Death's Dark Shadow--A novel of murder in 1970's Yorkshire (29 page)

‘So how did they do it?'

‘They didn't say, and I didn't ask. But given that Charlie is in his sixties and Paco is in his seventies, it seems unlikely that they used strong-arm tactics. My guess would be that they relied on their brains and their cunning,' Cheavers looked Harrington Benson straight in the eyes, ‘which is something we should all – and some more than others – learn from. And that, young Benson, is why I don't give a toss what the Foreign Office says, and why I will do my damnedest to get Charlie out of the pokey.'

I
t was eight o'clock on a cold Castilian morning, and the empty plain around the army camp was still covered with a skein of frost.

Inside the camp, Major Trujillo leaned back in his chair and studied the man sitting across the desk from him.

Martin Cheavers' hair spilled over his collar, which made it too long for a man of any age, and looked particularly ridiculous for a man in his late fifties. His bloodshot eyes lacked seriousness, his teeth were too neat and regular, and his chin was weak. He was a typically decadent northern European – probably a homosexual – and after his debacle with Woodend and Ruiz the day before, Trujillo was determined to show this man who was boss.

‘You are the British vice consul for the Costa Blanca. Is that correct?' he asked.

‘It's correct,' Martin Cheavers agreed.

‘But this is not the Costa Blanca,' the major said. ‘You are aware of that, are you not?'

‘Too bloody right I'm aware of it,' Cheavers said. ‘And if you'd caught your first plane at five-thirty this morning, and changed flights twice since then, you'd be aware of it, too.'

‘What I mean is, you are not accredited here,' Major Trujillo said.

‘Strictly speaking, you're right, but Charlie Woodend lives on the Costa Blanca, and hence is my responsibility. Besides, I've grown very fond of Spain and the Spanish Army – which I think has done a marvellous job – and I wouldn't like to see anyone get into trouble.'

‘Are you threatening me?' Trujillo asked, in the sort of growl which would have the conscripts whom he normally had to deal with shaking in their cheap army boots.

But Cheavers did not look frightened – merely shocked. ‘Threatening you?' he said. ‘Of course not. I'm merely here to give you some advice.'

‘I do not need your advice,' Trujillo countered. ‘This Woodend came to Arco de Cañas with another man, a known troublemaker and former rebel. They were asking questions about the backgrounds of army officers. We consider that to be spying.'

It would help if he knew exactly what Charlie had
really
been doing in the town, Cheavers thought. But he didn't know – and so he was just going to have to bluff his way through.

‘He's a private detective, so perhaps he wasn't so much spying as working on a case,' he suggested.

Was that the best this Englishman could do? Trujillo wondered. If so, it was pathetic.

‘Are you suggesting that he was working for the wife of an army officer, collecting evidence of adultery – which is how most private detectives outside Spain seem to earn their living?' he asked with a sneer.

‘Well, it's a possibility, isn't it?' Cheavers asked weakly.

‘No, it is not. There is no adultery in Spain, and even if there were, there is no divorce. A man may get an annulment of his marriage if he can prove that he did not understand his vows at the time he had made them, but a woman … well, even if her husband was having an affair, she would gain nothing but humiliation from learning about it.'

‘Oh,' Cheavers said, looking crestfallen.

‘If you have nothing more to say on the matter, this interview is over,' Trujillo told him.

‘I do have one more question,' Cheavers said. ‘Are you a gambler, Major Trujillo?'

‘Why do you ask that?'

‘Because you are gambling at the moment. It's possible that in a few days, or a few weeks, the army will be in control of this country – and a damn good thing if it is, in my opinion.'

‘Yes, Spain has always put its faith in its brave soldiers,' Trujillo said complacently.

‘But we don't always get what we wish for, unfortunately, and I have access to sources at the centre of your government which say that there is little chance of the army taking the reins.'

The meeting was suddenly turning out much better than he could ever have hoped, Trujillo thought. This popinjay in suede boots who was sitting opposite him had all but admitted that he was employing spies, and if he could just be persuaded to reveal a few of their names, then the promotion of a certain major in the military police was assured.

