A Silent Death by Peter May (book recommendations website txt) 📕

‘You saw him shoot the girl.’

‘Yes.’

‘He blamed you.’

‘Yes.’ She pressed the heel of her hand to the horn and pulled out in front of a car that was threatening to trap her behind a truck. ‘He threatened to kill me and every member of my family.’

Mackenzie said, ‘Which wasn’t much of a threat while he was still in custody.’

She shrugged.

‘And now?’

‘The surviving Guardia from the attack on the truck this morning was my sister’s husband, Paco. Cleland told Paco to tell me that he was coming for me, then shot him in the leg. I think the only reason he didn’t kill him was so that he could deliver the message.’

Mackenzie reran the briefing notes he had read on Cleland. Mad Jock, they called him. Not, apparently, without reason. ‘Are you scared?’

Cristina flicked him a glance. ‘Yes, I am scared. But I also have a husband, a ten-year-old son, a sister with cancer, an aunt who is deaf and blind. And I am scared for them, too. I looked this man in the eye, señor. He is loco. Quite mad.’

Mackenzie closed his eyes and regretted everything about the way he had spoken to her at the airport.

CHAPTER TEN

From Santa Ana de las Vides, the road wound up into the hills through vineyards that covered the south-facing slopes, vines producing sweet white Alejandria Muscatel grapes and even sweeter wine. The coastline fell away below them as they climbed, and the old whitewashed adobe houses of Marviña spread themselves across the undulating hilltop. On the roundabout at the entrance to the old town stood a road sign the like of which Mackenzie had never seen before. A red No-Entry sign in the shape of a broken heart above a plaque that read No Violencia Machista.

Cristina glanced at him and his consternation produced a smile. ‘A campaign against domestic violence,’ she said.

They turned right into a development of modern apartment blocks, and then right again into a street that led down into an underground car park. There were several police vehicles here, including a number of motorbikes, and Mackenzie followed Cristina through a door leading directly on to the lower floor of the police station.

This was a building of recent vintage, with freshly white-painted walls. Cristina and Mackenzie started up a staircase but were halted by a call from beyond an open door at the foot of the stairs. A gruff voice that carried the clear weight of authority. ‘In here, Cristina.’

They turned back and entered what Mackenzie quickly gathered was the evidence room. Racks of metal shelving stood in rows. At one side of the room the shelves were lined with box folders, labelled and annotated. Files on hundreds of cases. On the other they groaned with cartons containing evidence collected from crime scenes or seized from the homes of suspects. The Jefe was sorting through an ugly collection of weapons.

He swung around as they came in, and started laying them out on the nearest shelf for Mackenzie to see. A long ceremonial sword, another shorter blade in a sheath, a well-worn blue-painted baseball bat, a sledgehammer, a long-bladed knife set in a wooden block that doubled as a club. There was dried blood on it. He said, ‘All seized this morning during a raid on an abandoned housing development on the edge of town. The place was being used as a clubhouse by a gang dealing drugs in the district. My district. They are like rats, these drug dealers. You flush out one infestation, another appears. You cage them for a while, then the courts set them free and they’re back, thumbing their noses at you.’ He stretched out a hand towards Mackenzie. ‘Sub-Inspector Miguel López. Station chief. Jefe to you, and everyone else under my command.’ He grinned. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony here – as long as everyone understands I’m the boss.’

Mackenzie accepted the Jefe’s firm dry handshake. ‘Not my boss,’ he said.

The Jefe inclined his head and a tiny smile played around his lips. ‘I think you’ll find that I am. At least for the moment.’ He glanced at Cristina. ‘Did the young lady not tell you?’

‘The young lady,’ Mackenzie said, giving equal and disapproving emphasis to each word, ‘told me virtually nothing.’

The Jefe nodded his approval. ‘Good. Just as it should be. Let’s go up to my office.’

Mackenzie followed the Jefe upstairs, Cristina tramping in their wake, as if her big black leather boots were too heavy for her. They stopped on the first landing and the police chief raised his hand towards a large framed photographic collage hanging in the stairwell. Photos of police officers from the past standing in groups and ones and twos. Some in colour, others in black-and-white. A large red-lettered caption read, POLICÍA LOCAL DE MARVIÑA SIEMPRE AHÍ. Always there. Mackenzie wondered where they had been when Cleland’s people had shot three Guardia dead and helped him escape. But for once did not give voice to the thought.

The Jefe jabbed a finger at a black-and-white photograph of a good-looking man in uniform. An abundance of silver hair curled from beneath his cap. ‘My father,’ he said. ‘Jefe before me, as his father was before him.’

A family dynasty, Mackenzie thought, before realizing that he had said it out loud. But the Jefe just laughed. ‘No one messes with the López family,’ he said. He pointed towards a collection of firearms mounted on the wall above the collage. Old flintlock pistols, a bolt-action rifle, a revolver fitted with a rifle butt, several more modern pistols and a hand-grenade in a glass case. ‘Police weapons through the ages.’ He slapped his hand against his holster. ‘And now it’s a joint German-Swiss venture which provides us with guns to keep the peace. Strange bedfellows don’t you think?’

Mackenzie did, but not in the way the Jefe intended. ‘Guns and peace, yes. That seems like an oxymoron to me.’

The Jefe gazed at him for a thoughtful moment