The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory) (80 page)

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Authors: Mark Oldfield

BOOK: The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory)

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At least there was no pain for her at the end. That was his gift. An end to her sad existence, killed by the deadly fire that cut down Peralta. She could never have lived in his world, Guzmán realised. And he would never have changed enough to live in hers. It was impossible. The boy would be well looked after by
Señora
Peralta, once he got over the shock of the Jesuits and their Christian discipline. By the time he was delivered to
Señora
Peralta he would be house-trained. The
teniente
said he wanted a son and now he had one, albeit posthumously.

‘Everything has been dealt with,’ Guzmán said. ‘Thoroughly.’

‘Excellent,’ Carrero said. ‘Your work has always been most reliable.’ The car window closed smoothly. Guzmán saw Carrero speak to the driver and the limousine glided forward, the engine purring as it picked up speed. It turned a corner and was gone, leaving Guzmán alone in the cemetery. He lit a cigarette and limped back to his car near the main gate, leaving the dead behind him. As he always did.

MADRID 2009, COMISARÍA, CALLE DE ROBLES

Tali pulled back from the opening to the pit and crawled over to Galindez’s body. She had been wrong: Galindez was still breathing. It was time to honour the clause in her contract with the
Centinelas.
She rolled Galindez onto her back. Her face was dark with congealed blood. Tali placed a finger against her neck, feeling for the carotid artery. The pulse was steady, in fact it seemed to be getting faster. That was a shame. It would have been easier if Ana had just slipped away quietly rather than being a problem. But then she always was. Always had been, Tali thought. Complicating the lives of everyone around her without ever seeing that it was her who was the problem.

‘You won’t be a problem much longer, Ana,’ she whispered.

Tali undid the buckle of Galindez’s belt and pulled it free from her jeans. She slid the belt under Galindez’s neck and tightened it, hearing her breathing alter as the thick leather began to compress her throat. Tali braced herself and began to pull harder.

‘It’s all right,
niña.
Just let go. Go away now, Ana. It’s not so bad.’

Galindez opened her eyes. The darkness of her pupils glinted with radiant anger, the surrounding whites a sharp contrast to the mask of dried blood smeared across her face.

‘Puta madre, Ana Mar
—’ Tali’s voice stopped abruptly as Galindez closed her hand around Tali’s throat with terrifying strength. Tali scrabbled with both hands, trying to loosen the fierce grip, struggling to breathe. Galindez sat up, still keeping her grip. She brought her face close to Tali’s. She smelled of blood.

‘Surprise.’ Galindez stared into Tali’s amber eyes, seeing fear and pain where once she had seen other emotions. After a moment, she released her grip and Tali rolled away from her, her shoulders rising and falling as she gasped noisily for air.

‘Fucking hell, Ana,’ Tali gasped.

Galindez ran her hand over her scalp and winced. She pointed towards the dark open space of the pit. ‘What’s down there?’

Tali smiled weakly. ‘There’s loads of stuff, Ana María.
His
stuff.’

Galindez glowered, taking the belt from her neck. ‘So you thought you’d strangle me to celebrate?’

Tali shrugged. ‘I thought you were already dead. Anyway, that stuff is all yours now. I’ll settle for something else, though.’

‘Like what?’

‘Fuck it. You keep it all and I disappear into the sunset.’

‘Why would I let you go? I could easily put you behind bars.’

Tali shrugged again. ‘Because of how you feel about me.’

‘I wouldn’t count on that.’ Galindez said. ‘Where’s the pistol? I don’t want you changing your mind again.’

‘Here.’ Tali pulled the Browning from her belt and handed it over.

Galindez removed the magazine and threw it across the room into the shadows. After checking the chamber was empty, she tossed the pistol aside.

‘There’s one thing,’ she said, picking up the big flashlight, ‘if you try any more tricks, I’ll kill you.’ Tali nodded. Galindez pointed to the opening in the flagstones.
‘Bueno,
after you,
Señorita Castillo.
I’m not turning my back on you.’ She paused. ‘When we’ve seen what’s down there I’ll give you two hours before I call the police. You’re on your own after that.’

‘I knew you liked me.’ Tali smiled.

She lay on the flagstones and Galindez eased herself alongside her, holding the flashlight at an angle, shining the beam into the bottom of the pit below. Boxes, papers, wires, bundles wrapped in waxed paper, all testimonies of Guzmán’s presence. Fragments of evidence, the truths of his life assembled in the cold darkness, long guarded by the sullen stones of this ancient building. The things Galindez always hoped to find, now just an arm’s length away.

Reaching down, Tali tried to lift one of the files. A brittle metallic sound. A thin wire reached up towards the light, like some cave-dwelling worm, its end broken from where it had been attached to the flagstone. Galindez saw the wire, saw how it emerged from the metallic khaki object placed at the centre of the bundles and packages. She called out, though her voice was strangely muffled and distant. And now Tali was shouting, struggling to get back up, but with the two of them jammed together it was hard to move quickly. Time seemed so strangely slow, Tali’s voice distorted and unfamiliar, although suddenly it was too late for that to matter, too late for anything to matter as the sudden revelatory power of Guzmán’s secret was released.

This was Guzmán’s gift, Galindez realised. The gift he left here long ago, a gift she had never really been sure existed. She had wanted to know Guzmán and now she would experience the very essence of the man in this dusty mixture of empirical evidence and lethal technology as it sent out Guzmán’s final message to the world:
you can never know me.

Galindez and Tali stared, frozen in surprise and horror, shouting warnings neither of them would ever hear as Guzmán’s terrible gift was revealed, released in all its malignant intensity from its long confinement beneath the
comisaría
, in a furious rage that even Guzmán’s office had never seen, nor would again. In a moment of frozen fire and flame, time itself burned, as Guzmán’s secrets were carbonised and destroyed, fragmented truths hurtling in the irresistible violence of their ascent. It was a game, this search for Guzmán. But it was always Guzmán’s game, his final card should things go wrong and he never return to collect his treasures. And the game was over: this was his reality and that reality now raged around them, before it disappeared for ever.
The truth revealed through pain.

The immense volcanic fury of the blast channelled upwards from the confined space, blowing out windows, smashing doors from their hinges and bringing down plaster and fittings from the ceilings. For a moment, the ancient building trembled before the rage released by Guzmán’s handiwork. The reverberations of the explosion hammered through the narrow corridors, shaking the bars of the cells, pounding against the ancient door leading down into the forgotten depths of the
comisaría
where Mamacita and so many others were sacrificed to the perpetual greed of the darkness. And then, as the smoke billowed around the rubble, small flakes of plaster from the ceiling began to fall, floating in the draught from the shattered windows like snowflakes as the
comisaría
slowly reverted to its usual state of brooding and sullen silence.

About the Author

Mark Oldfield was born in Sheffield, and now lives in Kent. He holds a PhD in criminology.

About this Book

Comandante Leopoldo Guzmán. Infamous head of Franco’s secret police. A man who disappeared from history in 1953, but his secrets live on….

1953, Madrid: Amid the snow-bound streets of an unprecedented winter, the head of Franco’s secret police discovers that the web of lies he has spun around his past is beginning to unravel.

2009, Las Peñas: Forensic investigator Ana María Galindez unearths a mass grave in a disused mine. Her investigation will disturb forces that have lain dormant for decades.

In this journey into the dark heart of Spain, Guzmán is the link between past and present in a country still scarred by civil war, still riven by fear and hatred, and still plagued by secrets that refuse to die…

About Head of Zeus