The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory) (18 page)

‘It’s the way it is.’ Guzmán pushed his empty plate aside and pulled the bowl of stew in front of him, dispensing with niceties. ‘From the top down. You know the stories about Franco’s wife,
Doña
Carmen and her shopping habits?’

‘Which ones?’

‘About how she visits the jewellers’ shops when she’s in Madrid. Like some sort of queen. She descends on them,
buenos dias,
lovely piece of jewellery, how much is it? Oh really? How kind, thank you. And she’s off with a new brooch or ring or whatever. Never has to get her purse out or ask her husband if they can afford it. Because they don’t buy it. They take what they want. That’s why they call her
Doña
Necklaces. Though not to her face obviously.’

‘But…’ Peralta struggled for the words, ‘surely that just reflects the esteem we all hold for the
Caudillo
. People give her gifts to demonstrate their…’ He stopped. Guzmán was moving his hand in a gesture suggesting masturbation.

‘She does it,’ Guzmán said simply, ‘because she wants to and because she can.’

‘Doesn’t mean we can,’ Peralta said.

Guzmán shrugged. ‘Yes it does. Everything’s relative,
chico
. The big fish take a big slice of the best. The little fish take a smaller slice of the not so good. That’s how it works, just like the army: a hierarchy. We’re not quite at the bottom either,
amigo
. You can be comfortable if you accept your place in things. Like a part in a machine. You work properly, you get oiled.’

‘And if you don’t?’

Guzmán snorted. ‘You get replaced. Remember that,
Teniente
. Any time you feel this job is too distasteful or beneath you. Any time you think you know better or that your personal code of honour prevents you from doing something, I can walk out of the door of the
comisaría
and find someone who’d take your place in five minutes flat. And, let me tell you, if you fuck about and don’t pull your weight, that’s exactly what I will do.’

‘Hardly good recruitment practice for the police,’ Peralta said stuffily.

‘
Teniente,
just remember we’re not the police. We’re not the
guardia civil
and we aren’t the Little Sisters of Piety. We are what we are. People ask sometimes what I did in the war. Peralta, I never left the fucking army. For us, there’s still a war on.’

He gestured to the waiter. The man came immediately, gliding through the crowded tables with practised ease.

‘At your service,
señores
. I trust everything was to your satisfaction?
Algo más
? Coffee? A brandy?’

‘Both,’ Guzmán nodded, ‘and make the brandy Carlos Primero.’ The waiter took their plates and retreated to the kitchen, maintaining his vague professional smile.

‘Nothing but the best for us today.’ Peralta smiled sheepishly.

‘You know who’s paying for this?’ Guzmán asked.

Peralta felt a moment of panic, wondering if perhaps this was a joke which would end with him as the butt of Guzmán’s humour. ‘Me?’ he asked, uncertainly.

‘Could you afford it?’ Guzmán sneered. ‘No, of course not, and I’m certainly not paying. It’s on the house. Don’t look so worried, they know it. I eat here a lot – as you can imagine, since it’s free.’

‘Just like that?’

Guzmán looked over to the bar. ‘The owner’s sister was inclined towards the Reds. She was arrested handing out leaflets about the need for democracy two years ago. Can you imagine?
Hostia
, it’s like they’re simple or something.
They lost
.’ His voice thickened with anger. ‘You’d think they’d try and blend into the background. But no. So she ended up at the
comisaría
. She was no real threat. But she’d mixed with those people, the ones who organised it, printed the leaflets. Those were the ones we wanted.’

‘So she gave you the information in return for her freedom?’

Guzmán looked incredulously at the
teniente
. ‘Hardly. We don’t bargain with Reds and she’d committed an act of treachery. That carries a death sentence.’

‘And how does that lead to you eating here for nothing?’ Peralta asked.

Guzmán sighed. ‘First of all we stripped her naked and then we put her head in a bucket of water. Well, the sarge did, he enjoys it so much it was a shame not to let him. Didn’t take long. You just slowly increase the length of time they’re under water. Then give them a few minutes to recover and do it again. Have a fag while they dry out and then back under they go. She didn’t last long before we’d got every name she could remember.’

‘And the owner paid for her freedom with free meals?’

