THE BOY FROM THE TANGIER SOUK

by Richard Savin

Grainger nodded. ‘Yes, I heard.’

  ‘Would’ve been bloody awkward if it had gone the other way. We couldn’t have held the Rock, you know.’

  As the journey round the long arc of the coast road progressed both men sank into silence. There was not a great deal to say, and anyway it was the unspoken rule amongst those conducting the secret war that the less said, the better the chances of survival. Grainger turned his mind to the business that waited for him in Tangier. All he knew was a rendezvous had been set up with an American at an address close to the port. No more than that.

  At a random point in the centre of Algeciras, Braiden pulled over and drew the car up to the kerb. ‘I’m going to let you out here. The railway station is just round the corner. There are plenty of taxis; get one to take you to the port. It’s safer than me dropping you off there – never know who’s watching what these days. Good luck, old chap. Here, have this.’ He handed Grainger a panama hat. ‘Make you look more normal. Nobody goes bare head in these parts.’

  Grainger stood on the pavement and watched until the car was out of sight, then set out at a leisurely pace walking to the station where he found the place swarming with cabs. It was only a short ride to the port. It would take less than ten minutes but he knew Braiden was right: better to be seen arriving by taxi like any normal traveller. When he paid the fare he added an over-generous tip. It was a small move but he needed to get into the roll. It would establish his credentials as a naive visitor, and taxi drivers talked.

  The office of Lineas Albericos was in a white stuccoed single-storey block, with metal-framed windows in the Art Deco style. It sat close to the main gates at the front of the port. Inside, a young dark-haired woman in company uniform offered him a seat.

  ‘I would like a ticket for the Tangier ferry,’

  The woman smiled a flashing row of white teeth. ‘Is this for a single journey or do you come back?’

  He was about to say single when it occurred to him that might look odd. ‘I need a return but I am not sure of the date.’

  She smiled again. ‘I will leave it open and you can make the return when it is convenient, señor. Your name, please.’

  ‘Grainger. First name Richard.’

  ‘Your passport, please.’ Grainger handed it over and waited to see the response.

  ‘Ah,’ she once more smiled, ‘you are from Canada. That is good. Canadians are well liked by my government,’ she paused, ‘and I believe so in Vichy, so you will be welcomed in Casablanca too. Will you be going to Casablanca, señor?’

  He shook his head and returned the smile. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  The woman handed him his ticket and wished him a pleasant voyage. She had been cordial enough but he wondered about the questions: why would she want to know if he was going to Casablanca?

  Moments after he had left, the woman stood up and went over to the window from where she watched him until he had boarded the ferry. Satisfied with her observation, she returned to her desk. She sat for a moment or two then lifted the handset of a telephone and dialled a number. ‘I think we have our man. He has boarded,’ she said quietly into the mouthpiece. ‘He is travelling on false Canadian papers, but in his own name.’

  Having made the call she got up and went to a cupboard where she took off the company jacket and hung it up. From an adjacent peg she took a lightweight coat and draped it round her shoulders. Then she crossed the room and opened the door to an adjoining office. ‘You can come out now,’ she called softly. ‘I have finished with your uniform now.’

  Another woman of her own age emerged and looked cautiously about her. Content that there was no one else in the room she extended an open hand. The woman in the coat produced a bundle of peseta notes from her handbag and placed them in the waiting palm, and left without further word. The second woman counted the money. ‘Gracias,’ she called out, but she was speaking to an empty room.

  Chapter 4

  A place of detention

  Alain had gone. She didn’t want him to and she had pleaded with him not to – but he had gone. José had sent word from Perpignan that Mathieu’s group was operating in the area and he was desperate to join them. ‘How,’ he argued, ‘will I hold up my head when this is all over and I say, well, I played safe and hid behind my sister’s skirts; lying low in Spain while my countrymen and my friends died.’

  There was no argument she could deploy. Nothing would hold him. Now she was alone, and the house suddenly felt empty and lonely.

