‘Just us, Sarge,’ said Ferguson.
‘Bloody hell,’ the man replied, eyeing both men. ‘Alright, dump your weapons and kit and follow me. I found us a boat. We’re getting out of here.’
An hour later, Harry Blackman and Gus Ferguson lay shivering under damp blankets with a dozen other stragglers. They were on the deck of a 50-foot motor yacht, its small engine driving a single propeller through the calm dark waters away from the north French coast, with all its death and despair, and towards sanctuary in southern England.
The explosions over Dunkirk had now ceased. The orange and red hues from the fires were also receding from view, but the scenes to which Harry Blackman had borne witness on those beaches still burned at the forefront of his mind.
He overheard another soldier, a young man from the Midlands, describing the mass evacuation as a “marvel”. The man grasped a photograph of a young woman, and was weeping uncontrollably, no doubt inebriated by the adrenaline of his unlikely escape.
Another man responded - one of the steamer’s crew, his bloodshot eyes locked on the scarlet-stained bandages wrapped around the leg of a man lying opposite him. ‘We’ll have to do a deal with the jerries now,’ he muttered. ‘We can’t fight ‘em. Not no more.’
‘What are you friggin’ talking about?’ growled Ferguson. ‘Of course we’ll fight them.’
‘With what?’ said the sailor. ‘We ain’t got nuffin left to fight ‘em with.’
‘We can make more guns, more tanks,’ said Blackman. ‘We can train more men.’
The sailor shook his head, his bloodshot eyes falling to the deck. ‘My old man said this would happen. He said it was our fault.’
‘How the fucking hell’s it our fault?’ said Ferguson.
The sailor looked at him, his face ashen. ‘The Versailles treaty.’
‘What about it?’ said Blackman.
‘We was too tough on ‘em, weren’t we? At the end of the last war. Didn’t give ‘em any choice.’
‘They had a choice,’ said Blackman as he rolled over, resting his head on his arm. ‘But we don’t. We have to beat them.’
Blackman was far too weary to argue with the sailor and besides, the blame for this disaster lay not at the feet of young servicemen like them. It was the powers that be that had failed all those who had been sent to defend France. It was they who had failed their countrymen and women. And now the British Isles were at the mercy of those vile ideologues in Berlin.
They had taken a beating, but at least the nation had been shown the true nature of the enemy it now faced. There could be no more illusions as to the scale of the challenge, nor the consequences of defeat. Only a fool could now argue for anything other than total commitment to defeat this evil enemy.
Whatever the cost.
15
The arrival
Four months earlier
Liv Johansson stood waiting as the taxi pulled to a stop on the driveway, the bodywork of the black saloon now coated in a film of dust from the testing journey up the track from the lower valley. Harry Blackman emerged from the rear of the car, quickly followed by a mature brown Labrador.
‘Oscar, sit,’ Blackman commanded, while shading his eyes from the sun with one hand. The dog did as it was told while its master followed the driver to the rear of the vehicle to retrieve his luggage.
Liv approached the rear of the car. Her employer looked to be in fine shape for a man of, she guessed, fifty years of age. His hair was dark and neatly cropped, his jaw square, and his neck, arms, and shoulders toned. She saw no hint of a paunch. Acclimatised to the Spanish sun, however, he was not. The top three buttons of his starched white shirt were unbuttoned, the garment wet under the arms and on his lower back. His forehead was likewise covered in a thin sheen of dampness. He was, she decided, a man quite unprepared for the Mediterranean climate.
‘Welcome to La Mesita Blanca, Harry. Did you have a good trip?’ Their eyes made contact for the first time in nearly six months.
‘I can’t complain,’ said Blackman, while dabbing at his forehead with a white hanky. ‘The flight arrived quite early, as it happens.’ He gestured towards his dog. ‘Poor Oscar didn’t enjoy it quite so much though, cooped up in the rear, did you, fella?’ He glanced at the small group of assorted workers. ‘Would you have someone fetch him some water, please?’
Liv turned to ask Conrad, the German teenager, but the boy was already on it, darting up the drive towards the tap on the outside wall of the house.
