The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory)

by Mark Oldfield

  ‘Tali,’ she called, ‘I just realised. We left all the lights on last time. Someone turned them off.’

  There was no reply. She hesitated, listening to the silence. Something felt different. A subtle change in the atmosphere. Something wrong. ‘Tali?’ Galindez turned towards the armoury. There was no light coming from the half-open door. No noise. Something rustled in the darkness.

  ‘Natalia? Qué pasa?’ Galindez felt the edge in her voice.

  A sudden chill. The door of the armoury slowly began to open. Something scraped against the inside of the door, something moving. Guzmán. The strange grey mist flickered abruptly through her mind and she felt dizzy. Por Dios, not now. Not with him here. Struggling to keep the grey fog at bay, Galindez waited as the door opened. Waited for him to emerge.

  The door opened a little more and she saw it, pointing at her from the darkness. The dull grey muzzle of a pistol. Galindez recognised the outline from weapons in the ballistics lab: a 9mm Browning semi-automatic. Guzmán’s gun.

  MADRID 2009, COMISARÍA CALLE ROBLES

  The cold darkness closed in on Galindez, obscuring the bleak surroundings of the mess room. Her eyes were fixed on the muzzle of the Browning pointing at her from the shadows. The oil-sheen of the metal glinted in the sallow light, the menace of the pistol abruptly closing down choices and alternatives, holding her motionless with its reptilian hypnotic power. He knew I’d come back.

  ‘Stay where you are, Ana.’ Tali kept the heavy pistol pointed at Galindez as she stepped from the doorway of the armoury. ‘Stay still and raise your hands.’

  ‘Tali, that’s not funny,’ Galindez said, simultaneously angry and relieved. At least it wasn’t him emerging from the darkened armoury.

  But this wasn’t Tali as Galindez knew her, with her golden hair softly framing her delicate features. In the short time in the armoury, Tali had undergone a transformation. Now, her hair was swept back in a tight ponytail, making her face seem gaunt and severe in the half light. A black combat jacket added to her threatening air.

  ‘Shut up, Ana. I mean it.’ Tali held the pistol in both hands, aiming it at Galindez. ‘If you try anything, I’ll shoot you, te juro.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What are you doing?’ Galindez said, confused.

  Tali’s face darkened with impatience. ‘Just do as you’re told. Now, pick up that bag.’ She gestured to the canvas bag containing the equipment.

  Galindez obeyed, shouldering the heavy bag, her mouth suddenly dry. ‘Tali?’

  Tali stood back, still pointing the Browning. ‘Joder, Ana María, walk ahead of me, that’s it, keep your distance. Right, go down the corridor to Guzmán’s office. Slowly. Manos arriba, mujer. Arriba, coño.’

  Galindez raised her hands awkwardly as she walked along the darkened corridor towards Guzmán’s office. As they reached the door, Tali shoved her in the back with the muzzle of the pistol. Galindez fell forward with a cry of pain and the bag fell to the floor as she stumbled. Tali leapt after her, bringing the butt of her pistol down onto Galindez’s head as she tried to stand. With that, Galindez went sprawling, clutching her head and groaning in shock and pain. She slowly struggled into a sitting position, tentatively examining her scalp. Her hand came away bloody. She moaned. Too dizzy to stand, she looked up at Tali through a veil of blood.

  ‘Stay there.’ Tali backed away from her. ‘Don’t move and don’t try that fists of fury thing with me either.’

  Galindez pressed the wound on her scalp, trying to stop the bleeding. ‘Why are you doing this?’ A thin line of blood trickled down her temple.

  Tali glared at her. ‘It’s a stick-up, querida. You’re being robbed.’

  ‘I haven’t got anything to steal.’ There was a plaintive note in Galindez’s voice. ‘Besides, you can have anything of mine. You know that.’

  ‘I want Guzmán’s book.’

  ‘But that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To see what’s in it?’

  ‘Joder, Ana María, I don’t give a fuck what’s in his book – unlike you with your pathetic obsession with Guzmán.’ She pointed the pistol at Galindez. ‘But I am taking it.’

  ‘Why would you want it?’

  ‘Five million euros’ worth of reasons,’ Tali snapped.

  Galindez stared at her. ‘You’re going to sell it?’

