I stretched back, reaching out with it, waiting for the feel of earth or stone underfoot but felt nothing. My hands slipped, the butt scraped and made a tiny sound. Katz wheeled. I was slipping, forcing my weight onto my forearm to hold me. I had two shots to his one. I had no idea where mine went. The rock in front of me smashed and slivers of stone rained on my face and I dropped like a falling stone. Bloody lucky shot with a gun that size. I told him that and added, “It’s the end of the road, Gunter.”
I sat back against the rock and got myself under control. I had tried to put my foot down a yard drop between the rocks. Clever bugger, Christian.
“The end of the road for us both of us, Alan.” He was out of breath too. "I am not running now. But you will have to show yourself if you are going to kill me. I am right at the end of the tunnel. You cannot get me from above or behind. So, we shall see who gets impatient, nicht wahr?”
Yes indeed. And I didn’t fancy showing myself. And if Katz did find a way out of the tunnel, he would come out and round behind me. No percentage in waiting there. None at all. I edged back a few yards, well back from the bend and climbed up noiselessly onto the open limestone on the right. Katz called: “Let us see if we can come to some arrangement.”
Yes, a great idea. Both throw our weapons in. Something like that. I didn’t answer him. If Katz were still talking, it meant he didn’t have a way out. I moved with caution to the quarry. I came to the edge and saw why the tunnel was blocked off.
There was rock-crushing equipment rusting at the side. A conveyor belt led up to the top of the tunnel and the whole quarry was filled with broken limestone chips. A gravel quarry. They had blasted the rock, crushing it all before moving it. The top of the tunnel would be a sort of hopper. Back the lorry in. Open the hopper. Down would shoot the load of gravel. Very efficient.
I walked over to the top of the tunnel and I was standing directly over Katz. Only three feet of stone blocks between us. Not far but far enough. There was no way in from the quarry side. Heavy rusted steel doors sealed it off.
I tugged an earlobe and tried to think of what to do. The hopper was full of gravel, ready for the next lorry. I saw a rusty metal lever like the points lever of a railway track. I knew how to flush him out.
I tucked the muzzle of the Luger into my waistband, leaving the butt well clear of the belt. I needed to get it out in a hurry. The lever had a cable brake and I wasn’t going to make any mistakes. Third time had got to be lucky. I balanced myself, knees flexed, grinding my feet into the stone surface to give me purchase, pushed in with the heel of my hands to release the brake, held it against the end of its travel, breathed in and then pulled it hard against me. It moved stiffly but quickly. The hopper bottom clanged open, echoing in the tunnel and the gravel avalanched out.
There was a single scream from the tunnel and I was at the front edge, Luger in both hands, braced, ready, staring down over the entrance, feet apart. Gradually the rushing stopped. Dust drifted up, settling on me. A fine grey dust like smoke. I could taste it on my teeth and feel it in my nose, at the corner of my eyes. I didn’t move. The silence settled. A final rattle of gravel fell. Long moments passed and still I stood. Nothing. Either he had nerves of steel or he was under the gravel. There was only one way to find out. A metal ladder was set into the stone front of the tunnel. I backed down it, Luger in my right hand, watching the mouth of the tunnel. I dropped off the bottom rung. The dust still drifted from the entrance. I waited. Only the dust.
I stepped in front of it. An inverted V of smoking gravel filled it. Katz’s tomb. I turned and began to walk down the road. I threw the Luger high into the trees and it crashed through them and then everything was quiet again.
I felt sad, empty, deflated, flat. Post-mortem tristesse instead of post-coital tristesse. Something like that. It was all over. Climax and anti-climax.
In the distance I could hear the whine of a lorry in low gear approaching. I stood by the side of the road as the big tipper lumbered past, the driver and his mate looking curiously at me. The dust made me cough. They would have a lot more to be curious about when they got there.
That made me smile. I felt better then. I began to whistle.
