The Butcher Beyond

by Sally Spencer

  He couldn’t see the fishermen, Medwin thought. And that was wrong! Even if they’d been in hiding, they should have emerged by now.

  He felt the heavy weight of responsibility pressing on his shoulders. There were no leaders. Not any more. And that was the simple truth. Yet he knew that because of his experience and the stories which had grown up around his exploits, many of these men were following him – putting their trust in him. And it was not just the men he was worried about. It was the boxes, which were weighed down heavy with expectations. Which were weighed down heavy with hope.

  ‘We have to retreat,’ he said.

  ‘Retreat?’ Ham-’n’-Eggs repeated. ‘We have nowhere to retreat to!’

  ‘We’ll regroup,’ Medwin promised. ‘We’ll regroup and come up with another plan.’

  ‘It’s too late for that,’ Moses said.

  There was a sudden blinding flash of light to their left. And Medwin realized that Moses was right. It was too late to retreat. It was too late for anything!

  ‘They could have locked us in the town hall while they carried out their bloody business,’ Ramón Jiménez said. ‘But they did not. They made us stand on the esplanade overlooking the beach. They made us watch. That was part of our punishment.’

  ‘And what did you see?’ Paco asked.

  ‘The flares went up, and it was as bright as day. We saw them – those brave men – caught like rats in a trap. And we saw the machine-gun pits which the fascist militia had dug as soon as it went dark.’

  There were cries of confusion, and cries of despair. They had not been expecting this. They had all thought, deep in their secret hearts, that God – or luck, or fate, or whatever else they believed in – would grant them at least this one chance. Now they realized that even this final hope was gone.

  The flares, coming out of the darkness, blinded them for a few seconds, and even when their vision returned, they still saw the world through a red film.

  ‘Get down, you idiots! Get down!’ Medwin shouted.

  But his words were drowned by the rattle of machine-gun fire.

  Medwin, following his own instructions, hit the ground himself. The sand was damp against his skin.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ said a voice by his side, which he recognized as belonging to Ham-’n’-Eggs.

  ‘I can’t desert the lads,’ Medwin said.

  ‘You’ve no choice,’ Ham-’n’-Eggs gasped. ‘This isn’t a battle. It’s a rout. And it’s every man for himself.’

  ‘What about the boxes?’ Medwin asked.

  ‘To hell with the boxes. They’re lost, whatever you do. You have to try and save yourself.’

  ‘In the morning, they took us down to the beach to clear away the bodies,’ Ramón Jiménez said. ‘We buried them in a mass grave. We asked if we might send for a priest, but Durán said no. He told us that these men had killed too many priests in their time to have their own burial sanctified by one now.’

  ‘The International Brigade did not kill priests,’ Paco said. ‘I know, because I fought beside them.’

  ‘I know that now, and I knew it then,’ Jiménez said. ‘But Durán would not be convinced. I think he hated them for their courage and nobility – hated them because they showed him more clearly than a mirror what he was himself.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘Once we had filled in the grave, he ordered a concrete mixer to be brought to the site. Then he stood there and watched as we cemented over the whole area. It is something I will never forgive him for.’

  ‘How many men did you bury that day? Do you know?’

  ‘Of course I know. We counted them. We wanted to be sure we knew the full extent of Durán’s crime.’

  ‘So how many were there?’

  ‘Thirty-four.’

  ‘Which means, according to your earlier calculations, that some of them escaped.’

  Jiménez nodded. ‘A few,’ he said mournfully. ‘A pitiful few.’ There were tears in his eyes. ‘I sometimes wake up in the night wondering what happened to them. I would like to think that they returned safely to their own countries, but I cannot really bring myself to believe that they did.’

  ‘They made it,’ Paco said.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because a few of the few have finally come back!’

