A Silent Death

by Peter May

  He sat bolt-upright in the darkness, heart pounding in his throat, the echo of his own voice dying around him. He was soaked in sweat, bedsheets twisted about his body, sticking to his legs and chest. But the banging on the door had not stopped. His confusion lasted for only as long as it took him to realize where he was. A room at the top of the Hostal Totana in Marviña. And someone was banging on the door. He heard Cristina’s voice from the other side of it.

  ‘Señor Mackenzie! For God’s sake, hombre, what’s going on in there?’

  He blinked and took in the blurry red numerals on the bedside clock. It was a little after 6 am. He scrambled from the bed, boxer shorts bought in Estepona clinging to every perspiring contour, and unlocked the door. Cristina stood on the landing looking at him. She was in full uniform, no make-up, sleep still in her eyes, hair pulled back in its customary ponytail. Severe, unforgiving. Her gaze wandered down to the boxers and quickly back to meet his eye.

  ‘Who’s Sophia?’

  ‘My daughter.’

  She peered beyond him into the empty bedroom. ‘Why were you shouting at her?’

  ‘Was I?’

  ‘I’d be surprised if there’s anyone still asleep in the whole of Marviña.’

  Mackenzie looked sheepish. ‘It was a bad dream.’

  She looked at him for a curious moment, then said, ‘Get dressed. We’ve got a multiple homicide up in the hills.’

  His brow creased in a frown. ‘And what does that have to do with Cleland?’

  ‘They think it’s drug-related.’

  *

  The headlights of Cristina’s Policía Local SUV picked out great swathes of undeveloped countryside, dusty and deserted in the moonlight, before the road began climbing and winding its way through the forest in the foothills of the mountains. They passed lonely farmhouses, and the occasional family restaurant tucked into folds in the hills – Venta García, Venta Victoria.

  The moon had disappeared from view, and the first light was burgeoning in the east, reflecting pink light on dawn cloud over the sea.

  They turned off the asphalt road on to a concrete track that cut its way through overhanging cork oaks. It almost glowed in the early light, like the trail left by some giant drunken slug. The SUV bounced and rattled its way over an uneven surface made worse by wholly unnecessary speed bumps. Climbing, climbing, sometimes dropping sheer away into dark bottomless gullies, until they reached a fork in the road, where a signpost dating back to at least the early part of the previous century had been struck by some errant vehicle, and lay twisted and half-buried in the hillside. Originally intended to guide drivers towards two different destinations – Cabezas del Río and La Peña – it was no longer clear which way led to which.

  Cristina pulled the SUV to a halt, and it sat idling at a precarious angle while she leaned over Mackenzie to search for a map in the glove compartment. When she found the one she was looking for she opened it against the steering wheel and flicked on the dash light. Mackenzie squinted at the map to see her tracing their route with her finger. She stabbed it at a tiny winding road that headed north-east into the hills. ‘That’s the one we want. Finca Los Fernández is on the road to La Peña.’ She pushed the map at Mackenzie, released the handbrake and swung the wheel to their left, lurching off through the half-dark towards the lost village of La Peña.

  After a couple of kilometres the concrete ran out, and the road became little more than a dirt track, rutted and potholed, throwing the SUV and its occupants forwards and sideways, and reducing their progress to a snail’s pace. Finally they emerged from the forest into grassy uplands that swept away to the left and right in bold strokes through valleys and ravines towards the mountains. Nothing much grew up here except grass for grazing, almond trees in pink and white blossom, and the odd wild olive. An even narrower track took them off to the left, and down into a tiny sheltered valley where a whitewashed finca and a collection of agricultural outbuildings huddled in the shade of a copse of fig trees.

  Two Guardia Civil vehicles and an ambulance stood in the yard, blue and amber flashing in the dawn light. Mackenzie expressed his astonishment. ‘How in God’s name did anyone even know that something had happened way up here?’

  Cristina pulled up behind the other vehicles and jumped out. ‘A local goatherd. He was in the habit of dropping in early for coffee. They’re up and working at four or five in the hills to avoid the heat of the day.’

