The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory)

by Mark Oldfield

  Tali watched Galindez kneel to examine the marks. ‘Qué te pasa, Ana María?’

  ‘Do something for me, Tali? Kneel down just here, by this little ditch?’

  Tali shrugged, and knelt. Galindez turned her to face the stone wall. ‘Bend your head, will you?’ She unfastened her bag and took out a ball of string. ‘Lean forward, that’s it, lower your head a bit more.’

  Tali laughed. ‘Vaya. Are you going to tie me up?’

  Galindez handed her one end of the string. ‘Keep hold of that,’ she told her, stepping across the ditch to the wall. ‘OK. Hold the string to your forehead.’ With Tali keeping the string taut, Galindez aligned the other end with one of the marks on the wall, calling instructions to Tali to move a few centimetres to one side or the other. Once Tali was positioned satisfactorily, Galindez began to sketch diagrams and scrawl measurements in her notebook. Next came the photography: each of the marks on the wall had to be carefully recorded and its position noted – Galindez didn’t want to drive out here again.

  Tali drank from a plastic bottle of water as she watched Galindez work. ‘Sure I can’t help you, Ana?’

  ‘Yes, you can.’ Galindez smiled, pushing her sunglasses up into her hair. ‘You can start digging. The spade’s in the boot.’

  The sun was sinking behind a dark skyline of hills by the time they had dug up the ground immediately in front of the stone wall, hacking away the dry grass and digging down several centimetres into the soil. When Galindez started to scrabble in the dry earth, probing with her fingers, Tali bridled for a few moments before reluctantly joining in. It was only when she made the first discovery she started to show enthusiasm for the task.

  The dig continued as darkness fell. By bringing Tali’s car nearer and shining the headlights against the wall, the excavated area was illuminated with brilliant light, enabling Galindez to examine the flat, rusty objects they retrieved from the soil.

  Tali looked at her. ‘Are you going to explain it to me now?’

  ‘I’d rather wait a day or two until I’ve examined everything back at the lab – then I’ll tell you. I want to be sure I’m on the right track.’

  ‘As long as it’s worth waiting for, I don’t mind. Tell you what, I’m starving.’

  ‘Let’s go back and get cleaned up and then have a late supper. Somewhere on Calle Velázquez, maybe?’

  ‘That’s upmarket.’ Tali laughed. ‘Are we celebrating?’

  ‘I won’t be sure for a couple of days,’ Galindez said, ‘but yes, I think we are.’

  MADRID 2009, CALLE DE VELÁZQUEZ

  Walking up from the Retiro Metro to the restaurant, the elegance and sophistication of Calle de Velázquez was marred by the exhaust fumes of heavy late-night traffic. Tali paused to admire the luxurious Hotel Wellington. Through the front doors they could see the reception desk, where a tall man was arguing furiously with the desk clerk.

  ‘This is how the other half live,’ Galindez said.

  ‘Por Dios, you trod on my foot. Look where you’re going, señorita.’ A man’s voice, rising in angry protest.

  Tali stumbled, clutching Galindez for support. ‘Ay, perdón. I didn’t see you.’

  For a moment it was hard to tell who she was talking to. Then Galindez noticed the little man walking towards the door of the hotel, brushing his coat angrily, accompanied by two young women in leather miniskirts and high heels.

  ‘What happened?’ Galindez asked, bewildered.

  ‘I walked into a dwarf,’ Tali said. ‘I never even saw him coming – grumpy little sod.’

  MADRID 2009, CASA DE SUBASTAS ANSORENA, CALLE ALCALÁ

  ‘Señor Morales? Your ten o’clock appointment just arrived. Dr Galindez from the guardia civil.’

  The secretary showed Galindez into Señor Morales’ office. The room was furnished in impeccable period furniture that Galindez thought very fitting for such a leading auction house. Señor Morales made small talk and offered her coffee before Galindez got down to business.

  ‘Señor Morales, I found this key in an old building during an investigation. I wonder if you could tell me anything about it.’ She passed him the plastic evidence bag containing the key she found taped under Guzmán’s desk at the comisaría.

