The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory) (68 page)

MADRID 1953, COMISARÍA, CALLE DE ROBLES

Peralta looked up from the mess room table as Guzmán stormed in, angrily throwing off his dripping hat before tossing his wet coat across a chair.

‘Still snowing?’ Peralta asked, before realising that a chat about the weather wasn’t what his boss had in mind.

‘No, it’s bright and sunny,
imbécil.
Fuck the weather,
Teniente,’
Guzmán shouted, pouring a coffee from the pot on the table. He took a drink and spat the coffee out. ‘Cold. Fucking cold.
Puta madre.’

‘I could make some more, sir.’

Guzmán shook his head. ‘I want you on the street. Those Dominican
cabrónes
are out there somewhere. Take the sarge and go and shake up a few informers. Find an addict or two we haven’t already knocked around and give them a slapping. Find out something,
Teniente.
I’ll expect your report at eight thirty tomorrow. Prompt.
Me entiende
?’

‘Perfectly, sir.’ Peralta stood up. ‘I’ll go and get the
sargento.’

Guzmán waited until the lieutenant’s footsteps faded away down the corridor. He picked up his sodden coat. The corridor was silent as he walked to his office. Behind him, he heard the clank of plumbing as someone flushed the toilet. The toilet door opened and Dr Liebermann emerged, his cadaverous face accentuated by the weak light. Liebermann looked at Guzmán with concern.

‘Would you come into my office please,
Herr Doktor
?’ Guzmán said. Liebermann followed unhappily.

Guzmán sat at his desk. Liebermann paused reluctantly by the door.

‘Come in, Liebermann.’ Guzmán’s voice was unsettlingly pleasant. ‘And lock the door, doctor, we don’t want to be disturbed.’

The pallor of the German’s face increased as he turned the key in the lock. Guzmán held out his hand. ‘Key.’ Liebermann reluctantly handed it over.

‘May I ask,
Herr Comandante,
what you wish to speak to me about in such secrecy?’

Guzmán ignored him and picked up the phone. The private at the front desk answered.

‘Is
Teniente
Peralta still in the building?’

‘He left a couple of minutes ago, sir,’ the man said. ‘Shall I go after him?’

‘No. That’s fine. Gracias.’

‘A sus ordenes, mi Comandante.’

Guzmán put down the telephone. Liebermann was a study in concern. For himself.

‘Well,
Herr Doktor.’
Guzmán smiled. ‘Finally alone together.’

‘Always a pleasure,
Herr Comandante.’
Liebermann bowed slightly.

‘Liebermann, I’m going to give you a choice.’ Guzmán stood up, and took off his jacket. Liebermann’s eyes fixed on the large pistol hanging in its holster under his left arm. Guzmán began to roll his sleeves up. ‘It’s a choice none of the people in your camps ever had.’

‘Have I offended the
comandante
in some way?’ Liebermann spluttered.

Guzmán shook his head. ‘No more than usual,
Herr Doktor.
But then, your very presence offends me. Which is a bad thing. For you anyway.’

Liebermann was shaking. He seemed to be having trouble speaking.

‘Liebermann, what’s going on between you and
Teniente
Peralta? And don’t lie to me. If you do I’ll have to hurt you. I’ll hurt you so badly it will surprise you how much pain you can take and  still remain conscious. Although you must have some idea – given the experiments you carried out on all those children. Am I making myself clear?’

Liebermann’s mouth moved but the words took a while to form. Guzmán could smell the sweat on him. ‘Very clear,’ he stammered.

‘Tell me,’ Guzmán said, ‘and you can leave in one piece.’ He sat down and placed his feet on the desk.

Liebermann struggled to speak.

‘Now or never, doctor. What is it you and the
teniente
have so much to talk about?’

Liebermann began to talk and continued for some time. When he had finished, Guzmán unlocked the door and Liebermann walked unsteadily down the corridor. Guzmán slammed his door and rummaged for Valverde’s brandy in his desk.
Mierda.
He’d given it to
Señora
Martinez. The woman who blushed. Whenever he remembered that, it pleased him. But
Señora
Martinez would have to wait. Now, there was work to be done: work Guzmán did best alone.

The cells were all empty except one. Guzmán walked to the end of the corridor and unlocked the big wooden door. Then he returned to the end cell and lifted the cover on the spy hole. Mamacita was sitting on the bunk, weeping. Guzmán opened the door, saw the fat face look up, a mask of lipstick and face paint like a drunken clown. Without his wig, Mamacita was a fat man with cropped hair and wearing white foundation. And a dress, of course.
‘Buenas tardes,’
Guzmán said.

