing here. We just have to let nature take its course.”

  Why Cindy? Paco asked himself anguishedly. If the bastards wanted to hurt somebody, why didn’t they hurt me?

  “My niece and I will take good care of her,” said a voice to his left. “We have both nursed the sick before.”

  Paco turned towards the woman. This was her house. This was where Cindy had been found bleeding on the doorstep.

  “Thank you, Señora Munoz,” he said. “And thank you, Señorita Prieto,” he added, speaking to Concha Prieto, the niece.

  “Perhaps you should go now,” the doctor suggested to the ex-policeman.

  “Is there nothing I can do to help?” Paco asked.

  “No, not at the moment. But come back later. Sit and talk to her for a while.”

  “Will that do any good? Will she even be able to hear me?”

  “We can have no way of knowing that for certain, but it’s possible that some of what you say may perhaps get through to her brain.”

  That was something at least. Paco told himself. It might be no more than the desperately thin straw which a drowning man was said to clutch at, but it was a straw, nevertheless.

  Fat Felipe had been standing by the door, but now he walked over to Paco.

  “Could you use a drink, jefe?" he asked tentatively.

  “Use one?” Paco replied. “I need one – like I’ve never needed one before in my entire life.”

  In his panicked haste to see Cindy, Paco had noticed nothing when he entered Senora Muñoz’s house. Now, as he left it again, he saw the stain by the doorstep for the first time.

  It was a darker brown than the almost-frozen earth it had itself spread over. Even without prior knowledge of what had occurred there. Paco would have recognized it for what it was.

  It was blood!

  Cindy’s blood!

  He felt a lurching sensation in his stomach, and it was as much as he could do to prevent himself from doubling up and vomiting beside it.

  “Don’t look at it!” Felipe urged. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “I ... I...” Paco gagged.

  “Let’s go and get that drink you said you wanted so badly,” Felipe suggested, grasping his boss’s arm firmly with his podgy hand, and steering him away from the obscene reminder of what had happened to the woman he loved.

  It was a short walk up the side street to Calle de las Murallas, but with every step a fresh needle of anguish stabbed at Paco’s brain.

  Cindy had been seriously hurt.

  Perhaps she was dying.

  Perhaps she was already dead.

  And it was all his fault – because he was the one who had brought her to San Antonio.

  Felipe shepherded him into the bar he’d visited the night before in the company of Dolores McBride. As on the previous evening, the place was full of peasant farmers and mechanics. They were all talking animatedly when the door opened, but the moment they saw who the new arrivals were, they fell silent.

  So they all knew! Paco thought. But of course they knew! Why would he ever have imagined that they wouldn’t? In a town the size of San Antonio news spread faster than if it had been broadcast on the radio.

  Felipe glanced around the room at the frozen, pitying faces.

  “What’s the matter with you lot?” he demanded roughly. “Is the sight of two old mates out for a drink together so strange that it stops you arguing about the price of potatoes? Get back to your business, and leave us alone to get on with ours.”

  The peasants and mechanics turned away. Conversations started again, beginning as hushed whispers but slowly climbing back up to level they were at when the two madrileños first entered the bar.

  Felipe turned to the waiter.

  “We’ll be sitting at the table in the corner and we’ll be drinking Fundador brandy,” he said. “Bring a full bottle, because we’ll probably want it all.”

  He led Paco over to the table, and the two men sat down. When the waiter brought the brandy, Felipe watched him pour it, and did not nod for him to stop until his boss’s glass was filled almost to the brim.

  “Tell me how it happened,” Paco said hoarsely.

  “Where do you want me to start?”

  “At the beginning.”

  “Cindy and I spent most of the day going through the brigadistas’ statements. We’d just finished the job when we heard the tramping of their feet as they marched back into town. We had a list of the ones we wanted to talk to by then, so I suggested that we should start the interrogations straight away.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Cindy said the Lincolns would he exhausted after their maneuvers, and we’d get much more out of them if we allowed them the time to take a short rest.” Felipe paused, as if debating whether to say more, then added, “Besides, she said there was something she had to do first.”

  “Did she say what it was?”

  Felipe looked down at the table.

  “She said she needed to find you.”

  “Did she tell you why?”

  Felipe closed his eyes and concentrated.

  “She said that you’re a clever man – probably even as clever as you think you are – but that when you get things wrong, you get them wronger than anyone else she’s ever met. And you were wrong this time – so it was about time she put you right.”

  “What was it that I was supposed to have gotten wrong?”

  “Cindy didn’t say, jefe. But whatever it was, she seemed to think it was important.”

  Important to them? Paco wondered.

  Or important to the case they were working on?

  Would he ever know the answer to that now?

  “What happened next?”

  “We agreed to meet outside the brigadistas’ barracks at six o’clock. Cindy went off looking for you, and I thought I’d use the time to go down to the nearest bar and order a few snacks.”

