The Butcher Beyond (3 page)

Progress! Woodend thought – and was not sure whether or not he was being sarcastic.

As the holidaymakers trooped off the bus – mothers telling their children to be careful, kids not taking a blind bit of notice – Woodend caught himself watching the bald man again. He was still wary, the Chief Inspector thought, but now he too seemed to have been caught up in the holiday spirit.

Except that that was not quite right either. He was looking round – taking in the sights – but not, Woodend suspected, with the eyes of one who had never seen them before.

And even that wasn't
quite
right. He was looking at them as if to note the changes which had occurred since the last time he had been there – whenever that was.

‘The bags, Charlie,' Joan said.

‘What?'

‘The driver's taken our bags out of the boot. They're sittin' there on the pavement – ready for you to carry them into the hotel. Or are you waitin' for me to do it?'

‘Of course not,' Woodend said hastily.

No Northern man worth his salt would ever allow his wife to hump the cases while he was around to take on the job himself. Yet even though he didn't expect Joan to do it, there'd been a time when she
could have
– easily – Woodend thought, as he bent down to pick up the suitcases which his wife had obviously packed with large rocks.

Joan had always been what he'd considered a
real
woman, but like most Northern women of her generation – brought up to pound the washing in the boiler, and then wring it through a heavy mangle – she'd never have been taken for a delicate flower. Yet all that had changed over the last couple of years. She'd started getting tired. She'd asked him to do things around the house which she would once have done herself without a second's thought.

‘I'm not saying there
is
anything seriously wrong with her,' the doctor had told him, in a private chat after the consultation, ‘but I'd certainly like her to have a complete rest before we do any more tests.'

I'm not saying there
is
anything wrong with her, Woodend repeated silently. But that was a long, long way from saying that there
wasn't
.

The foyer of the hotel was as bright and modern as any English tourist worried about travelling in foreign parts could possibly have wished for. Yet with the decorative tiles on the walls and the fans overhead, it could never have been accused of being like a new hotel back home.

Woodend sat Joan down, then joined the queue to register. The bald man was a couple of places in front of him, he noticed – which was just the position in the queue he would have chosen for himself if he'd been trying to remain relatively inconspicuous.

Stop bein' a bloody bobby, Charlie! he rebuked himself silently.

He looked around. Prominently displayed behind the reception desk was the photograph of another bald man, though this one was wearing a military uniform, rather than a blue suit. The face of the man in the picture showed none of the uncertainty of the man in the queue. Quite the opposite, in fact. His jaw was set in arrogant contempt, and his small, piggy eyes were looking straight ahead and seemed to express both disapproval and distrust of what they were seeing.

‘Who's that, Dad?' asked one of the children in the queue. ‘Is he the king or summat?'

‘Nay, lad, that's General Franco,' his father told him.

It was indeed, Woodend agreed. Generalissimo Francisco Franco. The
Caudillo
– by the grace of God, the absolute ruler of Spain.

The bald man had reached the front of the queue, and Woodend strained his ears in an attempt to hear what words passed between him and the young male receptionist.

‘This is your first visit to our country, Señor Holloway?' the receptionist asked.

‘That's right.'

What was the accent? Woodend asked himself.

Northern, certainly. And semi-posh, although undoubtedly
acquired
semi-posh. The man came from a modest background much like his own, the Chief Inspector guessed, but had now risen above his origins and was either a civil servant or a successful business executive.

So what the bloody hell is he doin' on holiday with a bunch of plebs like us? Woodend wondered silently.

‘The reason I ask if it is your first visit is because you have already had a phone call,' the receptionist told Holloway.

‘A phone call?'

‘Yes, a gentleman – a foreigner, but I do not think English – called up and asked if Mr Holloway had already arrive.'

‘Must have been another Holloway.'

‘
Another
Holloway?'

‘It's a common enough name in England.'

Someone in the corner of the room coughed. Woodend turned his head. Sitting on one of the cane chairs, close to Joan, was a man dressed in an olive-green uniform and a three-cornered hat. He was also wearing full-length black boots, despite the heat, and had a pistol strapped to his waist.

A policeman of some sort, Woodend told himself – but not the kind of jolly local bobby who helps old ladies across the street, and let's kids off with a clip round the ear when he catches them stealing apples.

‘The gentleman who called described you most clearly to me,' the receptionist insisted to Holloway. ‘I recognize you from that description.'

The bald man shrugged, though the shrug did not, perhaps, appear quite as casual as he would have liked it to.

‘Still doesn't ring any bells with me,' he said.

‘
¿Qué?
'

‘I still don't know what you're talking about.'

The policeman in the corner was watching the scene intently. It was obvious from the expression on his face that he did not speak enough English to understand the exchange properly, but it was equally clear that he knew that something was not quite right.

‘It has to be a mistake,' Holloway said. ‘If the man rings again, please tell him he's got the wrong person.'

‘As you wish,' the clerk said. He reached up to the pigeon holes and took down a heavy metal key. ‘Your room is number twenty-six, Señor Holloway. It has a balcony with a splendid view of the sea.'

‘That will do fine,' Holloway said, in a tone which made it perfectly clear that he couldn't have cared less if it had given him a splendid view of the ventilation shaft.

The bald man picked up his suitcase. It was obviously new, but was made of cardboard rather than leather. It was as much a part of his disguise as the suit and the newly grown moustache, Woodend thought. But why should he bother with a disguise at all?

The queue shuffled a step forward, and Woodend with it. When it came to his turn to be processed, he would not have been totally surprised if the receptionist had told him that some mysterious man had called up and asked to talk to him, too, but all the clerk actually said was that his room was number 27 and it had a splendid view of the sea.

