THE ENGLISH WITNESS (11 page)

Julio refrained from answering. He gave
himself a painful crick in the neck, twisting round in his seat and leaning
across the passenger in the window seat to take in the bird’s eye view of
Almería that stretched away to a distant but hazy horizon. Even the hundreds of
square kilometres of plastic sheeting that radiated out into what had once been
virgin desert – now the market gardening capital of Europe – could detract from
the magic of blue sea and traditional white architecture, set against the most
isolated and exotic of all European landscapes. “It’s grown,” he said at last.
“Upwards as well as outwards. But I’m glad to see that the heart of the city
hasn’t changed much.”

“We’re good at preserving what’s ancient
and beautiful,” mused Miguel. “As long as it’s man-made, that is. Natural
beauty, in contrast… well, you can see for yourself how much respect we have
for it.”

“The price of progress,” responded Julio.
“We no longer have to live on rice, beans and pork fat. And we’ve come to mean
more to the rest of the world than beaches and old ruins.”

“The voice of youth has spoken,” growled
Miguel. “What do you think, Jack?”

In the window seat, Jack Burlton sat gazing
intently and silently at the seat in front of his own. Interwoven images of
fire, steel and gore filled his head, punctuated with the sporadic crack of
small arms fire.

In front of the hotel was a broad strip of lawn bordered by a row of palm
trees. While others enjoyed their siesta, Miguel sat on a wooden bench in the
shade of the foliage, struggling to keep his eyes open as he thought his way into
Jack’s private universe. He remained convinced that the Englishman had been
here; it fitted his description of the southerly detour he had planned to take,
and on one occasion he had shown clear signs of recognition.

They had been strolling up to the
Alcazaba, the Moorish castle that looms over the city’s old quarter, and at
first Jack had been quite content to stroll along beside Julio taking in the
sights and sounds. Then they had reached the narrow lane that climbs one side
of the ridge on which the castle stands. As they gazed out over the flat roofs
of the old quarter, Jack had become so agitated that they had turned back and gone
to a bar.

As the sun passed its zenith and the
shadows began to lengthen, the detective wrestled with Jack’s motive for coming
here. It was a long way off his planned route up to the border. He must have
had a strong reason for making the detour once he knew he had been located. Miguel
thought long and hard about the kind of person who could instil that kind of
hope in a lonely and frightened kid. But he drew a blank.

The second day was as fruitless as the
first. Random things seemed to break through the barrier with which Jack had
surrounded himself: children playing in a schoolyard, a square old SEAT saloon
stalled at a busy crossroads, the city’s bullring. But whatever it was about
these things that intrigued him, he could not say.

By the third day, Miguel was getting
frustrated and angry. Jack was no more communicative than when they had
arrived, and with little appetite for food it was no surprise that he was beginning
to look gaunt. After breakfast in their hotel, the three of them went back to
Miguel’s room where the detective shook the Englishman by the shoulders and shouted
questions into his face. Then he turned to Julio, who was clearly perturbed by
his methods. “If you’re so smart, you tell me,” he shouted at his colleague. “How
the hell would a British teenager in the nineteen-seventies know someone down
here at the arse-end of Andalucía? Burlton’s obviously been here; you can see
it in his eyes. But who would he have come to see?”

Then Julio began to smile. “With respect,
Chief, you should listen to yourself. You know who he must have come to see—the
person this whole business is about.”

Miguel was silent for several seconds
before responding. “Oh God. It never occurred to me that they went
that
far back. And Burlton never said he was going to visit a friend
as such,
let alone García López. Anyway, I was under the impression that Antonio lived
up north.”

“Perhaps it was here that the friendship grew.
I recall the British have a saying about friends in need. But we have an address
for him on file; we’ve just been too busy with Burlton to follow it up. Would
you like me to phone Guarinos and get the details?”

“Great work, Julio. If it’s local, we’ll
take Burlton over there later and see if he shows any sign of recognition. But can
you take him downstairs for a cup of tea or something? I need to make a couple
of calls.”

