The General's Dog

by James Garcia Woods

  ‘Joder!’ Major Gómez said to Paco. ‘You were right.’

  The colonel glared at both of them in turn. ‘This is – or rather was – Lieutenant Anton,’ he said, pointing to the corpse. ‘One of his brother officers came across his body only a few minutes ago.’

  ‘May I examine him?’ Paco asked.

  ‘Why the hell do you think I wanted you here, if not to examine him?’ Colonel Valera demanded. ‘See what clues you can find, then meet me in my office in precisely ten minutes.’

  And with that, he stormed off angrily in the direction of his quarters.

  Paco knelt down next to the body, being careful to avoid the sticky lake of blood around the dead man’s head. ‘I’ll need some more light if I’m to do a proper job,’ he said.

  One of the young officers stepped forward, and held a paraffin lantern over the corpse. In life, Lieutenant Anton had probably been a fresh-faced boy with a pleasing smile, Paco guessed. But death changes everything – and the expression of panic and horror which was frozen on his face now only belonged in the deepest, darkest nightmares.

  The wide gash across his throat was clearly the cause of his death. His murderer had probably crept up behind him, thrown one arm across his chest to restrain him, and wielded the knife with the other. Paco felt Lieutenant Anton’s skin with the back of his hand. It was still warm. He lifted the dead man’s arm, then let it fall lifelessly back to his side. There was no sign of even the start of rigor mortis.

  ‘From the condition of the body, I’d say he’s not been dead for more than an hour,’ Paco said looking up at Gómez. ‘But, of course, we both know it’s been a much shorter time than that, don’t we?’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ the major told him.

  Paco sighed. ‘Why do you think he was killed?’ he asked. ‘Because he’d made enemies? Because he had gambling debts? Or maybe you think a group of bloodthirsty Socialist militiamen sneaked into the village, murdered this one man, and then slipped out again unnoticed.’

  ‘You’re beginning to irritate me,’ Gómez told him.

  ‘He was killed for no other reason than that he was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ Paco said. He straightened up. ‘I think it’s about time we went to see the colonel.’

  *

  Colonel Valera sat behind his desk, a long black cigarette holder in his hand. He looked like a very angry matinée idol, thought Paco, who, like Major Gómez, was standing the approved metre away from the desk.

  Valera lit his cigarette, and inhaled. ‘Lieutenant Julio Anton was a most promising young officer who’d been mentioned twice in dispatches,’ he said. ‘Now he’s dead, slaughtered like a pig out on the street – and I hold the two of you personally responsible.’

  ‘Us?’ Major Gómez said. ‘But all we did was—’

  ‘Shut up!’ the colonel barked. ‘You, Ruiz! What have you discovered so far about the dog’s murder?’

  ‘It’s still very early in the case, Colonel,’ Paco said. ‘At this stage we don’t really have—’

  ‘In other words, you’ve discovered nothing at all!’ the colonel interrupted. ‘Now I don’t know how in God’s name poor Lieutenant Anton’s death could be connected with the dog’s, but since they happened in the same general area only three days apart, I’m sure there has to be some kind of connection. Wouldn’t you agree, Ruiz?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Paco said cautiously.

  ‘Possible!’ Valera snorted. ‘I said a few moments ago that the pair of you were responsible for Anton’s death. Now I’m going to tell you why. You, Gómez, must bear the responsibility for saving this great detective of yours from the firing squad, and so setting off the whole chain of events.’

  ‘We don’t know that Inspector Ruiz’s being on the case had anything to do with . . .’

  ‘Shut your mouth!’ the colonel screamed. ‘Next we come to you, Ruiz. You must take the blame for not solving the case of the general’s dog before matters got completely out of hand. As far as I’m concerned, neither of you is worth a bucket of shit. So now we know where we all stand, don’t we, Major?’

  Gómez nodded.

  ‘I said, now we all know where we stand, don’t we, Major?’ the colonel repeated.

  ‘Yes, Colonel,’ Gómez said through gritted teeth. ‘Yes, we do.’

