A Murder of No Consequence

by James Garcia Woods

  Paco shook his head. ‘I don’t think it’s going to be that simple,’ he said. ‘It never is with politics.’

  ‘Politics!’ Felipe snorted. ‘First you want nothing to do with them, jefe, and now you’ve got them on the brain.’

  Chapter Five

  To anyone looking in through the front window of the Cabo de Trafalgar bar that night, it would have been obvious that, of the three men sitting at the table closest to the door, two were engaged in a heated argument and the third was bored by the whole proceedings.

  ‘You left-wingers will be the downfall of the country,’ Ramón was saying as he skewered a piece of octopus from the plate in front of him and popped it into his mouth.

  ‘We socialists will be Spain’s salvation,’ Bernardo countered hotly. ‘It is the UGT who’ll rid our homeland of the priests and monarchists who have been sucking it dry for so long.’

  It hadn’t always been like this, Paco reminded himself. When they’d first become friends, eleven or twelve years earlier, they’d talked about other things. Women and food – two of the Spaniard’s great loves – had featured regularly in their conversations. And during the season, there had been much to say about the bulls. But now, Ramón and Bernardo – in common with most of the population of Madrid – seemed to live and breathe nothing except politics.

  Paco examined his two companions with a policeman’s eye. Ramón was a small man with a neat moustache and slicked-back hair. He worked as a minor clerk in one of the ministries, which, like the octopus he was eating, seemed to have tentacles everywhere – all of them securely bound up in red tape. He probably didn’t earn much more than a mechanic or a barman, but when he went to work every morning he carried a briefcase, and by the standards of the neighbourhood, that entitled him to some measure of respect.

  Bernardo presented a complete contrast. He was a huge man with thick arms and a barrel chest – a market porter and the secretary of the local branch for the Unión General de Trabajadores, the union closely allied to the socialist party.

  ‘Since February – since this so-called liberal government was elected – one hundred and sixty churches have been burnt to the ground,’ Ramón complained in his thin, clerk’s voice. ‘Think of that! One hundred and sixty!’

  ‘Is it any wonder, when the Catholic Church is such a force for reaction?’ Bernardo asked. He pulled a well-thumbed pamphlet out of his pocket.

  Ramón groaned theatrically. ‘Not that old chestnut again!’

  But Bernardo was not to be put off. ‘I have here the catechism,’ he announced. ‘Let me read you a little. “Question: What kind of sin is committed by one who votes for a liberal candidate? Answer: Generally a mortal sin”.’

  ‘The churches are not being burned down by people who are outraged by what they read in the catechism,’ Ramón said. ‘Most of the arsonists are ignorant peasants who can’t read at all!’

  ‘There’s more,’ Bernardo persisted. ‘“Question: Is it a sin for a Catholic to read a liberal newspaper? Answer: He may read the Stock Exchange News”. That’s your priests for you! Hand in glove with the capitalists.’

  Paco let his eyes roam around the bar. In the far corner were the wooden wine casks. Even without labels, it was easy to tell the red from the white, because under the tap on the barrel of red the floor was as stained as if a ghastly, bloody murder had been committed there.

  His eyes moved to the zinc counter, against which Nacho, the barman, was resting his ample belly. Spread along the counter was a feast of seafood: oysters glistening in the light of the overhead lamp; plump grey crabs struggling ineffectually against the cords which bound their claws together; fried calamar rings; pink mussels covered with a garnish of green pepper and cucumber; shrimps lying on a bed of crushed ice.

  What a wonderful display, Paco thought – and all the more remarkable when you considered that the city was hundreds of kilometres from the sea!

  It was like magic, and, as with most tricks, there was a great deal of careful planning behind it. The fresh seafood arrived by train every morning, from both the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The fish trains were always ensured a smooth passage. So what if that meant a passenger-train full of people sweated away in a railway siding for a couple of hours? How could their business possibly be as important as the delivery of the marisco?

