The Dark Place: A historical suspense thriller set in the murky world of fugitive war criminals, vengeful Nazi hunters and spies

by Damian Vargas

  ‘You can’t bar me. I’m a bleeding war hero,’ Arthur muttered to nobody but himself, before strutting away towards the riverside path.

  Harry Blackman was moving stealthily across the overgrown lawn in front of his family’s home when Arthur had stumbled through the garden gate. The boy had not registered his father’s arrival, so preoccupied was he with hunting Alan, his school friend. Harry was wearing a long, grey overcoat he had found in his dad’s shed, and was staring down the barrel of his homemade wooden toy rifle. He had purloined a metal colander from the kitchen, wearing it upturned as a makeshift helmet.

  ‘Achtung Englander,’ he shouted, having spied Alan’s cherry-brown leather boots poking out from under a giant rhododendron bush. ‘You will die today, Tommy,’ Harry declared, as he took careful aim with the piece of lovingly carved wood. The bush’s fuchsia flowers quivered, the boy within realising that his hiding place had been rumbled.

  And then Harry’s world turned to black.

  He regained consciousness in the arms of his mother, Agnes, who was dabbing a wet cloth to her son’s split eyebrow.

  ‘He’s just a boy, Arthur. He don’t understand’.

  ‘Well… it’s about bleeding time he did,’ his father yelled, a bottle of scotch in his hand. Harry peered up at the face of his crying mother, one of her tears dropping onto his cheek.

  ‘What did I do, Mum?’

  ‘What did I do?’ sneered Arthur. ‘What did I do? His father took one last swig from the bottle, tossed it onto the grass, then stumbled towards Harry, who remained curled up on the ground, his head still resting on his mother’s thigh. I’ll tell you what you bloody did.’

  Harry tensed as his father lurched over him, and he felt his mother’s arms move to form a protective shield above her young son’s face. But Arthur was not going to hit his son. Not now. Not again. Instead, he reached down, knees clicking as he did so, and snatched Harry’s homemade rifle. He inspected it for a moment, then snapped it across his knee. As he threw the splintered pieces over his shoulder, he glared at Harry through bloodshot eyes, his rat-like teeth protruding through pulled-back lips, and snarled. ‘You were playing the fucking German again. That’s what!’

  7

  The survivor

  Police Station, La Mesita Blanca

  All Saints’ Day, 1970.

  7:31am.

  Inspector Garcia sat at the scratched Formica table in the police station’s small kitchenette, staring at his notebook. He had hoped to garner ten minutes of peace and quiet. Time to consider. Time to think.

  It was not to be.

  ‘He killed that man? At his villa?’

  Garcia raised an eyebrow towards officer Antonio Ramos who had just entered, and sighed. Normally, the Inspector would have made an effort to be more circumspect in his response. It was certainly not the answer that he wanted to provide, but he fully expected that the bullets that had killed the South African, Peter Stangle, would prove to be of the same calibre as those in the weapon he had taken from Harry Blackman in the early hours of the morning.

  ‘It would appear that way at present,’ he answered, before swallowing the last of his tepid coffee.

  ‘Was it self-defence? It must be, right?’ the young officer asked.

  ‘That would seem unlikely, given that Stangle had been shot at close range in the back of his head,’ Garcia thought but did not voice, and instead forced himself to say, ‘That is what we are here to establish, Antonio. Is it not?’

  Officer Ramos scratched his head. ‘But the inglés, he seemed so… so normal.’

  ‘Normal? Like you and me, you mean?’

  ‘Well. Yes, Inspector.’

  Garcia gave the police officer a rueful glare. ‘You have a lot to learn about people, hombre.’ He eyed his young colleague. What was he, twenty-one? Fresh out of the academy, with a year’s experience of nothing but classroom lectures, jogging around the sports track, and sweaty sessions of paddle? Chasing nothing but skirt, catching nothing but venereal disease, and all at the taxpayer’s expense. Slick black hair, a stiff white collar, brown puppy dog eyes. No grey, no scars.

  No regrets.

