The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory)

by Mark Oldfield

  ‘Mierda, Paco, you’ve still got the same habit as when you were fifteen. You could buy cigarettes you know, instead of cadging them from other people.’

  ‘So my boss tells me.’ Peralta smiled.

  Jaime reached into his desk drawer and brought out a crumpled pack of Chesterfields. He offered the packet to Peralta who took two with a grin, putting one into his top pocket for later.

  ‘I suppose you want a light as well?’ Jaime retrieved a box of wax matches from his drawer and pushed them across the desk to Peralta. ‘I presume you can light it yourself?’

  Peralta hunched forward as he lit the cigarette. Jaime slid a glass ashtray towards him. ‘Be careful. You’re in a building full of paper.’

  ‘I’ll be careful. Now, you were saying about Positano?’

  ‘He’s been employed as a government trade adviser since he left the army in 1946.’

  ‘So nothing terribly interesting? He had a good war and then got a good job afterwards? Sounds like Spain.’

  ‘I found his place of birth. Born Positano, Italy, 1915.’ Jaime read from the paper in front of him. ‘It’s near Naples. He arrived in the US in 1934.’ His plump finger moved down the typewritten page. ‘He was arrested the following year on suspicion of murder in Chicago.’

  ‘Murder? Are you sure?’

  ‘Shall I read you what the paper said? I had to take this down over the phone, it will have cost the State a fortune.’

  ‘Money well spent if it helps us.’ Peralta blew a cloud of thick tobacco smoke across the desk. Jaime frowned at him, the faint light twinkling on his balding round head, his eyes small and glinting behind the thick spectacles. ‘Sorry.’ Peralta waved smoke away with his hand.

  ‘“Italian-born youth charged with homicide”,’ Jaime read. ‘“Alfredo Positano, aged twenty, born Naples, Italy and resident in the United States was today arrested and charged with four counts of murder following the shooting earlier this year on February 14 known as the St Valentine’s Day Massacre. Police sources claim Positano was a member of the Capone organisation.”’

  ‘A gangster?’ Peralta said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘The case disappeared. One of our men tried his damnedest to find out. It wasn’t even on file at the Chicago police station where he was arrested.’

  ‘That proves nothing,’ Peralta said. ‘Many of our records were lost in the Crusade against the Reds. It happens.’

  Jaime nodded. ‘But our man also looked at a couple of other serious cases reported in that same day’s newspaper. Both were mentioned in the next week’s edition and both cases were still on file with the Chicago police. The official records of Positano’s case vanished.’

  ‘You should be in the police yourself.’ Peralta grinned. ‘That’s excellent work.’

  ‘I know,’ Jaime said. ‘Unfortunately that’s all I could get.’

  ‘Can I take that folder?’

  ‘Don’t lose it. It’s the only one there is. We hate to have to repeat inquiries; our people might get noticed if they become too visible.’

  ‘I’ll be very careful,’ Peralta promised.

  Jaime began putting the papers back into their cardboard folder.

  ‘Listen, you must come and see us, Jaime. You still haven’t seen the baby,’ Peralta said.

  Jaime looked up, his eyes sad behind the thick prisms of his glasses. ‘Probably not a good idea, eh? After last time. Your wedding.’

  It was Peralta’s turn to look sad. ‘She didn’t mean it, Jaime.’

  ‘Yes she did. And you backed her up.’

  ‘I’m her husband. Naturally I had to.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Peralta looked at him angrily. ‘Actually, if you’re going to bring up the subject, it’s hardly normal behaviour, is it? Christ almighty, the Bible says it’s an abomination, Jaime. I ignored it when we were younger, no matter what others said about you. But you know as well as I do you have to keep those things quiet.’

  ‘Don’t you mean hidden?’

  ‘Hidden. Yes. Bloody well hidden. Jesus, you could lose your job here, man. A good job with a pension. Just because you’re a…’

  ‘Maricón? Because I want to love someone like everybody else does?’

  ‘Because you don’t want to love someone like everyone else does. You want something that’s against the laws of man and God. You can’t get away with it for ever. Hombre, this is a Catholic country. Laws, Jaime. Laws and rules. And you’re breaking them.’

  ‘Spoken like a policeman.’

  ‘I am a policeman,’ Peralta said, gathering up the folder from the desk. ‘I swore an oath to protect public morality.’

