There were soldiers everywhere. Soldiers demonstrating their machismo by downing large glasses of brandy in a single gulp. Soldiers drinking a mixture of Asturian cider and cheap red wine. Soldiers being sick. Soldiers pissing in the street. And, of course, there were the whores. Like the ones who’d travelled out on Paco’s bus from Madrid, they were mostly a bunch of raddled hags, but in the atmosphere of desperation and drunkenness which co-existed side by side on the street that night, even they found themselves a steady trade.
‘I consider myself a sociable sort of chap,’ Gómez said, as they weaved their way around the knots of young soldiers, ‘I’m popular in the officers’ mess, and very much in demand at regimental balls. Yet you don’t seem to like me. Now why should that be?’
‘I saw you kill a man yesterday afternoon,’ Paco reminded him.
‘And just before I executed him, I heard him scream out that you had killed two of our soldiers that very morning. So what right do you have to feel superior to me?’
‘That was completely different,’ Paco said, slightly uneasily. ‘I killed them out on the battlefield.’
The major laughed. ‘This whole country is a battlefield, my friend, I’m afraid if you’re going to dislike me, you’ll have to come up with a better reason for it than shooting a man who was already in the process of betraying you.’
‘You also arranged for Cindy Walker to be kidnapped,’ Paco said. ‘If I didn’t think it would make the situation worse than it already is, I’d kill you for that right now.’
‘If you’d agreed to co-operate with me in the first place, the kidnapping would not have been necessary,’ Gómez said, as if Paco’s last comment had completely washed over him. ‘And can you honestly say that in my position you would have acted any differently?’
‘I’m not in your position.’
‘True,’ Gómez agreed. ‘And you should probably thank your lucky stars for it. Mine is not an easy tightrope to walk. But let’s talk about the case. This afternoon, the general said he was convinced that whoever shot the dog did it because he wished to steal the collar. I was watching you closely at the time, and I didn’t think that you looked very convinced by that particular line of reasoning. Did I read your expression correctly?’
‘Yes, you did,’ Paco agreed, making a note to remember to be very circumspect with his expressions when the major was around.
‘So explain to me why you don’t think the dog was killed for its collar,’ Gómez said.
‘I saw the way the other dog – Reina – took the newspaper off the corporal this afternoon,’ Paco explained.
‘What did that tell you?’ Gómez asked, intrigued.
‘That she’s soft – and spoiled half to death. And I see no reason why Principe should have been any different.’
‘He wasn’t,’ Gómez confirmed. ‘If anything, he was even softer. But you still haven’t answered my question.’
‘If I’d wanted to steal the dog’s collar, the first thing I’d have done would have been to get him to beg,’ Paco explained. ‘Then, while he was sitting down, I’d simply have unfastened the collar and slipped it into my pocket. If he’d resisted – which is unlikely – I’d have slit his throat. What I wouldn’t have done is take the risk of shooting him near a very busy street, where there were any number of people who might see me.’
They had reached the Plaza Mayor. It was almost dark now, and scores of hurricane lamps had been lit, filling the whole square with an eerie glow. In one corner, a guitarist was playing Galician folk songs. In the space in front of the water fountain, an attractive gypsy woman was dancing to a flamenco guitar, while a ragged child with a large upturned cap in his hands was collecting small coins from those who were watching the performance.
‘So what did happen to the collar?’ Gómez asked.
‘The chances are, it’s still in the village.’
‘It can’t be!’ the major protested. ‘I had my men carry out a thorough search. If it had been here, they’d almost certainly have found it. So isn’t it far more likely the thief – whether or not he’s also the murderer – has hidden the collar somewhere in the countryside?’
Paco shook his head. ‘No, it isn’t, as you’d realize if you thought things through clearly.’
‘Why don’t you give me some help in that direction?’ the major suggested.
‘All right,’ Paco agreed. ‘As you know yourself, there’s a battle going on out there – and the front line is changing every day.’
‘So what?’
‘So if the Socialist militias make any advances in tomorrow’s fighting, the collar could end up behind enemy lines by nightfall.’
‘Perhaps the thief is confident that a well-trained army will prevail over a disorganized rabble of plumbers and carpenters,’ Major Gómez said. ‘I know that I am.’
‘Even if the militias don’t advance, there are still so many other things which could go wrong,’ Paco told him.
‘For example?’
‘Say he’s hidden it up a tree. What guarantee does he have that a stray artillery shell won’t blow that particular tree to hell? Or perhaps he’s buried the collar – with armoured cars churning up the ground as they are, there’s a good chance the jewels will be ground to powder. And riskiest of all for him, with thousands of men fighting out there, there’s a very strong possibility that one of them will accidentally come across it.’
‘So you’re saying that while the collar may not be very safe in the village, the thief still knows that this is the safest place there is?’ Gómez asked.
‘Exactly,’ Paco said, beaming with pleasure that the major had followed his logic.
And then, a sudden, disturbing thought hit him! This conversation he was having with the major could just have easily have been taking place between himself and his partner, Fat Felipe. He recognized this for the danger sign it was. The case might only concern the death of a dog, but he was already starting to become as obsessed with its solution as he’d been with all his other cases. And given the perilous situation he and Cindy were in, he simply couldn’t allow that to happen.
