Death's Dark Shadow--A novel of murder in 1970's Yorkshire (26 page)

‘And took the gold with him,' Iñigo said.

‘There was no gold,' Crespo said dismissively. ‘That was just a story.'

‘Luis Suarez believed in it,' Iñigo said.

‘So he did,' Crespo replied. ‘But that doesn't make it any the more true.' He reached into his wallet. ‘Would you like to see a photograph of Luis, Paco?'

‘I would be honoured to see it,' Paco said.

Crespo took out a sepia photograph and laid it on the table. It showed a group of young soldiers, grinning at the camera.

‘How young we all were,' Crespo said wistfully. He pointed to a man in the centre of the photograph. ‘Look, that's Luis.'

‘That's just how I remember him,' Paco said.

‘And can you identify any of the others?' Crespo asked, with a slightly roguish air.

‘That's you, standing next to Suarez – and, I have to say, you don't look a day older.'

Crespo slapped him on the back. ‘You have a silver tongue for an old soldier,' he said.

‘If I cannot talk to Suarez himself, then it is good to talk to his friends,' Paco said, ‘and you were all, I assume, his friends.'

There was a chorus of affirmation around the table, and more sepia photographs appeared from other wallets.

Paco reached into his pocket, took out a packet of Celtas cigarettes, and offered them round.

‘Did you never try to track down the man who had killed Luis Suarez?' he asked, when all the cigarettes had been lit.

The old men looked suddenly guilty.

‘It would have been a very difficult task, if not a completely impossible one,' Jaime said.

‘But surely, if he had a wife and children, you could have watched them, and waited for him to contact them,' Paco said.

‘He had a wife,' said Adolpho, and the others laughed.

‘Oh yes, he had a wife,' Crespo agreed. ‘Luis screwed her every way possible – on the table, on her hands and knees, in a chair. She said she didn't like it, but the truth is that she was probably grateful, after being married to a limp-dicked Commie, to be with a real man at last.'

‘Luis was always a great one for the ladies,' Iñigo said. ‘There was Colonel Hierro's daughter, for example. He …'

‘We do not talk about what happened to Colonel Hierro's daughter,' Crespo said sharply.

‘No, of course we don't,' Iñigo agreed, bowing his head. ‘I had forgotten that.'

‘The point I was making was that surely it wouldn't have been difficult to keep this woman under observation,' Paco persisted.

‘How could we have done it?' Adolpho asked. ‘She lives in Alicante Province, and we live here in Burgos.'

‘Pepe Durante lives on the coast,' Jaime said.

‘Yes, but that's only because he married a girl from Denia, and she wouldn't move away,' Crespo told him.

‘Calpe,' Adolpho said. ‘She wasn't from Dénia, she was from Calpe.'

‘You're right,' Crespo agreed. ‘She was from Calpe.'

‘And does Pepe Durante still live there?' Paco wondered.

‘Who knows?' Crespo said. ‘We have lost touch.'

‘Which one is Durante?' Paco asked.

Crespo pointed to a man standing at the edge of one of the photographs. ‘That's him.'

‘And he's the only one of you who didn't return to this town after the war ended, is he?'

‘No, not the only one, but we have heard that all the others are dead. Pepe himself may well be dead, for all we know.'

But I'd be willing to bet he isn't
, Paco thought.

‘I will buy another round of drinks,' he said, taking out his wallet. Then he frowned. ‘I had a hundred peseta note in this wallet before I came into the bar, and now it's gone,' he continued. ‘No, wait a minute. I remember now, I took it out of my wallet, and put it in my jacket pocket.' He reached into the pocket, and his frown deepened. ‘It isn't there. I must have pulled it out with my cigarettes, and it will be on the floor.'

The other four, moving very quickly for men their age, were soon down on their knees, searching the floor beneath the table. Then they stood up again, shaking their heads.

‘It isn't there,' Iñigo said.

‘You must have been mistaken when you thought you put it in your pocket,' Jaime added.