  ‘I understand exactly how that devious mind of yours works, Major,’ the colonel said. ‘You want my job so much that it’s eating your insides out, and you thought that presenting the general with the dog’s killer would go a long way towards getting it for you. But it hasn’t worked out that way, has it?’

  ‘My only interest,’ Gómez protested, ‘was in seeing whoever killed the dog brought to just—’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap!’ the colonel interrupted. ‘I could probably have you shot for incompetence, Major, if I really put my mind to it. As for you, Ruiz, it would take me less effort to have you executed than it would to order a cup of coffee.’ He stubbed his cigarette viciously into the ashtray. ‘But if I did that, who would be left to investigate Lieutenant Anton’s murder?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘No one! So even though you’ve proved to be completely bloody useless so far, I’m going to have to keep you on in hope that you accidentally stumble over something which helps to crack the case.’

  He paused, as if he were expecting one of them to speak. After perhaps five seconds of silence, Major Gómez said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ though he appeared to be almost choking on the words.

  ‘The only thanks I want is a successful conclusion to the investigation,’ the colonel said. ‘But let’s get one thing perfectly clear. There are going to be some changes in the way you conduct yourselves. Your days of having a completely free hand are over. From now on, everything you discover will be reported to me the very moment it is discovered.’ He pulled the stub of the cigarette out of its holder, and inserted a new one. ‘That’s all I have to say for the present. Now get the hell out of here!’

  Paco and Gómez stepped into the hallway, the major leading. They were almost at the front door when Paco felt the familiar tingle at the back of his neck which told him someone was watching him. He turned round quickly – but not quickly enough to catch more than a glimpse of a woman’s naked foot disappearing around the bend in the stairs.

  *

  The corpse of the lieutenant had been removed to the mortuary, the officers who had been milling around had finally left, and the Plaza de Santa Teresa was as deserted as it had been when Paco had visited it an hour before.

  ‘There’s no sentry,’ he said to Gómez, as they walked across the square towards the Calle Belén.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There isn’t a guard on duty outside the colonel’s house.’

  ‘I’ve explained all that,’ Major Gómez said irritably. ‘I withdraw them periodically just to show that bastard Valera that he isn’t quite as important as he likes to—’

  ‘It’s the second time there hasn’t been a sentry there when something significant happened.’

  They had reached the fountain. Gómez stopped dead in his tracks. ‘Just what are you suggesting!’ he said, growing angry now. ‘That I killed the dog? That I took a shot at you and slit Lieutenant Anton’s throat?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Paco told him.

  ‘But for God’s sake, man, the killer lost his pistol, and you know I’ve still got mine.’

  ‘I know you’ve got a pistol,’ Paco said. ‘Whether it’s yours or not is quite a different matter.’

  ‘So what did I do? Conjure a new one up out of thin air?’

  ‘No, but what you could have done is killed Lieutenant Anton, and taken his. I said earlier he was unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that’s exactly what he was. While I was examining him, I took the opportunity to pat his holster. It was empty.’

  ‘So he was killed for his gun?’

  ‘It looks that way.’

  ‘And I’m a sus
pect?’

  ‘I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be.’

  ‘If I’d killed the dog, why would I have saved you from the firing squad?’ the major demanded. ‘Why wouldn’t I have let you die, and then just pretended to investigate the case myself?’

  ‘Because then, if the investigation failed – as it would be bound to do, since you had no intention of turning yourself in – it would have been your failure. This way, it’s mine.’

  Gómez laughed hollowly. ‘Do you think it’s as simple as that? Do you really believe that if we fail, that son of a bitch Valera won’t make certain that I take the largest portion of the blame? You’re acting like you’re still important – but what you were before the war doesn’t matter a damn now. As far as most people are concerned, and that probably includes the general by now, you’re nothing but a piece of godless enemy scum. Whereas I – I – am the head of army security, and if anyone is riding for a fall here, it is me.’

  ‘Yes,’ Paco said dryly. ‘You could lose your position. All they could do with me is shoot me.’