‘Not at all,’ Guzmán said. ‘One of the names she gave us was his. He was remarkably cooperative. Now he gives us information and we eat here for nothing. And, as long as he keeps his nose clean, he stays alive. The chef ’s excellent, as you’ll have noticed.’

‘But what about his sister?’

‘She got ten years’ hard labour. She’s in one of the camps now, along with a load of other Reds, perverts, a few Jews and lots of gypsies, I imagine.’

‘So him giving you free meals wasn’t a bribe to try to save her?’

‘Save her?’ Guzmán laughed. ‘He didn’t try to save her. He saved himself.’

Peralta watched as the waiter poured coffee and then set down two large glasses of brandy. Raising his glass, he inhaled the rich aroma.

‘Anything else, gentlemen?’

‘Two Cuban cigars,’ Guzmán said, gently whirling the brandy in his glass, ‘the really good ones, Paquito.’

‘At once,
Comandante
Guzmán.’ The waiter’s smile was definitely slipping now.

‘I can’t remember the last time I had brandy as good as this. Not even at my wedding.’ Peralta said.

‘Get used to it. But make sure you earn it. When a job needs doing, do it right.’

‘You mean tonight?’ Peralta asked.

‘I mean all the time. But yes, tonight included. You’ll need to pull your weight.’

‘What time will it happen?’ Peralta asked.

‘We’ll move them after it gets dark. The trucks will be brought up to the entrance and we’ll load them up and then drive them out there.’

‘Where?’

‘The countryside. Mustn’t offend sensibilities in the city. Especially with the
Yanquis
visiting. The war is over,’ Guzmán gulped down his brandy, ‘officially.’ He caught the waiter’s eye as the man approached with the cigars. ‘Two more brandies, Paquito.’

The smile was gone. ‘At once,
Comandante
.’

Peralta persisted, his cheeks flushed now. ‘But what happens to the…’ He was unsure of the word he wanted.

‘Bodies?’ Guzmán grinned. ‘Normally, we’d dig a big pit and bury them. But the winter makes that difficult – ground’s too hard to dig. So we’ve found a compromise. There’s an old mine near Las Peñas. The entrance is just a long tunnel dug into the hillside. We’ll put the bodies in, and brick up the entrance. Simple.’

‘Who will form the firing squad?’ Peralta asked, attempting professional interest.

‘The usual people, they’ve done it before.’ Guzmán smiled. Or possibly sneered, Peralta found it hard to tell the two expressions apart.

The brandies arrived. Peralta realised he actually felt warm now, and unusually full. He watched the waiter cut the ends off the cigars. The aroma was exquisite.

‘Rolled on a virgin’s thigh, Paquito. No?’ Guzmán held the cigar to his nose.

‘If you say so,
Comandante
.’

‘I’d think virgins are even harder to find in Madrid than these cigars,
verdad
?’

‘As the
comandante
says. Everything is in short supply at the moment.’

Guzmán sent the waiter away. Peralta saw him in deep conversation with an older man in a dinner jacket – the owner, he imagined, given the man’s concerned look and the length of the piece of paper they were both studying.

‘I wish María could be here,’ Peralta said, inhaling the aromatic cigar smoke.

‘Your wife?’ Guzmán asked.

‘Yes. It would be nice to share this with her. She’s probably making do with a bowl of soup right now.’

‘Well,’ Guzmán said, ‘there’s a number of shops where they would be pleased to offer you a generous discount as a serving member of the
Brigada Especial
. I’ll get the sarge to make a list for you.’

‘When in Rome…’ Peralta said, martyred resignation.

‘Who said anything about Rome?’ Guzmán snapped, exhaling a cloud of cigar smoke. ‘Fucking Italians. They think they won the Civil War for us.’

Guzmán looked at his watch and stood up, pulling on his coat as he headed for the door. Peralta downed the last of the brandy and followed.

The head waiter opened the door for them. ‘
Hasta la proxima
,
señores
. I hope you enjoyed your meal.’

‘Yes, thank you.’ Peralta nodded. Guzmán ignored the man completely.

The cold closed in as they walked back. Peralta looked at his watch. It was almost half past two and, as they reached the door of the
comisaría
, the air shimmered as the great church bell sent waves of deep bass notes into the freezing day.

