Finisterre

by Graham Hurley

  ‘Red.’

  ‘Both of them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You told me one just now. You said one blanket. Am I right, Major?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He turned back to Stefan. ‘So how many is it? One? Two? More? These things make a difference. It gets cold at sea, especially at night.’

  ‘One.’

  ‘One. Thank you. One red blanket. Make a note, Major. Ask the search party to check when they find the bloody boat.’ His head came round again. ‘Anything to add, Mr Portisch?’

  ‘Yes.’ Stefan was angry now, past caring whether this was part of the softening-up process. ‘I thought I was here to tell you about submarines, about that last voyage we made, about a war we’re never going to win.’

  ‘You’re here to answer our questions, Mr Portisch, and I’d be obliged if you can keep your temper to yourself. In case it’s escaped your notice, you’re a prisoner. You have no rights. Only obligations. And just now they boil down to convincing us we can trust you. I don’t believe for a moment that you came to Lisbon by boat. I think you’re lying. I think you made it up. And if that proves to be the case, why should I believe anything else?’

  Stefan didn’t bother answering the question. He’d spent the last twenty-four hours rehearsing for this moment and already he’d failed. The simplest questions, the smallest details, were tripping him up. They were toying with him. Worse, they were making him look a fool.

  ‘I came to Lisbon,’ he said at length, ‘because otherwise the Germans would have found me and shot me. Why? Because I’m a deserter. And because I killed a man whose life and reputation they appear to value. For me this is a bad end to a bad war. All I can do now is pray for an early peace. I know a great deal about my trade, about the submarine service. In my head I have a great deal of information that may be of service to you. You’re welcome to all of it, every last detail. Yet all you can talk about are fucking blankets.’

  ‘It’s not just why you’re here, Herr Kapitän.’ The major this time. ‘It’s how. We have to take a look at you. We have to make our minds up. You’ll understand that, I trust.’

  ‘Of course. You’re very welcome. One blanket. Red.’

  ‘And the fishing boat? The Esmeralda? She went back to O Barquero?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘But we may be able to find her there? Or perhaps talk to someone about her?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘Then rest assured that is what we’ll do.’ He sat back for a moment, nodding to himself, and Stefan wondered whether this phase of the interview was over. Far from it. The colonel took up the running, returning again and again to the voyage south. He wanted to know about the tides, the direction of the wind, whether or not there was a barometer on board, and most important of all the route the fisherman had plotted as he tracked south. Because Stefan was a fellow seaman, details like this would – at the very least – have been of some interest.

  ‘He had charts? This fisherman fellow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Old? New?’

  ‘Old. Well-used.’

  ‘All the way down to Lisbon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He went there often? A voyage of four hundred miles? To go fishing?’

  ‘Maybe the charts belonged to someone else. Maybe he borrowed them. Like I say, I was in no position to ask. I took a look at the charts, just like you’d expect me to. And, yes, they were old.’

  ‘Coffee stains?’

  ‘There was no coffee. Would I have liked coffee? Yes. Could he boil water? No. Did we drink unbrewed coffee? No. Therefore, no coffee stains.’

  ‘Very logical, Mr Portisch. I congratulate you. You’re getting better at this.’

  The gruffness of the compliment took Stefan by surprise. Did he mean it? Was this the first flicker of warmth between them? A hint there might be more to this hard-faced martinet than volley after volley of impossible questions?

  Stefan didn’t know. Already, he felt exhausted. His brain, numb with cold, was ceasing to function. Ask me about submarines, he thought. Ask me why I turned my back on the war that night. Ask me about anything but a man I’ve never met aboard a boat I never set foot on.

  Abruptly, to Stefan’s enormous relief, the colonel changed tack. He had the list of officers Stefan had passed to the military attaché at the embassy in Lisbon. He was pleased to confirm that every name was accurate.

  ‘I passed the test?’

  ‘You did, Mr Portisch.’

  ‘How did you check?’

  ‘There are ways and means. The currency of that city is information. The right money buys anything.’

