The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory) (34 page)

‘There was some trouble last night. I got a minor injury. It’s nothing.’

She looked unconvinced. ‘If you say so. It doesn’t look minor to me. At least let me pour the coffee.’

He watched as she filled their cups.
She moves gracefully. They do things differently, these respectable women
.

‘You wouldn’t like a drop of brandy in it, would you?’ Guzmán asked in an inspired moment. She would refuse of course, but his offer would mean he could have one.

‘Brandy?’ she asked, uncertainly. ‘
Gracias, Comandante
. Just a drop.’

Guzmán poured a large shot of brandy into her cup. She stirred it, then held the cup to her nose for a moment to savour the aroma before she drank. ‘That’s so warming. I got frozen stiff coming here.’

‘I’m surprised to see you.’ Guzmán swallowed his coffee in one large mouthful before filling his cup with brandy. ‘I imagine you were glad to see the back of me last night.’

She frowned. ‘Not entirely,
Comandante
. You were quite pleasant by the time you left. I very much appreciated your offer to… to have a word with my employers.’

‘
De nada, señora
. It’s nothing. I can’t stand bullies. Or cowards.’

‘Nor can I,’ she said and Guzmán wondered if she had been smiling when she said it. Perhaps not, he decided.

She sipped her coffee. For someone who looked poor, she had an attractive way of moving. It was not sexual, in the way the gypsy whores moved, but elegant. Elegant and capable.

‘By the way, I have something for you,
Comandante
.’

‘Oh?’ Guzmán said, surprised. ‘It isn’t my birthday,
señora
.’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic,
Comandante
. It’s a letter. Some welcome news, that’s what the man said.’

‘The man?’

‘The man who called this morning. A well-dressed gentleman. Dressed as if he were going to a funeral.’

He will be if he’s the one who’s been following me,
Guzmán thought.

‘He came to your apartment?’

‘Yes, at about nine o’clock.’

Guzmán poured a second cup of brandy and offered her the bottle. She shook her head, only relenting when he insisted. It amused him to see how her cheeks glowed by the time she’d finished her coffee.

‘The gentleman said he was an old family friend. From the old days before the war.’

‘Ah. The old days.’ Guzmán was tired and his leg hurt. But anything from his past always needed to be treated with suspicion. This wasn’t a time to take things easy. Taking it easy could cost you, he thought. He sat up in his chair, wincing at the pain.

‘And his name was?’

‘He didn’t say. He said he had been asked to find you some time ago, but no one knew where you were. By coincidence he came across your name in a newspaper article. You won a medal, apparently.’

‘Apparently I did.’

‘For rudeness, I imagine.’

Guzmán stared at Alicia Martinez, with her shabby coat, her chapped hands and her glowing cheeks. He looked into her pale eyes, eyes that looked as if they had been coloured with pain for most of her life. And yet her eyes were more alive than any he had ever seen, even though they were losing focus as she struggled to concentrate when he spoke.
One more drink and she’ll be on the floor
.

‘Another drink?’ he inquired gently.

‘No thank you, I think I’ve had quite enough. I don’t drink much as a rule.’

‘Nor do I,
señora
.’

She almost smiled
, Guzmán thought,
perhaps I really can be charming if I try
.

‘So did our mystery
señor
say how he found out where I was?’

‘He said he telephoned the
policía
and they gave him the address of this
comisaría
.’

‘How strange. In the Special Brigade, we tend not to give out such details.’

‘You think he was lying?’

He was amused by her surprise. But then, she wasn’t part of the job. Sometimes he forgot there was a world out there that didn’t revolve around issues of internal security.

‘And you’re certain he never mentioned his name to you?

‘No.’ She chewed her lip. ‘And I didn’t ask. I thought he might be one of your lot.’

‘Our lot?’ Guzmán asked.

‘
La Policía Secreta,’ Señor
a Martinez said. ‘I didn’t want to get into more trouble.’

‘You aren’t in any trouble with my lot,
señora
. I thought I made that clear last night.’ Guzmán smiled. ‘You said he gave you something for me?’

‘I have it here.’ She rummaged in her handbag and took out a brown envelope. He took it, again noticing her chapped hands.
Clearly a hard worker, this woman. Two jobs
. Hostia:
admirable. And not a real Red after all
. Then he noticed.

