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

by Damian Vargas

Blackman stabbed a finger in the direction of the stationary vehicle that blocked the road to Coín. ‘There’s no way through.’

  ‘We’re not going straight on,’ she said, her tone calm, assured. ‘Hold on.’

  The Englishman, his right hand gripping the handle above the door, his feet planted in the footwell, yelled, ‘You’re going to kill us.’

  ‘Not if I can help it,’ she replied, her eyes lancing forward at the police car and the three uniformed officers who were now dashing to the side of the road, and then to the narrow, steep turning onto the cross-country track to the right.

  The car was doing seventy miles an hour when she lifted her foot off the throttle, waited…waited, then slammed down hard on the brake pedal. The wheels locked. She had to wrestle the hard plastic steering wheel to keep the big Citroën on an even keel. They were barely twenty yards from the police car and still moving at forty miles per hour, before she dropped the clutch, crunched the car into second gear, then yanked the wheel to the right with all of her strength.

  The heavy car refused to change direction for a heart-stopping moment. But then, with the tyres screeching, she felt the front of the metal beast finally slip sideways in the direction of the gravel path.

  They dropped quickly, and all four tyres lost contact with the ground momentarily, before crashing down to earth with a spine-jarring series of thuds and bangs. The wheels slipped and slid for the next hundred yards, the front tyres struggling to regain purchase, but somehow she managed to hold the car on the track, pushed it into third gear and accelerated away.

  Behind them, in the rearview mirror, she saw only the faintest of blue lights amid the cloud of dust.

  Inspector Jesus Garcia broke into a light run into the orchard at the back of Blackman’s villa, urging his fellow officers to do likewise.

  They passed the spot between the house and the garage where they had found the body of Peter Stangle in the early hours of the morning. ‘Hurry!’

  A garden hose. Attached to a tap at the side of the house, a spray of water emitting from the loose connection. The hose snaking off ahead of him into the darkness beyond.

  He slowed, his brain racing back to the short interview with Manolo Guitérrez, the gardener. What was it the old man had said?

  Just the other day…he messed with the old water tank…at the top of his field.

  He stopped, the gardener’s words crashing around his head like a klaxon. He turned, stared back to the house, to the wall, to the tap, to the hose. And he felt cold, colder than he had felt at any time in his life. His whole miserable, worthless life.

  His eyes traversed back along the hose from the house, along the gravel path, past his feet, into the grass, into the blackness of the citrus garden with the olive grove just beyond. To the base of the towering, craggy cliffs.

  Officer Ramos stopped next to him, followed the Inspector’s open-mouthed stare into the black beyond.

  ‘What is it?’

  Garcia had once heard it said that courageous men run towards uncertainty with light feet and wanton abandonment. Jesus Garcia lifted his left foot, forced it forward. Then his right. Then the left, again. Each step, heavy. Like iron. Like stone.

  The Citroën careered along the dirt track, dark forests on either side, over a narrow bridge, then pulled to an abrupt stop in the middle of the clearing outside the church in Allaminos, sending loose stones and a cloud of dust towards the old building.

  The glimmer of candles flickered from within through the stained-glass window. Everywhere else was dark.

  Johansson scanned the bleak surroundings, the engine ticking over with a lumpy rhythm and belching through a shattered exhaust pipe. ‘There,’ she said, pointing through the windscreen.

  A man stood flashing a torch next to a stone wall, the nose of Land Rover poking out from behind it.

  She pushed the driver’s door open. ‘That’s him. That’s Anders.’ She strode towards the blonde-haired figure, Blackman close behind. ‘Weiland sent us.’

  The blonde man raised an eyebrow, scanned the face of the Englishman, then looked back at her. ‘He’s not here?’

  ‘No, but he said you’d take us.’

  The Swede peered back in the direction they had just come, took a step forward, eyes widening. They could hear multiple vehicles approaching. The horizon above the trees flashed blue. ‘You are being followed?’

  Johansson nodded.

  ‘Fuck.’ The Swede spun on his heels, started towards the Land Rover. ‘Come on, hurry.’