  ‘I’ve already got a buyer, Ana. I work to order. Steal to order, if you want to be precise – and God knows you usually do.’

  ‘Who’s the buyer?’

  ‘Coño, guess. They meet in secret, wear little gold rings. Begins with C.’

  Galindez looked at her blankly. ‘Los Centinelas? You’re stealing the book for them?’

  ‘Venga, guapa, don’t look so surprised. Who else would want some dusty old book that’s seventy years old? Besides you, of course.’

  ‘Are you,’ Galindez’s mouth was dry, ‘are you one of them?’

  ‘Me? Qué va. They’re not exactly an equal opportunities organisation. In fact, I don’t really know who they are, apart from the guy who arranged things with me. All I know is they expect a good job. And things have to be done their way.’

  ‘You’re a thief,’ Galindez blurted. She felt nauseous.

  Tali scoffed. ‘I’m an investigator. I investigate rare things for clients.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Then I steal them and they pay me a lot of money,’ Tali said. ‘It works for me.’

  ‘If you steal Guzmán’s book,’ Galindez said, ‘I’ll go straight to the guardia.’

  Tali shook her head. ‘No, Ana, you would go to the guardia. If you lived.’

  ‘What?’ Galindez felt blood trickle into her eyebrow. ‘You’re going to kill me?’

  ‘They were very specific. You’re a threat to them – as I’m sure you realise. I’m sorry, Ana. That’s the way it’s got to be. The deal was non-negotiable.’

  ‘Have you done this before? Killed people?’

  Tali looked away. ‘These things happen. I’m sorry.’

  ‘But not so sorry you won’t shoot me?’

  ‘No, I want the money. When I was younger, we were poor. Really fucking poor. I’m not having any of that again.’

  ‘But your dad was a lawyer.’ Galindez protested. She saw Tali’s expression. ‘Oh.’

  ‘My dad wasn’t anything. He left when the fourth child arrived. My two elder sisters were on the game by the time I was ten. I didn’t want to end up like them. And I haven’t.’

  Galindez wiped her eyes. Her head was spinning. There was so much blood it was difficult to see.

  ‘Anyway,’ Tali said, ‘I have to get moving. I’m booked on a flight this afternoon.’

  ‘But we…’ Galindez stuttered, her head hung down as exhaustion and pain overcame her. Blood dripped onto the cracked flagstones.

  ‘Are you still worrying about us?’ Tali’s laugh was cutting. ‘You’re so slow sometimes, chica. We never were us, entiendes? I was faking. Christ, you’ve led a sheltered life.’ She sighed. ‘People say things that aren’t true, niña. They’re called lies. I lied to you.’

  Galindez continued to look down at the stone floor, trying to think. Trying to calculate the distance between them.

  Tali sensed something in Galindez’s silence. She pointed to the far wall. ‘I never saw that photograph of Guzmán last time we were here.’

  Galindez turned to look, realising her mistake even as she did so. Tali smashed the pistol onto her head once more and Galindez pitched forward onto the flagstones, motionless. Her arms and legs twitched for a moment and then she was still. A thin halo of blood began to form around her head.

  ‘Sorry, querida.’ Tali stepped over Galindez’s body and opened the canvas bag, searching for the big, flat-bladed screwdriver. She knelt and pushed the blade into the crack in the floor. The flagstone moved slightly and she struggled, raising the broken slab, levering it up onto its edge and then pushing it backwards. It fell with a resonant crash. It was much easier now to remove the sec
ond piece and look down into the dark space covered for so long.

  A thin veil of dust rose tentatively into the anaemic light. Tali lay on the flags, peering down into the darkness. Behind her, she heard Galindez’s breathing, rasping and laboured. Tali turned and looked at her for a moment. She got to her feet and stepped across Galindez’s outstretched legs to get her bag and retrieve the big flashlight. The halo of blood around Galindez’s head was black and oily in the white beam, making it hard to tell where hair ended and blood began. Tali lay down once more by the dark space she had uncovered, placing the flashlight alongside the opening. She could no longer hear Galindez breathing.

  Tali pointed the flashlight into the cavity below, leaning further into the small space, wriggling to get her head and shoulders into the opening. She looked down, following the beam of light as it cut through the darkness. There were things down there. Things illuminated in the glare of the torch. She leaned forward, desperate to see what those things were.

