The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory)

by Mark Oldfield

  ‘Por qué?’ Tali perched on the arm of Galindez’s chair and smoothed her hair.

  ‘Because it sounds like something a thoughtful man might write in his diary when his conscience was troubling him,’ Galindez said. ‘Luisa will no doubt claim it supports her argument. And there was that memo in the Centinelas’ file, saying Guzmán was difficult and unreliable. Fuck, what if he actually was against the attempted coups?’

  ‘I can’t imagine Guzmán was on the side of the angels. Keep working on it.’ Tali said. ‘After all, what was it your teacher said? That you were revoltingly dogmatic?’

  ‘You cow,’ Galindez smiled, ‘she said refreshingly dogged.’

  ‘Made you laugh, Ana María.’

  ‘You always do.’

  ‘So don’t take things so seriously, mi vida, just stick with it. It’s what you do best.’

  ‘I’ll get started once I’ve had another coffee,’ Galindez said, pouring a refill. ‘Anything in the papers?’

  Tali pushed the newspaper across the table towards her. ‘They found an undercover poli dead yesterday.’

  ‘A cop? Nacional or Guardia?’

  ‘Nacional. Shot dead at the Campo del Moro.’

  Galindez skimmed the piece. ‘Undercover agent… dangerous operation, colleagues paid tribute to Enrique Bolin, 39, married, two daughters. God, it’s sad when this happens.’

  ‘Still glad you didn’t go into uniform?’

  ‘Absolutamente. It wasn’t for me.’ The photograph accompanying the article showed a familiar crime scene, the English-style formal gardens of the Campo in the background and in the foreground, a knot of forensic officers in white coveralls. Behind them, several men, clearly plain-clothes officers. At the centre of the tableau was the body, covered by a plastic sheet. In line with the law, the faces of all the policemen were obscured by small pixellated boxes. Below the piece was a small photograph of the dead man.

  ‘Ana, qué te pasa? You’ve gone white.’

  ‘This is the man who hid the Centinelas’ memos in the archive,’ Galindez said, clearly shaken. ‘The guy whose blood was on the plastic bag containing the files. I sent the bloodied tissue to Mendez for DNA analysis.’

  ‘But you said he was an old guy.’

  ‘Because he walked kind of doubled up. He must have been injured. Oh my God, I just watched while they grabbed him. When I heard someone say “Policía”, I thought it was the other guys who were police. Shit, this is terrible. I could have helped him. I should have helped him.’

  ‘It gets worse, querida.’ Tali pointed to the photo of the policemen with their pixillated faces. ‘They can’t hide the identity of this one, can they?’ Despite the attempt at anonymising the image, Galindez recognised the man immediately. Sancho.

  ‘Puta madre. Sancho’s a cop? That means that we can’t even rely on the police if we need help. The Centinelas have infiltrated them.’

  Tali came out of the bathroom. She was wearing her hair up. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It looks great like that,’ Galindez said.

  ‘I borrowed your black studs, hope you don’t mind?’

  ‘No, you wear them if you want. They look good on you.’

  Tali looked in the mirror. ‘Maybe not. I think something lighter would go better with my hair. Thanks anyway.’

  She took out the studs and went back into the bathroom. When she came out again, she saw Galindez’s expression. ‘What’s up, querida?’

  Galindez shrugged. ‘I’m worried about Sancho, I worry about not finding more evidence about Guzmán and—’

  ‘God you’re a terrible liar.’ Tali shook her head in disbelief. ‘What’s really upsetting you?’

  Tali was taken aback by Galindez’s sudden rush to embrace her, an unexpected need for affirmation and support that surprised them both.

  She buried her face in Galindez’s hair. Light kisses, warm breath. The gentle pressure of her body. Her soft voice, ‘Qué cariñita? Qué te pasa mi amor? Qué te pasa?’

  ‘Something happened with Luisa. Something weird.’ Galindez shook her head, trying to make the memory go away.

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She came on to me. It wasn’t so bad. But it was what I did that frightens me.’

