‘Got it, jefe,’ one of the men grunted as he dragged open the metal door for them.
They went out into the street and the door grated to behind them. ‘Those guys look like they can handle themselves,’ Guzmán said.
Gutiérrez nodded. ‘Ex-Foreign Legionaries. They’ve been working for me since they left the Legion.’ He pointed to a small bar further down the road. ‘You’ll like it here, it’s cheap and they have very good sandwiches.’
Guzmán’s expression hardened. ‘Sandwiches aren’t lunch.’
The bar was small and homely. Guzmán was still studying the menu when a large woman in a grease-stained apron came to serve them. Gutiérrez ordered a cheese sandwich, annoying Guzmán no end. ‘Got anything hot?’ he asked.
‘I’ve just made some albóndigas, señor.’
‘Meatballs? That sounds good,’ Guzmán said. ‘Any tortilla?’
‘We have potato tortilla.’
‘Then I’ll have both. And a bottle of Rioja.’
‘Not for me,’ Gutiérrez muttered. ‘It’s bad for my stomach.’
Guzmán gave him a disparaging look. ‘I wasn’t offering you any.’
The woman brought the wine and Guzmán poured himself a large one. He glared at Gutiérrez’s empty glass and splashed a little Rioja into it. ‘Here, it’s unlucky to drink alone.’
Guzmán’s head turned as a green Ford Fiesta drove slowly past the window. Cheap cars were of no interest to him and he looked away.
The food arrived and Guzmán attacked his meatballs with gusto. ‘Ortiz was telling about how he’s kept the Centinelas from infiltrating the guardia,’ he said.
Gutiérrez nodded. ‘It was brave of him: if he’d just given in, he could have been rich.’
Guzmán glanced out of the window. The green Ford had now pulled to a halt outside the garage. ‘Looks like someone wants to get his car fixed. I hope your lads are qualified mechanics?’
‘Not at all,’ Gutiérrez said. ‘Their orders are to tell prospective customers to get lost.’
Idly, Guzmán watched a man get out of the car and go towards the door of the garage. ‘Looks like they’ll have to do just that.’ He frowned as the man turned and dashed off up the street. ‘See that?’
Gutiérrez leaned across the table to get a better look. As he did, his elbow caught Guzmán’s glass, sending a stream of red wine over the tablecloth.
‘You clumsy bastard,’ Guzmán said, ‘that’s a waste of good—’
The Ford exploded in a lurid fireball, shattering the windows of the café and showering the interior with broken glass and rubble. Guzmán hurled himself sideways, knocking Gutiérrez from his chair and pinning him to the floor as debris rained down around them. As the dust settled, Guzmán cautiously struggled to his feet, wiping dirt from his face.
The café was wrecked, the air thick with dust and the stench of burning gasoline.
Gutiérrez was still lying on the floor. ‘Are you all right?’ Guzmán asked.
‘The archive,’ Gutiérrez croaked, pointing to the door.
Guzmán ran out through the shattered doorway into the street. In a shop across the way, several hairdressers were peering out through the broken windows of their salon. Behind him, a car alarm blared incessantly as he sprinted to the burning garage.
The door to the garage had been blown off its hinges. Inside, one of Gutiérrez’s men was lying on his back in a pool of blood. The man had taken the full force of the metal door and his head was lying halfway down one of the aisles between the shelves, connected to the body only by a long trail of blood. The other guard lay face down near the office. Guzmán had no time to determine what had killed him as he heard the crackle of flames from the shelves near the door. He turned, aware of someone behind him. It was Gutiérrez, gasping as he staggered through the acrid smoke.
‘Where’s the fire extinguisher?’ Guzmán yelled.
‘In there.’ Gutiérrez pointed to the small office by the far wall.
Guzmán ran in, seized one of the fire extinguishers and smashed it head down onto the concrete floor. The spray hissed as he aimed it into the flames.
‘That’s going to ruin the files,’ Gutiérrez said, between bouts of coughing.
Guzmán kept the spray aimed at the fire. ‘Go and wait outside, before you choke to death.’ In the distance, the sound of approaching sirens.
