He lifted his head, met his reflection in the mirror. He was a mess. His lip was cut, his eyes bloodshot. His side, arms, and neck were bruised. He moved slowly towards the top of the stairs and listened.
Nothing. He was alone again.
His strength was returning, the fog lifting. He returned to the bedroom, to the window, and peered out onto the driveway. The gate had been pulled closed. Johansson’s car remained nowhere to be seen.
His clothes sat in a neat pile on a chair. He sat back down on the edge of the bed. He needed to think. The Israelis had warned him in no uncertain terms that he must back off. But they didn’t know who they were dealing with. They didn’t know Harry Blackman. They were watching him. That much was clear, but he would be even more careful now. He had a mission and nothing would get in his way, for he possessed the most powerful driving force of all, the need for vengeance.
A week passed.
One week in which he had been forced to pretend as if nothing had happened. To act as if he knew nothing of her part in his betrayal. To disguise the seething bitterness that burned within him. He had gone about business as usual. He had kept to his routine, been careful not to let his blistering anger affect his outward demeanour. She was certainly watching him, reporting his every movement and action to her Mossad handlers. Listening to his every conversation. But now he knew what she was, and so he knew how she would operate. He knew her methods, how she would think. He had the advantage.
The presence of the Israelis was unexpected, and represented a complication of that there was no doubt, but he was a man well-versed in dynamic situations. He had no friends here. Letting down his guard with that woman had been a serious error. But it was not a fait accompli. Not by a long shot.
He stood at his bedroom window, watching as Liv Johansson drove away in her blue Renault. The errand he had given her - to take some documents to the bank in Coín, twenty kilometres away - would take at least two hours.
As the car disappeared from view lower down in the valley, he turned away from the window and made his way downstairs, propelled by a sense of renewed energy. He headed through the kitchen, to the back door, then walked to the garage, above which was the simple bedsit in which the Norwegian was living.
The door at the bottom of the staircase had no lock. Blackman opened it and made his way up the narrow staircase, each of the stairs creaking as he placed a foot on them. He reached the top, carefully scanned the edges of the bedsit door; remembering the old SOE tradecraft trick of using one’s own saliva to secure a hair between the frame and the door which, if missing, would tell the occupant that someone had been inside. Seeing no sign of such tricks, he twisted the handle and peered inside.
His nostrils filled with the smell of fresh lavender, a small vase of the purple flowers sitting on a shelf under the window, and a curious thought struck him; he owned this property, yet had never previously stepped foot into this room. He flicked the ceiling light on; the room having only a single, small window, was dark despite the glaring sun outside. Scanning from left to right, he observed a grey and pink-painted dresser unit with four drawers, upon which rested a hairbrush and a modest mirror; a small porcelain basin, a tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush in a glass on a small shelf above; a wardrobe, its white paint peeling and a cream cotton jacket hanging from one of the open doors; a single, steel-framed bed, the plain white bedding neatly made; and two battered maroon suitcases against the wall. A handful of well-worn novels were piled up on the bare wooden floor. A threadbare red and black rug lay on the wooden floorboards next to the bed. Behind him, near the doorway, an old iron stove.
He lifted the mattress, found nothing, then walked to the dresser. He pulled each drawer open and inspected the contents, taking care to place them back exactly as he had found it. Underwear, a little jewellery, ad hoc cosmetics, some loose change. Nothing of consequence, except for a sheathed hunting knife, its blade dark and scratched from years of use. He held it in his hand, felt its weight, struggled to imagine her using it. A memento, perhaps? He put the knife back where he had found it.
The wardrobe was next. He reached up and felt on top, then opened the doors. Inside he found only a small selection of clothing; a few dresses, blouses, skirts, a pair of denim jeans and two coats. On the lower shelf sat two pairs of tennis shoes, and a pair of brown leather brogues, along with a carpetbag. He checked inside the bag. It was empty.
