The Marks of Cain

A voice halted him.

‘Name of Françoise Gahets. Never married.’

It was Sanderson. His lined and lively face was peering around the door of the room at the end of the hallway.

‘DCI! Hello.’

‘Got your notebook?’

‘Yes.’ Simon fished the pad from his pocket.

‘Like I said, name of Françoise Gahets. She never married. She was rich, lived alone…We know she’s been in Britain sixty years, no close relatives. And that’s all we’ve got so far. You wanna see the SOC?’

‘Unless you want to get, ah, pizza.’

Sanderson managed a very faint smile.

They crossed the doorway. As they did Sanderson continued:

‘Body was found by the cleaner yesterday. Estonian girl called Lara. She’s still downing the vodkas.’

They stepped to the end of the sitting room. A white-overalled, white-masked forensic officer swerved out of the way, so the two men could see.

‘This is where we found her. Right here. The body was moved this morning. She was…sitting right there. You ready to see the photos?’

‘Yes.’

Sanderson reached to a sidetable. He picked up a folder, opened it, and revealed a sheaf of photographs.

The first photo showed the murdered old woman, fully clothed, kneeling on the floor with her back to them. She was wearing gloves, oddly enough. Simon checked the photo against the reality in front of him.

Then he looked back at the photo. From this angle the victim looked alive, as if she was kneeling down to search for something under the TV or the sofa. At least she looked alive – if you regarded her up to the neck only.

It was the head that made Simon flinch: what the murderer, or murderers, had done to the head.

‘What the…’

Sanderson offered another photograph:

‘We got a close-up. Look.’

The second photo was taken from a few inches away: it showed that the entire top of the victim’s scalp had been wrenched away, exposing the white and bloody bone of her skull.

‘And check this one.’

Sanderson was proffering a third image.

This photo showed the detached scalp itself, a bloody clogged mess of wrinkled skin and long grey hair, lying in the carpet; rammed through the hair was a thick stick – some kind of broom handle maybe. The grey hair was tightly wound around this stick, many many times, all twisted and broken. Knotted.

Simon exhaled, very slowly.

‘Thanks. I think.’

He gazed around the room: the bloodstains on the carpet were still very visible. It was fairly obvious how the killing must have been done: bizarre – but obvious. Someone had made the old woman kneel down, by the TV, then they had forced the stick through her long grey hair, then they had turned the stick around and around, winding the hair ever tighter on the stick, chewing all her hair into one great painful knot of blood and pain, tearing at the roots of the hair on her scalp, until the pulling pressure must have snapped, tearing off the entire scalp.

He picked out one of the last photos. It was taken from the front, showing the woman’s expression. His next words were instant – and reflexive.

‘Oh my God.’

The old woman’s mouth was torqued into a loud yet silent scream, the last frozen expression of her suffering, as the top of her head was twisted off, and popped away.

It was too much. Simon stiffened, and dropped the folder of photos on the sidetable; he turned and walked to the marble fireplace. It was empty and cold, with dried grasses in a vase, and a photo of some old people. A kitsch plaster statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary smiled from the centre of the mantelpiece, next to a small ceramic donkey. The yawning image of his brother, his hands coated in blood, came unbidden to his mind.

He purged it, and turned.

‘So…Detective…judging by that broom handle…it looks like…They twisted and twisted the hair, until it ripped off the top of…of her head?’

Sanderson nodded.

‘Yep. And it’s called knotting.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It’s a form of torture. Used through the centuries, apparently.’ He glanced at the door. ‘Tomasky did his research, like a good lad. He says knotting was used on gypsies. And in the Russian Revolution.’

‘So…’ Simon shuddered at the thought of the woman’s pain. ‘So…she died of shock?’

‘Nope. She was garrotted. Look.’

Another photo. Sanderson’s pen was pointing to the woman’s neck; now the journalist leaned close, he could see faint red weals.

It was puzzling, and deeply grotesque. He frowned his distaste, and said:

‘But that’s…rather confusing. Whoever did this, tormented the old woman first. And then killed her…expertly…Why the hell would you do all that?’

‘Who the fuck knows?’ Sanderson replied. ‘Bit of a weird one, right? And here’s another thing. They didn’t steal a thing.’

