I don’t know how you do it: how can you run over a satnav?’
‘It isn’t easy, boss.’
‘No. But you managed it anyway.’ Fuentes laughed. ‘They’ll stop it from your wages at the end of the month.’
Galindez made her way back to her desk and slumped into her chair, putting Belén’s gift in her in-tray. She sighed. It’s all good . She’d stuck it out and now it was paying off. She punched the air. Then looked round self-consciously to make sure no one was watching.
She logged on to her computer and saw Belén’s email reminder. How had she missed that? She stared at the email. It had been opened, so she must have read it. It wasn’t like her to forget things. Little things. The doctors had told her to report any lapses of memory immediately in case they were signs of deterioration.
Anyone can forget things. Even amnesiacs. If it happens again, I’ll tell the doc. No I won’t, they might block the transfer. I’ll wait and see. Christ it was only an email .
Galindez opened a file and set to work on her report on the latest war grave. At eight o’clock, Fuentes came out of his office and saw her still working.
‘ Vamos , Ana María, that’s enough for one day.’
‘OK, boss, you go, I’ll turn the lights off.’
‘No, Ana, if I go and leave you here, you’ll still be here at midnight. Go home.’
‘Coming.’ Galindez waited until Fuentes began to turn off the lights in the main office. Quickly she put her report and the file into her briefcase. She could finish it at home.
MADRID 1953, CALLE MESÓN DE PAREDES
For most people, nightmares are a corruption, an interlude of unwelcome and uninvited mental images interrupting the gentle rhythm of their dreams. Guzmán, however, slipped from consciousness into the oblivion of an inferno in which the screams of the damned echoed his name in a demented choir. This was how he had slept since the war, lost amid the stench and corruption of death, crashing blindly through marshes where rotting eyeless faces stared up from charnel pools towards a sky traced with blood and darkened with the smoke of funeral pyres. He splashed through fetid mud spiked with clumps of decaying marsh grass, feeling skeletal hands clutch at him as he ran. But Guzmán was not fleeing. His pursuit across the fields of hell was always like this. Through the smoke and the stench, beneath the permanent midnight cast of the sky, he saw the vague shape of his fleeing prey. His mouth opened to scream, to scream for them to stop, to await their fate. And, as ever, as he felt the scream in his throat, he awoke, soaked with sweat.
By the time the alarm clock rang, Guzmán was already washing in icy water in the small kitchen. He shaved, cursing the cold yet lacking the patience to heat water. His toilet complete, Guzmán pulled on his clothes. The clock showed three thirty. Early. But then today they were hunting.
Despite the cold of his room he had almost forgotten the snow until he pulled back the curtain and saw the white expanse of the street below, the familiar angular shapes of steps, lamp posts and doorways now subtle and soft under ten centimetres of snow, muted by the pale street lights. Guzmán saw no sign of the observer from the night before. No telltale footprints. Whoever the spy was, he had no patience.
Guzmán found a pair of boots that looked like they would keep out the cold and put on his thickest overcoat. The fifty-odd guardia civiles taking part in the operation could freeze in their khakis and capes but not him. Guzmán oiled his hair with the same oil he used – very occasionally – for cooking. The image in the speckled mirror looked respectable enough, although those he was after today would not remember him for his appearance, he was sure.
Outside, the cold was brutally sharp and Guzmán swore profusely, cursing again as he began to slide on the icy, hard-packed snow. His cigarette smoke hung in the frozen air as he slipped and staggered towards
‘It isn’t easy, boss.’
‘No. But you managed it anyway.’ Fuentes laughed. ‘They’ll stop it from your wages at the end of the month.’
Galindez made her way back to her desk and slumped into her chair, putting Belén’s gift in her in-tray. She sighed. It’s all good . She’d stuck it out and now it was paying off. She punched the air. Then looked round self-consciously to make sure no one was watching.
She logged on to her computer and saw Belén’s email reminder. How had she missed that? She stared at the email. It had been opened, so she must have read it. It wasn’t like her to forget things. Little things. The doctors had told her to report any lapses of memory immediately in case they were signs of deterioration.
Anyone can forget things. Even amnesiacs. If it happens again, I’ll tell the doc. No I won’t, they might block the transfer. I’ll wait and see. Christ it was only an email .
Galindez opened a file and set to work on her report on the latest war grave. At eight o’clock, Fuentes came out of his office and saw her still working.
‘ Vamos , Ana María, that’s enough for one day.’
‘OK, boss, you go, I’ll turn the lights off.’
‘No, Ana, if I go and leave you here, you’ll still be here at midnight. Go home.’
‘Coming.’ Galindez waited until Fuentes began to turn off the lights in the main office. Quickly she put her report and the file into her briefcase. She could finish it at home.
MADRID 1953, CALLE MESÓN DE PAREDES
For most people, nightmares are a corruption, an interlude of unwelcome and uninvited mental images interrupting the gentle rhythm of their dreams. Guzmán, however, slipped from consciousness into the oblivion of an inferno in which the screams of the damned echoed his name in a demented choir. This was how he had slept since the war, lost amid the stench and corruption of death, crashing blindly through marshes where rotting eyeless faces stared up from charnel pools towards a sky traced with blood and darkened with the smoke of funeral pyres. He splashed through fetid mud spiked with clumps of decaying marsh grass, feeling skeletal hands clutch at him as he ran. But Guzmán was not fleeing. His pursuit across the fields of hell was always like this. Through the smoke and the stench, beneath the permanent midnight cast of the sky, he saw the vague shape of his fleeing prey. His mouth opened to scream, to scream for them to stop, to await their fate. And, as ever, as he felt the scream in his throat, he awoke, soaked with sweat.
By the time the alarm clock rang, Guzmán was already washing in icy water in the small kitchen. He shaved, cursing the cold yet lacking the patience to heat water. His toilet complete, Guzmán pulled on his clothes. The clock showed three thirty. Early. But then today they were hunting.
Despite the cold of his room he had almost forgotten the snow until he pulled back the curtain and saw the white expanse of the street below, the familiar angular shapes of steps, lamp posts and doorways now subtle and soft under ten centimetres of snow, muted by the pale street lights. Guzmán saw no sign of the observer from the night before. No telltale footprints. Whoever the spy was, he had no patience.
Guzmán found a pair of boots that looked like they would keep out the cold and put on his thickest overcoat. The fifty-odd guardia civiles taking part in the operation could freeze in their khakis and capes but not him. Guzmán oiled his hair with the same oil he used – very occasionally – for cooking. The image in the speckled mirror looked respectable enough, although those he was after today would not remember him for his appearance, he was sure.
Outside, the cold was brutally sharp and Guzmán swore profusely, cursing again as he began to slide on the icy, hard-packed snow. His cigarette smoke hung in the frozen air as he slipped and staggered towards
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