  The ground under his feet was wet. Very wet. Garcia followed Officer Ramos, who kicked open the wooden gate in the fence that separated the citrus garden and the small olive grove at the back of the Englishman’s property.

  The ground rose upwards at a steep angle, terraced with olive trees at every level. The granite cliffs beyond them seemed, to Garcia, to be rearing upwards, each vertical column of black rock a tall, devilish claw; the silhouettes of trees that crested their tops like gargoyles. Staring down at him. Judges watching the judged.

  The three younger policemen flashed torches back and forth between the gnarled, centuries-old olive trees as they worked their way up the terraces. Garcia followed twenty paces behind, struggling on the uneven earth. Stumbling over loose, unseen stones. Glimpses of the hosepipe meandering ever forward. A wicked serpent, slithering towards its prey. He was struggling for air, his heart pounding. He removed his jacket, let it drop to the ground - his notepad in the pocket with his meticulous records. All those conversations, witness statements, the partial accounts, the theories, the accusations, and conclusions.

  A shout from higher up, past the trees, behind dense, dark bushes. From Officer Ramos, ‘I see it. Inspector, the tank. I found it!’ The young man’s voice excited. Hurried. Full of hope.

  Garcia, moving no faster, labouring towards the shouting and the bursts of yellow torchlight from between the trees and undergrowth.

  He hasn’t seen what I’ve seen. He doesn’t know what I know.

  The Swede vanished them away into the night inside his Land Rover, using nothing but dirty sidelights for illumination. The four-wheel-drive vehicle had its steering wheel on the right side of the car. Anders sat behind it on the single bench seat, Blackman on the far left, Johansson sandwiched between them.

  ‘How can you see?’ she asked as they veered off one track and onto another that led into a wooded area that carpeted the entire south-eastern flank of the valley floor.

  The big Swede shot her a knowing look. ‘I don’t need to. I know this valley better than I know myself.’

  ‘And how have you come to know it so?’ said Blackman, his one good hand grasping the passenger handle as the old car smashed its way across the undulating ground.

  ‘Now, that is the question you don’t ask anyone around here.’

  ‘You work with the Germans?’ said Johansson, shifting towards Blackman.

  Anders laughed. ‘I work with the Germans and with the British. They are the same. It is the Spanish that I try to avoid.’

  The car lurched to the left as the Swede piloted it around a fallen tree trunk without lifting his foot from the throttle.

  Blackman peered into the wing mirror.

  ‘Don’t worry about your Guardia Civil friends back there,’ said Anders. ‘There are dozens of trails through these woods. And their little toy cars are no good on this terrain.’ He glanced at the Englishman, then back to the woodland scene ahead. ‘Weiland told me all about you.’

  ‘He said you came here to kill one of his Germans. The one who called himself Navarro, wasn’t it?’

  ‘His name was von Ziegler.’

  The Swede raised an eyebrow. ‘So, you did kill him? A pity, he was one of my best clients.’

  ‘It wasn’t me that killed him.’

  ‘Then who?’ said the Swede as he rammed the car into a higher gear.

  Johansson put her hand on Blackman’s, held it tight. ‘It was Weiland. He killed a policeman too.’ />
  ‘Fuck.’ The Swede puffed out his cheeks, shook his head. ‘I did not expect that. This is bad. Very bad.’

  Johansson turned to Blackman. His eyes were focussed on the battered dashboard, but his mind elsewhere. ‘You know Weiland’s going to frame us for that, don’t you?’

  Blackman said nothing, turned his head towards the window and the darkness beyond.

  It was not long before they arrived at the grass landing strip, the Swede having managed to chart a route almost entirely cross-country. He pulled up at a steel gate, scanned the vista for several seconds, then reached for a set of keys. ‘I’ll be back in a minute, don’t go anywhere.’

  Johansson watched Anders go to the gate, then looked at Blackman. ‘Why did you wait all those years to come after him? Why now?’

  ‘For my friend. For Gus. He found von Ziegler and all the others living here. He asked for my help to expose them. To finally bring them to justice.’ Blackman returned her gaze. ‘I refused. I let him down.’

