The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory)

by Mark Oldfield

  She returned to the lift and went up a floor to Forensics, stopping off in the women’s changing room to tie back her hair. It was humid and she heard the dull rumble of thunder, far away, outside the hermetic world of Headquarters.

  Opening her locker, Galindez took out her carefully wrapped present for Belén: a dozen romper suits wrapped in a riot of spangled wrapping paper patterned with storks carrying bundles in their beaks. The whole thing bound with a couple of vivid ribbons tied in frothy bows. Belén liked that kind of stuff. Galindez walked down the corridor to Forensics and opened the door.

  The room was empty. Every computer logged out, blank. She frowned. Outside, she heard the scratching sound of rain against the windows as the summer storm picked up. Galindez walked through the unusual quiet of the empty office and noticed a light in the Capitán’s room. She knocked on the door.

  Fuentes looked up. ‘Holá, Ana María. Not going to Belén’s leaving do?’

  Galindez lifted the gift with its sparkling oversized bows. ‘I thought it was at four thirty?’

  Fuentes shook his head. ‘Two thirty. Belén sent everyone an email earlier in the week,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you see it?’

  ‘I must have missed it, boss.’ Galindez shrugged. ‘They’ll have finished by now. I’ll put her present in the post.’ She turned to leave.

  ‘Before you go, Ana María,’ Fuentes said, ‘that report you did on the grave near Getafe.’ He held up a thick folder.

  Galindez felt a sinking feeling. She’d cocked something up. For someone who prided herself on her fierce attention to detail, it was more than just disappointment: it was what Tia Carmen had told her was the bane of her father’s life: Sloppy work.

  ‘What was wrong with it, boss?’ She waited for Fuentes to tear her off a strip.

  ‘Wrong with it?’ Fuentes said. ‘There was nothing wrong with it. Nothing in all its hundred and fifteen pages – and I’m not even counting the pages of diagrams and photographs. Know how long your predecessor made his reports?’

  So that was it. She had been too brief. That wasn’t quite as bad as being sloppy but it was bad enough.

  ‘Three hundred pages?’

  Fuentes laughed. ‘I was lucky if he did more than ten, Ana. I can present this report to the coroner’s court without the slightest amendment. It’s an excellent piece of work.’

  ‘Thanks very much, boss.’

  ‘To be honest, it’s made even better by the fact that I know you don’t like working on the war graves.’ Fuentes smiled. ‘But you’ve stuck at it and every one of your reports has been top notch. That’s why I’ve put you down for a transfer to profiling as soon as a vacancy comes up. I believe that’s what you were hoping for?’

  Galindez wanted to punch the air. She contained that impulse. ‘When do you think there might be a vacancy, Capitán?’

  ‘There’s one coming up in December. I hope you can wait that long?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Did you speak to your uncle about the other matter?’ Fuentes asked.

  ‘I did. He agreed.’

  ‘There you are then,’ Fuentes said. ‘You do your secondment on your Guzmán project until the post in profiling becomes vacant and then you move into a department dedicated to your specialism.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say, boss. You’ve been great about all this.’

  Fuentes looked at her. ‘You could have asked your uncle for that secondment and gone over my head. Many people would have. But you came to me first. I appreciated that, Ana. And besides, we like to keep our staff happy when we can – despite what you may think sometimes.’

  Galindez nodded, lost for words. She waved the brightly wrapped present, unable to speak.

  ‘Carry on, Dr Galindez.’ Fuentes looked down at his papers, avoiding seeing Galindez quickly wipe her eyes as she left the Capitán’s office.

  ‘Oh, one more thing, Ana,’ Fuentes called.

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘The satnav. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to pay for it. That’s the fourth in less than a year. I don’t know how you do it: how can you run over a satnav?’

  ‘It isn’t easy, boss.’

  ‘No. But you managed it anyway.’ Fuentes laughed. ‘They’ll stop it from your wages at the end of the month.’

  Galindez made her way back to her desk and slumped into her chair, putting Belén’s gift in her in-tray. She sighed. It’s all good. She’d stuck it out and now it was paying off. She punched the air. Then looked round self-consciously to make sure no one was watching.