‘Tell me about these sources,' he said casually.

‘They are men who want the best for their country but also the best for themselves – and who see being friendly with the British government as the best way of achieving both ends,' Cheavers said.

‘I'm not sure I know quite what you mean,' Trujillo said cunningly. ‘Could you perhaps give me a few examples?'

‘All right,' Cheavers agreed. ‘There are important men in this country who wish to see their sons enrolled in one of the finer English schools, like Eton or Harrow. There are men with pregnant mistresses, who have taken the British Embassy's advice on which abortion clinics they should use, and have asked us to make the necessary arrangements. There are men who have business interests in England, and are concerned that …'

‘Enough!' Trujillo said.

These men were not spies, Trujillo thought, they were merely seeking a little
enchufe
, which was the Spanish way. And besides, they were already sounding too powerful for a mere major to ever think of accusing them of anything.

‘What we have learned from these men is that your young king has plans to turn this country into a liberal democracy,' Cheavers said.

‘It will never happen,' Trujillo said.

But yet, if that was what these important men thought …

‘And one of the first things a liberal democracy inevitably does to prove its credentials is to turn the spotlight on past abuses, like, for example, the illegal detention of foreign nationals.'

Trujillo relaxed. This was – it was clear to him now – nothing more than a bluff.

‘No one will make much of a fuss over this Woodend,' Trujillo sneered. ‘He is nothing but a retired policeman.'

‘Now that's where I think you're misreading the situation,' Cheavers said. ‘The British government thinks very highly of Sir Charles …'

Warning lights were beginning to flash in Trujillo's head.

‘Sir Charles!' he repeated.

‘Oh dear, I should never have said that,' Cheavers said, putting his hand to his mouth. ‘His knighthood is not due to be announced until the New Year's Honours List.'

Trujillo decided to ignore the warning lights.

‘They would never give a knighthood – or any other honour – to someone like Charlie Woodend,' he said. ‘The man wears an old tweed jacket which my dog would reject as a bed.'

‘One of Woodend's last cases as a policeman was the investigation of a child prostitute ring,' Cheavers said. ‘Several of the clients of that ring were politicians. Woodend arrested the men running the ring, and also some of their clients – but he kept the politicians' names out of it.'

Trujillo nodded. Of course that was what he had done – that was what any policeman anywhere would have done in his situation.

‘The politicians are very grateful to him for that, but also – since he still holds evidence which could send them to gaol – a little frightened of him. So the knighthood is both by nature of a reward and a bribe. Now if you put him on trial for spying in Spain, he will find some way to reveal those names, because he is a spiteful man who, if he is going down, wishes to drag everyone else with him.'

‘Why should I be concerned about that?' Trujillo wondered.

‘You should be concerned because the politicians who are consequently disgraced will want their revenge too – and they will extract it from the man who brought about their downfall. In other words, Major Trujillo, they will extract it from you!'

‘I am an officer in the Spanish army – foreign politicians could do nothing to me,' Trujillo said.

Yet his own words did not convince him, because he knew that was not the way it worked.

The ruling classes, bound together by their mutual interest in maintaining the status quo, knew no national boundaries, he told himself, and while the British politicians themselves could not get to him, they would know men in Spain who could.

‘Perhaps the best solution all round might be for you to kill him,' Cheavers suggested, out of the blue.

‘What!' Trujillo exclaimed.

‘It would be easy for him to fall down the stairs and break his neck,' Cheavers said. ‘Or perhaps you could hang him, and make it look like a suicide. The British government would not look into his death too closely, because, as I said, he still poses a threat to some very influential men.'

‘You're … you're giving me permission to kill him?' Trujillo asked, astounded.

‘Not my permission, exactly,' Cheavers replied, hedging. ‘I don't think I could go quite that far. But let's just say, shall we, that a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse?'

‘I need to think,' said Trujillo, starting to sweat.

