The Butcher Beyond Page 18

  ‘I don’t know,’ Woodend admitted.

  ‘Have you ever let a guilty man go free before?’

  Woodend thought of the investigation involving the Dark Lady of Westbury. ‘Once,’ he said.

  Paco smiled. ‘The second time is always easier.’

  Woodend shook his head. ‘I don’t think it’ll ever get easier. Besides, as much as I may dislike the guilty man being arrested, I’ve got an even stronger aversion to an innocent man taking the rap. And if we don’t find the killer, that’s what Captain López is goin’ to make sure happens.’

  ‘Ah yes, Captain López,’ Paco Ruiz said enigmatically.

  ‘An’ what, exactly, do you mean by that?’

  ‘I am not sure. But neither am I sure that López’s involvement in the case is as straightforward as it might seem.’

  ‘If you have somethin’ you think that you should tell me …’

  ‘I have nothing at all. Believe me, I would already have told you if I had.’

  Woodend took another sip of his beer. That morning, it tasted like gnat’s piss, though he was prepared to admit that the fault might not be with the beer but with himself.

  ‘It would be nice if we could somehow tie López in with the killin’s though, wouldn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘It would be delightful,’ Paco Ruiz agreed.

  Twenty-Nine

  The two Guardia Civil constables had been assigned the task of searching the hotel rooms which had been occupied by the brigadistas. They had begun their task full of enthusiasm – and in the clear expectation that they would uncover some vital piece of evidence which would both solve the case and put them firmly in Captain López’s good books. So far, they had had no luck at all.

  They had searched Mitchell’s room first. They had admired his American clothes – such quality was simply not available in any of the shops they had access to – but since all the labels had been removed, there was nothing to be learned from them. They discovered several bottles of pills, but they seemed more like drugs prescribed by a doctor than anything he might have bought illegally for his own decadent pleasure.

  Roberts’s room had been next. Here they had found several packs of playing cards, a notebook full of complicated mathematical calculations, and several pages from old foreign newspapers with pictures of horses on them. Roberts’s clothes, like the ones belonging to his friend Mitchell, had had all their labels carefully removed.

  It was as they were about to enter the third room – Dupont’s – that they realized they were not alone and, looking round, they saw that Captain López was standing in the corridor.

  The two men snapped to attention and saluted. ‘At your orders, my Captain,’ the senior one said.

  ‘You have not found anything?’ López asked, without much expectation in his voice.

  ‘No, my Captain. I am sorry, my Captain.’

  López nodded. ‘I cannot expect you to find something when there is nothing to be found,’ he said, with uncharacteristic sympathy and understanding. ‘This is the Frenchman’s room, no?’

  ‘Yes, my Captain.’

  ‘I will search this one personally.’

  The guardias exchanged an instinctive – and puzzled – look. It was not at all like López to get his hands dirty by doing actual police work. That kind of thing, he had always said, was what he had constables for.

  ‘You will search it, my Captain?’ one of the constables asked, to make sure that he had heard right.

  ‘I will search it,’ López repeated.

  ‘You do not wish us to assist you?’

  ‘I do not. I wish you to search the German’s room.’

  The constables saluted again, turned as smartly as the narrow corridor would permit, and marched off towards Schneider’s room.

  López opened Dupont’s door. He was not entirely sure that he would find something incriminating in the Frenchman’s room, but that hardly mattered since he had brought something incriminating with him.

  ‘So you and Roberts spent the night of Durán’s murder in the same bedroom, Mr Sutcliffe?’ Woodend asked the man with the shock of grey hair.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And neither of you left the room?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even for half an hour?’

  ‘Half an hour would not have been enough time. It would have taken much longer than that to walk to Durán’s villa, do what had to be done, and return to the hotel.’

  Woodend raised a surprised eyebrow. ‘Now how would you know how long it would take to get to Durán’s villa?’ he asked.

