The Anarchist Detective (Max Cámara)

by Webster, Jason

  Gerardo let out a deep breath.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s good news. I don’t know what’s been going on. And I don’t want to know.’

  He glanced back down at the hole.

  ‘I never realised I was living in such a dangerous city.’

  Cámara patted him on the shoulder.

  ‘Clean it up and you could get an extra grand for it,’ he said. ‘Goes faster than a bullet.’

  He sniffed.

  ‘Well, almost.’

  FIFTEEN

  ‘I’LL TRY SOME of that home-grown now.’

  Pilar was leaving when they reached the flat. There was no sign of Hilario.

  ‘He said he was going for a walk. There’s some stock on the counter. You can use it to make a consommé.’

  The door clicked shut and they were left alone.

  ‘Is she always like that?’ Alicia asked.

  ‘It’s probably the sight of another woman in the flat. You’re an intruder.’

  He limped his way to the living room and fell down on to the sofa. Alicia followed after him.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’ve had worse.’

  Earlier that year, at the start of the summer, Alicia had seen for herself the cuts Cámara had received on his hands after warding off a knife attack. She’d helped clean and dress the wounds until they had healed: the scars were still there.

  ‘It’s up on the shelf,’ Cámara said. ‘I’ll make you one if you don’t mind getting it.’

  She reached up and passed him the box. Cámara opened it, pulled out a cigarette paper and a pinch of maría, and started preparing the joint. A few moments later he lit it and passed it over to her. Still standing, she took it and paced around the room, inhaling deeply.

  ‘This is a place of secrets,’ she said.

  Cámara was silent. After a couple more drags, she sat down next to him on the sofa, curling up and resting her head on his chest. Cámara took the joint from her outstretched hand and drew in hard.

  ‘I’ve never been shot at before,’ Alicia said. ‘I’m still not sure what I’m supposed to feel. Fear is too simple, it doesn’t quite describe it properly.’

  ‘Did you see your life flash before you?’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘So am I.’

  She sighed.

  ‘Yes. No. I’m not sure. I felt so many things. I’m still trying to unravel it all.’

  She sat up and looked at him.

  ‘Did you?’

  Cámara shrugged.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I was too busy trying to work out what to do.’

  ‘Is that what they teach you?’ Alicia asked, placing her head back on his chest. ‘At police academy? How to dodge bullets if someone shoots at you? All that swerving from side to side you told me about.’

  ‘No,’ Cámara said. ‘There’s nothing as useful as that. I probably got the idea from some TV programme.’

  She laughed.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Cámara said. ‘A friend of mine is in the GEO – the special police. He may have mentioned something. Although come to think of it it was something about how little protection a car can give you against a sniper. Bullets go right through the bodywork. Unless it’s bulletproof, of course.’

  ‘Which BMWs aren’t.’

  ‘Not normally.’

  ‘You’d have thought they might be, what with the way people go on about them.’

  Cámara leaned over to hand her the last of the joint.

  ‘How many shots were there?’

  ‘Three, I think. The first one hit the back window, the second impacted in the car somewhere, and the third . . .’

  ‘The third went into your leg. Or nearly.’

  She took a final drag and lifted the joint up to offer him, but he shook his head. Pulling the ashtray closer on the little table in front of them, she stubbed the burning end out and watched the trail of dying smoke rise up into the foggy living-room air.

  ‘I have a feeling we’ve had a lucky escape,’ she said.

  Cámara said nothing.

  ‘They were trying to kill us, weren’t they? I mean, whoever it was shooting at us. That wasn’t just a warning. You can warn in other ways. But those bullets came very close. They were shooting to kill.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘So we’re still in danger.’

  She stood up and turned to look down at him.

  ‘Here we are getting stoned in your grandfather’s flat when we should be . . . OK, I know you don’t want to go to the police, but come on, Max. We’ve got to do something. We can’t just sit here and wait for them to come knocking on the door to finish the job off.’

