THE ENGLISH WITNESS (21 page)

Once again, I tried reasoning: “I’m sorry
if I’ve annoyed you, and you can’t understand how much pain and worry you’ve
caused me. But I know why you’re here now. Is there anything I can say to
persuade you to let the President live? He’s a good man. He doesn’t deserve to
die. And what about all the others who’ll be killed in the violence his death
will spark off?”

Adolfo actually laughed aloud. “If it’s
any consolation, I also think he’s a good man. But he’s also a dangerous one.
And he deserves to die because he makes the separatist cause look wholesome to
moderate people. He’s a far bigger threat to Greater Spain than ETA and all
their bombs. If he and the Catalans and the Andalusians and the wretched
Navarrese all get their way, we’ll end up as a mass of tiny, impotent statelets
in place of the strong, noble nation we should be. Even Portugal ought to be
part of it; can you imagine that? Our manifest destiny: one nation from sea to
shining sea. And we can get rid of the Jews and the Gypsies and the Homosexuals
and the Freemasons—even perhaps the Moriscos one day. Did you know, James, that
over ten per cent of Spanish people have Moorish blood?” He spat before
resuming his tirade. “Franco himself is a Galician, of course, but he’s put
pathetic regional sentiment behind him. He’s made big mistakes, but he’ll be
dead in five or six years even if somebody doesn’t put a bullet in him before
that. And unless the army takes firm control now, every tin-pot
alcalde
on the Peninsula will be drafting a declaration of independence.”

“You’re a Basque yourself, I’ve been
told.”

“Correction. I
was
a Basque. I was
a Catholic. I was an innocent boy before the priests took that away from me. I
was a normal…” He paused for a moment, then his face hardened. “Shut up and
give me my gun back. Now. Before I shoot you through the gut.”

I flinched as he lowered the barrel to
point at my abdomen. The rifle in his hands was rock-steady, and the hand in
which I held his pistol was hanging limply by my side. But I’d seen a movement
behind him: the second monk was sitting up, any sound from his movements masked
by the continuing crackle of the fire. He raised his hands, first miming the
pulling of a trigger and then stretching them out towards me.

It was hard to avoid looking directly at
the monk, so I looked down at the gun in my hand and slowly took it by the
barrel as if to hand it to the man standing in front of me. I saw Adolfo relax
slightly and take his left hand away from the fore-end of the rifle stock to
reach out for the pistol. At that point I looked him straight in the eyes and
he looked back into mine. “So,” I asked him, “when was the last time you got a
hard-on, you pathetic fucking eunuch?”

There was a visible moment of blankness in
which his brain tried to reconstruct what I’d just said in a way that took the
sting out of the words. Then his face set hard and his eyes committed murder, but
before he had time to raise the stock of the rifle to his shoulder – because
only movie actors fire a high-powered rifle from any other position – I passed
the pistol in a flat underarm throw to the injured monk. He caught it deftly.
It took him a couple of seconds to check that the safety was off, get his
finger onto the trigger and aim, and I thought for a moment that I’d timed it
wrongly.

But Adolfo had problems of his own. Caught
between fury, hurt and self-preservation, determined to kill me and realising too
late that the real threat was behind him where he had believed there were only
corpses, he hesitated too long. In almost any combat situation a rifle is more
use than a pistol. In almost any situation. But when you have to turn quickly,
the tip of a rifle barrel has a bigger arc to travel than a handgun, and the
whole body is involved in the manoeuvre.  

Adolfo was fast, but he was still spinning
round from the waist when a bullet from his own pistol hit him in the small of
the back. He managed to get a shot off, but it ricocheted harmlessly off the stonework
and buzzed out into the night. Then his legs abruptly folded under him and he
slumped to the ground. Even screaming and with his legs jiggling uncontrollably
he tried to hang onto the rifle and bring it to bear, but he couldn’t get
enough purchase.

I grasped the barrel of the
rifle, pushed it away from me, and kicked him hard in the bicep to make him let
go. Then I sat down on the stone floor next to the monk who’d saved my life. I
kept the rifle pointed in Adolfo’s direction, but his legs were now still and
he just lay there groaning. The hardest thing I had to cope with while I waited
for help to arrive was his stench.

I never met President Leizaola. The monks had packed in around him so as
to form a human shield in a distant room of the monastery. Within minutes of
learning that the immediate danger had passed, they had him in a car and on his
way back to the boat that had smuggled him in from France. He would return,
still secretively but on the historical record, the following year. Five years
later he would be free to live in his home country after more than 40 years in
exile.