  In the evenings she sat at the kitchen table. She could not be bothered to use the dining room. It was too large and only served to emphasise the cavernous emptiness of the space that surrounded and contained her.

  There was no solace, even in the streets outside. When she did go out, there were no friendly faces or kind words. Señora Rojas and the other women of the town shunned her, passing her by with hostile stares and half muttered threats.

  *

  It was Sunday and she could hear the bells in the church ringing out the Angelus. It was something she ignored – she was a Lutheran, not a Catholic. But this morning there was another noise – the sound of urgent banging on the front door. The noise shocked her and she jumped. Someone had come in through the main gate but she was sure she had locked it. Other than her, only Alain had a key. Her heart skipped a beat as she half ran to the front door. ‘Alain,’ she shouted as she pulled it open.

  It was not Alain. She stood and stared at the two men on her doorstep. Two men in the uniform of the Guardia Civile: one carrying the rank of captain, the other a sergeant.

  ‘Señora Pfeiffer?’ The captain eyed her coldly.

  Evangeline gave a hesitant nod of acknowledgement. ‘Yes, what is it?’

  He said nothing for a moment, as if weighing up the woman in front of him. She was a foreigner: French. She was probably on the run from something. ‘My office received a visit this morning, an informer. This person told me I should come to this address where I would find something of interest.’ He paused again, examining her face for a reaction. All he read there was confusion.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Your front gate was open. Do you not lock it at night?’

  Evangeline looked from one to the other. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And last night?’

  ‘I think so. Yes I am sure.’ Deep in her head her mind worked overtime; a dreadful thought that something had happened to Alain sprung at her. ‘Is this about my brother? Has something happened to him?’ There was panic rising in her voice.

  The captain looked at the sergeant and nodded. ‘I know nothing of your brother, señora. I have come on another matter.’ He paused again and once more studied the face of the woman in front of him. There was confusion, but no fear. It left him uncertain. ‘When I came this morning I found a man in your garden señorita; a man who is dead. Did you know of that?’

  Evangeline’s mind froze. She stood mesmerised, her thoughts running wildly from Alain to José and then to Richard. Please, dear God, let it be none of them, she half whispered.

  The captain’s face screwed up in a confused grimace. ‘Perhaps you could explain to me how he comes to be in your garden.’

  She hesitated, uncertain of what it was she was hearing. ‘Who is it, this man?’

  ‘Come,’ the captain jerked his head across at the other man. ‘Let us follow my sergeant; maybe you can tell us who is this dead man.’

  They walked towards the front gate where she could see what appeared to be a body propped up against the wall of the garden. The head and upper part had a coat roughly thrown over it. Standing next to the corpse was a man in a dark suit, his face mostly hidden by sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat.

  ‘So, madame,’ the man said politely, addressing her in French. ‘How does this man come to find himself dead in your garden? Do you know this man?’

  As she had approached, her gaze had been on the man in the hat. Now, for the first time, Evangeline looked down at the corpse. The man pu
lled back the coat and as he did so she let out a small gasp and took half a step back. Most of the features had been cut off the face and it was a mess of congealed blood and scraps of dehydrated flesh; there was no nose or mouth, no ears, and both cheeks had been hacked back to the bone. She stood silently for a moment, only a slight shudder betraying her horror. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of the Guardia sergeant sniggering at her discomfort.

  ‘Well?’ The man in the hat raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  ‘No.’ She lifted her gaze from the mutilated corpse, finally finding her voice. ‘How could I, there is nothing to recognise. Besides, I know no one in this town. I am a stranger in this land; people are hostile to me.’

  The man in the wide-brimmed hat took off his sunglasses and stared hard into her eyes. ‘So why would this man be in your garden, madame? What is he doing here?’

  Evangeline said nothing. She just stood shaking her head, a mixture of fear and caution telling her to say nothing, in case what she said might somehow implicate her.

  The man replaced his sunglasses. ‘Bring her,’ he said to the captain.

