left shoulder on the car and it is into this bruise that the string now bites like a cheese wire.
‘What is your real name?’
The woman has spoken. She is clearly the leader. I hear the man who bound me moving back towards the door.
‘My name is Alec Milius.’
I can see nothing inside the sack, which is already very hot, yet these first moments are oddly calm. I know that my body is weak and pale, that my nakedness is emasculating, but somehow the intense tiredness and hunger I feel actually help me.
‘Who do you work for?’
‘I’m a private banker. I work for a bank. Endiom.’ It takes me a long time, perhaps too long, to spell out the letters. ‘E. N. D. I. O. M. It’s a British company with an office in Madrid.’
A fist tears into my stomach, doubling me over. I did not hear him there. The breath is ripped out of me, leaving a vacuum into which I choke and cough. There are particles of fine earth in the lining of the sack which catch in my throat. I cannot breathe. I try to speak but I cannot breathe. The woman says, ‘Stop lying. Who do you work for?’ but I am unable to respond. The flex binding my hands is too tight and it feels as if all of my weight is being supported on my torn wrists.
Again: ‘Who do you work for?’
When I give the same response – the single word ‘Endiom’ – I am punched a second time, and my assailant has to catch the weight of my head as I pitch forward. His hand covers my mouth through the sack and I want to bite at it, to return the pain. The woman says something in Basque which I do not understand. Then a great wave of nausea swells in me and I think that I might be sick. Again she asks the question, and when I do not reply I hear the grunt of the man beside me, as if he is readying himself for yet another strike. I try to tense my stomach muscles, to prepare for him, but I have lost all physical control over the lower part of my body. Then the click of a cigarette lighter just beside my ear. Oh Jesus, is he going to set fire to the sack? Summoning a desperate strength, I scream, ‘For Christ’s sake, I’m not a fucking spy. You said that I was a spy. When he brought the food three days ago. When he kept me awake.’
The lighter clicks off. I manage to scrape the chair away from the sound of it. There is silence. At the door the guard who threw the coffee clears his throat. I think that I hear him move towards me but I cannot trust my senses now. I am coughing again on the dust. I choke in the terrible darkness of the sack and shake my head, utterly disorientated.
‘How long have you been a spy?’ the woman asks.
This is the crazy, chopped logic of interrogation. Whatever I say, I say nothing.
‘I told you, I’m not a spy. You are keeping the wrong man. I am not a spy. Please don’t hit me when I tell you the truth. My name is Alec Milius. I am a British citizen. I came to Madrid six years ago. I work for a British company. You think that I’m a spy because of my link to Mikel Arenaza, but I had nothing to do with his death. I want to find his killer as much as you do. I think I know…’
But what I am saying is overhauled by the terrible screech of a heavy object being dragged across the ground. It is coming from the direction of the blue tarpaulins near the far wall. It sounds like a fridge, a chest, something large and cumbersome, the awful slide of fingernails being dragged along a blackboard. The woman was not interested in what I had to say. They were moving the object while I was talking.
‘What is that?’
‘Alec?’
Her voice is suddenly very soft and directly in front of me, just a few inches from my face. I could kick her if my legs were free. We could kiss. Even in this nightmare state, the thought arises that one should never strike a woman. I can hear the two men breathing hard as they come to a halt.
‘Yes?’
‘Have you listened to that?’
‘Listened to what? To the noise? Yes, of course.’
‘And do you understand what I have told you?’
‘What have you told me? You’ve told me nothing. I know that you’re ETA. I am not a spy…’
Another suffocating punch into my stomach. Who did that? Was that the woman? I scream something at her, aware that my private vow never to do so, never to grant them the satisfaction of hearing their punishment rewarded, has been easily broken. Then suddenly there is silence, long and quiet enough to hear a bird flap its wings in the rafters of the barn, until eventually the woman speaks again.
‘Let me make things clear,’ she says. ‘There is a gas stove in front of you. This is what we have taken from the other side of the barn. Now I want you to listen to me very carefully.’
Again, the awful static click of the cigarette lighter. One of the men is standing beside me. Someone turns what sounds like the dial on a cooker. I hear the hiss of gas escaping into nothing, followed by a hollow roar as it is lit. Oh, please God, no.
‘If you refuse to co-operate with us, we will put you on this stove. We will burn you and you will be left to die. None of us cares about this. We have done it before and we can choose to do it again. So I want you to consider very carefully when you answer us.’
I begin to weep. I cannot any longer hide my fear from them. My freezing body shakes with terror and cold and I feel a sort of madness welling up beneath the black horror of the sack. Let them do to me what they want. I have no more fight.
‘Do it then,’ I scream. ‘ Venga. No soy un mentiroso. Fuck you, you fucking animals. I am not who you think I am. I am not a spy. Fucking do it.’
A wild slash across my head, the back of a hand, then something slamming into my knees, like a wooden stave or a pole. My neck twists as tears cut across my eyes. I scream at them again.
‘You are animals. You betray your cause.’ Where is this strength coming from? An extraordinary defiance has erupted within me and asserted control. ‘You do not know what is happening. There is another GAL. I know about the GAL. You kill me and burn me and you will all be finished.’
I do not know whether my words have any effect. I do not care. I think that I pass out and then return to consciousness. I think that the gas is switched off. My knees throb with pain. It is as if my bones pulse. I cannot stop coughing. At last, eventually, the woman says, ‘What do you mean by that?’ and her voice, for the first time, bears a trace of anxiety. ‘ Que significa la otra GAL? What do you mean, Alec?’
The use of my first name feels like a blessing. I have a chance to stop this nightmare. Sitting straighter, risking another blow from one of the men, I speak very slowly, with as much truth and care as I can summon.
‘I was sent to San Sebastian. I was sent to Donostia by the bank. I met Mikel Arenaza and I interviewed him. I had to ask him questions for my work. He was kind to me. He said we should meet in Madrid and he telephoned me the day he disappeared. He called from the airport and we arranged to meet.’ Somebody moves away from the chair and leans up against the stove. I hear it shift very slightly on the stone floor. I try desperately to remember details and it helps that I do not have to lie. ‘Mr Arenaza did not come to the meeting. I waited for him in a bar in Gran Via. The Museo Chicote. It’s a famous bar. I thought he was with his girlfriend and that’s why he was in Madrid. He had a mistress. I want to make sense. You need to know this. Am I making sense?’
‘Who?’ the woman asks.
I pause, trying to get a clean, steadying breath under the hood. What is she referring to? Does she want to know about Rosalia? Why did the leader say ‘Who?’ I have lost my train of thought. I want to ask one of the men to take off the hood and to give me a glass of water, but that would be to risk another blow.
‘Her name is Rosalia Dieste. Her step-father was murdered by ETA at Chamartin station. One of your operations a long time ago. She seduced him because he was Batasuna. She wanted him dead. It was revenge. I followed her because I liked Mikel. I was trying to find him.’
Something happens. I feel the touch of metal on the skin of my biceps. A knife. The string tying the sack has been cut. Then they rip off the hood and immediately tie a blindfold very tightly around my eyes. I register nothing but a blast of light. I gasp at the air in the barn and cry out pathetically, as if freed from a black hole. Then the woman says, ‘Keep going.’
‘I am a banker, a private banker. I am not a spy. Please don’t burn me. Please don’t put me on the gas.’ It is so hard to think. ‘I followed her because I was interested. I knew about the girl and I didn’t want to tell the police or the journalists who rang me because it was a secret. You see? Mikel told me not to tell anybody. He was my
