The Fifth Column

by James Garcia Woods

  “But are they really bound together?” Paco asked, thinking of what the sharp-faced man had told him back at the front line headquarters.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dolores McBride demanded, bridling and suspicious.

  “Tell me something about the dead man – Samuel Johnson,” Paco said, changing the subject.

  “He was a real great guy,” the journalist told him. She was speaking seriously – and Paco thought he detected a catch in her voice, as if the subject was genuinely upsetting for her. “He was one of those who didn’t have much of an education, but he was as smart as hell. And he had a heart as big as your head.”

  “So why is he dead?”

  “Why do you think? He’s dead because somebody pumped a couple of bullets in him.”

  “You’re missing the point,” Paco told her. “The main reason people get killed is because they’re in the way.”

  “In the way of what?”

  Paco shrugged. “It could be any number of things. Happening to be in the wrong place during an armed robbery. Having too much money and being unwilling to die so your heirs can spend it. Trying to take for yourself something that somebody else wants very badly. What I want to know is – whose way was Johnson getting in?”

  “That’s obvious,” Dolores McBride retorted. “He was getting in the way of the fascists.”

  “He hadn’t even finished his basic training, had he?”

  “No, but ...”

  “And even if he had, why would the fascists single him out in particular for extermination?”

  “Because he had great potential to be a leader. The brigade is much weaker as a result of his death.”

  “So you’re saying that the fascists smuggled one of their men a hundred kilometers behind our lines just so he could eliminate someone who had the potential to be a leader?”

  “What other explanation could there possibly be?”

  Plenty, Paco thought – but obviously none that Dolores McBride really wanted to hear.

  He thought back to the last case he’d been forced to investigate, when he’d been a prisoner of the rebel army up in the Sierra Guadarrama. The general in charge there had not wanted to believe that anyone from his own side had been involved in a crime, either. That was the trouble with wars – each person divided the rest of the world into black and white, and, unlike in real life, there was absolutely no room for shades of gray.

  The car had been climbing a hill which would scarcely have been worth a mention had it been located at the base of the Sierra Nevada, but managed to achieve something like eminence in the middle of a plain. As the Balilla reached the crown of the hill, Dolores McBride said, “There’s the town. That’s where it all happened.”

  Paco looked down. The town – which was really no more than a large village – was situated on the bend of a small river. It had clearly once been completely surrounded by a wall, but over the years a part of its fortifications had either crumbled away or been pulled down. From its center rose a blackened church spire, and close to the church was the square of buildings which formed the Plaza Mayor. Paco guessed that to walk from the square to the edge of the town would take even the slowest moving man no more than ten minutes – and that one who was running could have covered the ground much quicker.

  But he didn’t think it likely that anyone had been running the night Samuel Johnson had been killed – at least, not if the murder had been premeditated. And it was more than probable that the killer had chosen his time deliberately – had waited until the town was crowded with people and filled with noise – before making his move.

  Paco took out his pack of cigarettes, offered one to his driver, then passed the pack back to Cindy and Felipe.

  If the killer were some outsider, as everyone seemed to want to believe, he thought, then the fiestas would have provided a perfect cover for his crime.

  But if it had been someone from inside the town instead, that would have been equally true.

  And Paco had a gut instinct that whoever had carried out the murder was not now behind enemy lines, toasting himself with good Rioja wine, but was somewhere in San Antonio de la Jara, waiting for the investigators from Madrid to arrive.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Fiat entered San Antonio de la Jara through an arched gateway which, unlike much of the rest of the town wall, had not fallen victim to either the harsh weather or the people’s need for building material.

  It was a narrow gate, just wide enough for a rattling farm cart, and most car drivers would have gone through it at a cautious crawl, in order to avoid scraping the vehicle against the stonework. But Dolores McBride was not most drivers – she hardly slowed at all, and the Balilla passed through the gap with just inches to spare on either side.

  The street immediately inside the walls was narrow, too, and sloped upwards towards the center of town. It was made of rough cobbles worn smooth by generations of donkeys’ hooves, and it had a drain running down its center. It was lined by two and three-story houses of various ages and in various states of repair, which huddled together as if they needed each other’s support and assurance.

  As the Fiat bumped and bucked over the cobbles, Paco glanced up at the small iron balconies which projected out from the houses. These balconies were where much of the life of the street went on. It was from here that neighbors, who could almost touch each other if they chose to stretch, would gossip. Lovers, as physically close to each other as they could ever be without a chaperone, would whisper terms of endearment across the divide. Young children would take their street-battles into the air, and hurl abuse – and sometimes objects – at each other from the safety of their own homes.

  Washing hung from these balconies – shirts and sheets almost starched frozen by the cold Castilian winter air. On some balconies there were old olive oil tins, containing geraniums which shivered their way through this early month of the year and dreamed of the balmier times yet to come.