  They walked towards the house. This was a traditional Andalusian finca, a farmhouse on one level with rough white-painted walls and a red, shallow-pitched Roman-tiled roof. It was built half into the hillside to provide cool cellar space beneath the house, and an adjoining barn was roofed, surprisingly, with rows of brand-new solar panels. Blue and white crime-scene tape had been stretched across the entrance to the property and hung limp in the still morning air. The ambulance driver and a medic leaned against the front of their vehicle, catching a final smoke before heading back down the hill. Nothing for them here. Everyone dead. A private contractor would be sent by the judicial coroner to take the bodies down for autopsy.

  A figure familiar to Cristina detached itself from the group of Guardia standing in the yard. Paco hobbled towards them on his crutches. Cristina raised an eyebrow in surprise.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Paco balanced on his supports to kiss her on each cheek. ‘Can’t sleep since I got home,’ he said. ‘So I sit up and drink coffee and listen to the Guardia bandwave. Heard this one called in and asked the guys to collect me on the way up.’

  Cristina nodded and half-turned towards Mackenzie. ‘Paco’s my brother-in-law. The one Cleland shot. Señor Mackenzie is with the British police.’ Mackenzie and Paco shook hands. Paco sighed and Mackenzie saw deep sadness in his dark eyes. ‘I know these people,’ he said. ‘Friends of my folks going way back.’

  ‘How bad is it?’ Cristina asked.

  ‘It’s bloody. You don’t want to go in there if you don’t have to.’

  Cristina nodded grimly. ‘I think we probably have to. How long before homicide arrive?’

  ‘Well, the pathologist’s already here. He came straight up from Marbella. Homicide are coming from Malaga. It’ll be a while yet.’

  ‘We don’t want to waste time, then.’ She went into the back of the SUV to remove plastic shoe covers and latex gloves for Mackenzie and herself.

  *

  The lights in the house were all turned on, and yet it still seemed dark. The front door took them into a single large room with an open fireplace at one end. An old porcelain sink stood against the facing wall, flanked by rough wooden worktops hung with curtains. A window above the sink leaked early light into the room. A table where the family had no doubt eaten for a generation sat square in the centre of the room. An old dresser and wooden drawer units crowded surrounding walls that were hung with old black-and-white family portraits dating back a hundred years or more. There was a photograph of the house taken in another lifetime. Also black-and-white. It hadn’t changed. The same fig trees, the tendrils of their sinewy roots snaking out across the front yard, cast shade from the same sun. The only difference between then and now was that the family were all dead.

  Drawers had been ripped out of cupboards and wall units and contents strewn across the floor. Glass and china lay shattered on cold Andalusian tiles among upturned chairs where blood congealed in great dark pools.

  A pathologist in white Tyvek crouched over one of three bodies. A young man who Mackenzie guessed was probably in his late twenties or early thirties. But it was difficult to tell. This was a hard life, and people aged quickly under a relentless and unforgiving sun. Also, his face was a bloody, pulpy mess.

  An elderly couple lay nearby. His parents, Mackenzie thought. The old woman’s skull had been cleaved almost in two, and there was a gaping hole in the old man’s chest.

  Cristina, standing beside him, made a muted gagging sound, and Mackenzie guessed she was fighting to keep down the bile
rising in her throat. A smell of blood, like rust, hung heavy in the air.

  The pathologist was a young man, hood pushed back from a head of finely cropped dark hair. No doubt he had seen some harrowing things in his time, but even he had paled. He turned his face up towards them. ‘Poor bastards,’ he said. ‘Whoever did this was merciless. Almost as if they’d been tortured.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Mackenzie asked.

  ‘All three have multiple injuries, Señor. Hands, arms, legs. Brutal stuff. Not enough to kill. Not immediately. But you’d have to be a sadist, or trying to get them to talk. Or both. In the end it looks like they either got what they wanted or ran out of patience. The old man took two barrels of a shotgun in his chest. Seems like they used a machete on the mother. And the son . . .’ He looked down at the sorry mess on the floor. ‘They just beat him into oblivion.’

  Mackenzie said, ‘Why do you say they?’