  “When did all this take place?”

  “It must have been around about a quarter past five.”

  “Go on.”

  “About fifteen minutes later, Señora Munoz rushed into the bar where I was eating and told me that Cindy was lying in the alley outside her house with blood pouring from her head. I got there as quickly as I could. It was obvious what had happened. Somebody had hit her from behind. I knew she wasn’t dead or she wouldn’t have still been bleeding, but I checked her pulse anyway. Then I told Señora Munoz to fetch a doctor as quickly as she could. You know the rest.”

  Why would anyone attack Cindy? She was a stranger in San Antonio. She knew no one, and no one knew her. There was absolutely no reason why anyone should wish to harm her. Unless...

  Unless Samuel Johnson’s murderer was afraid she had uncovered some clue which could put him in danger!

  “When you were going through the statements together, was there any point at which Cindy seemed particularly excited?” Paco asked.

  “Not really what you might call excited,” the fat constable replied cautiously. “But she did seem a bit abstract – as if something was preying on her mind – almost from the start.”

  But did that abstraction she’d displayed have anything to do with the murder – or was it more concerned with what had passed between them the previous evening? Perhaps she had merely wanted to tell him that Greg Cummings posed no threat to their rela
tionship – because she'd already learned that her ex-instructor was involved in a passionate affair with Dolores McBride.

  So why had someone attacked her? Why had someone run such a risk simply to prevent her from telling him something which could have nothing to do with the murder?

  Because the killer didn't know that! He saw her on the street, noticed the look of determination on her face, and assumed, possibly wrongly, that she was on to him. Looked at in that way, it didn’t matter a damn what she knew – only what the killer thought she knew.

  Paco took a generous gulp of his brandy. Whichever angle he examined the situation from, he was forced back to the same conclusion. If he wanted to find the man who had hurt Cindy, he needed to find the man who had killed Samuel Johnson – because they were one and the same.

  The door of the bar swung open, and Dolores McBride entered. The journalist glanced around the room, then made straight for the table where the two detectives were sitting.

  “Do you mind if I join you?” she asked, with none of her usual confidence evident in her voice.

  Paco nodded wearily. “Why not?”

  Dolores sat down opposite him, reached across the table and took his hands in hers.

  “I just can’t find the words to tell you how sorry I am,” she said, with a catch on her throat. “When I think that the poor girl was being attacked while I was ... I was ...”

  While you were sating your sexual appetite, Paco thought viciously, pulling his hands free of hers. While you were rutting with Greg Cummings like a sow in heat!

  He was being both illogical and unfair, he realized. However questionable Dolores McBride’s morals were, it wasn’t her fault that Cindy was teetering on the verge of death – and at least she’d been decent enough to come and express her sympathy.

  “Will you be going back to Madrid now?” the journalist asked.

  “No. The doctor thinks that it would be dangerous to move Cindy for the moment. Besides, I still have a case to investigate.”

  “You’re going on with the investigation despite what’s happened?" Dolores said, shaking her head in admiration. “Well, I’ll say one thing for you, you’ve got some kinda cojones.”

  Yes, in that respect he had nothing to reproach himself for. But would he ever be able to look in the mirror again without blaming the face which was staring back at him for what had happened to Cindy?

  “Look, I feel a bit awkward saying this, but if you’re still intent on tracking down your murderer, you’re going to need a new translator,” Dolores McBride told him.

  She was right about that, of course. He could never run his investigation without one.

  “Are you volunteering for the job?” he asked. “Yeah, I’ll do it. Unless, of course, you can think of anybody else you’d rather use.”

  But there was nobody else – except possibly Greg Cummings.

  “I’d appreciate your help,” he said.

  Dolores turned to Felipe.

  “Would you excuse us for a few moments?” she asked the fat constable.

  “Of course,” Felipe said, raising his huge bulk from his stool and lumbering over to the counter.

  “Is there something you wanted to say that you’d rather he didn’t hear?” Paco asked, when Felipe was well away from them.

  “No, but there’s something I want to say that he’d probably prefer not to hear.”

  “Go on.”

  Dolores lit up an American cigarette.

  “There are several reasons why I’ve volunteered to be your translator. The first is that somebody has to do it, and I’ve got more free time on my hands than most of the Yanks round here. The second is that I want to track down Sam’s killer – probably even more than you do. But it’s the third reason that made me ask your fat friend to leave. I like you, and I want to do anything I can – and I mean anything – to make your life a little easier.”

  “You’re propositioning me again,” Paco said.

  “Hell, no. I’m just saying that if you want some physical relief – and a lot of men find that makes things easier to bear – then I’m available. It doesn’t have to mean anything to either of us. I don’t even have to enjoy it myself. Don’t look on it as betraying Cindy – think of it just as a way of helping you to get through.”

  “You’re very kind,” Paco told her.