  ‘Jesús Cristo,’ she muttered.

  26

  MADRID 1953, COMISARÍA, CALLE DE ROBLES

  Peralta felt the pain twisting inside him as he crossed Calle de Robles and headed for the comisaría. The bottle of pills Liebermann had prescribed for him were still untouched in his pocket. He had decided he would only take them when the pain became unbearable, since the side-effects sounded appalling. Then the pain came again, a soul-burning flame of agony. Peralta felt beads of sweat break out on his forehead. He stopped, reached for the bottle of pills and took two, feeling them stick in his throat before he managed to swallow them. He fumbled with chilled fingers for a cigarette and found one tucked away in his jacket pocket. He straightened it, taking care to keep the loose tobacco from spilling out as he lit it. He inhaled the strong dense smoke and it comforted him. It was one of the few things that did these days. The church bell chimed the half hour, sending deep, ominous notes shimmering down the narrow street. There was something about the atmosphere of the area around the comisaría, Peralta thought, a sense of malevolence and hostility. Even the local church was run by a drink-sodden madman. The whole area was beyond redemption.

  In the regular police, Peralta had a real purpose, to protect society, to enact its laws, track down murderers, arrest thieves, pimps and sodomites, and to harass gypsies or Protestants, all the activities that kept a Christian society healthy and stable. He had soon realised his work here had nothing to do with a healthy society. Though Guzmán at first seemed monstrous, Peralta had thought he was the one who needed to adapt and become tougher. But now, he not only questioned the worth of what they did, he was repulsed by it. Perhaps many of those who Guzmán dealt with had been dangerous once. But that was in the war and the war had been won fourteen years ago. Most of the men Guzmán hunted were no longer interested in armed struggle, they were beaten and cowed, fearful of the long memory of the regime. They had seen what happened when the victors took their revenge. Peralta understood how such things happened during the fighting. But things had to return to normal, surely? Let the vanquished slink back into society, try to rebuild lives shattered in the pursuit of the misguided politics that ended with the destruction of the Republic. It was time to rebuild Spain, to replace this fragmented society in which the divisions of the Civil War were sustained by a perpetually enforced memory. And, while that memory was enforced, the present was forever a prisoner of the past.

  There was no building a new society. The old men who fought the war remained in power, embedded in every ministry and department, in key industries and commerce. The country was run by men who had waged bloody war in a crusade to return Spain to a mythical golden age in which a cowed and obedient population lived lives shaped by the prescriptions of the powerful: the Caudillo, the military and the Church. The war had taken Spain back two hundred years. He ground his cigarette into the snow.

  Peralta paused. He was thinking like a traitor. Guzmán would certainly say so, but then Guzmán would, because the corruption of this regime, its malice, its implacable intolerance of any challenge or change, all these were what gave men like Guzmán a purpose in life. Although, Peralta observed, Guzmán had several agendas. At first, he’d thought Guzmán was just a fanatic like so many others. Now, he was not so sure. Not since he had listened to Cousin Juan’s story at the Hotel Barcelona. And now, Cousin Juan had disappeared, as had Guzmán’s mother. Peralta didn’t believe Guzmán had freed Juan. He didn’t believe Cousin Juan had ever left Calle de Robles.

  Things were going wrong for Guzmán. He had told Peralta repeatedly you had to take sides. You had to choose the winning side. What if Guzmán no longer was on the winning side? What if Valverde was right and Guzmán was a loose cannon who needed to be checked? Or if Guzmán lost Franco’s patronage? But worst of all, Peralta thought, was what would happen to María and the baby if he were not there. Would her uncle take care of them if Peralta went down with Guzmán? That thought stayed with him as he reached the dark wooden doors of the comisaría. Above him, the weather-beaten flag hung limp and lifeless. As he opened the door, Peralta began to realise what he must do. Look after number one, Guzmán had repeatedly told him. For once, Peralta would take Guzmán’s advice.

  Guzmán sat at his desk. He looked tired. His ashtray was full. Peralta had the impression he had been there for hours before he arrived. Peralta and the sarge waited for him to speak.

  ‘So you two came up with nothing,’ Guzmán said contemptuously.