  The Inspector shook his head, ignoring the young man’s questioning stare. How is a boy like this supposed to handle violent smugglers, drunken wife beaters, manipulating con artists and corrupt public officials that would sell you out in a heartbeat? How’s a boy like that supposed to survive?

  Garcia, however, was a survivor. He had thirty years in the police force under his belt. Exactly thirty years, and today - All Saints’ Day - of all days, was supposed to be his last before gracefully stepping away to enjoy a generous state pension. But no, something unimaginable had occurred on his patch, and the man assigned to replace him, Roberto Hildago, had managed to fall off his bicycle two days earlier and was now nursing a broken ankle in hospital in Malaga.

  Fucking Hildago. A grown man, falling off a bike, the useless idiot.

  ‘Are you alright, sir?’ said the officer.

  Garcia rubbed at his weary eyes and peered at the man standing in front of him. ‘I’m fine. Just tired, that’s all.’ He gave the young man a pat on his arm.

  Just another week, no more. Just one last case to deal with. You’ve faced worse. Far worse. Keep your head down, do what you’re told.

  He motioned to rise, but sat back down again as Rafa Rubio, the desk sergeant, appeared at the doorway. Judging by the sergeant’s face, Garcia got the distinct feeling that his day was about to get significantly worse.

  ‘It’s the man from the British consulate,’ said Rubio.

  ‘What man?’

  ‘He called earlier. Said his name was…Wellend…or Wheeland. Something like that. I’m not sure. His telephone line was awful. Didn’t you see the message? I left it on your desk.’

  Garcia had not. He shot the desk sergeant a questioning stare.

  The officer glanced back down the corridor. ‘He’s driving from Gibraltar. He wants to see you as soon as he gets here.’

  Garcia rubbed his eyes again. ‘Puta madre. That’s all I need.’

  Rubio glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘He’ll be here in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Garcia. ‘Tell me when he arrives.’

  Rubio remained looking at him.

  ‘Was there something else?’ said Garcia.

  ‘Yeah. Gomez just got back. Him and Alonso did a search of the Blackman property, like you asked. They found these…’ He held out a transparent plastic bag containing three bullet casings for Garcia to take.

  ‘The bullets the Inglés shot Stangle with?’ said Ramos.

  Rubio shook his head. ‘Yes. Well, no. That’s just it. The Inglés had a small gun, a Walther PPK. I examined it before putting it in the evidence locker. It’s chambered for 7.65mm rounds—’

  ‘And these…’ said Garcia, examining the bag containing the bullets, ‘these are 9mm casings.’

  ‘So, the Inglés didn’t shoot the South African man?’ said Ramos, his face wrinkling up as he tried to wrap his head around the new information.

  ‘We don’t know that,’ said Garcia. ‘All we know is that Stangle wasn’t killed with the gun that Blackman had when we arrested him this morning.’ He pushed himself up, handed the spent cartridges back to the desk sergeant. ‘There’s another gun up there somewhere. We need to find it.’

  ‘The boys already looked,’ said Rubio. ‘They said they tore the house apart.’

  ‘Then they need to look again.’

  ‘But they’re back here in the village now, looking for the Navarro boy,’ said Rubio.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be searching the whole valley?’ said Ramos.

  Garcia rubbed his lower back, grimaced. ‘We don’t have enough people for that.’

  ‘What about the army?’ said Rubio.

  It was an idea that had already occurred to Garcia much earlier in the day, but bringing in outsiders always made things more complicated.

  ‘No. Not yet. I w
ant us to deal with this ourselves.’

  ‘But Jesus—’ said Rubio.

  ‘You heard what I said, Rafa. No outsiders. Not yet.’

  The desk sergeant shrugged and motioned to leave.

  ‘And both of you, just remember. We don’t know who shot Stangle or why. And we still don’t know if that has anything to do with the Navarro boy. Kids run away from home all the time, right?’

  Both men nodded again, then hurried away.

  Garcia stepped out into the corridor, paused outside his office door and stared into the interrogation room opposite. A quarter of a century’s worth of memories flashed before his eyes. He had faced many hurdles over those years, but had always found a way to overcome them, whatever it took. He had always done what needed to be done.