  ‘Three more wines, Nacho!’ Ramón called to the barman. Then, turning to Bernardo, he continued his attack. ‘Do you realize there have been one hundred and thirteen general strikes since February?’

  Statistics! How people like Ramón, with their neat clerical minds, loved statistics. This many people killed, these many strikes, that many priests assaulted. You didn’t need statistics to know the country was falling apart – you only had to look out of your own window.

  Paco wondered for a moment whether the situation would improve if the military took over, and decided it wouldn’t. True, the government was making a mess of things, but from what he’d seen of the army’s incompetence and corruption while he was serving in Morocco, it seemed unlikely that the generals could do any better.

  ‘The peasants in Extremadura are taking over the large estates . . .’ Ramón said, his outrage increasing with every sip of wine.

  ‘And why shouldn’t they?’ Bernardo demanded belligerently. ‘Most of the land they’ve seized has been lying idle for years.’

  ‘This gutless government can see outright robbery, but doesn’t have the will to step in and stop it. Now if Calvo Sotelo or Herrera were in charge . . . .’

  It was interesting to hear the two men referred to in the same breath. Calvo Sotelo was a prominent monarchist, and Ramón, who knew about such things, was putting Herrera on an equal footing with him. Paco hadn’t realized that the man was quite so important.

  He ran his mind over all the questions which were still unanswered. Just what was Herrera’s connection with the dead girl in the park? Why, when she had been missing for over twenty-four hours, hadn’t some concerned relative reported her disappearance to the police? And who had she been to bed with only days before she was murdered?

  ‘What do you think, Paco?’ Ramón asked, as Nacho placed the three fresh glasses of wine in front of them.

  ‘Think? About what?’

  ‘About the political situation, of course.’

  Paco shrugged. ‘I’m a policeman. I arrest criminals. I don’t have opinions about politics.’

  ‘Then you must be the only cop who doesn’t!’ Bernardo said. ‘The Guardia Civil is riddled with right-wingers . . .’

  ‘With men who love their country with all their hearts,’ Ramón corrected him.

  Paco knocked back his drink in two swift gulps. How many wines had he drunk that evening? he wondered. Six? Seven? He reached into his pocket, pulled out some change, separated out a couple of pesetas, and slid the coins across the table.

  ‘The drinks are on me tonight,’ he said.

  ‘You’re leaving, Paco?’ Bernardo asked, astonished. ‘But why? It’s still so early.’

  ‘I have a headache,’ Paco lied.

  Or maybe it wasn’t a lie at all. His head did ache – ached from all the heated arguments and pointless rebuttals. Was he the only man in Spain who didn’t think he had all the answers to the country’s troubles? Wouldn’t it be better if there were a few more people like him, who only wanted to get on with their jobs? Maybe if there were, the troubles would go away of their own accord.

  He stood up.

  ‘See you tomorrow?’ Ramón asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  Why not? They had met at the same table in the Cabo de Trafalgar almost every night for a decade. Why should a little thing like politics get in the way of that?

  Chapter Six

  It was well after midnight when Paco left the Cabo de Trafalgar, but the narrow Calle de Hortaleza still throbbed with life. Men lounging on street corners called out a greeting as he passed. Women, sitting on the small, low chairs which are speciall
y designed for use on the pavement, waved to him. People were entering bars or leaving them, finishing their restaurant dinners or just beginning to attack the first course. There was nothing unusual in any of that. During the summer – which often lasted from the beginning of June to the end of September – Madrid hardly slept. And when the air was as hot as it was that night, the city didn’t sleep at all.

  Paco reached his own front door and clapped his hands loudly. A few moments later the sereno appeared, the front-door keys to every house in the street jangling noisily from his belt.

  ‘Good evening, Don Francisco,’ he said cheerfully, as he inserted his key in the lock and opened the door for Paco. ‘Have you heard the latest news?’

  ‘Is it political?’

  ‘What news is not political these days? It seems that—’

  Paco held up his hands. ‘If it’s political, I’d rather not know,’ he said. ‘If that’s all the same to you.’

