The Butcher Beyond

by Sally Spencer

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come! Now!’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Capitán López. He want see you.’

  López was sitting at a table in the bar next to Woodend’s hotel. He had a glass of brandy in front of him, and from the flushed look on his face, the Chief Inspector guessed that it was not his first.

  Woodend sat down. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked.

  ‘The Alcalde is dead,’ López said in a shaky voice. ‘Murdered.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Some time early this morning. His bodyguards are also dead, but that does not matter.’

  ‘It doesn’t?’

  ‘Of course not. Madrid does not care about the fate of two nonentities from the provinces. But the Alcalde – a man who was to be Regional Governor – is a different matter. Unless I arrest the killers, my head is on the block.’

  ‘In that case, I’m surprised you’ve not fitted up some poor bastard for the murder already,’ Woodend said.

  ‘You’re not listening,’ López replied bitterly. ‘Since the Alcalde was so important, this is no longer merely a little local murder. The international press will be following the case.’

  ‘So you’ll have to have some real proof before you make an arrest,’ Woodend mused. ‘Which means that, for once, you’ll be forced to do some proper detective work.’

  ‘Exactly,’ López agreed, and if he noticed the implied insult at all, it did not really seem to bother him.

  Woodend stood up. ‘Well, all I can do, now that it’s a purely Spanish matter, is to wish you good luck,’ he said.

  ‘But it is not purely a Spanish matter,’ López said.

  ‘The victims are Spanish.’

  ‘But all the main suspects are foreigners. And two of them are English.’

  ‘You don’t know for sure that one – or several – of those foreigners actually committed the murders,’ Woodend pointed out.

  ‘Don’t I? Do you doubt it yourself?’

  Woodend remembered the dream he had been so rudely awoken from by the arrival of the two Guardia Civil constables. The brigadistas who had been ambushed on the beach in Benicelda must carry similar memories around in their own heads – must dream similar dreams – and, unlike the soldiers involved in the Normandy landing, they could put a name and a face to the man responsible for the hell they had been forced to live through.

  ‘Do you doubt it?’ López repeated.

  ‘No, probably not,’ Woodend said reluctantly.

  ‘So you see why I need your help – the help of a man who has risen through the ranks not by influence, but because of his own brilliance?’

  ‘Flattery doesn’t wash with me, especially when it comes from your lips,’ Woodend said. ‘Besides, the British Embassy would never wear it. An’ even if it did, the Spanish authorities wouldn’t countenance me pokin’ around in the investigation.’

  ‘You are wrong,’ López told him. ‘Both your embassy and my masters in Madrid are eager that you should be involved.’

  ‘Why? Because they also know what a “brilliant” detective I am?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Or could it be that the international press are more likely to accept the evidence if I’m the one who produces it?’

  ‘There is that, as well,’ López admitted.

  ‘In other words, you need me to legitimize your investigation.’

  ‘It would be legitimate because it was your investigation.’

  ‘I won’t do it,’ Woodend said firmly.

  ‘You cannot resist the challenge.’

  ‘Just watch me!’

  ‘You would let me flounder around like a fish out of water?’

  ‘It would be a pleasure.’

  ‘And what about your conscience?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Would your conscience allow you to stand back, knowing that there is a risk I might arrest the wrong man – and perhaps even get him convicted?’

  No, it wouldn’t, Woodend thought. An’ you bloody know it wouldn’t!

  ‘Before I agree to help, there are some conditions that have to be met,’ the Chief Inspector said heavily.

  ‘Anything,’ López agreed.

  ‘You’d better hear them first,’ Woodend advised him. ‘This will be a very different investigation to the one into Medwin’s death. I need freedom to go where I like, and to question whoever I want to. An’ I don’t want you by my side, buggerin’ things up in the way you have so far.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Also, since I’ll be talkin’ to a lot of Spaniards, I’ll need to have a translator.’

  ‘But why should you wish to talk to any Spaniards when it is plain that the murderers—’

  ‘As I said, I need freedom to go where I like, and to question whoever I want to.’

  ‘All right. I will provide you with a translator. I have a lieutenant who has done a course at the University of Salamanca, and could probably—’

  ‘I choose my own translator,’ Woodend interrupted.

  ‘But you do not know anyone who could do the job.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Paco Ruiz.’

  He’d had other plans for that particular pain in the arse, López reminded himself. Ruiz had learned the Alcalde’s secret, and thus had been due to suffer a fatal accident – laid on by two of the Captain’s best men – that very morning. But now Durán was dead, and there was no one left to blackmail anymore, Ruiz might as well be allowed to live.

  Even so, López was reluctant to let Ruiz anywhere near the case – because while it was going to be difficult enough to pull the wool over one seasoned detective’s eyes, it would be even harder if there were two of them.

  ‘You must understand that Ruiz is not reliable,’ the Captain said. ‘During the Civil War, he was a—’

  ‘I know all about that. He’s still the one I want. In fact, he’s the only one who’s acceptable to me. If I can’t have him, then I don’t want the job.’

  ‘I see,’ López said.

  ‘So do I get him, or not?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘You get him,’ López replied, with bad grace.