Adolfo looked as if he were dying
already, and he pleaded repeatedly for the coup de grâce while the monk and I
waited for help to arrive. If there had been a safe way to do so, I’d have given
him back his gun with the single remaining bullet. But once help arrived in the
form of Seve, Miguelito and a squad of men in military fatigues, he was taken
away in a military ambulance.

I stayed for nearly a week at the monastery, most of it confined to the
infirmary, during which I spent hours giving statements to people none of whom
showed me any sort of identification. I was still there when I heard the story
of Adolfo’s final hours.

For two agonising days he was kept alive while
some kind of hearing took place to decide his future. But in the end, the
matter was taken out of his captors’ hands. Late one evening, just as it was
getting dark, an elderly Land Rover pulled into the drive of the private clinic
in which he was being held. Five armed, masked men marched uninvited onto the
premises. No one tried to stop them, and some of the medical staff were ordered
to witness events.

According to these witnesses, the men
stood either side of the patient and read out a lengthy sentence in
Euskara
.
Finally, despite his surprisingly determined efforts to fight them off, they flipped
him over onto his face. Four of the men then held him still, while the fifth slipped
a wire round his neck and garrotted him in the traditional Spanish method of
execution.

Three months later, Prime
Minister Luis Carrero Blanco was killed with a car-bomb planted by four members
of ETA. He had been Franco’s most trusted lieutenant and the man most likely to
take over on his death. The assassination and the ensuing government reprisals
marked a dramatic escalation in hostilities.

As for me, I still have dreams: good ones as well as bad.

PART 3

JACK

“So, gentlemen,” said Jack after a long but comfortable
silence, “the story’s over. You’ve been a patient and considerate audience, latterly
at least. Thanks to our time together I’ve laid some ghosts to rest, and it
probably sounds a cliché but I think I’ve gained a better understanding of
myself. And now I’m at your disposal. Ask your questions. Take me where you
want to go. If I can help you join up the dots in any way, I will. Any ideas?”

“Thank you, Jack,” murmured
Julio. “Thank you for your willingness to help, and for the care you’ve taken
to give us a full account of some horrific experiences. I think I know what the
chief will want to do now, and with his permission I’ll set the ball rolling.”
He looked sidelong at Miguel, and received the nod he had been expecting. “As
you promised, the story was useful in giving a context to the bare facts you
outlined a few days ago. Now we need to zoom in on one or two specific parts of
the story, and analyse them from the viewpoint of the investigation. Does that
make sense?”

Jack nodded. He knew the
direction in which the investigation needed to go, and he sincerely hoped the
detective would get there without too many leading answers. He could have told
the police days ago whom to arrest, but still feared that his secret knowledge
could carry a death sentence. They had to identify the suspect themselves, to
own the process by which this particular name had come into the frame. “I was
expecting that,” he replied. “So what are the important facets that you want to
focus on?”

“That’s down to the chief. But
I think one question eclipses all the others, and that’s to do with Adolfo’s
fate. He was shot in the back, you said, and you saw it happen. I wish you
hadn’t had to see that, but there’s no doubt in your mind, correct?”

“Absolutely,” replied Jack,
trying hard to hide his satisfaction. “He was paralysed from the waist down, soiling
himself and screaming to be put out of his misery.”

“Then you saw him taken away,
yes?”

“Yes. There was a lot going
on, but several ambulances turned up as well as a couple of unmarked cars
packed with men in uniform. Some of them put Adolfo on a stretcher and into an
ambulance.”

“And you never saw him again?”

“No, thank God.”

“So the last you saw of him,
he was alive.”

“Absolutely. Dying, I was
certain of that, but not dead.”

“OK, think carefully. I know
you’ve already told us, but let’s go over it again. How did he die, and how did
you learn about it?”

“I was told that he was stable
in a clinic. Then out of nowhere a bunch of paramilitary types appeared, held
up the clinic and garrotted him.”

“And did they leave his body
or take it with them?”

“I’ve always pictured the body
just lying there surrounded by horrified faces as they drove away, but I don’t
think I was ever told one way or the other.”

“Who was it who told you all
this? And based on what evidence?”