The taxi driver, a diminutive man in his fifties, had placed the two suitcases to the side of the driveway. He stood, leaning against his battered car, waiting for payment.
Harry reached for his wallet, while looking again at the waiting gardener, house maid and labourers. ‘Liv, I don’t want to be a bore, but can we do the introductions a little later, please? I really would like a drink of cold water myself, and to get out of this sun.’ He placed several bank notes into the driver’s hand, offered the briefest of smiles, then reached down to pick up the two cases.
Liv touched the taxi driver on the arm. ‘Gracias, señor.’
‘Would you like a hand with one of those bags?’ she said, gesturing towards the suitcases.
‘Oh no, it’s quite alright,’ Blackman responded, while taking in the recently planted rose bushes. ‘You couldn’t find any of the scarlet one’s I asked for?’ he asked, the dog following its master close behind.
‘Not yet,’ Liv said. ‘But I located a vendor in Malaga city that I think can supply them.’
Conrad arrived with a large bowl of water for the Labrador.
‘Thank you, young man,’ Blackman said with an appreciative smile.
‘Willkommen,’ the teenager replied, grinning.
Liv saw the warmth vanish from Blackman’s face. He glanced at her, back to the boy, then continued towards the house. Once inside, he lowered the cases to the terracotta tile floor and surveyed the dwelling’s spacious interior. ‘I must say, I am most impressed, Miss Johansson.’ He strode towards the kitchen, gave it a quick scan, then leaned against the granite work surface. ‘It is like a different property all together. Did you manage to get everything done?’
‘Almost. There are a few things that still need to be finished.’ She opened the refrigerator door and reached inside for a large jug.
‘Would you care for an orange juice? It’s nice and cold.’
Blackman nodded, and Liv filled a glass for him.
‘Is there much left to do?’ he asked.
‘Well, the wall needs a few more days. One of the new toilet cisterns has a bit of a leak. And the window blinds you wanted haven’t arrived yet. They are taking a little longer as the manufacturer had to make custom sizes. They should arrive later this week.’
Harry took a sip of the juice. His eyes widened, and he peered at the glass. ‘This really is rather good, isn’t it?’
Liv smiled. ‘The oranges are from your own garden. I picked them this morning.’
‘You’ll have to point out those trees to me.’ He took another gulp and placed the glass down. ‘Now, tell me. What of the staff?’
‘Señor Guitérrez. I employed him as a gardener. He is a veritable wizard with plants for sure, but he’s also very good with almost any practical tasks in and around the house. Yesterday, he fixed some damaged tiles on the roof for instance, and he—’
‘And the others?’ Blackman interrupted.
‘Well, there’s Señora Marrón, she’s the house maid. She will come in as often as you need to do the washing, the cleaning and—’
‘And the boy?’
‘Oh, that’s Conrad. He’s been helping me out for a few weeks.’
Blackman turned his head to the open kitchen door. ‘He is German?’
‘Yes. There’s something of a German community up there, as it happens. The local Spanish call it Little Munich. Conrad is a lovely young man. Very respectful. His father asked if he could come and help out for a while. He wants his son t
o improve his English.’
‘What’s his father’s name?’
‘Oh, that’s Joseph. Joseph Navarro. He has a big house further along the valley.’
Blackman stood, his fingers slowly twisting the glass back and forth for a moment, before snapping his attention back and downing his juice. ‘Most refreshing.’ He placed the glass in the sink.
‘Would you care to have a quick tour?’ Liv asked.
‘Not right now. I’d rather like to freshen up, if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course’. Liv reached for the empty glass and walked to the sink to wash it.
‘Miss Johansson.’ Blackman was standing at the kitchen door, peering towards the garage where Conrad Navarro was now at work polishing the bonnet of the Austin Healey.
‘Yes?’
‘The German boy. I won’t be needing his services any longer.’
Liv was not sure that she had heard correctly. ‘I… I’m sorry?’
