It's Murder, On a Galapagos Cruise: An Amateur Female Sleuth Historical Cozy Mystery (Miss Riddell C by P.C. James (easy novels to read txt) 📕

Pauline nodded. “I certainly do,” she said. “I’ve seen too much of it to believe otherwise. There’s a little of it in all of us. And a lot of it in a few of us.”

“People today say there’s no such thing,” Maria said. “I hear them on the radio and TV, but there is. In a safe country, you forget. You imagine evil isn’t there but it is. It’s only waiting for the moment to strike. I can’t forget, nor can I forgive.”

“Go on,” Pauline said.

Maria frowned. “It gets very unpleasant now,” she said.

“What happened to Jose was unpleasant too,” Pauline replied.

“One day, when I was in my final few weeks of school, he disappeared. Just vanished. I have to be honest; I was happy. There were whispers that some of the men had run him out of our village. I didn’t care. I just hoped he would never come back.” She paused, her eyes focused on a place far away and her expression filled with pain.

After a moment, Maria continued, “Then he came back. One morning, very early, a gang of men with guns appeared out of the surrounding trees and he was among them. They said they were Sendero Luminoso – The Shining Path. They were Communists and they were going to make everything better for the people. But it seemed we weren’t the people whose lives were to be made better. They’re murderous monsters is all I know, like all of their kind.”

“So, I’ve heard,” Pauline said.

“I promise you haven’t heard the full truth,” Maria said. “They herded everyone into the center of the village and shot the village mayor and his wife without any warning or explanation. We children were kept apart, the boys separated from the girls. They told the adults we would be killed if they didn’t give a donation to the movement.”

“Women were sent to bring back all their family’s money, jewelry and valuables and place it in the square. It was then I saw Jose. He was watching me and his expression was ugly. I’ve never seen such an expression, or at least I hadn’t until that day. I saw lots then. When he was sure I was watching him, he pulled my father out of the group and shot him point-blank in the face. I screamed and ran to my father. He grabbed me and held me until my mother returned with our few valuables. Then he shot her too.”

“There was uproar and some men tried to attack the revolutionaries but they were all shot. I don’t think one survived. I don’t know because I was dragged away by Jose and you can imagine what happened to our friends and neighbors. If you can’t, know that the men were executed and the women raped, even children.”

“My dear,” Freda said, and stepped forward to comfort Maria but Maria stepped away.

“No,” she said, “There was worse to come. Keep your comfort for yourselves, these people may well win one day and even you will not be safe.”

“Go on,” Pauline said.

“After he could do no more, he called others. They too were spent at this point, having had their way with all the village girls and even, they said, some boys, but at Jose’s instructions, they violated me with anything to hand. They thought it was funny. How they laughed. You, Señora, are a nurse. I will show you my scars if that will convince you.”

“Then what happened?” Pauline asked, her face expressionless, her voice calm and neutral.

“They grew tired and left me, expecting me to die of my wounds,” Maria said, “and I was certainly desiring death, the pain was so intense, but I crawled and eventually ran. All I wanted was to be away from the village. I saw other women were running as well, all hoping to be away before the guns were turned on them.”

“I hardly dared to look back because I feared they would see me and give chase. I learned later they were too busy stoning to death women and girls who hadn’t tried to escape. But then my whole focus had to be on the forest ahead and the uneven ground below my feet. Once I slipped on a pool of blood and almost fell onto the body of our neighbor, Ernesto. He must have been working with his animals when the guerillas first arrived.

“The forest and safety seemed so far and I invented markers to drive myself on. They wouldn’t follow me once I passed that wall, I told myself. And when that wall was passed, I invented a new marker. He definitely wouldn’t follow past that broken-down truck. Then another marker; he wouldn’t follow me beyond that rock. I remember thinking, beyond that rock he wouldn’t even see me. Then I remember nothing.”

Maria stopped and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Her face set in a furious expression, she continued…

“When I woke, I was being carried. I tried to ask what was happening. Then I woke again and I was in a tent, in a bed, and everything was white. It looked like heaven and sounded like hell, for there were people screaming, crying and moaning around me. I couldn’t understand it. I felt serene, without the pain and fear I’d known. A man in white came and looked at me closely. I should have been ashamed. I wasn’t ashamed. All I could feel was hate for the monsters who’d done this to me and our small community. I hated them.

“I drifted in and out of sleep and I didn’t know what time or day it was. When I was awake, I still felt wonderful, far away from everything and everyone. But it seemed I wasn’t as well as my serenity suggested. One day, the doctor told me I had an infection. I was to be flown to a bigger hospital in the north. I couldn’t really understand why for I felt