  ‘Jesus, what, exactly?’ Tali asked. ‘You didn’t hit her, did you?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. I froze. I’d started with a headache a little while before and then this happened. My mind just clogged up and stopped. I sat there like I was watching a movie, completely distanced from it. She started making a pass at me. She was stroking my leg and for a minute or two I couldn’t stop her. Finally, I managed to get up and leave. But it was so hard to break away – as if I was hypnotised…’ she paused, ‘or I’d lost my mind.’

  ‘And were you OK after that?’

  ‘It passed off pretty quickly. But it felt as if I’d lost my mind – I couldn’t think at all.’

  ‘You went a bit funny in the comisaría as well – recuerdas? Have you had anything like this before?’

  ‘Never,’ Galindez lied. If she mentioned the possibility of her amnesia recurring, Tali would insist on her seeing a doctor. She didn’t have time for that. Didn’t have time for them. Not after what they did when Papá died.

  Tali hugged her. ‘Dios mio, Ana María. You’ve been under so much stress lately, maybe it’s that?’

  ‘It must be. But it’s scary. Normally I have this feeling I have to keep going, no matter what. I was like that with all my studies: I felt if I took a day off I’d never catch up again. Same at work. I never like feeling out of control.’

  ‘Did you think I hadn’t noticed, mi vida?’ Tali said. ‘Come on, there’s so much positive stuff to focus on. Apply some of your repulsive drudgery.’

  ‘You know what? This is the happiest I’ve ever been – despite all that’s been happening.’

  ‘Well, as long as I’m good for something, Dr Galindez.’ Tali moved closer.

  ‘Don’t,’ Galindez groaned, pulling back. ‘We’ve got to take those documents to Judge Delgado’s office.’

  Tali sighed. ‘OK. But you’ll have to make it up to me, Ana.’

  ‘Or we could wait until it gets dark before we deliver them,’ Galindez said. ‘It might be safer.’

  ‘See, you’re still the clever one.’

  Outside there was a faint rumble of thunder. A few minutes later the rain began.

  The evening sky was bruised by rain clouds. The windows of the elegant offices and shops of Calle de Serrano glimmered with halos of soft light distorted by the hazy curtain of rain. A few chic pedestrians hurried by, hunched under umbrellas, paying little attention to the two women standing in a doorway, waiting for the rain to ease.

  The night was filled with the sound of rain. Noisy cascades poured from roofs and balconies, awnings bulged and sagged, overflowing noisily into the street below. Walking up the rainwashed road, they paused, feigning interest in the glittering windows of Cartier while Galindez scanned the street for any sign of them being followed. Satisfied they were alone, they continued on their way in silence, subdued by the steady rhythm of the rain.

  Judge Delgado’s office was set amid a group of similar, expensive office buildings, its only notable feature the reinforced nightsafe by the door. That and the ten-centimetre-thick bulletproof glass of the windows. Galindez pulled the plastic bag containing the files from under her coat. She passed it to Tali and stood guard while Tali tried to slide the flap of the nightsafe open.

  ‘Stop.’

  A familiar voice somewhere in the shadows across the road. Galindez looked up, the water streaming down her face, stinging her eyes. She saw only the blurred lights of shops, all detail lost in the screen of rain.

  Illuminated by the twinkling lights of a stylish fashion emporium was Sancho, rain streaming from his shaved head. Behind him, another figure. Galindez recognised the pasty features of Agustín Benitez, the man from the archives. Agustín looked across the road at Galinde
z and said something to Sancho. They came forwards. Above the drumming of the rain, Galindez heard Tali’s breathing, rapid with fear.

  Adrenalin burned in her veins as Galindez stepped forward, placing herself between Sancho and Tali, her fists clenched. Sancho reacted angrily. He muttered something to Benitez and shook his head at the reply. He came nearer, splashing through the water streaming down the road. Two metres away from Galindez, he stopped.

  ‘Come any nearer, Sancho, and this time I’m really going to hurt you,’ Galindez said in a low voice. She wiped wet hair away from her face, revealing the dark violence in her eyes.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re dealing with,’ Sancho said quietly. ‘You’re way out of your depth and you don’t have a fucking clue.’ He took another pace forward. Galindez tensed. The next step he took would trigger her attack.

  ‘That’s close enough. Keep away from her.’

  Diego Aguilar was standing ten metres up the road, his pistol in a two-handed grip, aimed at Sancho. ‘I’ll shoot if I have to. Back away.’

