The Butcher Beyond (2 page)

‘Yes,' the bald man said.

Roberts shook his head admiringly. ‘Neat footwork. Very neat. You were always good at twisting the situation around – at talking us into things we would have considered unthinkable a few minutes earlier.'

‘Back then, I did what I had to do,' the bald man said. ‘If I persuaded you to put your lives at risk, it was because I thought that was what was necessary to achieve our objectives. But times have changed – and so have circumstances.'

‘Have they really?' Roberts asked.

The bald man smiled. ‘Yes, and you do not have to look at the outside world to realize that – you have only to observe the four of us gathered here. So no pressure – not any more. If you wish to put the past behind you, I'll respect that. If you wish to leave before any vote is taken, that is no more than your right and I wouldn't blame you at all.'

Roberts rolled the dice. Two kings, three aces.

‘A full house,' he said. ‘Alone, each of the faces adds up to nothing. Together, they are a winning combination. But, of course, there are other throws which can still beat them.'

‘Is that a “yes” or a “no”?' the bald man asked.

‘When have you ever known me to let anybody cut me out of the action?' Roberts questioned. ‘I vote we go back ourselves. It will certainly be cheaper – and probably much more interesting.'

The man in the tattered grey suit had said nothing during the course of the whole meeting. Yet he had been silent only in the way a volcano on the point of eruption might have been called silent – and while his mouth had been shut, the room had been full of his mental rumblings.

Now, when he spoke, it was as if fire and brimstone were gushing forth from him.

‘We are the strong right arm of the Lord – His instrument of justice,' he said. ‘We will smite the unrighteous and the unclean as He commands us. Yea, even unto death.'

‘Even more enigmatic than my answer,' Roberts said, greatly amused. ‘But that's a “yes” too, wouldn't you say, Pete?'

The bald man nodded, but there was a troubled expression on his face.

He was worried about the man in the grey suit, and realized now that he had
always
been worried. In the old days they had all been branded as extremists and fanatics, and had taken it as a badge of honour. But even then he had seemed
more
extreme –
more
fanatical – than the rest of them. He was a loose cannon. He was teetering on the edge of insanity. But if the mission was ever to succeed, he was an essential part of the team.

‘How do you vote, Pete?' Henderson asked.

The bald man shrugged. ‘Does that really matter now? Two out of three is a majority, isn't it?'

‘I think we'd like to hear, anyway.'

The bald man sighed. ‘I was listening the wheels of the train as I was travelling down here. They seemed to be saying, “You-don't-have-to-go, you-don't-have-to-go.” By the time I got off at Euston, I was almost convinced they were right. And when I was standing on your doorstep and ringing the bell, my mind was already searching for an excuse – a way to back out. Then you, Henderson, came up with that excuse. We didn't have to go ourselves, you said. We could hire an assassin. It would be safer for us, I thought, and a professional killer would have a much greater chance of success than a group of middle-aged men who the years had made soft. It seemed like the perfect solution!'

‘Perhaps it was,' Henderson suggested. ‘Perhaps it still is.'

The bald man shook his head violently. ‘No! A thousand times no! I felt no relief when I heard your idea. I experienced
despair
. And it was at that moment I realized that whatever the others decided to do, I had to go back. Even if I fail! Even if I'm killed myself! There is simply no other option for me.'

Roberts rolled the dice again. A pair of nines! It simply wasn't possible to score any lower.

‘Apparently, there is no other option for
any of us
,' he said.

T
he immigration officer wore a green uniform, dark glasses – and a scowl. He examined Woodend's passport carefully – holding it as if it were an unexploded bomb – then looked up and said questioningly, ‘
¿Policía?
'

‘I'm awfully sorry, but I'm afraid I don't speak any Spanish,' Woodend said apologetically.

‘Oh, for heaven's sake, Charlie, it's obvious that he wants to know if you're a policeman,' Joan said exasperatedly.