‘Please.’ Mamacita was suddenly agitated. ‘Let me go. I done nothing. Mamacita only wanted to work, never had nothing to do with those boys and their guns. Never been involved in no crime. Let me go,
Señor Oficial?
’

‘All in good time,’ Guzmán said. ‘There are more questions yet. When you’re a policeman, you have to ask a lot of questions.’

‘You ain’t no policeman,’ Mamacita hissed, not daring to look up.

‘What did you say?’ Guzmán asked.

Mamacita looked up angrily. ‘You ain’t no policeman. This ain’t no police station either. Not a proper one.’

‘I think you’ll find it is.’ Guzmán smiled.

‘I heard what you did to that man. Juan. Heard it my very self. You dragged him off down below. Mamacita heard you, heard you say his name, heard you hit him. Then you drag him down those stairs and the door close. That what Mamacita heard. And then you come back alone and lock that door. Where he at? You ain’t no policeman.’

Guzmán looked at the man. ‘That’s what you think, is it?’

‘Yes.’ Mamacita looked down, his voice petulant.

‘And you won’t answer my questions?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I can’t make you,’ Guzmán said. ‘Not here, anyway.’ He reached into his jacket and produced the Browning, pushing the muzzle between Mamacita’s eyes. Guzmán looked at him. ‘Are you sure I can’t tempt you to assist in my enquiries?’ Mamacita’s eyes bulged and Guzmán heard the fear in his sudden, rapid breathing. He cocked the pistol.

The noise animated Mamacita. ‘I want to help,’ he whispered.

Guzmán nodded. ‘Of course you do. Because otherwise your brains will be all over this cell – it wouldn’t be the first time.’

Mamacita moved as if in a trance, guided by the Browning now pressed against the nape of his neck. It was a powerful incentive and he walked obediently towards the big door that led down to the vaults. At the threshold of the doorway, he bridled, seeing only darkness beyond and feeling the cold dank air coming from below. Guzmán increased the pressure of the pistol and pushed Mamacita through the ancient doorway, to the long flight of worn steps. Mamacita slipped and fell, gibbering in fear. Guzmán slammed the thick door shut and then, seizing Mamacita’s ankle, dragged him down the stone stairs. Pausing at the bottom, Guzmán turned on one of the feeble electric lights.

Mamacita was whimpering, half stunned and unable to breathe properly. Guzmán knelt and handcuffed the man’s hands behind his back before pulling him to his feet.

‘I won’t tell.’ Mamacita was almost incoherent. Guzmán took hold of the handcuffs and hoisted his hands up his back until he squealed. Bending, head down, he staggered forward, propelled by Guzmán’s hold on the handcuffs. Mamacita raised his face upwards, seeing in terror the low arched roof, the strange obscure recesses with their ghastly carvings picked out in the sickly pale glow of the erratic electric lights. From somewhere in the darkness came the sound of fast running water.

‘Where the hell is this place?’ he groaned.

‘Hell?’ Guzmán said. ‘This isn’t hell. Purgatory maybe, not hell.’ He pulled Mamacita’s wrists higher, producing another shriek before continuing into the darkness. ‘Hell comes later.’

They reached the end of the passageway and after that there were no more lights. Guzmán reached into a recess and brought out a torch. The beam was blinding and Mamacita looked away from it, seeing sudden illuminated glimpses of ancient brick and stone walls and the curved low ceiling above them. Guzmán yanked the handcuffs and with a groan Mamacita continued down the dark tunnel. The sound of running water grew louder. Guzmán stopped and let go of the handcuffs and Mamacita tried to stretch a little to ease the pain, muttering under his breath. Guzmán shone the light upwards.

‘Look.’

Mamacita looked up. The arched door lintel of the passageway was covered in carvings. Grotesque, obscenely ugly carvings depicting the slaughter and savagery of some hellish massacre. Some of the figures were clearly human, both male and female, others merely infernal ciphers, improbable monsters whose role seemed to be to dismember and devour their human victims using an insane taxonomy of violence. Even Mamacita could see the antiquity of these malevolent runes, the stone so worn by time it seemed almost transparent in the beam of the flashlight. Above the carvings were words, carved in a pattern that followed the curve of the lintel.