  ‘So if one day I’m with a friend, in the Retiro after dark or down by the banks of the Manzanares, away from prying eyes, not hurting anyone and you and your Comandante Guzmán come along, I suppose you’d arrest me?’

  ‘I might,’ Peralta said, ‘though I doubt Comandante Guzmán would.’

  ‘What? He’s more tolerant than you, is he?’

  ‘No. He’d kill you. He’d take out his pistol and shoot both of you. And you know what? No one would turn a hair.’

  ‘Some company you keep,’ Jaime spluttered. ‘I hope you’re proud of yourself, going round keeping us maricónes off the street. You’re no better than those bastards who shot Lorca.’

  Peralta raised a finger to his mouth, ‘Hush, Jaime. For Christ’s sake, Lorca wasn’t just a marica, he was a Red.’

  ‘He was a genius and men like you and Guzmán shot him.’ Jaime’s eyes were blazing. ‘Have you got your gun? Are you carrying it now?’

  Peralta frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Your gun. Show it to me. Let me see it. Let’s see what makes you so tough, Paco.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Jaime.’ Peralta took a step towards the door but Jaime followed him.

  ‘Show me. Show me or I’ll shout so the whole building will hear that I’m queer and I’ll tell them you are too.’ His voice was far too loud now. Peralta could hear someone complaining through the thin wall from the next office.

  Peralta sighed and pulled aside his coat and jacket. The revolver hung in the leather holster under his left arm.

  ‘Let me see it.’ Jaime stared, fascinated, at the gun.

  Peralta drew the pistol from its holster. The metal glistened, dark and oily. He held the weapon in the flat of his hand towards Jaime. ‘That’s all it is,’ he said flatly. ‘Small-calibre service revolver. We all carry one like it.’ Except Guzmán, he thought, he carries a small cannon around with him.

  ‘Give it to me,’ Jaime said.

  ‘Why? What good would that do you?’

  ‘So I can make you feel how I feel all the time. Vulnerable, afraid, always worrying about what might happen. That anyone could hurt you or harm you. Let me show you how that feels.’

  Jaime lunged forward, grabbing at the pistol. Peralta moved backwards and Jaime stumbled to the floor, still scrambling towards him, an absurd ball of a man, attacking on his knees. Peralta’s hand curled around his pistol. He took a step back and then smashed the butt of the gun across Jaime’s head. Jaime cried out and sank back, his face covered in blood from the wound in his scalp. He began to sob. Peralta put the gun back in its holster.

  The door opened and a man with the faded, undernourished look of a civil servant peered in hesitantly. ‘Qué pasa?’ he demanded, looking down at Jaime.

  Jaime said nothing and continued sobbing, dabbing ineffectually at the wound on his head with his handkerchief. Peralta reached inside his jacket and pulled out his identity card. ‘PolicÍa. Mind your own business.’

  The man stepped backwards but did not leave. Outside two more civil servants were peering in through the open door.

  Peralta held his identity card towards them. ‘You’re friends of this gentleman?’

  ‘We’re his colleagues,’ one said. ‘What has he done to deserve this? I must protest.’

  Peralta took a step towards the man. ‘And I wond
er whether you have the same taste in little boys as your colleague. Because if you have, I’ll arrest you as well.’

  Cowed by Peralta’s threat, the men moved back into the corridor. Peralta guessed that they knew, the way he had always known about Jaime. An implicit knowledge, ignored until events forced it into the open. He went into the corridor. The men shuffled in fear and humiliation, powerless in the face of the teniente’s authority. He walked past them, along the corridor. Behind him, he heard loud sobbing from Jaime’s office. The staircase leading down into the marbled entrance hall echoed with his footsteps. By the time he reached the lobby, the sound of weeping had stopped.

  Peralta took the stairs to the street two at a time, suddenly feeling alert and alive as he began to walk briskly back to the comisaría. Jaime went too far, he thought. Took advantage of the fact that I never said anything about his perversion. He walked slowly, justifying to himself what he had done. He asked for it. Jaime should never have tried to implicate him publicly in his sordid secret. And he’d never liked Señora Peralta anyway. She was right all along. Jaime deserved all he got. It hadn’t been easy, but Peralta had asserted himself, shown him some things would not be tolerated. And those pen-pushers in the corridor had backed off, because they saw the power he had. Guzmán said I would never get used to this work. Peralta knew he had done what was necessary. Had been right to do it. Good job, Teniente. He stopped for a moment. Not because the last phrase in his head didn’t sound right but because it wasn’t his own voice congratulating him. It was Guzmán’s.