  ‘I am the eyes on earth of the Lord, and it is His divine spirit which leads—’

  ‘You’re a fake, Mr Sutcliffe,’ Woodend interrupted.

  Sutcliffe looked as if he’d just been slapped. ‘I’m a what?’

  ‘You’re a fake. I’m not sayin’ you’re not sincere about your religion – I wouldn’t know about that, one way or the other. But for all your hellfire an’ damnation rhetoric, you’re a practical man when we really get down to it.’

  ‘I am a servant of the Lord who—’

  ‘A practical man,’ Woodend repeated. ‘You’d never have survived the Civil War if you hadn’t been. An’ your comrades wouldn’t have allowed you to come back with them if they hadn’t been sure you could play your part in the operation. So I’ll ask you again – how do you happen to know how long it would take to get to Durán’s villa?’

  ‘It was my job to know,’ Sutcliffe said sullenly.

  ‘An’ what does that mean, exactly?’

  ‘In the old days, I worked with Whistling …—’

  ‘Go on,’ Woodend encouraged.

  ‘In the old days, I worked with Dupont. We were the scouts. We went ahead and surveyed any area before the rest of the battalion moved into it. We saved a great many lives that way.’

  ‘So you’re sayin’ that you scouted out Durán’s villa?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘The day I arrived. Before the others got here.’

  ‘An’ why did you do it? Because you’d already made up your mind that his villa was the place where Durán was goin’ to meet his end?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh come on, Mr Sutcliffe! That must have been your reasonin’. It would have been a wasted journey otherwise.’

  ‘No journey a scout makes is ever wasted,’ Sutcliffe said. ‘He does not know what information he will eventually need, so he collects all the data he can.’

  ‘He’s a bit like a bobby in that way, then,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Yes, I suppose he is,’ Sutcliffe agreed, as if he were surprised to discover that he might have something in common with a policeman.

  ‘The scout an’ the bobby have a wider view than most people. We don’t just see the picture itself, we see what goes into makin’ the picture the way it is.’

  ‘That’s true, we do.’

  ‘Why was Mitchell the only one who slept alone on the night of the murder?’ Woodend asked, suddenly switching tack.

  All signs of what had been a growing empathy drained from Sutcliffe’s face.

  ‘You would not understand,’ he said, his tone now a mixture of pity and contempt. ‘You, who value the material things of life above all else, could never even begin to comprehend the true nobility of Mitchell’s soul.’

  ‘He set himself up as the sacrificial lamb, didn’t he?’ Woodend said.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Sutcliffe countered.

  But it was plain that he did.

  ‘He’d come to the conclusion that with all the security surroundin’ Durán, it was goin’ to be impossible to get to him, so he saw no choice but to go about matters another way entirely.’ Woodend paused for a second. ‘It’s not too difficult to trace the lines his mind must have run along, you know. He’ll have argued that Durán had hoped that by killin’ Medwin he’d scare you all into leavin’, but since that hadn’t worked, the Alcalde would have no
choice but to kill again. An’ this time, Mr Sutcliffe – this time – Mitchell decided he was goin’ to make it easy for him.’

  ‘Why would he have done that?’

  ‘Because there was always a chance that Durán would make a mistake an’ get caught. An’ that would mean that even if he couldn’t be punished for what he did to your comrades on the beach – or for what he did to Medwin – he could at least be prosecuted for killin’ someone else – a man who was dyin’ of cancer anyway.’

  ‘You’re guessing,’ Sutcliffe accused.

  ‘I know I am,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ Sutcliffe said heavily. ‘He told me his plan in confidence. I tried to talk him out of it. I told him to put his faith in God. But he wouldn’t listen to me.’

  ‘Of course, he wouldn’t have to make the sacrifice at all if somebody got to Durán before Durán got to him,’ Woodend said. ‘And somebody did! Did you kill Antonio Durán, Mr Sutcliffe?’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘To your knowledge, did any other member of your group kill Antonio Durán?’

  ‘No, they did not.’