I came into Istán on the hairpin bend just outside the village, only a hundred yards from the 600. I opened some doors to let in some air and sat on the wall, looked at the view and listened to the children, thinking it had all been worthwhile. I patted my pockets and of course I had no cigars. I bought a packet in the café and thought about having a brandy. I deserved one. I deserved an ocean of it. But I didn’t really feel like it. I stood outside, got some pure air into my lungs, unpeeled the cellophane wrapping and lit myself a cigar. Cheap, but it tasted good, very good. I blew some smoke at the view, beamed at it, patted a few heads and got some funny looks. Then I squeezed myself into the 600. It was still hot and the interior was like an underwater oven. I didn’t care. I drove with all the windows down and very quickly it freshened up.
I passed Morena’s house and was down on the main road in fifteen minutes. That could have been some sort of record.
Félix’s taxi was still there and I could see Carol in the front seat with him.
I checked the traffic and made it across under the wheels of the local bus and a blast from its horn which you could have heard in Gibraltar. I swooped in behind the taxi and cut the engine. It stuttered into silence. Tyres whooshed past on the road. Carol turned and I grinned and gave her the thumbs up sign. It did nothing to cheer her up. She looked strained and her teeth were clenched. She shook her head and waved her hand as though dismissing me.
The driver’s door opened and he walked over to me. “And in addition I could charge you with dangerous driving, Señor Christian."
It wasn’t Félix. It was Legra.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
He stepped back, folded his left hand into the crook of his right arm and laid his right forefinger along his cheek. His nails were still polished. He didn’t smile, didn’t do anything, just stood there and looked at me.
I pushed the car door at him and he caught it neatly and shut it after me. And he still smelt of his antiseptic aftershave.
Carol sat hunched and miserable against the car door and looked up at me. Her eyes were raw with crying. “You’re alright, Alan?”
“Where is everyone?”
“They came just after you left. We were sitting here. Suddenly, there they were, two cars full. They took Félix and Mac away.”
I punched the car roof, walked round, leaned my fists on the bonnet. “Full house, Legra, congratulations.” I was breathing heavily.
“Perdone, señor?” he said coolly.
“You’ve got me now, full house, everyone.”
He bent forward slightly from the waist. “Ah. I comprehend.” He walked lightly to me. “But we do not want you, señor.” He put his forearm on the roof and looked in the car window at Carol. “Do we, señorita?”
“That’s right, Alan. He’s letting us go.”
I frowned, kneaded the muscles of my right arm. “What is going on?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. Her right hand combed her hair. “They…” She pulled a strand of hair into her mouth, bit on it. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
“I don’t understand.” I didn’t.
“Of course not.” Legra circled the car and stood, his back to me, looking at the pine trees. He spoke to them. “I took a large risk. It could have been the end of my career, yes, the end of my career. As it is…” His voice dropped and he thought about it, then turned, smiling. “As it is I have broken up one of the largest groups of the ALA.”
“ALA?”
“The Workers Alliance of Andalucía – Marxists, Anarchists, Maoists, Trotskyites and so on. Benítez was the man who organised them, got them together, made them forget their differences.” Satisfaction stitched every word.
“Congratulations.” This time I slammed the bonnet. It didn’t do me any good but I ha
d to slam something.
“And you are free to continue the arrangements Benítez made for you.”
“I still do not understand.” I still didn’t.
“So you said.” He rocked stiff-legged on his heels. His damned smile was still in place. “You English have the phrase we do not have in Spanish. To kill two birds with one stone. One does not punish the stone.”
I tested out his English with some Anglo-Saxon words. He knew one or two of them and stopped rocking. The smile went and he said smoothly, “You were my stone, Señor Christian. Thanks to you I have arrested thirty-seven members of the ALA, and you have disposed of a Fascist plot. The Americans are very grateful which pleases my government.”
“Another medal for Captain Legra,” I snapped bitterly.
“Exactly.” The smile crept back. I suppose he had a lot to smile about. “You have been most skilfully followed for the past five days. Except for the time we lost you in Istán.” He turned the smile into a laugh to show that he didn’t want to know what had happened in Istán, waited to make sure I understood the laugh. “Did you really think it was so easy to escape from a Spanish prison?” Carol gasped. He let her enjoy his smile. “The CIA and I have worked well together, señorita.”
