Molina sighed impatiently. ‘None of that’s important. As far as I’m concerned it’s an open and shut case of a wartime killing. I’ll leave you to do your job, Dr Galindez. I’m going to drive Señor Byass back to the village.’
‘I may need some help,’ Galindez protested. ‘Those skeletons are going to fall apart once they’re moved. If we could get a couple of officers in to assist, at least I could keep some of them intact. It would make the forensic investigation much easier.’
‘A quick word,’ Molina said, taking a couple of paces away from the profesora and Señor Byass.
Galindez followed him, knowing what was coming.
‘Don’t give me orders, Galindez,’ Molina said in loud voice. ‘You’re just the cleaning woman here, as far as I’m concerned. You may have all day to spend on this but I don’t. All I want is your report signed and dated and sent to the comisaría at Las Peñas by tomorrow morning. Get those bodies out of here and take them wherever the fuck it is you take them. And I want the hole in the bricks sealed up. I think I can trust you to arrange that, can’t I?’
Galindez glowered at Molina, her cheeks burning with anger.
‘That’s settled then,’ Molina said. ‘I’ll leave you to get on with it, Dr Galindez.’
‘Just a minute,’ Galindez said.
Molina stopped in his tracks and turned to glare at her.
‘You registered the mine as a crime scene when you arrived, didn’t you?’ Galindez asked. ‘And I presume you gave it a crime number?’
‘Of course.’ Molina was furious. Galindez could imagine what he was thinking: who does she think she’s talking to?
‘In that case,’ Galindez continued, ‘securing the scene is your responsibility. The regulations about crime-scene management are quite specific. You logged the crime – it’s down to you to find a bricklayer.’
For a moment, Molina seemed on the verge of apoplexy. Realising the others were watching, he nodded curtly and walked sullenly towards his car where Señor Byass was waiting. They climbed into the green and white Lexus and drove off.
‘What a charmer.’ It was the profesora.
‘He loves me really,’ Galindez laughed, ‘he’s just playing hard to get.’
‘Do you have to put up with that sort of thing often?’
‘That?’ Galindez shrugged. ‘That was nothing, believe me.’
‘You could complain, surely? Isn’t there some sort of policy about these things?’
‘Oh yes. We have anti-sexism policies, anti-bullying policies – all sorts of policies, profesora. But do you know what the most important policy of all is? I’ll tell you: never – as in never even-in-your-fucking-dreams-ever – complain. Complain and you’re a whinger. And that’s not a good thing. You just take the shit and collect the pay cheque. That’s what they expect and that’s what you do.’
‘What a depressing thought.’
‘Believe me, the alternative’s worse. You have to show you can take it. Otherwise they won’t respect you. And then you can’t do your job at all.’
‘Don’t you ever wonder if maybe you’re in the wrong job?’
‘I’ve only been in the guardia a year. I need to build up experience before I can get a transfer,’ Galindez said, speculatively prodding a stone with her shoe. ‘The trouble is, it’s a family thing. My dad and my uncle were both guardia. My uncle still is. I need to show I can hack it. In time it’ll get better.’
‘I hope so. For your sake.’ Profesora Ordonez knelt and opened the chill bag lying at her feet. She took out a plastic bottle of water and offered it to Galindez. The water was cold, the condensation on the plastic felt pleasant in her hand. She raised the bottle to her mouth, aware of the profesora watching as she drank.
‘So it was you who located this place, profesora?’ Galindez asked, wiping her mouth.
‘Me and my research group.’
‘How did you find out about it?’ The intensity of the profesora’s look was almost embarrassing, Galindez thought. Almost.
‘Well, there’s a diary.’
‘Whose diary?’ Galindez asked, suddenly interested.
‘Oh, someone who was a key player back then,’ Profesora Ordoñez said. ‘The diary of a man in charge of organising much of Franco’s dirty work.’
‘He documented it?’ Galindez automatically began thinking fingerprints, DNA, handwriting analysis. Evidence. Even if it wasn’t a smoking gun, she thought, at least it was some form of evidence for once.