  Señor Morales put on a pair of thick spectacles and slowly examined the key. ‘This is in very good condition. Did you clean it up?’

  ‘My colleague Sargento Mendez did that. Is it damaged?’

  Señor Morales laughed. ‘Not at all, the only reason I ask is because it looks like a professional clean and polish. An excellent job, although I’m afraid the key isn’t worth very much.’

  ‘No me importa, I don’t want to sell it. But can tell me something about it – maybe even date it?’

  Morales walked to a walnut bookshelf and perused the shelves for a moment before pulling out an old catalogue. He showed Galindez the faded cover. Aguado: Cajas Fuertes 1956.

  ‘Safes?’

  ‘Safes and strongboxes,’ Morales said with a defensive pedantry. ‘They were a leading maker of household security boxes from the thirties until the early sixties when they were bought out by a competitor.’

  ‘And is it possible to date this particular key, Señor Morales?’ Galindez said. ‘Or at least tell me what kind of strongbox it opened?’

  Morales smiled. ‘We deal with a lot of Aguado’s products, Dr Galindez. I’d say what we have here is the key to the Cervantes. One of their smaller strongboxes. Here, I’ll show you.’ He leafed through the catalogue. Finding the page he was looking for, he passed the catalogue over to her. She saw the black and white photo of the Cervantes strongbox.

  ‘It looks rather small. You couldn’t keep much in it, could you?’ Galindez tried not to sound disappointed.

  ‘The Cervantes was for home use. They were manufactured between 1948 and 1961. Specifically designed to protect account ledgers, family Bibles and so forth. The inside was velvet lined to protect large tomes like those.’

  ‘It was designed for books?’ Galindez asked, her interest restored.

  ‘Exactamente.’

  After a brief discussion of the merits of the Aguado range of products and their value to collectors, Galindez excused herself and hurried out into the noise and bustle of Calle Alcalá. As she forced her way through the crowds of shoppers, her myriad thoughts began to condense around an intriguing conclusion. The key was for a specialist strongbox. And there was a book so special the key was hidden, taped under a desk. Sancho was right. Guzmán had been keeping a book.

  MADRID 2009, HEADQUARTERS OF THE GUARDIA CIVIL, LABORATORIO FORENSE NO. 8B

  The lab was quiet, the lights dimmed. The rumble of traffic that formed a constant background on other floors faded away in this room. Here, there was only silence. And the dead. All of them. Galindez pulled on her white coat as she approached the long bench in the centre of the laboratory. Mendez had done a good job in arranging the skeletons, though many of the smaller bones were just heaped to one side. It didn’t really matter, Galindez thought, no one was going to reassemble them. Not even her. It was the skulls she wanted.

  The cause of death was obvious. The small, precise bullet hole in the back of the skull and the gaping exit hole at the front indicated a single shot from behind. Galindez knew her initial suspicion had been correct: the prisoners were made to kneel by the ditch – just as she’d had Tali kneel there – before they were shot, the bullets impacting on the stone wall in front of them. She moved along the bench, briefly examining each skull in her gloved hands. All had similar bullet damage.

  All but one. Had there not been such a long wait for a laboratory to be free, she might have been alerted to this earlier. Mendez was in charge of lab allocation and she’d refused to bump Galindez’s seventy-year-old remains to the front of the queue ahead of ongoing cases. And rightly, Galindez thought. In any case, it wasn’t Mendez who was at fault, Galindez knew, it was her. Annoyingly, she hadn’t noticed on that blistering day in Las Peñas. Sloppy, Ana Ma
ría. Lack of attention to detail. How could I have missed this? She knew the answer. That day she was paying less attention to the job and much more to Profesora Ordoñez. Luisa’s presence at the mine had distracted her from noticing this obvious detail, the one thing among these bodies indicating difference rather than similarity. Mierda. When things are the same, identify the differences. Where had her refreshing doggedness been when she needed it that day?