  ‘You have a source,’ Stefan suggested. ‘Probably at the German Embassy. The names of the crew would be well known because our people have just buried them.’

  ‘Your people?’

  ‘My people.’

  ‘But you’re a deserter, Mr Portisch. They’re not your people any more. You’ve turned your back on them. Personally I find that incomprehensible.’

  ‘It shocks you?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I live in the world of facts, Mr Portisch. The facts suggest you’ve had a very good war. We’ve checked that, too. Yet here you are, only too happy to lay your trophies at our feet. Now why would that be? What would you have us believe?’

  What would you have us believe?

  Stefan blinked. This man compelled respect. In a single phrase, a single question, he’d skewered the essence of everything Stefan had been through since the moment he’d been dragged out of O Barquero.

  What would you have us believe?

  ‘Well?’ The colonel wanted an answer. Reflections danced in his monocle.

  ‘I’d have you believe that I mourn for my men, that I wouldn’t be here if a single one of them was alive and needed me. I’d have you believe that my faith in this war has gone and that I’d do anything in my power to bring it to an early end. And I’d have you believe that a loss of this kind of faith leaves you in a place where no fighting man would ever want to be. Am I ashamed of what I’ve done? Of coming to you? Oddly enough, no. Do I think it might help? Yes. And am I left wondering who I really am? The answer, once again, has to be yes. For better or worse, I’ve made a decision. I know a great deal. As I say, I’m happy to share every particle of that knowledge and I suspect it’s your job to make the most of it. All I can say is good luck, gentlemen. Help yourself.’

  He sat back, happy at least that he’d been able to offer a rationale for what he’d done. Dishonourable, perhaps, but at least coherent. The colonel appeared to have come to the same conclusion. He gathered his papers and without even a nod of farewell, he left the room.

  Stefan’s gaze went to the major. When he enquired whether something warm to drink might be in order, Stefan said yes. The colonel’s place would shortly be taken by another officer specialising in submarine warfare. And with him would come a mug of tea.

  ‘Thank you,’ Stefan said. And meant it.

  *

  Gómez met Yolanda back at the motel. She had news of the address Diego had left in the envelope. The woman at reception had phoned her husband. Her husband drove a cab and knew the city well. Calle Maravillas, according to him, lay out of town off the road that wound out towards the sierra. There were some nice properties out there and the area had become a playground for people who were making money from the war. She’d asked him if he happened to know who lived at the address but he’d told her he didn’t.

  ‘He’ll drive us out there,’ she said. ‘If that’s where you want to go next.’

  Gómez said yes. The receptionist put another call through. The cab arrived at the motel fifteen minutes later. Yolanda sat in the front, making conversation in Spanish, while Gómez watched the roadside shacks begin to thin. The dusty brown rise of the sierra lay ahead. Gómez was checking left and right for a chance sighting of a lime-green Caddy. An automobile that colour should be easy to spot, and this
morning’s encounter with the Indian car dealers had suggested, at the very least, that the car was somewhere in Ciudad Juarez, but this was a city of a quarter of a million people and there were endless places to hide.

  At length, the driver slowed for a turn. There were no street signs out here, no indication of where they were, but a quarter of a mile up a modest hill the rusting Buick came to a halt. They were looking at a bone-white hacienda-style property standing in maybe three acres of scrub. It was single-storey, much bigger than the other houses they’d just passed, and it looked brand new. Gómez caught sight of an interior courtyard through a tiled archway and there was a child’s swing beside what appeared to be a sandpit. A cat was sprawled in the shade of a big acacia and the wind off the high sierra was stirring the fronds of a couple of palm trees. The place oozed money, Gómez thought. If you’d tired of the heat and the violence downtown, this is where you might pitch your tent.

  Yolanda asked the driver to wait. She and Gómez pushed through the gate and walked through the dust to the front door. The door was barred with an ornamental grille. More fresh paint. Gómez reached through and knocked on the glass. He could hear nothing inside: no radio, no murmurs of conversation, no movement. He told Yolanda to go back to the cab. If anyone approached by car, the driver was to sound the horn twice. The last thing he wanted was another confrontation.

