The Dead: Vengeance of Memory

by Mark Oldfield

  ‘She’s not here.’ Mendez was standing behind her, holding the baton. ‘Behave yourself and I’ll take you to her.’

  ‘I’m having one of my attacks,’ Galíndez whispered. ‘Help me.’

  Mendez gripped her arm, tight. ‘There’s no helping you now, Ana.’

  Galíndez leaned against her for support, her legs buckling drunkenly. ‘You’ve got to get me to a phone. I need to call the CNI and have Uncle Ramiro arrested.’

  ‘I know what you need.’ Mendez stopped and pushed Galíndez against the wall, holding her by her lapels. ‘You need target practice, Ana. You could have dropped me with one shot at the university if you hadn’t panicked.’

  The sound of the river grew louder as Mendez bundled her down the passage to the chapel. There was more light now: several oil lamps had been lit in niches in the rocks and the rough-hewn window of the chapel, throwing strange geometries of light over the stone walls around them. Intent on staying on her feet, Galíndez was only dimly aware as Mendez stepped behind her and kicked her behind the knee, sending her falling to the ground.

  ‘Isabel will be here soon,’ Mendez said. When Galíndez failed to answer, Mendez slapped her across the face, hard. The sound of the blow echoed off the walls, blending into the roar of the river. Mendez dragged Galíndez to her knees and then gripped her hair, forcing her to face the stone chapel. ‘Look.’

  Galíndez looked, though grey lights danced across her vision, blurring the figure emerging from the chapel, moving backwards with a strange, hesitant gait.

  It was Isabel, silhouetted against the flickering light of the oil lamps. Confused, Galíndez stared at the dark line extending from Isabel’s face. And then, as Isabel turned towards her and the angle of the light changed, Galíndez understood.

  The dark shape in front of Isabel’s face was an arm, the hand gripping a pistol, its barrel in her mouth. Galíndez heard her swallowing in small frightened gulps. Isabel took another couple of steps, guided by the gun barrel, her arms fluttering at her sides, helpless. The glow of Mendez’s flashlight danced over her, highlighting the figure in black holding the gun. The chill air turned to ice.

  ‘Buenas noches, Ana María.’

  ‘Uncle Ramiro.’ She tried to stand but her legs failed to obey.

  ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ Ramiro said, keeping the gun in Isabel’s mouth. ‘Better behave yourself or I’ll blow your friend’s brains out.’

  Galíndez obeyed her uncle, though this was not Uncle Ramiro as she knew him. He was a far darker version, big and powerful in his black combat gear. His face had lost all of the ruddy humour it had when she took his photo, and his eyes shone with glassy malice.

  Isabel made a gurgling sound and Galíndez saw a silver string of saliva hanging from her mouth, spilling down her sweater as Ramiro lifted the pistol, forcing her to raise her head, moving it left, then right, following the movements obediently, trying not to do anything to make him pull the trigger.

  ‘Not as confident as she was on the radio, is she?’ His voice was flat, cruel. ‘That’s the trouble when women get above themselves. They always come down hard in the end.’

  He took the pistol from Isabel’s mouth and gestured towards a stone table carved from a large rock near the river. ‘Get up on there.’

  Isabel went to the table, and sat on it, her hands nervous and uncertain.

  ‘Lie on it,’ Ramiro said.

  Isabel obeyed, though her body did not and her limbs jerked and trembled with fear.

  Ramiro loomed over her. She flinched as he ran an exploratory hand over her.

  Galíndez raised her head. ‘Leave her alone.’

  ‘I told you to behave yourself,’ Ramiro snapped. ‘But then, it’s been a long time since you obeyed orders, hasn’t it, Ana?’

  Galíndez stayed on her knees, trying to blink away the lights whirling before her eyes.

  ‘Did you really think you could get away with this?’ Ramiro’s face twisted with rage. ‘All this time and you still haven’t learned to keep your nose out of things that don’t concern you. Christ, I kept letting you go on secondment to chase Guzmán. You could have stayed in that little room at the university, poking about in the past to your heart’s content and I would have kept the funds coming. You could have been happy. You might even have learned something.’

  Galíndez struggled to speak. ‘I learned one thing.’

  ‘Really?’ Ramiro scoffed. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Your father didn’t commit suicide. He was shot in the back of the head.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘How the fuck did you find that out?’

  Galíndez lowered her head and shook it slowly, trying to clear her mind.