  Gómez took a deep breath. ‘We shouldn’t argue,’ he said, doing his best to sound calm and rational. ‘We need each other, you and I. Don’t you understand that? We either hang together, or we hang apart.’

  ‘Or one of us hangs and the other doesn’t,’ Paco countered. ‘And I’m willing to bet that if one us does hang, you’ll make sure it isn’t you.’

  The major took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, and offered one to Paco. ‘It’s been a long day, and we’re both tired,’ he said as he stuck the match. ‘So perhaps it would be wise not to talk about it any more tonight. Things will look very different in the morning.’

  ‘Perhaps they will,’ Paco agreed, greedily sucking the soothing nicotine into his lungs.

  ‘About the sentry . . .’ Gómez said tentatively.

  ‘I thought we weren’t going to discuss the case any more tonight.’

  ‘No, but perhaps this one matter should be cleared up, since it appears to be creating an atmosphere of suspicion between us.’

  ‘All right,’ Paco agreed.

  ‘You suspected me of lying when I said it was a matter of whim whether I posted them or didn’t post them. And you were quite correct. There is nothing random about it, but that is not to say that it had anything to do with either the death of the dog or the murder of Lieutenant Anton.’

  ‘So what does it have to do with?’

  Gómez shook his head. ‘That I can’t tell you. If you really want to know, you’re going to have to find out for yourself.’

  ‘You’ve been a great help,’ Paco told him.

  ‘It’s out of my hands,’ the major said apologetically. He threw his cigarette to the ground, and trod on it. ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘I’ll escort you back to the Calle Jose Antonio.’

  ‘I don’t need an escort.’

  ‘You surely don’t intend to walk up the Calle Belén alone, do you?’ Major Gómez asked. ‘Not after what happened to you earlier. It’s not safe.’

  ‘You might be right,’ Paco told him. ‘But without wishing to cause offence, I have to say that I’ll feel safer on my own than I would with any escort who was carrying a thirty-two calibre pistol.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  There was a cave, burrowed deep into one of the Atlas Mountains, which still occasionally gave Paco long and troubled dreams. He’d seen it for the first and last time one day in 1921 – the day that he and his platoon had been ordered to turn their backs on the blazing sunlight and enter the dark hole in search of rebel tribesmen. To have used torches would have been to make them an easy target, and so they had groped their way through in the darkness, hoping to hear the enemy cough, or catch a glimpse of his lanterns.

  Paco remembered everything about that seemingly endless journey. The dank coolness of the place. The fluttering of bats close to the ceiling. The sound his men’s boots had made as they’d crushed tiny stones underfoot – and the way that crushing sound had echoed, and become amplified, as it bounced its way around the walls of the cavern. But most of all, he remembered the stink of fear which had seeped out through the skin of all the soldiers following him.

  They were good men, he’d told himself at the time. Brave men who had not flinched in the face of an enemy attack out on open ground. It was not the enemy they might encounter, but the cave itself, which had them so scared. No man wanted to die in the blackness, the victim of a bullet fired from an unseen rifle. No man felt his life was so insignificant that it could be ended by a random shot in the dark.

  The cave had proved to be empty, and later they had all joked about it, each man accusing all the others of a fear which had been wrenching at his own gut. But they had known, even then, that the memory of the cave, of the sense of desolation and oblivion they had felt while they were inside, it would haunt them for ever.

  *

  Sprinting along the Calle Belén, only seconds after making sure that Major Gómez had returned to his quarters, Paco found himself reliving the memory of that cave – hearing the echoes, smelling the fear which he knew was his own. Each pounded step could be taking him closer to a waiting assassin – closer to death. And yet that same assassin could equally be behind him, moving as stealthily as he had done the last time he had stalked his victim.

  If only he had a gun, Paco thought, as he scanned the semi-blackness ahead for lurking shapes which might be his waiting enemy. But even a gun would be no real protection, he decided, as he strained to hear if he was being followed – because no man could guard his back from an unknown killer for ever.