  Yolanda gave him a look and told him to be careful. Then she was gone. Gómez skirted the house. At the back he found a tiled patio with a view of the sierra framed by yet more palm trees. Also a table for drinks and a couple of fancy chairs. There were two empty cups on the table and when he picked one up he caught the scent of coffee.

  A big glass door led into the house. When he turned the handle and applied the gentlest pressure, it opened. He stepped inside, recognising the hum of an air-con unit. The big room was cold after the mid-morning heat outside and it took a second or two for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. This had to be a dining room. The big circular table looked as new as everything else and someone needed to clear up after breakfast. The smear of eggs on quality china. Crusts of toast pushed to the side of the plate. A jug of what must have been coffee. An American start to the day, he thought.

  He froze on the tiled floor, hearing the faintest scuff from the depths of the house, then relaxed as a cat wandered in. It was a black cat. It looked him up and down then wound itself around his ankles.

  ‘Hola?’ He went to the door and called again. No response. Nothing except the ticking silence.

  Back in the dining room he noticed a desk in the corner, away from the patio. There was a typewriter on the desk and a stack of what looked like correspondence beside it. He took a closer look. The machine was a Remington, a big thing, standard issue in offices across the States. The suicide note, he thought. Sol Fiedler’s farewell to the job that had killed him.

  Gómez found a box of foolscap paper in the desk drawer. He took a sheet and fed it into the roller. Then he typed across the keys, loud, clunky, and did it again with the caps lock down. Five lines of type, every character captured. He extracted the sheet and folded it into his jacket pocket. There was a waste-paper bin beside the desk, a couple of balled-up discards in the bottom. He fetched one out and smoothed it against the desk. It was an unfinished letter and he took that as well before pushing deeper into the house.

  He was in the entrance hall now. A kid’s tricycle lay beside the front door, together with a bucket and spade. A light summer coat, adult this time, hung from a hook. On the other wall there was a big oval mirror with notes pushed beneath the frame, the kind of reminders busy people might leave when they were in a hurry. He took one out, and read it in the throw of light through the glass of the front door. The note was in German. Was this some visitor, down from the States or across from Europe? He’d no idea.

  More doors led off the gleaming tiles of the hallway. He tried the nearest. It was a kids’ bedroom, two bunks, toys everywhere. He went to the end of the hall, tried the far door. Another bedroom, much bigger, the huge double bed unmade, the sheets rumpled. He could smell perfume in the air, the smell of serious money, and when he opened a drawer in the dressing table it was full of sex toys. He gazed at them for a moment, wondering what kind of woman needed three black dildos, varying sizes, then slid the drawer closed again.

  A woman’s bag lay beside the bed. It was leather, new-looking. He picked it up, emptied the contents on to the bed. A handkerchief. A fold of dollar bills. A small, round mirror. A bunch of cosmetic stuff. And a document wallet, leather again, scuffed. He opened the wallet. Inside, were two documents. One of them looked Mexican, perhaps a driving licence, no photo. The other was unmistakable: the black German eagle atop a swastika. The gothic script: Deutsches Reich. He felt the texture of the cover between his fingers. Grey linen.

  He opened it. On the left-hand side, in careful script, a list of personal details. On the right, stamped on two corners, a photo of a woman. He stared at it. She was three-quarter profile, middle-aged, carefully coiffured hair, steady gaze, undeniably beautiful. Her surname was Müller. Her Christian name was Lara. She might have belonged in a movie magazine.

  Gómez lingered a moment longer, then repacked the bag before slipping the ID into his pocket and making for the door. Only then did he become aware of the figure in the hall outside. She was wearing a dressing gown several sizes too big. Her feet were bare and the jet-black hair tumbled down over her shoulders. She was staring at Gómez. Donovan’s woman, he thought. Francisca. From back in Santa Fe.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked. Not a trace of fear.

  ‘I’m looking for your husband.’