  ‘She broke into your family crypt,’ Isabel said.

  Ramiro glared at her, his eyes bulging. ‘She did what?’

  ‘She wanted DNA samples to see if Lucia Estrella was your natural daughter.’

  ‘Ana took samples from her corpse?’ Ramiro’s face was incandescent.

  ‘From all the bodies.’

  ‘You monstrous bitch,’ Ramiro shouted at Galíndez. ‘Where are those samples now?’

  ‘At HQ,’ Galíndez muttered. ‘In the lab.’

  ‘Sweet Jesus, they’ll have to be destroyed,’ Ramiro spat. Got that, Sargento?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Mendez said. ‘I’ll see to it as soon as I get back to HQ.’

  Ramiro turned back to Isabel. ‘Do you know what the results show?’

  She watched him, warily. ‘Not yet.’

  He grinned, though there was no humour in his smile. ‘It won’t hurt to tell you, I suppose, not now.’

  ‘Feel free,’ Isabel said, keeping her eyes on Galíndez.

  ‘Estrella wasn’t my natural daughter,’ said Ramiro. ‘I bought her from a hospital. Happened all the time back then. The staff took her away after she was born and told the parents she’d died.’

  ‘And baby Ramiro was stolen as well, I expect?’ Isabel couldn’t keep the scorn from her voice.

  ‘Don’t jump to conclusions, Señorita Morente. Baby Ramiro was Estrella’s child.’

  ‘She was only twelve,’ Isabel gasped. ‘Who was the father?’

  ‘Me.’ Ramiro shot a scornful look at Galíndez. ‘You wanted to know who your family were, Ana. Well now you know.’

  ‘She knows what you are,’ Isabel said, starting to get up.

  Ramiro gave her a backhanded slap that snapped her head back in a sudden spray of dark hair. She fell back on the stone table, dazed.

  ‘Sargento?’ Ramiro said, glaring at Mendez. ‘It’s about time you did something useful. Come over here and take Señorita Morente’s clothes off.’

  Mendez frowned. ‘Why, General?’

  ‘Because I just told you to.’ Ramiro’s face darkened. ‘You might need to hold her down as well. The unwilling ones are always the best, my father used to say. God knows he had enough experience of that in the Civil War.’

  Isabel raised herself on her elbow and looked over at Galíndez. Her heart sank as she saw her eyes rolling as she fought to stay conscious.

  ‘I gave you an order, Sargento,’ Ramiro bellowed. ‘Do it or I’ll send you back to the Dominican Republic and you can spend the rest of your days picking coconuts off the beach.’

  ‘Isabel?’ Galíndez spluttered, still on her knees.

  ‘God, look at her, what a mess,’ Ramiro sneered. ‘Pathetic, like her father.’

  Galíndez raised her head, staring through the blizzard of lights flashing across her vision. ‘My father was a hero,’ she whispered. ‘Everyone says so.’

  ‘Miguel Galíndez was a drunk, a coward and a liar,’ Ramiro said. ‘I hated him almost as much as I hate you.’

  Galíndez blinked, trying to focus. She was losing it.

  ‘He was a loser in every respect,’ Ramiro said. ‘Don’t you remember?’

  Galíndez heard Ramiro’s voice, though it was becoming faint. She heard another voice now: Here, Ana. I got you
this doll. Off you go and play.

  ‘Miguel was a rotten bastard,’ Ramiro continued. ‘He cheated at cards, he cheated at everything, really. Above all, he cheated on your mamá.’

  A grey mist was rising, swamping her thoughts and feelings, though she felt less pain now. That was good. Maybe she could sleep soon, let it all pass.

  ‘Ana?’ Isabel called, seeing the change in her.

  Through the mist, Galíndez heard Ramiro slap her.

  You like the doll, don’t you, Ana?

  ‘You want to know about Miguel?’ Ramiro asked. ‘He was a shit. But even in death, he had a lucky streak: after we atomised him with that car bomb, the press turned him into a martyr. Not a week goes by without someone reminding me what a hero he was, even though they never knew him. There’s no justice in this world.’

  Galíndez slumped forward, her arms around her body, hugging herself tight, feeling the cold stone floor pressing against her forehead. As long as she stayed quiet and didn’t move, no one could hurt her now. Just stay still, ignore the voices echoing around her.

  And there were new voices now. Voices lost in time.

  Mamá, why is Papá shouting?