  He walked into his office while wondering if maybe he should have read that Agatha Christie book after all. ‘I bet “Inspector Narracott” never had to deal with this shit,’ he thought.

  At that moment, the phone in his office began to ring. He closed the door, sat down, and lifted the receiver.

  ‘Yes?’ he snapped.

  ‘Is this Kapitan Garcia?’ said the caller, his voice slow. His accent German.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘This is Joseph Navarro.’

  Garcia straightened up. ‘Mr Navarro. What can I do for you?’

  ‘You can assure me that you are treating my son’s disappearance with the urgency it requires.’

  ‘Of course, Sir. My men are going to door to door in the village right now. They’ll search every house and business and—’

  ‘What has Blackman said?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The Englishman. You are already questioning him, I assume?’

  ‘Not yet. He was in a bad state when we found him. Barely conscious. He’s with the doctor at the moment.’

  ‘And the woman that works for him? That Norwegian?’

  ‘She also needed to see the doctor, but her condition was not so severe. She’s being brought here right now.’

  The line was silent. Garcia pushed his ear closer to the receiver. ‘Mr Navarro? Are you still there?’

  ‘I’m told that you are a man that understands his place, Garcia.’

  ‘If you mean that you can trust me to do my job, then that is correct.’

  ‘Good,’ said the German. ‘Some of my associates are going to be assisting with the search.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary, sir. We have all the resources that we—’

  ‘I lost a son before. Did you know? My first wife, too. They were caught in a British bombing raid. Their shelter took a direct hit.’

  ‘I did not know that, no. I’m very sorry.’

  ‘The point being, that if something happens to Conrad, I will hold you personally accountable.’

  Garcia felt his throat constricting. He coughed, took in a deep breath. This was a moment that he needed to sound assured. Capable.

  ‘We’ll find him, sir.’

  ‘Personally accountable. Do you understand me?’

  The menace in the German’s tone could not have been more explicit. A cold shiver ran down Garcia’s spine.

  ‘I understand.’

  The line went dead.

  He placed the receiver down, took the last of his cigarettes from the packet and lit it, the German’s words repeating in his head.

  He finished the cigarette, then reached for the telephone again, pressed a button which put him through to the desk sergeant’s extension.

  ‘Uh-huh?’ Said Rubio.

  ‘I changed my mind. Give the local army commandant a call right away. Tell him we need his help.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘But Rafa, only give him the basic version…a kid’s missing. Nothing more. Don’t mention Stangle. You understand?’

  ‘The basic version, yeah. I got it.’

  ‘Tell him we need as many men as he can spare,’ said Garcia. He placed the receiver down again, then yanked open his right-hand desk drawer, pulled out a bottle of brandy, then unscrewed the cap before pouring a generous measure into a discarded coffee cup. The golden brown liquid mixed with the remnants of the coffee, but he didn’t care, and downed the liquid in one.

  8

  Know thy enemy

  Peterborough, England.

  July, 1932.

  Arthur Blackman sat drinking from a pint of beer at one of the wooden picnic tables in the beer garden of the Botolph Arms, accompanied by his wife, Agnes, his brother, Ted, his brother’s wife, and two other couples. All four of the men had served in the British Army during the Great War.

  On the pub lawn nearby, several boys of differing ages were kicking a worn, brown leather football at the designated goalie who stood between the trunks of two young silver birch trees. Five young girls, sisters to the boys playing with the ball, sat in a group on the lawn playing pat a cake.

  Two of the boys crashed into one another in their attempts to win the ball, the smaller of them letting loose a loud shriek of pain as he fell to the floor. The shrill cry caught the attention of the fallen boy’s mother who started to stand up, but her husband, Ted, grabbed her arm. ‘Sit down, he’ll be alright.’

  The mother, a slender woman with long black hair, peered nervously at her child until he lifted himself up from the grass, and started running again.

  ‘Told yer. Tough little sod is our Johnny,’ said the boy’s father, beaming. He nodded towards Arthur’s eleven-year-old son, Harry, who was sitting on a stone wall nearby reading from a paperback book. ‘Your lad’s not much of the sporting type, is he?’