‘Some of the diary is autobiographical,’ Profesora Ordoñez continued. ‘There are also details of arrests and executions, although the locations aren’t given in great detail. We’ve identified some of the places he refers to. This was one of them.’
‘And he admits the killings?’
The profesora smiled. ‘No. There’s nothing to connect him to them directly. Besides, I don’t think you’d be able to arrest him now, it’s likely he’s been dead for years. ’
‘So this is your speciality – tracking down Franco’s hit men?’
Ordoñez laughed. ‘Haven’t you read my work? I would have thought someone working in this field would be familiar with it.’
‘I don’t specialise in war graves,’ Galindez said. ‘They’re allocated to me. Frequently. There’s a lot of political pressure to investigate them. But they don’t put any real resources into it: I have a look, do a report and then it’s on to the next one.’
‘Make the most of them. They’re fascinating,’ the profesora said. ‘Could I have a look at this one, do you think?’ She nodded towards the hole in the bricks. ‘Maybe a few photos for our records?’
‘No problem.’ Galindez picked up her latex gloves. ‘I’ll come in with you.’
‘I hoped you would.’
Galindez took the lead, crouching to scramble through the hole. She felt the profesora watching as she struggled through the hole, wrestling her bag past the broken bricks.
The pile of bones intrigued Profesora Ordoñez and she listened carefully as Galindez outlined her view of how the bodies came to be in the mine: that it was likely they were killed somewhere else and then brought here and dumped in a heap before the entrance was sealed up permanently.
‘How long would you say they’ve been here, Ana MarÍa?’ The profesora asked.
‘Right now, I’d date the killing sometime between 1952 and 1970, probably earlier rather than later.’
‘And why do you say that?’ The professor moved nearer, placing a hand on Galindez’s shoulder to steady herself. Once she was comfortable, her hand remained in place.
‘I’m not Sherlock Holmes,’ Galindez said. ‘The mine was sealed in fifty-three and the company closed down in the seventies. These people have been dead a long time and of course it’s unlikely a pile of bodies was lying around while the miners came here to work the seams. So…’
‘Elementario, mi querido Watson?’ A hint of a smile in the professor’s voice.
‘It is when you know how.’ Galindez tensed, sensing condescension.
‘It’s unlikely you’ll find anything of much interest.’
‘Over a dozen people shot dead and hidden in a mine? If it took place in the early fifties that was well after the war ended. We’re talking about murder rather than a war crime surely?’
‘This may not be a shooting carried out during the war. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t connected to the war,’ Profesora Ordoñez said.
‘But why here? Why not just kill them in prison?’
‘Things weren’t so neat and tidy in those days.’ The professor’s flashlight wandered over the skeletons. ‘Perhaps the killings needed to be covered up so they dumped them here. They knew one thing for certain: no one would come looking for these people. Not in Franco’s lifetime anyway.’
‘So the killers weren’t worried about the law?’
Profesora Ordoñez smiled. ‘It’s quite possible they were the law.’
Five o’clock and the sun was remorseless. Ga
lindez worked steadily and methodically, piling the skeletons on top of black plastic sacks outside the mine entrance. So many bones. Skulls, the strange curves of spines and ribcages, thigh bones, shins, the smaller pieces: toes, fingers – even a few teeth found in the dirt beneath the pile of bodies. Fifteen scrambled skeletons. Back at the lab Galindez could reassemble these bodies – given time. Whether the guardia would sanction the expense was unlikely, she knew. What good would it do anyway, she explained to the profesora. Apart from keeping the pay cheque coming, of course.
‘You mean they won’t investigate further?’ Profesora Ordoñez asked, surprised.
‘What difference would it make? That world has gone. Those people have been dead so long, who can possibly care now?’
‘That’s rather harsh, Dr Galindez,’ Ordoñez said, ‘Don’t you have any interest in the past?’
‘No, not really,’ Galindez said, a little too quickly.
‘None at all? Don’t you care about how the past constantly seeps into the present? How it nuances and shapes contemporary choices and options?’
Galindez laughed. ‘You really do sound like a professor.’
‘I’m in the right job then.’