T
he hotel that Joan had selected, after first carefully studying all the glossy brochures, was not one of the newer ones built near to the beach – although, travelling vertically, it was undoubtedly even closer to the sea than they were. It had been constructed at the top of the town's only hill – a steep-sided rock which the bus had coughed and complained about as it had struggled to reach the summit – and standing on his balcony, Woodend could look down at an almost sheer drop of perhaps two hundred feet to the water below.

The balcony afforded Woodend an excellent view. To his left he could see the fishing shacks they had passed earlier – square white blocks alongside which tiny figures were still working on their nets as the sun began to set. To his right were the fronts of some of the other buildings which shared the hill – buildings which, like the hotel itself, seemed to be teetering dangerously close to the crenellated cliff edge.

There was a church, amber-brown in colour – ‘You can't go paintin' a church
amber-brown
,' they would have said in Whitebridge – and though it had a bell tower like the churches back home, that tower contained only one single, lonely bell. There was an official-looking building with plateresque decoration on its façade, which was probably the town hall, and would be considered effete by the local councillors in Lancashire, who were used to conducting their business in solid and stolid Victorian edifices. And there was a square which contained no statues or municipal gardens, but was filled instead with bars at which people seemed to be actually
enjoying
themselves.

Woodend closed his eyes and tried to picture the scene as it would have been several hundred years earlier. This hill must have been where the local people fled to when pirates appeared on the sea, he thought. He saw them driving their goats up the steep paths, while desperately holding on to the rough sacks containing the few valuables they owned. He imagined them – simple fishermen, olive growers and shepherds – armed with whatever crude weapons they could muster, and ready to fight to the death against these invaders who were intent on raping their women and selling their children into slavery.

Now those days seemed so long gone – and if this were England, they would have been – but Woodend reminded himself that less than thirty years earlier thousands upon thousands upon thousands of innocent Spanish civilians had been massacred simply for holding views that were not popular on their particular side of the battle lines.

He went back into the room. Joan was lying on the bed. She looked very pale, and though she was making an effort to control it, he was almost certain that she was short of breath.

‘Is there anythin' that I can for you, lass?' he asked worriedly.

His wife shook her head. ‘I'm just a bit tired from the journey,' she told him. ‘I'll be right as rain after a good night's sleep.'

Woodend nodded, and started to take off his jacket. ‘Well, I suppose it won't do either of us any harm to have an early night for once,' he said.

Joan laughed weakly. ‘What rubbish you do talk sometimes, Charlie Woodend,' she said. ‘You've never gone to bed before the pubs closed for as long as I've known you.'

He grinned, self-consciously. ‘That's not
strictly
accurate, you know, love,' he said.

‘It's accurate
enough
,' Joan countered.

‘It's mainly been work which has kept me out so late,' Woodend protested, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. ‘We're on holiday now.'

‘Exactly,' Joan agreed, ‘we're on
holiday
. So why shouldn't you have a few pints before you turn in?'

He shrugged. ‘I don't like leavin' you alone.'

‘I'll be all right.'

‘Anyway, there's not much point in goin' out, is there? I'll never be able to find any Lion Best Bitter in a place like this.'

‘You'll find somethin' else that'll suit you just as well. So stop fussin', get off out an' start enjoyin' yourself.'

He didn't want to go – he
really
didn't want to go – but he could tell that Joan would continue to argue with him until he
did
go – and that she was already finding it a strain to do so.

He straightened his jacket again. ‘I won't be long.'

‘Be as long as you like, you daft 'apporth. I'll probably be asleep when you get back, anyway.'

He walked to the door, opened it, looked back once, and was gone. Joan breathed a sigh of relief. The pain in her chest had been bothering her for some time, and now that Charlie had left she could let it show.

The streets in the old town were narrow, twisting, and designed for hoofed traffic rather than the motorized variety. Even in the early evening, many of the small shops were still open, and the bars – most of which had managed to squeeze at least a few tables on to the crowded street – were doing a thriving business.

Woodend came to the shady square in front of the old church. He had several bars to choose from, he thought. In fact, he was almost
spoiled
for choice, but since there was no point in wasting valuable drinking time by weighing up their respective merits, he selected one at random, sat down, and signalled a waiter.

‘Beer?' he asked hopefully.

The waiter looked perplexed. ‘Bee-yar?' he repeated.

Woodend mimed a pint pot. ‘Beer.'

‘
¿Vino?
' the waiter asked.

‘Could be,' Woodend admitted. ‘Given that I don't speak a word of Spanish, it could very
well
be.'

‘
¿Blanco o tinto?
'

‘
El señor quiere una cerveza
,' said a voice to Woodend's left. ‘
Una cerveza grande
.'

‘
Ah, cerveza!
' the waiter said, and disappeared into the bar.

Woodend looked up at his rescuer. The man was in his early sixties, he estimated. He was not particularly tall, but he had a good, well-muscled body for his age. He also possessed a pair of quick, intelligent, dark eyes, a firm jaw, and a mouth which betrayed a sense of humour.

‘You speak English?' he asked.

‘Enough,' the Spaniard replied, in an accent which seemed to have a slightly American edge to it.

‘Would you care to join me?' Woodend suggested.

The other man shrugged. ‘Why not? It is always pleasant to speak with visitors to our beautiful town. And it is a long time since I have been able to share a drink with a policeman.' He sat down awkwardly, as if there were stiffness in his left leg, then held his hand out across the table. ‘Paco Ruiz.'

‘Charlie Woodend,' the Chief Inspector told him, taking the hand and shaking it firmly. ‘How did you know I was a policeman?'

Ruiz smiled. ‘A guess,' he admitted, ‘but an informed one. I was watching you as you made your way to this table. You were looking around. Taking note. If I was to ask you to close your eyes and describe the whole square, you would be able to do so with ease. There are not many occupations which train you to look on the world in that way.'