It was because his police training had taught him to be methodical, rather than for any other reason, that he decided to examine the part of the sheet which was still draped around the hook. Since it was obvious he wasn’t going to be able to reach the hook without standing on something, he looked around, and saw the upturned stool. That, he thought, would do nicely.
Even standing on the stool, he found he had to stretch a little to loosen the knot which secured one end of the bed sheet to the hook, but less than a minute later he was examining this piece of evidence, too, in the light which streamed in from the window.
The second knot was as professional as the first. Paco tried to reconcile two conflicting images in his mind. One was of a woman so desperate to end her life that she had no thought of the distress she could cause for her ageing mother when she came home. The other was of a woman who, despite that desperation, had taken the time to make knots which were so neat in their execution they could almost have been military.
You’re being an idiot, he told himself angrily. You’re only now starting to realize something which should have been more than obvious to you at least two minutes ago.
He dropped the sheet and stood on the stool again, once more stretching slightly to get his finger completely over the hook. He nodded his head, as if he had just confirmed what he’d already strongly suspected. ‘You bastard!’ he hissed. ‘You evil son of a bitch.’
Paco walked over to the bed, and looked down at the dead woman. Her eyes had been closed – probably by Isabel Cordobés, the neighbour – but it was a simple enough matter to peel back one of the eyelids. The eye which stared lifelessly up at him hardly bulged at all, nor did the woman’s face have the bloated look which was common in most cases of hanging. He lifted her head a few centimetres off the pillow with his left hand. Then he ran the fingers of his right hand slowly across the back of the dead woman’s head. Without experiencing any feeling of triumph, he found exactly what he’d been expecting to find.
*
Downstairs in that house of sorrow, nothing had changed. The white-haired priest still stood helplessly in the corner, the neighbour continued to speak soft, soothing words to the bereaved mother. Paco crossed the room and opened the back door. An alley ran behind the house – an alley which was deserted then and had probably been deserted at half past eight that morning. Of course! That was the way it would have to have been.
He re-entered the house, and sat down at the table opposite Isabel. ‘I know this is a difficult time, señora, but would you mind if I asked you a few questions?’ he said.
The woman looked up at him. ‘Questions?’ she repeated. ‘What kind of questions?’
‘You were with Carmen’s mother when she found her daughter, weren’t you?’
‘That’s right. Like I said, we had just come back from the church. It was our day to clean it.’
‘And what exactly happened?’
‘We expected Carmen to be waiting here for us. When she wasn’t, Rosa called out her name, but . . . but, of course, she didn’t answer.’
‘Go on,’ Paco said encouragingly.
‘Rosa wasn’t really worried then. She made a joke about the idle girl probably having fallen asleep on her bed and went upstairs to look for her. She’d been gone for less than a minute when I heard her scream. I ran straight up the stairs myself, and saw Carmen hanging there. Rosa was in a terrible state. She didn’t seem to be able to move, but she couldn’t stop screaming either. I knew we had to do something. I came downstairs again to look for a knife. You know – to cut her down.’
‘I understand.’
‘I went back to the bedroom. Rosa was a little better by then. While she held Carmen so she wouldn’t fall, I cut through the sheet. We laid her on the bed and I felt her neck for a pulse. But there wasn’t one.’
‘Think very carefully about your next answer, señora,’ Paco said. ‘Was there any furniture in the room at the time which has since been removed?’
‘Furniture?’
‘A chair? A blanket-chest? Something of that nature?’
‘No,’ Isabel said firmly. ‘There was nothing there then that isn’t still there now.’
Paco turned his attention to the grieving mother. ‘Listen to me, Señora Sanchez,’ he said softly, ‘you don’t have to worry about your daughter’s immortal soul any more. She won’t go to hell.’
‘Not go to hell!’ said the white-haired priest, speaking for the first time. ‘But she killed herself and that is a mor—’
‘She didn’t kill herself,’ Paco interrupted, ‘although that’s what you were all meant to think. I’m positive that she was murdered.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ the priest demanded.