  He turned the sharp bend, and could see the paraffin lamps blazing brightly on Calle Mayor. Once he had reached the main street, he would be safe, he told himself. Even the most determined of murderers would not attempt to shoot him in front of so many witnesses.

  He reached the end of the alley with a gasp of relief, and stopped in front of the church to regain his breath.

  ‘What have you been doing, Señor Inspector?’ asked a mocking voice. ‘Investigating the murder of that officer who had his throat cut on the Plaza de Santa Teresa?’

  Paco turned and saw that the speaker was the rat-faced Private Pérez. The private was sitting on the church steps, and smoking with all the care and attention of a man who is down to his last cigarette.

  ‘So you’ve heard all about the murder, have you?’ Paco asked.

  Pérez laughed. ‘Of course I’ve heard. There’s not much goes on in this village that I don’t get to know about.’

  ‘Is that right? Then could you please tell me who it was who shot the general’s dog?’

  Pérez shook his head. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I couldn’t. That’s something I haven’t heard the slightest whisper about.’

  Paco squatted down next to the rat-faced boy. ‘Why aren’t you out drinking with your mates?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s one of my mates I’m waiting for now,’ Pérez said sourly. ‘Jiménez!’ He flicked his thumb in the direction of the church door. ‘He’s in there. Praying to that Virgin again.’

  ‘I got the feeling from the way you taunted him in my office, that you didn’t like him very much.’

  Pérez waved his hands in a gesture of dismissal. ‘I neither like him nor dislike him. He’s just the same as all the other country boys. They can scrub and scrub till their skin is red raw, but they still stink of the cow shit they’ve spent their whole lives working in. They’re not even worthy of my contempt.’

  ‘Is it such a crime to work on the land?’ Paco asked. ‘Do they deserve to be despised just for that?’

  ‘No, not just for that,’ Pérez said. ‘But there are so many other things. They live in absolute terror of the haggard old crones half their size, who they call their mothers. They think their stinking little villages are the centre of the universe. And though they’ve no real idea of what all this religious mumbo-jumbo is really about, they’re wil
ling enough to fall down on their knees before a badly painted statue and stay like that for hours.’

  ‘So if you have such a poor opinion of Private Jiménez, why are you waiting for him?’

  Pérez sneered. ‘I’ve already spent all of my day’s pay – a private’s wages don’t buy many drinks. But Jiménez is a completely different matter. He’s still got all his money, because he’s been far too busy praying to that lump of wood to get around to spending his wages yet.’

  ‘Where do you come from, Pérez?’ Paco asked.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Just idle curiosity.’

  Pérez had smoked the cigarette down so far that he was in danger of burning his fingertips. With a deep sigh of regret, he stubbed what was left of it out on the stone step. ‘A policeman’s curiosity is never idle,’ he said. ‘Where do you think I’m from?’

  Paco shrugged. ‘From the way you carry yourself and some of the slang you use, I’d guess you’re no stranger to the back streets of Madrid,’ he said.

  The rat-faced soldier stared at Paco for several seconds, then shook his head wonderingly. ‘You really don’t remember me, do you, Inspector?’ he asked. ‘I thought at first that, for some reason of your own, you were only pretending not to know me, but now I think it’s genuine.’

  Paco took out his Celtas, stuck one in his own mouth, then, seeing the longing look in the private’s eyes, offered the pack to Pérez. ‘Why should I know you?’ he asked.

  ‘Perhaps because you once arrested me.’

  ‘For what?’ Paco said, striking a match and holding it out in his cupped hands under Pérez’s cigarette.

  ‘What did you arrest me for?’ the rat-faced private repeated, taking in a lungful of smoke. ‘Why, for murder of course!’

  ‘Remind me of the case,’ Paco told him.

  ‘I was running four or five whores on a street down by the Puerta de Toledo. Country girls, they were.’ Pérez sniggered. ‘Big cow-like things. Any one of them could easily have been Jiménez’s sister. Anyway, one of my girls disappeared, and when she turned up again she was floating in the river with her throat cut. So naturally, the first thing you did was to arrest her pimp.’