Law of Return (17 page)

“Yes.”

“Come on, then.” A hand cupped her elbow and she felt the waves soak her shoes and skirt as she clambered into the boat. Another dark shape filled the back of the boat.

“Sit on the nets,” one of the men ordered her. “It’s safer, and you won’t throw off our balance. Come on, Jorge.”

The man who had helped her shoved the boat out into the water as the one sitting above her seemed to lever with the oars and the little craft took float. Jorge took a running leap, and landed on the other bench, splashing her slightly.

The oarsman rapidly rowed out past the breaking waves and then, when they were merely drifting on swells, slowed his pace. Elena, who had obediently crouched on the fishing nets, risked sitting up, and hoped that her far from full stomach was not about to betray her. “Payment?” It was Jorge again. “Two hundred pesetas.”

Elena nodded, and reached for her pocketbook. She handed over the money in silence.

A lantern flared briefly as Jorge took the bills and carefully counted them. Then he put out the lamp once more. “No sense attracting attention,” he explained. “We have a right to have a lantern in Spanish waters, but there’s no need to advertise that we’re here either.”

Elena nodded. “How long will it take?” she asked, trying to distract herself from an increasingly nauseous feeling.

“A few hours. We’ll get you there and be away before dawn.”

“Good.” Elena forced herself to reply although she found herself wondering how she would be able to stand the bobbing of the boat for a few hours. She slumped, leaning her forehead against the edge of the gunwale, swallowing rapidly.

It was a smooth trip, although it did not seem so to Elena. She did not vomit, although she would have liked to, in order to relieve her agonizing seasickness. She felt as if days, if not weeks, had passed by the time the crash of breakers made the little boat pitch even more wildly, announcing the end of their journey. She stumbled out of the boat, into knee-deep water, and very nearly lost one of her shoes in the darkness.

“Look,” said Jorge, as he guided her up onto the shore. “There’s a bar on the Rue Gambetta called the Magdalene. You go there, and tell the owner you’re looking for Jorge’s cousin Daniel. And tell Daniel that I said Conchita’s gone to the dogs. He’ll help you, if he can.”

“Thanks.” The feel of solid beach under her feet had done wonders, and she spoke with real gratitude.

“We’ve put you down a little distance from the town. If you walk that way,” the fisherman gestured with his right arm, “you should start seeing houses within a couple of miles. There’s a road inland that runs parallel to the coast, too. You’ve got about two hours before dawn.” Jorge held out his hand. “Good luck.”

“Thanks. And you.” They shook hands.

Then the boat ground over the pebbles and pulled out to sea again, and Elena found herself alone on French soil.

Chapter 14

T
he summer home of Manuel Arroyo Díaz and his wife was set high on Monte Igueldo, on a rocky outcropping overlooking the sea. A broad porch at the back of the house led into what had once been a elaborate flower garden. Straight ahead there was only the endless blue of the Bay of Biscay. To the right lay the golden horseshoe of the Playa de la Concha and the green bulk of the Isle of Santa Clara, so far below the garden that the lighthouse on Santa Clara looked like a white sheep on a green field. The patio and garden faced northeast, and received breezes from the sea, making them pleasantly cool, even in the full heat of a July noon. Tejada paused a moment on the threshold of the patio to admire the view and render a silent homage to his former professor’s good taste in real estate. It was a beautiful spot.

Glass crunched underfoot as he stepped onto the balcony. The garden had grown wild in the last four years, the more delicate plants dying and the hardier weeds spreading their tendrils onto the porch, climbing the foundation and sinking their roots into the stone, as if determined to finish the destruction that the Reds had begun. The lieutenant took a deep breath, and tasted the salt air with relief. An acrid smell of smoke still clung to the inside of the house.

Captain Alfanador, who headed the Guardia in San Sebastián, had readily supplied Tejada with the address of the Arroyo property, and offered an escort to assist the lieutenant in entering, if necessary. As it had turned out, the two guardias who accompanied the lieutenant were superfluous. Every pane of glass in the window had been smashed, and the door, half ripped off its hinges, had creaked open without the pressure of rifle butts. The three men had found themselves inside an empty hallway, thick with dust, and rancid with the stench of old fire. “Search the bedrooms,” Tejada had ordered. “You’re looking for any signs of recent habitation. And for any papers or documents,” he had added, although the hope seemed a faint one in view of the ashes that mingled with the dust in the ruined hallway.

The guardias had obediently tramped up the stairs and fanned out. Tejada had made his way through what he guessed to have been the parlor and dining room, and found a long, narrow chamber with one wall looking out over the sea, filled with overturned bookcases and the remains of a rolltop desk. With distaste he picked over the remnants of what seemed likely to have been Arroyo’s study. Charred lumps of twisted leather, which might have once been the covers of legal tomes, were all that he found. The mob—or subsequent thieves—had taken everything of value. He searched with increasing haste and impatience, more and more convinced that Arroyo’s house had stood empty since its destruction at the beginning of the war. It was too difficult to imagine anyone breathing the air of this sooty ruin for long.