  Sancho looked at Diego venomously. ‘Hijo de la gran puta. Look who it is. Mess me about and I’ll fuck you up, puto.’

  Diego shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. That’s not an opinion: my friends agree with me.’

  Three men in black combat gear holding automatic rifles emerged from the shadows behind Diego. Sancho cursed angrily. Benitez shrugged and Galindez heard him telling Sancho to be cool.

  ‘Drop the file in the night safe,’ Galindez whispered to Tali.

  Sancho heard her. ‘No. Do not let her put that file in there, Galindez. Don’t—’

  He took half a step forward and Galindez moved towards him, both fists raised.

  Tali let the flap close and the package slid into the steel-plated safety of the safe.

  Sancho shouted in exasperation and punched the palm of his hand. There was a muttered argument with Agustín for a moment and then the two of them splashed away down through the grey rain. Streaming water infused with surreal neon reflections lacquered the black surface of the road as Sancho and Agustín turned the corner. Then they were gone.

  ‘We did it.’ Tali’s voice trembled.

  ‘Go that way,’ Diego called, pointing in the opposite direction to Sancho and Agustín Benitez, ‘I’ll make sure those two don’t follow you.’

  ‘Thanks, Diego. I owe you one.’ Galindez walked past him, one arm around Tali’s shoulders. Diego looked at them impassively. ‘We look after our own, Dr Galindez.’

  Galindez and Tali kept walking. The rain was easing now and they could hear the distant pulse of traffic again. The silence after the prolonged rain was strangely unsettling.

  ‘What’s Diego’s problem?’ Tali asked, once they were out of earshot.

  Galindez shrugged. ‘I’ve got a feeling it’s me.’

  18

  MADRID 1953.

  Alicia Martinez opened her eyes. It was dark. A sharp, piercing pain lanced through her head and she felt an urge to vomit. Her senses came back slowly, and as they did so, fear began to surge through her, her terror made all the worse as she began to remember the violence of her abduction. She was lying in pitch darkness on damp cobblestones. She remembered the men and the car, the sickly smell of the chloroform. It was hard to think. She moaned, feeling handcuffs tight against her wrists. It was difficult to sit up with her hands pinioned behind her. She struggled to her knees, uncertain where she was. Then footsteps, the sound of a key turning in a lock.

  The door opened, flooding the cell with a sickly light. Weak though it was, the light was too much for her eyes, making the pain in her head throb with malicious intensity. She had never known her heart beat so hard, not even during the shelling of Madrid at its worst. She opened her eyes. They waited in the doorway, black outlines in the pallid light from the corridor. Señora Martinez wanted to demand an explanation but her tongue felt too thick and dry to speak. She tried to stand, staggering drunkenly as one of them seized her by the arm. Her hands were numb with cold and pain. She realised her shoes were missing, the awareness provoking a sudden sense of loss as she felt the damp cold stones beneath her feet. The man turned the key in the handcuffs, the blood flowing painfully into her hands as he removed the cuffs.

  ‘Don’t say anything yet, señora,’ the one at the door said. ‘Just listen. I’m going to ask you some questions. I want you to answer them. If you don’t tell us the truth, things will go very badly for you. Entiende?’

  She was shaking. Strangely, despite the cold, she was sweating heavily. She couldn’t see his face, just his angular outline in the ghost-light from outside the room. The other man was an ominous presence behind her, forbidding her to turn round, ordering her to address the man in the door.

  ‘We want to know who gave you a letter to deliver to Guzmán,’ the man said.

  Señora Martinez was happy to tell them and told them repeatedly, first calmly and then later, in a voice verging on hysteria, about the man in the black coat and hat. About the letter. The money he had paid her. How she met the comandante when he arrested her neighbours. She told them in detail, though she omitted his attempt to force her to go to bed with him.

  ‘There’s something you aren’t telling us,’ the man at the door said. ‘You must cooperate, señora. Otherwise things will get worse.’

  Alicia Martinez hung her head, struggling not to cry. She had told them everything they needed to know. Why couldn’t they believe her? She tried to speak again but couldn’t.

  ‘Right.’ The exasperated voice of the one standing close behind her. Too close. She could smell him: sweat and tobacco. ‘Before we begin, puta, you’re not dressed properly for this.’