Johansson had been living here for five months, yet the bedsit offered no signs of home comforts. She could pack up and be gone in five minutes. He stood up and scanned the space again, his hands on his hips. The floor was constructed from a single layer of timber boards which lay upon the solid supporting beams below; the walls were whitewashed masonry, the ceiling a layer of skimmed, whitewashed plaster. There were no visible joints, no hidden spaces, no cubby holes - nowhere to hide anything.
He scratched his head, started towards the door but then stopped, glanced towards the window. The view outside looked down onto the driveway, the garage entrance directly below it. From the outside, Blackman knew that both the garage door and that window sat perfectly in the centre of the facade, yet that was not the case in this room. He looked towards the open staircase, then twisted around to look at the far wall on the opposite end of the room.
Something about the room’s dimensions did not make sense.
He walked towards the far wall once again, staring at it for a moment. There could be only one explanation. He took hold of the wardrobe and shifted it to one side, and was confronted with a hole in the wall. It was about two feet wide and three feet tall; just big enough for an adult to clamber through. Behind it was a small, dark space. And inside that was the confirmation of Harry Blackman’s suspicions.
‘What did you find in there?’ said Inspector Garcia.
Harry Blackman sat on the cell bed, massaging the back of his neck with one hand. ‘A radio. Quite modern, military grade. A code book, and a log of all my movements. She had been spying on me since the day I arrived here.’
Garcia scratched his head, then started to make some notes in his pocketbook. ‘What else?’
‘There was a photo of her and a young man.’
Garcia stopped writing, peered at the Englishman. ‘What did this man look like?’
‘He was a bit taller than her. A couple of inches, perhaps.’
‘Blonde also?’ said Garcia.
‘No, he had dark hair. Curly.’
‘Dark eyes?’
‘I can’t remember. Maybe. Yes, I think so.’
Garcia reached for the blue card folder beside him. He opened it, thumbed through the leaves of paper, then extracted a photostat copy of a passport photo. ‘Is this him?’
Blackman took the sheet of paper, stared at it. ‘Yes.’
‘Are you completely certain? Look again, please.’
‘It’s him. There is no doubt.’ Blackman thrust the paper back towards the Inspector. ‘Who is he?’
‘His name was David Rosenbaum. He was a journalist,’ Garcia said, gazing at the picture of the young man, then peering at Blackman. ‘The man whose body you found.’
‘So she knew him.’
‘It certainly looks that way,’ said Garcia.
‘Were they lovers?’
‘That I will have to ask her.’ Garcia scratched at the back of his head, peered back at Blackman. ‘What did you do after you found the radio?’
Blackman sat up, looked at the Spaniard, his fingers tickling the stubble on his chin. ‘I followed her.’
‘Followed her where?’
‘To Mijas. It was the next day. She told me she was going to meet a friend there. She said she’d be gone for a few hours.’
‘You thought she was lying?’
‘Of course she was lying.’
The Inspector scratched notes onto his notepad. ‘What did she do there?’
‘She went into a bar and went straight to a table at the back. There was a man sitting at it already. He ha
d his back to the door. The place was too small for me to go in without them seeing me.’
‘And then what?’
‘She left after about twenty minutes. The man followed shortly after.’
‘Your saw his face?’
Blackman nodded. Something in the Englishman’s eyes told Garcia that he was about to receive yet another bombshell. He took a deep breath, his pen poised over the open notebook. ‘Did you recognise this man?’
‘I’d seen him once before. In Germany, in 1945.’
‘Another soldier?’
‘No, that man was never a soldier.’ Blackman’s eyes had fallen to the concrete floor. ‘He worked for British Intelligence.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘It is the reason I insisted on talking to you alone, Inspector…’ Blackman’s gaze broke away from the floor and he fixed his eyes upon Garcia’s. ‘It was Guy Weiland.’
40
Word play
Police Station, La Mesita Blanca.
All Saints’ Day, 1970.