‘The sheet was carefully knotted around the hook,’ Paco explained. ‘Standing on the stool, I could just about have done the job myself, but Carmen was shorter than I am. She couldn’t have reached the hook, which means she couldn’t have tied that knot, which, in turn, means that someone much taller than her did the job.’
‘Perhaps some wicked person assisted her?’ the priest suggested.
‘No! What some wicked person did do was to hit her on the head before he strung her up. There’s a huge contusion on the back of her skull.’ Paco turned his attention back to the mother. ‘She didn’t suffer much, Señora Sanchez,’ he said. ‘By the time the noose was put around her neck, she was probably already dead.’
Chapter Eighteen
Though the women did their grieving out in the streets, the men found it hard to express their sorrow without a glass of wine in front of them. So it had always been in Spanish villages, and when Paco entered the bar closest to the murdered woman’s house – a slightly shabby place with cracked wall tiles and faded bull-fighting posters – the room was already full of customers eulogizing about the life of poor Carmen Sanchez.
The ex-policeman ordered a red wine at the counter, then, with a deceptively casual air, he looked around him for a potential source of information. All the men in the bar were late middle-aged at least, he noted. But then that was hardly a surprise. When the army took over the village all the younger men would either have fled, been conscripted – or ended up in front of a firing squad.
He finally settled on three ancient drinkers who were sitting at a rickety table in the corner of the bar. They had been watching him with interest since he arrived, and seemed just the sort of garrulous old souls who would tell him all he wanted to know – and probably much more. He made his way over to their table, and asked if he could join them.
‘You’re that policeman from Madrid, aren’t you?’ said the man who was probably the oldest of the ancient trio.
‘That’s right,’ Paco agreed.
‘And you’ve seen her? Carmen, I mean?’
‘Yes, I have.’
The old man pushed a stool from under the table in Paco’s direction. ‘Take a seat, and tell us all about it,’ he said.
Paying the price for information he’d already known he’d have to pay, Paco described the hook, the knotted sheet, and how it had all led to the conclusion that Carmen Sanchez had been murdered. The old men listened to his narrative with a mixture of sorrow, amazement and morbid curiosity. When he’d finished, one of them removed his beret, scratched his bald head and said, ‘But who would have done such a terrible thing?’
‘I have no idea,’ Paco said. ‘Did she have any enemies in the village that you know of?’
‘Enemies? Why would Carmen have had enemies? She was a very quiet young woman.’
‘Nobody gets through life without acquiring enemies,’ Paco told him. ‘She could, for example, have had a boyfriend who found out she was seeing someone else, and killed her in a jealous rage.’
The old man shook his head. ‘Carmen never had a boyfriend in San Fernando. Never even had the chance to find one.’
‘Why was that?’
‘She left the village just after her twelfth birthday, and from that day to this, she’s only come back for
her holidays. She wouldn’t still have been here now if the war hadn’t cut off the road to Madrid.’
She left the village when she was twelve, Paco repeated thoughtfully to himself. For what reason? Had she, perhaps, met a young army officer who was passing through the village, and fallen in love with him? And had that same army officer been so captivated by her that, despite her age, he’d persuaded her to abandon her family and live as his mistress? If that was what had happened, then it was Valera’s presence in San Fernando, and not the outbreak of war, which had kept her there.
‘Why did she leave?’ he said aloud. ‘And where did she go?’
‘She left because she got a job in Miraflores through her mother’s second cousin. A very good job, it was, too. She worked for some rich people who had a house so big it was almost a palace. She told me all about it. They had stables, and baths with gold taps and dozens of servants to wait on them hand and foot. She was sitting pretty.’
Perhaps she was, Paco thought. Or perhaps the story of the big house with dozens of servants was nothing more than that – a story.
‘Did anyone from San Fernando ever go visit Carmen in Miraflores?’ he asked.