  Nineteen

  A policeman was often a hunter, Woodend thought as he looked across the table at the heavy metal cross which hung around Sutcliffe’s neck, but he was also – more commonly than most people ever imagined – almost a priest. And there was something of the priestly function about each and every interrogation. Crack one of a man’s secrets – however small and insignificant that secret may be – and he soon comes to believe that you can crack them all. Catch the smallest glimpse of that same man’s soul, and he will soon lay the whole soul bare before you.

  ‘Shall we begin?’ Woodend asked.

  Captain López, who was sitting next to him, merely nodded.

  ‘I was just wonderin’ what nickname the group gave you, Mr Sutcliffe?’ the Chief Inspector said.

  ‘I am Jacob. I am Esau. Men know me as Elijah,’ Sutcliffe replied in a voice that was almost a chant.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think it was ever anythin’ as fancy as that,’ Woodend told him. ‘They called Mitchell “Ham-’n’-Eggs”, didn’t they, because he was forever goin’ on about how he could fancy a fry-up? Roberts, I imagine, was known as somethin’ like “The Gambler”. So I was wonderin’ which of your little peculiarities they would have latched on to.’

  Sutcliffe ran his hands through his shock of grey hair. ‘As the mighty and terrible God on High is my witness, I knew no Mitchell. Nor did I know any Schneider or Dupont.’

  ‘Funnily enough, I never asked you about Schneider or Dupont,’ Woodend pointed out. ‘An’ I couldn’t help noticin’ that when you swore an oath to your “mighty an’ terrible God”, you acted as if I hadn’t brought Roberts’s name up at all. But here’s the interestin’ question. You say you didn’t know them.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When didn’t you know them?’

  ‘You make no sense,’ Sutcliffe said.

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Woodend told him. ‘Mitchell’s a common enough name, so the chances are you’ve come across at least a few fellers called that. I know I certainly have. So you were lyin’ when you said you knew no Mitchell. Lyin’ – and usin’ your “mighty an’ terrible God” to back you up. Unless …’

  Sutcliffe struggled to keep silent, but despite what his brain ordered it to do, his mouth was already forming the words.

  ‘Unless what?’ he asked.

  ‘Unless you were playin’ games with me. Unless you were addin’ a silent qualification to your words, so that when you said, “I knew no Mitchell,” what you really meant was “I knew no Mitchell back in the days when we were all here in Benicelda.” Because then Mitchell was goin’ by his real name, wasn’t he? Just as Holloway was goin’ by his real name of Medwin, an’ Schneider an’ Dupont were goin’ by whatever their real names are. But Roberts was always Roberts, an’ that’s why you excluded him from your oath.’

  Sutcliffe closed his eyes. ‘For the Devil is a great tempter, and we must heed not his words,’ he intoned.

  ‘Don’t think I’ve ever been confused with Old Nick before,’ Woodend said easily. ‘But let’s move on, shall we? We’ve already established that you were here with the others, but we still don’t know what your nickname was.’

  ‘Why should you want to know it?’ Sutcliffe demanded.

  ‘So there is one to know, is there?’ Woodend countered.

  ‘No, I …’ Sutcliffe began. Then he closed his eyes again and said, ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me …’

  ‘I suppose it all depends when you first came down with an attack of Godliness,’ Woodend mused. ‘If it’s recent, then
chances are you were a bit of a hellraiser before. Is that what they called you? Hellraiser?’

  ‘Thou preparest a table before me, in the presence of mine enemies …’

  ‘No, I don’t think it was that,’ Woodend said. ‘I think you’d been bitten by the bug before you ever came to Spain. So what was the name they gave you? Holy Joe? Bible Billy? Or were you just “The Lunatic”?’

  ‘They called me Moses!’ Sutcliffe said angrily.

  ‘Moses!’ Woodend repeated. ‘Now that’s an interestin’ choice. What comes into your mind when you think of Moses, Captain López?’

  If Paniatowski had been sitting beside him, she would have responded immediately.

  Because she’d have known that it wouldn’t really matter what she said, since her only real function was to remind the suspect that there were two of them – and only one of him.