  The pathologist shrugged as if it was obvious. ‘The extent of the injuries. The use of multiple weapons.’ He paused. ‘And then there are all the footprints in the blood. I’d say there were at least four, maybe five. I’ll know exactly how many by the time I’m finished here.’

  Cristina’s voice was a hoarse whisper. ‘So whatever they knew, or whatever it was their attackers wanted, was beaten out of them.’ She turned towards Mackenzie. ‘This was almost certainly a safe house for drugs.’

  But Mackenzie shook his head. ‘Unlikely.’

  Both Cristina and the pathologist looked at him. ‘What makes you say that, señor?’ the pathologist asked.

  Mackenzie said, ‘If these people had been coerced into keeping drugs, what pretext would they have for not just handing them over? And even if for some reason they had hidden them, how long would it take to beat the hiding place out of them? An old couple like that? And their boy.’ He looked around the room. ‘And if their attackers had got the information they wanted, why would they have had to tear the place apart?’ He hesitated. ‘It doesn’t feel right. Any of it.’

  The pathologist said, ‘They’re bringing sniffer dogs up. If there were drugs here they’ll know soon enough.’

  Mackenzie nodded and picked his way to the door, back out into the early morning light. He had seen enough. The sun was just below the line of the trees now, and he stepped over the crime-scene tape and into the yard. Cristina followed gratefully behind him. He stopped and scratched his head thoughtfully.

  ‘What is it?’

  He glanced at her. ‘Remember that busted signpost on the road. If we hadn’t had a map we might have taken the wrong turning.’ He turned to look back at the house. ‘I don’t think these poor people had the first idea what their attackers wanted. They came to the wrong bloody finca.’

  Realization broke over Cristina like cold water. Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh my god, we need to get over to the finca at Cabezas del Río.’ She started running for the SUV and Mackenzie had trouble keeping up with her.

  ‘Hey!’

  They looked back from the open doors of their vehicle to see Paco hobbling after them.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Cristina said, ‘We think they came to the wrong house, Paco.’

  A frown of confusion clouded his face before sudden understanding swept it away. He paled. ‘Jesus.’ Then, ‘Take me with you.’

  *

  The sun had risen fully over the shoulder of the mountain as they lurched down a potholed track to the Hacienda Familia Castillejos, dust rising behind them like smoke in the still morning air.

  Hacienda was a grand name for what was really just another finca. The home of Familia Castillejos was built from local stone, a simple single-story house with a vine-shaded terrace at the front. The road, such as it was, ran on a short way beyond the house to a broken-down collection of barns. Hens scattered in the yard as Cristina brought their SUV to an unceremonious halt. The front door lay open, and they could see beyond it that there were lights still burning in the kitchen.

  Cristina was first inside, Mackenzie just behind her. It took Paco a good half-minute to catch them up.

  In contrast to the kitchen at Finca Los Fernández, this room was neat and clean and well-ordered, lit by several lamps and an overhead light. The smell of a recently cooked breakfast still hung in the air. A weather-worn middle-aged couple sat at the table, breakfast only half eaten in front of them, fat congealing around eggs and ham, coffee long since gone cold in chipped and discoloured mugs.

  The woman wore a dark blouse beneath a shawl that hung down to a creased three-quarter-length skirt. Mackenzie could see woollen stockings beneath it, and tattered trainers that might once have been white. The man’s skinny frame was clad in grubby blue overalls, silvered black hair like fuse wire contained beneath a sweat-stained cap. Their faces were turned towards the door with the dread of expectancy. The woman’s face was stained and still shining from tears. She took in Cristina’s uniform. ‘It’s true, then?’ she said.

  ‘Is what true?’ Mackenzie asked quickly.

  The woman flickered dead eyes in his direction. ‘They killed the Fernández family.’

  Cristina said, ‘How do you know?’

  The man scratched a silver-bristled chin, the sound of it rasping in the stillness of the room. His face was the colour and texture of leather, his eyes so deep set they were like black holes in his face. ‘Diego.’

  ‘Who’s Diego?’