  He beckoned her to sit down again.

  ‘They’re not coming here. No one’s coming here. We’re fine.’

  She remained on her feet, her nervousness kicking against the slowing, dulling effect of the marihuana.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Look, you’re being paranoid. Perhaps the joint wasn’t such a good idea. This stuff’s pretty gentle, though. I just know, all right. I had a sense we were in danger when we were in Pozoblanco, although not quite to what degree. I don’t have that now, all right? Trust me on this. It’s a kind of sixth sense you develop.’

  ‘I’m supposed to stop fearing for my life because of some gut feeling of yours?’

  Cámara shrugged. She sat down on the sofa again and leaned in against him, punching him softly in the ribs.

  ‘Bastard.’

  ‘They may have been trying to kill us,’ Cámara said, ‘but it wasn’t a very sophisticated attempt. So I don’t think we’re dealing with a professional contract killer. Which means they’re not going to be clever enough to track us down here. There was something more than a little bit botched about it, as though it was dreamt up at the last minute. If they’d really wanted to kill us they could have done so. Driving on ahead and then shooting from the front, rather than behind, would have increased their chances by a huge amount. Or a car bomb, or a—’

  ‘OK, I get it.’

  Her words were beginning to slur as she moved towards sleep. Cámara stopped talking, and in a few moments he could hear her breathing slowly and deeply as she reached unconsciousness.

  The drug was working on him as well, but rather than making him drowsy, as ever when he found himself in situations such as this, it helped silence some of the screaming, to lower the noise and allow quieter voices to be heard.

  And he found his thoughts turning to Hilario. Did he know about Pozoblanco, about this collective farming village just a few miles up the road? He imagined it would be the kind of place he would like, or admire at least. Weren’t those anarchist ideas Faro Oscuro was implementing? Anarchist, communist – he had never been entirely certain what the difference was, despite the years of living with Hilario. But his grandfather wasn’t a preacher – he had never tried to ‘convert’ Cámara in any way. If anything he’d simply made him uncomfortable – nothing was stable, nothing was quite what it seemed with him. The moment he thought he’d worked something out, Hilario would come along and change the rules, never allowing stasis to descend on them and their life. Atrophy – that had been a common word used during his adolescence. He didn’t hear it in other households, but it was often on Hilario’s lips, something to be avoided, to dodge and outwit. Stay still and atrophy would get you, like a disease of the world.

  So was that anarchism, Hilario’s anarchism? Being mercurial, staying ahead in some inexplicable way, never allowing anyone to pin you down, to nail you?

  Sometimes he’d wondered if an anarchist was simply a communist who didn’t have any power. Give a man a gun and authority and you’d see the anarchist in him evaporate in an instant, almost like the spirit leaving his body.

  He tried to imagine Hilario with a gun. Would he still hold on to his ideas and ideals with his finger wrapped around a trigger? Anyone would succumb, even him.

  But then ag
ain, what were his ideas exactly? It wasn’t the kind of anarchism others might easily recognise – one that involved abolishing private property and collectivising the land. As a Spaniard of his generation, growing up during the tail-end years of the Franco regime in the 1970s and then through the Transition and the first steps into democracy into the ’80s, Max had received practically no education about his country’s twentieth-century history. But he’d picked up titbits here and there from conversations with people, unstructured chats with Hilario, a chapter or two of one of the new history books while browsing a bookshop. And he was aware of the experiments that had taken place in Spain during the 1930s, during the early months of the Civil War, when anarchists had insisted that revolution in Republican-held territory was more important than fighting Franco at the front. Towns and villages had been taken over and collectivised, money abolished and all signs of social hierarchy done away with. Some of these experiments had been pacific, in others wealthier townspeople had been taken out and shot before the workers’ utopia had been established.