  Twenty-Six

  The two bodies lay just outside the kitchen door, where they had died the night before. They were about twelve feet apart, and had been draped with thick woollen Guardia Civil blankets.

  ‘I assume that somebody saw to it that all the proper forensic tests were carried out before the corpses were contaminated by havin’ them blankets put over them,’ Woodend said.

  ‘This is Spain,’ Paco Ruiz told him. ‘Assume nothing.’

  Aye, assume nothin’, Woodend thought.

  That just about summed it up. If he’d been conducting this investigation in Whitebridge, he’d never have allowed half a dozen of his bobbies to go tramping around all over the place, which was just what Captain López had let his Guardia Civil officers do.

  ‘I suppose we’d better take a look at the stiffs, then,’ Woodend said to Paco Ruiz. ‘Can you ask the constable to remove the covering?’

  Paco conveyed the request, and the constable who had been standing on duty over the bodies bent down and stripped the blankets away with a lack of care which made Woodend wince.

  The body to the left of the door had been stabbed in the back, and there was evidence of bruising round his neck.

  ‘What do you think?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘This man was used to persuade the other guard to come outside,’ Paco Ruiz said. ‘Once he had fulfilled that function, he was no longer of any use, so the killer dispatched him with a single thrust of his knife. That’s not an easy thing to do. And I know, because I’ve done it myself. So whatever else the murderer is, he’s certainly an expert at his trade.’

  ‘He probably had plenty of practice durin’ that Civil War of yours,’ Woodend said.

  The second victim had been stabbed in the chest. ‘From the angle of the wound, I would say that
the knife was thrown rather than thrust,’ Paco said. ‘Once again, that is not an easy trick to pull off.’

  ‘No, it can’t be,’ Woodend agreed. ‘Ask the constable who it was that found these poor buggers.’

  A short exchange followed, then Paco said, ‘The maid found them, as she reported for work.’

  ‘She doesn’t live in?’

  ‘None of the servants do – apart from the bodyguard. Durán seemed to like his privacy, and if the rumours I have heard about his sexual activities are true, I can understand why.’

  ‘Where’s the maid now?’

  ‘She’s in the parlour.’

  ‘Then we’d better go an’ talk to her, hadn’t we?’

  The maid was called Conchita. She was in her early twenties, and looked very shaken up.

  Paco gave her his warmest smile. ‘What did you do when you found the bodies outside the kitchen door?’

  ‘I went to tell Don Antonio. But he was … he was …’

  ‘He was dead as well.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So then you phoned the Guardia Civil?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Did you touch anything before they arrived here?’

  ‘No,’ Conchita said, far too quickly.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘No, I … I mean yes, I’m sure.’

  ‘We’re investigating a murder,’ Paco said gently. ‘We’re not interested in any lesser crimes.’

  Conchita looked down at the floor. ‘Don Antonio kept some cash hidden at the bottom of his tobacco jar,’ she confessed. ‘He didn’t think I knew, but I did. When I saw that he was dead, I took it.’

  ‘And where is it now?’

  Conchita reached into the pocket in her uniform.

  ‘I didn’t ask to see it,’ Paco said. ‘I only wanted to know where it was. Is it in your pocket?’

  Tears came to Conchita’s eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to steal it, señor. It was just that—’

  ‘You didn’t steal it,’ Paco interrupted her. ‘Durán owed you back-wages, and by some happy coincidence, the amount he owed you was exactly equal to the amount in the tobacco jar. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Conchita said, unconvincingly.

  ‘Then we’ll say no more about it. Tell me, Conchita, what was the Alcalde like to work for?’

  ‘Should I answer you honestly?’

  ‘If you didn’t, there would be no point in answering at all.’

  ‘He was a pig. He treated me like a piece of dirt. And so did Luis, his chauffeur.’

  ‘Did many people come to the villa? Did Don Antonio entertain a great deal?’

  ‘He was the Alcalde,’ Conchita said, as if puzzled as to why he’d bothered to ask the question.

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ Paco wondered.

  ‘Why should he pay out his own money to entertain others, when, in the hope of gaining some advantage, they were more than willing to entertain him?’

  ‘But he did have visitors?’

  ‘Not many.’

  ‘Who has been to see him recently?’

  ‘You came,’ Conchita said evasively.

  ‘Anybody else?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ Paco said. ‘It was someone important! Someone you are afraid of. If you tell me who it was, I promise I will never say that I got the information from you.’

  Conchita bit her lip. ‘Captain López was here,’ she said. ‘Once yesterday, and once the day before.’

  ‘And what did he and the Mayor talk about?’

  ‘I don’t know. But the first time, the Captain looked very angry when he was leaving.’

  ‘And the second time?’

  ‘The second time, it was the Mayor who looked angry.’

  ‘I have just remembered something that happened when I was here the other day,’ Paco said.

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Yes. I heard the Alcalde talking to you. He said that there were some fairly valuable things in this house that he wanted to give you as presents. I can’t recall exactly what they were, but no doubt you can. Whatever they were, I would take them with you when you go home.’

  ‘But what about the police?’

  ‘They won’t mind – especially if they don’t see you doing it.’