  Go to bed, niña, don’t make him angry.

  ‘Why did you hate Miguel so much?’ Isabel asked, playing for time. Though time to do what, she wasn’t sure.

  ‘He was useless. By the time we got rid of him, the bastard was drunk most of the day,’ Ramiro said. ‘Out of pity, we still used him for the odd assassination which we blamed on ETA. But even that got too much for him.’

  ‘So you murdered him?’ Isabel’s head snapped backwards as Ramiro hit her again.

  ‘It was no more than a thug like him deserved.’

  ‘He was obeying your orders.’

  ‘True, though there was nothing he wouldn’t do for the price of a drink. He’d argue for a while, but in the end, he always did what I told him.’

  Galíndez listened to their voices floating above her, light and inconsequential. Just Isabel and Ramiro talking. Grown-up conversations, the background of her childhood.

  The sound of the door when Papá came home. The smell of sweat and cigarettes, the creaking of his leather belt and holster. The sound of a bottle opening. Liquid pouring into a glass. Her mother’s voice, shouting, downstairs. No, Miguel, no more, for the love of God.

  ‘You corrupted him.’ Isabel’s voice was low.

  ‘Let’s say I brought him round to my way of thinking. Not that it was difficult.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Power,’ Ramiro said. ‘My father was a powerful man: people obeyed his orders or he gave them a kicking, me in particular. I soon learned power was something to savour.’

  Galíndez felt herself cast adrift from the world, moving slowly away from their echoing voices. Other voices remained, though. The voices in her head.

  Shouting. Mamá crying. The front door opening, then slamming shut. The tic-tac of Mamá’s heels on the pavement. Downstairs, men’s voices.

  ‘You left something out.’ Isabel wiped her nose on her sleeve. Saw blood on it.

  Ramiro laughed. ‘Did I? What was that?’

  ‘What you did to Ana.’

  The door to the living room opening. Stay quiet. Don’t breathe.

  Quiet, keep quiet, stay under the duvet where no one can find you.

  ‘How do you know?’ Ramiro pointed at Galíndez. ‘She doesn’t.’

  The door handle turning.

  Somewhere above her, Isabel’s soft voice, the words laden with pain.

  Wake up, Ana.

  Galíndez hugged herself tighter, clasping her sides, her fingers digging into her flesh, her right hand pressed against the scar on her side, her body starting to sway.

  It’s time to play, Ana María.

  Rocking gently, rhythmically. Make it go away. Please, make it go away.

  Ana, wake up. It’s Papá.

  ‘She has nightmares.’ Isabel wiped something from her eye. ‘And when she does, she talks in her sleep.’ Her voice trembled with anger. ‘How could you do that?’

  ‘Because I could.’ Ramiro laughed. ‘Power means never having to say you’re sorry.’

  It’s a new game tonight, Ana. Look who’s here, it’s Uncle Ramiro.

  ‘It wasn’t just once, was it?’

  A harsh laugh. ‘Power’s like that. You always want more. Power is why you’re sitting there waiting for me to kill you. Because I have it and you don’t.’

  ‘Christ, what kind of man are you? You abused her and then murdered her father.’

  Ramiro shrugged it away. ‘After her mother’s suicide, I wanted Ana to live with us but her Aunt Carmen wouldn’t have it, the interfering bitch. If Ana had lived with Teresa and me, she would have been a different person. A normal person.’

  Afterwards, the smell of whisky. A present left on the pillow. Be careful what you say, Ana. This is our secret. If you tell, they’ll take Mamá and Papá away and you’ll be alone.

  Memories surfacing from the darkness, a hail of ice in her heart. She had never told anyone. Even so, someone took Mamá and Papá anyway.

  ‘Let Ana go. I’ll do what you want.’ Isabel’s voice was tight with fear and anger.

  ‘You don’t have any say in it,’ Ramiro snarled. ‘If I want you, I’ll have you.’

  He’s hurting Isabel. Keep rocking, make it go away.

  Galíndez’s fingers dug into her sides as she rocked, feeling the warmth of her flesh, holding herself tight, tracing the scar down her side, her hand moving over her hip. A sudden jolt as she felt the hard contour of Guzmán’s Browning, lodged in the waistband of her jeans.

  ‘I gave you an order, Sargento,’ Ramiro said. ‘Get Señorita Morente’s clothes off.’

  Mendez shook her head. ‘I’m not helping you rape her.’