By the time the fire engines had negotiated their way down the narrow street, the fire in the archive was out. Guzmán stood outside the wrecked garage, hawking and spitting, trying to clear the smoke from his lungs. Near the burned-out Ford, Gutiérrez was unsuccessfully arguing with two firemen who insisted that regulations required them to hose down the inside of the garage. Guzmán went over and convinced the firemen that it would be unnecessary, first, by showing them his ID and then, when that was unsuccessful, by showing them the Browning. The discussion over, the fire engine drove away, its commander muttering darkly about the Francoists still controlling the Forces of Public Order.
‘You realise this was deliberate?’ Gutiérrez said, between bouts of coughing.
‘There was me thinking that car blew up by accident.’
‘I went to great lengths to keep this place secret.’
‘Clearly not great enough, since someone found out.’ Guzmán went over to the blackened car and bent to examine the debris. Gutiérrez heard him curse as he took a blackened piece of metal from the smoking ashes, juggling it from hand to hand until it was cool enough to examine.
‘What’s that you’ve got, Comandante?’
‘Part of a detonator, I’d say.’ Guzmán handed him the lump of twisted metal. ‘Get on the phone and have a forensic team sent over. Let’s see what they can find in all this shit.’
‘We should move the files. They’re vulnerable now.’
Guzmán looked into the darkened garage. ‘There’s a lot of them.’
‘We can separate out the most important and move those.’
‘That’ll still take all night,’ Guzmán said. ‘I’ll call Ochoa and tell him to bring the squad down here. They can do it.’
‘You’ve got something more important to do, I take it?’
Guzmán nodded. ‘I’m seeing an informer.’ It was a curious description for Lourdes but he saw no reason to discuss that with Gutiérrez.
MADRID, OCTOBER 1982
Only an hour had passed, though to Michael Riley it seemed very much longer. The day had started well, though everything had changed now, even his appearance. He saw that only too clearly from his reflection in the rust-spotted mirror set up in front of him. When he moved his head, he saw the small table at his side filled with the instruments of his suffering. Pliers, pincers and several knives. All had been used.
‘Stop snivelling,’ Professor Luca said. ‘At least I know you’re telling the truth now. It was foolish to try to lie to me.’ He grabbed Riley by the hair and pulled back his head. ‘I learned from the best in the business, Signor Riley. I could make you remember things you forgot years ago, if I wanted.’
‘Pleesh lemee go. It hurth.’ It was difficult to speak without his front teeth. An hour earlier, they had been in his mouth. Now, they lay on the table, next to the instruments.
‘Don’t speak,’ Luca sneered. ‘You sound ridiculous.’ He reached over and took a small knife with an adjustable blade from the table. Riley gurgled and pleaded, struggling desperately as the knife came towards him.
The blade slid down his chest, scoring the flesh in a deep line that stopped just above the sternum. Luca put down the knife and dipped his index finger in the slick of blood on Riley’s chest. Then he turned to the wall and began writing. From time to time he dabbed his finger into Riley’s blood before continuing.
Riley looked away, sensing that whatever Luca was writing, it was better not to know. That thought rapidly blossomed into an obsessional belief and he turned his head, staring at a pile of dusty equipment in a corner of the room, half covered by a filthy tarpaulin.
Pots of paint, a rusty hatchet. Plastic garden sacks.
Luca seized the student’s hair and twisted his face to the wall. Riley closed his eyes. As long as he couldn’t see what was written there, he was safe.
‘Open your eyes,’ Luca said, in the same flat voice he used when he began the interrogation. The same voice that had continued asking questions despite the screaming.
Riley opened his eyes and stared at the word scrawled in large bloody letters on the peeling paintwork. A name.
Luca looked at him with contempt. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’
Not that it was hard, Luca knew. The Irishman’s reaction was commonplace. Commonplace but deluded. This was not some child’s game where things went away if you shut your eyes: no matter what Riley did, the outcome would be the same.
‘You’ve told me all I need to know, Signor Riley,’ Luca said.
Riley’s head slumped and a string of snot slid from his nose. ‘I neeth a dotter.’