I calculated the time. Five days. The bastard. “Then you know I didn’t kill Mingote.”
“Would I have let you escape if you had?”
I pounded the bonnet again, swore at it. And it still didn’t do me a damn bit of good.
“In Spain it is more difficult to arrest people these days. We must have proper charges, then the foreign papers cannot make any fuss. The left wing is silenced. These men are dangerous criminals. They helped a murderer to escape from prison, sheltered him, arranged for him to flee abroad. These are very serious charges in any country.”
“Then I shall stay.”
“So you can stand up in court and tell everyone.” He looked disappointed.
“Exactly.”
“That is so stupid, Señor Christian. You would of course, then force me to charge you with the murder of Agustín Mingote.”
“You know I didn’t do it.”
“You know I can prove it.” He turned the screw a little tighter. “And the señorita who helped you to escape?” He shrugged and pretended to look sad. “She would be arrested too. Be reasonable, señor. Pedro Campón is waiting in Estepona to take you to Tangiers.”
“I’ll do whatever you think is right, Alan. Don’t worry about me,” Carol said.
I looked at her. She meant it.
“Can I talk to the señorita alone?”
“Of course. But two questions. Señor Katz?”
“Under the gravel pit above Istán.”
“A most unfortunate accident. Señor Morena?”
I opened the car door for Carol. “Alive but not well – full of brandy, fear and self pity.” I helped her out. Her hand was hot and dry and she was shaking. “Everything has worked out well. Señor Morena will get no more government contracts and his loans from the banks will be called in. In its own way, justice will be done.”
I stared at him. “Just how ambitious are you, Legra?”
“I was not joking. I expect to be in the government before I am forty. I report directly to the premier.”
“But not everything.”
He nodded gravely. “Not everything. People like Benítez can make even democracy difficult. It is always better if they are removed.” He tapped his fingertips together. “When the report of the shooting accident to Señor Lynd reached Madrid, I myself suggested that Rota was too dangerous a place for such suspicious happenings – especially to a member of British Intelligence.” He had known about me since I had flown in. Carol winced. I was squeezing her hand tight. He saw it and smiled again. “I have been proved right. And nobody of importance, not even Señor van Oudtschoorn has been embarrassed. That is always important if you want to hold government office.”
“Van Oudtschoorn?”
“You do not know about him?” He knew damn well I didn’t. “There is the possibility that with a new government the United States may have to give up Rota. In that case, where do they go?”
“Simonstown?”
“Sí, señor.”
So Van Oudtschoorn was here to see what a nuclear base was like, to report back to South Africa. And McIntyre would give his eyeteeth for a titbit like that. Another reason not to stay and clog up the works.
We walked down through the trees while I thought about it but there wasn’t anything I could do. The breeze off the sea felt thick and moist, like wet flannel. We stood at the edge of the sand and stared at the Mediterranean. The sea glittered in tiny broken glass waves. An ugly-looking passenger boat hauled against the skyline. We held hands and said nothing for a while.
“I wonder where it’s going?”
“I can’t understand it.” She pulled on my hand and looked up at me. I stared at the boat. My eyes hurt.
“I worked on a farm when I was a student. I used to see the London train – it was way below me on the low ground, smoke streaming along its back. It seemed to be the most exciting thing in the world to me to be on that train.”
“What are you going to do, Alan?” She spoke into my shoulder.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t worry about me, about what Legra said. I’m not frightened, not when I’m with you.”
“I used to stop work and watch the train and dream of the day I would be on it. I finally made it.” I walked onto the sand, grey and gritty underfoot. “And going to the seaside was exciting. My father used to buy an ice-cream for the first one to see it.” I picked up a piece of driftwood and hurled it. It curved against the blue, landing far out. We didn’t hear it. “Now what is it? Full of sewage and filthy.”
She came up to me, took my hand, leant her head against my shoulder. “You sound so bitter. Don’t be, Alan. It frightens me.”
