The Dead: Vengeance of Memory

by Mark Oldfield

  THE DEAD

  Mark Oldfield

  Start Reading

  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.headofzeus.com

  About The Dead

  MADRID, 1982

  Comandante Leopoldo Guzmán has decided it is time to disappear. Franco is in his grave and there’s no place in the new order for the one-time head of the dead tyrant’s secret police.

  But first Guzmán needs money. Luckily, blackmail has always come easily to him – after all, he knows where the bodies are.

  And so he should. He buried them.

  MADRID, 2010

  Fifteen tangled corpses in a disused mine, three bound skeletons in a sealed cellar – a trail of dead that has led forensic investigator Ana María Galíndez to one Comandante Leopoldo Guzmán.

  Guzmán himself disappeared decades ago but she fears his toxic legacy lives on. Her investigation has revealed a darkness at the heart of Spain, a conspiracy born amid the corruption and deprivation of Franco’s dictatorship, a conspiracy that after decades in the shadows, is finally ready to bloom.

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About The Dead

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  About Mark Oldfield

  The Vengeance of Memory Series

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Copyright

  For Viv

  Only the dead have seen the end of war.

  George Santayana

  I think the dead care little if they sleep or rise again.

  Aeschylus

  The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward for the memory of them is forgotten.

  Ecclesiastes 9:5

  Men should either be treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones, they cannot.

  Niccolò Machiavelli

  ALICANTE, 25 OCTOBER 2015, HOTEL LLANTO DEL MORO

  Once again, the women return. Older now, the years of sorrow etched deep on faces that resemble those of the crucified Christ in the nearby church where tomorrow a few of them will take mass. Most will not. Faith is so often a casualty of these events. That and truth, of course.

  Each year they gather on this date, their numbers diminished by the inevitable attrition of age and sickness. But those who can will make their way once more to this isolated hotel, noting its slow decline without comment, perhaps sensing that the deterioration of the building mirrors their own.

  The women keep to themselves in the small garden, quietly watching the grey waves break along the shoreline below. The past lies across their lives, a dark monument to cruelty, its presence still raw and immediate. No amount of talk can alter that and so they say little. Perhaps there is comfort in the silence, a hope that someone might say something that would, in some unimaginable way, alleviate their inexhaustible grief. No one ever does.

  At the end of the second day, as taxis arrive outside, their engines grumbling in the heat, the hotel manager appears on the terrace, stooping, as if he bears the accumulated weight of the women’s pain. This year, he is obliged to walk with the aid of a walking frame and it takes quite some time to get down the steps to lay the bouquet of flowers on their table as he always has. The women wait in silence until he is back inside the hotel. Then they rise, take the flowers and throw them to the ground before trampling them into a fragrant mulch.

  CHAPTER 1

  MADRID 2010

  She opened her eyes and stared into the darkness, wondering how long she had been here. Wherever here was. She remembered being in her apartment, watching flickering images of her father’s murder projected on to a wall. His casual wave as he started the engine. The car pulling away from the kerb. The explosion. Oily smoke rising into the spring air.

  Then waking to this.

  When she first regained consciousness, she had panicked, thrashing and twisting, trying to loosen the grip of the thick leather straps that kept her spread-eagled against the rough wooden board, condemned to this blind, timeless suffering. But her efforts were futile and the Barcelona shirt she wore as a nightdress was soon soaked with sweat from her exertions. With a groan, she let her head fall back, shivering violently.

  Hours passed. Hours of lying immobile in the dark and the cold. Each attempt at movement generated new complexities of pain. She could move her head, twist her body slightly, but no more. She fought to stay calm, hearing only the drip of water somewhere in the darkness, the sound of her frantic breathing, her existence reduced now to a nightmare of enforced anticipation.

  A door creaked open. She tensed as she heard muffled footsteps coming towards her. Two people, one walking quickly, the other more slowly. She lifted her head, straining to see.

  Suddenly, the world burned with white light, dazzling and painful after so long in the dark. Slowly, she looked up at the man standing over her and felt all hope drain away. She hadn’t expected this.

  ‘Pleased to see me, babe?’ Sancho chuckled as he lit a cigarette. As her eyes became accustomed to the light, she saw clusters of chains and pulleys hanging above her, ropes with hooks on the end. Some sort of warehouse perhaps, though the equipment looked as if it could be put to other uses.

  Sancho came closer and sat on the edge of the pallet, humming to himself. Trying to intimidate her, she guessed. It was working.

  The slow footsteps came nearer, the sound of laboured breathing. She raised her head and watched as a tall elderly man emerged from the shadows.

  ‘Look who’s come to meet you, Ana,’ Sancho laughed. ‘Meet Comandante Guzmán. He’s going to ask you some questions.’ He leaned closer and gripped her chin, forcing her face towards the newcomer. ‘You’ve been wanting to meet him, haven’t you?’

  Her eyes widened as she thought of the hours she’d spent documenting Guzmán’s bloody work as Franco’s assassin. She had never expected to encounter him in the flesh.