  Annoying. But not the end of the world, she thought. If she didn’t have an interest in the case no one else would have even looked at these skeletons. At least she’d found it now, her latex-gloved fingers running over the skull of the man whose death had been the exception amongst this group. Fourteen dead from single gunshots: a brutal improvised execution – Luisa’s suggestion they had been killed by firing squad was untenable now. These men had died, waiting on their knees for their killer to work his way down the line, taking careful aim – and it was careful, she realised; there had been only one shot in each case – while the next victim had to listen to the approaching sound of the executioner, his breathing, the crunch of his shoes, the harsh crack of the shot, the metallic impact of the ejected cartridge on the ground. The victim’s realisation that the executioner was now standing behind him. Galindez realised her hands were sweating inside her gloves.

  And this fifteenth victim. What did he do to deserve this? Galindez looked again at the rusty wire embedded in the cervical vertebrae. Deeply embedded, by someone using tremendous force. She imagined the horror of it: the threshing of the victim as the wire bit deep, the roaring sound of imminent death as pressure increased on the carotid arteries. Unconsciousness within perhaps ten to fifteen seconds. But that wasn’t enough for whoever did this: the wire would have cut deeply into the victim’s throat; in fact, the man was nearly decapitated. Whoever did this was very strong. He knew what he was doing, she thought. He had done it before.

  Galindez finished the examination. She tugged off the gloves and washed her hands. She stooped to catch water in her cupped hands, swilling it around her mouth to wash away the taste of dust. The taste of death. She switched off the lights, the fluorescent tubes fading in sequence until the skeletons were illuminated only by the tentative light coming through the open door to the corridor. Pausing for a moment to look back at the dead men, she let the door close. She walked along the corridor to the lift and went down to the ground floor, passing through the security screens and out into the gentle late-evening air. She thought again about the type of man who could kill like that. It was not a pleasant thought so she forced herself to think about other things. About life, not death. Trying not to think again of the elemental violence deployed in an execution like this. For seventy years, no one, apart from the killer – and maybe not even him – had given the men in that mine a thought. Now, Galindez could do little else but think about them.

  The car park was a quiet pool of shadow broken by the solitary echoes of her footsteps. But not solitary, she realised. She was not alone. She felt his presence before she heard him. Sensed him sheltering in the velvet darkness. Imagined the cruel wire embedded in a man’s spine for nearly a century. It was a warm night: she was shivering.

  Turning, she caught the secretive movement of a black shape some twenty metres away. A match flared into life as the man lit a cigarette, his face vaguely illuminated for an instant by the flame. A man in a fedora hat. And then darkness again, with just a pinpoint of red light glowing in the shadows as she dashed to her car, scrambling inside and locking the doors, hands hurried and anxious as she started the engine. The tyres squealed as the car accelerated away from the shadows. Galindez wiped beads of sweat from her face. She knew now who was watching her. The fact that it was impossible just made it so much worse. And when she got home, secure behind her triple-locked doors, with Mendez’s automatic pistol to hand, she knew there would be someone outside, watching. There always was these days.

  22

  MADRID 1953, BAR LA ALEGRIA, CALLE MESÓN DE PAREDES

  The threatening sky threw the narrow street into sombre shadow. Shuffling passers-by gazed through fly-blown windows at cheap goods they couldn’t afford. Guzmán picked his way through the lunchtime window shoppers. Few people made eye contact with him: anyone who looked like trouble was best avoided. Their main aim was to stay safe, Guzmán knew. Safe in their precarious lives, scoured by tides of fear and uncertainty. Fear of the sudden slamming of car doors and voices in the night, boots on cobbles. Hammering on doors. Muffled protests. Hoping it was someone else’s door.

  Hay calamari. The sign in the bar window caught his eye. Guzmán looked at the handwritten placard, shaking off the cloying numbness of his deep concentration. There were squid. The sign said so. And if there were squid he was having some. All of them, if he felt like it. A feeling of power surged through him: he was hungry, he was cold and he was alive. He pushed the door open and went in.