  ‘You’re forgetting that you took an oath of obedience, Sargento.’ Ramiro’s voice was thick and threatening. ‘Do what you’re told or I swear to God I’ll have you and your entire family shipped back to the Dominican Republic in coffins.’

  ‘Anything’s better than doing what you’re asking,’ Mendez said. ‘Long ago, you told me the Centinelas were honourable. From what I just heard, you’re far from it.’

  ‘Stop bellyaching,’ Ramiro said, ‘and do as you’re told or you and your family will end up like Fuentes’ did.’

  A sudden silence. ‘No. I’ve had enough.’

  Ramiro shot her. The echoes hammered around the walls of the cavern as Mendez staggered against the stone wall and slid down it, clutching her belly, blood welling through her fingers.

  ‘I ought to kill you,’ Ramiro said, glaring at Isabel. ‘But I’ll give you a chance.’ He indicated Galíndez with a flick of his head. ‘I’ll let you both go if you tell me where that sword is.’

  Isabel frowned. ‘What sword?’

  ‘Guzmán’s sword,’ Ramiro yelled. ‘Don’t treat me like an idiot, I know she found it, so where the fuck is it?’

  ‘She gave it to Cryptography so they could analyse the verse on it,’ Isabel lied.

  Ramiro’s face twisted with anger. ‘She gave it to the Cryptography Unit? For God’s sake, they’ll make copies and share it with other agencies. Those bastards are probably writing conference papers about it right this minute.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Isabel saw Mendez trying to drag herself along the wall.

  ‘You’re all dead,’ Ramiro said, shaking his head. ‘I’ll have to sort the rest out later.’

  Galíndez looked up, wincing as a storm of unwanted memories surfaced with unbearable clarity. As she struggled to her feet, she saw Isabel lying on the stone table, her face bruised from Ramiro’s blows. And slumped against the wall, Mendez, clutching her belly. Their eyes met.

  ‘It’s over, General,’ Mendez groaned, clawing at the wall with bloody hands as she dragged herself to her feet.

  ‘Not until I’ve thrown you in that river, Sargento,’ Ramiro snarled. ‘I never forgive di
sobedience.’

  ‘Ramiro.’ A clear voice, harsh and authoritative.

  Ramiro turned. Galíndez was on her feet now, her face smeared with dirt, the Browning held in a two-handed grip. In the half light, it seemed as if her eyes were entirely black.

  Ramiro started to speak, though his words were sheared off by the percussive blast of the pistol. A look of surprise as he clutched his chest, struggling to stay on his feet as he began lumbering towards the river and the path back to safety.

  Galíndez went after him, purposeful and unhurried. He heard her footsteps and turned, standing with his back to the low stone wall. Below the wall, the endless tide of black water surged past, smashing its way into the chasm downstream.

  Ramiro clasped his hands over the wound. For a moment, Galíndez saw a sudden splinter of light reflected from the gold ring on his finger.

  A voice behind her. ‘Get out of my way, Ana María.’

  Mendez staggered past her, the baton in her right hand.

  ‘Good work, Sargento,’ Ramiro grunted. ‘Deal with them and I’ll promote you.’

  ‘Fuck you, General.’ Mendez swung the baton at his head. She was weak from loss of blood and Ramiro easily knocked the blow aside and seized her arm, twisting her round to face Galíndez, holding her in front of him with an arm around her throat.

  ‘Put the gun down.’ A cruel smile. ‘You don’t want me to hurt the sargento, do you?’

  Galíndez stood, frozen with indecision. She kept the pistol aimed for a moment and then started to lower it.

  ‘Don’t kill me, I don’t want to die,’ Mendez shouted. Without warning, she sagged against Ramiro’s arm, forcing him off balance as he tried to keep her shielding him.

  With Ramiro off guard, Mendez smashed her head backwards, hitting him full in the face, sending him toppling over the low wall into the river. Galíndez saw a pale hand clutch the wall and heard his desperate breathing as he struggled to hang on. Suddenly, both hands gripped the wall and Ramiro reared up out of the water, locking his arms around Mendez’s legs, trying to haul himself back onto the bank. Before Galíndez could reach her, Mendez stopped resisting and let herself fall backwards, taking Ramiro with her into the surging current. Galíndez watched helplessly as they were swept by the raging current into the foaming crevice in the rock. A sudden abrupt cry of fear, suddenly terminated. After that, there was only the incessant roar of the water.