VERITAS PER POENA

‘What does it say? Mamacita whispered.

‘The truth through pain,’ Guzmán said, pushing him forwards again. The noise of water was much louder now, and it seemed to Mamacita that it came from below them. Filled with a sudden terrified vertigo, he leaned back against Guzmán for support. Guzmán twisted away in disgust and Mamacita fell, screaming, thinking he was falling into the torrent. Instead, he felt only unyielding stone. Guzmán switched off the flashlight and Mamacita shrieked at the sudden darkness.

‘I’ll talk. Mamacita tell you everything. Don’t push me in. I’ll do whatever you say. I won’t say nothing about that Juan.’

‘It’s quite safe,’ Guzmán said, putting the flashlight back on, ‘look.’

Mamacita looked. Behind him was a high rock face, a solid, reassuring presence. In front, an ancient low stone wall. He crawled forward on his knees to the wall, leaning against it while Guzmán shone the light downwards. Twelve metres below, a fast-moving river flowed noisily from a jagged entrance in the rocks to their right, disappearing again some way to their left into a rocky chasm. The noise of the water was loud and powerful, constantly echoed by the cavern walls.

‘Where does it go?’ Mamacita asked, afraid of the answer.

‘No idea.’ Guzmán shrugged. ‘At first I looked for it on maps and plans of the sewers but there was no trace of it. The files of the Inquisition don’t mention it, yet they must have known it was here. I’ll tell you something else. They never come back.’

Mamacita didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Who don’t?’

‘The ones who go into it,’ Guzmán said. ‘I used to think they’d surface somewhere, perhaps eventually turn up in the sea. But they don’t. They just disappear.’

Mamacita began to wail. ‘I’ll tell you everything.’

‘Of course,’ Guzmán agreed, hauling him to his feet. Mamacita howled in useless protest, his shrill voice echoing above the incessant roar of the rushing water.

Guzmán continued to push the reluctant Mamacita along the pathway until they turned away from the river and into a small cave-like chamber carved into the rock. The chamber resembled a roughly hewn chapel, like those in country monasteries. Guzmán struck a match and a candle flickered into life, followed by others until there was one burning in every corner. He continued lighting candles until the small space was flooded with irregular, shimmering light. He sat on a packing case. From the writing on the side Mamacita could see it once held tins of tomatoes. Not everything here was ancient then. The thought was strangely comforting.

‘Now,’ Guzmán said, ‘we need to talk.’

Mamacita was breathing heavily, and sweat made his make-up run down over his stubble. Blood trickled from his nose. ‘Don’t hit me,
Señor Oficial.
I swear I’ll tell the truth.’

‘Vaya.
That’s a good start. Because, as far as I can see,
señor
, you’ve been working side by side with those Dominican gentlemen. In my book that makes you an accomplice. And any accomplice gets what I’m going to give them when I find them,
entiendes
? Unless, of course, that accomplice is helpful.’ Guzmán’s tone was measured and even, making him even more intimidating. ‘Tell me what you know about them.’

‘They buy my place,’ Mamacita babbled. ‘I came over from the Old Country ten years ago.
Mi tio
gave me money for a ticket. I had to leave, see – some trouble in a bar where I worked. Lot of the people, they don’t like my type and they very violent.’

‘Sounds my sort of place,’ Guzmán said.

‘So I come to Spain,’ Mamacita continued, ‘Barcelona. Singing in bars, turning tricks. Save my money. Got my heart broke so many times but I always careful with my money.’

Guzmán snorted. ‘Go easy with the details, I’ve led a sheltered life.’

‘When I get to Madrid, at first I rent the Bar Dominicana from two guys. I hired out rooms to the whores, put on music, the place was real popular.’

‘And degenerate,’ Guzmán grunted.

‘It was home for those who liked it,’ Mamacita said defensively. ‘You could get a plate of three coloured beans, just like you got back home, the colours of our flag. You could get any sort of drink. You could get a woman, or a man. Whatever.’

‘And the owners gave you protection?’

‘Si, señor.
For a year or two. Then they go to jail. They didn’t pay whoever they needed to pay – some soldier or civil servant: that how it works, no? One of them been in the war on the other side, got found out: he still inside now. Other guy got injured in a fight and died in prison. So Mamacita buy the place from his wife. She don’t want to stay around in Madrid after that.’

‘Intelligent woman.’ Guzmán took out a cigarette and lit it with one of the candles.