‘Yes, as a matter of fact, there is,’ Paco replied. ‘Yesterday, when I was questioning you, Private Pérez said some nasty things, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, he did,’ Jiménez admitted. ‘But he didn’t mean them.’
‘How do you know?’ Paco asked. ‘Because that’s what he told you when you were back on the street again?’
‘Yes, señor. He said that he was sorry, and promised that he’d never do it again.’
‘He doesn’t seem the kind of man to say he’s sorry that easily,’ Paco said, ‘and, to me, he didn’t look as if he was just apologizing. If anything, I’d guess that what he was doing was explaining something very complicated to you. Now isn’t that what was really happening?’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ Jiménez said stubbornly. ‘He was telling me he was sorry. Can I please go now, señor?’
‘Yes, you can go,’ Paco said.
He watched the country boy make his way down the aisle, moving awkwardly yet far more at home in a church than he felt himself. In answering the question, the young soldier had posed another, far more complex, one, Paco thought. The general’s dogs were always taken out on the lead by a member of his staff. They never left the house alone. Yet, if what the general’s servant had said was to be believed, something had caused Principe to decide to make a bolt for it on that particular day. And if that something hadn’t been a bitch on heat, then what the hell had it been?
Chapter Twelve
Though he could see paraffin lamps glowing in most of the windows of the houses where the rebel officers were billeted, the square on to which those houses looked was completely deserted. And that was wrong, Paco thought, as he stopped by the fountain to light a Celtas. There should have been one man, at least, on the Plaza de Santa Teresa that night – the sentry on guard outside Colonel Valera’s house.
What had happened to the bloody man? Had Major Gómez dismissed him to demonstrate to Valera, yet again, that holding a higher rank did not necessarily mean having greater power? Or was there a more sinister reason behind his absence? Was he missing because – as on the night when the General’s dog was killed – something dramatic was just about to happen?
Despite the fact that it was a warm night, Paco felt a shiver run through his entire body. You’re being fanciful, he told himself angrily. You’re building monstrous conspiracies out of simple coincidences.
He crossed the square and headed up the Calle Belén. The church loomed ominously to his right, the high brick wall to his left. As on the previous occasions he’d walked along this street at night, there were no lamps to guide him, but there was enough light from the moon to enable him to avoid twisting his ankle in any of the small potholes which pitted the ground.
The general’s dog had made this same journey three nights earlier, he thought. Where had the animal been going? Back to the general’s house, perhaps? But that was not the really important question. It would be much more interesting to know where had he been – and why had he been there. Paco had a nagging feeling that he already had part of the answer somewhere in the back of his mind – but try as he might, he couldn’t drag it out.
He heard the sound of footsteps behind him just as he turned the sharp bend. Was he being followed? Or was whoever was behind him out on some errand of his own? He strained his ears to hear more. The man – and he was sure it was a man – was not walking normally, but instead taking soft steps, as if he wanted to avoid making too much noise.
Paco stopped and turned on his heel. The other man rounded the bend, and also came to a halt. He was still too far enough away to be anything more than a black shape, but the way that he stood – relaxed yet disciplined – marked him out as a soldier.
‘Are you following me?’ Paco asked.
The black shape made no answer, yet somehow still seemed to generate menace.
‘What do you want?’ Paco demanded. ‘Do you have something to tell me about the death of the dog? Some information which you can only give me when we’re alone?’
In one smooth movement, the other man reached down to his side; then, hands clenched together, raised his arms until they were pointing directly towards the ex-policeman.
No, that wasn’t it at all, Paco realized with horror. The hands weren’t clenched together, they were clenched around something. And that something could only be a gun! He instinctively felt for his own pistol, but his hand found no reassuring butt to take hold of. He looked around desperately for cover, even though he already knew that there was none to be had on this empty street.
The black shape had not moved a millimetre since he’d aimed the gun. Perhaps he was enjoying all this – taking pleasure from the fear he knew he must be generating in his victim.
Paco’s mouth was dry, and his heart was thumping furiously against his chest. He wondered – briefly – why he’d been so sanguine when facing death in front of the firing squad, yet was so frightened of it now. ‘There’s no need for any of this,’ he said in a cracked voice. ‘I’m no threat to you. Even if you’re the one who killed the dog, I’m never going to find out your identity unless you do something stupid.’
As he spoke, he moved a little to the left. The black shape countered it with a slight, but perceptible, change in stance, which told Paco that he was a trained marksman. He wasn’t going to be panicked if his intended target charged him. Nor was he going to have any difficulty picking off that target if it ran away, whatever diversionary tactics it tried.
Paco sensed that the moment had nearly arrived – that the gunman had got tired of playing games and was about to finish the job. Only amateurs go for the head, he thought. This would be a chest shot. He listened for the slight click which would tell him that the trigger was being pulled, and when he heard it, he flung himself to the ground.
The bullet whizzed over him, and Paco came up in a roll. He had bought himself a few extra seconds of life – but no more. He knew that to be true, yet he still could not bring himself to give in to the inevitable. He wished the assassin would speak to him – would at least tell him why it was that he had to die. But as the man calmly lined up his second shot, he was as silent as he had been since he first rounded the bend.