‘I am not a man who can easily afford to lose a hundred pesetas,' Paco said, standing up. ‘I must go and search my car.' He walked towards the door. ‘Come outside with me,' he called in English to Woodend. ‘We must search for some money I have lost.'

‘You didn't lose the money, did you?' Woodend asked, when they were outside. ‘You dropped it under the table deliberately.'

‘Yes, I did,' Paco admitted.

‘And when they said they couldn't find it, they were lying, because I saw one of them pick it up and slip it in his pocket – and the others saw him do it.'

‘Well, there you are,' Paco replied. ‘They say there is no honour among thieves, and it appears, as I always suspected, that there is no honour among fascists either, because even though they thought I was one of their own, they still stole from me.'

Woodend grinned. ‘That seems a pretty expensive way to confirm your prejudices,' he said.

‘But it seems a fairly cheap way to acquire a picture of Pepe Durante, who may well turn out to be our murderer,' said Paco, showing Woodend the sepia photograph that he had in his pocket.

T
hey had been more successful than he'd ever dared hope, Woodend thought, as he and Paco reached Ruiz's little car. They had the photograph which could well turn out to be the vital piece of evidence in Monika's investigation, and in a couple of minutes, they would be back on the road, heading for home.

It was the church bell that changed everything. It began to ring just as Paco was reaching into his pocket for his car keys – and the sound of it made him freeze.

‘Is something the matter?' Woodend asked.

Paco turned slowly in the direction of the church, which lay just beyond the square.

‘I want to show you something,' he said.

And then he strode quickly and furiously across the square, and down an alley which led to the church, with Woodend following in his wake.

When they reached the front of the church, Paco came to a halt.

‘Look at that!' he said angrily, pointing to a large stone tablet which was set in the front wall of the church.

Across the top of the tablet, carved in large letters, were the words
‘¡José Antonio Presente!'
and below that there was a list of names.

‘I told you about José Antonio, didn't I?' Paco said. ‘He was the leader of the fascist movement, who was executed in Valencia.'

‘Yes, I remember,' Woodend replied, ‘but I don't quite see why …'

‘The rest of the names on this tablet are of men from this town who died in the Civil War,' Paco continued, and the anger was rising in his voice. ‘And they are all Franco's men. If anyone from Arco de Cañas had died fighting on the Republican side, he could have whistled for his memorial!'

‘Why are you telling me all this now?' Woodend wondered. ‘What's got into you, Paco?'

The words seemed to break the spell – to bring Paco out of what had almost been a semi-trance.

‘I don't know why I'm telling you now,' he admitted. He reached into his pocket with a hand trembling with rage, and produced his packet of cigarettes. ‘Perhaps it is because I have just been talking to those pigs in the Bar del Pueblo,' he continued. ‘If they had died, their names would have been on this tablet – they would have been honoured forever – but the brave men who fought and lost their lives beside me got nothing.' He ran his eyes up and down the list as he lit his cigarette. ‘Why is there not a tablet somewhere with the names of Enrique Diaz, Tomas Arroyo and Joachim Morales on it? They were good men – they were brave men who sacrificed everything for the real Spain – and now it is as if they'd never lived.'

‘Best to leave it now,' Woodend said softly.

‘You are right,' Paco agreed. He took a deep drag on his cigarette, and turned away. Then, almost immediately, he wheeled around again. ‘Where is Lieutenant Suarez's name?' he demanded.

‘
Whose
name?'

‘Lieutenant Suarez's. He was from this town. He died in action. Why isn't his name on the list?'

Woodend examined the tablet more closely. All the names were equally spaced except for two, which had a much larger gap between them. He wet the end of his finger, rubbed it across the gap, and inspected the fingertip.

‘There was another name there, but it's been chipped away, and the space filled with plaster,' he said.

‘And why would anybody have wanted to do that?' Paco asked.

‘I don't know.'

‘Neither do I – but I want to find out.'

There were only two ‘official' mourners at Elena Vargas's funeral mass, and as the priest intoned the Offices of the Dead, Paniatowski found her thoughts dwelling on Robert Martinez's words as they entered the church.