Woodend nodded. Of course that was what he'd meant. ‘Yes, I'm a bobb— … a policeman,' he said.

The immigration officer did not seem to welcome the news. ‘A sheaf inspector?' he asked, peering even closer at the document.

‘That's right.'

‘You are here for to work? To investigate?'

‘Good God, no!' Woodend said.

Joan dug him in the ribs. ‘You shouldn't blaspheme, Charlie,' she hissed. ‘They're very religious, are the Spanish.'

‘We're here on holiday,' Woodend said, forming the words slowly and carefully, letting each one rest on his lips for a second. ‘The doctor said my wife needed a rest.'

Joan sighed theatrically. ‘They know nothin' at all, do they?'

‘Who doesn't?' Woodend wondered.

‘Them doctors. They might have all those certificates up on their walls, but they haven't an ounce of common sense between them.'

‘Is that right?'

‘Course it's right. If the doctor thought I needed a rest, he should have told me to leave you at home.'

Woodend grinned.

The man behind the desk did not. ‘You would have allow your wife to travel alone?' he asked incredulously.

Culture clash, Woodend thought. That's what they called it.

‘It's a joke,' he explained to the immigration officer.

‘A joke? What is funny?'

‘She's pretendin' to think that it'll be no rest for her with me here – because I'll be expectin' her to wait on me hand an' foot.'

‘But of course you will expect it,' the official said. ‘It is no more than a wife's duty.'

‘No, you see …' Woodend began.

And then he gave up, because it was plain he was never going to get through to this feller.

The conversation was obviously starting to bore the official. He picked up a large rubber stamp and slammed it down with some force on an open page in Woodend's new passport.

‘You may go,' he said. Then – as if suddenly recalling a half-forgotten directive from the immigration officer's handbook – he gave the two visitors an insincere half-smile and said, ‘Have a pleasant stay in my country.'

‘Aye, I'll certainly try to,' Woodend replied.

Woodend stood at the airport exit, taking his first look at Spain. Last time he'd set foot on foreign soil it had been on a beach in Normandy, under the hail of enemy bullets. This time, he thought, his welcome had been a little friendlier – but not
that
much friendlier.

‘It's a bit barren, isn't it?' Joan said.

It was indeed, Woodend agreed.

Lancashire was green – it rained too bloody much for it to be anything else – but the Spanish coast had an arid look which reminded him of another wartime memory, his time in North Africa.

‘Still, I expect the hotel will be nice,' Joan said, with the optimism of a woman who had never travelled abroad before – and could not therefore imagine that there was any place in the entire world which did not have its share of British fish and chip shops.

‘You will come now, please!' called the young man in the blue blazer who had met them a few minutes earlier and informed them that he was Jesus María, their courier.

Woodend picked up the suitcases – what the hell had Joan put in them to make them so heavy? – and carried them over to the bus. The vehicle had hard wooden seats, he noted, but at least it looked more roadworthy than most of the battered cars parked around it.

He found himself, instinctively, running his eyes over the other passengers who were waiting to get on the bus. The greater part of the group was made up of families – mum, dad and two or three kids. But there were also several young couples, probably on their honeymoons, and one other pair who – like the Woodends – were no longer
quite
so young.

Judging by their dress, Woodend decided that the majority of the men were either low-ranking office workers or skilled craftsmen. From their looks of uncertainty, he deduced that this was their first holiday abroad, and they were not yet quite sure whether they were going to enjoy it. They were, in other words, just the kind of people he would have expected to be travelling with.

It was not until most of the party had climbed on to the bus that Woodend even noticed the man who
didn't
fit in. He was in his late fifties, the Chief Inspector guessed, and had a bald head which – since it seemed to be covered with sweat – was reflecting more light than the average mirror. He was sporting a moustache thick enough to be called fully mature, yet he kept fingering it as if surprised to find it there under his nose. He didn't look comfortable in his suit, either. He twitched and stretched his arms, as though he were used to a much better fit. And despite the fact that he had taken his tie off – as most of the other holidaymakers had – he didn't seem at all at ease about it.