  She logged on to her computer and saw Belén’s email reminder. How had she missed that? She stared at the email. It had been opened, so she must have read it. It wasn’t like her to forget things. Little things. The doctors had told her to report any lapses of memory immediately in case they were signs of deterioration.

  Anyone can forget things. Even amnesiacs. If it happens again, I’ll tell the doc. No I won’t, they might block the transfer. I’ll wait and see. Christ it was only an email.

  Galindez opened a file and set to work on her report on the latest war grave. At eight o’clock, Fuentes came out of his office and saw her still working.

  ‘Vamos, Ana María, that’s enough for one day.’

  ‘OK, boss, you go, I’ll turn the lights off.’

  ‘No, Ana, if I go and leave you here, you’ll still be here at midnight. Go home.’

  ‘Coming.’ Galindez waited until Fuentes began to turn off the lights in the main office. Quickly she put her report and the file into her briefcase. She could finish it at home.

  4

  MADRID 1953, CALLE MESÓN DE PAREDES

  For most people, nightmares are a corruption, an interlude of unwelcome and uninvited mental images interrupting the gentle rhythm of their dreams. Guzmán, however, slipped from consciousness into the oblivion of an inferno in which the screams of the damned echoed his name in a demented choir. This was how he had slept since the war, lost amid the stench and corruption of death, crashing blindly through marshes where rotting eyeless faces stared up from charnel pools towards a sky traced with blood and darkened with the smoke of funeral pyres. He splashed through fetid mud spiked with clumps of decaying marsh grass, feeling skeletal hands clutch at him as he ran. But Guzmán was not fleeing. His pursuit across the fields of hell was always like this. Through the smoke and the stench, beneath the permanent midnight cast of the sky, he saw the vague shape of his fleeing prey. His mouth opened to scream, to scream for them to stop, to await their fate. And, as ever, as he felt the scream in his throat, he awoke, soaked with sweat.

  By the time the alarm clock rang, Guzmán was already washing in icy water in the small kitchen. He shaved, cursing the cold yet lacking the patience to heat water. His toilet complete, Guzmán pulled on his clothes. The clock showed three thirty. Early. But then today they were hunting.

  Despite the cold of his room he had almost forgotten the snow until he pulled back the curtain and saw the white expanse of the street below, the familiar angular shapes of steps, lamp posts and doorways now subtle and soft under ten centimetres of snow, muted by the pale street lights. Guzmán saw no sign of the observer from the night before. No telltale footprints. Whoever the spy was, he had no patience.

  Guzmán found a pair of boots that looked like they would keep out the cold and put on his thickest overcoat. The fifty-odd guardia civiles taking part in the operation could freeze in their khakis and capes but not him. Guzmán oiled his hair with the same oil he used – very occasionally – for cooking. The image in the speckled mirror looked respectable enough, although those he was after today would not remember him for his appearance, he was sure.

  Outside, the cold was brutally sharp and Guzmán swore profusely, cursing again as he began to slide on the icy, hard-packed snow. His cigarette smoke hung in the frozen air as he slipped and staggered towards the end of the road, swearing in blind fury at the treachery of the snow, the inconvenience of the ice beneath it,
at the whole world which seemed to conspire against him as he struggled to keep his feet. One thought comforted him. Someone was going to suffer. That much was certain. About thirty-six of them to be precise.

  By the time he reached the Puerta del Sol, sweating with exertion and fury, a few workmen were clearing paths along the pavements. Guzmán glared at them with casual and unfocused hatred as he grabbed a lamp post to steady himself. After ten minutes he was still only halfway to the comisaría. When he saw the Café Ojalá, he felt justified in stopping off to regain his strength, ordering a coffee with milk and two stale cakes. At this hour the café’s usual limited choice was even more limited. Guzmán asked for something hot but the owner threw up his hands and launched into a violent denunciation of the black market and the crooked party officials who facilitated it. Hot food was off the menu, Guzmán realised.

  ‘Franco promised us once we’d beaten the Reds we would have bread and justice,’ the man said, wiping a glass with a bar towel. ‘Well, the Reds saw his justice, but where’s the bread for those of us who fought for him?’