‘You’ve taken off your wedding ring.’

She blushed.
When was the last time I was with a woman who blushes
? he wondered, unable to recall if he ever had. He felt a sudden strange intimacy, strange because intimacy was alien to Guzmán’s life.

‘I had to – it’s embarrassing…’

‘You pawned it?’

She nodded. Her pale eyes hinted at tears.
She really is quite attractive. For her age, anyway
.

‘Hard times call for measures to match.’ He looked at the envelope and saw his name, written in a thin, spidery hand.

‘Did this gentleman say anything else?’

‘He just said it was for
Comandante
Guzmán and that you’d be pleased to receive it.’

‘Did he say why he was delivering the note to you? After all, I only met you yesterday. No one who knows me would use you as my contact address.’

She looked puzzled. ‘I can’t explain that,
Comandante
. I assumed he knew you’d be at my flat last night and thought you’d still be there in the morning. I seem to remember that was your original intention. I thought you must have told him you would be there.’ The reproach in her voice was clear. ‘Before you changed your mind.’

‘I told no one,
señor
a. Not about my plans nor how they changed.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it,
Comandante
.’

Mierda
, Guzmán thought,
this woman has an answer for everything. And more. She’d be a better assistant than Peralta. At least I can win an argument with him
.

‘Well.’ He looked at the envelope and then back at her. ‘Shall I take a look?’

She almost smiled. ‘Yes, I hate a mystery. Don’t you?’

‘Of course. Policemen detest mysteries.
Vamos a ver
.’

His finger tore under the seal of the envelope, ripping the coarse brown paper open. Inside was a small folded piece of foolscap. He read it without speaking.

Alicia Martinez waited.

Guzmán stared at the paper.

‘Is it good news?’ The brandy had made her bold.

Guzmán’s expression made her sit back in her chair, suddenly frightened.

‘What on earth is it,
Comandante
?’

Guzmán got up, heedless of the pain in his leg and the blood trickling into his shoe.

‘Thank you for this,
Señora
Martinez. I appreciate it. If this man contacts you again, please telephone me immediately. You still have my card?’

She nodded, a mixture of curiosity and trepidation on her glowing face. ‘I hope I haven’t brought bad news?’

‘No. Not at all. But you need to go now. I have things to do. I’m very busy. My apologies. Thank you for your assistance.’

Startled, she moved clumsily to the door. Guzmán was staring at the scrap of paper again. He looked up.

‘I…
adíos, Comandante
.’ She fumbled with the door handle.

‘Wait…’ Guzmán said. ‘Take this.’ He held out the bottle of Carlos Primero to her. It was almost half empty, but it was very expensive: if she didn’t drink it she could sell it.

‘
Gracias
.’ She looked puzzled. But she took the bottle, he noticed, and placed it in the depths of her tattered bag.

‘And this.’ He held out several banknotes.

‘What do you think I am?’ she snapped. ‘I can’t take money from you.’

‘Take it and get your wedding ring back. I order you to,
señora
.’ He paused. ‘I mean, I’d like you to. To let me be of some assistance. I don’t want the money back. Think of it as being for services rendered.’

‘Services?’ Her cheeks were burning now. He liked to see her angry.

‘You brought me this.’ He held up the paper.

She relaxed a little. ‘You still haven’t told me what it says.’

Guzmán smiled. ‘That’s right. And the money should buy your silence. That’s all it is, a little bribe,
una propina
, not to talk about it.
Nada más
.’

‘If you say so. Thank you.’ She opened her purse and put the money into it.

‘It’s American money,’ Guzmán said. ‘You’ll need to change it. You’ll get a good deal. Do you know where to go?’

She nodded.

‘Then thank you for coming. Turn right outside and go through the doors at the end of the corridor.’ Guzmán sat back down at his desk. He heard her footsteps diminishing in the corridor and then the sudden bang of the swing doors. Guzmán smoothed the foolscap paper on the desk. He looked at it again and again, as if the intensity of his stare would somehow reveal something about the writer. The handwriting was feeble, almost childish. There was no address, nothing to identify where the note had come from. He read it once more:

Sunday 11th January 1953

Querido
Leopoldo
,

After all these years, I learned you’re alive. God and his blessed mother have guided me to you. I’m coming to Madrid in the next few days and will contact you when I arrive
.