  She saw the old man’s expression as he looked at her. It was not pleasant. He moved away, outside her limited range of vision. A moment later, she heard noises at the foot of the pallet. The sounds of tools being taken from a case. Metal parts being screwed together. Unable to see, she could only imagine what he was doing. Beads of sweat trickled from her hair.

  ‘I’ve got a meeting in an hour, so I want this over as quickly as possible.’ Guzmán’s voice was sharp. ‘Push this against her leg,’ he said, handing something to Sancho.

  She swallowed, desperate to look, afraid of what she might see. Then looked anyway.

  Sancho was holding a metal rod connected by a wire to a box on the floor. She flinched as he came closer. His stale wine breath, the sour odour of nicotine.

&nb
sp; ‘Fuck you.’ It was the best she could think of.

  Something cold touched her left calf. As she struggled to see what was happening, Sancho put the metal probe against her leg a few centimetres above the knee. She started to insult him in a desperate gesture of defiance but her words were cut short by a firestorm of pain as the electricity surged through her. A terrible blinding pain, as though her limbs were being ripped from their sockets, her back arched as if pulled upwards by an invisible cord. She heard a voice begging them to stop. Her voice.

  Abruptly, the pain stopped and she slumped back against the pallet, gasping for breath. When she opened her eyes, she saw Sancho watching her. He was smiling.

  ‘You fucking tattooed, pierced freak.’

  He grinned. ‘Ana’s been rude to me, Comandante. What do we do about that?’

  Guzmán ignored him. ‘Ready for a few questions, señorita?’

  She glared back defiantly, though she kept quiet.

  ‘Each time we give you another shock,’ Guzmán said, ‘I’m going to raise the strength of the charge. At those levels, it’s not unusual for bones to break or joints to be dislocated.’

  ‘That should be interesting,’ Sancho laughed.

  ‘The pain will be considerable. Unbearable, in fact,’ Guzmán said as he picked up the electrode. ‘Shall we proceed or are you going to answer my questions?’

  Galíndez let her head fall back onto the pallet, trying to prepare herself for the pain. Judas thoughts raced through her head: Tell them something. Anything.

  She flinched, startled as Sancho took the metal rod from her thigh. ‘Come on, Ana, tell us what we want to know.’

  ‘She will, eventually,’ Guzmán said. ‘They always do.’

  ‘Wait.’ Galíndez raised her head as far as she could. ‘What is it you want to know?’

  ‘You can begin by explaining why you started investigating my activities,’ Guzmán said. ‘And if you don’t I’ll show you what pain really is. Understood?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You mean, “Yes, Comandante.”’

  She swallowed. ‘Yes, Comandante.’

  ‘That’s better. Now, answer my question.’

  This time, Galíndez didn’t hesitate. She began with the drive out to an old mine in the sierra where fifteen desiccated bodies had lain hidden since the fifties. Described how she met Profesora Ordoñez who revealed the killer’s name to her: Guzmán.

  ‘But you found no real proof?’ Guzmán asked. ‘Nothing tangible?’

  ‘Oh yes we did.’ Behind her, she heard Sancho taking a drink from a plastic bottle of water. She licked her cracked lips, tempted to beg him for a drink. Instead, she continued, recounting how she’d dug several bullets from Guzmán’s Browning out of the ditch where the execution took place. And then later, she’d discovered a map at the university showing a hiding place in Guzmán’s old comisaría.

  ‘A map you stole from Profesora Ordoñez,’ Sancho chipped in. ‘You can’t trust anyone these days, even prissy cops like you, Anita.’

  ‘Don’t call me that.’

  A bleak laugh. ‘Why don’t you stop me?’

  Guzmán pushed the electrode against her leg, prompting her to continue. Galíndez hurriedly explained how she and Natalia broke into his abandoned police station in search of his hidden secrets.

  The last part was the hardest, telling him how she’d discovered Guzmán’s hiding place only to be attacked by Natalia, the woman she loved. The woman she thought loved her, though Natalia was a thief, employed by the Centinelas.

  ‘The Centinelas? You’re sure it was us who hired her?’

  ‘That’s what she said,’ Galíndez said. ‘Just before she fractured my skull.’

  ‘That must have taken some doing.’ Sancho laughed.

  ‘How much do you know about the Centinelas?’ Guzmán asked. The electrode pressed against her ankle and her breathing grew faster, anticipating the pain.

  ‘Not much. I found documents signed by someone called Xerxes. That’s the code name for their leader.’

  ‘Our leader.’ Guzmán nodded. ‘What else?’

  She closed her eyes, trying to remember. ‘The documents showed they were involved in the attempted coup in 1982. They were angry because it had been carried out too soon. A memo said that they should wait until the time was right.’

  ‘Oh we’re very good at waiting,’ Guzmán muttered.

  Galíndez lifted her head. ‘You were mentioned in those documents.’

  ‘Do tell.’ Guzmán’s voice was almost gentle. ‘If you don’t, I’ll make you scream like a pig in the slaughterhouse.’