  With whichever general handles the distribution of grain, probably, Guzmán thought. It was hard to argue with the man, and not only because it was four in the morning. More and more people were complaining about the lack of food. Guzmán heard it on the streets and in the bars and cafés where he met his informants or spied on his victims. It wasn’t as if the hardship affected only those who had been on the Republican side: even members of the Falange were complaining their rations were inadequate, eroded by corrupt officials and administrators. Franco should do something, Guzmán thought. There’s a difference between taking a cut and bleeding the country dry.

  ‘Want to know what I think?’ the man said, leaning across the bar, his rancid breath hanging in the frozen air.

  ‘Not really.’ Guzmán finished his coffee.

  ‘Franco doesn’t know the half of it,’ the man continued, ignoring Guzmán’s indifference. ‘He has so much to do he has to depend on others, on the military and the Party members. They do what they want and take what they can. And what they do and what they tell him are different things. And they get away with it by using the guardia civil and the policía when things get bad.’

  Guzmán nodded and paid the bill. Normally he would have baulked at paying but the man’s complaint had been true enough. Guzmán thought he deserved a break for that – and for being open at this hour.

  ‘Careful out there,’ the man called as Guzmán stood up and made his way to the door, ‘it’s going to be a hell of a day.’

  Guzmán paused in the doorway, noticing it was only marginally colder outside than in. ‘I think you’re right. For some people anyway.’

  ‘Let’s hope for once it’s those who deserve it.’ The man smiled, revealing a row of ragged teeth.

  ‘I think today you can be sure of it.’ Guzmán closed the door and stepped out into the silent blurred snowscape of the street.

  *

  The deep snow didn’t improve Guzmán’s temper as he trudged doggedly towards the comisaría. The hobnails in his boots gave him some purchase but he still slipped and stumbled at times, glad there was no one to witness his discomfort. The comisaría was ablaze with light when he finally arrived. Six trucks were parked outside, guarded by several guardia civiles wrapped in their capes, tricorne hats pulled well down. One asked Guzmán for his papers, stepping back and saluting when Guzmán thrust his identity card into the man’s face.

  ‘A sus ordenes, mi Comandante.’

  Guzmán snatched back his papers and clattered into the entrance hall, stamping his feet to get rid of the cloying snow. It was a small, domestic gesture and it angered him greatly. At one end of the hall a table had been set out with a large coffee urn and a line of guardia waited in an unruly queue, even though, from the smell of it, the coffee had been made with wood shavings. Guzmán pushed through to the desk. The sargento saluted absently, eyes hollow from lack of sleep and, probably, lack of food. Or teeth, Guzmán thought. Still, the sarge obeyed him and that was enough.

  ‘Who’s in charge of this lot, Sargento?’

  The sarge waved towards the doors leading to Guzmán’s office. ‘They went to the mess to warm up.’

  ‘I’ll have a word, make sure they know what they’re doing. Anything to report?’

  The sargento nodded. ‘The Red prisoner. Died during the night. Suicide. Hanged himself with his own belt. Tragic no, jefe?’

  ‘Got off lightly if you ask me.’ Guzmán shrugged.

  ‘He’s arrived, by the way,’ the sargento called as Guzmán walked to the double doors.

  Guzmán turned, his hand on the door. ‘Who?’

  The sargento’s face oscillated between emaciated weariness and a strong desire to smirk. ‘Acting Teniente Francisco Peralta.’

  ‘Who the fuck is— of course. Joder.’

  The sargento nodded. ‘The capitán-general’s nephew, jefe. In the flesh.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what, jefe?’

  ‘Puta madre, coño. What’s he like?’

  The sargento’s face twitched as he held back a smile. ‘You need to see for yourself, jefe.’

  Guzmán turned on his heel, pulling the door open with such violence it crashed against the wall. He stormed down the corridor and stamped into his office. I’ll kill that fucking sargento. I’ll have him back in the ranks, give him double night shifts until he begs for mercy, toothless bastard.

  A man was sitting in one of the rickety visitors’ chairs by the wall. He jumped up as Guzmán entered.

  ‘Comandante Guzmán, Acting Teniente Francisco Peralta para servirle.’