‘Sorry?’

‘There’s jewellery upstairs. Totally untouched.’

They walked to the door; Simon felt a strong urge to get out of the room. Sanderson chatted as they exited.

‘So…Quinn. You’re a good journalist. Britain’s seventh best crime reporter!’ His smile faded. ‘I’m not kidding, mate. That’s why I asked you here – you like a bloody mystery story. If you work out the mystery, do let us know.’

5

When he came to, groggy and numb, they were both outside, by the door to the bar. In the mountain sun. The girl was bleeding from her forehead, but not much. She was shaking him awake.

A shadow loomed. It was the barman. He was standing, nervously shifting from foot to foot, wearing an expression of compassionate fear.

He said in English, ‘Amy. Miguel – I keep him inside but but but you go, you must go – go now –’

She nodded.

‘I know.’

Once more the blonde girl grabbed David’s hand. She was pulling him upright. As David stood, he felt the muscles and bones in his face – he was hurting. But he wasn’t busted. There was dried blood on his fingers, from where he must have tried to protect himself – and protect the girl.

‘Crazy.’ She was shaking her head. ‘I mean. Thank you for doing that. But crazy.’

‘I’m sorry.’ David was wholly disorientated. She was British. ‘You saved me first anyway. But…I don’t…don’t understand. What just happened in that bar?’

‘Miguel. It was Miguel.’

That much he knew already. Now she was tugging him down the silent Basque street, past little restaurants advertising raciones and gorrin. Past silent stone houses with towers.

David regarded his rescuer. She was maybe twenty-seven, or twenty-eight, with a determined but pretty face, despite the bruise and the blooding. And she was insistent.

‘C’mon. Quick. Where’s your car? I came by bus. We need to get out of here before he gets really angry. That’s why I tried to pull you away.’

‘That wasn’t…really angry?’

She shook her head.

‘That was nothing.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You’ve never heard of Miguel? Otsoko?’

‘No.’

‘Otsoko is Basque for wolf. That’s his codename. His ETA codename.’

He didn’t wait for any further explanation; they ran to his car and jumped in.

David stared at her across the car. ‘Where should we go? Where?’

‘Any village that’s not Lesaka. Head that way…Elizondo. My place.’

David gunned the engine and they raced out of town. Amy added:

‘It’s safe there.’ She looked his way. ‘And we can clean you up, you’re still a bit of a mess.’

‘And you?’

Her smile was brief. ‘Thanks. Go this way.’

David twisted the wheel, his nerves tautened by the idea of Miguel, ‘the Wolf’. The barman and the drinkers had obviously dissuaded Miguel from further violence: but maybe the Wolf would change his mind.

The Wolf?

David sped them urgently out of the little town, past the Spanish police, past the last stone house; he was agitated by all the puzzles. What had happened in the bar? Who was Miguel? Who was this girl?

He realized, again, that her Spanish had been spoken with a British accent.

What was she doing here?

As they raced down the narrow road, through the sylvan countryside, he sensed that he had to inquire, that she wasn’t just going to tell him too much, unprompted. So he asked. Her face was shadowed with dapples of sun – light and dark shadows that disguised the bruising on her face – as she turned. His first query was the most obvious of all.

‘OK. I guess we go to the police. Right? Tell them what happened.’

He was astonished when she shook her head.

‘No. No, we can’t, we just…can’t. Sorry, but I work with these people, live with them, they trust me. This is ETA territory. And the police are the Spanish. No one goes to the police.’

‘But…’

‘And what would I say anyway? Mmm?’ Her blue eyes were burning. ‘What do I say? A guy hit me in a bar? Then they would ask his name…and I would have to say the Wolf. And there, that’s it – then I’ve betrayed an ETA hero, a famous ETA fighter.’ Her expression was grimly unamused. ‘That would not be good for my longevity. Not in deepest Euskadi.’

David nodded, slowly, accepting the explanation. But her replies had triggered more questions: she worked with these people? How? Where? And why?

He asked again, outright, about her situation. She turned away from him, to stare at the mellow green fields.

‘You want to know now?’

‘I’ve got a lot of questions. Why not now?’

A pause, then she said:

‘OK. OK. You did try to save my life. Maybe you deserve to know.’