I turned to take her other hand. We stood facing each other. The rawness had faded from her eyes. The breeze blew strands of hair across her cheek and she tossed her head back so that her hair lay back behind her shoulders. Her face was naked and innocent. I stepped back so that I could look at her fully; flat stomached, smooth athletic legs.
“Oh, Alan, you look so sad.”
“Sad?” I wasn’t sad. Not me. Sad wasn’t the word for me. I caught my breath, held it then let it out slowly between my teeth. I lowered her hands and released them. “You’re very beautiful.”
“I’m not. My hair’s a mess and my cheekbones are too wide – that’s why I grow my hair long.” She blushed.
I took her face in both hands, stroking her cheeks with the inside of my thumbs. She put her hand on mine, turning her face so that she could kiss the palm of my hand. Delicately, softly. “I love you, Alan.”
Did she? I released her face. Her hand followed mine down and her fingers trailed off my palm. She looked at me and she started to cry. She knew what I was going to say. It took me time to say it. She turned away and the shadow of a palm tree quivered on her shoulders.
“I want you to go back to Legra. Tell him to take you back to Rota, to your mother. Tell him I shall go to Estepona.”
“You don’t want me.”
“Will you do that, Carol?” I said, keeping my voice steady.
She began to run to the car, stumbling jerkily. I swivelled, walked to the water’s edge and stood looking out to sea. The passenger boat was now below the horizon. A speedboat towing a skier curved through the water. It was too far out to hear the engine. It made the silence even greater.
I felt in my pocket for a cigar. Behind me, a car engine stammered, caught, pulled away.
What was it Kipling said? “A woman is only a woman but a good cigar is a smoke.” Something like that. I had to use two hands to hold the match. The flame of the match was brighter than the sunlight. My eyes still hurt. I didn’t even have a good cigar.
Or a drink.
I could do with a drink.
EDITOR’S NOTE
My father loved writing. He’d have a leisurely breakfast, accompanied by a mug of builder’s tea (with the teabag left in), The Times crossword and Radio 3. His sanctuary was the study, an ice-cold loft conversion in our Edwardian semi in Southport. He’d hammer away on his clunky typewriter, only re-emerging at odd times, looking crumpled and unshaven. The classic “writer in the garret”. He never stopped, until his untimely death in 1992.
Until December 2012, I hadn’t read a word or even seen one of his manuscripts. As soon as I’d read the first page of his thriller Not With a Whimper, I felt I had to get it published.
With the help of an optical scanner (and a patient husband), I converted the hand-typed pages and pieced the resulting mangled text back together. Dad’s typewriter was pretty erratic and whole paragraphs were simply gobbledy-gook. After that, though, the only real “corrections” I made were to his Spanish. Sorry, Dad.
I sent the book to Crooked Cat. I’ve despatched manuscripts to publishers before, in my own name, but waiting to hear about this particular title was agonising. I did weep rather when it was accepted for publication for the first time in 2014. My stepmother Maggie and I are still both convinced we imagined it, especially when I see the book spine with my father’s name on a shelf.
During the whole process, I came to a fuller understanding of my father’s unique take on life, love and politics. You can tell that he was something of a left-wing intellectual with modern, liberal views. He loathed the regime in Spain – and repression of any kind. The characters are so real you can see evidence of his passion for anthropology and psychology. His passion for geography oozes out in the descriptions of southern Spain, making the place come alive.
My father was born in Dumfries and went to the University of Edinburgh, ending up as a geography teacher in the North-West of England. Never having been abroad once, he was struck by the spirit of adventure and in the late 1960s took us off to southern Spain on one of the first “package deals”. He relished the continental lifestyle and became a bon viveur overnight. He also fell in love with the country – the language, the culture, the people. It inspired his first book, written during the latter years of the Cold War, when the country was on the brink of a post-Franco era. I also got the Spanish bug and ended up doing a couple of degrees in Spanish and translation work. As I read the book, I had an extraordinary feeling of déjà vu. Many scenes are based on that trip; the bars and cafés, the pot-holed roads, the lack of suspension in the cheap SEAT, the empty beaches, the fence around the naval base. I even recognise our favourite waiter (Juan, of course) in the role of Félix.
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