  ‘I saw a memo that said that all communications had to go through you. And there was a comment that some people thought you were unreliable.’

  ‘Was there any mention of the Western Vault?’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The name doesn’t mean anything to you?’

  ‘No. I’ve never heard of it.’ If he asked another question, she decided to make something up. Anything to defer the pain.

  ‘Tell me about the sword,’ Guzmán said.

  That came as a surprise. Her mind raced, wondering if he already knew it was at guardia HQ, wondering how much pain she could stand if he guessed she was lying. Then again, he might already know she had it, in which case there would be more pain.

  ‘It’s at guardia HQ,’ she said, cursing herself for giving in. ‘In the evidence store.’

  ‘Good girl,’ Guzmán said. ‘I’m sure you were tempted to lie. It’s a good job you didn’t or Sancho would be scraping you off the roof now.’ He turned away and put the electrode on one of the packing cases. ‘We’re done,’ he said to Sancho. ‘She’s worthless.’

  Sancho sounded disappointed. ‘Give her a few more shocks, she might be holding something back.’

  ‘If she knew anything, she’d have told me, I can assure you,’ Guzmán said. ‘I’ll leave her to you, now, you know what to do.’

  Galíndez’s eyes darted from one man to the other. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Where’s the Bulgarian?’ Guzmán asked, ignoring her.

  ‘Waiting next door.’ Sancho laughed. ‘He’s keen to get started.’

  ‘Make sure he does a good job,’ Guzmán said. ‘Destroy all the evidence afterwards.’

  Galíndez struggled frantically against the leather straps. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Sancho grinned. ‘That’s why we have the Bulgarian. He’s good: you’ll be dead before you know it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on that,’ Guzmán chuckled.

  MADRID, M-607, TRES CANTOS

  Isabel Morente pressed the accelerator, glad to be free of the thick city traffic. As she drove, she lifted her phone and dialled a number. The phone rang a couple of times before someone answered.

  ‘Colegio de la Virgen, how can I help you?’

  ‘Good morning,’ Isabel said. ‘I’m picking up my friend’s daughter this lunchtime, I just wanted to know what time you break for lunch?’

  ‘One o’clock, señora.’

  Isabel cut the call and turned the radio back on. As she’d guessed, the main topic was Galíndez’s disappearance. A variety of speakers gave their opinions, most opted for kidnapping, probably terrorist related. Isabel sighed as a psychic called in to give her explanation of what might have happened. It was clear no one had a clue, not the guardia, not the police and certainly not the radio station. After twenty minutes she’d had enough and reached out to switch off the radio just as the presenter revealed that the search for the missing civil guard was now focusing on a stretch of the river Manzanares, near Arganzuela.

  COLMENAR VIEJO 2010, COLEGIO DE LA VIRGEN

  The school yard echoed as a knot of children poured out of the school doors, desperate for lunch. Inés Fuentes wandered towards the gate with a friend, both with their eyes on their phones. She groaned. ‘Oh no, Mum’s going to be ten minutes late picking me up. Can yo
u believe it? She can be so selfish.’

  Her friend smiled. ‘I’d wait with you but I’m going to the dentist this afternoon.’

  Inés shrugged. ‘I’ll live.’

  ‘See you later then. Text me?’

  ‘I will. See you, Blanca.’

  As Blanca disappeared out of the school gate, Inés returned to checking her messages. Engrossed in reading them, she didn’t notice the woman coming towards her.

  ‘Are you Inés Fuentes?’

  Inés looked up and saw a dark-haired woman, vaguely familiar. She was beautiful, big eyes, a soft smiling mouth. ‘Don’t I know you?’ Inés asked.

  ‘You might, I’m a reporter,’ the woman said. ‘My name’s Isabel Morente.’

  ‘You used to be on the radio, didn’t you?’

  ‘And on TV before that.’

  ‘I’d like to be on TV one day. Are you here to interview someone?’

  ‘I want to talk to you about Ana María,’ Isabel said. ‘You remember her, don’t you?’

  Inés gave her a brief nod, suddenly uncomfortable.

  Isabel looked her in the eye. ‘Want to tell me why you made up those lies about her?’

  A sudden silence. Inés looked down. ‘It was all true,’ she muttered.

  ‘You took a photo of her when she came out the shower,’ Isabel said. ‘Ana didn’t know you’d taken it, did she?’

  Inez shook her head, irritated. ‘I told my papa what happened.’

  ‘Your papa believes you because he thinks he brought you up to tell the truth,’ Isabel snapped. ‘But you lied to him about that photo. Do you really want Ana to go to prison? To be picked on every day, to be beaten up, maybe even killed, because she’s a cop?’

  Inés tossed her hair from her face, anxiously. ‘She told me off and I got mad.’

  ‘And you thought a few years in prison would teach her a lesson?’

  ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen,’ Inés sighed. ‘I came into the room just as she came out of the shower. She had her back to me and I took a picture while she was getting a towel. It was only a bit of fun. I didn’t know Mamá would see it. But then she went nuts and so did Papa. After that, I didn’t say anything because I knew they’d be angry.’