The old man looked at him as if he were deranged. ‘Why would they want to do that?’
Paco forced himself to suppress a smile. He was dealing with peasants here, he reminded himself. For them, the world consisted of a distance from their own village which could comfortably be reached on foot, or on the back of a donkey. Miraflores, which was over thirty kilometres away, was so distant to them that even if Carmen had never set foot in the place, it would still have been quite safe for her to have claimed to be living there.
‘Yes, she did really well for herself,’ the old man continued. ‘Didn’t have to scrub the floors or polish the furniture like a lot of girls who go into service do. She learned a trade, you see, and you can’t go wrong if you’ve learned a trade.’
‘No, you can’t,’ Paco agreed.
But he was already picturing Carmen Sanchez living in a series of lodging houses, moving when the army moved, and spending most of her time yearning for the moment when her dashing officer could find the time to visit her.
‘And she was good at her trade,’ the old man continued. ‘She brought some of the things she’d made back to the village to show us. Wonderful work, it was. Pillow cases with fine embroidery on them. Handkerchiefs it was almost a shame to use. The people she worked for even let her make clothes for them – though, God knows, they could easily have afforded to pay shop prices if they’d wanted to. That’s how good she was.’
There came a moment in many of his cases when Paco had an insight which almost took his breath away – a moment which changed his whole perspective. When that happened, he always felt as if, up to that point in the investigation, he’d been like a man groping around in a dark room and occasionally banging into the furniture. The insights, on the other hand, were like a light being turned on – a light which enabled him to see each piece of furniture, and to comprehend how they all fitted together to make a whole. And as he sat in that shabby bar, drinking with the three old men, he was suddenly gripped by one of those insights of his. He knew now why Carmen Sanchez had had to die, why the dog had had to die, and why Colonel Valera had been so discreet about his mistress.
‘Are you all right, señor?’ one of the old men asked him. ‘You’ve gone very pale all of a sudden.’
‘A seamstress!’ Paco exclaimed excitedly. ‘Carmen Sanchez was a bloody seamstress!’
*
The sun was high over the Plaza Mayor as Paco crossed it for the second time that day, and the dogs who spent their mornings scavenging had already taken shelter in the shady arcades. Outside one of the bars, two whores were arguing with a large man who was probably their pimp, and over at the fountain a donkey which didn’t have the sense to get out of the heat was thirstily lapping up water.
Paco checked his watch. It was just after two o’clock. Cindy would be expecting him for lunch, and he couldn’t wait to see her. He felt like a conquering hero coming home from the wars weighed down with the spoils of victory. And what spoils they were! They were more precious than gold, worth more than a whole sackful of diamonds. The spoils were knowledge – a knowledge which he just might be able to use to save both their lives.
As usual, there were sentries posted outside the small house on Calle Jose Antonio. Paco recognized one of them as the corporal he’d threatened to kill if the man ever again called Cindy a whore, but he was feeling so elated that even the reminder of that unpleasant confrontation didn’t really get to him.
The sentries had been standing on either side of the door, but now that they saw him coming they shifted position so they were actually blocking it.
Something’s gone wrong, Paco told himself, as he felt a ball of fear start to form in the pit of his stomach. Something’s gone very badly wrong. He came to a halt in front of the two guards. ‘Would you step aside, please? I want to go inside the house,’ he said to them.
The corporal sneered at him. ‘And I want to shag the general’s wife from supper right through to breakfast time,’ he said. ‘But we can’t always get what we want.’
The ball of fear in Paco’s stomach was growing by the second, but it was not fear for himself – it was for Cindy. ‘Have you forgotten I’m working on an investigation for Major Gómez?’ he asked. ‘He’s given orders that I’m to have fullest co-operation.’
The corporal’s sneer widened. ‘Major Gómez?’ he mused. ‘Well, Major Gómez is a very important man around here, there’s no disputing that fact. But I think that even you will have to agree that he’s still not quite as important as General Castro.’
