The Fifth Column

by James Garcia Woods

  Torres gasped, and would have doubled up had Paco had not followed through with a blow to the jaw which forced him to jerk his head back.

  Two blows would not normally have been enough to fell such a hard man, but the anger and passion behind them was such that two blows were all it took. The peasant’s knees buckled, and he collapsed into a heap on the floor.

  Paco reached down, grabbed the fallen man’s hair, and yanked his head a few centimeters off the ground. “Can you hear me?” he demanded furiously.

  Torres groaned.

  “I asked you if you could hear me,” Paco repeated, tugging on the hair so that the head swung from side to side.

  “Yes, I can hear you,” Torres gasped.

  “If you ever refer to Señorita Walker in that way again, I will kill you,” Paco said. “No threats, no warnings. You’ll just be dead. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I understand.”

  Paco let go of the hair, and Torres’ head sank back to the floor.

  “You – Jose Antonio – pour the man another drink,” Paco said to the barman. “And you – Don Iñigo – get back on your feet.”

  Jose Antonio poured the drink and Torres – using the counter as support – struggled back to a standing position.

  Paco took a deep breath.

  “I have some questions I need answers to,” he said. “Are you prepared to co-operate now – or will you need some persuading?”

  “I’ll co-operate,” the big peasant grunted. “What do you want to know?”

  “Tell me what you can about Samuel Johnson.”

  “The Negro?”

  “Yes.”

  “I ... I don’t know what to say.”

  “Tell me how you and the other individualista farmers felt about him.”

  “I can’t speak for them.”

  “Then speak for yourself.”

  “I have no opinions about him – or about any of the other yanqui monkeys.”

  “An interesting choice of words,” Paco said. “So Johnson was a monkey, was he? Didn’t it bother you, then, that the monkey should drink in your bars and talk to other white men almost as if he were white himself?”

  Torres gave a cautious shrug.

  “General Franco has his Moroccan monkeys fighting for him. Why shouldn’t we have monkeys of our own? And if it offends me to see them drinking in our bars and sniffing around the local women, well, that is a small price to pay for them taking a bullet instead of us.”

  This man would have been right at home in a lynch mob, Paco thought disgustedly. But he could not really bring himself to believe that Torres had had anything to do with Samuel Johnson’s death. If he had, a drunken bully like him would not have bothered to hide the fact – just as he had not really bothered to conceal his involvement in Juan Prieto’s ‘accident’.

  “You might think of the Negro as a monkey,” he told Torres, “but he was more of a man than you’ll ever be.”

  Then he turned his back contemptuously on the big peasant, in much the same way as a matador turns his back on the bull, and left the bar.

  * * *

  Paco visited the rest of the bars in San Antonio with no more success than he had encountered at the first. Concha and Luis Prieto had simply vanished into thin air. Or, more likely, they had gone home again, and by now Luis had been persuaded by his father to curb his frankness.

  So what did he do next? Paco wondered. How could he fill his time until another lead presented itself to him?

  He knew what he should do. He should go and find Cindy and Felipe, because Felipe had been quite right – going through the statements and interviewing the Lincolns was a two-man job. Yet even the thought of seeing his best friend and his novia before he absolutely had to was enough to make him shudder.

  He was ashamed of the way he had spoken to the fat constable that morning. In the face of Felipe’s cogent argument, he had chosen to take shelter behind his rank. It had been a cowardly act, made all the more ludicrous because they both knew that rank was something neither of them really gave a hang about.

  And how did he feel about Cindy? He still loved her. His fight with Iñigo Torres had assured him of that, because, though it was a fight he had sought, the depth of his rage when Torres had insulted her had frightened even him. He had only hit the man twice, but he had wanted to do more, and it was only by drawing on all his reserves of self-discipline that he had avoided killing him.

  He still loved her, then – but he was already half-reconciled to losing her. Why should she stay with him, when she was so obviously still attracted to Greg Cummings, a fellow countryman, a fellow academic? A man, in other words, with whom she had so much in common – a man so very, very different from the simple Madrid policeman who had temporarily infatuated her?

  Paco wandered aimlessly through the village for quite some time. He told himself he was doing something useful – that getting a feel for the place was vital to his investigation – but secretly he accepted the fact that he was doing no more than wasting his time.

  The brigadistas returned from their exercises out on the plain at just after five o’clock. They entered the town in full marching order, but as Paco stood observing them it was obvious to him that apart from a few of the older men – who had probably served in the Great War – none of them had really mastered the art of moving like real soldiers.

  As the brigadistas disappeared up the street towards their barracks, he checked his watch. It was still an hour before he was due to put in an appearance at Dolores McBride’s house. Since he could think of nothing more constructive to do, he decided he might as well go to one of the collective’s bars and have a drink.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The church was no more than a blackened shell, but by some miracle – if such things were still permitted to exist in Republican Spain – the clock on the tower had managed to survive, and as Paco made his way up the Calle Mayor to Dolores McBride’s house, it was just striking the hour.

  Six o’clock.

  The exact hour at which he had agreed to meet the yanqui journalist.