  Arthur Blackman stared into his pint glass. His wife, smiling, said, ‘He has big dreams, that boy. He wants to build cars, planes and spaceships like Buck Rogers.’

  The other man chuckled. ‘Spaceships, that’s a good one.’

  Arthur placed his now empty glass down, eyes to the table, his lower jaw moving from side to side, then glanced at his wife, then to the man opposite. ‘He knows what’s what, does Harry.’

  ‘If you say so.’ The other man laughed again.

  ‘He does too, and I’ll show yer,’ said Arthur. He stood up, peered towards his son, then yelled his name, beckoning at the boy to come over to the table.

  ‘What are you doing?’ whispered Agnes. Arthur dismissed her concern with a wave and swivelled to face Harry who was trudging across the lawn around the group of girls.

  ‘Come on, boy. Get over here.’

  Harry approached the table, grasping his book.

  Arthur jabbed a finger towards his brother sitting opposite, then towards Harry. ‘Listen to this, Ted.’ Arthur, his hands now on his hips, peered at his son. ‘Right, Harry. Answer me this question.’ Arthur cast his eyes around the table. His three army colleagues and their wives leaned forward with expectant looks on their faces.

  Agnes’s stare had fallen to her hands at her lap.

  ‘Right, son. Now, what do you say if someone asks you if they can trust a German?’

  ‘No,’ Harry replied in an instant, his response without thought, like that of a well-drilled young soldier. Or a devout follower.

  ‘And why can’t you trust a German, son?’

  ‘Because they are all liars, murderers and rapists.’

  Arthur shot the rest of the group a satisfied smile, then turned back to his son again. ‘And what was the advice I gave you?’

  Harry’s nose scrunched up, his lips moving without making a sound.

  ‘C’mon, Harry. You know this. Tell your uncle Teddy, here.’

  ‘Erm…the only good German is a dead German?’

  Arthur sat back, crossed his arms, grinning at his friend opposite. ‘See? Just coz he don’t run around after a stuffed pig’s bladder, don’t mean nothing. If we ever have to fight the Boch again, he’ll be the first in line to sign up. Mark my words.’ Arthur reached into his pocket and retrieved a few coins, which he held out for his son. ‘Get yourself some sweets on the way home.’

  H
arry accepted the money, putting it into his pocket, the paperback tucked under his arm.

  ‘What’s that book about, then?’ said Ted, gesturing towards Harry’s book.

  ‘Spacemen and Martians,’ Harry replied, his eyes lighting up. He offered the book to the man. ’It’s really rather exciting.’

  ‘Gods of Mars?’ said Ted, breaking into a wry grin. He looked back at Harry. ‘Stories about space Martians won’t help you none if we go to war with the Hun again.’ He reached for Harry’s upper arm. You wanna work on them skinny arms, boy. Not waste your time reading nonsense about space rockets.’ He handed the book back to Harry, patted him on the head.

  ‘Alright, son. You can go now,’ said Arthur, angry eyes focussed back on the empty pint glass.

  The woman with the black hair coughed politely. ‘You don’t really think there’s gonna be another war, do you, Arthur?’ She glanced at her husband. ‘I couldn’t take that again.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, dear,’ said Ted, tipping his pint glass towards his brother, a teasing grin on his face. ‘We’ll be alright. Harry will protect us all…with his ray guns and space rockets.’

  9

  Outsiders

  Police Station, La Mesita Blanca

  All Saints’ Day, 1970.

  8:27am.

  Garcia stepped out of the lavatory, drying his face with a paper towel as he did so. The desk sergeant was waiting for him in the corridor.

  ‘What is it?’

  Rubio stood, his head cowered a little, and fidgeting with his fingers. ‘New orders just came in.’ He held out a hand-written note. ‘A courier just dropped them off.’

  Garcia peered at the printed note.

  November, 1st. 1970

  For direction to: CPT. Jesus Garcia, Guardia Civil, La Mesita Blanca.

  Prioritise all available resources into investigation murder of Sen. Peter Stangle and render all possible assistance to Mr Weiland of the British Government.