*

Guzmán was hunched in his office shouting into the telephone. Peralta sat in a room down the corridor, meticulously copying the names on Guzmán’s list with a red mark against them into a leatherbound register. Against each name he filled in the charge:
Crimes against the Spanish State, Serious Apathy, Treason, Bearing arms against the Spanish State
, until the repetitive lexicon of capital crimes no longer held any surprise for him. His concentration was weakened by the large lunch, particularly the drink. His head ached and he took intermittent sips from a large mug of black coffee. It was foul.

Ernesto Garcia Mendoza, Bearing arms against the Spanish State, Assisting the enemies of Spain. Sentence: Death
.

Peralta paused at the last column headed
Sentence carried out
. Later he would complete that. This evening. Something churned in his stomach. He cursed himself. Why could he not take Guzmán’s advice and buckle down? He stared at the stained walls of the cold office with its chipped whitewash and drab military-coloured furniture. Because he was not like that, he supposed. But he could not escape this place now: he worked here. General Valverde disliked him so much that, if he tried to get out of Guzmán’s unit, the general would wash his hands of him. And then his career would be ruined. Unable to follow orders, too scared to watch them shoot a few Reds. And there was María to think of, María and little Luisa María. He began to balance the issues, stacking the justifications for the execution against his growing physical repulsion. These Reds would be shot anyway, whatever he did; no one cared, just as Guzmán said; there had been so much killing already – and these men were condemned to death by the courts; they had committed serious crimes – as defined by the law at least. As far as he could tell. So why was he squirming in a light sweat on a freezing day, concerning himself with the rights and wrongs of a legal process? Why was he worrying about criminals and not worrying about his wife and daughter? He sat back, staring at the pages of the ledger.
What
will be will be,
he thought.
I must do my duty. My father fought against the Reds to save the country from Bolshevism. I’ve got to do the same
.

He looked down at the list Guzmán had received from Headquarters. There was Mendoza’s name, with the letter ‘M’ indicating the sentence of death. There was another letter next to it, a red ‘C’. He flicked back through the list. No other name had it. Peralta was inclined to ignore the mark, but his training at the academy came back to him: attention to detail was always key. He decided to check with the
comandante
. Overlooking anything at this stage would only attract Guzmán’s wrath. He took the sheet down the corridor.

Guzmán looked up from his chair where he had been dozing by the wood-burning stove. ‘
Qué hora es
?’

‘A little after five.’

‘An hour to go,’ Guzmán said. ‘What do you want?’

Peralta pointed out the extra letter alongside Mendoza’s name.

Guzmán said nothing.

‘I just thought…’ Peralta tried to excuse himself, sensing another firestorm of anger.

‘Excellent work,’ Guzmán smiled. ‘I’d missed this.
Joder
. That could have caused us some bother. Good work, Acting
Teniente
, if this had gone unnoticed we might have been digging latrines in Galicia in some pueblo with one goat and a dog. And the goat would outrank us. Well, you anyway.’

Peralta was taken aback by the unexpected praise. ‘Just what does it mean?’

Guzmán’s eyes darkened. ‘Wait and see,
hombre
. All will be revealed tonight in God’s own good time. In the meantime, I’ve a job for you.’

‘
A sus ordenes
,’ Peralta answered automatically.

‘This is something you won’t have any difficulty with,’ Guzmán said. ‘Go down the road to the church and inform Father Vasquez we’ve a job this evening for him. Give him this.’ He placed a thick envelope on the desk. ‘He’s to attend at the usual time.’

Peralta took the envelope and placed it in his jacket pocket. ‘Will Monsignor Vasquez be administering the last rites this evening?’

‘He will. And when you go out, tell the sarge Mendoza will be a special tonight.’

Peralta nodded. ‘I will. But may I ask—’

Guzmán placed his feet on his desk. ‘As I said, all in good time, Acting
Teniente
. Now go and see the priest. We can’t have all these godless bastards shot without a proper send-off. It wouldn’t be decent.’

Peralta nodded; his stomach was churning again and he was sweating profusely.
Get a grip
, he thought.

At the door, he paused, turning back to Guzmán who was struggling in his chair to find a comfortable sleeping position.

‘One question if I may,
Comandante
?’

Guzmán’s look did not invite further discussion, but he nodded.