“I simply can’t remember. I
was questioned by one man after another: monks, police, army, security… the
distinctions seemed hazy even then. And I don’t think any of them were the
official Spanish authorities. It could have been any one of them that told me
the story. And as for the evidence, I suppose the only evidence was the
testimony of the medical staff. But I never had any reason to doubt what I was
being told. Anyway, why are you niggling away at this? You can’t have any
reason to think…”

“Are you going to tell him
now, Chief?”

“Tell me what?” Jack glanced from
one to the other in eager anticipation, straining to keep what he hoped was a
look of mystification on his face.

Miguel looked embarrassed. “I
was hoping to spare you the unpleasant details of your friend’s death. But I
have to tell you, the first time I saw a connection between your story and our
investigation was when you described the death of your young friend in
Valencia.” He waited then, allowing the time he assumed Jack would need for the
implications to sink in. At first there was no reaction, so he forced the
matter along.

“Of course, Jack,” the
detective continued, “I didn’t completely trust you or your story until the
criminal police in Valencia confirmed the details of the crime scene: the
multiple lacerations from something resembling a surgical scalpel, the sadistic
mutilation. Unconsciousness and death would have come about eventually through shock
and blood loss, but until then the victim would have been agonisingly aware of
what was going on.” There was still no response from Jack. “I regret to inform
you that Antonio died in an almost identical way. To the extent that we have to
suspect the same killer.”

Jack had turned white, and he remained
silent for a long time, his lips pressed tightly together and his eyes gazing
into the distance. The others assumed that he was in shock at Miguel’s
revelation, but they were wrong. Jack was actually in a state of cold fury
tinged with panic. Suddenly the line of questioning had seemed so promising was
not going the way he had wanted and expected. The detective clearly knew or
suspected more than he had ever let on. Whether the intention was to frame Jack
with the killings or simply to coerce him into further revelations was not yet
clear. But far from pursuing the truth, the detective seemed to be setting a
trap for him.

And Miguel had not finished.
“The point is,” he continued, “if Adolfo is dead, then he cannot have been your
friend’s killer. We have to look for another link between the victims, namely
Antonio and your young friend in Valencia all those years ago: no doubt someone
who had prior dealings with both of them; someone they both trusted; someone
who made contact with each of them, forty years apart, and who had the
opportunity to be alone with them.”

Miguel waited for the
implications to sink in before speaking again. “Jack, I think you know where
this is going. Can you account for your movements between leaving the United
Kingdom and arriving at the station in San Sebastián where we picked you up?”

 Julio, watching the two
of them impassively, knew it was a bluff. At this point, the Englishman was
supposed to pour out whatever it was that he was so clearly holding back.

In the event it did not work like
that; Jack was too controlled, too sure of the facts to cave in. But he knew that
he had been outmanoeuvred. He spoke slowly and clearly: “Apart from your
bullying, Miguel, I think there were two factors in the funny turn I had back
in the safe house. Firstly, I caught a fleeting glimpse of something I’d managed
to keep hidden from myself for decades: Trini the way she was when I found her.
Secondly, I had the less horrific but equally shocking realisation that Adolfo
is alive. And the worst thing is, he’s untouchable.”

“What on earth do you mean?”
asked Miguel with mock indignation, still pushing Jack for more. “The Spanish
police of today aren’t perfect, but we’ve left the Franco era behind.”

“I have a name for you. You
won’t like it. In fact, as of now, we’re all outlaws. Dead men walking, in
fact.”

“There’s no need to be
patronising, Jack. Nobody is above the law in modern Spain.”

“Not even José María Gallego?
The Minister of Justice himself?” Jack looked at each of them in turn. Julio
managed to maintain steady eye-contact; Miguel almost did, but just for a split
second the mask slipped. Jack’s eyes widened. “You knew. Or you’ve suspected all
this time.” He rose to his feet. “All this long charade: asking for my help,
flying me around the country, putting me through the emotional grinder. Why the
hell didn’t you just ask if I recognised him when his face came on the news?”

From some inner recess, Miguel mustered
up the decency to look embarrassed. “Jack, I hope you’ll come to accept that we
had a good reason, even if you don’t follow our logic. Believe me, it’s been
hard stringing you along. Not as hard as it must have been for you. But because
of who he is, we had to be absolutely sure. And here’s what it’s all about: believe
it or not, we don’t have purges and secret tribunals any more. We have to have
credible witnesses who’ll testify in court. And we need physical evidence
linking him to crimes of violence. So the first thing is, will you testify?”