Luca pulled on a pair of gardener’s gloves. Serviceable but cheap, 350 pesetas from the SEPU bargain store. Tomorrow he intended to buy several more. He would need them.
‘That cut’s not fatal by the way,’ he said, gesturing at Riley’s chest. Riley’s eyes widened as he saw the thin bright wire pulled taut between Luca’s gloved hands. ‘But this,’ Lucas stepped behind the chair, ignoring the student’s gurgled pleas as he drew the wire round his throat, ‘this is fatal.’
MADRID, OCTOBER 1982, RETIRO PARK
‘I can’t,’ Lourdes whispered, pulling away from him. ‘I’m a married woman.’
When she had finished rearranging her clothes, she leaned against him, looking at the line of trees by the lake. He held her in his arms as she recalled a poem, something about love and trees. It was a reminder to Guzmán of how much easier it was just to pay for it.
‘What’s your favourite meal, Leo?’
Guzmán didn’t have to think hard. ‘Beef stew, fried fish, tripe, shellfish, pork.’ He felt her shoulder moving against him. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘It sounds like you’d eat anything.’
‘As long as the cook’s pretty.’
That made her laugh. A woman unaccustomed to compliments, he guessed. Probably that was why she kept fishing for them.
‘Getting cool, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘You’re right. Shall we get a drink?’
‘I thought you’d never ask. Look, there’s a bar with music and dancing over there.’
They crossed the road and went into the bar. The chairs on the terrace were arranged in a circle to make space for the dancing. A few musicians stood under the trees, setting up their instruments. Guzmán led her to a table outside the ring of light, so they could watch from the shadows.
‘This is my favourite tune,’ Lourdes said, squeezing his hand as the music began.
‘What’s it called?’ It sounded like any other bolero to him.
She gave a long sigh. ‘“Historia de un Amor”. It’s about a man who’s thinking about his dead wife. He asks why God made him love her only to make him suffer so much by taking her away.’ She sighed again. ‘I can’t imagine a man loving me that much.’
‘Sounds morbid to me,’ Guzmán grunted.
‘I think about you all the time,’ she said, watching the dancers. Her voice was so quiet, he thought at first he was mistaken. ‘You’re a good man.’
‘No, you’re a bad judge of character.’
The waiter brought their drinks. She waited until he had gone. ‘Adultery’s a sin, you know. I’ll be so embarrassed in my next confession. Just think what the priest will say.’
‘Why does he need to know? We haven’t done anything yet.’
She gave him a reproachful look. ‘It’s what I believe, Leo. If you don’t repent, you lose your place in heaven.’
‘I doubt they’ve saved a place for me.’
‘Don’t be silly, there’s always redemption for those who want it.’
The dance ended to a ripple of applause from the terrace. ‘We could go to my pensión,’ he suggested, not for the first time.
‘No, I have to get home by eleven. My husband’s been called out on a job. He’ll want his supper when he gets back.’
‘It’s only eight thirty. I can call a taxi later to take you home.’
She was quiet for a moment. ‘All right.’
‘What was that?’
‘I said let’s go back to your pensión. The owner won’t mind, will he?’
‘No, he’s an ex-Republican but he’s all right, considering. I’ll give him a bottle of brandy, that’ll keep him happy.’
‘Is that how you still think of people, Leo? As an ex-this or that? The war’s over.’
That very much depended on your point of view, he thought, leaving a handful of coins on the table. Across the street, he saw a taxi waiting by the kerb. ‘Let’s go.’
MADRID, PENSIÓN PARAÍSO, CALLE DEL CARMEN
The church bells were striking midnight as Guzmán watched her taxi drive off across the Plaza del Callao. He gave a last wave and went back up the steps into the pensión.
Daniela’s father called to him through the glass bead curtains. ‘That you, Leo?’
‘You know it is.’
‘I didn’t want to bother you while your lady friend was here.’
‘I should think not. What is it?’
‘You had a couple of calls earlier. They’re on the pad by the phone. Do you want your bottle of brandy back?’