  “Ah Spain!” the ex-policeman thought. It was easy to criticize it in so many ways, but he was sure there was nowhere else on earth quite like it.

  Dolores McBride brought the car to a sudden halt a few doors down from the main square.

  “This is where I’ve fixed you guys up with rooms,” she announced. “It’s conveniently located for the whole of the town, and the widow who lives here could sure use the money you’ll pay her. OK?”

  “Yes, it should serve our purpose perfectly,” Paco said.

  Dolores glanced from Paco to Cindy and Felipe and back again, as if she were counting heads. Then she looked Cindy squarely in the eye and said, “I’m assuming it’s only two rooms that you’ll be wanting.”

  “That’s right,” Cindy agreed tightly. “We’ll just want the two.”

  Dolores McBride lit a fresh cigarette. “OK, dump your bags, and then we can get down to business.”

  “We can get down to business,” Cindy repeated, in English. “I thought your job was finished as soon as you’d delivered us here.”

  Paco frowned. He didn’t know quite what was going on between these two women – but he was almost certain he didn’t like it.

  Dolores McBride noticed Paco’s puzzled expression – and grinned.

  “Yeah – we,” she told Cindy. “You’d be real surprised just how many of the pies around here I’ve got my finger in, Honey.”

  The widow who owned the house where Dolores McBride had booked the rooms was dressed in black from head to toe. She could have been as young as her early forties or as old as her late sixties – it was hard to tell a woman’s age once she had gone into the mourning which would last her for the rest of her life.

  Paco told her that he and his wife would like the bigger of the two rooms. The widow glanced down automatically at Cindy’s finger, but made no comment when she saw there was no ring on it, though she would undoubtedly have done so a few months earlier.

  The war had changed the way so many people saw life, Paco thought.


  The room that he and Cindy were shown to was pretty much what he would have expected. Most of it was taken up by a cast-iron bed on which rested a lumpy feather mattress, but there was still just enough space for a cheap wardrobe, a chest of drawers and wash-stand. The small window, set into the roof, overlooked the street.

  Cindy slammed her suitcase down on the bed, wrenched it open, and began to pull out her clothes as if she were in a hurry to find something which was buried beneath them.

  “We can’t have this, you know,” Paco said quietly.

  “Can’t have what?” Cindy replied, manhandling one of her dresses as if it was an enemy who needed to be subdued.

  “A detective needs co-operation to conduct his investigation properly.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that he can’t afford to antagonize any of the people whose help he might need.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not a detective,” Cindy said, thrusting a coat hanger viciously under the collar of the dress.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Paco asked.

  “Oh nothing! Everything’s just peachy.”

  “Come on, Cindy!” Paco said.

  “If you must know, I don’t particularly like being treated like a piece of dirt just because I don’t work for the Moscow News.”

  “Is that how Doll treats you?”

  “Yes, that’s how McBride treats me. Maybe you don’t notice it so much in Spanish, but let me tell you, it’s painfully obvious when she’s speaking to me in English.”

  “I’ll have a word with her,” Paco promised.

  “Sure! And a lot of good that will do.”

  “Would you care to explain that?”

  “Yeah, I’ll explain it! You’ve only just met the woman – and already she’s starting to twist you round her little finger. You should see the way you look at her. Your tongue’s hanging so far out it’s a wonder you don’t step on it.”

  She wasn’t being fair, Paco thought. Yet, in a way, he could understand why she was getting so upset and talking about Dolores McBride as if she were a rival.

  Dolores made her feel insecure. Not because she was undoubtedly very attractive. Not even because she was a very attractive fellow American. No, Cindy’s real problem was that the woman she saw as competition for her Spanish lover looked Spanish herself!

  “If I promise not to look at her again, will that make things any better?” he asked.

  “Not if it takes an effort,” Cindy retorted. “Not if you have to force yourself to tear your eyes away from her.”

  “I love you,” Paco said. “I might occasionally look at another woman – what Spaniard could honestly say that he doesn’t – but it will never go further than that. It’s you I want – now and forever.”

  Cindy bundled her underwear into one of the drawers.

  “Talk is cheap,” she said. She slammed the drawer closed. “We’re here to solve a murder, Ruiz. Let’s do it quickly, so we can get the hell away.”

  The chill wind which blew down the narrow street leading up to the Plaza Mayor made the three visitors from Madrid shudder, but if it had any effect on Dolores McBride, she gave no sign of it.

  The central square itself held no surprises. There was a fountain in the middle of it, and a moderately impressive building with a shield carved over the door at the far end.

  “The town hall?” Paco asked.

  “That's right,” Dolores McBride agreed. “Or, at least, it used to be the town hall. But it’s no longer the place where the bloated landlords get together to work out how to squeeze every last possible centimo out of the struggling masses. It belongs to the People now.”