  Because she’d have appreciated the fact that one of the keys to a successful interrogation is rhythm, and her silence would have shattered the rhythm that Woodend had been working so hard to build up.

  López should have known those things too. López should have said something – anything – no matter how meaningless it had been.

  But López didn’t.

  López kept silent.

  Let down by the man who should have been acting as his partner, Woodend turned his attention back to Sutcliffe, and continued to press on with his reluctant one-man show.

  ‘Moses was a leader of his people,’ he said. ‘You’re not a leader, Mr Sutcliffe. You’re a follower. So I don’t think they called you Moses at all. I think you just wished they had.’

  ‘God called on me to deliver his people from the heathen,’ Sutcliffe said. ‘To save them from the Whore of Babylon.’

  ‘Moses led his people out of Egypt,’ Woodend said. ‘He never led them back again. So why did you – if you really are the leader you claim to be – lead your people back to Spain?’

  ‘The wicked shall not go unpunished,’ Sutcliffe said. ‘The dead shall not go unavenged. Yea, though the Whore rules in this land once more, yet did God call on us to enter it and serve as His powerful right hand.’

  ‘What exactly was it you came back here to do?’ Woodend asked.

  Sutcliffe looked at him with genuine amazement in his eyes. ‘Are you a fool?’ he demanded. ‘Have you not listened? Do you not understand?’

  ‘I’ve almost got it,’ Woodend said soothingly. ‘Perhaps you could explain one more time – in simple terms, so that even an idiot like me can finally understand.’

  Sutcliffe nodded. ‘We came back because we were called,’ he said. ‘Because in this town there still lives—’

  ‘Confess!’ López exploded – almost screaming the words. ‘Confess to the murder, and I promise you that you will be the one who escapes the death penalty!’

  And just as Mitchell had done earlier, Sutcliffe shut down.

  Twenty

  Dusk was falling. The foreign visitors, who had basked in the sweltering heat on the beach for most of the day, now wandered the narrow streets of the old town, grateful for the gentle coolness which nightfall brought with it.

  They all looked so relaxed, Woodend thought enviously, as he watched them walk past his table. And why wouldn’t they be? They had left the stresses and strains of having to work for a living behind them, whereas he had merely transferred his job to a new – and more difficult – location.

  He took a sip of his beer – the third he had ordered from the waiter since he sat down – and wondered just what he was going to do about the fix he found himself in.

  Though he still had no clear idea why López was trying to sabotage the investigation, there was no doubt in his mind that that was exactly what the Captain was doing. Disrupting Mitchell’s interrogation could just have been a mistake – an error of judgement. But he had done it again – not once, but four times. And if anything, his interruptions had only got worse with each session. Schneider, for example, had barely had time to sit before López was screaming at him to confess to the murder!

  Woodend took another sip of his beer. He seemed to be completely boxed in, he thought. The investigation was getting nowhere, but appealing to López had proved a waste of time, and complaining to the Consul would achieve nothing, except perhaps gaining him a reputation for awkwardness. Nor was he willing to let López take over – it simply wasn’t in his nature to sit back and watch an investigation being run into the ground.

  There was something else he could do, he thought. He was sure of that. His only problem was that he had no idea what it was!

  ‘Joan!’ shouted a voice.

  He looked up. The woman who had shouted the name was in her early thirties, as was the woman who turned round in response.

  Nothing to do with his Joan at all, then.

  Woodend felt a sudden shudder of guilt run through his whole body. They were in Benicelda for Joan’s benefit. She needed to relax, and it was his job to see that she did. Yet he could not honestly say that he had thought about his wife – even for a second – since he had started to wrap his mind around the case that morning.

  Captain López looked up at the picture of General Franco on his office wall – at the hard eyes and the disapproving down-turn of the mouth. The Generalissimo was not a man who was easily pleased. He did not tolerate failure, whatever the reason. And it was this attitude which had set the standard to be followed by anyone and everyone who held power in the Generalissimo’s Spain.

