Edgeways On

By Mike Crowson

What is the connection berween the unidentified corpse of a North African on a forestry trail in a Spanish National Park, a birdwatcher on horseback, a red motorbike, 2 missing British tourists and a shoot-out at a filling station? Sgt Louis Hortez of the Guardia Civil in in Grazalema examines a puzzle from every angles,including edgeways on, and foils a terrorist atrocity at a festival.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Crowson
• Release date: Dec 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9781458140012

Mike Crowson

Former teacher, former national secretary of what became the UK Green Party and for 40 years a student of things esoteric and occult. Now an occult and esoteric consultant offering free and unconditional help to those in serious and genuine psychic or occult trouble

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Edgeways On

Mike Crowson

Copyright 2009 Mike Crowson

Smashwords Edition 2010

Barbate, the Sardinada and the Fería Del Carmen

Barbate is a real seaside town on the Costa de la Luz, facing Morocco across the straits of Gibraltar. It really does have a declining fishing industry, a Marina as well as a Commercial Harbour, miles of golden sand and a drug smuggling problem.

This story deliberately conflates two actual Barbate festivals into one. The Fería del Carmen in July involves taking out the statue of the patron of the town from the Parish Church in a procession to the harbour, then in a boat out into the bay and blessing everything in sight. This is an excuse for a Fería several days long, fireworks and a party.

The Sardinada in August is more about the sardine fleet, blessing the sardine boats specifically and families of the fishermen handing out barbecued sardines to a much smaller crowd at a much smaller affair. For this story I needed a big party and crowds of people, so my apologies to the folk of Barbate for merging the two.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my daughter Joanna, who has lived, worked and has had a house, for more than 20 years in and around Barbate and Vejer de la Frontera. She did much of the proof reading of the book and 'looked it over' as a local resident.

Edegways On

Chapter 1: Monday

The pinsapo pine is an evolutionary throwback to the tertiary age, casting its dense and eons-old shadow only on the mountains of southern Spain, and Sergeant Luis Hortez of the Guardia Civil sat on his heels in the shade of one of them, studying the corpse on the gravel track through the trees. In fact the pinsapo pine is so rare that most of the world's surviving forests of them grow only in the Grazelema National Park, watched over by the Garda Forestal and with public access limited by numbers and season to cut down the risk of fires. It was right in the middle of a trail up the mountainside to a forest fire watch point that the corpse now occupying the thoughts of Sergeant Hortez was lying.

The dead man had dark, wavy hair and darker than 'Mediterranean' skin: North African perhaps. He was lying face down, stark naked and both hands had been cut off at the wrist. He had been killed by a single shot to the back of his head, probably from a smaller caliber gun at close range, suggesting to Hortez a terrorist or gangland execution, and he hadn't been lying on the trail through the trees when the Garda Forestal fire crew had gone up to the observation post the day before. Luis hadn't actually spoken to the fire watch crew yet, but one could not have missed seeing the body: one could not even have driven round it at that point. The report, on the other hand, had come in from a local birdwatcher, who had been walking, or rather riding, up the track that same morning, and Lieutenant Francisco Diaz, commanding officer of the small Grazalema unit of the Guardia Civil had sent Luis driving up here in response to the birdwatcher's report. Luis's jeep stood only a little way back down the trail.

The trackway itself was a ribbon of smaller rocks and loose gravel through the trees, about 21/2 to 3 metres wide and graded and bulldozed to a nearly tolerable standard each spring. It was steep in places but passable with a 4-wheel drive vehicle, like Luis's Guardia Civil Jeep, or those larger ones used by the Garda Forestal.

Luis was thin and wiry. He was in his late twenties and had qualities that Lieutenant Diaz recognized as making Sergeant Hortez a genuinely good detective. For one thing he was observant and took his time at a crime scene, so he saw things that others did not. He also 'chewed over' the facts, looking for reasons in what he saw. The result was that he solved otherwise unsolvable puzzles. Lieutenant Diaz had been sidelined himself for rebelliousness and over-zealousness - but that's another story - and was inclined to forgive his youthful sleuth a tendency to neglect what he was supposed to be doing in order to follow up his own ideas. His own ideas were so often right anyway.

At this moment Sergeant Hortez was 'chewing over' several readily observable facts. Firstly, the victim had appeared in this deserted spot sometime between about 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon, when the Garda crew had passed, and 9 o'clock this morning when the birdwatcher had phoned in. Secondly the corpse had been dumped in the middle of the track: had it been dragged 3 or 4 metres into the undergrowth on either side the body would probably not have been found, at least for some time and perhaps never. Third, the man had not been killed where he lay or there would have been blood and other signs. Luis did not know how long the man had been dead - possibly the doctor could tell him that when she arrived - but he recognized the blotches on the man's back, shoulders, buttocks and legs as probably being caused by lying on his back just after death, which was certainly not his present position. Fourthly it was clear to any observer that the man had no hands and was completely naked.