  Peralta was tall and exceedingly thin, his cadaverous face suggesting he ate nowhere near as well as his uncle, the capitán-general. Peralta looked older than his twenty-four years, his tallow hair already receding and thin. His dress sense left much to be desired, Guzmán noted. The overcoat was cheap and shabby, the cuffs of his jacket slightly frayed, his shoes soaked. Police wages. Totally impractical for ten centimetres of snow. He was really going to suffer, Guzmán thought happily.

  He seized Peralta’s hand in a quick handshake, quickly crushing any attempt to impress him with a firm grip. Peralta withdrew his hand with a pained expression.

  ‘Acting Teniente, Peralta? That’s a sudden promotion isn’t it?’ Guzmán slumped into his chair, pointedly not offering his new assistant a seat. On the desk was a sheaf of papers the sargento had left for him. Lists, maps, addresses. Interesting things.

  Peralta remained standing. ‘The temporary promotion came through yesterday. I was as surprised as you about it. May I say I very much look forward to working with you, Comandante Guzmán.’

  ‘No you may not.’ Guzmán gestured wearily towards a chair. ‘Sit.’ It was not a request.

  Peralta indicated the green folder on the desk which Guzmán had been studiously ignoring. ‘Perhaps the comandante would care to have a look at my file, if he has any questions about my experience…’ His voice dried up under Guzmán’s withering gaze.

  ‘Look, son,’ Guzmán said, ‘if I want to read your file I’ll read it, if I want to ask you something I’ll ask it and if I want your fucking advice on something, then I’ll ask you. Until then, speak when you are spoken to. Entiende?’

  The younger man blushed, making Guzmán twitch with anger.

  ‘I really must protest—’ Peralta began.

  Guzmán pointed a meaty finger at him. ‘Understood? Si o no?’

  ‘Understood, sir.’

  ‘Ahora bien, let me outline the work of this department, Acting Teniente. Or better still, let’s start with you telling me what you know about us.’

  Peralta beamed. ‘The work of the Special Brigade is vital to the preservation of the State, sir. Counter-insurgency and the prevention of sedition and rebellion. In short, maintaining the fight against the forces of godlessness, Freemasonry and liberalism.’ He paused. ‘And of course Communism.’

  Chri
st, he could write speeches for Franco. ‘You left out the bit about harassing Protestants but never mind, there isn’t much of that. Didn’t your uncle mention any of the specific tasks of this unit? What I do? Or, rather, what we do, since you’re now part of it.’

  Peralta shook his head. ‘My uncle doesn’t have much to do with me, I have to confess, Comandante. I think he decided to do me a favour by having me transferred here because of our new baby. We can certainly use the money. But in terms of discussing things with me… never.’ His voice trailed away.

  ‘You aren’t the favourite nephew, then?’ Guzmán asked, brightening considerably.

  Peralta shook his head. ‘Not at all, sir, he thinks I lack ambition and talent. He only informed me of the transfer last night by telephone. In about ten seconds flat.’

  ‘Muy bien.’ Guzmán pawed the papers on his desk. ‘I’m about to brief the section leaders for the raid this morning. You’ll come too. Before we do, let me tell you a little more about our work in the Brigada Especial.’

  Peralta nodded eagerly. ‘Should I take notes, sir?’ He began to rummage for a pad in his coat pocket. Guzmán felt a murderous wave of rage but let it pass.

  ‘No,’ he snapped. ‘The first thing you need to know is that this isn’t an ordinary police station. It looks like it, but we’re not part of the armed police. The Brigada Especial was set up at the end of the war to pursue the enemy beyond the battlefield. We were part of the Segunda Bis – Military Intelligence – that’s where I started. Then we were made part of the General Directorate of Security but none of these were flexible enough for what we do. So now, we don’t exist, which of course is why people call us the secret police. Other branches deal with the foreign threat. Our concern is the domestic front. The ex-leaders of the Republican movement, their generals, colonels, hell, every rank and everybody who fought or supported them during the Crusade. And, come to that, anyone on our own side who may threaten national security or pose a threat to the Caudillo.’

  Peralta listened intently.