A Small Death in Lisbon

'And what about the mines who sell to the British whatever the price?'

'My second point-the people who work in those concessions live in villages. We will move into the villages and encourage them to do some night shifts. We will buy from them at market rates.'

'You mean stealing?'

'I mean distributing wealth. I mean taking from the enemy. I mean waging war in the Beira.'

'They're difficult people in the Beira.'

'They're mountain people. Mountain people are always difficult. They have hard, cold lives. Your job is to understand them, to like them, to befriend them… and to buy their wolfram.'

Felsen divided the region up, putting a group of agents in Viseu, Mangualde and Nelas, another group in Celorico and Trancoso, one further south in Idanha-a-Nova and he took for himself the area south of Guarda to the Serra da Malcata from the foot of the Serra da Estrela in the west to the Spanish border. Most of the product would travel on the Guarda/Vilar Formoso road and cross the border at that point. He needed the Guarda Nacional Republicana in one pocket so that the trucks would get there and the alfandega in the other so that it would cross the border into Spain without any trouble. The town of Guarda was the central point of the wolfram area. It was the obvious headquarters.

The rain had stopped by the time he'd finished the conference. His driver came in to say that he'd delivered the two bottles of brandy to the chefe of the GNR and that he should go to the GNR post now, preferably before lunch, for a meeting.

The chefe of the GNR had recently been transferred to this post from Torres Vedras. He was a big man with a small face encased by a fat head. His moustache was thick, black and luxuriant as mink with ends tweaked to points, making him look as if he was permanently delighted, which most of the time he was. His hand felt small and soft in Felsen's peasant grip and not one that was in the habit of coming down with the full force of the law. Felsen sat on the other side of the man's desk which looked as if it had seen heavy skirmishing during the Peninsular Wars. The chefe thanked him for his gift and offered him a glass of absinthe. He poured the green liquor into two small glasses. Felsen's mouth crinkled at the bitterness of the wormwood as he laid a piece of newspaper down in front of the chefe. He tapped an article near the bottom of the page. The chefe read it, sipping his absinthe and thinking about lunch. He took one of Felsen's cigarettes.

'You're making the front page in Lisbon,' said Felsen.

'Murder,' said the chefe looking out of the window at the clearing sky, 'is very common now in this area.'

'This is the third murder in two weeks. The bodies were all found in the same area and they were all stripped, bound and bludgeoned to death.'

'It's the wolfram,' said the chefe, as if it was nothing to do with him.

'Of course it's the wolfram.'

'They've all gone crazy Even the wild rabbits are collecting wolfram.'

'How is your investigation coming along?'

The chefe shifted in his seat and drew on the strange Turkish tobacco. The fire hissed in the chimney.

'There's since been a fourth death,' he said.

'One of your officers?'

He nodded his head and refilled the glasses. The absinthe was smoothing the creases out in his fat face so that the schoolboy was beginning to come back into it.

'Are you pursuing the matter?'

'A state of lawlessness exists in the land,' he said, dramatically, sweeping his hand over his desk. 'We have found the body.'

'In the same area?'

The nod was slower this time.

'Where did the officer start his enquiries?'

'In a village called Amendoa.'

'Perhaps you will be going up there with a larger force?'

'The area I have to cover is large. The present circumstances-difficult.'

'So you'd like this lawlessness to stop without using up your manpower.'

'This is unlikely,' he said, sadly, 'there's a lot of money at stake here. These people have been living on five tostoes here, five there. For them a single escudo is a fortune. When a small rock of wolfram is worth seventy-five, eighty, a hundred escudos, it's like a fever in their brains. You can't imagine. They go mad.'

'If I could ensure that your law is upheld, that there'll be no more violence, perhaps you'd be able to help me with some of my difficulties?'

'No more violence,' he said, repeating this back to his glass of absinthe as if it had put the idea to him. 'None?'

'None,' said Felsen, repeating the lie.

'What would be the nature of your difficulties?'

'As you know, there'll be a lot of my trucks moving product around the mining areas and out to the border at Vilar Formoso.'

'Customs is a separate organization.'

'I understand that. Where you can help is with the papers, the guias that we have to present when we're moving the product around.'

'But the guias are very important for the government. They have to know what's going where.'

'That is true and ordinarily there would be no problem… but the bureaucracy.'

'Ah, yes, the bureaucracy,' said the chefe, suddenly feeling trussed in his uniform. 'You're a businessman. I understand. Businessmen like to do what they want, when they want.'

They lapsed into silence. From the chefe's facial expressions it appeared that there was some internal struggle going on, as if there was something indigestible going down or a painful wind ballooning in his bowel wanting to get out.

'I'll find out what happened to your officer too,' said Felsen, but that wasn't it. The chefe was not wildly overconcerned at that.

'The guias are a very important government mechanism. This would be a serious breach of…'

'There will, of course, be a commission for you on every ton we move,' said Felsen, and he realized he'd hit the point. The creases unfurled. The belly quietened. The chefe took another of Felsen's cigarettes and skewered him with a look at the same time.

'But without the guias, ' said the chefe, 'how will I know how many tons you have moved? How will my commission be calculated?'

'You and I will have a meeting with customs once a month.'

The chefe' s smile was extended another foot by the joy of his moustache. They shook hands and finished their drinks. The chefe opened the door for him and clapped him on the shoulder.

'If you go up to Amendoa,' he said, 'you should talk to Joaquim Abrantes. He's a very influential man in that area.'

The door closed behind Felsen, leaving him in the gloom of an unlit corridor. He walked slowly out of the building contemplating his first lesson in underestimating the Portuguese. He got into his car and instructed the driver to take him up to Amendoa in the foothills of the Serra da Estrela.

There was no road up to Amendoa. It was a rough track of beaten earth with slabs of granite showing through, lined on either side by broom and heather, and then later and higher, pine forest. The rain had stopped but the cloud was still hanging and drifting lower down the mountains to the treetops until it sucked in the car itself. The driver rarely got out of second gear. Men appeared on the track. Cowled like monks, they wore split sacks over their heads. Grey and silent, they moved to the side, without turning.

Felsen sat in the middle of the back seat feeling every metre between himself and the rough civilization of Guarda lengthening behind him. He'd mentioned the Middle Ages in the conference but this was more like the Iron Age or earlier. He wouldn't have been surprised to see people hoeing with bone. He hadn't seen a mule or a donkey yet. All the carrying was done on the shoulders by men, and on the head by women.

The car came up on to the flat. There was no sign announcing Amendoa. Granite block houses appeared out of the mist, a woman in black shuffled across the road. The driver pulled over at the only house on two levels in the village. They got out. There was an open door at street level. An old woman was working amongst sacks of grain, boxes for salting hams, cured cheeses, racks of potatoes, bunches of herbs, buckets and tools. The driver asked for Joaquim Abrantes. The woman left her work, locked the door with knobbed and crooked fingers, and took the two men up the granite steps on the outside of the house to a porch supported by two granite pillars. She left them there and went into the house.