THE ENGLISH WITNESS (16 page)

JAMES

I needed to change my appearance more convincingly than ever, and I was
stumped for ideas. I thought of the way Txako had disguised himself, but his bone
structure was so delicate that he’d been able to pass as a young woman without
difficulty. I could never pass as Trini, or even get into her tiny clothes.

Then once again my strange imagination
saved me. I found what every older woman in southern Europe has at the back of her
wardrobe: a mourning outfit consisting of a long black dress and a matching hat
with a dense veil attached. Worrying that if I were caught in drag I’d serve
time as a pervert and a thief whether or not they believed my story, I took the
time to wiggle into the black outfit.

Once again I was about to leave, but then
it occurred to me that a middle-aged woman in mourning wouldn’t be seen dead carrying
my brightly coloured holdall. By unpacking all my stuff, I was able to squeeze it
and the holdall itself into a battered brown leather suitcase that I found
under the bed. Looking at myself in the full-length mirror I was shocked to see
just how much I looked the part, and for the first time in my life I offered up
a prayer of thanks for my short, stocky build.

Trying to walk in as ladylike a way as
possible, and sweltering already in the long, black dress, I lugged the
suitcase down the stairs and out into the street. I was too preoccupied with
getting away to think about how I would deal with a conversation. I simply concentrated
on remembering the way to the station, while the larger part of my brain replayed
black and white, flickering images of my last walk into the apartment. When a
car pulled up alongside me I almost dropped the case and ran, but it was no
more than a kindly couple taking pity and offering me a lift. I just shook my
head, wisely not trying to speak.

As I left the familiar neighbourhood, the
horror and ridiculousness of the situation hit me. I felt crushed by a renewed
sense of loneliness. Worse still, the paranoia that had plagued my life over
the previous few weeks was once again in full flower. During the long, hot walk
to the station I looked sidelong at every car, every gun-toting policeman,
every loiterer in a shop doorway. My stomach knotted at the sound of every
siren. I thought my heart would stop when somebody yelled for the police a few metres
behind me, and it continued hammering long after a teenager ran past clutching
a woman’s handbag. But what caused me the deepest misery was the feeling of
guilt. Part of my mind was trying to tell me that Trini and her mother had fallen
victim to a random attack unconnected to my situation, but the rest of me knew
better.

Only one thing kept me from
breaking down: anger. I’d been aware of it growing inside me since my hasty
departure from Granada, and day by day it had kept on growing until something
felt ready to burst. I was no longer interested in going on to Barcelona and the
French border. Resolution was needed, and that would only be found back in San
Sebastián where everything had started.

I took the first train available—an air-conditioned luxury express. As I
settled down in my premium seat, free of the suffocating black dress and hat, I
was at least physically comfortable. But I hadn’t thought to buy food, and a
couple of hours out from Valencia, chilled by the cool artificial breeze
blowing through the carriage, I began to feel pangs of hunger.

At first I kept myself to myself, but a
charming gentleman named Pepe, who introduced himself as a taxi driver from the
Navarrese town of Elizondo, persisted in his attempts to draw me out. For a
while his witty chatter helped to take my mind off my stomach, but then the
steward came down the aisle taking orders for lunch. I took a look at the menu,
but when I saw the prices my appetite vanished.

Pepe looked concerned as I declined to
order. "My friend, aren’t eating with us?"

"I think not," I replied.
"I’m not really hungry."

"But you haven’t eaten. You must be
famished."

"No, really. I couldn’t eat just
now."

He let the matter drop, but protested
again when food was put in front of him: "My friend, it hurts me to see
you not eating. Allow me to order something for you."

"Honestly, I’d rather not. I’m quite
comfortable," I lied.

As my new friend started his lunch, he
seemed in as much pain as I was. Both of us were imprisoned by our respective
cultures: he was too much the Spaniard to eat in front of a hungry man; I was
too much the Englishman to accept his charity. He finished his meal in silence,
perhaps offended that I’d condemned him to indigestion.

He spoke again as our train wound through
the last few kilometres of wooded hills before San Sebastián: “My friend, you’re
causing me to worry. You don’t look happy, and you haven’t eaten all day. Do
you have somewhere to go, somewhere they’ll give you a decent meal?”

I replied that everything was going to be
fine, but I must have delayed just a little too long. “Would you let me give
you some money to buy yourself a meal? I’m a proud man myself, and I know it’s
not easy to accept kindness, but you’d make me so much happier.”

In the end, feeling as if I might weep if
I tried to thank him, I let the man give me a five hundred peseta note. This
seemed to relax him, and he carried on making conversation: “If you’re ever in
my hometown, you must come to the Hostal Garazi. My sister Blanca runs it while
I drive people around, and I’d make sure she gave you a very good deal.”

