The Dark Place: A historical suspense thriller set in the murky world of fugitive war criminals, vengeful Nazi hunters and spies

by Damian Vargas

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you said that you are a writer, did you not?’

  ‘I am a writer.’

  ‘A freelance travel writer, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you have lived in Andalusia for…?’

  ‘Two years.’

  ‘Two years,’ Garcia repeated, nodding while scribbling in his notebook. He grunted, then fixed his stare on the woman once again. ‘So, tell me. How does a “freelance travel writer” end up managing a property for a retired English businessman?’

  Johansson adjusted her body, straightening her back. ‘It was to be a temporary engagement. For six months. I needed the money.’

  ‘Travel writing does not pay the bills?’ said Garcia.

  ‘Not always, not recently.’

  ‘When and where did you meet Mr Blackman?’

  ‘He visited at the start of the year. He was looking for properties. We were introduced.’

  ‘Introduced? By whom?’

  ‘By a mutual friend. Another Englishman who has a holiday home on the coast. He told me that Harry would need someone to help handle things here in Spain while he took care of selling his business and properties in England.’

  ‘What things did he need handling?’

  The woman’s eyes opened, and her hands and shoulders relaxed.

  ‘Oh, everything. He needed help to set up a bank account, getting documents signed on his behalf—’

  ‘He gave you authority to do that?’ Garcia interrupted.

  ‘Yes, he gave me a limited power of attorney, so I could do that for him.’

  ‘He must have trusted you very much.’ Garcia scribbled onto the notepad again, then looked back up at her. ‘I apologise, I interrupted you. Please, do continue.’

  ‘Yes, as I was saying, I had to organise getting water, electricity, and a telephone line installed. Mr Blackman’s villa had been unoccupied for several years. It was semi-derelict in places, actually. It needed a lot of repairs doing to it, and Mr Blackman had a list of everything that he wanted done before he arrived.’

  Garcia flipped back several pages in his notebook. ‘Mr Blackman arrived in Spain on 6th July. That is correct, yes?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  Garcia closed his notebook, placed it down on the table in front of him, sat back, and clasped his hands together on his lap. ‘Tell me about that day.’

  11

  The castle builder

  Four months earlier

  Liv Johansson sat at an old wooden table sheltering from the intense sun under the villa’s long front porch, sipping from a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. Her pale, Scandinavian skin had turned pink in places - she never tanned - and she was wearing a man’s, long-sleeved blue cotton shirt for protection, the sleeves rolled back several times to allow her slender hands to protrude.

  She could hear the sounds of clanging bells and bleating mewing - the herder driving his animals up one of the dozens of ancient tracks that crisscrossed the valley in search of grazing land. A cicada sounded from somewhere close, an impossibly loud, piercing drill-like call to the females of the species.

  She had risen at 05:30 that morning to ensure that everything that could be completed would be completed before Mr Blackman, the villa’s new owner, arrived. The Englishman was expected at one o’clock that afternoon. Inevitably some tasks remained unfinished, but there was nothing of consequence remaining, and she felt certain that he would understand.

  She stared at the half-empty glass, her mind crunching its way through the long list of tasks that Harry had assigned to her upon his purchase of the property that sat on the southerly flanks of the valley, the old pueblo of La Mesita Blanca directly opposite. There had been much to organise, the list included the significant reshaping of the property’s front garden, driveway and rear lands, much interior decoration, upgrades to the electrics, the installation of a telephone line, improvements to the water and drainage system, the addition of several trees around the building’s perimeter, repairs to the roof, a new ceiling in two rooms and significant structural repairs to the walls that formed the oldest part of the dwelling. Harry had given her four months to organise and oversee all of these tasks, while he finalised the sale of his engineering business and his town house in Oxford in preparation for his permanent move from England to Spain.

  ‘That should be more than enough time to get everything done,’ Harry had insisted when she had met him at the Savoy in London in February of that year. ‘Then you can spend the rest of the time swanning around the countryside at my expense,’ he had suggested in what she took to be a genuine, if rather unrealistic, appraisal of the work she had ahead of her. He would pay her eighty pounds a month, plus expenses. She would also have the benefit of being able to reside in the old caretaker’s rooms above the old stable - now a newly converted garage in which Harry’s prized Austin-Healey already resided, it having been shipped down the previous week.

  That meeting in London had been the first, and so far, only time she had met Harry Blackman in person, but they had held bi-weekly updates by telephone and Johansson felt confident that she had earned his trust. That would be important, knowing what was to come.

  A mutual contact, Geoffrey Sykes, had made the introduction. Sykes, who had told Liv that he worked in the British Foreign Office, and who had a holiday home in Fuengirola, had recommended her upon failing in his strenuous attempts to dissuade Blackman from moving to the remote town of La Mesita Blanca. ‘I told Harry that he’ll find nothing there but olive trees, insects and uneducated farmers, but the stubborn bugger just won’t listen,’ he had remarked. ‘So, I recommended you and I advised him that you are a smart, tireless, and most resourceful young woman who will take care of all that bothersome bureaucracy for him.’ Blackman had agreed immediately, Sykes had told her.