  ‘There is no excuse for failure, and I have failed,’ López told the image of the grim-faced Caudillo.

  And not just on one front, but on several!

  He had failed to stop Woodend asking questions which might eventually lead the English detective to a solution to the crime – whatever that solution was.

  He had failed to learn why it was so important to His Excellency Don Antonio Durán, the Alcalde of Benicelda, that the crime should be covered up.

  He would certainly be judged to have failed by his Captain-General in Madrid.

  However he examined it, the future looked bleak.

  The knock on his office door sounded like nothing less than a summons to defeat and disgrace, and he ignored it. It was only when the caller outside knocked a second time – with more insistence – that he found the strength to say, ‘Come on, damn you!’

  The man who opened the door and walked into the office was a constable called Luis Alonso. He did not look like a policeman. Policemen did not sport a three-day growth of stubble on their chins. Nor did he live in the barracks, or wear the olive-green uniform and the three-cornered hat. There was no record that he was even based in the Benicelda barracks of the Guardia Civil, and his wages came not through the usual channels but out of a special fund which was administered from headquarters in Madrid.

  There were a number of people rotting away in prison who wished they had never met Alonso – and certainly wished they had never confided in him. There were others who did not even know he was responsible for their condition – who never suspected that light-hearted, free-spending Luis might be the one behind their incarceration. His job was to infiltrate – to uncover troublemakers even before they had even thought of making trouble – and as his record of arrests showed, he was very good at it.

  His work that day had been of a more private nature. He had not been searching out people who had the occasional bad word to say about the General, or people who might express the view that – just once in a while – it might be nice if they could actually believe what they read in the newspapers. That day, he had been working exclusively on behalf of Captain López.

  ‘What do you want?’ López demanded.

  ‘You asked me to report to you if I had discovered anything interesting, my Captain.’

  ‘And have you?’

  Alonso hesitated, as if there were two things he could say, and he had not yet decided which one to choose. ‘I might have something interesting,’ he said finally. ‘It all depends.�
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  ‘It all depends! On what?’

  ‘On what’s in it for me.’

  López felt a mixture of rage and hope bubbling up inside him – rage that a mere constable should even think of trying to strong-arm him; hope that maybe what Alonso had learned would be well worth whatever it cost.

  ‘If you have found out anything of use to me, I will see that you are amply rewarded for it,’ he said cautiously.

  Alonso rubbed his hands together. ‘Oh, it will be of use, my Captain,’ he said confidently. ‘I’ve uncovered a deep, dark secret. And that kind of secret, if handled properly, can be worth a small fortune.’

  ‘Then tell me what it is, you hijo de puta!’ López said, thinking, even as he spoke, that his words sounded more like a plea of a desperate man than an order from a captain in the Guardia Civil.

  Alonso quickly outlined what he had learned. ‘Well?’ he asked when he had finished.

  ‘It might possibly be of use,’ López said. ‘On the other hand, it could lead to nothing.’

  But he was finding it almost impossible to keep the excitement out of his voice. Only minutes earlier, he had been worried about landing in the shit. Now the prospect no longer bothered him, because he had just learned that at the bottom of the shit heap was the entrance to a gold mine.

  Twenty-One

  Mitchell looked around the room at the others. Dupont and Sutcliffe were sitting on his bed, and Schneider on the only chair. Roberts was leaning against the wall in the corner.

  Mitchell would have liked to sit down himself. Hell, he’d have liked to lie down. But he couldn’t, because he had to show the others that he was stronger than he looked.

  No, he corrected himself – he had to fool them into thinking that he was stronger than he looked.

  Because the truth was, he wasn’t strong at all. The truth was that however hard he fought it, the illness that was eating away at his body was also sapping away what little strength he had left.

  It was strange to be Ham-’n’-Eggs again, after all these years. He wondered how the others now regarded their old names.