‘So if the dog was not killed for its collar, why was it killed?’ Major Gómez asked.
Paco shrugged. ‘If I knew why it was killed, then I’d probably also know who’d killed it.’
They turned on to the Calle Jose Antonio, and Paco gave an involuntary shudder as they passed the storeroom which had been his condemned cell. A little further up the street, they reached a modest house with two soldiers standing on guard outside it.
‘These will be your quarters from now on,’ Major Gómez said. ‘Your woman is already inside, waiting for you. I will have supper sent over to you in half an hour. Eat, drink and be merry.’
‘For tomorrow I die?’
Gómez shrugged again. ‘Perhaps tomorrow we all die,’ he said. ‘It certainly increases our chances when we have a general who values the life of his pets over those of the men serving under him.’
*
Cindy fell into his arms the moment he walked through the door. ‘Thank God you’re safe!’ she gasped. ‘They swore to me that you were all right, but until I saw you for myself, I could never quite believe it.’
‘How about you?’ Paco, asked, hugging her body tightly to his. ‘Have they harmed you?’
Cindy shook her head. ‘They were a little rough at first, but once they’d managed to convince me that they really were bringing me to you, they could see I wasn’t going to cause them any trouble.’
‘You wanted to come here?’ Paco asked incredulously.
‘Of course not. Why would anyone want to be taken behind enemy lines? But I did want to be with you – and this is where you were.’
What had he ever done to deserve a woman as magnificent as this, Paco asked himself. Had he, at some time in the past, carried out some virtuous deed which he could no longer remember? Or was his luck as random as the fall of the dice or the turn of a card? He didn’t know – and he didn’
t care, either. But one thing he did care about. Passionately! He had sworn a solemn oath that he would protect Cindy – and he would, even if it cost him his own life.
‘So, Don Francisco, are you going to tell me what this is all about?’ Cindy asked.
Paco looked around the room for the first time. There was a small table and two chairs in the centre of it, and next to the fireplace was a large sofa which not only looked very comfortable, but gave him an idea of how the two of them could put it to use.
‘Explanations can wait until the food comes,’ he said.
‘But I want to know now,’ Cindy said.
Paco cupped her chin in his hands and kissed her passionately on the lips. ‘We can eat and talk at the same time,’ he said, when he finally forced himself to break away from her, ‘but there are other things we could be doing which would demand our complete attention.’
*
Paco answered the loud knocking on the door wearing only an old overcoat which he’d found in the closet. The soldier who was standing there, holding a tray, was perhaps the same age as he was, but had the pinched face of a man who goes through life collecting resentments as some men collect stamps.
The soldier glanced down at the tray – though he must already have known what was on it – and scowled. ‘You’re one of the enemy, yet you live better than we do,’ he complained as he handed it over.
Paco examined the tray himself, and decided that the disgruntled private was probably right. Major Gómez had sent his prisoners albóndigas – hot, spicy meatballs – and riñones al jerez – kidneys cooked in sherry. He’d even been thoughtful enough to include a couple of bottles – one containing a young red wine from La Mancha, the other a bottle of Catalan brandy.
Paco closed the door, placed the tray on the table and shrugged off the overcoat. Then, sitting opposite each other and completely naked, he and Cindy polished the food and wine off with gusto. Only when they had finished eating and were sipping their copas of brandy, did Paco start to tell Cindy about the general’s dog.
‘So you’re going to find the killer, are you, just like you always do?’ Cindy said when he’d finished his story.
Paco shook his head. ‘Not this time.’
‘Why not?’
‘Major Gómez is in a fix,’ he explained. ‘As head of security, it’s his job to find the killer, so, for the moment at least, he needs me. Which is why he’s treating us so well. But the second I’ve given him what he wants, I become superfluous. Which is another way of saying that I’ll be as good as dead.’
‘What about me?’ Cindy asked. ‘And don’t lie to me, Paco. I’m a big girl now, and I won’t stand for it.’
‘I won’t lie to you,’ Paco promised. ‘I don’t ever want to lie to you about anything.’
‘Well, then?’
‘If countries like the United States of America continue to stay neutral, then the rebels will probably win this war,’ Paco said. ‘And the military know that just as well as I do.’
‘So?’
‘So they will want to avoid any incidents which might help to tip the balance of sympathy of the general public in these neutral countries towards the democratically elected government.’
‘An incident like me complaining to my embassy that I’ve been kidnapped?’ Cindy asked.
‘Exactly.’
‘And since no one knows that I’m here, the easiest solution for them might be to see that I never get back to the city to kick up trouble?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
Cindy took a generous slug of her brandy. ‘You have a plan,’ she said. ‘I know you. You always have a plan.’
‘Yes, I do,’ Paco confessed. ‘But I’m afraid that it’s not really a very good one.’
Cindy held her left hand up in front of her, and examined it closely. It was shaking, but not as much as she feared it might be. ‘Tell me what this plan of yours is, anyway,’ she said.