  The denials were flowing far too easily, Woodend thought. Perhaps that was because he was not asking the right question.

  ‘Did God kill Antonio Durán, using one of you as His chosen instrument?’ he demanded.

  ‘I have said all I intend to say,’ Sutcliffe told him. ‘You may flay my skin or cast me into the lion’s den, but I will say no more.’

  Captain López and his two uniformed constables stood in the spacious grounds of Don Antonio Durán’s luxury villa. In front of them was the crystal blue sea. Behind them towered the majestic brown mountains of the sierra. But they had not come to admire the view.

  ‘We found nothing of any importance in any of the brigadistas’ rooms,’ the Captain said. ‘That is regrettable. But perhaps we will have more luck with our search of the Alcalde’s garden.’

  The two constables glanced furtively at each other, and reached an unspoken agreement that the senior of the two should ask the question that they both wanted answered.

  ‘We are not quite sure what it is we are looking for, my Captain.’ the constable said.

  ‘You are looking for anything which will tie the foreign hijos de puta in with the murder of Don Antonio.’

  ‘For example?’

  López sighed heavily. ‘I would have been better served by a team of trained donkeys,’ he said. ‘Or monkeys! Monkeys have brains. You, it seems do not.’

  ‘If you could give us a hint of what you want, my Captain …’

  ‘Find me a footprint or a scrap of clothing, for God’s sake. Something – anything – that belongs to one of the brigadistas. Now do you understand what I want?’

  ‘Yes, my Captain,’ the constable said. ‘I am sorry to have been so stupid, my Captain.’

  ‘I will put in a requisition for a troupe of monkeys in the morning,’ López said. He looked around him. ‘Start your search with the rose bed. And go carefully. I do not want you to damage any of the flowers.’

  The constables walked over to the rose bed and – wishing they’d thought to bring gloves with them – began to gingerly part the prickly stems and peer between them.

  ‘Have you found anything yet?’ López called out impatiently.

  ‘Not yet, my Captain.’

  ‘Then keep looking. I have a strong instinct about that particular spot.’

  He had no sooner spoken than the senior constable did notice something – an object gleaming in the sunlight, at the very centre of the rose bed.

  ‘My Captain!’ he called. ‘My Captain! Come quickly.’

  Thirty

  ‘Do you know what makes you different to your comrades, Mr Roberts?’ Woodend asked.

  The thin-faced man grinned. ‘There are many things which make me different,’ he said. ‘I’m a freer spirit than they are. I’m prepared to take chances they’re not. If any of the others had run the risks I ran in the war, they’d be dead. But I have a charmed life.’

  ‘You’re not just saying that, are you?’ Woodend asked, with genuine curiosity. ‘You really do believe it.’

  ‘A gambler has to believe it if he is to continue to gamble,’ Roberts replied. ‘But what’s the thing that you think sets me apart from the others?’

  ‘They’re all travelling under false names,’ Woodend said. ‘An’ I can see why they would be. A man plannin’ a murder wants to be as anonymous as possible. But you’re not using an alias.’

  ‘Aren’t I? What makes you so sure of that?’

  ‘Sutcliffe makes me sure of it. He was prepared to swear he hadn’t known the others under the names they’re usin’ now, but he wasn’t willin’ to do the same for you.’

  ‘So you’re right, and I really am called Roberts,’ the other man admitted. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Why didn’t you bother to take the same precautions as the rest of your mates did?’

  ‘I thought that would make the whole thing far too easy,’ Roberts said. ‘Where’s the thrill in staking all you have in a game of poker against a man you know you can beat? What’s the point of taking a bend in the road at speed – and on the wrong side of the road – if you’re certain there is nothing coming in the other direction? Life without the element of chance – without the possibility of failure – is no life at all.’

  ‘Did you kill Durán?’

  ‘It’s a waste of time your asking that particular question.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if I had, I wouldn’t be likely to admit it, would I?’