‘I’d prefer not to have him around,’ said Blackman, then pulled a banknote from his wallet, handing it to her. ‘You can give that to him as a thank you.’
‘But he is jolly hard working,’ she said, taken aback.
‘I don’t doubt that. They all are,’ said Blackman as he turned and walked towards the stairs. ‘But I'm perfectly capable of washing my own car.’
16
Take note
Police Station, La Mesita Blanca
All Saints’ Day, 1970.
9.47am.
‘So, Mr Blackman made you dispense with the services of Conrad Navarro?’
Liv Johansson nodded at Inspector Garcia, albeit her eyes were focussed on another place and another time. ‘I gave the boy some money, and I told him that Mr Blackman preferred to clean his own car.’
Garcia scribbled in his notebook while asking, ‘Mr Blackman was not fond of Germans?’
‘I couldn’t say.’ Johansson’s fingers were interlocked before her, her thumbs rubbing against each other.
‘And the staff, how did he treat them?’
‘Mr Blackman preferred to remain somewhat aloof. He would ask me to pass on his instructions.’
‘But was he fair to them?’
The Norwegian seemed to consider her answer for a moment. ‘I would say so, yes.’
‘And what about you? He expected a lot of you, it seems. What with that long list of tasks he gave you? Did he treat you the same as the others, or differently?’
‘Mr Blackman and I had a good relationship.’
Garcia kept his eyes on hers, curious if she would hold his stare for his next question. ‘You were lovers?’ he asked.
The first reaction to the Inspector’s suggestion came not from the Norwegian woman, but from the Englishman at the rear of the room.
‘Inspector Garcia, a man has died. I hardly think Miss Johansson’s love life is relevant to the situation.’
Garcia leaned his head to his right. ‘Mr Weiland, kindly allow me to ask the questions.’ He returned his gaze back to the woman whose face had assumed a more defensive appearance. ‘Miss Johansson, did you and Mr Blackman have relations of a sexual nature?’
Her hand rose to touch the cut on her forehead. ‘We did. Once.’ She glared at him. ‘But I think you already knew that.’
Garcia broke away from the woman’s accusatory gaze while suppressing a wry smile. He had known, of course he had. One of his colleagues had already interviewed Señora Marrón, the Englishman’s housemaid, shortly after the arrest that morning. She had told the officer what she had found when she had washed Mr Blackman’s bedsheets one morning. Nonetheless, he made a point of scribbling yet more notes into his notepad; it was one of his favoured techniques. It gave him time to think about what to ask next, while also being quite unnerving for the person being questioned.
Garcia thumbed back several leaves of the small black book to find an earlier note. ‘You accompanied Mr Blackman for an evening meal on the 17th of July. At the Augustiner tavern.’
‘You know this, too. You came to the villa and questioned Harry about it a few days later.’
Garcia shot her a wry smile, glanced to the rear of the room, to where Weiland was siting. ‘Let’s us go over it again, shall we? For the benefit of our guest at the back of the room.’
She kept her eyes on his, but he saw her jaw tighten.
‘Was this the first time Blackman had eaten at one of the village’s restaurants?’
‘I can’t say. Possibly. I don’t recall another time.’
‘Were you aware that the Augustiner tavern happens to be owned by Señor Navarro?’
‘I was,’ she said.
‘And was Mr Blackman also aware of this?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Señor Navarro being the father of young Conrad Navarro, the boy who’s whereabouts we are currently attempting to assertion? The boy, whom, you told me, Mr Blackman “preferred not to have around at his property”, yes?’
‘Yes.’ He watched Johansson’s eyes briefly dart towards the back of the room once more.
Garcia added another mark to the tally he was keeping in the margin of his notepad, then continued while pretending to read from an earlier page in his notebook. ‘Due to the subsequent events of that evening and the unfortunate nature of what happened the following day, which you will doubtless recall, I had occasion to interview the waiting staff at the time. They said that Mr Blackman’s bill had been quite sizeable. Veal, lobster. An expensive wine.’ Garcia peered at Johansson, smiled a knowing smile. ‘He must have really liked you.’