From these indisputable facts Luis concluded that the identity of the man had been deliberately concealed by the removal of anything by which that identity could be established. It was a fair bet that a search of records with the right fingerprints would have turned up a name and background, which in turn might have led to the murderer. Or murderers. It was even faintly possible his DNA would be on file, if the fingerprints were taken recently, but that was less likely and would take time. As to the location of the corpse, that did not tie in with the hiding of his identity. Why leave him there, where he could not fail to be found so quickly? Dark? Urgency? Interruption? None of these options represented a completely satisfying answer and Luis continued considering the problem. Indeed, why grind half an hour up a little used mountain track and then leave the victim where discovery was inevitable? Why not just throw the body off the edge of a decent road in any one of a hundred places in the national park in which it might never be found?

To fill in the time while he waited, the sergeant stood up and strolled a hundred metres or so up the track, looking first one side of the gravel and then on the other. The ground was hard and dry, so there wasn't a lot to see, but he thought he could make out the tufts and clods kicked up by a horse. There wasn't any sign of horse shit around and there was no way to be sure how old these faint traces were. Luis wondered how long such limited tracks would last. Quite a while in the hard dry earth he suspected. Closer to the scene of crime was an area of shorter grass which, he supposed, might have been cropped by a horse. He returned to the body and began walking in a downhill direction.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a vehicle engine labouring up the hillside. Probably the doctor, Luis thought and wandered back towards his own vehicle, which was blocking the trail, and watched a car pull up behind it. The doctor emerged from her car. She was a shriveled little woman: of medium height actually, but older and smaller looking than she really was. Her appearance, Luis thought, was sort of thin and dried out by the sun. Her ego and reputation, on the other hand, were unaffected by the heat and considerably greater than her size and appearance would suggest. Luis braced himself.

Is that the body? Doctor Delgardo asked as she passed Luis's jeep and approached the corpse of the victim.

Luis bit his tongue to kill off some remark like 'There isn't any other.' or 'Is something wrong with that one?' Imelda Delgardo was probably only making small talk anyway.

Yes, he said. Found about 0900 today.

The doctor looked at the victim from a standing position and then bent down to examine the bullet wound.

Powder burns, she said. He was shot from a couple of centimeters range. Small caliber. Single shot as far as I can see. She lifted his head by the hair. No exit wound, she added and released the head indifferently. That means you'll have to be at the autopsy to collect the bullet.

Sergeant Hortez realized that continuity of evidence meant somebody would have to be there to take the bullet and identify it in court if occasion arose, and that it would probably be him. He was not enthusiastic.

Turn him over, the doctor said. She was curt and arrogant but she was good at her job.

Luis crossed to the body and bent down to turn it as doctor Delgardo had instructed. Rigor mortis had set in and it wasn't easy.

Warm now and not really very cold overnight, even at this altitude, The doctor mused as she watched Hortez struggle with the stiffening corpse. Looks to have been dead 9 to 12 hours, she continued. 11 o'clock now so he died between 11 last night and 2 this morning, near as I can estimate.

He was found here around 9 this morning, Luis remarked, more for his own benefit than the doctor's. He stood clear of the corpse again. Several flies were buzzing round, disturbed by the movement of the remains. They were especially interested in the wrists.

Victim spent some time on his back immediately after death, the doctor observed, looking at the marks where the blood had sunk to the back of the body. At least half an hour. Probably while they stripped the corpse and cut off the hands. She examined the handless wrists. That was done after death anyway.

And it's not going to make identifying him any easier, Luis thought. Face up the man looked even more as if he might be North African or have some Arab blood in him somewhere. Something had smashed him in the face, but it wasn't that much of a disfiguring injury.

Those facial injuries were done after death as well, the Doctor remarked. I wonder how he got them.

I wonder too, Luis thought. Perhaps he was thrown from the back of a truck. There are no tyre marks of any sort here, not even from the Garda Forestal truck. On the other hand, the ground's so hard and dry it doesn't prove there wasn't a vehicle of some sort.

They're sending a helicopter to pick up the body, A Garda Forestal one, there isn't a Guardia one nearer than Málaga, Imelda Delgardo said. If I'd known before I set out how bad the road was I'd have waited and come in with the helicopter myself.

She turned and walked back down the trail. As soon as they bring the body in I'll do the autopsy and confirm my estimates. It'll be in Ronda: I'll let you know when. You'll be there, so you can see for yourself if there's anything else.