‘As long as we’re alive, there’s always a chance of us escaping,’ Paco told her. ‘So the trick is staying alive. I will pretend to be investigating the death of the general’s bloody dog – I might even have to do some real investigating to make it seem genuine – but all the time what I’ll actually be doing is looking for an opportunity to get us away from here.’
Cindy shook her head in a half-comic, half-tragic, way. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It isn’t a very good plan.’ She looked down first at his empty glass, and then at hers. ‘Wanna another slug of hooch, Ruiz?’
‘More than anything else in the world,’ Paco confessed.
Chapter Nine
Even deep in his sleep, Paco was becoming aware of a loud rattling sound. At first, it worked its way into his dream, and he was once again one of the thousands of men storming the Montaña barracks under the hail of heavy machine-gun fire. It was so real that he could sense the fear and desperation all around him, and could feel his own heart beating ever faster. Then some corner of his brain which had not been taken over by the nightmare whispered that he was not back on the grassy slope at all – that the blood and gore of the savage encounter had already retreated into history.
He groaned, and opened his eyes to see the small bedroom over the small living-room which made up most of his and Cindy’s small prison. Paco climbed out of bed carefully, so as not to disturb his lover, whose shallow breathing told him she was still asleep. The barred window which overlooked the street was shaking furiously. Paco padded across the room and looked down on to the street. An army lorry, almost as wide as the calle itself, was edging its way towards the Plaza Mayor. It passed, and a few seconds later, another followed.
These streets had not been designed for military transport, Paco thought. The men who had planned and built the village had never imagined that it would one day be the headquarters of an army whose sole function was to wage war on its fellow Spaniards. His country was tearing itself apart, and he, a lone voice crying in the wilderness, could do nothing about it, and so had finally joined in the destruction himself.
His clothes were lying on the chair where he’d left them. As silently as he could, Paco dressed. Once he had his shirt on, he reached to the back of the chair for his shoulder holster, then laughed mockingly when he realized it wasn’t there. It was years since he’d been without a weapon, and now, when everyone except the whores and the shopkeepers had guns, he was completely unarmed. And that was a dangerous situation to be in, because whilst he had no intention of ever finding the killer of the general’s dog, the killer himself didn’t know that – and was probably already jittery at the thought of having a trained investigator on his trail.
Paco finished dressing and looked down at Cindy. A beautiful woman, he told himself – a really beautiful woman. And an exceptional one, too. She hadn’t blamed him for her predicament – hadn’t reminded him that but for his own outdated ideas of honour and responsibility, they’d never have been in the mess they were in now. Eat, drink and be merry, Major Gómez had said, and they’d certainly done plenty of that the night before. But how many more nights like that would they have? How long would it be before the general grew tired of waiting for him to unmask Principe’s killer? Or before the general’s wife, by denying him her sexual favours, got him to agree it would be a mistake to keep the godless police inspector alive any longer?
Paco tiptoed over to the bed, and placed a gentle, almost featherlike kiss on Cindy’s forehead. ‘I’ll get you out of here, my darling,’ he whispered. ‘I promise you I will.’
But even as he spoke, he was considering the odds against that happening, and though he meant every word he’d said, it still sounded like nothing more than a vain boast.
There were two new guards standing outside the door. They were both younger than the one who had brought Paco the food the previous evening, but from the expressions on their faces, they were no less hostile to the policeman from Madrid than the older soldier had been.
‘I need to go and see Major Gómez,’ Paco told t
hem.
The taller of the two guards shrugged. ‘So go and see him, then. I expect he’ll be in his quarters at this hour of the morning.’
‘Just like that?’ Paco asked. ‘Go and see him? No escort?’
‘No escort. The major left orders that you were to be allowed to come and go as you pleased.’
‘And Miss Walker?’
The sentry grinned unpleasantly. ‘You mean your Yanqui whore? She stays here.’
Paco leant forward, so that his face was almost touching the other man’s. ‘You have a weapon, and I don’t,’ he said, in a low, menacing growl. ‘So it will not be easy, but if you ever call Miss Walker that name again, I swear I’ll find some way to kill you.’
The sentry visibly paled. ‘You can’t threaten me like that,’ he said in a shaky voice.
‘I just have,’ Paco said, stepping into the street.
He walked up the Calle Jose Antonio towards the Plaza Mayor. It was a strange sensation to be out on the street alone. Though he had been a prisoner for less than two days, he had already got used to having armed men at either side of him, and without them he felt curiously naked.
He crossed the main square where, the night before, there had been so much drinking and music. Now, apart from the prostitutes sleeping off their evening’s work under the arcades, the square was deserted.
Paco turned on to the Calle Mayor. Looking down the straight street, he could see the wooded mountains looming majestically in the near distance. The mountains offered escape – at least some chance of survival. But to reach those mountains, it was first necessary to get past the checkpoint which had been thrown up at the end of the street, and probably – Paco thought gloomily – at the end of every other street in the village.
He stopped in front of a small shop which had the words G. Robles and Son, Fruit and Vegetables painted crudely over the door. This must have been the temporary bar where the six privates were drinking when they heard the shots, Paco decided. Or rather, where they were drinking when the rat-faced Private Pérez heard the first shot, he corrected himself.
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