  Her shaking became more violent. The man called her tú, as if addressing a child.

  ‘Come on, pendeja,’ the man spat. ‘Get undressed. Rápida, puta. Don’t keep us waiting. Get your kit off and throw it over there by the door.’

  Alicia Martinez felt her world sliding into nightmare. Sweat dribbled down her face, her clothes were soaked with her fear. Disbelief turned to a debilitating terror as the man slapped her in the face. Shocked, she tried to protest but all that came was a low moan of fear and pain. He slapped her again. Another couple of slaps and she began to beg. He pulled her around the cell by her hair, pushing her into the wall, shoving her towards the door and then dragging her back by her hair into the darkness. She began to scream.

  The man released her and she slumped against the wall. She heard his ragged breathing. The one at the door said nothing, waiting impassively as the man began to hit her, striking her first in the stomach, then a punch to her breast. A blow to her ribs. Backhanded slaps to her face. Tears and snot poured from her nose and she gasped for breath, feeling the strange dryness of her tongue as she did so. The man continued shouting, cursing her, striking her with hard, sudden blows. Her world was collapsing. Her world. A world of routine and work but at least one in which she made choices and decisions. Here, she was trapped in an uncertain world of pain and humiliation. There was nowhere else but this damp patch of stone on which she stood. Nowhere to hide from the blows raining down on her, the insults ever more obscene and threatening. He was the one who told her what happened in this world. What she must do. And now, he was shouting, she had to remove her clothes. Shouting it again and again, each time reinforcing the order with a slap or a punch. She cowered against the wall. The man lifted his hand to strike her again. She could take no more. She began to undress.

  She was dizzy, her head ached and nothing made sense any longer. They had left her sprawled on the damp stone floor while they went for a smoke. She had names for them now: Slapping Man and Watching Man. And they had only just begun. Slapping Man had said so. ‘Don’t go away, pendeja, we’re coming back and when we do, we’ll really get started.’

  Señora Martinez crouched in the far corner of the cell. She was dressed only in her slip. Her other clothes were strewn around the floor: Slapping Man had even made her take off her sto
ckings, laughing as she struggled to do so, giving her a running commentary of what he was going to do to her once she had confessed.

  She could see no way out. Beatings, rape, even death. No one knew she was here. Nor would they. In this country, people could just disappear off the face of the earth. She had no idea who these men were. She knew nothing except their interest in the comandante. Why did she ever take that letter? What a fool she’d been. If only she could warn him. Let him know about these people. Her mind boiled, overloaded with thoughts, balancing on the edge of incoherent hysteria. Too many thoughts. To think, earlier she had been daydreaming like a schoolgirl about the comandante’s offer to take her out. She would have accepted. God, if only he knew where she was, he would help her. Tears ran lazily down her cheeks. They were going to come back, take away the rest of her clothes and then hurt her again. And no one would know. Not the comandante, not Roberto, nadie.

  She felt the stone wall against her back. Maybe she could leave a trace behind. Some evidence that she once existed. But she had nothing to make a mark on the stone with. She rubbed her hands together for warmth, felt her wedding ring. The one she had reclaimed from the pawn shop with the comandante’s money. She slid the ring off and turned to the wall. It was too dark to see so she had to work carefully. Just her name. Her name and the date. The memory of a person inscribed in stone. When she had finished, she traced the letters with her fingertips. It was a small sense of achievement and it lasted until she heard them coming back.

  “Señora, is there anything else you want to tell us about the man who asked you to give the letter to the comandante? Perhaps you forgot something before?’ Watching Man asked.

  ‘Please, please stop.’ She was almost hysterical, sitting in the corner, her knees drawn up to her chest, eyes swollen and red, her nose running and her limbs shaking uncontrollably. ‘Please. I have to get home for Roberto.’ She gasped for breath. ‘I told you, the man came and asked me to give a letter to Comandante Guzmán. He gave me money.’ Her hands clasped in supplication. ‘I took the money. I’m poor. I did nothing wrong. You can have the money. All of it. It’s at home. I’ll get it for you. I promise.’ Her voice broke under the weight of her fear. What more could she do? She’d told them the same details each time. The same details she had told them willingly even before Slapping Man began to work on her.