There was a second click, louder and uglier than the first. The pistol’s jammed, Paco thought – the bloody pistol’s jammed! And even before his brain had had time to formulate a plan, his legs were carrying him in a rush towards his would-be killer.
If the other man had taken to his heels immediately he might have made a clean getaway, but instead he wasted time trying to unjam his pistol, and had only just started to make a run for it when Paco hit him with a flying tackle.
The two of them crashed to the ground, but it was Paco’s opponent who took most of the impact, and he groaned loudly as the wind was knocked out of him, then lay perfectly still.
Could it be this easy? Paco asked himself. Did he only have to turn this man over, and then strike a match, to discover the killer of the general’s dog?
The man beneath him twisted suddenly, and in a second, their positions were reversed. Paco felt the pressure of two knees pressing down on his chest and a pair of strong hands tightening around his throat. Even as he fought for air, he cursed himself for falling for such an old trick.
Why wasn’t anyone coming to his aid, he wondered. Surely someone must have heard the shot, and even now be running towards it to find out what had happened, as Pérez and his gang had done only a few nights earlier? But none of the soldiers on the Calle Mayor that night seemed to have Pérez’s sharp ears, and apart from the sounds of the two men engaged in mortal combat, the alley was as silent as the grave.
Breathing was becoming harder, and black dots were beginning to appear before Paco’s eyes. It wouldn’t be long before he lost consciousness, and once that happened, he was as good as dead.
The strong hands continued to press down relentlessly on his larynx. His opponent was breathing hard too, gasping from the effort of choking the life out of him. Paco f
orced his right arm into the air, groping for the other man’s face. His attacker tried to twist his head out of the way, but Paco had already found what he was searching for. The nose. He stuck one finger up each nostril, and twisted as hard as he could.
His would-be assassin screamed, and released his grip. With what little strength he had left, Paco pushed against his chest, and felt the other man fall backwards.
Climbing to his feet was an almost Herculean task. When he reached the kneeling position, he was sure he was about to faint. On standing up, he realized that the alley was spinning around him like some grotesquely reversed carousel. He turned, shakily, to face his enemy, but the other man had had enough, and was running towards the Plaza de Santa Teresa.
Paco tried to follow, but his burning lungs refused to take in the air which he needed, and he was forced to lean heavily against the wall while he coughed up bile and spittle.
‘I was so close,’ he gasped. ‘I was so damn close, and I let him get away from me.’
He turned, slowly, to walk back up the Calle Belén to the Calle Mayor. And that was when his foot kicked the heavy piece of metal lying on the ground.
*
Major Gómez was sitting alone at a table outside one of the bars on the Calle Mayor – a place which charged a few centimos more for each glass of wine than most of the other establishments, and hence was used exclusively by officers. He looked cool and relaxed, Paco thought, but then he’d looked much the same way just after he’d put a bullet in the back of poor Alfredo’s head.
Gómez signalled Paco to sit down. ‘Look at these men,’ he said, indicating the soldiers who were staggering up and down the street, or else leaning drunkenly against the old whores who were trying to talk them into parting with their day’s pay. ‘They are behaving little better than animals. And yet who can really blame them? It is a rare man indeed who goes into battle completely sober.’
Paco was in no mood for philosophical discussions. ‘Someone has just tried to kill me,’ he said.
‘Kill you?’ Gómez repeated. ‘Are you sure?’
‘It’s not really something I’d be likely to make a mistake over,’ Paco replied. He reached into the waistband of his trousers, pulled out the pistol, and slammed it on the marble table-top. ‘This was the weapon he used. It’s my guess that it was also the pistol which killed the dog.’
Gómez frowned. ‘I warned you yesterday about uncovering anything which might seem to implicate one of the officers,’ he said.
‘You’re missing the point,’ Paco told him. ‘You’re like a man pressed right up against a picture in the museum. You only see a tiny fragment of it. What you need to do is take a few steps backwards, so that you can look at the whole sweep of the canvas.’
The major took a thoughtful sip of his wine. ‘And what does the whole canvas look like?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Paco admitted. ‘But at least I’m sure that it’s there now. Can I ask you a question?’
Gómez smiled. ‘As long as it doesn’t turn into an interrogation again, I don’t see why not.’
‘Did you ever, honestly, think that I had a chance of finding out who killed the general’s dog?’
The major hesitated for a second. ‘No, not much of one,’ he admitted. ‘But I knew you certainly had a better chance than I did, and with Colonel Valera constantly pointing out to the general what a failure I was as head of security, I was prepared to try anything.’
‘You knew the killer was safe, and I knew he was safe,’ Paco said. ‘So how likely is it that he couldn’t work out the same thing himself?’
‘He had a great deal to lose if you did manage to track him down,’ Gómez said.
‘That’s not what I asked you,’ Paco pointed out. ‘And you bloody well know it isn’t.’
The major lit a cigarette, took a drag, and blew the smoke out through his nose. ‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘Let us accept the fact that, unless he is a remarkably stupid man, the killer knows there is little chance of him being detected. Where’s this leading to?’