Hasta muy pronto,

Un abrazito muy fuerte,

Mother.

Alicia Martinez pulled her coat tighter at the collar in anticipation of the raw cold outside the door. The sarge watched her as she passed the reception desk, studying the movement of her hips. She’d never make a whore, he thought. ‘
Buenas tardes, señora
.’

‘
Buenas tardes
.’ She didn’t look back.

The big door swung open. Outside, it was snowing and the afternoon light had already started to dim. In the brief moment before the door closed, the sarge saw her breath hanging in the cold air. Then she was gone. The sarge took out a cigarette and, as he lit it, he heard Guzmán roar his name. He cursed, inhaling deeply before grinding out the cigarette on the stone floor.

MADRID 1953, BAR FLORES, AVENIDA DE MONTE IGUELDO

The afternoon light had faded by the time Guzmán led Peralta and the
sargento
into Bar Flores. Peralta had wondered about the wisdom of planning their strategy in a public place but Guzmán insisted they conduct the discussion somewhere that served alcohol. They sat at a table by the dirty window, looking out into the darkening street. A number of customers stood at the bar with a few more at the tables at the back of the room, all swathed in black tobacco smoke. The waiter brought their beer. Guzmán was at once annoyed by the beer, deciding it an unsuitable drink for a winter’s day. Once annoyed, he raged for several few minutes about the traitors and turncoats who abounded in the police and armed forces. He unleashed his diatribe with venom, poking the sarge in the chest at one point as a means of emphasising the fact that such treachery deserved sudden and massively violent intervention to put an end to it.

‘Fuck’s sake,
jefe
,’ the
sargento
protested, ‘I haven’t been grassing you up. Lay off. Pick on him,’ he nodded at Peralta, ‘he’s the one with connections at the top.’

‘I wish,’ Peralta said. ‘My clout with General Valverde is precisely nil. It’s hard to imagine him disliking anyone quite as much as he does me.’

‘I can understand that,’ the sarge sneered.

‘That may have changed,
Teniente
, after the phone call I got from him,’ Guzmán said. ‘He’s mightily pissed off. Unfortunately, so is Carrero Blanco’s office.’

‘You’re in the shit,
jefe
.’ the sarge said.

‘I think you will find the actual expression is we are in the shit,’ Guzmán said, ‘all for one and one for all, no?’

‘I never shot up the Plaza Mayor,’ the sarge said glumly.

‘I wish it had been you who was shooting at me,’ Guzmán said. ‘Then I could have killed you and shut you up for good.’

Peralta sighed. ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere, sir.’

Guzmán looked at him for a moment and then nodded. ‘For once,
Teniente
, you’re correct.
Muy bien
, let’s try and work out what’s going on.’ He looked across the table. ‘Sarge?’

The
sargento
leaned back self-importantly. ‘Well, in my opinion…’

‘No,’ Guzmán interrupted, ‘I don’t want your opinion. Get the drinks in.’

The sarge sullenly waved at the waiter.

‘Right. Notebook out, Peralta. Make some more of your excellent and lengthy notes,’ Guzmán said. ‘Start with the Dominicans.’

‘An odd lot,’ Peralta observed. ‘They don’t seem like members of a trade delegation at all. Not least since they have such weighty criminal records.’

‘I agree, they’re dangerous,’ Guzmán said. ‘And yet the US ambassador and that bloke with the Italian name vouch for them. A bunch of thugs and yet with highly respectable friends. Why?’

‘Maybe the Yanks thought it would be tough over here, so they brought a bit of hired muscle?’ the
sargento
said, taking the glasses of beer from the waiter. Guzmán paused and waited until the man had retreated to the bar.

‘I agree,’ Peralta said, adding to his pencilled notes.

‘Too simple.’ Guzmán shook his head. ‘They could bring soldiers in plain clothes, or police or secret service – like those goons they have at the embassy. They want to do business, not have the entire delegation arrested. You’d think they’d want to keep a low profile.’