  The air was icy cold, the sky heavy with dark cloud. Peralta stopped at a tobacconist’s and bought a pack of cigarettes. Flakes of snow fell and the city began to darken. There were worse things than darkness, he thought, inhaling the thick smoke. It was what was in the darkness that mattered. Snow fell heavily but he whistled as he walked back to the comisaría. He was still whistling when he entered the building and the sarge greeted him with the news about the bodies.

  MADRID 1953, COMISARÍA, CALLE DE ROBLES

  Guzmán looked up from his desk. ‘You took your time.’

  ‘I was at Inteligencia Exterior. Positano’s file.’ Peralta held up the cardboard folder.

  ‘I know you were, Teniente. I just had a phone call from the Ministry. Apparently you beat one of their civil servants half unconscious with your pistol. I find that hard to believe since you don’t normally pay such close attention to detail in your work.’

  ‘It’s true, jefe. There was some trouble.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Do I have to say?’ Peralta asked. ‘He’s a friend. Was a friend.’

  ‘I thought we’d established we can have no secrets here,’ Guzmán said evenly. ‘To be more precise, you can have no secrets here.’

  Peralta sighed. ‘He’s a maricón. He used to keep it quiet but was irritated because my wife wouldn’t have him to the wedding.’

  ‘I admire her intolerance,’ Guzmán said, ‘though I do question your choice of friends.’

  ‘We were at school together,’ Peralta said simply. ‘I hadn’t seen him in years.’

  ‘And you beat his brains out at your reunion?’ Guzmán asked, amused. ‘What was it, some sort of lovers’ tiff?’

  ‘I resent that.’ Peralta drew his gaunt frame up to his full height, a gesture which failed to impress Guzmán. ‘I had nothing to do with his sordid lifestyle – although, as I say, he kept it quiet. But he confronted me with it today. He insulted my wife and he insulted Spain. I felt justified in defending my honour.’

  Guzmán grinned. ‘Well, good for you, Teniente. I can see I’ve underrated you. You’d better have a seat, all this exercise may be bad for your constitution. Actually, we’ve had a bit of a shock here as well.’

  ‘The sarge said as much when I came in.’

  ‘What did he say? Out of interest.’

  ‘His exact words? “Christ, Teniente, we’ve got twenty stiffs on our hands and the boss is going fucking crazy.”’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’ Guzmán nodded. ‘All over Madrid, bodies have been turning up faster than in a Haitian cemetery on a Saturday night. Valverde’s running around like a blue-arsed fly and screaming for action. Must be getting it in the neck from above.’

  ‘What’s going on? How were they killed?’

  ‘That’s the beauty of it,’ Guzmán said, his face returning to its usual brooding severity. ‘We don’t bloody know. They’re just dead. Young and old, poor, middle class. It’s been a devil to keep quiet.’

  ‘How can they just be dead?’ Peralta asked.

  Guzmán shook his head. ‘God knows. But Herr Dr Liebermann is in the mess room having a look at a couple.’

  ‘You put the bodies in the mess?’ Peralta said. ‘We eat in there.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Guzmán said, standing up, ‘they only take up a couple of tables and they won’t eat much.’

  Liebermann looked up as Guzmán and Peralta entered the mess. He peered at them through his thin, wire-rimmed spectacles.

  ‘Ah, Comandante. Teniente Peralta, Guten Abend.’

  ‘Speak like a Christian,’ Guzmán snapped. The German gave him a stealthy look of hate before bending again over the corpse on the table. Peralta stepped nearer to get a better view. A youngish woman, hair the colour of straw. Peralta could see she was middle class from her jewellery. Liebermann was struggling to pull the woman into a sitting position and looked to Guzmán, expecting help. Guzmán didn’t move.

  ‘I don’t think she wants to go with you, Herr Doktor.’ Guzmán pronounced the German words with exaggerated distaste.

  Liebermann held the woman’s shoulders, trying to wrestle her into a sitting position.

  ‘Please, Herr Comandante,’ he said in his clipped Spanish, ‘I need to remove her blouse. It shouldn’t be difficult, rigor mortis hasn’t set in yet.’