  ‘Frank?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s not here. And he’s not my husband.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She nodded at the bed, at the dressing table, at the liberties Gómez had taken. ‘You shouldn’t be here. How can you just come in like this?’

  Gómez didn’t answer. He wanted to know about her kids. Were they with Frank?

  ‘No. Lara has them. She let me sleep. You must go. Before she comes back.’

  Gómez wondered whether she was lying. Then came the sound of a car horn from outside. Yolanda, he thought. And trouble in the offing.

  He was still looking at Francisca. He told her he’d come to the front door, knocked, woken her up. She’d let him in. They’d talked.

  ‘You’re good with that?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No.’ She nodded at the bed again. ‘I saw what I saw.’

  ‘Gracias. Suit yourself.’

  He pushed roughly past her. She smelled of recent sex. He wondered whether to search the other rooms in the house, to find the bedroom where she’d slept. Maybe Donovan was in there, listening to the murmur of conversation. He paused beside one of the rooms he hadn’t checked. If he was right, what would he do with the man? Insist on a lengthy interview? Ask what he was doing in the house of a woman with a Nazi ID card and a taste for black sex toys?

  ‘He’s not here.’ It was Francisca. She nodded at the door. It was already ajar. ‘Open it. Take a look. There’s no one here. Just me.’

  Gómez opened the door. Another double bed. Another tangle of sheets. No Donovan.

  ‘So where is he?’

  ‘I just told you. I don’t know. Please leave. It will be better.’

  ‘For who?’

  ‘For all of us. Especially you.’

  Gómez held her gaze a moment longer, then opened the front door and stepped out into the blaze of sunshine. Half expecting a lime-green Cadillac, he found himself looking at a big Mercedes. Like everything else in this woman’s life, it was black. A short, squat Mexican was opening the gate. At the wheel, behind dark glasses, was the woman he’d seen in the ID card. She was staring at him as he strode towards her. There were kids in the back, three little faces. No sign of Donovan.

  Gómez was alongside the car now. The Mexican had a gun i
n his hand, a big automatic. Gómez gestured for the woman to open the window. Full lips. Unsmiling.

  ‘I’m guessing you speak English,’ he said.

  ‘You guess right.’ Just a hint of an accent. Impressive.

  ‘My name’s Gómez. I’ve come looking for Frank Donovan. Give him my best and tell him I’m at the Motel del Norte. Up by the river. You got that?’

  He didn’t wait for a reply. The Mexican was blocking his path back to the cab. The gun was levelled at Gómez’s chest.

  ‘Don’t.’ It was the woman. She was out of the car. She said something else in Spanish and the Mexican, with obvious reluctance, stepped aside.

  Gómez didn’t stop walking. Seconds later he was ducking into the back of the cab, hauling the door shut.

  ‘Drive, amigo,’ he grunted. ‘We need to be out of here.’

  21

  Next morning, still dark, Stefan lay awake. Despite his best efforts he’d barely slept at all. Too cold, too uncomfortable, too far from home. Yesterday’s interrogations had finally put him in the hands of an expert in submarine warfare and he’d willingly told the man everything that might conceivably have been useful. At the time, it had almost felt like a social conversation, two men who knew their business comparing notes, but the fact he’d been so open, so helpful, so compliant, must have troubled his conscience. Hence the sleepless night.

  Now, barely dawn, he was back in front of the colonel and the major.

  ‘Tell me about your leader, Mr Portisch.’ This from the colonel.

  ‘Onkel Karl?’

  ‘Tante Adolf.’

  Auntie Adolf? Stefan stared at the face across the table. Concentrate, he told himself. Think harder. This wasn’t a cosy conversation about operational codes and the Elektro boats. This was a return to the world of make-believe. At all costs, he had to stay ahead of these people, especially the implacable colonel.

  ‘Tante Adolf?’ Stefan repeated. The sainted Führer recast as a woman? Never married? Never ate meat? Always did his best to resist the touch of flesh on flesh? Perfect, he thought. Auntie Adolf.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ he asked.