  ‘I am afraid you will have to come with me. I have more questions I must ask you. Oh, and my name is Ramirez, Sub-Inspector Ramirez of the Brigada de Investigación Social. You may go into your house to get some things. You will be staying with us tonight – and bring your papers.’

  He turned his attention in the direction of the sergeant. ‘Go with her.’

  She had heard of these people and what she had heard was not good. In the town they whispered rumours of La Brigada and its methods; of the disappearances, the torture for confessions, and the assassination of resistors.

  The building at 2 Avinguda Caritat Serinyana had formerly been a hotel: La Residencia, a place to be seen and to dine in luxury. Then two years after the Civil War had been lost, they arrived with a requisition order; men without grace or humour. The employees were dismissed, the guests ejected, the owners forbidden to return. No notice was given, no time was allowed. Bars had suddenly appeared on the upper windows – installed overnight. The place had changed, the air of elegance had gone and in its stead a thin veil of menace shrouded the building, like a poisonous miasma. The once desirable rendezvous had become a venue no one wished to visit. Those who did were not invited, they were summoned – and rarely seen again.

  At the front of the building a uniformed guard, a rifle slung on one shoulder, saluted and held open the door. In the street people looked away and hurried past, fearful in case they too should attract unwanted attention.

  The former lobby of the hotel seemed normal enough but she knew it was an illusion. The inspector and the captain led her to the lift, a tiny cramped cabin with barely the space to accommodate the three of them. At the first floor it jerked to a halt and she was ordered to step out into a well-appointed corridor. In better times it had given access to the guest rooms, but those times had gone and the rooms had now become offices and holding cells.

  ‘In here,’ Ramirez said curtly.

  The room she entered was elegantly decorated. The pale blue wash on the walls, the white ceiling with stuccoed light roses, and the pale navy detailing on the skirting boards and door panelling were witnesses to better times, but those times had gone. The room had been stripped bare, the furniture removed save for a single metal table and some rough chairs. The paintings that adorned the walls gone, replaced by a cheaply framed image of Franco. Even the drapes had been taken down to reveal the newly installed bars at the windows. All pretence had gone, and it had the feel of what it was – a place of interrogation; a prison.

  She sat on the chair indicated by the casual wave of Ramirez’s hand and his perfunctory instruction, ‘Please sit.’

  She waited while he took out a cigarette case from inside his jacket, selected a cigarette and lit it. He inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs, blowing it out through his nose, a long blue plume. All the while he watched her. ‘Let me have your papers, madame,’ he finally said.

  Evangeline had lived with the fear that this moment might come, though she had always imagined it would be while she was out on the street – a random check by the municipal police. She had no papers, only her ration book and identity card issued by the Germans when they had occupied France. She had entered Spain secretly and without permission, on the run, wanted by the Gestapo and the Vichy gendarmerie; an illegal fugitive.

  She dug around in her handbag, retrieved what documents she had, and put them down on the table.

  Ramirez let the cigarette hang loosely from the corner of his mouth. He picked up the documents, opening the ration book, turning first the front cover to his gaze then flipping the pages, and then casually perusing the back. He let it fall to the table. ‘Where is your permit of stay?’

  She looked back at him blankly then down at her hands. She was trembling.

  Ramirez raised his eyebrows. ‘Well? I am waiting, madame.’ He leaned forward and stared hard into her face. ‘Do you not have the proper papers?’

  Evangeline gave a barely perceptible shake of her head. ‘No, monsieur,’ she admitted in no more than a whisper.

  Ramirez stubbed out the butt of his cigarette in a tin ashtray. ‘So you have entered the country illegally. Do you know the penalty for such a thing? Maybe you are an agent of the Commintern, come to spy on us?’ He raised his voice quizzically. ‘Do you know the penalty for spying? Execution, madame.’

  He got up from the table and walked over to a filing cabinet, the only other item of furniture in the room; it was pushed up against one wall. He pulled open a drawer and retrieved what looked like a riding crop. For a moment or two he stood tapping it gently against one leg then, laying it on the table top, sat down again. Evangeline’s eyes fixed on the object and she felt her heart begin to race. She was sure there would be violence.

