A Murder of No Consequence

by James Garcia Woods

  Paco shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not.’

  The barman grimaced philosophically. ‘Have a drink, anyway,’ he said, pouring a white wine and sliding it across the counter. ‘Where’ve you just come from? The centre of the city?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Paco agreed.

  ‘Is it true that the army’s in control there?’

  ‘Yes, it’s true.’

  ‘Bastards!’ Alvaro said, pouring a drink for himself.

  ‘How are things on this side of the river?’ Paco asked.

  ‘We’ve been showing them what we’re made of, and make no mistake,’ Alvaro told him. ‘Everybody’s been on strike. Everybody, that is, except for those sons-of-bitches in there.’ He flicked his thumb contemptuously in the direction of the silk factory.

  Paco looked across the street. The number of guards on the main door had been doubled, but that was only to be expected after the events of the previous evening.

  But what if the break-in had other consequences? he fretted. What if it meant they’d cancelled the planned shipment to Madrid? Then he’d never be able to bring the murderer to justice.

  ‘I expect you’re wondering why I’m not on strike myself,’ Alvaro said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, I expect you’re wondering why I’m not on strike myself.’

  ‘Why aren’t you?’

  ‘The commander of the militia asked me personally if I wouldn’t mind staying open,’ Alvaro said proudly. ‘It’s a hot night, and there is nowhere else in the whole barrio where the militiamen can get refreshment.’

  Paco smiled. ‘And whatever’s happening, Spaniards always need a place to get refreshment.’

  ‘Of course! It’s part of our tradition. In other countries, they get drunk, but here in Spain, we just drink.’ He poured Paco a second wine. ‘You want to hear what they’re saying on the wireless?’ he suggested.

  Paco shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  Spain had discovered the New World and invented bull-fighting, he thought. Now there was something else for which it would be famous: it would be the first country ever to hear of its own destruction over the air waves.

  Alvaro flicked the switch. There were a few seconds of military music, then a voice made thick with too much sherry broke in. ‘This is General Queipo de Llano speaking to you from the heart of Seville.’

  ‘The bastards have gone and captured the bloody radio station!’ Alvaro said.

  ‘Spain is in safe hands once more,’ the general thundered from the wireless. ‘Most of our enemies are in flight. The rabble who have stayed and still resist us will be shot like the dogs they are. Victory is ours. Victory is Spain’s . . .’

  Alvaro pulled out the plug, and the wireless went dead. ‘If only we had more weapons,’ he said gloomily. ‘Give us a few more weapons, and we might just have a fighting chance.’

  There was the noise of a lorry approaching. The guards at the door of the silk factory were suddenly more alert, and Paco felt his sinking hopes start to revive.

  The lorry pulled up in front of the main doors. It was a long distance truck, with a canvas hood over the back, on which were written the words, ‘The United Fruit Company of Seville’.

  ‘Never heard of them before,’ Alvaro said. ‘And anyway, why should they be delivering fruit to a silk factory?’

  ‘They’re not delivering anything,’ Paco told him. ‘They’re making a pick-up.’

  Two men in overalls climbed out of the cab of the lorry. On the pavement, the four guards had now been joined by two others, and all of them were scanning the street for any sign of the militia. Satisfied that the coast was clear, one of the guards rapped on the door with his knuckles.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Alvaro asked.

  ‘You’ll see,’ Paco assured him.

  The door opened, and two Moroccans emerged, carrying a long wooden packing case between them. Another pair followed, and then a third.

  ‘What a son-of-a-bitch Méndez is,’ Alvaro said in disgust. ‘We’re virtually at war, but he still keeps selling the bloody silk as if nothing was happening.’

  Paco didn’t speak. Instead he watched the Moroccans load the crates into the lorry, go back into the factory, and come out again with two more. After ten minutes loading, they went back inside and closed the doors behind them.

  About half the stock of the factory-within-a-factory was now on the lorry, Paco estimated. He wondered where they intended to send the rest. Probably to Badajoz or Granada, to await the arrival of General Franco.