  Had Maximiliano, his great-grandfather, been involved in any of that? Had he gone around shooting people because they wore suits, or went to church? He tried to look inside himself, as though some memory of the times might have been passed down to him in his blood, or his DNA as people said now. Could he himself have done that? Would he, had he been alive then?

  He couldn’t see it.

  So why didn’t Hilario ever mention Pozoblanco? He felt sure there was something there, something he should know.

  When he woke, Alicia was already up, sitting at the table opposite him, drinking a glass of milk and eating some chocolate biscuits.

  ‘I found them in the kitchen.’

  He lifted himself up from the sofa, shaking his head clear.

  ‘Want some?’

  The milk was cold and refreshing, the chocolate mellowing.

  ‘It’s raining outside,’ she said. ‘But still no sign of Hilario. Do you think he’s all right?’

  ‘Yeah. I think so.’

  ‘It was only a few days ago, you know.’

  ‘I know him. Besides, if he’s ever going to go – I mean, when he finally goes – he’d prefer it this way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Out, on his own, free. The more I try and fuss over him the worse he’d get. It’s not him. Better to be alive, or dead. But not dead while still alive.’

  ‘You’re quite like him in some ways,’ she said. ‘Not in everything, but I can see it. Now that I’ve met him as well, I can see characteristics that come from him.’

  Cámara smiled. Not too many, he thought to himself.

  ‘I found these as well,’ Alicia said, holding up two small boxes. ‘Anti-inflammatory pills, and this soothing cream. They were in the bathroom cabinet.’

  Cámara swallowed the pill with the last of the milk. He pulled his trousers down to expose the bruising on his upper thigh and Alicia began to work the cream in.

  ‘Sore?’

  ‘No.’ He stifled the urge to wince.

  ‘I saw you,’ she said. ‘Moving to my side of the car behind me on the back seat.’

  Cámara had his eyes closed.

  ‘You were trying to shield me.’

  He didn’t react. She leaned down and kissed him on the thigh. That bullet could have hit her.

  He dozed for a little more as she rubbed the cream in until it had been absorbed. It felt good just to have her hands there, taking away some of the pain and tension.

  She pulled his trousers back up.

  ‘We could put some ice on it. Might help.’

  ‘The pills will do the trick.’

  She cleared away the glasses of milk and biscuit crumbs, then returned to the living room from the kitchen, opening the door out on to the balcony to let in some fresh air.

  Cámara watched her as she moved about the room. She’d lost some weight since moving to Madrid, and her trousers were loose around her hips, held in place around her waist by tightening her belt a notch more. She’d talked about getting some new clothes, a size smaller. But running to and from the newspaper, or simply lounging at home, drenched in her new love, had meant she’d never managed to make it to the shops. And the old clothes stayed. She’d fit back into them soon enough, she joked, once Christmas came along.

  Or this – their affair – came to an end.

  She was behind him now, glancing at the books on the shelves, rummaging around through boxes and drawers. He’d grown used to it – a journalist’s curiosity. He could switch it on in himself when needed. With her, however, it was more of a compulsion, if innocent in nature.

  There was a rhythm to her movements, but the rummaging came to a sudden stop. And the silence drew his attention.

  ‘What is it?’

  She didn’t reply.

  He tried to turn, but his body felt heavy on the sofa.

  ‘What have you got?’

  She took a step towards him, appearing in the full light shining through the open balcony door. Her hand was outstretched, and in it she held a pistol.

  It was pointing at his chest.

  SIXTEEN

  HE JUMPED IN his seat.

  ‘What the hell is that?’

  She looked him in the eye.

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Let me see that. Where was it?’

  ‘In the drawer.’

  She pulled her hand away as he tried to snatch at the gun.

  ‘I’ve seen one of these before,’ she said.

  There was a click from the other end of the flat as the front door was opened and closed. Footsteps came down the corridor, slow but steady. Alicia gripped the pistol in her hand.

  The living-room door opened and Hilario appeared, rainwater dripping from his overcoat on to the floor.