  ‘The goatherd. He came here after the Guardia arrived at La Peña. He usually calls in after he has had coffee with the Fernández people.’

  Señora Castillejos shook her head. ‘It was all a terrible mistake. We had no idea they had gone to La Peña first. Those poor folk would have had no idea what they were looking for. The drugs were here all the time.’

  Mackenzie walked into the room, drew a chair up to the table and sat down. ‘Tell us what happened,’ he said.

  Castillejos shook his head. ‘We had no choice, señor. They threatened to kill us if we did not keep their packages for them.’

  ‘What were they like, these packages?’

  ‘Big plastic sacks, señor, like they use for animal feed. About thirty of them. A couple of tons, I’d say. And I should know, they made me unload and stack them in the barn when they first brought them.’

  ‘Do you know what was in them?’

  He shrugged. ‘Drugs.’

  Mackenzie looked at Cristina. ‘If it’s cocaine, a couple of tons would have a street value running to hundreds of millions. And if this is Cleland’s stash then it’s the deal of a lifetime. Money like that . . . he’ll be gone. History. We’ll never find him.’ He turned back to the Castillejos. ‘What happened this morning?’

  She sat wringing her hands on the table in front of her. ‘They didn’t say they had already been to the Finca los Fernández by mistake. Just ordered Carlos to load the bales into their big covered pickup while they stood around watching and smoking and laughing. Four of them. I’ll never forget their faces.’

  Her husband cast grave eyes in her direction. ‘It might be better, Mariana, if you did.’

  But she shook her head. ‘When I think of what they did to those poor people . . .’ She turned tearful eyes towards Cristina. ‘Before they left one of them said we should get our road sign fixed. It would be too easy, he said, to take a wrong turning. Only now do I know what he meant.’

  Cristina looked at Mackenzie. She could see Cleland slipping through their fingers. ‘If they have come for the drugs this morning, it must mean they are planning the handover today or tomorrow.’

  ‘Or just moving it somewhere safer.’ Paco’s voice made them all turn towards where he stood silhouetted in the doorway. ‘With all the police activity to find Señor Cleland they are probably very nervous right now.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  When Ana wakes she is fully dressed, and lying on top of the bed rather than in it. She knows it is morning from the heat of the sun falling across her bed through the shutters,
and is surprised that she has slept at all.

  It was late when Cleland returned the night before, and she had persuaded him to let her walk Sandro to the end of the street and back. At first he had resisted, telling her it would be unwise to step out in the dark, before she pointed out that her whole life was spent in the dark.

  He had accompanied her, a hand hooked through her arm, and they had walked slowly the length of the Calle San Miguel, right down to Calle Caridad and back, stopping only to let Sandro lift his leg against flowerpots and doorsteps.

  The untrained eye might have thought them to be just some couple out for a late evening stroll with their dog. They would have realized, of course, that Ana was blind, but the intimacy of Cleland’s arm through hers, and their comfortable silence, would have aroused nothing but sympathy.

  In fact, their silence had been anything but comfortable. Behind it, Ana’s mind had been in turmoil, desperately seeking some way to escape. But he held her entirely in his power, and she sensed that he was enjoying it.

  Back at the house he had told her that she should sleep, and taken her to the bedroom. For a long time she had stood in the silent darkness of her inner prison trying to determine whether or not he had left the room. She did not want to undress with the thought that he was standing watching her every move. So in the end she had simply lain down on the bed fully dressed.

  But thoughts of Sergio had kept sleep at bay. Remembering every word of their conversation, his touch, his scent. Then his return, their interchange cut short by the deep vibration of something heavy landing at her feet. Poor, poor Sergio. What had that monster done to him?

  It is the first thing on her mind when she wakes, and the cold fingers of fear close around her heart as the full recollection of the previous day’s events flood back.

  She sits upright, breathing hard, trying to hold herself still. Is there anyone in the room? She cannot tell. Slowly she slips off the bed and makes her way to the small en-suite bathroom, where she sits on the pan to relieve herself, then splashes her face with cold water in the sink. She does not have the heart even to brush her teeth, and feels her way to the door, and out into the sitting room.