‘It was not like that,’ she replied, her tone calm and dismissive, but the involuntary twitches of her jawline and a disguised gulp told another story. Her thumbs had ceased their rubbing motion, her hands seemingly welded together.
Garcia wondered if this was a woman who has been prepared for such situations.
‘Harry asked me to book a table at the tavern. He said he wanted to reward me for all my hard work over the previous months. I told him that wasn’t necessary, but he insisted.’
‘Mr Blackman chose the restaurant himself?’
‘He did, yes. It was just supposed to be a quiet meal, over which we would discuss my ongoing work for him.’
Garcia peered over the top of his glasses. ‘But that evening, it didn’t prove to be very “quiet” at all, did it?’
‘No. It did not.’
Garcia turned his gaze back upon his notebook. ‘I have several witness accounts of the events of that night and, of course, I spoke with Mr Blackman a few days later. I did not, however, have occasion to discuss it with you.’ He removed his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘Henceforth, I should like to go over those events again. With you. Just in case you had…alternative recollections. So, please. Tell me what happened that night.’
17
The altercation
Augustiner Tavern, La Mesita Blanca
Three months earlier.
The sun had set far off to the east, the late evening sky rapidly plunging into an inky blackness.
The waiter pulled back Liv Johansson’s chair from under the table and motioned at her to sit, then walked around the table to do the same for Harry Blackman. They were at a table on the ground floor veranda, a semi-enclosed area overlooking the edge of the pueblo, the view south into the heart of the valley. A long line of blood-red poinsettias in black ceramic pots marked out the perimeter.
‘Would sir and madam like something to drink while you look at the menu?’ the waiter asked Harry, who sat with his back to the wall.
‘Yes, I hear that you have some particularly good wines,’ Blackman said.
‘Yes sir. I will fetch the wine list’. The waiter started to leave, but Blackman touched his arm.
‘Actually, we would like a white. Something memorable. What would you recommend?’
‘Well, if Sir, you like a sweet white, we have a 1965 Erbacher, which is a very good Riesling with a distinct amber tone. We also have an ex
cellent 1960 Oppenheimer Herrenweiher Riesling, a medium dry. And if sir is feeling particularly adventurous, we have a small supply of 1929 vintage Liebfraumilch Spätlese. It is extremely good, and has a nose of dried fruit, old winter apples, hazelnuts, burnt sugar and Madeira notes.’ The waiter peered at Blackman, one eyebrow lifted. ‘Although it is somewhat on the expensive side.’
Blackman waved the mention of price away. ‘This is a special occasion. I am treating Miss Johansson here, for all her hard work.’
‘So, the Spätlese then, sir?’
‘That will be just splendid, thank you.’
Liv smiled as the waiter departed. ‘So you are a wine connoisseur as well as an engineer, Mr Blackman.’
‘Please, Liv. Just “Harry”. You agreed to do some work for me, not to indentured servitude.’
He shot her a suave smile, one that would have easily melted her heart under different circumstances. She found herself scanning his face while he read the menu - dark hair, well-groomed and no sign of receding, no more lines on his forehead than a much younger man, confident brown eyes, a Roman nose and a chiselled jawline. But more than that, natural intelligence. Confidence. A man sure of himself and his abilities. She wondered what it would take to break such a man.
‘Can I ask you something?’ she said.
He lifted his gaze from the menu, one eyebrow raised. ‘Of course.’
‘Why here? Why La Mesita Blanca?’
He held her stare for a moment. ‘And if I said, for the weather, the food, the scenery?’
‘Then I’d say, why not Mijas? Or Marbella? This pueblo is rather…remote. For someone who has not previously lived in Spain, I mean.’
He aimed an index finger at her. ‘And that, Miss Johansson, is precisely why I chose this village, not some godawful coastal resort surrounded by package holidaymakers.’
She sat back in her seat. ‘So you are a seeker of solitude?’
‘I prefer to think of it as privacy,’ he said.
The Dark Place: A historical suspense thriller set in the murky world of fugitive war criminals, vengeful Nazi hunters and spies Page 8