5:12pm
Garcia heard the front doors of the police station open and close, then the animated voice of a woman talking to the desk sergeant. Señora Marrón, Blackman’s housemaid, had come as Garcia had asked.
He closed his notepad, slipped it into his inner jacket pocket and pushed himself to his feet, then nodded at the plate of bread and cabra cheese on the floor next to Blackman’s bed. ‘You must eat.’ He knocked on the door and officer Ramos unlocked it, pulled it open. ‘Keep an eye on him, Antonio.’
Garcia escorted Señora Marrón to his office and beckoned at her to sit down. Her eyes flitted around the small room, her hands on her knees clutching at her handbag.
‘It’s okay, Señora. You are not in any trouble.’
‘Then why am I here? I told the other policeman everything I know, this morning.’
‘Yes, you did, and I thank you for that. There was just one thing I wanted to pick up on, if you would be so kind.’ Garcia reached for several leaves of paper upon which were officer Gomez’s handwritten notes. He peered at his young colleague’s messy scrawl, and adjusted his reading glasses. ‘Here it is,’ he said, pointing at the page. ‘You told my colleague that you sometimes heard Miss Johansson talking to herself in her bedsit.’ He removed his glasses and peered at Señora Marrón. ‘What language was she speaking? English?’
The Spanish woman shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, no.’
Garcia thought for a moment. ‘Her native tongue, then? Norwegian, yes?’
The woman shook her head again. She appeared quite certain.
‘How can you be sure? I don’t think you speak Norwegian, do you?’ He grinned at her. Her face remained cold.
‘It was a strange language,’ she said. ‘Like Arabic, but not Arabic.’
The Inspector watched the woman for a moment, stroking his chin. ‘Why do you say that, “Like Arabic but not”?’
The woman shuffled on the wooden chair, glanced at the door momentarily, then in a whispered tone, ‘My grandmother was from Morocco.’ She shot Garcia a knowing stare. ‘The Norwegian woman, she said Sababa. It is Arabic. But her other words, I did not know them. They were not Arabic.’
Garcia replayed her words for a moment then sat up bolt upright, connections lighting up inside his head. He stood up, walked to the door and gestured at Señora Marrón that she could go. ‘You have been most helpful, Señora. Most helpful, indeed.’
He watched her depart, then returned to his desk, yanked open the drawer and reached for the bottle of brandy. As he poured himself a large measure, the pieces of the puzzle began assembling in his mind.
Of course, he thought. How did I not see this before?
41
Sababa
Police Station, La Mesita Blanca.
All Saints’ Day, 1970.
5:59pm
The desk sergeant was closing the front door behind the departing Señora Marrón when Garcia approached. The Inspector remembered that they were related. That was not untypical in small villages like theirs, where almost everyone was related in one way or another, and was likely why the desk sergeant and Garcia had never enjoyed the best of relationships.
‘Rafa, I need you to do two things for me. Firstly, get Alonso and Gomez on the radio. I want them to go to the Englishman’s house.’
‘Why? They already searched the property.’
Garcia fought the urge to grab the man by the collar, took a breath of air. ‘Why must you always question me? For once, please just do what I say. Okay?’
The desk sergeant shrugged and slid behind the desk, reached for the radio receiver.
Garcia leaned across the desktop. ‘Tell them to go to the room above his garage. Tell them to move the wardrobe. They will find a secret room with a radio—’
‘A radio?’ said the desk sergeant, eyes widening, suddenly more attentive.
‘Yes, Blackman discovered it. But I don’t want that. They will find a photograph and some notebooks. Tell them to bring those to me.’ The Inspector glanced at the clock on the wall. It was six o’clock. He had, perhaps, three hours before the men from La Secreta would arrive. He tapped on the desk. ‘Tell them they must hurry.’
‘Alright, and what’s the second thing?’
‘Put out a general message on the radio. To our lads, but the army too. Tell them not to bother looking for Walther Krügel.’