The clean smell of the ocean and the rhythmic thump of breakers was a relief to the lieutenant. He moved out across the patio, eyes fixed firmly on the distant view, trying to ignore the broken glass and weeds underfoot. This was what Arroyo believed in, he thought with an admixture of pity and anger that was infinitely worse than disgust. The Republic! The People! The people, who had destroyed his home because they were too stupid to realize that he was one of them. God, if the poor bastard was here to see this it’d almost be punishment enough.

Tejada stepped into the garden and accidentally kicked something half-hidden in the tall grass. As it rolled away, he saw that it was an old soccer ball, half-flat and stained with time. He wondered idly if Arroyo had played ball as well as been a sailor. It was a shame, in a way, that the professor and his wife had not had children. This garden would have been a paradise for them. If Elena saw this, the lieutenant thought, she’d understand why the war was necessary. Why the Movement is necessary. But she hasn’t, thank God, because it doesn’t look as if Arroyo has been here recently, and she has nothing to do with him anyway, except for being in San Sebastián now. Purely a coincidence.

He had received almost immediate confirmation of Elena’s arrival in San Sebastián without even asking. Captain Alfanador, with an efficiency that Tejada envied, had pointed him to the records of summer arrivals in San Sebastián, neatly catalogued by province of origin. About fifteen Salmantinos had checked into hotels in San Sebastián in the last month. The most recent arrival was listed as “Fernández Ríos, Elena. HOTEL MARIA CRISTINA.” Tejada had noted the name with inexplicable anxiety and had similarly noted the absence of Arroyo’s. “Of course, that’s just the hotels,” Alfanador had said, a little apologetically. “It’s harder to keep tabs on people if they’re visiting friends or if they own property here. But if you want, take a look at Arroyo’s house.”

Now Arroyo’s house appeared to be a dead end also. Tejada wondered if it would be worthwhile to try to find out if Arroyo had friends in San Sebastián, when he heard footsteps behind him and turned. “There’s no sign of life upstairs, Lieutenant. But Espinal found this.” One of the guardias held out a scarred metal strongbox with a rusty lock.

Tejada took the box and tested its weight. It was light, so light that it might well have been empty. But why bother to lock an empty box? “Where was it?” he asked.

“Back of the closet, sir. Top shelf.”

The lieutenant gave the box a thoughtful shake. Something rattled within. “Let’s go,” he ordered, tucking the box under one arm.

Tejada left the ruined house with a strong sense of relief. As he and his escort headed down the mountain toward the post, there was a shout above their heads. “Guardia!”

The lieutenant looked upward, shading his eyes with one hand. He located a man standing on the ornamental front balcony of a neighboring house, leaning down toward him with one hand raised to wave. He felt a flicker of interest. “Can we help you, Señor?”

“I wondered about the house you just left.” The man’s voice was a little hesitant. “Do you know if it will stay vacant long?”

“Very likely,” Tejada said.

“I see,” the man frowned. “Will it be up for sale, do you think?”

“I really couldn’t say,” Tejada replied, with perfect honesty.

The man on the balcony seemed annoyed. “It’s been vacant for some time, and it’s becoming a nuisance,” he explained. “My caretaker has been complaining about rats. We share a wall, and if the building’s structurally unsound we could be affected. Besides, it’s unsightly. Everyone else has been at least making some attempt to refurbish their houses.” He waved an expansive arm at the row of summerhouses along the street. Most of them did show evidence of recent repair; fresh whitewash, or newly fitted windowpanes to replace shattered ones.

As far as Tejada was concerned, one of the advantages of his job was that it spared him the headaches of home ownership. But faced with an irate property holder, he did his best to be soothing. “Would you wish to be informed if the property is put on the market, Señor?” he asked, recklessly committing his colleagues in San Sebastián to acting as brokers.

“No, that isn’t necessary.” The man was still peeved. “I’ll write to Arroyo myself. But I must say it’s damn inconsiderate of him to not tell us a thing.”

“You’re acquainted with Arroyo?” Tejada asked with interest, taking a few steps closer to the house, and wishing that he did not have to interrogate this unexpected witness while craning his neck upward like an idiot.

“Not well. I was. A little.” The professor’s neighbor knew when to backpedal. “Everyone in this neighborhood has been coming here for years. We all knew each other slightly. But of course we lost touch when the war broke out.” He recollected himself. “I do hope nothing’s happened to Arroyo or his wife, Guardia? I understood they were in Salamanca, so I assumed they’d be safe.”