  The night-watchman shrugged his flabby shoulders. His belly wobbled and his keys jangled even louder. ‘I was only making conversation,’ he said.

  ‘Then why not talk about the bulls?’ Paco demanded. ‘Why not tell me about the wonderful new bar you’ve found? Must it always be politics, politics, politics?’

  The watchman twisted his keys nervously in his hands. ‘I’m sorry, Don Francisco. I only—’

  ‘No, I’m the one who should be apologizing,’ Paco said, feeling a sudden rush of shame. He reached into his pocket, fished out a twenty-five centímo coin, and put it into the watchman’s hand. ‘See you tomorrow, José.’

  ‘I’ll be here, Don Francisco. You can rely on that.’

  Paco stepped into the bare hallway and looked up at the wooden stairs. Some blocks on the street had lifts, but his was not one of them, and, since he lived on the third floor, he had seventy-two steps to climb before he reached his apartment.

  It was as he was starting to ascend that he realized that, as from that day, it was two steps for every year of his life. He wondered if he would still be making the climb when the correspondence was one to one. He grinned ruefully. Yes, probably he would – with his bad luck he might well live into his seventies.

  He had almost reached the second-floor landing when the door of the apartment on the left opened, and he saw the woman standing in the doorway. It was her hair he noticed first. She was a rubia – a blonde – almost as rare in Madrid as a black face. She was in her early twenties, he guessed. She had blue eyes, high cheekbones and a generous mouth. Definitely the sort of woman to turn heads wherever she went.

  ‘Señor Ruiz?’ she asked, and even from just those two words, he recognized that she was foreign.

  ‘Yes, I’m Ruiz.’

  ‘My name’s Cindy Walker. I’m your new neighbour.’ She pronounced her first name ‘Thindy’, as if she thought that would make it easier for him to get his Spanish tongue round it.

  ‘Are you from the United States?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s right. I’m American.’

  It annoyed him that she spoke, as so many of her countrymen did, as though she owned the title. ‘There are many Americans,’ he said. ‘Everyone from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego can call themselves by that name.’

  The girl flushed, and Paco felt another stab of shame. First he’d picked on José the sereno, and now he was having a go at this girl. As if it was their fault everything was in such a mess – as if they were responsible for the dead girl in the park. ‘Look, I’m sorry . . .’ he began.

  The girl held up her hand to silence him. ‘No, you’re quite right,’ she said. ‘We Yanquis are too presumptuous by far. I won’t make the same mistake again.’

  After his outburst, he felt it incumbent on him to say something more, to express an interest he didn’t really feel. ‘Have you been in Madrid long, Señorita Walker?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve just arrived,’ the girl said. ‘I’m going to be studying for an advanced degree at the university . . . and . . .’ she looked down at the bare floorboards, as if she was slightly uncomfortable with what she was about to confess, ‘. . . and I’m hoping to write a novel while I’m here – about life in Spain.’

  Why did Yanquis nearly always turn out to be aspiring authors, Paco wondered. And why did potential novelists invariably feel that there was a novel just waiting to be wrenched out of Spain?

  He was now standing close to her. Far too close. He could smell her perfume, which seemed to him to be a delicate mixture of several wild flowers. He could see deep into her blue eyes – which he found disturbing.

  He held out his hand. ‘Welcome to my country,’ he said formally. ‘I hope you enjoy your time here.’

  She took the hand. Her skin felt smooth and cool, and the contact sent a series of small electric shocks through him. ‘There’s a letter for you,’ she said.

  ‘A letter?’

  ‘You were out when the postman came. He had a certified letter. I said I’d sign for it.’

  ‘That was very kind of you.’

  Cindy realized that their hands were still touching. She pulled hers awkwardly free. ‘It’s on the table in the salon.’ She gazed down at her hand, as if she expected it to be changed in some way. ‘The letter, I mean. I’ll get it for you.’