‘You mentioned something earlier about a diary, profesora?’
Ordoñez opened her bag and brought out a book bound in faded, scuffed leather. She opened it gently, almost tenderly. The writing was in a broad script written with a large-nibbed pen. The ink faint but still legible.
‘We found this three years ago,’ she said. ‘Hidden under the floorboards in a house in the centre of Madrid.’
Galindez looked at the page. Strong, even pen strokes, the writing an exemplar of geometrical rigidity, yet with a bold, angry sweep to it. She saw dated entries, barely a hint of any correction.
‘This diary is extremely important,’ Profesora Ordoñez said, closing it. ‘But I can tell you about him later. Look at you, you’re filthy. You need to get out of those clothes and have a shower.’ She smiled. ‘And a cold drink or two. Tell you what, I’m buying when we get back to Madrid. In fact, we could go to my place. You can get showered while I fix us a drink.’
Galindez saw the look in the profesora’s eyes. The day might end better than it had begun. But she wouldn’t be going anywhere until the truck arrived to take away the remains. And then there were photographs to be taken. ‘That would be nice, profesora, but I’ve still a fair bit of work left to do.’
‘I’ll wait. And it’s Luisa, by the way.’
‘OK. Pro— Luisa. Listen, you’ve got me hooked, this man we’ve been talking about – the one who wrote this diary. Just who was he?’
Profesora Ordoñez smiled. ‘So you’re getting more interested in the past now? That can happen. He was very special, Ana María. This is him.’ She opened the diary again.
Inside the cover was a pressed, yellowed newspaper clipping from the right-wing daily, ABC. The contrast between light and shade was so sharp the photograph seemed almost a sketch. In the picture, a tall, heavy-set young man in combat gear was having a medal pinned on his chest by a short man in a uniform with big epaulettes, his spindly legs clad in gleaming riding boots. Behind them, neat ranks of troops were drawn up at attention. And beyond the lines of soldiers, the wooden barrera of a bullring.
Despite the blazing sun, Galindez felt a sudden chill, her skin prickled against her sweat-soaked clothes. She read the headline: Hero of Badajoz decorated by Generalísimo Franco. It was her first glimpse of Comandante Guzmán.
2
MADRID, 13 JANUARY 1953, PUERTA DEL SOL
During the afternoon the wind changed, and the scattered snowflakes that had spiralled down since early morning now turned to an insistent hail. Freezing rain clung to the shabby clothes of the crowds passing along the cobbled street between Plaza Santa Ana and Puerta del Sol. Guzmán watched the thin, hungry faces of the men and women who clattered past him, the sound of hobnails sharp on the frozen cobbles. Although his coat was thicker and of better quality than the majority of those around him, Guzmán was still freezing.
The lights of numerous cafés and bars illuminated the flurries of sleet and snow that dappled the vague light of the street lamps. Inside the cheaper places, Guzmán saw workmen in blue boiler suits, crowding round the bar, spearing tapas with toothpicks, others cradling cups of hot coffee in their frozen hands. In more expensive places he saw the middle classes, brilliantined and preening, taking coffee and cognac. In every establishment cigarette smoke rose in clouds around the lights, gently enveloping those within in an indistinct blue haze.
Guzmán stamped his feet to try to warm them. It was then he realised one of his shoes was leaking. Since the war, poverty encroached on the lives of all but the very fortunate. The idea he shared an experience with those grey, cadaverous workmen disgusted him. Their shoes might leak, but as far as Guzmán was concerned, it served them right. They were born to it. There was no reason why he should share in their poverty and deprivation if he could possibly avoid it. And he had so far.