Julio led Jack away, and by the time he
had an address Miguel had joined them. They trooped down to the hired Ford, and
Julio drove out to the address held on file for Antonio García López. It was a
penthouse apartment in a sun-bleached low-rise residential zone dating from the
late sixties, situated a couple of kilometres from the city centre. They parked
on an expanse of cracked tarmac that was bounded on two sides by concrete
garages with graffiti-strewn up-and-over doors. The third side was open onto
the public road, and on the fourth side stood the five-storey apartment block.

It was not until they were approaching the
block’s external staircase that Jack’s eyes came into focus, and for the first
time in several days he turned his head to look inquisitively at his
surroundings. The images and sounds in his head that stood between him and
reality were more cheerful now.
A white stripe on a blue background. Snap.
Snap. Snap. Antonio smiling. ¡Dale! ¡Estupendo!  
He had been following
Julio around with no sign of self-determination; now he ambled slowly off
towards one of the garages.

For over a minute Jack fumbled unsuccessfully
with the garage door handle. Then, without any prompting, he walked back
towards the two police officers. But to their surprise he headed straight past
them and up the external stairs to the top floor.

Julio was so surprised that he
took a second or two to react. But he saw no reason to hurry, and by the time
he had reached the top of the stairs Jack was already knocking on one of the
doors. Julio fished a key out of his pocket and handed it to Jack, who unlocked
the door and walked straight in. Julio waited for Miguel, and when they entered
together they found the Englishman sitting on a kitchen stool, his face and
shirt already wet with tears. The driver saw the detective draw in his breath
to speak. He held up a warning hand, and no more business was done that day.

They returned to Antonio’s apartment early the following morning. The
thing that disturbed Julio most was that it did not resemble the family home he
had been expecting to find. The décor was stale and faded, the carpets worn.
There were several prepared meals of unknown age in the freezer, but no stale
milk or rotting vegetables anywhere. There was nothing feminine in the main
bedroom, either on the clothes rails or in the dust-covered dressing table. And
curiously, while the cupboards, television and one end of the dining table were
covered with the same thick film of dust as the bedroom furniture, the other
end of the table had been given a wipe more recently. Julio saw Miguel noting
these things, but the detective made no comment on them.

After two hours going through the
two-bedroom apartment, during which Miguel was constantly warning Jack not to
touch anything, the detective relented. He gave Julio instructions to do what
he could with the ageing coffee beans they had found in a cupboard, and they sat
round the kitchen table to talk. Jack was still very self-conscious and stilted
in his speech, but Julio found a bottle of French cognac in the dining area and
did not think Antonio would begrudge it to them.

Jack was cautious, and tried very hard to stay in character as someone still
on the edge of mental collapse. He sipped at the fine brandy without enthusiasm
as he forced his still dazed brain to consider every single word before he
uttered it. After forty years of denial, a single shocking realisation had
forced him to confront his demons and look them in the hollow eye sockets. The
experience had brought him to the brink of drowning, but now Antonio had come
to the rescue once again.

The confused and traumatised persona that
the two men had come to know was certainly no act. Neither was the fugue state from
which Jack was now emerging. He knew that he needed the professional help he
had walked away from decades earlier, and that in his present shape he was a
danger to himself and others. But in the situation that now presented itself, he
equally understood the benefits of borderline insanity. He needed to keep up
the appearance of a man clutching at reality, and to watch his words carefully.
The last thing he needed right now was alcohol.         

As for his two present companions, how
much should he tell them? How much would they care? And the biggest question of
all: to whom could he safely entrust a burden like the one he was now carrying?

JAMES

I’d first met Antonio as a Spanish language assistant at my old school.
He’d given everybody in our class his address and invited us to visit if we
were ever in the area. Of course, I hadn’t seen him for five years, and after
such a long gap I didn’t know if he’d even remember me. All the same, I had his
embossed calling card and took that as a standing invitation.

It was a Saturday morning. I was expecting
to be offered a drink, probably lunch and perhaps a couple of nights’
accommodation. But I hadn’t bargained with Antonio’s ultra-conservative code of
conduct.

He didn’t recognise me at first. I’d aged
five years since he’d last seen me, and lost several kilos in weight. My
stubble had been growing unchecked, and the visible parts of my face were
deeply tanned. Then his face broke into a broad smile. “James Burlton! Welcome!
Welcome! What a pleasure," he enthused in a mixture of English and his own
language.