Luis watched the doctor get into her car just behind his own, turn on the track and head off back down the mountain. He strolled down to his own vehicle and retrieved a water bottle and his digital camera. He brought them both back to the shade of the same pinsapo pine and returned to puzzling over his crime scene while he waited for the helicopter. He hoped it wouldn't be long: it was a warm day, as the doctor had observed, and it wouldn't be more than hour or two before the body began to smell.

Luis had already taken photographs of the crime scene but, now that the victim had been turned face up, some head and shoulders shots might help to identify the man. He was pretty sure that the face would not be among Guardia files of mug shots. After all, why cut off the hands so you couldn't identify the guy by his prints, if his mugshot was on the file? On the other hand Interpol was always a faint possibility and there was just an outside chance that a hotel receptionist or a bar waiter somewhere might remember the face and provide a lead. He did not rate the chances very highly, but taking the photos would give him something useful to do while he waited and Luis was always the optimist. He picked up the camera and turned it on.

* * *

Sergeant Hortez knocked at the Lieutenant's office door and went in. Diaz looked up.

How did it go? Diaz asked.

Too much waiting, Luis said. Waiting for the doctor and then waiting for the Garda Forestal helicopter to arrive. I could have done my bit in a half hour or less for all there was to go on.

What do you mean?

The body had been stripped and the hands chopped off. It looked like someone didn't want us to identify him.

Any sign of the clothes anywhere near? the Lieutenant asked hopefully. You did a search of the area? he added, certain that Hortez would have done a ruthlessly thorough job at the scene.

No clothes, no hands, no marks anywhere around, no nothing to help. No footprints, no cigarette stubs, no vehicle tracks. The doctor thinks he was killed between 11 last night and 2 this morning and lay at least half an hour in a different position somewhere else. He was found at 9 this morning, so somewhere between midnight and 9 a body just appeared on the trail up the mountain and we have to try and identify it.

That's it, Diaz agreed. You can take officer Vega to help you. Where do you plan to start?

Missing persons, Hortez said, thinking that Maripaz Vega would not have been his choice. It wasn't that he had anything against her, except he had a feeling that she fancied him, which could be a problem with his girlfriend Lola. That and the fact that she was very inexperienced when it came to detective work and this job was going to take both skill and luck. Well, maybe she was lucky. First I'll print out the photos I took, he continued. I have a couple of head shots. I'll take out the injuries to the face, as far as I can, from the digital images. We can try out the result on local hotels and the like. Officer Vega can try missing persons.

Well, get on and make a start, Diaz said with a finality suggesting the interview was at an end.

Oh, yes. And someone will have to attend the PM and collect the bullet that killed him.

Lieutenant Diaz knew all about continuity of evidence. He nodded and said, It's your case. You can go.

Right, Hortez acknowledged, still without enthusiasm for that particular job. He saluted and left.

The Guardia Civil barracks in Grazelema are small, with little room for even a small unit so, in lieu of an office of his own, Sergeant Hortez called Officer Vega into an interview room. She was younger than Luis by a few years, fairly tall with short brown hair, a reasonable figure and intelligent eyes.

Sit down Maripaz, he said. The Lieutenant has landed you and me with a near impossible job. He explained about the corpse and the probable difficulty in identifying it. We'd better collect the initial report and talk to the birdwatcher and to the Garda Forestal Duty Team, just to get as much information as we can on the initial report.

He passed her a couple of prints of the head and shoulders photos of the victim. He was quite pleased at how the prints had come out, considering the man was dead when the touched up photos had been taken: the result wasn't perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better than an artist's impression would have been.

First try Guardia records for mug shots, particularly any missing persons photos that match. It's my bet there'll be no help there at all. After that, circulate copies to the Interpol desk in Madrid and we'll see whether they can come up with anything. While you're doing that I'll phone the Garda Forestal and ask the current watch crew to call in when they get off duty.

We're not going up there ourselves?

We are not, Luis said with feeling. There is no point in grinding all the way up that track and back again, when they're coming down later today anyway.

No, Maripaz agreed.

The birdwatcher bloke - I think his name is Fernandez or something - lives somewhere more accessible though. We will drive out and talk to him later.

Maripaz nodded. I don't really suspect him, Luis thought, but I do want to know more about what he was up to and just how early in the morning he had come upon the corpse.

If you get on with those calls now, he said out loud, We can drive out to see our birdwatcher around five or five thirty.

Okay sergeant ... Luis, the young woman officer agreed and bustled off.

* * *

There's a footpath up the mountainside just above the spot where the body was, Alfonso Fernandez explained. It crosses the trail a bit higher up, say 100 metres away. Maybe a bit more.

Fernandez was in his late forties - 48 from the birth date he had given - and faintly academic looking, with wavy brown hair graying a little, a neatly