“Yes, I will testify, if I survive long
enough. I don’t have to think twice about that. But you could have got me killed
on three or four separate occasions. Your organisation must be riddled with his
informers. Have you got a hope of bringing him to trial? Heaven knows, he was
well protected forty years ago as a middle-ranking policeman. Now he’s a senior
figure in government. Are you just going to walk up and arrest him? At a word
from him, the entire legal establishment will turn on you.”

“You’re right, of course. And to make
things worse, the current prime minister is weak. He needs Gallego in
government to appease the right-wingers. He has no idea how dangerous a monster
he’s brought into the fold, and he won’t want to know. We’re going to need clear
and incontrovertible evidence even to trigger a resignation, let alone an
indictment. That, or a massive public presumption of guilt such as your British
newspapers are so skilled at creating. But no newspaper editor has the guts to
come out against Gallego.”

“Don’t you have any natural allies? What
about the Basques?”

“If any of the separatist groups could
have got near him, they would have. We have only one hope.”

“And that is?”

“You.”

José María Gallego sat motionless as evening gave way to night and
the features of his study were lost in the darkness. A forgotten name – the
name of someone who had done him great harm long ago – had come surging back
into the foreground of his thoughts.

Once he had wanted revenge. Then, when the
emergence of the global village had at last put revenge within his grasp, he had
no longer craved it. Now the hunger was with him again. He longed to feel his tomentor
tremble under the blade, to watch in satisfaction as he tried to force a scream
past the wadding in his mouth.

He groped in the dark for his computer
keyboard, and as his fingers brushed over the touchpad the screen came to life.
He reread the email from San Sebastián police HQ. It was in code, of course—not
encrypted because that might have aroused suspicion, but couched in non-incriminating
language: ‘An informant reports that the historic terror suspect about whom you
enquired is revisiting an old haunt in the mountains. Suspect is in the company
of known associates. Caution advised.’

Gallego knew all too well the
implications of those last two words. The sender knew how much the minister
wanted to lay hands on this particular suspect and knew better than to withhold
relevant information. But he suspected a trap and was tacitly suggesting that
the Minister should hold back. And for the last three hours, Gallego had been
debating precisely that question with himself: on one hand, the thirst for
revenge; on the other, self-preservation.

Gallego decided to sleep on
it. In the event he did not sleep well, but by morning he had come to a decision.

Jack Burlton sat in the back of yet another specially adapted Mercedes
Viano as it powered along the motorway. He tried intermittently to read, but
his eyelids kept drooping and he came to a conclusion that sleeping was
probably the most useful thing he could do for the next hour or so.

He still had no idea why he had agreed to
be a pawn in this half-baked game of chess with the devil. He did not see how
the plan could possibly succeed, and did not entirely trust Miguel’s assurances
that he was just a decoy rather than the actual bait. A conjuror’s
misdirection, that was the way the detective had described it. Even so, there
was no certainty that the detective understood the sheer power that their adversary
wielded: the power to gain cooperation through fear, to manipulate the media,
the police, now even the courts, to serve his interests.

A bell was tolling in the tower overlooking Alzaibar, the daringly
styled monastic complex perched on a crag in the Cantabrian Range. It was only
9 a.m., but that was mid-morning in the life of the monastery. Those visitors who
knew the daily routine thought it strange that monks were streaming into the
chapel and not emerging, and some cautiously edged towards their cars.

Just one older brother still struggled
clumsily across the cobbled plaza with a great basket on wheels stuffed with
dirty laundry. Meanwhile, watchful individuals from External Affairs patrolled
the perimeter and the public areas. The older ones, those who had been there
since the dark days of the Franco regime, knew what the bell and the drill
meant: an unwelcome visit was in the offing. It was hard to believe that such a
thing could be happening again after all these years, but many of them had heard
stories about the new Minister of Justice. Some of them wondered if the bad old
days were on their way back.

The monotonous chiming of the bell
stopped as suddenly as it had begun. For a few minutes all was calm. Then the older
brother who had been struggling with the laundry basket – a quiet, reserved,
grey-haired man known as Brother Ángel – heard a sound that in these parts was
rare and menacing: the fast, rhythmic chopping noise of an approaching
helicopter. He manoeuvred his basket into the shade of the cloisters, stepped
back out onto the main plaza and shielded his eyes against the morning sun.