  ‘What shall we do with you?’ He paused again while he found another cigarette and lit it. ‘So,’ he said brusquely, ‘who is this man in your garden – and what is he doing there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Not good enough, madame.’

  Ramirez pushed back his chair and stood up. He picked up the crop and began rapping it on the table top. His voice hardened. ‘You have entered the country illegally, why!’ He smacked the crop down with a noisy thwack. Evangeline jumped. ‘What are you doing here, madame? Are you running away from something – someone, perhaps?’

  He walked around behind her and stood there. Then he laid the crop on her shoulder. She winced and braced herself. She felt him lift it and waited for the pain. What came was no more than a firm tap but it was enough to make her flinch. Again, she sensed him lift the crop. This time it came down harder, though it was not sufficient to cause her pain. The tactic changed and he rubbed the leather rod up and down her neck. She braced herself as he moved it round and under her chin then began tapping against her windpipe.

  ‘I could, with just one strike, destroy your voice forever. How would that be, madame, never to be able to speak again. I shall leave you to think about it.’

  She heard the door close and a key turn in the lock. There was a perfect silence broken only by the sound of her whimpering as she tried to suppress her fear.

  It had been the middle of the morning when they came for her but the day had passed; the early May sunlight was fading to dusk and no one had come near her. Several times there had been voices, and footsteps passing along the corridor, but none had stopped. She had no idea what time it was. She had left her watch on the table beside her bed that morning. She mentally kicked herself; how could she have been so careless.

  It grew dark, then the black of the night descended. She switched on the only light still left functioning – a single plaited cord of electric flex with an unshaded bulb. Dangling down beside it was the loose chain from which a chandelier had once hung. The light was harsh and unforgiving in the bleak room and she quickly turned it off, preferring the shadows and the pale glow cast from
the street outside.

  For a long while she just sat there, wondering what had happened. Images of the mutilated body came at her through the darkness of the room. She had heard that it was the practice of vengeful factions on both sides to deface their victims so that they should not be identified. It added to the horror that the families of the missing could not know who they were burying. The chair was narrow and difficult to sit on for long. She stood up and wrapped her arms tightly around her body.

  She walked to the window and looked down into the street. There were people passing; she could hear the gulls down on the quay. Somewhere a dog barked. It was all there, all so normal and she was separated from it and its reality by nothing more than a thin sheet of glass and a few iron bars. It seemed surreal, like another world. She returned to the chair and sat but it was hard and uncomfortable and in the end she chose to sit on the floor in a corner, her back propped up tight to the wall.

  She had dozed and then woken with a start. The noise of a key rattling in the lock and a bright shaft of light from the corridor broke into her thin sleep. A hand switched on the light and for a moment the glare blinded her. She scrambled to her feet, her hands covering her eyes. When she could open them and focus she was confronted by the sergeant who had been there at the house. He was a short unattractive man, skinny with a dark olive complexion and a drooping black moustache. He looked at her with contempt and she remembered the way he had sniggered at her discomfort when she had recoiled from the body in her garden.

  ‘Ven conmigo.’ He inclined his head in the direction of the door. His Spanish was coarse but she understood it and, picking up the bag she had brought with her, went past him and out into the corridor. He directed her to the lift. Inside the cramped cabin she could smell the odour of his body: sweat, tobacco and bad teeth. The lift began its slow descent and in her mind she imagined she was destined for the basement.

  When it jerked to a halt and the door was opened she was surprised to find herself back in the hotel lobby. Standing at the reception desk she could see Ramirez. He was in close conversation with another man. On seeing Evangeline, Ramirez broke off the conversation and beckoned the sergeant to bring her to them. The other man was taller than Ramirez; younger, with dark well-groomed hair and a pleasant face. As she stood before them he smiled and gave her a token bow. That fazed her, but it also lifted some of her fear. Here, she thought, is a civilised man, and it raised her hopes that he might bring a resolution to her troubles.