Antonio had grown up a lot since his days in
England. Back then he’d been a lunatic, thrilled by the freedom of life in
Britain. Since then he’d got married and put on as much weight as I’d lost. He
proudly introduced me to his shy, very formal wife and two beautiful little
boys: one of them a precocious toddler and the other just going onto solid
food.

While his wife made coffee, he led me into
his study and showed me a box of souvenirs from England. There was one photo of
a dozen pupils at a language fair he’d organised. One of the boys in the
picture I took an instant dislike to. He was standing apart from the others and
eyeballing the camera with an insolent grin. He had one thumb hooked behind the
lapel of his blazer, and his first and second fingers were extended in a crafty
V-sign. Then I realised with embarrassment that it was me.

After coffee he led me down to the garage
block. “Do you remember this?” he asked as he unlocked one of the doors to
reveal a little blue Renault with a white stripe along each side.

“How could I forget it?” I replied with a
smile. And I never have forgotten it. It was a FASA-Renault 8TS, if that means
anything, in which he’d sometimes ferried pupils to special events. He’d been a
terrifying driver. Tearing down the A23 Purley Way at ninety miles an hour,
wheels straddling the centre-line, throwing us around in the back with no
seatbelts, he’d struck even us thrill-hungry fifteen-year-olds as high-risk.

Antonio moved the car out and opened
a canvas bag he’d brought down from his study. For a moment I thought he had a real
gun and I shrank from it, but it was no more than an over-powered air pistol
that he’d picked up on the black market.

Back in the sixties in the Air Cadets – before all the good stuff got
banned by the health and safety mafia – we regularly visited shooting ranges
and practised manoeuvres on the local common. I was obsessed with firearms. I read
every book and article I could find, and turned out for every practice
available. By the time I made corporal I was already at RAF proficiency with a
rifle, and in the belief that I was a careerist they began sending me to advanced
courses on an army range in Surrey.

By the time I went off to
university and joined the TAVR (the army volunteer reserve) I was already more
than just a good marksman. I had range experience with several different firearms
and knew the strengths and weaknesses of many more. If it hadn’t been for what
happened here in Spain, I’d have signed up as soon as I graduated and probably got
blown to pieces in the Falklands. But with what I’d been through here, I’d lost
my appetite for weaponry.

Antonio and I stood there in the open space at the front of the garages,
taking it in turns to plink at old beer cans stacked against the back wall of his
unit. He was clearly impressed with my shooting, but here’s the thing that
struck me as odd until I knew more about his past: he made me look like a
novice.

After an hour we headed back up to the
apartment. Cut off as I was from my own family, I’d been really looking forward
to an afternoon with his. But instead they packed me off to a bullfight. While
Antonio and I had been talking about old times and shooting beer cans, his wife
had been queuing for a ticket at the Plaza de Toros. And much as I disapproved,
I didn’t feel I could refuse their hospitality.

I’d seen several bullfights on TV in bars
and restaurants, but watching on a tiny black and white screen was nothing like
the real thing. By the middle of the afternoon I was sunburned and overheated in
my cheap, unshaded seat. But above all I was sickened by the sight and smell of
blood. I’d been invited back for dinner that evening, and I hoped that the meal
would be something starchy and bland because I was on the point of becoming a
vegetarian.

When I was ushered into the family dining
room l saw to my disappointment that the table had only been set for two. Once
again I’d been looking forward to a family gathering, but Antonio and I were to
dine together while his wife and children retired to the kitchen. I looked
cautiously into the main serving dish, and saw that it contained a number of small,
round lumps of meat in a light, greenish-tinged gravy. "You saw him
fighting for his life this afternoon," declared Antonio. “Now you can
taste him.” As I struggled to swallow the strongly flavoured meat, his wife and
older child were having pasta and tomato sauce. How I envied them.

After dinner Antonio drove me back to the
youth hostel. He’d been insistent that I should stay with them, but having met
his family I was concerned about the danger to them. And more selfishly, penniless
as I was, I felt humiliated by their extravagant but impersonal hospitality. Perhaps
that was why I’d felt able to slip back into the study and smuggle out Antonio’s
air pistol together with a tin of pellets. It wasn’t going to be much use in a
real fight, but a well-placed shot could incapacitate someone several metres
away.