  ‘Murderers have surprised themselves by confessin’ before now,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Ah, I see what you’re after!’ Roberts said. ‘You want to hear me deny it. Or rather, you want to study me as I say it, to see if I’m lying. But that wouldn’t work with me. I have a poker face.’

  ‘Try it anyway,’ Woodend suggested.

  All expression drained from Roberts’ face, and he looked Woodend straight in the eye. ‘I did not kill Durán,’ he said. ‘Correction – I did kill him. I’m the murderer. No, I’m not. It was somebody else.’

  ‘You’re right, I can’t tell when you’re lyin’ or when you’re not,’ Woodend admitted. ‘Tell me one more time.’

  ‘I did not kill Durán,’ Roberts said.

  Woodend sighed. ‘You spent the night Durán died in the same room as Sutcliffe, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘An’ did either of you leave the room at any point?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘What about Sutcliffe?’

  ‘You surely don’t think Sutcliffe killed Durán!’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘You’re on completely the wrong track. Sutcliffe’s very good at talking about violence – he can quote every gruesome death in the Old Testament at you chapter and verse – but that’s not the same as saying that he killed Durán.’

  ‘Are you tryin’ to tell me he went through the whole Civil War without spillin’ blood?’

  ‘No, he will have killed some of the enemy. It was hard not to, if you weren’t to be killed yourself. But he’ll have done it with a rifle. From a distance. He doesn’t have the stomach for close-quarter fighting.’

  ‘What about you? Do you have the stomach for it?’

  ‘I could do anything I set my mind to.’

  ‘Could do? Not could have done?’

  Almost miraculously, Roberts started to look uncomfortable. ‘I bayoneted a man once,’ he said.

  ‘In the guts?’

  ‘That’s what they always tell you to aim for.’

  ‘An’ how did you feel when it was over?’

  Roberts skin was slowly acquiring a slightly green tinge. ‘I didn’t feel anything,’ he said. ‘It was a job I had to do, and I did it. Then I moved on to something else.’

  ‘I bayoneted a man once, myself,’ Woodend said.


  ‘So why did you need to ask me what it felt like?’

  ‘To see if our experiences matched.’

  ‘And did they?’

  ‘Not exactly. I kept on fighting, because there wasn’t much choice about that. An’ when the battle was over, I told myself that I could put it all behind me – that I could forget the look of agony on his face, an’ the squelchin’ sound as the blade sank in. The man I killed couldn’t scream, you know. He wanted to, but he didn’t have the air left in his lungs for it.’

  ‘What’s any of this got to do with me?’ Roberts demanded angrily.

  ‘I was quite calm until we camped for the night,’ Woodend said. ‘Then I started gettin’ these terrible pains in my stomach. An’ before I knew what was happenin’, I was spewin’ my ring up. Of course, you’ll never have experienced anythin’ like that, will you?’

  ‘No,’ Roberts gasped. ‘Nothing like that. As I said, it was all in a day’s work.’

  ‘It’s interesting that you don’t seem to think Sutcliffe was involved in any fighting at close quarters,’ Woodend said. ‘After all, he was a scout behind enemy lines. I would have thought he’d have found himself in any number of situations when a rifle would have been too noisy to use, an’ he’d have to resort to a knife instead.’

  ‘He … he would have told me if anything like that had happened to him,’ Roberts said.

  ‘Oh, close friends, were you? Confidants?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Funny, that. I can’t really see the man of God an’ the professional sinner bein’ close mates. But let’s go back a bit, shall we? Did Sutcliffe leave the room that night?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘But you’re not sure?’

  ‘I was asleep.’

  ‘Asleep?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘You fell asleep on the very night when you were afraid that Durán would send one of his men down to the hotel to deal with you in the same way as he’d dealt with Medwin?’

  ‘I wasn’t afraid.’

  ‘Of course not. You’re Roberts the Gambler. You don’t know the meaning of fear. So let me put it another way. You felt some concern that your lives might be in danger?’