  The crowded bar reeked of sweat, damp sawdust and tobacco mingled with the smell of frying fish and garlic. The air was wreathed in black tobacco smoke, voices loud and agitated in conversation about football or the bullfights. Guzmán pushed through the crowd and leaned on the counter, listening to the babble around him like someone listening to rain. He felt comfortably anonymous amongst these people. The usual groups of friends or workmates, a few couples who might or might not be married and who might or might not be married to the person they were sitting with right now. He let the conversation melt into the background. He ordered squid and a beer. The squid came, golden in fried batter, glistening with salt, pungent with garlic. He ordered another plate at once.

  Guzmán munched the squid, crunching the batter and savouring the tender meat. The presence earlier of the big bruiser from the capitanía troubled him. If the man had been sent to kill him, he would not have been standing across the road so blatantly. He would have made an effort to avoid being detected until the time came. So what was he doing? Was it a warning from Carrero Blanco, a reminder of the price of failure? Surely not: such warnings normally followed a failure and were usually fatal. Guzmán had not failed yet.

  Still, Guzmán thought, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that Shave-Head had been sent to get rid of him. He knew well what such work entailed. He remembered standing in Valverde’s opulent office listening to the self-important sermons the general frequently delivered to his staff. And then, in the middle of the pomp, almost without breaking the rhythm of his usual hyperbole, Valverde told Guzmán to kill the man who was his commanding officer.

  Guzmán had been surprised. It seemed somehow ungentlemanly to be ordered to kill his own commander. But obedience is a soldier’s virtue, and that night, as the man got out of his car, Guzmán put his pistol behind the man’s ear and fired. He left the body and the car, taking only the cash in the man’s wallet. It was small recompense for the long walk home.

  The next day Guzmán was promoted. He used the stolen money to buy a suit for the funeral. A few months later, he was summoned to the Caudillo’s headquarters, where Franco gave him a new job, commanding the Special Brigade in a phony police station, his men dedicated solely to removing those who opposed the regime. Franco smiled as he outlined the work. No legal restrictions, no judicial accountability. No due process. It was something Franco had done before, following the uprising in Asturias in 1934. It worked very well then, Franco said, and it would work well now. Guzmán would maintain the memory of the war. Nothing which had been done against Spain – meaning against Franco – would be forgotten, as Guzmán exacted vengeance upon all those who had threatened the eternal glory of La Patria. A Spain united, great and free, as the Falangists loved to chant, although naturally, freedom was a relative concept and was always subject to revision. Guzmán had been trained for such work and he took to it at once. The Caudillo trusted him and Guzmán would not betray that trust. Could not betray it.

  The squid was truly excellent, its salty batter delicious, perhaps the best he’d ever had, Guzmán thought, whil
e recalling his appointment as Franco’s roving executioner. So much casual death. So much blood. So many dark times, although not for him. Who was it said the darkest hour was before dawn? Certainly whoever said it had not been in Guzmán’s line of work. The hour before dawn was when you checked the rifles of the firing squad – if there was to be such a formality. It was when you watched the prisoners being brought from their confinement, their pasty faces, their innumerable cigarettes shedding tobacco as the prisoners tried to light them with trembling hands.

  So many prisoners. Endless lines of gaunt faces, men and women in corpse-grey queues, waiting. Waiting to be interrogated, waiting to be judged, waiting to be lined up and then waiting to die. The mixture of emotions: some defiant, some weeping, some half mad. Sometimes the women would be raped: every execution had its own set of contingencies. The prisoners, shuffling forwards, sometimes bound, other times bound only by their own fear and the utter certainty of what was to come. No matter how many emotions Guzmán detected in their eyes as they marched past him, the one emotion he never saw was hope. There were no concessions for their feelings, no attempt to make the executions humane. These people were shot for a reason and they deserved to die.

  Some deaths stood out from the rest, deaths that had some significance or which were necessary in order to make some point or other. Guzmán remembered the film star, a well-known Communist, quite a looker before the war. Her allegiance to the Republic brought her the fame she desired, although in the end she got more attention than she ever dreamed of. Her war involved making propaganda films and paying occasional visits to the front to rally the Reds in their trenches. Until the night Guzmán and his squad flagged down the car in which the actress was making another visit to the front as a boost for morale.