Her slender face was set in determined profile, as she offered her answers.

Her name was Amy Myerson. She was Jewish, twenty-eight, and from London, where she’d been educated, taking a degree in foreign languages. She was now an academic at San Sebastian University, teaching Eng Lit to Basque kids. She had fetched up here in the Basque Country after a couple of years backpacking. ‘Smoking too much hash in Morocco. You know.’

He managed a smile; she didn’t smile in return. Instead she added: ‘And then I found myself here, the Pays Basque, between the forests and the steelworks.’ The spangled sunlight from the trees was bright on the windscreen. ‘And I also got involved in the struggle for independence. Met some people from Herri Batasuna, the political wing of ETA. I don’t support the violence, of course…But I do believe in the goal. Basque freedom.’ She was looking out of the window again. ‘Why shouldn’t they be free? The Basques have been here longer than anyone else. Maybe thirty thousand years. Lost in the silent valleys of the Navarre…’

They were at the main Bidasoa highway; huge cement lorries were thundering past. Amy instructed him:

‘Turn right.’

David nodded; his lip was still throbbing. His jaw ached where the pistol butt had smashed across it. But he could tell he clearly had no broken bones. A life of looking after himself, as an orphan, had made him a good judge of his physical condition. He was going to be OK. But what about her?

Amy was gazing his way.

‘So. That’s my autobiography, not a bestseller. What about you? Tell me your story.’

It was only fair: she should know too.

Swiftly he sketched his strange and quixotic situation: his parental background, the bequest from his grandfather, the map and the churches. Amy Myerson’s blue eyes widened as she listened.

‘Two million dollars?’

‘Two million dollars.’

‘Christ. Wish someone would leave me two bloody million dollars!’ Then she put a hand to her pretty white teeth. ‘Oh God. You must be grieving. Stupidest remark in the world. I’m sorry…It’s just…this morning.’

‘It’s alright. I understand.’ David wasn’t annoyed. She had just saved him from a beating – or worse – as much as he had saved her. He remembered Miguel’s dark eyes glaring.

‘Take this left here.’

David dutifully steered them off the main road; they were on a much quieter highway now. Ahead of them he could see a wide and sumptuous valley, leading to hazy blue mountains. The upper slopes of the mountains were lightly talced with snow.

‘The Valley of Baztan,’ said Amy. ‘Beautiful, no?’

She was right: it was stunning. He gazed at the soothing view: the cattle standing knee-deep in the golden riverlight, the somnolent forests stretching to the blue-misted horizon.

After ten minutes of admirable Pyrenean countryside, they pulled past a tractor repair depot, then a Lidl supermercado, and entered a small town of dignified squares and little bakeries, and chirruping mountain streams that ran past the gardens of ancient sandstone houses. Elizondo.

Her flat was in a modern development just off the main road. Amy keyed the door and they snuck in; her flat had tall windows with excellent views of the Pyrenees up the valley. With their slopes draped with ice and fog, and the summits looming blue above, the mountains looked like a row of Mafiosi at the barber’s, white-sheeted to the neck.

A row of killers.

He thought of Miguel as Amy busied herself in the kitchen. Miguel, Otsoko, the Wolf. The immensely strong muscles, the tall dark shape, the deeply set eyes. He tried not to think of Miguel. He glanced around the apartment: the walls were sparsely decorated but the bookshelves were full of heavyweight literature: Yeats and Hemingway and Orwell. A mighty volume called The Poetry of Violence.

What did she teach these kids at San Sebastian University?

Then he swivelled: she had returned, carrying paper towels and flannels and antiseptic cream, and a plastic basin of hot water; together they knelt on the bare wooden floors, and tended to each other’s wounds. She dabbed at his lip with a white flannel; the cloth came away red and brown with old blood.

‘Ouch,’ he said.

‘Not broken,’ she said. ‘Brave soldier.’

He waved away the absurd compliment; she bent to her task, squeezing the flannel in the water, making soft crimson blooms of his blood. Then she spoke.

‘We could go to the doctor…but we’d just have to sit for six hours to get a stitch, maybe. Don’t see the point. Mmm?’