  ‘But why come here? Why put yourself among them?’

  ‘I tried to play it by the book, Liv. I told you already. And I told Garcia. I went to the authorities in England, to the police. But they did nothing.’ He shook his head. ‘And now we know why. Weiland said it, you heard him. The Germans were too damned valuable.’

  He looked away. The big Swede, having unlocked the gate, was now jogging back towards them. As he got back into the car, he pointed up into the sky, to a pair of small white lights. ‘That’s your ride.’ He drove through the open gate and onto the flat grass beyond, parking up a hundred yards inside.

  The lights in the sky grew brighter, and the sound of the aircraft’s engine pierced through the silence of the night.

  ‘Come on,’ said Anders. ‘Time to say goodbye to Spain.’

  They got out of the car, Blackman ambling, bloodied, drained. Johansson watched him, a million thoughts colliding in her mind.

  As the plane circled the airstrip, the Swede switched on a powerful torch and signalled to the pilot, who then banked the aircraft and angled it into a sharp descent.

  Johansson watched as it approached, moved next to Blackman. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For your friend’s death. It wasn’t your fault. And you told Garcia where to find the boy.’ She reached for his hand again. ‘You did the right thing.’

  Blackman looked back at her, as if trying to say something.

  The plane’s engine roared, then calmed before it touched down on the grass surface with a series of bumps. It glimmered in the moonlight, bright white and pristine - its motor purring like a big cat as it slowed, then taxied towards them.

  The Swede sprinted towards the plane as it drew to a stop, yanked on the door handle and spoke briefly to the pilot before hurrying back to Johansson and Blackman. He thrust out a hand to Blackman, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of the plane’s engine. ‘It’s twenty-five minutes to Gibraltar from here. You’ll be over the sea before you know it. Away from this place.’ The Swede pushed Blackman towards the open door, then held out his hand to Johansson.

  She stared at it, then to the aircraft, then to Blackman. ‘I’m not going.’

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘But you can’t stay here.’

  Anders, showing a look of concern for the first time since they had met him, grabbed Johansson by the arm. ‘Make your mind up, girl.’ He stabbed a finger towards the plane. ‘He can’t wait.’

  Johansson glanced at the Swede. ‘Can you get me to Malaga? To the harbor?’

  ‘I can.’

  She nodded. ‘Give me a moment.’

  ‘You’ve got thirty seconds.’ He shot Blackman a stare, then looked back at Johansson. ‘Thirty seconds, then he leaves. With or without you.’ The Swede turned away and hurried back to the plane again.

  ‘I can’t go to Gibraltar, Harry. Not now the British know I betrayed them.’

  ‘Where then?’

  She gazed past him, shrugged. ‘Israel would be the logical choice.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Blackman. ‘Sorry for what happened to you. To your brother. Your family.’

  ‘Come with me,’ she said.

  Blackman looked into her eyes, to the plane, then back to her face, her nose, her chin. To the ground. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can. Things can be different, Harry. What we’ve done, who we were before…we can put that behind us. We can go somewhere else. We can live new lives. Good lives.’

  ‘You don’t understand—’

  She stepped towards him, held his hands, kissed him on the lips. ‘You’re a good man. We can be good together.’

  Blackman shook his head.

  The Swede was at their side now. ‘It’s now or never, English.’

  Blackman peered into Johansson’s eyes, then turned away and strode towards the plane.

  Johansson ran after him, lunged for his arm. He brushed it aside, reached for the side of the open door, and clambered up into the passenger seat.

  ‘Harry. Please—’

  ‘I’m not a good man, Liv. I’m not.’

  The pilot was shouting at Anders, who grabbed hold of the standing Johansson. She fought free, shoving the big Swede backwards. ‘You came here to kill him, but you didn’t. You didn’t do it.’

  Blackman shook his head, his eyes wet and bloodshot. He grabbed hold of the door, started to slide it closed. ‘You don’t understand. The boy…Conrad—’

  The pilot was shouting, waving at Anders to do something. The Swede lunged forward, grabbing Johansson in a bearhug and lifting her way from the oncoming tailplane.