“Is it part of the Basque Country?” I
asked.

“We’re Navarrese,” he replied with a
smile. “Half-Basque, you might say. Our way of life is similar, but we lose
patience with their constant bickering.”

“I read somewhere that you’re only
half-Spanish as well.”

“Not even half,” he responded with a
laugh. “Navarre is an ancient kingdom in its own right. Nobody likes us very
much. The rest of Spain think we’re more French than Spanish, the Basques think
we’re more Spanish than Basque, and the French… well, they don’t give a damn
about anybody.”

It was my turn to laugh now. “I’d love to
come,” I said, “as long as you and Blanca let me pay the proper rate. I’ll
write to you when I get back home to England. Have you ever been there?”

JACK

They waited several minutes for Jack to continue before realising that
he was asleep. He barely stirred as they lifted him onto the bed and removed
his shoes before letting themselves out and heading downstairs for lunch.

“What do you think, Julio,” asked Miguel
as they ate.

“I was starting to think you’d never ask,”
replied Julio. “For himself, I think he believes every word he says. How much
of it is true as in factually accurate, God alone knows. Something happened to
him, though. Even before his funny turn, he reminded me of an army veteran I
know who suffers from PTSD. At least some of it must be true.”

“What I mean,” said Miguel patiently, “is
that he’s finally put himself at the scene of a serious crime. We can find out easily
enough if these murders actually took place. And what I’m wondering is this: if
the murders did happen, is Burlton good for them?”

Julio looked astonished. “Hey, he’s a bit messed
up, but it never occurred to me that he could be a murderer. Why? Do you think
he’s capable?”

“I don’t know, but there’s death in his
eyes. I’d guarantee you that he’s killed at least once. I saw it when he took
out the Audi. You know as well as I do that the first time you do it, something
snaps. It’s never quite as hard or as shocking another time. And I’d bet my
career that he’s crossed that river. It might have been an accident or it might
have been in self-defence, but he’s capable of killing again.”

“You want us to sweat him, Chief, instead
of all this wandering around? To be honest, I’m coming to like and respect him,
but not enough to stop me doing my job.”

“I think he’d have a complete and
permanent breakdown before he gave away anything he didn’t want to. And I think
we’re on track with him. The next step is that he’ll want to go back north. The
Legion is going to be waiting for him, and he’s going to die. But I’ve seen his
type, and I don’t think he’ll go down without company.”

“I always thought what a beautiful city this was to come home to. Now
I’m not so sure.” It was Julio speaking.

They had a fresh car, the Ford having been
left for collection in Valencia. On arrival at Bilbao airport, Miguel had
rented a bland Japanese saloon with dark tinted glass. There had been no
pre-booking, no involvement by others, and the rental and deposit had been
settled with a substantial overpayment of cash direct to the franchise manager.
They anticipated being able to arrive in San Sebastián quite anonymously by
road, and the journey passed without incident. At Jack’s request, Julio drove down
the ramp into an underground car park by the seafront.

On climbing the stairs to street level, they
found a bar and sat down at an outside table overlooking the beautiful,
semi-circular Concha beach. While Jack gazed fondly at the stunning view they
had of the almost landlocked bay, Miguel ordered coffee with toasted cheese
sandwiches. Julio had his notepad out and the voice recorder ready to run, and
there was a clear expectation that Jack would resume his story.

The Englishman sat silently for several
minutes, still gazing out over the bay. Then his eyes tracked an industrious cockroach
scuttling past the table, and he seemed to return to the present.

JAMES

Father Ignacio looked even older and more careworn than I remembered him,
but he didn’t seem surprised to see me—just concerned that I might have been
followed. I put his mind at rest and was about to pour out what I had been
through when he said something that rocked me back in my seat.

“I know about the girl and her mother. You
must be devastated. Do you want to tell me about it?”

“You don’t believe I did it, do you?” I
asked timidly, half afraid he’d contradict me.

“No, I don’t believe you did it, firstly
because you’re not the type, and secondly because I know who did do it.”

“Thank goodness,” I enthused. “Such a
relief to know I’m not in trouble with the law after all.”

“Hold on, James, you’ve committed serious
crimes. The police will want you even if they believe your story about the
murders. And the biggest problem of all is the identity of the real killer. The
CSP will find it easier to arrest an outsider like you than to admit that the
killer is one of their own.”

“Sorry, I don’t understand. The CSP?”

“The Cuerpo Superior de Policía. Franco’s
secret police.”