  ‘Take her blouse off? We’re paying you for this,’ Guzmán said, ‘and you want to play with her tits? You should pay us, Herr Doktor.’

  Peralta could see Liebermann was incensed. The more he rose to the bait, the more Guzmán would enjoy it.

  ‘Let me help you.’ Peralta moved forwards to take hold of the woman’s shoulder but Liebermann waved his free hand.

  ‘I’ve got her weight now. Just undo the blouse.’

  ‘Venga, Teniente,’ Guzmán said, ‘you must’ve done that before surely?’

  Peralta undid the bone buttons of the woman’s blouse. They were large and difficult to pull from the buttonholes.

  ‘Rapido, Teniente,’ Guzmán heckled, ‘what’s up – first-night nerves?’

  Peralta finally unfastened the last button and yanked the woman’s blouse from the waistband of her skirt. He then pulled back the blouse over one shoulder while Liebermann held the other. The woman’s head fell back into the space between the two men. With some effort, Peralta inclined her towards Liebermann while he pulled the woman’s arm free from the sleeve and then Liebermann did the same at his side. They lay the woman back down on the table, now suddenly exposed, her black brassiere a stark final defence of her modesty.

  ‘Well, let’s have that off then,’ Guzmán said cheerfully.

  Liebermann looked at him coldly. ‘That will not be necessary, Herr Comandante. It is her armpit I wish to examine.’

  Guzmán turned to Peralta and winked. ‘That’s the Germans for you,’ he grinned, ‘go straight for the weird stuff.’

  Liebermann lifted the woman’s arm. He poked at the thick tuft of hair, pulling the skin taut, probing. ‘There,’ he said with an air of martyred vindication.

  Guzmán leaned forwards. ‘She’s got spots under her arms,’ he said uninterestedly.

  ‘They aren’t spots, though, are they, Dr Liebermann?’ Peralta asked.

  Liebermann smiled cadaverously. ‘You are correct, Teniente. They are needle marks. This lady has been injecting something. And, if I may conjecture, Herr Comandante?’

  Guzmán had been admiring
the pearl and silver necklace the woman was wearing and looked up distractedly. ‘Do what you like, doctor, as long as you pronounce it correctly.’

  Liebermann sighed again. ‘I suggest that, from the number of needle marks, this lady was addicted to whatever it was she injected. Morphine, I imagine. And,’ his voice became more pompous, ‘I would further suggest we will find the other bodies you have encountered will exhibit a similar cause of death. These injections, Comandante, they use parts of the body where they can’t be seen – the armpit, between the toes even.’

  Guzmán stepped back from the weak pool of light illuminating the half-naked corpse. ‘You know, doctor, if you’d brought the same level of expertise to your tactics at Stalingrad, they’d be speaking German in London and Paris by now and you’d still be sewing children’s heads onto gypsies in one of your camps.’ Guzmán strode to the door and left the room.

  Peralta nodded to the German. ‘Thank you, doctor, you’ve been a great help.’

  ‘And you, Herr Teniente, are a gentleman,’ Liebermann said, bringing his heels together with a sharp click as Peralta hurriedly followed his boss back to his cheerless office. Liebermann sighed and turned back to the dead woman. This was what he liked. Someone who couldn’t mock him, who could not resist his intimate explorations. It brought back memories of happier times, he thought, lifting his scalpel. The times in the camps. Though when they were alive it had been so much more interesting. He sighed again. Beggars can’t be choosers. Then he began to cut.

  BADAJOZ 1936

  The kid ran, following the corporal through the trees. Both still carried their rifles, although the effort was slowing them down. Five of them still alive. The kid felt sweat run down his face from his sodden scalp. His clothes were soaked, chafing at every move. The heat was unbearable but the thought of the Moors’ long knives kept him moving.

  Some way ahead, the others had stopped running. The corporal caught up with them and a rapid argument began as to whether to continue their hopeless flight or attempt to surrender. The corporal thought they should continue upwards. These men had known him for well over a year, yet now they looked at him as if they had never seen him before, and in their eyes he saw something he had seen in prisoners’ eyes when they were about to be executed. A void, an emptiness as the brain refused to allow the eyes to see any more horror, and reason bridled against the ghastly imminence of death. They were the eyes of the dead.