  ‘What about him?’ she shouted. ‘Tell me.’

  Blackman stared back at her, his jaw trembling.

  ‘Tell me,’ she mouthed, her words lost in the noise.

  The plane’s engine roared, the back draft of the propeller showering her in grass and dust.

  Blackman was shouting now. He pulled down his collar, revealing three jagged red lines. Scratches. ‘You did this to me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was me that night, in my yard. After…Stangle. I hit you that night.’

  ‘I don’t understand…what are you saying, Harry?’

  ‘You wanted us to escape. But I knew I couldn’t go. Couldn’t leave. Not once I realised what had happened. What I’d done.’

  ‘Done what?’ she shouted. His eyes gave her his answer. ‘Oh, god. No. Harry, what did you do?’

  Tears streamed from his eyes, his jaw shaking. ‘It was the water. I was too late.’

  The plane was moving now. He shook his head, his eyes falling away from hers. He slammed the door shut, glanced at her one last time, then turned away.

  She stood unable to move, surrounded by a whirlwind of grass and leaves, tears streaming down her cheeks, shaking her head. The pilot arced the aircraft around to line it up on the landing strip, then without any pause, gunned the engine and started his take off.

  As the plane powered away from her, the Swede released his grip, signalled that she should follow him to the car. ‘What was he saying?’

  Johansson, the terrible realisation still hitting her like multiple kicks to the stomach, stood frozen to the spot. She peered up at the lights of the departing plane as it rose into the air, into the blackness.

  Inspector Garcia’s voice echoed in her head. Words he had uttered several hours earlier.

  It should not fall on the children, to pay for the sins of the fathers.

  The clouds had thinned now, allowing the moon to break through. Allowing Jesus Garcia to see what stood before him.

  The hulking mass of the water tank sat alone at the top of the terraced hillside, with nothing but the fractured black granite backdrop behind it, a crown of dark undergrowth at its crest. The tank stood as high as a man, four yards long and two yards wide, the black hosepipe clinging to its side, disappearing from view somewhere on top.

  He stood still, his chest working for air
, staring at the ugly structure. Weathered concrete, its haunches covered in the decay of decades, patinated with moss and lichen, its exposed surface permanently echoing the grain of the timber mould in which it had been cast many years earlier.

  Fractured, distant scenes, smells and sounds fired in his memory; broken bunkers, splayed black gun barrels protruding from narrow, angular slits. Destroyed bodies all around.

  A sheet of paper drifted by in the light evening breeze. Then another, and another still. The Inspector bent down to grab for the nearest one. ‘Alonso, your torch. Shine it here’.

  The young officer did as he was told, directed the yellowing beam at the paper.

  A skilful, realistic pencil render of a slim, pretty woman with short, light hair. She, staring into the distance, unsmiling. Determined, cunning and, as Inspector Garcia now knew, harbouring a bitter pain and dark intent.

  Officer Ramos scrambled on top of the structure. ‘I found the hatch. There’s a padlock.’ He pulled his pistol from its holster, yanked back on the slide, took aim.

  The sharp crack of the gunshot yoyo’d off the granite cliffs, travelled away from them, down into the valley. The spent cartridge bounced once, then dropped at Garcia’s feet. He looked down to where it fell, realised he was standing in a small stream of water. He followed the liquid along the ground to a muddy puddle. A few feet above it a lead pipe emerged from within the concrete, spewing a steady flow of water.

  The overflow.

  Officer Ramos dropped to his knees and heaved at the metal hatch, but it remained stuck. ‘Help me with this,’ he called.

  The other officers clambered up onto the tank to assist their colleague, each man grabbing at a handle, hauling with all of their might.

  Garcia let go of the pencil sketch, looked up to his young colleagues. ‘Stop,’ he tried to say, but his voice carried no sound, no weight. His chest, as if laden with sand.

  A metallic groan from the rusty hatch. Officer Ramos glanced at Garcia. ‘It’s opening.’

  ‘Stop,’ said Garcia, this time managing to speak.