“So it is the authorities who have been
after me. After what they did to…,” I had to pause for a moment, “…what
happened in Valencia, I thought it had to be a criminal gang or a paramilitary
group, or just some psycho.”

“But remember, in a way it’s all of them. Violent
men in this part of the world don’t fit the neat categories that…”

“You’ve told me that before,” I
interrupted. “Police and terrorists and criminals…”

“…and indeed psychopaths,” he continued. “Permeable
boundaries. And until I recognised the handiwork of this particular psychopath from
the news coverage, I didn’t know who exactly was involved. We’ve almost a dozen
so-called intelligence agencies. They’re all loyal to the regime but each has its
own agenda and command, and they devote most of their energies to infighting which
I’m sure is what the Generalísimo intends. I was sure that one of them was
watching you. Perhaps you were seen with Carlos. Gato was living on borrowed
time, and the cove behind Igeldo was the perfect spot for an ambush.”

“So it’s my fault he’s dead. He was there
to see me.”

“Don’t make yourself more important than
you really are, James. The fault is Gato’s own. And if anyone shares the blame,
it’s Carlos. But you have nothing to be proud of. And you had no business
coming back here, either in the summer or now. You turned our lives into a game,
you drew other people into it, and you lived while they died. Three of them now;
five if you count Gato and Carlos.” He paused. “Didn’t you ever wonder what the
connection was between them all? Didn’t you ask yourself why the woman who hid
you in her flat was so broken up?”

I thought back for a moment. “No, she
couldn’t have been. She…”

He interrupted me: “She’s Gato’s widow, or
rather she was. And Carlos was their son. It was a calculated gamble sending
you there after their deaths, but she was willing and there’s nowhere else in
the city you’d have been any safer. Which brings me to a more important
question: What brings you back? It’s no safer for you now than it was a month
ago.”

“It isn’t safe for me anywhere. I want to
go home, and until this has been sorted out I don’t dare go to the border.”

“How do you expect to put things right? If
they were trying to get you even down in Andalusia, they really do want you.”

“There has to be a way,” I answered. “Tell
me about this man, the real killer. Who is he?”

JACK

“Yes, who the hell is he?” echoed Miguel. “For God’s sake, Jack, I
thought you’d given us all the salient facts at the safe house. We were about
to let you slip out of our hands. Since then you’ve presented us with a series
of violent crimes and now someone who sounds very much like a serial killer.
Were you actually going to get on a train back to England and leave us in the
dark?”

“I don’t know,” replied Jack quietly. “I
really don’t. I didn’t know how much I could trust you with, how much I could
even trust myself. And frankly I still don’t. Shall I carry on?”

JAMES

I listened as the priest told me the story of a young boy from the
Basque Country. He had barely survived the massacre of his Catholic family by a
Republican gang in the final weeks of the Civil War. Growing up first in an
orphanage, then taken in by an uncle who idolised Franco and Hitler, he joined a
right-wing militant group calling itself the Condor Legion. As an ambitious young
policeman he rose through the ranks with his profession and political vocation
intertwined. He used police resources in the service of his private goals, and
in return he and his comrades eliminated enemies of the state in ways that even
the grises couldn’t risk.

“OK,” I said at the end of the story. “He’s
a fascist and a killer, but he’s a policeman as well. Maybe I should have let
his men pick me up, and talked to him. I could have saved so much grief.”

“You would have saved a lot of anguish for
the girl and her mother, because you’d have been dead long before you could pay
them a visit. Adolfo – that’s the name he requires his people to use – doesn’t
forgive. And there’s more you need to know. How do you think I knew you were
involved? Because as soon as I read the details, I knew he was involved.”

“How could you possibly…,” I began, but he
silenced me with a wave of his hand.

“He’s usually managed to find victims with
whom he’s had a score to settle, but I always thought his main motive was sexual.”

“You mean he… Oh no, poor Trini. I should
have guessed when I saw her like that.” I felt sick.

“Once again you’re interrupting. He kills
for pleasure, but he doesn’t try to have sex with his victims. In fact if the
stories are true, he suffered a cruel mutilation when his family were murdered
and he doesn’t have the ability. Incidentally, he seems to prefer young men, so
if you had fallen into his hands…I’m sure you get my drift.”

There was a long silence before Ignacio
continued: “Gato spent the last few months of his life in hiding. It’s not
clear why. As an angry young man he was once part of a militant group, but he hadn’t
been in action for the best part of twenty years. By the way, for most of the
time he was in hiding, your old friend Santiago was his eyes and ears out on
the street.”

My ears pricked up at the mention of
Txako’s real name. I would have liked to find out how he was doing. But at that
moment the priest looked directly at me: “You still haven’t told me why you really
came back to Donosti.”