‘John Donne wrote that any other man's death also diminishes him,' Robert Martinez had said. ‘I believe that, too, and if other people wish to attend the mass, they have my respect – and perhaps even my gratitude. But I didn't want to invite anyone else, Monika. I was unfairly cut out of my mother's life – so is it so wrong to want her to myself in death?'

‘No, it's not wrong at all,' Paniatowski had replied.

And she meant it, she thought. She had felt exactly the same at her father's funeral mass, after which the bones of the gallant colonel had finally been laid to rest next to the body of her long-dead mother.

While the priest continued to talk directly to a God whom she no longer believed in, Paniatowski allowed her mind to wander free.

She thought about the part of her life that had already gone, and the part that lay ahead.

She wondered if she would ever find the right man for her – and then she wondered if she had already found him.

‘Monika,' she half-heard a voice say close to her ear.

Why hadn't she got to know Robert before the murders? she thought. Would that have been too much to ask for?

So maybe she was wrong, and there was a God, she decided – but if he did exist, he was a particularly malicious god, who took his pleasure from twisting her feelings into knots.

‘Monika!' the voice said again, still in a whisper, but rather more sharply this time.

She looked up and saw the coffin was leaving the church.

‘It's time to go,' Robert said.

She found it a relief to get out of the church – away from the cloying smell of incense – and to be able to breathe in fresh air again.

Looking around, she saw Jack Crane standing near the lychgate. She shot him an inquiring look, and he shook his head as if to say that if there had been anyone hanging around the church whose presence needed to be questioned, then he certainly hadn't seen them.

She and Robert followed the coffin – carried by hired pall-bearers – to the grave, and stood on the edge as it was slowly lowered in.

As the priest said a final short prayer, Paniatowski felt Robert's hand reaching for hers, and she did not resist.

The priest sprinkled the holy water on the grave, and the funeral was all over and done with, but when Paniatowski tried to pull her hand free, Robert Martinez kept a tight grip.

‘Do you think that we can go somewhere quiet?' he asked hopefully. ‘Just to talk?'

There was one simple answer to that, and the answer was ‘no', because the mass was over now, and she still had two murders – his mother's and his father's – to investigate.

‘Can we?' Robert pleaded.

‘I'm sorry, but I have to go,' she said, and then she added, ‘You will be all right on your own, won't you?'

‘I don't know,' he admitted. ‘Perhaps things will start to get a bit easier after the cremation.' He turned away from the grave. ‘I never knew either of my parents – and that's a terrible weight to bear.'

‘You didn't know your father?' she said, before she could stop herself.

Robert gave a slight jump, as if he had detected an unkind and unfair criticism of him in her words.

‘I'm sorry,' she said quickly, ‘I didn't mean to suggest …'

‘I didn't really know him,' Martinez said. ‘We lived in the same house. We ate at the same table. We talked about the weather and how the business was going, but it was like two strangers, who were just using the words to fill the space between them. I tried, over the years, to make some kind of real contact with him – God alone knows how hard I tried – but it did no good.' There were tears forming in his eyes. ‘I think my father was simply a hard-hearted man.' He paused. ‘Is it wrong to say that, so soon after his death?'

Not if all the stories I've been hearing about him are true
, Paniatowski thought.

‘People don't suddenly become better people – nicer people – just because they're dead,' she said. ‘If that's what he was, that's what he was.'

‘Thank you for that,' Robert Martinez said, and released her hand.

‘Look, Robert, I can probably spare you half an hour or so,' she said, relenting.

‘No, you were right before – you have to go,' Martinez said. ‘Perhaps when all this is over …'

‘Yes,' she agreed. ‘Perhaps when all this is over.'

When Pablo Ortega had first opened his bar on the square in Arco de Cañas, he had wanted to deck it out with Nationalist symbols, just like those in the Bar del Pueblo, which was a few doors up from his new business, but the secret policeman who paid him a small monthly salary had told him that was not a good idea.

‘If you proclaim yourself a patriot too loudly, only patriots will drink in your bar,' he had pointed out. ‘And it is the enemies of the state – not the patriots – who I am interested in.'