  Dolores had suggested that he take Cindy along as a chaperone, but given the strained relations which now existed between the two of them – and the fact that seeing Dolores would probably only make them worse – Paco had decided that it might be wiser to come alone. Now, he was not so sure it was such a good idea after all. Because if Cindy had slept with Greg Cummings the night before, as he was more and more coming to believe that she had, and if Dolores McBride were to offer to sleep with him now...

  He laughed aloud. Why should a highly desirable woman like Dolores – who could have virtually any man she wanted – give him a second chance? And even if she did, would he want to take her up on her offer? Could he bring himself to betray Cindy without knowing for certain whether or not she had betrayed him? And what would be the point, anyway? He had seen too much of revenge in the previous few months to still believe that the avenger came away from it unscarred.

  He came to a halt in front of Number 26. Like all the other houses in the street, it was tall and narrow, and sandwiched between its neighbors. Someone – probably Dolores herself – had nailed a large red flag over the front door lintel. The blind was down over the barred window, but through the gaps in the slats Paco could make out the light shining inside the living room. He was a policeman on duty he reminded himself, and Dolores McBride was nothing more than a witness who was assisting in his inquiries. He raised his fist and knocked loudly – and officially – on the door.

  If the door had been properly latched, it would have stayed closed. But it wasn’t, and the moment his knuckles made contact with the old wood, it swung wide open.

  Paco instinctively looked inside – and immediately wished that he hadn’t. He saw the fire blazing away in the fireplace, the sheepskin rug which lay in front of it – and two naked bodies writhing around on that rug.

  The door banged heavily against the inside wall, sending a nois
e through the room which seemed to Paco to be as loud as a cannon-blast.

  The effect on the two lovers was instantaneous.

  The black-haired woman – who was straddling the sandy-haired man – swiveled her trunk round to locate the source of the noise.

  The sandy-haired man – lying supine beneath her – twisted his head to the side in an attempt to do the same thing.

  The woman detached herself from her lover, and climbed to her feet. She appeared to be completely oblivious to the fact that she was standing there stark naked in the presence of a man she’d only met the day before. Her companion was much more self-conscious. He reached for his pants, which were lying on the floor nearby, and spread them hurriedly across his groin.

  Paco wondered whether he should quickly close the door again, and then beat a hasty retreat down the street. But it was already too late for that, he was beginning to realize, because – however much he wanted to – he couldn’t unsee what he had just witnessed.

  “For God’s sake, don’t just stand there, Paco!” Dolores McBride said, her voice – under the circumstances – remarkably controlled.

  “So what should I ... what would you like me to...?” he heard himself asking uncertainly.

  “Come inside! And close the door behind you, before we either catch our deaths of cold or get arrested for scaring the horses.”

  Paco obeyed, more on instinct than for any other reason. Once inside the room, he found himself faced with the choice of either staring at what he had already seen was a remarkable body – or of looking away. He raised his eyes and focused them on the ceiling.

  Dolores – still naked and still apparently unconcerned by the fact – walked over to the coat rack, unhooked her trench coat, and slipped it over her shoulders. Only when he was sure she was decent did Paco allow his eyes to travel down to room level again.

  “What are you doing here?” Dolores asked, almost accusingly.

  “We had an appointment.”

  “I know we did – and you’re early.”

  “We agreed to meet each other at six o’clock,” Paco pointed out, in his own defense.

  “So what?”

  “So it’s after six now.”

  Dolores threw back her head and roared with laughter.

  “After six!” she repeated. “Christ, I didn’t realize we’d been at it for so long. How times does fly when you’re having fun.”

  Her lover had gathered all his clothes together, and was beginning to get dressed again in as inconspicuous a manner as possible.

  “If you’d like me to go away now and come back later ...” Paco suggested tentatively.

  “Hell, no! What would be the point of that?” Dolores asked, brushing the suggestion aside. “We’ve pretty much finished here, and I’ve never been one for the lingering cigarette afterwards.” She turned to her lover. “Wouldn’t you say we’d pretty much finished, Greg?”

  Cummings nodded, and mumbled what may have been agreement. Then he cleared his throat.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Dolores, I have duties to attend to.”

  In the previous few minutes Paco had first been shocked, and then embarrassed. Now, he was merely amused.

  If you’ll excuse me, Dolores, I have duties to attend to! Cummings had said, almost as if he were at one business meeting and had realized he was running late for another.

  Cummings crossed the room, somehow managing to avoid looking at either Dolores or Paco, fumbled with the latch, opened the door and stepped out into the street without another word.

  There were a few seconds of silence after he had left, then Dolores McBride said, “Let me guess what’s going through your mind, Inspector Ruiz. When I offered to sleep with you last night, it did your ego one hell of a lot of good. But now you’ve seen me with another man, and you’re starting to feel vaguely cheated – because if anybody who has the urge can easily get me into bed, there’s nothing special in the fact that you had the chance. In fact, you’re very close to thinking that I’m nothing but a whore. Isn’t that right?”

  “No, it isn’t!” Paco protested.