But it was his general demeanour which made him really stand out. He was not looking as if he didn't know what to expect next, but rather as if he
did
– and was greatly troubled by the knowledge.

‘Stop it, Charlie!' Joan said sharply.

‘Stop what?'

‘Stop bein' a bobby, for goodness sake! You're on holiday. An' you're goin' to enjoy it if it kills you.'

As the bus bumped along the coast road, Woodend looked out of the window at the blue sea, and felt almost like a kid again, on the way to his annual holiday in Blackpool.

Except, of course, that it was not really the same at all, he thought somewhat ruefully.

He was forty years older, for a start – though there'd been times recently when he'd felt as if at least a hundred years had passed since he'd last worn short trousers and knee socks. And this was not the Fylde Coastline – not by any stretch of the imagination.

On the Fylde, the only donkeys you saw were carrying screaming children along the beach. Here, on the open roads of Alicante, the animals seemed to be being used as everything from goods vans to taxis.

There were other differences, too. The villages they passed through had several small shady bars instead of one big public house. The shops were little more than holes in the walls, and while shopping in them might turn out to be a slow business, they held out the promise of unexpected treasures which would never be discovered in the shops back home. And then there were the people themselves. They were darker than their Lancashire counterparts, less encumbered by layers of clothes, and seemed to be going about their business in a far more leisurely manner.

‘It's a rum sort of place this, isn't it?' said a voice from a few seats behind him.

Aye, it was, Woodend agreed silently. Very rum. Like nothing he had ever seen before. Yes, the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced he was really going to enjoy his time in the town of Benicelda!

‘Your mind's still back in Whitebridge, isn't it?' Joan said, in an accusing voice.

‘No,' Woodend promised.

‘You're sure about that, are you?' Joan persisted.

‘Yes! Honestly!'

And he meant it. Here was a whole new world, full of exciting new experiences, and he meant to savour them all.

Then he thought of the bald-headed man again, and realized that while the mind of the Holiday-Woodend might be in Spain, he had brought the mind of Policeman-Woodend along with him for company.

T
he road entered Benicelda at the edge of its sweeping bay, so that most of the town's treasures were spread out in front of the coach party from the very start.

At first sight it was a difficult place to categorize, Woodend thought, as he looked through the bus window. It would be easier to describe what it had been – and what it was about to become – than to talk about what it actually
was.

What it had
been
was a fishing village. There was ample evidence of that in the whitewashed shacks the bus was trundling past. They were spread out, these shacks, and they put Woodend in mind of a row of decaying teeth, separated by wide gaps. The reason for the spacing was obvious. Each house needed somewhere to beach its sturdy wooden fishing boat, and – more importantly – somewhere to spread out its large trawling net, so that it could be mended between expeditions. A number of men were at work on their nets at that moment – small, broad men with strong arms and weather-beaten skins. And while they were busy painstakingly repairing the mesh, their women – all dressed from head to foot in black – were either washing clothes in large wooden tubs or grilling fish over charcoal.

As he heard the cameras of his fellow passengers clicking all around him, Woodend found himself wondering how long the way of life they were photographing had been playing itself out undisturbed – and how long it would be allowed to remain now that the tourists had started to pour in.

They were approaching the other part of the town – the town as it was about to
become
. And
what
it was about to become, Woodend thought, was a kind of small-scale Blackpool, with the added advantage of guaranteed sun. The bus passed a number of four- and five-storey hotels – with names like
Gran Sol
and
Vista del Mar
– which looked so new that it was possible to believe the paint had scarcely had time to dry. And clustered in their shadow were smaller buildings which owed their very existence to the hotels – bars and restaurants, offering enticing
menús del día
; chemists' with prominent displays of sun cream; accessory shops which sold mats, buckets and spades, everything the visitor needed to take with him for his days spent turning crispy brown on the beach.