He nodded. Her expression was serious, impassive and reserved. He guessed there were still a lot of things she wasn’t telling him yet; but then again he hadn’t yet asked her the truly probing question: why had Miguel attacked her, so instantly and angrily?

‘OK, Amy, let me help you.’ He took a clean flannel and moistened it with hot water. She presented her face, eyes shut, and he began to dab and wash the blood from her hairline. She winced at the tang of the water, but said nothing. As he cleaned her wound, he questioned her.

‘I want to know more about that bar.’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘What I don’t get is…is…It wasn’t just that guy Miguel, the whole place was punchy. What did I do wrong? How did I upset so many people just by asking a couple of questions?’

Amy’s head was tilted, letting him clean her forehead. She was silent for a moment, and then she said:

‘OK, here’s the deal. Lesaka is one of the most nationalist towns in the Basque Country. Fiercely proud.’

David nodded, and took some paper towels, beginning to dry the deep but now unbleeding scratch.

‘Go on…’

‘And then there’s ETA. The terrorists. Miguel’s friends.’ She frowned. ‘They killed some Guardia Civil, just two weeks ago. Five of them, in a horrible bomb, in San Sebastian. And then the Spanish police shot dead four ETA activists. Madrid claims they were also planting a bomb. Basques are saying it was cold-blooded reprisal.’

‘Ah.’

‘That’s why there are police everywhere. It’s majorly tense. The Spanish police can be extremely violent when they are taking on ETA. It’s a vicious spiral.’

David sat back, examining his work on her wound. She would be alright; he would be alright. But there was something odd that he had noticed, something that was not quite alright.

When he had been washing the blood from Amy’s forehead, he had seen a scar. A strange and complex scar: curving arcs of some deep yet decorative cuts – hidden under her bright blonde hair.

He said nothing.

Her injuries treated, Amy was sitting back. She was cross-legged in her jeans and trainers, her hands flat on the bare floorboards.

‘So you wanna know what else you did wrong?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let’s take it in order. First you accused the guys of talking Spanish in a ferociously Basque-speaking area. That isn’t so hot. And then you must remember the political tension. As I explained.’

‘Sure. And?’

‘And…well…there’s something else as well.’

‘What?’

‘You said something quite provocative on top of all that.’

‘I did?’

‘You mentioned José Garovillo. That’s when I came across to try and help you, when you said that. I told them I knew you, that you were a bloody idiot, they should pity you –’

‘Er, thanks.’

‘I had to say that. Because when I heard you banging on about José, I knew you were in deep trouble.’

‘So…who is he?’

She gazed across the tepid water, in the plastic basin.

‘You don’t know?’

David felt increasingly stupid, and increasingly frustrated.

Amy explained:

‘José Garovillo is very old now, but he’s really quite famous around here.’

‘You mean you actually know him? You can help me find him?’

‘I know him well. I can email him today, tell him about you. If you want.’

‘But…Great. That’s great!’

‘Wait.’ Her face was unsmiling; she lifted a hand to slow his words. ‘Listen. A lot of people round here know Garovillo. Because he’s a cultural icon, one of the intellectuals who helped revive Basque language and culture – way back when. In the 60s and 70s. He was also a member of ETA in the 60s.’

‘He’s famous? But I looked him up on the net! There was nothing.’

Amy answered: ‘But he’s only famous amongst Basques. And in ETA he was just called José. You’d never see his full name written down…ETA people like to keep a low profile. And Garovillo has been a Basque radical since way back – he was interned by Germans in the war, over in Iparralde.’

‘Sorry?’

She turned and waved a small white hand at the window.

‘There. The land beyond! The French Basque Country, over the mountains. In 1970 he was arrested and tortured by Franco, and then by the Socialists. He used to drink in the Bar Bilbo, years ago. He’s pretty famous – or notorious.’ Her face was serious. ‘Not least because of his son…’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘His son’s name is…Miguel.’

‘The guy who attacked us…’

‘Is José’s son. The Wolf is José Garovillo’s son.’

6

David booked himself into a hotel on the outskirts of Elizondo, to wait for Amy’s email to José to do the job. The Hotel Gernika was nothing special. It had a small swimming pool, a modest breakfast bar, and lots of leathery old French guests on cycling holidays wearing alarmingly tight Lycra shorts. But that was fine by David.