‘Wait a minute – while it might be a jolly good idea on paper, it would never work in practice,' Cheavers said, disappointedly. ‘A clever man like Woodend has probably arranged that, in the event of his death, certain incriminating evidence will be released.'

‘So what am I to do?' Trujillo asked.

‘I don't know,' Cheavers confessed. ‘You can't put him on trial, and you certainly can't kill him, so what
are
you to do?'

The two men sat there in silence for perhaps two minutes.

Then Trujillo, with an edge of desperation in his voice, said, ‘I could always let him go.'

‘No, that wouldn't work either,' Cheavers said.

‘Why wouldn't it work?' Trujillo pleaded. ‘What's to stop me just handing him over to you?'

‘The paperwork,' Cheavers said. ‘Once the paperwork's filled in, you're snookered. I mean to say, how would you explain to your superiors that you'd released a man you'd only recently arrested for spying?'

‘But there isn't any paperwork!' Major Trujillo said, with a gasp of relief. ‘Woodend was only arrested late yesterday afternoon, and I have not yet had time to file a report on him.'

Or more likely, in order to avoid your superiors getting any of the credit, you were not going to file any report until you had the whole case neatly tied up
, Cheavers thought.

‘Well, that is good news,' he said aloud. ‘If there's no report, then I think your solution is probably the best one we're likely to come up with.' He frowned. ‘But there is still one small difficulty we will have to overcome.'

‘Yes?' Trujillo said worriedly.

‘You may not have realized this, Major, but Paco Ruiz is Charlie Woodend's lover.'

‘That's disgusting!' Trujillo said.

‘Yes, it is rather unsavoury,' Cheavers agreed. ‘But the fact is that if you don't release Ruiz, too, Woodend will use the evidence he has to put pressure on the politicians in London, who will put pressure on the politicians in Spain … And we all know whose head will end up on a silver platter, don't we?'

‘I will release Ruiz, too,' Trujillo said, defeated.

‘Yes, that would certainly resolve all the problems,' Cheavers agreed.

‘How the hell did you manage that?' Woodend asked admiringly, as the car left the army camp and sped across the flat plain.

‘I lied through my teeth,' Cheavers replied. ‘I even told Trujillo that you were screwing Paco.'

‘But that is not true!' Paco said.

‘I know,' Cheavers said, apologetically. ‘And I also know that by even making such a suggestion, I will have offended a macho man like you – but I'm afraid that it had to be done.'

Paco grinned. ‘I am the man in our relationship,' he said. ‘It is me who is screwing Charlie.'

‘That's quite true,' Woodend agreed. ‘We tried it the other way, and it didn't work.'

Cheavers laughed, then reached into his pocket, produced an envelope, and handed it to Woodend.

‘What's this?' Woodend asked.

‘Plane tickets,' Cheavers said. ‘One from San Sebastian to Bordeaux, and another from Bordeaux to Manchester.'

‘And why are you handing them to me?'

‘Because I've not yet worked out what lies I'll tell the Foreign Office to cover the lies I told Major Trujillo,' Cheavers replied. ‘And while all this lying is going on, I'd much prefer it if you were out of the country.'

The funeral mass for Javier Martinez was a large affair, and was attended by everybody who was anybody in Whitebridge's Catholic community, but there was one person who was notably absent – his son, Robert Martinez.

‘There's a rumour going round that he's had a nervous breakdown,' Meadows told Beresford and Crane, as they stood in the churchyard.

‘I can't say I'm entirely surprised about that,' Crane said. ‘He looked on the point of collapse yesterday.'

‘It's probably because of the guilt,' Beresford said sombrely. ‘He'll have been telling himself that he should have done more for his father while he was still alive, and that if had done more, he could somehow have prevented the death. It's not logical – but it's what will be going through his mind.'

Meadows and Crane exchanged glances. They both knew that Beresford's mother had had Alzheimer's disease, that he had sacrificed virtually his entire twenties to caring for her, and that though he might be talking about Robert Martinez, he was really thinking about himself.