‘What? Why? I thought he was important? You know, to our friends in Madrid?’
‘He’s long gone. Trust me. It’s the boy we need to find. Tell them that. Tell them to find the boy.’
Guy Weiland was stalking back and forth in his cell when Garcia peered at him through the small window before inserting the key.
The Englishman halted, spun to face the door as it opened. ‘You have no right keeping me in here.’ He stepped forward to confront the Spaniard. His face was the same shade of incandescent purple it had been when Garcia had ordered the man to be confined in the cell an hour earlier. The Inspector wondered how the man had got to this age without dying from a heart attack.
‘You knew about Blackman,’ Garcia said.
Weiland blinked. His jaw tightened. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘You knew he was here because of the Germans. And because of Señor Navarro. Yet you failed to warn us and now a man is dead and two are missing, one of them Navarro’s own son.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘You do not deny it?’
Weiland shook his head. ‘Look, Blackman clearly held some kind of personal vendetta against one or more of the people here. It is tragic, but how could I have known? How could any of us have known?’
‘You did know, Mr Weiland, because you had a spy here. Miss Johansson.’
Weiland’s mouth was closed, but Garcia sensed the man was clenching his teeth. The Englishman threw his hand up in mock outrage. ‘That’s absurd.’
‘No, Mr Weiland. It is not absurd. You are a spy. I know this.’
Weiland’s eyes narrowed. ‘And how would you, a lowly captain in a squalid little town in the arse end of nowhere, know about such things?’
‘I have friends who know about such things.’
The Englishman held his stare for a moment, then backed away. ‘Your friends might be advised to keep their mouths shut.’
Garcia thought about the short phone call from Diego Stanz’s secretary, the concern in her voice. It was too late to pass on that advice now, he thought. And that was why he had to see this through. ‘I have my men going to his house right now,’ he said. ‘To the quarters where Miss Johansson lived, above the garage. To the false wall she had put in before Blackman moved to Spain. The space where she kept a secret radio.’
The Englishman’s gaze slipped away from Garcia’s stare for a moment, as if processing what Garcia had just told him. His cheek twitched and his jaw tightened. ‘You need to release me.’
‘I will not. Not yet.’
‘Believe me,’ Garcia replied, ‘I already wish this.’ He took a step forward, going toe to toe with the Englishman. ‘But don’t think that I am the only one in danger here. You knew about Blackman. You had unique knowledge that could have helped us avert what has happened here. I have a dead body and two missing persons, one of them a teenage boy. Do you think my government will turn a bind eye to this when they find out? Do you think our town’s German community will, when they find out?’ The two men stared at each other. ‘If you want me to release you, then tell me why are you really here.’
Weiland nodded, smirked. ‘Alright, Inspector. Let’s play it your way.’ He sat down on the cell bed, his hands propping himself up on the thin mattress.
‘So,’ said Garcia. ‘Tell me.’
‘Well, that’s quite simple. It’s just a matter of damage control, old boy.’
‘Damage control?’ Garcia repeated, processing, then understanding. ‘Ah, I see. So, you admit that Miss Johansson was working for you. And now you want your agent back…before the people from La Secreta get here. Is that it?’
Weiland smiled at him. It was the same smile, thought the Inspector, that his dentist in Coín gave to his patients to reassure them that the drill he was about to apply to one of their teeth, would not hurt. But it did hurt. It always hurts.
‘Is it her you want to protect? Or the secrets of your government?’ Garcia said.
Weiland leaned forward, his hands interlocked before him - the “Trying to appear sincere” face, as Garcia often described it. ‘It is a matter of concern for my superiors that Miss Johansson is not caught up in any of this. That is, any more than she already is. If you release us both, I can get her on a plane to Gibraltar within an hour.’
The Dark Place: A historical suspense thriller set in the murky world of fugitive war criminals, vengeful Nazi hunters and spies Page 20