  Dolores reddened.

  “Oh Jeez, don’t start going all appreciative on me – I’d find that very hard to handle. Just use me anyway you think might help. And I mean that, Paco.”

  It was one of the few times she’d ever called him by his given name, and he was very uneasy about how comforted it made him feel.

  “I won’t ask you to sleep with me,” he said.

  “OK,” Dolores replied easily. “But I won’t hold you to that promise if you change your mind.” She took a long drag on her cigarette, and blew the smoke out of her slim nose. “So when do we roll up our sleeves and get to work? First thing in the morning?”

  Felipe and ... and ... Cindy... had spent most of the day going over the brigadistas statements, and but for the dreadful thing which had happened to her, they would already have begun the interrogations.

  “Could you start right now?” Paco asked.

  “Sure,” Dolores agreed. “Why not?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The logs in the fireplace were now no more than smoldering, though an occasional burst of flame would cast sudden shadows around the room and across the sheepskin rug.

  Just over an hour earlier, when he had blundered into this house by accident, it had been a very different scene, Paco thought. Then the fire had been burning fiercely, though it was doubtful whether that blaze had been able to match the ferocity of the two people who were locked together on the rug.

  He turned from the fire and looked across the table at one of those two people – Dolores McBride.

  “If you’re to do this job that you’ve taken on properly, you’re going to have to know a lot more than just know how to translate words from one language to another,” he said.

  “Like what?” the journalist asked, sounding intrigued.

  “It’s the little details which often matter most in an investigation like this one,” Paco explained, “and it’s just those little details which might get lost during the translation, unless you, Dolores, know enough about the background to realize they could be important.”

  Dolores McBride nodded sagely.

  “Seems as if your job’s not that different from mine. I spend a lot of my time collecting the little details so that I can build up the bigger picture.”

  That was probably true, Paco thought.

  “So let’s get down to business,” he suggested. “The reason I want you to listen in while Felipe and I discuss the case is so you’ll understand not only what we’re dealing with, but the way we deal with it.” He turned his attention to the fat constable, who was sitting on Dolores’ left. “What have you found out so far, Felipe?”

  Felipe shuffled through the stack of papers in front of him.

  “Most of the brigadistas have alibis for the half-hour each side of the time Samuel Johnson was probably killed,” he said.

  Dolores nodded again, this time to remind Paco that she’d already told him that would turn out to be the case.

  “Not that we can automatically accept any of those alibis at purely face value,” Paco said.

  Dolores’ eyes flashed with anger.

  “Are you saying that my comrades will have lied to you?” she demanded.

  “They don’t necessarily have to have lied,” Felipe told her diplomatically. “They could have misled us just as easily by not really knowing what the truth is themselves.”

  “You want to explain that to me?” Dolores asked – a little mollified, but only a little.

  “There are a number of ways it can happen,” Paco said. “Far too many to go into now. So let me give you just one example. You know what it’s like to be really drunk, don’t you?”<
br />
  Dolores laughed.

  “Sure, I do. Since I came to Spain, I’ve probably become one of the world’s leading experts on the subject.”

  “Say you’ve had a lot to drink, and you’re talking to your compañeros in a bar,” Paco said. “You look at your watch, and you see that it’s eleven o’clock. You continue arguing and joking for what seems to you like another ten minutes, then you check your watch again – and see that it’s half past one. Hasn’t that ever happened to you?”

  “Yeah, I suppose so,” Dolores agreed reluctantly.

  “That’s what booze does to people – it compresses time. Now imagine this. You’ve got a group of drunken brigadistas in the bar on the main square, and one of them says he has to go to the lavatory. His friends probably won’t even remember he’s left them. Why should they? Every one of them will need to empty his bladder at one time or another during the evening. And even if they do remember him leaving, they’ll probably believe he was only away for a minute or so.”

  “But he could have been away for much longer than that?” Dolores McBride interrupted him.

  “Exactly. He could have been away for fifteen or twenty minutes – which is plenty of time to walk to the church, murder someone, and get back to the Plaza Mayor. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

  “I see it, all right, but none of the brigade would ever have thought of killing Sam.”

  Paco sighed.

  “You can’t work with us if you have that kind of attitude,” he said.

  “What kind of attitude?”

  “When you’re investigating a case – or even if you’re only translating for the people who are investigating it – you have to force yourself to rule nothing out. Because if you start closing off avenues without any reason, you stand a good chance of missing a vital piece of information. I can’t have people who wear blinkers on my team.”

  Dolores thought over what he'd said for a few seconds, then grinned ruefully.

  “I’ve been falling into the trap of my own rhetoric, haven't I?” she said. “I’ve been assuming that because a group of men are involved in fighting for a noble cause, there’s not one of them who can have an evil bone in his body. Hell, somebody who’s been round the block as many times as I have should know that’s a complete load of bullshit.”