  Paco coughed awkwardly. He’d never been happy with jargon, whichever side of the conflict it came from, and phrases like ‘bloated landlords’ and ‘struggling masses’ made him feel vaguely uncomfortable, even though – he had to admit – they were more or less accurate.

  “It’s not that we don’t appreciate the guided tour you’re giving us of this charming pueblo, Miss McBride,” Cindy said tartly – and in English. “But, in case you’ve forgotten the fact, we’re not here to take in the tourist sights, but to solve a murder.”

  “Oh, so you’re a detective as well as an interpreter, are you?” Dolores McBride asked with an innocence which was meant to fool no one.

  “Inspector Ruiz’s here to solve a murder,” Cindy corrected herself.

  “That’s what I thought,” Dolores replied. “And that’s why I’ve brought you to the plaza. The town hall’s serving as the Lincoln’s base – at least until they’re moved up the front.”

  Cindy studied the building as if she expected to learn something from it.

  “It may be their base, but it seems really quiet to me right now,” she said.

  “Most of the battalion should be out on training exercises,” Dolores replied, reverting to Spanish. “But the ones who Paco needs to talk to – the commander and the political commissar – will probably be in the office.”

  The ex-policeman found himself frowning again.

  The ones who Paco needs to talk to, he repeated mentally – as if she knew who he needed to talk to.

  Dolores’ attitude was a perfect illustration of what was bothering him about this case. He was the acknowledged expert in murder investigation – but everybody else seemed to think they knew how he should conduct this particular one, and exactly what conclusion he should reach.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Dolores asked Cindy, when they’d reached the town hall steps.

  “Do what?”

  “You’ve had a long journey from Madrid, and you must be feeling wrecked. Why don’t you go back to your room for a little shut-eye, and leave the translating up to me?”

  “I’m not tired,” Cindy said, through clenched teeth. ‘And since I’m the trained linguist here, I think I should be the one to do the translation.”

  Dolores gave her an unquestionably superior smile.

  “You might be ‘trained’, as you put it, Honey, but I’ve been speaking both languages from the moment I was born,” she said.

  I really don't need this kind of complication, Paco thought – I don’t need it at all.

  He glanced across at Cindy, and understood from the expression on her face not only that she was waiting for him to say something, but exactly what that response was expected to be.

  “Cindy’s used to helping me in my investigations,” he said aloud. “I think it’s better if she does the translation.”

  Dolores shrugged.

  “Whatever you say, Queso Grande. Mind if I show you where you can find the commander and the commissar – or will Señorita Walker take care of that, too?”

  “By all means show us where they are,” Paco said.

  Dolores McBride stepped up to the door, and turned the big iron ring which was set in the center of it. The door swung open, and she signaled the others to follow her. She led them down a corridor, came to a halt at the third door on the right, and opened it without knocking.

  A large wooden desk, which had probably once been used by the town clerk, took up at least half of the room they were entering. Sitting behind the desk were two men. They were both in their late twenties, but that was where the similarity ended. One was tall, and almost impossibly thin. His blue eyes bulged slightly, giving him the look of a highly excitable – and slightly nervous – hare. The other man was shorter, bulkier and darker. His eyes were almost hooded, suggesting that he always thought before he spoke – and that even when he did put his thoughts into words, they were not necessarily to be trusted.

  “These are the guys from Madrid – the ones who’ve come to solve all your problems for you,” Dolores said in English.

  The thin American behind the desk stood up and extended his hand to Paco.

  “I’m Matt Harris. It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”

  “He says...” Dolores began.

  “I understand,” replied Paco. “Pac
o Ruiz.” he told Harris. He gestured first towards Cindy, “Cindy Walker,” and then Fat Felipe, “Constable Fernandez.”

  “And this is James Clay, our political commissar,” Harris said.

  The short dark man did not rise from his seat, but instead gave the three new arrivals a curt nod.

  “Please be seated,” Harris said. “I expect you’ve got some questions you want to ask.”

  “He says you’ve probably got some questions you want to ask,” Cindy said quickly, giving Dolores McBride a pointed look.

  The journalist hesitated for a second, then shrugged again and said, “I guess I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

  “Tell Señor Harris that I wish to know what the murdered man was doing in the hours before he met his death,” Paco said to Cindy, once Dolores McBride had gone.

  Cindy translated.

  “Immediately before his death, he was seen by several people standing in the town square,” Harris said. “Earlier in the evening, he’d been visiting one of the families on the edge of town.”

  “Visiting them?”

  “They’d invited him over for supper. He’d become quite a friend of theirs, considering the short time he'd been here.”

  “So he spoke Spanish?” Paco asked.

  “No, but that didn’t really seem to matter very much. The locals understand that we’re here because we want to help them, and they’ve taken us to their hearts. Well-meaning people usually find a way to understand each other, even without a common language, you know.”