Behind the market near the Plaza Mayor, Guzmán entered a plain small bar. The warmth washed over him as he stood against the bar watching the occupants with a practised eye. Behind the bar the barman was grilling large piles of mushrooms in oil and garlic on the hot plate. Guzmán nodded when the barman looked at him in silent inquiry before heaping a plate with sizzling mushrooms, dousing them with salt and topping them with slices of bread skewered by a couple of toothpicks. The plate was accompanied by a small stone pitcher of rough red wine. Guzmán poured the wine into the smeared glass. He tasted a mushroom and spat it to the floor as it burned his mouth. He damped down the pain with a gulp of the wine, glaring at the barman’s back, wondering for a moment whether some retribution was necessary. A moment later the mushrooms had reached a more acceptable temperature and he wolfed them down, scooping them up with the bread and then mopping up the remaining oil and garlic. Guzmán finished his wine and then fastened his coat tightly before leaving. Outside the sleet was thickening again and passers-by hunched against the sharp gusts of clinging wind-borne snowflakes.
‘Hey, that guy didn’t pay,’ the younger barman said as Guzmán left.
The old man pulled the young barman back. ‘Police,’ he said simply and the younger man suddenly deflated, shooting a worried glance after the dark bulk now striding into the snow-flecked late afternoon.
‘You should have said before,’ he complained.
In the street near the market, a dark Hispano-Suiza sedan was waiting, its engine running. Guzmán saw the wan face of the driver through the misted windscreen. He came alongside the car and opened the driver’s door with one quick movement, reaching in and seizing the man’s throat in his big hands. The driver’s eyes jerked open as he struggled for breath.
‘Hijo de puta, never go to sleep again when you’re driving me, or I’ll break you down to private and send you to the fucking Rif mountains where the Moors will cut you into pieces. Entiendes?’
The driver nodded. He was having difficulty swallowing.
Guzmán released him and climbed into the back seat behind the startled driver. ‘Got the address?’ The driver nodded again. ‘Then let’s go.’
The car moved away from the kerb. Guzmán felt the musty warmth seep through him as the car built up speed. The interior of the car smelled of leather, sweat and black tobacco and Guzmán relaxed as he inhaled the familiar odours. As they drove, he watched the architecture change as they left behind the impressive buildings surrounding the Plaza Mayor and passed through neighbourhoods of increasingly shabby, ill-kept buildings punctuated by the odd collapsed wall or bomb site. Not as many as there used to be, Guzmán thought. Soon you won’t know there had been a war at all. The city is starting to forget. If we let it.
The streets were now decidedly working class, the dilapidated buildings dark and shadowed. Lines of washing hung across balconies like ships’ flags, signalling the poverty of the inhabitants. There was less motor traffic no
w and they frequently encountered horse-drawn vehicles which slowed them, and from time to time carts and trolleys being pushed by sallow men in ragged clothes. The driver suddenly accelerated, forcing a pair of youths to abandon the cart they were pushing and leap out of the way.
Guzmán leaned forward. ‘No rush, we’re almost there.’
‘Si, mi comandante.’ The driver slowed as he took the next corner, keen to obey.
‘There they are.’ A hundred metres away, Guzmán saw a khaki truck filled with guardia civiles. The Hispano-Suiza glided to a halt by the rear of the truck and Guzmán looked out at the guardia crowded in the back of the vehicle, strange dark shapes in their tricorne hats and heavy capes, a mass of men bristling with long rifles. Guzmán climbed from the car into the freezing late afternoon air.
A uniformed teniente stepped forward. ‘Comandante Guzmán? Teniente Cabrera.’ The man snapped off a salute. Guzmán ignored it.
‘He’s in a piso just up there.’ Cabrera gestured towards a row of tall ramshackle buildings near the end of the street. Snow was falling heavily. Those few people braving the cold rapidly began to disperse, as they saw the guardia civiles climb from the lorry and move purposefully down the road. Bystanders melted away into the black recesses of the tattered buildings, recognising impending trouble. A tense silence accompanied the dark shapes of the guardia as they took up positions along the pavement, their breath steaming in the dwindling afternoon light. The noise of the city faded, muffled by the thick snow falling over the shadowed street.
‘We need to get a move on. If it gets too dark he might be able to make a break for it,’ Guzmán said. ‘Five men at the top of the street there…’ he indicated the far end of the road, ‘another five in the alleyway at the back. The rest can go inside and break down his door. Any resistance and they shoot to kill.’
‘Understood, mi Comandante.’ Another snatched salute. Guzmán sighed.
The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory) Page 2