  Alicia held the gun up to his face.

  ‘It’s a Luger,’ she said. ‘The Germans used them in the Second World War.’

  Hilario didn’t flinch.

  ‘Either you’re a collector,’ she said. ‘Or . . .’

  ‘I was in the Blue Division,’ Hilario said.

  He lowered his eyes and walked over to the table, taking off his coat and draping it over one of the chairs. There, he paused for a moment, as though thinking about what he was going to say, and then walked over to the balcony door.

  ‘The rain’s coming in,’ he said, closing it shut.

  Alicia and Cámara’s eyes didn’t leave him, but he refused to look at them. Instead, he walked over to the armchair and sat down. Resting his elbows on the arms, he brought his hands together and tapped his fingertips lightly against one another. After a pause, he felt in his pocket and pulled out a small black leather wallet. From it he plucked out a black-and-white photo which he passed to Cámara.

  Cámara looked down at a new and instantly recognisable face. He was heavier set, and his cheekbones were more prominent than either his own or Hilario’s, but there was no mistaking that he was of the same family. The strong jaw, fleshy nose and an air of physical strength about him. His eyes, dark and penetrating, were framed by round glasses of the kind worn in the 1930s.

  ‘My father,’ Hilario said, ‘Maximiliano, your great-grandfather, was betrayed.’

  Cámara passed the photo to Alicia, who was still standing near the door. Neither of them spoke.

  Hilario’s eyes became unfocused and he breathed heavily for a moment. Then he opened his mouth, pausing for a second before beginning his story.

  ‘Albacete was a busy place during the Civil War,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to imagine now, but this was the headquarters for the International Brigades – all those young men coming in from around the world to fight for the Republic.’

  He sighed heavily as the memories appeared to flicker before his eyes.

  Many people were coming into the city, he said, refugees fleeing areas conquered by Franco’s troops, volunteers from abroad, and there had been a lot of organising to do.

  ‘The
communists were mostly in charge – the International Brigades were under their control – but my father, Maximiliano, was tolerated. He was an anarchist, a member of the CNT trade union. Anarchists, Republicans, communists, socialists, they were all lumped together in the fight against Franco, but they hated each other really.

  ‘Maximiliano was an idealist, though, an intellectual anarchist, a dreamer. Anarchism meant utopia for him – free people and the best of their characters would naturally come to the fore. He was a vegetarian, and believed in free love, although my mother always said he was the most devoted and faithful of men. I think he agreed with the principle of free love, of men and women having relationships on their own terms, without the interference of Church or State.

  ‘And so when Alfonso XIII fled the country and the Republic finally came in 1931 he was there, as enthusiastic as the rest, filled with hope that real change could finally begin.’

  Hilario reminded them of what the country had been like back then. Many areas were almost mediaeval, with feudal landowners and peasants sometimes forced to eat grass to survive. Outside the towns and cities it was hard to find anyone who could read or write. But hopes for the new Republican government turned into frustration as reforms were slow to arrive. Anarchist groups spontaneously collectivised the land in some areas, and the police moved in. There were shoot-outs, many deaths.

  Then the Civil War had started in the summer of 1936.

  ‘I remember,’ Hilario said. ‘I was sitting at home with my mother, and we heard the news coming from a neighbour’s window on the radio – the army had risen in Spanish Morocco. I think we all knew it was coming.

  ‘Militias were set up almost straight away – people demanding weapons so they could go and fight the rebels, to defend the Republic. Maximiliano wanted to go too, but he was already old for fighting. Some of his CNT colleagues suggested he stay behind – they knew he was a good organiser. He’d been a committee chairman at the furniture factory where he worked, calling for strikes for better conditions. Some of them had been beaten during the stoppage, Maximiliano included. I remember him coming home one night with bandages around his hands and head – two of his fingers were broken. The police, again. But those men followed him, they believed in him, and they stuck to it. And got what they were asking for in the end.’