“Yes, they survived the war,” said Tejada truthfully. After a moment’s thought he added, “But some questions have arisen with regard to their house here, and also a boat. I wonder if I could ask you a few questions about that, Señor . . . ?”

“Ruíz. Ruíz Vanegas. Of course, Guardia. When is convenient?”

“Now,” Tejada suggested promptly.

Señor Ruíz assented courteously and withdrew from the balcony, calling to someone inside to open the door for the guardia.

Tejada turned to one of his subordinates. “Take this,” he ordered, holding out the metal box. “Get someone to pry the lock off, and have it ready for me when I get back. This shouldn’t take long.”

“Yes, sir.” The pair of guardias saluted and headed down the street, and Tejada walked up the steps to the door of Señor Ruíz’s house.

Ruíz Vanegas, Tejada found, was courteous, helpful, and (except when the conversation strayed to the problems of owning summer real estate) to the point. He was a banker and a native of Madrid who had passed the war in exile in Lisbon. He had purchased the house in San Sebastián in the spring of 1926 (here the lieutenant was treated to a lengthy analysis of the condition of housing prices relative to the stock market in ’26 and the reasons why the investment had been a good one). The Arroyos had already owned the property next door. They had, until the war, been good neighbors. (Ruíz paused to animadvert about various other supposedly solid citizens who managed their houses with criminal recklessness or violated all-known noise statutes and boundaries of good taste. Tejada felt obliged to agree that leaving sharp roofing tiles where children could run across them was probably slightly worse than anarchism.) Ruíz had known that Arroyo was some sort of lawyer but they had never discussed business. There was no point in dragging your work with you on vacation. Yes, he remembered Arroyo’s yacht quite well. A nice little craft, and Arroyo had been a good sailor. It was probably still rotting in storage at the yacht club if the Reds hadn’t destroyed it. Yes, of course he could give the lieutenant the yacht club’s address. “A real shame,” Ruíz repeated meditatively, as he showed Tejada out. “I remember Arroyo was planning to race that yacht in ’36. He and his wife were delayed for a few weeks that summer—some social function, I think—and then after the uprising they decided not to come.”

Tejada reflected that by the end of 1936 Arroyo had been in imminent danger of arrest, but he kept his thoughts to himself. “Did the boat require a crew?” he asked mildly.

“If you were sailing her, of course.” Ruíz seemed startled by the question. “But she had a little outboard motor as well, and I’ve known Arroyo to take her out alone.”

Damn. Arroyo could have reached France in a couple of hours, if he had the gasoline, thought Tejada. “Thank you very much for your time, Señor Ruíz,” he said. “I will try to make sure that Arroyo’s property is properly cared for.”

As he had expected, the last comment assured him of the banker’s effusive good will, and they parted on a friendly note. When he reached the post, he found Guardia Espinal waiting for him. “We got that strongbox from Arroyo’s open, sir,” Espinal reported. “But there’s nothing much in it.”

Tejada raised his eyebrows. “Nothing much?”

“Well, nothing at all, except an old address book. A miracle it wasn’t burned really, but the metal must have protected it.”

“Any addresses?” Tejada asked, restraining his eagerness.

“I haven’t looked, Lieutenant. I thought you might like to inspect it personally.” The guardia opened a drawer, and drew out the battered metal box. The cover was sitting loosely on top now, and as Tejada lifted it he saw a fat address book, the leather cracked and gray with age, lying against the rusted metal. He picked it up and opened it eagerly. The edges of the paper flaked away in his hand, and he hastily shifted his grip to protect the fragile pages.

The book was only about half-filled, but Tejada quickly saw that inspecting it would take some time. Most of the names and addresses were organized alphabetically, without any indication of whether they were friends, family, or professional acquaintances. Tejada recognized Eduardo Crespo’s name and address, neatly listed under C, along with someone named Alejandro Colón, also in Salamanca. Eleuterio Blanes, identified as Arroyo’s banker, was also listed in the book. There were a long list of Díazes, whom Tejada guessed to be the professor’s maternal connections, and several other names that were unfamiliar to him. Otero Martínez was listed both at his home and work addresses. Most of the addresses were in Salamanca. A few, including Ruíz Vanegas’s, were San Sebastián addresses, all in the immediate vicinity of Arroyo’s house. Sometimes a phone number was jotted down beneath the address and sometimes not. Tejada painstakingly read each entry, looking for a pattern without much hope.

His persistence finally paid off when he got to the letter V. Arturo Velázquez was listed, as was someone named Enrique Villamán, also in Salamanca. And then, in the same precise script: “
Vogel, Adolf
.
42 Gelt Strasse. Zurich. 09928394038,
27364939921.
” Tejada carefully copied the entry, doing his best to control his excitement. It’s not Geneva, he reminded himself. Arroyo had connections in Geneva, not Zurich. But it’s close.