  She turned and disappeared into the apartment, re-emerging a couple of seconds later and handing him the letter. He looked down at it. Even in the dim light of the hallway, he recognized the handwriting and the Valladolid postmark. Pilar, his wife, had never been one to take the chance that her rebuking letters might not get through to him.

  Now she’d handed over the letter, Cindy Walker seemed unsure of what to say next. ‘I thought my Spanish was pretty good until I arrived in Spain,’ she said finally, ‘but now I see how much work I’m going to have to put in just to keep my head above water.’

  It was a statement which clearly invited comment, perhaps even a compliment. Paco wondered what she meant about keeping her head above water. Maybe it meant something in her native language, but translated, it made no sense at all. He almost asked her to explain, but pulled back at the last instant. ‘I have to go now,’ he said.

  Cindy squiggled slightly, as some people do at embarrassing moments. ‘Of course, you must be tired. But if . . .’ She stopped.

  ‘If what?’

  ‘If you find that you have a few minutes to spare over the next few days . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I really would appreciate it if you could tell me a little about Madrid. It seems such a confusing city.’

  ‘Not once you get to know it,’ Paco said, promising nothing. ‘Good-night, Señorita Walker.’

  ‘Good-night,’ the girl said, with just an edge of disappointment in her voice.

  Paco turned and started to climb the remaining twenty-four steps to his apartment.

  *

  The Ruiz apartment, like many of the apartments in the older part of the city, sounded very impressive on paper. Seven rooms! Yes, but then you had to consider that each room was tiny – that some bedrooms had barely enough room for a bed, that in order to cross the living-room it was necessary to edge your way between the table and the wall.

  Yet even so, the apartment seemed huge to a man who was living in it alone.

  Paco went over to the cabinet, poured himself a stiff brandy, and settled down in his armchair to read the letter from Pilar.

  ‘Dear Francisco,’ it began – Pilar had never called him Paco, not even in the early days of their marriage – ‘I am afraid I do not know when I will be returning to Madrid. My nerves, though much improved, are still bad.’

  They would be, he thought. She was a highly strung woman – which was another way of saying that she had been spoiled as a child and now became almost hysterical if everything didn’t go her own way.

  ‘My parents have been very kind and understanding . . .’ And so they should be. They had always doted on their daughter, and must have been delighted to have finally prised her away fro
m her unsuitable husband.

  ‘There is a new priest at our parish church. He is young, but very devout. I wish that you could meet him. Perhaps after a few minutes with Father Ignacio you would see the error of your ways and return to the Church.’

  The Church! What did that mean to him? In the village where he had been brought up, not one peasant in twenty had gone to Mass, because they had seen how the local priest had hobnobbed with the rich landowners and knew – without being told – whose side God was on.

  ‘At any rate, I pray nightly for your redemption’, the letter continued. She’d had a religious streak in her when they married, but at least it had been under control then. It was when she’d learned she could never have children that the Church had really got its claws into her. Now she was a fanatic, always on her knees praying to one virgin or another.

  When they’d still been living together – before this unstated, but clearly understood, separation – she’d fed him religion his every waking hour. Come to mass, Francisco. I’m begging you. There’d been tears at least once a day. I can’t bear to think of you damned, burning in hellfire for all eternity. God had even come between them in bed. How can you concern yourself with things of the flesh when your mortal soul is in such danger?

  They’d married too young, he thought. Much too young. And maybe if he hadn’t been fresh out of the village, he would never have fallen for this city girl so easily. The marriage had been begun on shaky foundations – but religion certainly hadn’t done much to shore it up.

  There was a great deal more to the letter, but since it was all bound to be in a similar vein, he didn’t feel up to reading it at that moment. He laid the letter aside, stood up and walked over to the window. Across the well, one floor down, he could see Cindy Walker working at her table under the window. A pretty woman by any standards, and she’d seemed attracted to him. But he wouldn’t allow it to go any further – there were enough complications in his life already.