‘No, you finish it.’ Guzmán reached over the reception desk to retrieve the notepad. The first caller was Ignacio. Guzmán dialled the number he’d left and heard the sounds of a bar in the background as someone answered. ‘Is Ignacio there?’
A gruff voice: ‘Who wants to know?’
‘I do.’
‘I’ll get him.’
He waited while the barman called Ignacio’s name. A scuffling noise as the old man picked up the phone. ‘Guzmán?’
‘You must be psychic. What have you got for me?’
‘Exactly what you asked for.’
‘Good man. And where are you?’
‘Lavapiés. Remember the Bar Almeja?’
Guzmán frowned. ‘Of course I do. It was always full of queers in the old days.’
‘Still is. But no one knows us here, do they?’
‘I’m on my way.’ As Guzmán put down the phone, he glanced at the other number on the paper. A Capitán Serrano of the policía nacional. He dialled the number and waited with growing impatience for the dunderhead at the other end of the line to find out if Serrano was still in the building. Finally, the capitán came to the phone.
‘Comandante Guzmán? I called you earlier about the explosion in Calle de Menorca. Brigadier General Gutiérrez asked me to pass on our findings about the bomb.’
‘And?’
‘We’ve come up with a few details. You know the detonator was made in Italy?’
‘I do now. Keep going.’
‘Not just the detonator, all the components we could identify were Italian.’
Guzmán gripped the phone tightly. ‘Anything about the way it was put together?’
‘Funny you should ask,’ Serrano said, taking a deep breath.
Guzmán cut in before he could speak. ‘Meticulous attention to detail, reinforced connections and top-quality wiring, almost as if he’d been entering it for a show?’
The capitán sounded surprised. ‘That’s right. You have to wonder who’d put that amount of effort into it, don’t you?’
Guzmán hung up. There was no point wasting time speculating about the bomber’s identity. He already knew.
MADRID 1982, BAR ALMEJA, CALLE DE LA RIBERA DE CURTIDORES
As the taxi came down the steep cobbled hill, Guzmán noticed a flashing sign over the door, the bar’s only concession to changing times, by the look of it. He got out of the taxi, taking care not to tip the driver since the man had made it clear from the start he was not hap
py conveying a passenger heading to a notorious gay bar. Naturally, it was not his prejudice Guzmán objected to so much as the fact the driver thought he was a marica.
As the taxi roared away, Guzmán pushed open the door to the bar and stepped into a warm fug of cigarette smoke and cheap cologne. The bar was crowded and heads turned as he came in. His menacing build and hostile stare suggested he was not seeking company and most of those looking at him quickly lowered their eyes. It was not like the old days, he thought. They might be wary of him, but they were no longer afraid now the law against homosexuality had been repealed. He went to the bar and ordered two brandies before looking for Ignacio.
The old man was sitting in a corner and Guzmán went to join him. He sat with his back to the wall.
‘Suspicious, aren’t you?’ Ignacio asked, taking the brandy Guzmán offered.
‘I like to see who comes in and who goes out.’ Guzmán lowered his voice. ‘So what have you got for me?’
‘It wasn’t easy, Comandante.’
‘I wouldn’t need you if it was easy. Who gave you the information?’
Ignacio smiled. ‘Professional secret.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Guzmán said, thinking he would have punched Ignacio to the ground for that comment a few years ago. ‘How much did I say?’
‘You didn’t. But I said it might be risky and it was. I phoned a guy I thought could help me. He made a couple of calls and blow me, half an hour later he was chased by two heavies when he was bringing me the details over.’
‘Did he know who they were?’
‘He knew they were trouble, put it that way.’ Ignacio took another sip of brandy.
‘I hope you made sure you weren’t followed here?’
‘Tranquilo, Comandante. How long have I been doing this?’
‘Long enough not to have a couple of heavies chase your contact, I’d say.’
‘Coincidence, that’s all it was.’ Ignacio’s cheeks were flushed by the brandy.
‘Let’s hope so. I like to keep my business to myself.’
‘You always have, Comandante. I remember how organised you were at Calle Robles. You had everything on file back then. A man couldn’t take a shit without you cataloguing it.’
The Dead: Vengeance of Memory Page 22