‘What are you trying to say?’ Paco demanded.
‘The general’s orders are that, apart from Major Gómez, nobody’s to be allowed to enter this house. And nobody is to be allowed to leave it.’
The fear had grown so great that Paco had to force himself not to vomit. ‘Is Cindy . . . is Señorita Walker . . .?’ he gasped.
‘Is she what?’ the corporal asked, enjoying Paco’s obvious distress. ‘Is she still inside? Is she still unharmed? Yes, to both those things. All in accordance with the general’s orders. But who’s to say when the situation might change? At the best of times, General Castro is an unpredictable man,’ he leered, ‘and I, for one have hopes of eventually getting lucky.’
It would be so easy to kill the son of a bitch, Paco thought. A single blow with the heel of his hand would wipe away that lascivious smile for ever. But the corporal’s death would swiftly be followed by his own – and who would be left to protect Cindy then?
‘I didn’t mention the fact that the general wants to see you, did I?’ the corporal asked.
‘You know you didn’t,’ Paco replied.
‘Wants to see you urgently,’ the corporal said. ‘He’s had men out looking for you for the past fifteen minutes.’
Chapter Nineteen
Paco stood with his back to the wall, looking across the courtyard which had been filled with the general’s furniture on his last visit, but was now completely empty. On another occasion, he might have speculated about what life had been like in the old days, when fine coaches had driven through the large double doors, so that the aristocrats inside them would not have to walk more than a few metres to reach their rooms. But this was no time for thoughts of that nature – it was a time to concentrate all his efforts on surviving for the next hour, so that he might have a chance of surviving the hour after that.
His earlier nausea had all but gone, but his fears for Cindy were still with him, and would stay with him until he knew that she was safely back in Madrid. He had been a fool to feel so cocky earlier, he told himself. It was true he had uncovered some very deep secrets, but of what value was that if he never got a chance to put them to use?
There was a sound of clicking heels on the stairs. The general’s wife! His enemy! Paco kept his gaze fixed firmly on a spo
t high on the opposite wall.
The nature of the clicking changed as the woman crossed the courtyard, then stopped altogether. ‘What’s this bastard doing here again?’ the general’s wife shrieked at one of the two soldiers who were serving as Paco’s escort.
‘He’s here because the general says he wants to see him, señora,’ the soldier replied.
‘Does he?’ the woman demanded. ‘Does he, indeed? Well, we’ll soon see about that!’
Without knocking, she flung open the door of the general’s office, and stormed inside. ‘Did you issue orders for that son of a bitch militiaman from Madrid to be brought here?’ Paco heard her demand loudly the second she was through the door.
‘Well, yes, my dear, I did,’ the little general squeaked back. ‘You see, we have not yet found the man who killed Principe—’
‘Nor will you, as long as that incompetent fool is conducting the investigation,’ his wife retorted. ‘You should have had him shot days ago. If you ask me, he’s nothing but a spy.’
‘He can’t be a spy, my love,’ the general said weakly. ‘He was captured in the fighting out on the sierra.’
‘That’s what he wants you to think,’ his wife countered. ‘But I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if he arranged to be captured. Why don’t you have him shot while you still have the chance?’
The general coughed nervously. ‘You’re looking exceptionally beautiful today, my dear. Isn’t that the dress I bought you for your birthday that you’re wearing?’
His wife gave a loud sigh of exasperation. ‘You know it is. You know because you always remember everything you’ve ever bought for me. But tell me, do you really think I’m such an empty-headed woman that you can divert me from my purpose with flattery?’
‘No, my dear,’ the general said contritely. ‘Of course not. I’m very sorry, my dear.’
‘Don’t you know what we’re doing here?’ his wife demanded. ‘We are engaged in a holy crusade. We have been entrusted by God – by God – with the duty of purging our beloved Spain of the atheists and the Communists, and all those who reject the station given to them in life by divine decree.’
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