  The sound of boots crunching on the loose gravel of the villa’s driveway snapped Liv out of her thoughts. She saw Manolo Gutiérrez, the Gardner-cum-handyman, whom she had employed on Blackman’s behalf, ambling towards her. She watched as the Spaniard wiped the sweat from his face and hands with a dirty rag before stuffing it into the front pocket of his dark green overalls. He came up the stone steps and approached her, his eyes on the glass of chilled fruit juice. She knew Manolo to be in his late fifties, but one would have been forgiven for assuming him to be ten, or maybe even twenty years older, such was his weathered appearance. His hair was thin and mostly silver, his face leathered and wrinkled, and he moved as if in a permanent state of discomfort.

  ‘There’s more juice in the refrigerator if you would like some, Señor Gutiérrez?’

  The man nodded, but remained where he was. He inhaled, swallowed, then exhaled, his grime-laden fingernails scratching at his unshaven neck.

  ‘Is there something you wanted to discuss?’ she asked.

  The man lifted his gaze from the orange liquid, glanced at Liv, then looked towards the freshly cut front lawn and the bed of newly planted red and pink rose bushes.

  ‘The new owner. You know him?’ He asked in Spanish. ‘What he like?’ Gutiérrez was a man of few words. As far as she knew, he had never attended school. He was illiterate and even his language rudimentary, but the man was a wizard with plants, and very useful with woodwork, masonry, plastering, plumbing and fixing leaking roofs. She doubted she could have pulled off Mr Blackman’s list of tasks without the Spaniard’s extraordinary array of practical skills and resourcefulness.

  ‘Well, I have only met Mr Blackman in person once, myself,’ she admitted. The gardener seemed somewhat perplexed at hearing this revelation. ‘But the person who introduced me to Mr Blackman said that he is a private man. Reserved, you might say. He keeps his thoughts to himself. You may find him somewhat cold… disagreeable even, when you first meet him. But if you continue to work for him as you have done for me, then I am quite certain you will find him to be an appreciative and responsible employer.’

  Gutiérrez nodded, seemingly wel
coming the clarification.

  ‘Help yourself to some juice, Manolo,’ she said. ‘It is very refreshing, and I think you have earned it. Those roses look quite magnificent. I am sure Mr Blackman will be most pleased.’ The gardener peered at the roses again and nodded.

  ‘Gracias, señorita,’ he said, then ambled into the house to fetch himself his juice.

  Johansson peered across the driveway to where a group of five workmen were putting the finishing touches on the stone perimeter wall they had been repairing and enlarging for the last month. She hated that wall. It now stood fully eight feet tall, blocking almost all the view eastwards across the valley, down to the pueblo of La Mesita Blanca. ‘Who in their right mind would want to obscure such a beautiful vista?’ The wall, which stood on an elevated section of ground that fell sharply away into the valley on the other side, cast long dark shadows across the garden all the way to the villa’s porch where she sat. Not until well into the middle of the morning did the porch receive direct sunlight. Even at five foot ten inches, she had to stand on tiptoes to be able to catch a glimpse of the sunrise over the distant rolling hills that led, twenty miles away, to the Mediterranean. That, and the imposing new steel gate, made it all but impossible to see the villa from the approach road.

  A bloody Englishman and his castle!

  12

  The patriot

  Oxfordshire, England.

  September 6th, 1939.

  ‘Blackman, Harry!’

  Harry Blackman stood up in an instant, his heart racing with nervous excitement, and raised a hand to catch the attention of the sergeant major who held a clipboard and whose voice had just boomed across the room full of waiting young men.

  There was a palpable sense of nervous excitement in the church hall that was being used as a makeshift recruitment centre, as the forty or so wannabe soldiers waited for their names to be called. ‘I’m Blackman,’ he called.

  ‘Over here lad, at the double.’ The man turned his attention to the clipboard in his hand, then shouted, ‘Ferguson, Gus!’

  The burley young Scotsman sitting next to Blackman rose to his feet. ‘That’s me.’

  ‘You’re going in next, laddie,’ said the stone-faced sergeant major.

  The ginger-haired Scot with the boxer’s nose thrust out a hand towards Blackman. ‘Good luck in there, mate.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Blackman. ‘You too. Maybe we’ll see each other on the other side? We can give Jerry a good hiding together’. He picked up his overcoat and strode towards the open door.

  The sergeant with the clipboard closed it behind him and pointed to a coat hook. ‘Hang your coat on there. Quick, lad! We haven’t got all day.’ Harry did as he was instructed then strode after the soldier who led him to a senior officer, a man in his fifties, who was sitting behind an imposing wood desk upon which sat several piles of paper folders.

  ‘Name?’ barked the older officer, without looking up.

  ‘Harry Blackman.’

  ‘Harry Blackman, sir!’ barked the sergeant major.

  ‘Sir, yes. Sorry. Harry Blackman, sir.’

  The officer sifted through one of the piles of folders, selected one and opened it, then removed several sheets of paper. It was the application form Blackman had completed a week earlier in his school headmaster’s office. The older man scanned each side, tapping interminably at the paper with his fountain pen while making various nonchalant huffs and grunts. After a minute, he placed the paper down and sat back in his leather and wood chair. He peered at Harry’s face, then ran his eyes up and down his body.