With his money, his unaccustomed wealth, he could have booked into the best hotel in Navarre – but it didn’t seem right. He wanted to be inconspicuous. Anonymous and unnoticed: just another tourist in a nice but mediocre hotel. So he grabbed his bags and booked himself in, and spent the rest of the day staring from his humble balcony, gazing out at the mountains. The cirques and summits seemed to shimmer, knowingly, exulting in their own remoteness.

It was a hot and dusty day. In the evening he decided on a swim: he walked into the hotel gardens and stripped to his shorts, and dived in the blue inviting water of the pool. He gasped as he surfaced, the water was freezing, straight from the mountains, unheated.

His whole body was tingling, his heart was thumping, it was a perfect metaphor for his situation. Three weeks ago he was a bored and listless commuter, reading free newspapers on the train, drinking machine coffee at work, doing the daily rounds of nothingness. As soon as he arrived in the Basque Country he had plunged right into it, straight into this mystery and strangeness and violence; and yet it felt good. Shocking but good; bracing but invigorating. Like diving into a pool of freezing mountain water. Making his body tingle.

I am alive.

The next day Amy called him: she’d had an idea. She reckoned that he should maybe publish his story, to help with the puzzle. Amy said she knew a local journalist who was willing to write it up; her way of thinking was that the more people who knew the questions, the better the chance they might locate some of the answers.

David agreed to the idea, with only the faintest sense of reluctance.

They met again in the journalist’s spare white flat; the young, dark-haired writer, Zara Garcia, banged out the article on a laptop. The piece appeared in a Spanish newspaper just half-a-day later. It was immediately picked up and translated by some English language newsfeeds.

When David finally read the published story, on his own laptop, sitting with Amy in a little wifi cafe near the main plaza of Elizondo, he felt anxiety as well as excitement. The article was headlined ‘Bizarre Bequest Leads to Million Dollar Basque Mystery’.

It had a photo taken by Zara of David holding up the map; the newspaper offered an email address where people could get in touch with David, if they had any ideas that might help.

The journalist had left out the connection with José Garovillo: she’d explained that it was too incendiary and provocative in the political climate. Reading the article, David decided this omission had definitely been a good idea; he already felt exposed enough by the newspaper piece. What if Miguel read it?

He shut the laptop and looked at Amy, in her purple denim jacket and her elegantly slender jeans. She looked back at him, silent, and blue eyed; and as she did, he felt the oddness of their situation – like an inexplicable shiver on a very warm day. Already they were sort-of friends: forced together by that horrible and frightening scene in the Bar Bilbo. And yet they were not friends; they were still total strangers. It was dissonant.

Or maybe he was just unnerved by the noise in the bar. The slap and laughter of kids playing pelota, the peculiar Basque sport, in the square outside, was very audible. Children were thwapping the hard little pelota ball against a high wall. The noise was repetitive and intense. She glanced his way.

‘Shall we go somewhere else?’

‘If you have time.’

‘Academic holiday. And I’d like to help, while my students are off shooting the police.’ She smiled at his alarmed response. ‘Hey. That was a joke. Where do you want to go?’

‘I want to start looking at the churches. On my map…’

‘OK.’

‘But first…I’d like to go somewhere I can have a proper drink.’ He looked at her for a long moment, then he confessed: he was still feeling the nerves, the fear, the aftereffects of Miguel’s attack.

‘Let’s go for a glass and talk,’ she said.

A few minutes’ driving brought them to a hushed little village; the sign said Irurita. Old men sat snoozing under berets, outside cafes. Parking the car by the village church they walked to one of the cafes; they sat under a parasol. The clear mountain air was refreshing, the sun was warm. Amy ordered some olives and a bottle of the chilled local white wine that she called txacolli.

The waitress served them at their shaded table with a nimble curtsey.

Amy spoke:

‘You haven’t asked me the most obvious question of all.’

He demurred; her expression was serious.

‘You ought to know this…if I am going to introduce you to José.’

He drank some of his cold fresh wine, and nodded. ‘OK. If you insist. Why did Miguel attack you? He came out of nowhere, then…assaulted you. Why?’