  The driver and his mate were climbing back into their cab. Paco put a peseta down on the counter. ‘I have to be going,’ he said. He walked to the back door, stopped, and turned around. ‘If you and your comrades need weapons,’ he told Alvaro, ‘you’ll find plenty in the silk factory.’

  He stepped out onto the street just as the engine of the truck which belonged to the United Fruit Company of Seville burst into life.

  Part Three

  Madrid 20 July 1936

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The early morning sun was already beating down on the two tractors which formed the improvised roadblock, but for the moment at least, the heat was bearable.

  Bernardo took a packet of cigarettes out of his overall pocket, and offered it to Paco. ‘When was the last time you had a decent sleep?’ he asked.

  ‘I had a siesta the day before yesterday, just after I called you,’ Paco said. ‘And I managed to grab the odd half-hour while I was on the road.’

  ‘So you’ve slept for perhaps five or six hours in the last seventy-two?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Well then, no wonder you look like a piece of dried dog shit,’ Bernardo said, scanning the empty road ahead of them. ‘You’re sure that they’re coming?’

  ‘They’re coming,’ Paco said, with more conviction than he felt. ‘The last time I checked on them, they’d stopped in a bar in Aranjuez for a coffee.’

  Bernardo lit Paco’s cigarette, and then his own. ‘What I don’t understand is how, on a thirty-hour drive, they wouldn’t have noticed you were following them.’

  ‘They didn’t notice me following because I wasn’t,’ Paco said tiredly. ‘At least, not all the time. The one advantage that I had over them was that I knew where they were going. So sometimes I’d hang back for a couple of hours at a time, and sometimes I’d drive well ahead and wait for them to catch me up.’

  ‘Still, they might have made the connection . . .’

  ‘No,’ Paco said. ‘If they had spotted me, they’d have taken diversionary action long before Aranjuez.’ He checked his watch, nervously. ‘I’ve missed all the news while I’ve been travelling. Where have the army been successful?’

  ‘All over the place,’ Bernardo said despondently. ‘Córdoba, Granada and Cádiz in the south. Segovia, Soria, Burgos and Valladolid in the north.’ He looked at the eager young militiamen who were manning the road-block. ‘These lads think it’s all going to be a great adventure. But it won’t be. It’ll be a bloody business which we won’t recover from for the next fifty years.’

  Paco turned to face Madrid. ‘What about back home? Are the fascists causing you any trouble in the city?’

  ‘They’d like to, but we’ve got them pinned down in the Montaña barracks.’

  Paco gave an involuntary shudder. God, how he hated those bloody barracks which had been, for him, the gateway to hell called Morocco. He didn’t have to see the place to be reminded of it. It was always with him. However much he tried to deny the fact, he was the person it had made him.

  ‘Are you all right, Paco?’ Bernardo asked. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I’m just exhausted,’ Paco said. ‘What about all those rifles you were demanding? Did the government finally see sense and issue them to the militias?’

  Bernardo laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, they’ve given us the rifles, all right. 55,000 of them. The only problem is, only 5,000 of them have got bolt
s.’

  ‘But a rifle without a bolt is useless!’

  ‘Exactly. That was the thinking behind it. Keep the rifles and bolts separate, and it wouldn’t matter if one or the other fell into the wrong hands.’

  ‘So where are the bolts now?’ Paco asked.

  ‘Think about it,’ Bernardo said. ‘What is the one place, in the whole of Madrid, where we couldn’t get at them?’

  A parade square, surrounded by gaunt three-storied buildings! A factory which turned out people ready to kill without question or compunction!

  Paco groaned. ‘They’re not in the Montaña barracks, are they?’

  ‘That’s right. In the Montaña barracks. 50,000 rifle bolts and who knows how many fascists.’

  Would the shadow of the place never leave him? Paco wondered. Sometimes, it seemed to him as if he was destined to die there. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he said. ‘It’s a real fucking mess, isn’t it? What are you going to do about it?’

  ‘We’ll get the bloody bolts,’ Bernardo said resolutely. ‘Whatever it takes, we’ll get them.’

  ‘And then you’ll have all the weapons you need?’