‘It’s leading to another question. If he knew he was safe, why did he run the risk of trying to kill me?’
Gómez tapped the ash off his cigarette on to the ground. ‘I’m sure you have a theory about that,’ he said.
‘This whole affair has to be about much more than the death of the dog,’ Paco said. ‘Principe wasn’t shot for his collar, and he wasn’t shot out of some twisted notion of revenge. He was shot to conceal something else – and it’s that something else which the killer is so worried I might find out about.’
A wry grin played on Major Gómez’s lips. ‘And what exactly is this “something else” he wishes to conceal?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Paco confessed. ‘But whatever it is, it has to be important enough for the general to want to know about it – even if one of his officers is involved.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Gómez said reluctantly. ‘Perhaps, after all, we must pursue the investigation wherever it takes us.’ He looked down at the pistol lying on the table between them. ‘Do you think this will help you find what your “something else” is?’
‘It will go some of the way towards it – because it will tell me who it was who tried to kill me.’
‘Ah yes,’ Gómez said, seeing the way in which Paco’s mind was moving. ‘Each pistol has its own individual number, and there is a record of which officer it was issued to.’
‘Exactly,’ Paco agreed.
‘And where, in this centralist country of ours, do you imagine those records will be kept?’
Paco felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. ‘They’re kept in Madrid?’ he guessed.
An ironic smile played briefly on Gómez’s lips. ‘In Madrid,’ he agreed. ‘In the central offices of the Ministry of Defence, just off the Plaza Cibeles. Do you really think the Republicans who are running the ministry now will be willing to co-operate with our investigation?’
Why did he always seem to find it so amusing to point out the obstacles in the way? Paco wondered. And what right had he to call it ‘our’ investigation, like that? How long had the two of them been partners? And didn’t he yet understand that, as far as Paco was concerned, he himself was a long, long way from being ruled out as a suspect?
‘How long would you say you have been sitting here at this bar, Major?’ he asked.
‘I would guess I wasn’t here for more than about five minutes before you arrived. Why do you ask?’
Because it had been at least fifteen minutes since the fight, which left plenty of time for Gómez to cross to the Plaza de Santa Teresa, cut up the Calle Cristo Rey, and be back on the Calle Mayor by the time Paco found him.
‘I asked why you were so interested in how long I’d been here,’ the major repeated.
‘No particular reason,’ Paco lied. ‘But let’s get back to the pistol. I’ve just realized that it doesn’t matter whether we have the serial numbers or not.’
‘Doesn’t it?’
‘No. All we have to do is to call all the officers together, and ask them to show us their weapons. But one of them won’t be able to do that – because we have his gun right here.’
Gómez nodded thoughtfully. ‘That might work,’ he said. ‘And in view of the suspicious nature of your question a few moments ago, I suppose I’d better show you something.’ He unstrapped his holster and took out his gun. ‘I, you see, still have my weapon.’
A young lieutenant, looking very red in the face, came running up to the table. ‘Major Gómez, sir,’ he gasped. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Colonel Valera wants to see you in the Plaza de Santa Teresa right away.’
‘Right away, you say?’ the major repeated. ‘Why? Has something serious happened?’
The young officer sucked in some more air. ‘The colonel ordered me not to say anything, sir. He said he’d give you all the details himself.’
‘I see,’ Gómez said, rising to his feet. He turned tow
ards Paco. ‘In that case, Ruiz, you stay here, and we’ll continue our most illuminating conversation when I get back.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, I don’t seem to have made myself clear,’ the young lieutenant said. ‘The colonel doesn’t want to see just you. He told me to bring the detective from Madrid along as well.’
Chapter Thirteen
A man should not have to pass the spot where, only half an hour earlier, someone had tried to kill him, Paco thought as he and Major Gómez approached the bend in the Calle Belén. Nor should he be walking beside the man who might well turn out to be his would-be assassin.
You’re not thinking clearly, Paco, he told himself. You’re perfectly safe with Major Gómez. He can’t possibly be the man who fired at you – because he still has his pistol in his holster.
They turned the bend, and Paco got his first view of the square. It had been empty when he’d visited it earlier, but now at least a couple of dozen portable paraffin lanterns were dancing around in the darkness like demented fireflies. At the edge of the plaza stood two soldiers with rifles in their hands. One of them lifted his lantern, shone it into Gómez’s face and said, ‘Carry on, sir.’
‘If the general’s lost his other dog, I’m really going to be in the shit,’ the major said to Paco.
But it wasn’t a dog this time. The ex-policeman was sure of that. He could smell the atmosphere – an uneasy mixture of shock, disgust and disbelief – and knew that, finally, he was back on familiar territory.
There were officers milling around all over the square, but the biggest group had formed a rough half circle about two metres away from the fountain.
‘What do you think has happened?’ Major Gómez asked.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Paco replied. ‘Somebody’s died.’
The officers close to the fountain stepped to one side to let them pass, and in so doing revealed Colonel Valera. He was standing by the very base of the fountain itself, and at his feet lay what was obviously a dead body.
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