  Durán was slumped down on his desk. It wasn’t easy for Woodend and Paco Ruiz to lift the fat man up into a sitting position – and when they had, they almost wished they hadn’t.

  ‘The cause of death is fairly obviously a stab wound to the heart,’ Woodend said. ‘An’ there must have been some force behind it to cut through all them layers of flab.’

  ‘And once he had killed Durán, the murderer began his real work,’ Paco Ruiz added sombrely.

  The real work had involved mutilating the head. The killer had cut off both Durán’s ears, then sliced through his tongue. All three organs had been placed neatly on the blotting pad at the edge of the Alcalde’s desk. Having completed that grisly task, he had then sliced Durán nose from top to bottom, hacking through the bone as he went. Finally – and it did seem to both Woodend and Ruiz that this was the last thing he did – he had gouged out the Mayor’s eyes.

  ‘Once more, I have to say that this was the work of a true craftsman,’ Paco Ruiz said.

  ‘So we’ve learned two things about him,’ Woodend replied, ‘the first bein’ that he’s exceptionally gifted with a knife.’

  ‘And what’s the second?’ Paco asked.

  ‘That whoever he is, he didn’t seem to like your Alcalde much.’

  Twenty-Seven

  Woodend and Ruiz were already seated at the table in the interrogation room when the Guardia Civil constable led the American in. Mitchell looked rough – even worse than he had the day before. His eyes were yellow, and his cheeks so hollow that they seemed almost to be touching each other.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Mitchell,’ Woodend said.

  Mitchell lowered himself gingerly into the chair opposite him; the constable took up a position next to the door.

  ‘Is this another of those informal questioning sessions, or am I under arrest this time?’ Mitchell asked.

  ‘You’re under arrest this time,’ Woodend said.

  Mitchell laughed, though the laugh rapidly turned into a cough.

  ‘How ironic,’ he said when he’d finally recovered.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘To be charged with a killing I fully intended to carry out, but didn’t actually do because someone else got there first.’

  ‘So you’re no longer denyin’ you came here to murder Durán?’

  ‘I came here to execute Durán. But I alone had that intention. The others didn’t know what I was planning. They thought we were just here to talk to him – to persuade him to confess his guilt.’

  ‘Bollocks!’ Woodend said.

  ‘That’s only your opinion. And even if you’re right, it doesn’t really matter – because that’s what I shall tell the state prosecutor, and that’s what I shall tell the judge.’

  ‘Shall I tell you what I think?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘Why not? A man who’s been placed under arrest has no other real demands on his time.’

  ‘I think that you’ve worked out that even if one of your mates didn’t kill the Mayor, somebody’s goin’ to have to go to gaol for even plannin’ to do it. And I think you’ve decided that that somebody might as well be you, since you’re already a dying man.’

  Mitchell gave a weak smile. ‘It’s that obvious, is it?’

  ‘It’s that obvious,’ Woodend agreed. ‘My father had cancer. He looked just like you do now, towards the end. How long have you got left?’

  ‘A month. Maybe two – if I’m unlucky.’

  Woodend nodded. ‘Well, since you’re willing to take the blame for everythin’ that’s happened on your own shoulders, is there any harm in fillin’ me in on any gaps in your story?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘You and the rest
of them met when you were all in the International Brigade, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, we did.’

  Dupont – or at least the man who was calling himself Dupont now – had been the first to reach Spain. He had been a member of the Commune de Paris Battalion, and arrived in Aragon in late 1936. Schneider had joined the German Thaelmann Battalion, and got there a few weeks later. Sutcliffe, Roberts and Medwin had arrived in early 1937, with the British Battalion. Mitchell himself, having joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in New York, was not far behind them.

  ‘Some of our group – some of the men who ended up on the beach – met at the Battle of the Jarama, when we were defending Madrid,’ Mitchell said. ‘We didn’t get to know the rest until much later, when we were in retreat and making a last stand at the Battle of the Ebro, near Valencia.’

  ‘What were you even doin’ on that beach in March?’ Woodend asked. ‘I thought the League of Nations had evacuated the International Brigade long before then.’

  ‘Why, so it had,’ Mitchell agreed. ‘The Brigade held its farewell parade in Barcelona in the middle of November. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, we couldn’t be there.’

  It was a desperate final struggle on the River Ebro. The Nationalists had more artillery and more soldiers – as well as German planes and Italian troops to back them up – and though the Republicans fought heroically, the result was a foregone conclusion from the very start.

  The British Battalion, which now included Dupont, Schneider and Mitchell, suffered seventy-five percent casualties, and towards the end of September, they were pulled out of the fighting. But not all of them crossed the river back into what was left of Republican Spain. Not all of them could.

  ‘We were cut off from our battalion during the fighting,’ Mitchell said. ‘There were a hundred thousand enemy troops between us and safety.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘What could we do? We took to the mountains. It was the only place we knew we would be safe.’

  Snow was already starting to fall when they reached the foothills of the sierra, yet they had no choice but to push on. They survived the winter because there were still a few brave peasants around who were prepared to share with them what small amounts of food they had. And because Pete Medwin – funny little Pete Medwin – categorically refused to allow them to die.