  Bernardo shook his head. ‘We’ll never have all the weapons we need. Not while we’re fighting almost the whole bloody army.’

  There was the sound of an engine in the distance, and a lorry appeared round the bend. ‘Is that it?’ Bernardo asked.

  ‘That’s it,’ Paco said, breathing a sigh of relief.

  Bernardo stepped out into the middle of the road and held up his hand. The lorry slowed, then came to a halt.

  Paco and Bernardo, flanked by two militiamen, walked over to the lorry. The driver wound down his window and smiled. ‘Good morning, comrades,’ he said. ‘How’s the situation in Madrid? I hope you’ve shown those fascist bastards a thing or two.’

  ‘Would you and your mate please get out of the cab,’ Bernardo said, flatly.

  The lorry driver’s smile stayed in place. ‘I’m a member of the UGT, comrade,’ he said. ‘Look, here’s my union card as proof.’

  ‘My friend here’s got a card, too,’ Bernardo said, looking at Paco, ‘but he isn’t a member of the union.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ the driver asked, with a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice.

  Bernardo nodded to his two militiamen, who swung their rifles from their hips, so that the barrels were pointing directly at the two men in the cab.

  ‘What it means,’ Bernardo said, ‘is that I’d like you and your mate to get out of the lorry.’

  With a show of patient, but martyr-like, reluctance, the driver and his mate climbed out of the cab. Two more militiamen walked over from the tractor road-block.

  ‘So what have you brought up, all the way from Andalusia?’ Bernardo asked.

  ‘Can’t you read the canvas, comrade? Fruit. Or to be more specific – oranges. We’ve been driving all night to get them to the market on time. If we’re late, we won’t sell them until tomorrow, and by then half of them will have rotted.’

  Bernardo pointed to the back of the lorry. ‘Untie the flap,’ he told two of his men.

  ‘Really, comrade, there’s no need at all to go and . . .’ the lorry driver protested.

  ‘Untie it,’ Bernardo repeated.

  Two of the militiamen opened the canvas cover at the back of the lorry. The vehicle was piled almost to the roof with sacks of Seville oranges.

  ‘I told you that’s what we had on board,’ the driver said. ‘They’re vital supplies. Now that the Republic’s fighting for its life, Madrid’s going to need all the oranges that it can—’

  Bernardo looked questioningly at Paco, who nodded. ‘Clear out the oranges, and let’s find out what’s underneath,’ he told his men.

  *

  The sacks of oranges formed several small mountains on the ground. The back of the lorry was empty.

  ‘Looks like you’ve made a mistake, Paco,’ Bernardo said heavily.

  But he couldn’t have! He had seen the crates being loaded, and Alvaro the barman had as good as assured him that the United Fruit Company of Seville was a fake. So the guns just had to be there.

  Unless a switch had been made! Unless they’d been on to him since he entered Alvaro’s bar, and this lorry had never been more than a diversion.

  ‘I’m sorry to have delayed you, comrade,’ Bernardo said to the lorry driver. ‘My friend here is sometimes a little over-zealous.’

  The other man nodded. ‘No real harm done. Now if you and your men would just help us to load up the lorry again . . .’

  ‘Of course.’

  The lorry driver shouldn’t have let that look of triumph and relief come into his eyes, Paco thought – not even for the split second it had been there. ‘I want to take a closer look at the back of the lorry,’ he told Bernardo.

  The big market porter sighed. ‘Give it up, Paco. It should be obvious by now, even to you, that there’s nothing—’

  ‘It won’t take me more than half a minute to check this out,’ Paco said, climbing over the tailboard.

  He ran his gaze over the back of the lorry. He had seen a large number of crates being loaded, but there was no evidence of them now. So maybe he had misread the driver’s eyes. Perhaps a switch had been made after all, when he was waiting for the lorry to catch him up or deliberately holding back.

  ‘Well?’ Bernardo asked.

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ Paco admitted. And then he moved slightly to the left, and heard one of the floor boards creak. ‘A false bottom!’ he shouted. ‘The fucking thing’s got a false bottom!’