  ‘It seems you are something of a sportsman, Mr Blackman,’ he muttered, finally.

  Harry glanced at the sergeant at his side, not sure whether to respond.

  The moustached man nodded at Harry to speak. ‘Answer the colonel then, lad.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Rugby, cricket. And I row too, sir.’

  The colonel seemed impressed with the mention of rowing. ‘Good man. Rowing will keep a man fit.’ He lifted a handwritten letter. ‘You come well regarded. Your school master certainly thinks very highly of you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  The officer’s face dropped. ‘I didn’t say that I regarded you highly, Blackman.’

  ‘Sorry, no sir.’

  The colonel exchanged a wry smile with the sergeant major before standing up and walking from behind his desk to stand immediately in front of Harry. ‘You were accepted into Cambridge, I gather?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Modern languages, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  The officer clasped his hand behind his back and peered at Harry. ‘So why are you standing here requesting to join the Ox and Bucks? And don’t give me any of that, “I want to serve my country” nonsense. I want to know why you are really here. What makes you tick, boy?’

  ‘I want to make my family proud,’ said Harry.

  The officer shook his head, tutting. ‘Not good enough, Blackman. Try again. What makes you worthy of joining this regiment?’ The old officer’s eyes were firmly on Harry’s now, searching for any tells that Harry might be lying.

  Harry coughed to clear his throat and straightened his back, arms firmly at his side. ’Well sir, my father fought the Boche in the Great War. He took a bullet at Ypres in 1915. He was wounded several more times, at Verdun and on the Somme. He told me all about the butchery that the Germans did in that war, sir.’

  ‘Not a fan of the Germans then, your father?’

  ‘You could say that, sir.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘Well, sir. Now I see them storming across Poland. They’ve already got their hands on Austria and Czechoslovakia, the Rhineland and the Saarland.’

  ‘Faraway places, why are these of concern to a young man like you, lad?’

  ‘I think they should be a concern to all of us, sir.’

  ‘You think Herr Hitler has it in for us?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I do. I watched this happening over the last few years, and I think of what my father told me.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘He told me that the German are a dangerous breed, capable of doing things that ordinary civilised humans cannot do, sir.’

  ‘Really,’ said the colonel. ‘That’s what you think, is it?’

  ‘Yes sir,’ said Blackman.

  ‘I can assure you, young man, that despicable acts are not the exclusive domain of the hun. Far from it. We are all, each of us capable of dark deeds, make no mistake about that.’ The colonel eyed Blackman for a moment. ‘However, we find that it is with the German state that we are at war at this particular moment of time, and hence your country needs young men with the qualities and fortitude required to stand up to them.’ The colonel nodded at the sergeant, who stepped right next to Harry, his mouth barely an inch from Harry’s ear.

  ‘Are you a killer, Blackman? Is that what you are? Reckon you can shoot a man? Do it when it really matters? Stab him in the gut with your bayonet? In the heat of battle amongst all that noise, and smoke, and mud and blood? Is that what you think, boy? Is it?’

  Blackman stood impassively throughout the tirade, despite the sprinkling of the sergeant’s spittle that now covered his cheek.

  The colonel sat back down behind the desk, arms crossed, and peered up at Harry.

  ‘Well? Are you going to answer Sergeant Major Williams?’

  Harry glanced at the man at his side, then back to the colonel behind the desk. ‘It is not my desire to kill anyone, sir. However, knowing what the Nazis are capable of doing and, I believe, knowing that they will soon turn their attention to my country… yes sir. I am certain that I will be able to do what is required.’

  The officer nodded at the sergeant, who took a step backwards.

  ‘Your commitment to your country is admirable, young man, but we don’t accept any Tom, Dick or Harry into the Ox and Bucks regiment. It requires a lot of hard work, more than you can imagine. Dedication. Perseverance.
A willingness to sacrifice. How can I be sure you have these qualities?’

  Harry cleared his throat. ‘Sir, my family is not wealthy. Far from it. My childhood was not an easy one. I worked very hard to get a scholarship to Cambridge, sir. To make a better future for myself. But I am willing to give it all up and risk my life - to give my life, if I have to, to stop those bastards. I give you my word on that.’

  The colonel stared at Harry for several seconds, eyed the sergeant, then reached for Harry’s application form. He picked up a rubber stamp, pressed it into the green ink pad, then firmly stamped onto the paper, holding it up for the sergeant to collect. The sergeant then handed it to Harry.

  ‘Hand that to the desk clerk in the lobby where you came in.’

  ‘I’ve been accepted?’ said Blackman, unable to suppress a broad grin.

  ‘You’ve been accepted for basic training, Mr Blackman. Now we’ll see what you are really made of,’ said to the officer, who was already now reaching for another application form.

  ‘I won’t let you down, sir,’ said Blackman

  The colonel fixed Harry with a stern stare. ‘Let us hope not.’

  13

  Connections

  Police Station, La Mesita Blanca

  All Saints’ Day, 1970.