  The sarge took a breath to speak and changed his mind. Peralta said nothing.

  ‘We need to look at this case again,’ Guzmán said. ‘In the morning, they start the trade talks. If something happens to spoil those talks, we’re all fucked. Me. This unit. You two.’

  Peralta frowned. He was worried enough about his future without adding to it further.

  ‘There’ve been some developments we should consider,’ Guzmán said. ‘Teniente, you’ve been writing everything down. Tell me where we are with all this.’

  Peralta shuffled in his seat, feeling like a child back at colegio. ‘It seemed pretty clear to begin with, jefe. Our information suggested the Dominicans were a gang of serious criminals working for Señor Positano – a man with connections to organised crime. Our conclusions were based on the criminal histories General Valverde supplied to you, Comandante, and after that, I also obtained details of Positano’s early involvement in crime from Exterior Intelligence.’

  ‘Clear cut, as you say.’ Guzmán nodded.

  ‘It was fucked up from the start,’ the sarge growled. ‘The Caudillo and Almirante Carrero Blanco both said not to interfere. That we shouldn’t piss off the Yanquis. We never had a chance to get hold of the Dominicans and stop them in their tracks.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Guzmán snorted smoke. ‘We couldn’t do anything. Gutierrez gave me the same message as well. Mess with the Dominicans and get the chop.’

  ‘But then—’ Peralta began.

  ‘But then,’ Guzmán continued, ‘it turns out Don Enrique, that gold-toothed bastard, has some high rank in the Dominican armed forces. What does that tell you, Sarge?’

  ‘Valverde’s intelligence was wrong?’

  ‘Absolutamente. The teniente found that out days ago and what did we do, Sargento?’

  The sarge scowled. ‘Joder, I thought he made it up to get out of that trouble downstairs.’

  ‘You bastards were thinking of killing me,’ Peralta snapped, ‘and yet I’m the only one who came up with anything worthwhile on this investigation.’

  ‘I agree, Teniente. We should have been more interested. And particularly in why Valverde’s information was wrong,’ Guzmán said.

  ‘Intel’s often wrong, jefe,’ the sarge protested.

  ‘It is indeed,’ Guzmán agreed. ‘Though not when it’s from the Capitán-General of Madrid.’

  ‘You’re forgetting the stuff I got from Exterior Intelligence,’ Peralta added.

  ‘No, I was coming to that.’ Guzmán breathed out a cloud of s
moke. ‘That was what did it, coming on top of the information Valverde gave us about the Dominicans. It seemed straightforward: a top trade official with links to the Mob, getting his dirty work done by a bunch of Caribbean hoodlums.’

  Peralta looked puzzled. ‘You don’t sound too sure, jefe.’

  ‘I’m not. Tell me something, Teniente. What’s stopped this investigation from getting any further? In your opinion.’

  Peralta shifted in his chair. ‘You really want to know?’

  Guzmán nodded.

  ‘The problem, mi Comandante, has been your obsession with these Dominicans. You’ve been determined to get them at all costs. Even when warned off by the Head of State himself you persisted with this vendetta. You thought killing them would solve everything. And because of that, you’ve compromised your standing with the people at the top.’

  ‘Qué coño eres,’ the sarge spat. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘I know about policing.’ Peralta turned towards the sarge, angrily. ‘All you know is killing. Face it, your job is like Missing Persons. You find people. And when you find them, you kill them. You get leads from informers, beat the shit out of suspects and then find some poor sod who fought on the wrong side years ago and kill them. That’s all you do. Which probably accounts for us being in the shit with all this now.’

  ‘So it’s all my fault?’ Guzmán asked. He didn’t seem too displeased, Peralta noticed.

  The sargento sighed. ‘If I’m honest, boss, you did let them get to you. And of course, you’ve had woman trouble.’

  ‘The fuck I have,’ Guzmán shouted. ‘Leave that out of this, Sarge. Teniente, it pains me to admit it, but you’re right. I thought it was the Dominicans we needed to take down all along. But there are other things we need to consider.’

  ‘What? More evidence?’ Peralta was affronted. ‘You could have shared it with us.’

  ‘Hostia, jefe, if you don’t tell us stuff how are we to know?’ the sarge grumbled.