  The driver and his mate – existing somewhere in the twilight zone between freedom and arrest – stood to one side and watched the first of the packing cases from under the false floor being laid on the ground. The driver wore the expression of a man who desperately wants to believe he can still talk his way out of trouble. His partner, in contrast, had the blank eyes of someone who has already given up.

  Bernardo took a small crowbar out of his pocket, slid it under one of the boards, and levered. As the plank splintered, Paco saw the glint of metal.

  With one plank out of the way, it did not take Bernardo’s large hands more than a few seconds to tear the rest away, and expose the dozen rifles which were lying in the case. He turned to the lorry driver. ‘Know anything about these?’ he asked.

  ‘They . . . they must have been put there before we picked up the lorry,’ the other man said unconvincingly.

  ‘And I suppose they’d have been removed without you knowing anything about it, either.’

  ‘That’s right! We were just told to deliver the lorry, then our job was done.’

  Bernardo took one of the rifles out of the case, and checked the mechanism with the assurance of a man who knew all about guns.

  ‘What are they like?’ Paco asked.

  ‘Basic,’ Bernardo told him. ‘Basic but effective. You could kill a man as well with one of these as you could with any other rifle.’

  ‘We didn’t know that they were in there,’ the driver repeated hysterically.

  Bernardo looked as if he were suddenly very tired of the whole situation. ‘Take these two back to the city and lock them in the casa del pueblo,’ he told his militiamen. ‘I’ll deal with them when I have time.’

  Four militiamen moved in, each taking an arm of one of the arrested men.

  ‘I tell you I’m innocent,’ the driver screamed, as he and his mate were led away. ‘I swear to you on my dead mother’s grave that I’m innocent.’

  ‘There are no innocents any more,’ Bernardo said. He turned back to Paco. ‘Thanks for the rifles. And if there’s ever anything I can ever do in return . . .’

  ‘There is. I need another favour right now.’

  ‘This is to do with that murder case of yours again, isn’t it?’ Bernardo said.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  The big market porter shook his head in exasperation. ‘You’re like a dog that’s got its teeth clamped o
nto somebody’s leg,’ he said. ‘You won’t let go until somebody breaks your jaw for you.’

  ‘True,’ Paco agreed, thinking that the captain had said something similar to him only a few days earlier. ‘But you did admit you owed me a favour.’

  ‘We’re fighting a war, Paco,’ Bernardo said. ‘Hundreds of people – good people – were murdered in Morocco last night, and here you are concerned with just one death.’

  ‘I can’t do anything about what happened in Morocco,’ Paco told him, ‘but a crime was committed here in Madrid, and it’s my duty to go after the guilty party.’

  Bernardo looked up at the sky, as if seeking the divine guidance of a god he no longer believed in. Then he turned to Paco and grinned. ‘All right, you bastard, what do you want?’ he asked.

  ‘Not much,’ Paco said. ‘Just a red armband and the use of two of your lads for a couple of hours.’

  *

  There was something missing from the streets, Paco thought as he drove up Calle Velazquez – something which had been there when he left the city three days earlier, and now was gone. And then he had it. The señoritos in the smart blue shirts, who had been so much in evidence before the military rising, had completely disappeared.

  He pulled up in front of the apartment block where the Herrera family lived. The last time he’d visited it with Felipe, there’d been a uniformed doorman who’d shown by the expression on his face that he didn’t care that they were policemen, because in his job, he had many powerful patrons. There was no sign of him now, as Paco looked around a lobby in which all the expensive pot plants had been overturned, the leather sofas ripped open, and the carefully painted walls desecrated by crude left-wing graffiti daubed in red paint.

  ‘Now that the people finally have the power, the rich are on the run,’ said Antonio, one of the young militiamen Bernardo had assigned to help him.

  ‘Death to the capitalists, and to the priests who are their willing lackeys!’ said Mauricio, the other militiaman. ‘The victory of the people is certain.’

  They are nothing but children, Paco thought, children passionately mouthing political slogans they only half-understand, but which, for them, have all the force of magic.