  But he had to admit to himself that it was close enough to the truth to make him feel uncomfortable.

  “I have standards,” Dolores said, “but they’re not the standards of the bourgeois moralist society. I won’t go to bed with just any man, but I will go to bed with any man who I find attractive and who I think will give me pleasure. And Greg Cummings falls right into that category. Sure, his wishy-washy politics make me sick, but there’s nothing wishy-washy about him once he’s in the sack. In fact, the man’s a positive tiger.”

  “I see,” Paco said.

  And he found himself wondering if Cummings had been a positive tiger with Cindy, back in the days when she’d been his student in the States. Wondering, too, if Spanish language and literature had been the only thing the craggily handsome sandy-haired man had taught her.

  “You’re trying to figure out just how long our affair’s been going on, aren’t you?” Dolores said.

  “Yes, I am,” Paco agreed – because to agree with her was much easier than admitting what had really been on his mind.

  “Well, strictly speaking, what we have going together isn’t an affair at all,” Dolores said. “We’ve slept together seven or eight times – and we’ve hit some great highs between the sheets – but there’s no emotional attachment involved. On either side. When Greg’s sent to the front line, I won’t sit around here moping – I’ll find myself another man to take his place. And God knows, there’ll be plenty of them to choose from. The new guy may even be you – if you can ever bring yourself to abandon your feelings of guilt over your blonde princess for long enough to really let yourself go.”

  She was naked under her trench coat, Paco thought. And if he asked her to, he was sure that – despite the fact she’d just had sex with Greg Cummings – she would open that coat for him and let him do whatever he wanted to her. But only a small part of his mind was mulling over this possibility. The rest of it – the part which usually dominated his life – was considering something else entirely.

  When Greg's sent to the front line! she’d said, almost as a throwaway line.

  But it was not a throwaway line to him! Once the brigadistas had left San Antonio de la Jara, he suddenly realized, the trail would go cold. Even if the murderer wasn’t actually one of the Lincolns, without them around to question, his chances of tracking down the man who had put a bullet in Samuel Johnson’s head would be, at the very least, halved.

  “You said you’d give me the notes you’d taken on Johnson’s life,” he reminded the journalist.

  Dolores McBride smiled mockingly.

  “So despite the display I’ve just put on for you, you still haven’t forgotten why you came here,” she said. “Are you really such a cold, hard man, Inspector?”

  “Yes,” Paco replied, then, a little more truthfully, he added, “ ... at least I am most of the time.”

  “The notes are upstairs,” Dolores McBride said. “I’ll go and get them for you.”

  The trench coat only reached down as far as her calves, and as she climbed the stairs he couldn’t stop his eyes from following her slim ankles. She offered relief without strings, and – whatever he’d told himself earlier – if his relationship with Cindy continued to deteriorate further, relief without strings might be just what he needed.

  There was a frantic hammering on the front door.

  Could it be yet another of Dolores McBride's army of lovers in desperate need of instant gratification? Paco wondered.

  But it wasn’t some eager young man who was standing there when he opened the door. Instead, it was a fat middle-aged police constable, very red in the face and looking as if his heart had been broken.

  “I’ve ... I’ve been searching for you for over a quarter of an hour,” Felipe spluttered. “If I hadn’t run into Señor Cummings out on the street, I’d still have had no idea where you were.”

  “Calm d
own,” Paco said soothingly. “What’s the matter? Has something happened?”

  “Cindy!” Felipe gasped.

  “Cindy!” Paco repeated, as he felt a sledgehammer slam into his stomach. “Has there been an accident? Is she hurt?”

  The fat constable nodded, and Paco found that he was suddenly fighting for breath.

  “Is it serious?” he managed to croak.

  “Very serious,” Felipe said gravely. “The doctor’s not sure if she’ll last out the night.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The old, iron-framed bed stood next to the dining table in the house on Calle Paz. It had only recently been hastily erected there, and it still seemed out of place – an intruder which had forced its way into the world of the shabby, familiar furniture.

  “We thought it best not to take her all the way upstairs,” the bald-headed doctor said in hushed tones. “In cases like this, it’s always better to move the patient as little as possible.”

  Paco looked down at the blonde woman lying on the bed. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was shallow. It would almost have been possible to mistake her for a sleeper, had it not been for the roll of bandage wrapped around the top of her head.

  “She will be all right, won’t she?” he asked, the realist in him giving way to a self full of blind hope.

  “It’s far too early to say what will happen,” the doctor replied softly.

  “It can’t be as serious as it looks,” Paco declared. “She’s young! She’s fit! It should take a lot more than a knock on the head to ...”

  The doctor put his hand reassuringly on Paco’s shoulder.

  “She’s in a coma,” he said.

  “Do you think I can’t see that for myself?”

  “It’s certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility that she’ll come out of it in the next few hours, and be left with no more than a nasty headache.”

  “But if she doesn’t?”

  The doctor shrugged.

  “Sometimes it can take years for patients to regain consciousness. And – I have to be honest with you, Señor Ruiz – sometimes they never come round again. Whatever happens, you can take comfort from the fact that she’s in no pain.”