“Donosti? What the…”

“The real name of the city you call San
Sebastián. What brings you back?”

“I told you. I can’t risk leaving the
country until I’ve put this thing to rest.”

“And is that it? Is that the only reason?
So you can put all this behind you and go home?”

I thought about this in silence, and the
priest didn’t try to hurry me. Minutes passed by in the silence, and at first I
had no idea what to say. But then I pictured Trini in my mind, lying there,
looking ready to seduce me when in reality another man had already had his
twisted pleasure with her. I thought of her mother, who had more or less died
in my place. I thought of Reme and all the other people who had made sacrifices
large and small to help me. And my anger suddenly flared. “I want to get the
bastard,” I said.

JACK

There
was near-silence for several seconds, broken only by the drone of passing
traffic and the soft drumming of Julio’s fingers on the metal tabletop. A
steady stream of people was passing almost within arm’s reach, but nobody
showed any interest in the array of vacant tables. No one even glanced in their
direction, and Jack suddenly realised that their brooding presence was probably
bad for business. He stacked up the cups and plates before speaking again. “I’d
like us to go down to Anoeta for the next instalment,” he said. “On foot. And
we’re going by the scenic route.”

Keeping the sea on their left, they walked along
behind the Concha beach and navigated their way into the lanes of the Old
Quarter. “This city’s been confusing the hell out of me,” announced Jack.
“Completely defeating the point.”

“What do you mean,” asked Miguel.

“It’s all changed. Down south, revisiting places brought
back memories and sparked associations for me. But it’s not working up here. I
knew the city too well the way it was before, and it’s changed almost beyond
recognition. The new riverside apartments—I think they must have been built out
over what was riverbed. And the skyline. And the kids. When I was here before
they were natural allies against all the forces that oppressed them: brutal
police, controlling parents, bullying priests. Now they have the same kind of
youth divisions we have at home. I don’t feel any connection at all, and I need
it. Because the story’s about to get rough again, and I need to be in some sort
of comfort zone.”

“I don’t know what we can do,” responded Miguel.

“You can make me feel at home here,” answered Jack.
“By getting me drunk. Here in the Old Quarter. Not absolutely rat-arsed; just
drunk enough that I’ll have a headache in the morning. And you two have got to
get drunk with me, because if you’re all sober and judgmental it won’t work.”

“Isn’t it a bit early for that?”

“It won’t be, by the time you’ve bought me dinner.”

“I thought we were heading for Anoeta.”

“We will be, eventually.”

The
Bar Alarra and the lanes around it were still teeming with life as the three
men reeled out at about half past midnight. The alleys and squares were still
lit, and the atmosphere was electric.

“Welcome to Donosti,” roared Jack, playfully slapping
Miguel on the back. “The real San Sebastián. You know, I always realised that
life here was probably harsher than we ever saw. But this is what I remember.
And look, no high-rise apartment blocks for upwardly mobile professionals. No
disaffected street kids. Now we’re going to stagger down through the
ensanche
and look in the shop windows. And when we get to Anoeta, if we
choose our position carefully, we won’t have to look at that wretched stadium.

It took them nearly three quarters of an hour to stroll
down to Anoeta, but when they got there Jack was still beaming. “Same old place
under the skin. And look, if we walk round this way, we can turn our backs on
all that commercial stuff and watch the cars going in and out of the tunnel.
That was my last view of the city before I set off southwards on foot.”

“Why did you need to bring us here, Jack?” asked
Julio quietly. “Are you still trying to convince us that it all happened?”

“Possibly. But it’s more about convincing myself that
it’s still going on forty years later.” He turned and point to the southern
edge of the development. “Over there, that’s where the old youth hostel stood.
And over
there
is where I was crouching the one time I fired Antonio’s
air pistol in anger. Better get your notebook out, Julio.”

JAMES

There
were seven conspirators in the plainly furnished meeting room: Father Ignacio,
five dour men ranging in age from mid-twenties to middle age, and me. The
priest had warned me not to ask questions, but to speak when spoken to and keep
my opinions to myself. The discussion had already gone on for a couple of hours
before I was ushered in, but once I was settled the eldest of the five
strangers spoke to me directly.

“First of all, James, welcome. I hope you
haven’t been too bored, and I’m sorry we couldn’t include you in all of our deliberations.
Secondly, we welcome the interest you’ve taken in the affairs of our community
and apologise for the suffering that has resulted for you and your friends. Thirdly,
we understand that you’re angry about what has happened, and that you wish to
help bring the man who calls himself Adolfo to justice. Is this correct?”