That We Shall Die: A Jane Madden genealogical mystery Read online

  “Capitalism sacrifices the human being, communism with its totalitarian conceptions sacrifices human rights. We agree neither with one nor with the other. Our revolution is not red but olive green. It bears the colour of the rebel army from the Sierra Maestra.”

  To this day, Fidel, his brother Raúl and Che still wear their army fatigues as a reminder of that message. Fidel and Che have not shaven their beards. (Raúl, one suspects, cannot grow one or he too would be in unity with his comrades.) They are still the “Barbudos” (bearded ones), as they were known amongst the peasants who supported them in the mountains. Men who did not drink, did not loot, lived on nothing, fought heroically against ridiculous odds and treated their captured enemies with respect and decency.

  What you don’t understand is that Cuba has seen many false dawns. In 1898, the Spanish colonialists were finally thrown out, but the Americans made themselves owners. In 1933, we had the Revolt of the Sergeants, and one of those junior soldiers, Fulgencio Batista, made himself a general overnight and installed a ferocious dictatorship. There were elections in 1944 where the people believed they had taken power, but in reality the crooks had moved in. Batista was pulling the strings from Florida and decided to run for president again in 1952. When it became clear the vote would go against him, he simply seized the keys to the palace with the backing of his army friends. That is the confusion and corruption of history that Fidel is determined to correct, once and for all.

  You talked about the brutality of the televised “show trials” in the baseball stadium packed with crowds of spectators “baying for blood”. You said the newspapers called it a “Roman holiday”, whatever that is supposed to mean. You likened the executions to the “purges of Stalin”(!). What you have to appreciate is these were murderers, torturers and mutilators. (Think for a minute what that word means.) They were thieves who stole from and impoverished ordinary Cubans. The people had the right to see justice done. If not, lynch mobs would have taken to the streets. Those men who were shot deserved what they got, and their deaths were far more humane than those they inflicted on others, either directly or by their blinkered self-interest. It was a necessary step, and Fidel brought the trials to an end as soon as he could.

  In many ways, things are now back to normal. There is even to be a 1960 Cuban Grand Prix, though my friend Fangio has now retired and won’t be taking part. I heard that the English driver Peter Collins won’t be there either. He was killed at a race in Germany. For all the death we have seen in Cuba, that made me very sad. He wasn’t much older than me. He was with Fangio when I was introduced to them both on practically my first day here. I have never really told you of my meeting Fangio again last year. Perhaps that is not a story for the confines of a Christmas letter.

  So much of what happens next depends on our relationship with the American government and how they respond to the new Cuba. There are counterrevolutionary bandits in the hills who want to destroy everything. It is said they are sponsored by the friends of Batista, issuing their orders from their boltholes in Miami and the homes of the other Latin dictators. Some say control is with the Americans themselves, scared at what is happening on their doorstep and the end of their financial hegemony over this island. I am confident Fidel will crush the rebellion and steer us to a prosperous and just future.

  And it will be a future in which women play a full and equal part, rather than being second class to men like they are in England.

  So now you know where I stand and why I will not come home. I will try to write more frequently, but I cannot promise. Please take comfort in the fact that I am safe and very, very happy.

  Love to Barbara,

  Patricia

  Point and shoot

  An area of high pressure had thinned the clouds, and the still air and broken sunshine were giving the illusion of warmth. Jane and Sarah sat in their coats outside the café in the old park pavilion, looking out at an open area of flat gravel under an avenue of immature horse chestnuts, recently planted to replace older trees that had been lost to disease. If the scene felt like it belonged in Paris rather than Nottingham, it was largely because of the dozen or so people, mostly middle-aged men, playing pétanque between the slender trunks. One man in particular stood out. He was of substantial stature and wearing a black beret on top of his thick grey hair. He also sported an exuberant and intransigently dark moustache, from beneath which loud words of congratulation or encouragement, often in schoolboy French, would issue whenever one of his teammates or opponents played a shot.

  When it was Duff’s turn, he would carefully position himself in the circle, extend his left arm for balance, bend forward slightly at the waist and take aim along his outstretched right arm with the steel boule nestled under his wrist in the gentle curl of his fingers. He would stare at his target for what seemed like an age and then swing the arm back and sharply forwards again, releasing his missile with an exaggerated flick that left his palm tilted upwards. If pleased with the outcome, he would stroke the whiskers off his upper lip with the knuckle of his now empty right hand. A miss would elicit a cry of ‘Zut alors!’ and a disdainful shrug. Jane had been focused on her conversation with Sarah, but there did seem to have been more shoulder shrugging than moustache preening. Nonetheless, Duff had a happy smile on his face when he strolled over and joined them at the table.

  ‘That was a good game,’ he said as he sat down. ‘Very close. We lost 13 - 10 but it could have gone either way.’

  ‘From what I could see…’ Jane hesitated as she fumbled for the right words. ‘Obviously, I don’t understand the game, but you seemed to be playing more… more aggressively than the others?’

  ‘Ah! Well spotted! That’s because I am a shooter. In France I’d be called a tireur.’

  ‘That word rings a bell. I think Sarah mentioned it.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Duff, taking obvious delight in describing his new passion. ‘There are two types of shot and players who specialise in each. The pointer tries to throw his boule as close to the coche as he can.’

  ‘Cosh?’

  ‘Sorry, it’s short for cochonnet. French for little pig. It’s what a bowls player would call the jack. When you point, you’re trying to roll your boule into a precise position. If you do a good job, your opponents’ shooter will aim to smash it out of the way. It’s what makes pétanque exciting and gives it its edge, its je ne sais what.’

  ‘You seemed to be missing an awful lot, darling,’ chipped in Sarah, with no pretence of sympathy.

  ‘Good days and bad days, my love,’ replied Duff equably. ‘Never discourage the shooter. That’s what they say. If the shot’s on, be brave. It works out more often than not.’

  ‘From what I could see, the other team just stuck to pointing and they won,’ continued Sarah.

  ‘Good days and bad days, my little ginger sausage roll.’ Duff still had a smile on his face. ‘So, Jane, tell me what you’re up to at the moment.’

  ‘Well, I’m working on a new case. It’s quite intriguing actually. I was just telling Sarah, there’s a Cuban element to it. I’m having to swot up my 20th-century history. My client’s mother was there at the time of the revolution in the late fifties. She actually met Che Guevara and maybe even Castro.’

  Duff turned and pointed to a tall man, perhaps in his late sixties or a few years older, but with a full head of neatly groomed white hair.

  ‘Roger over there met Fidel in the 1970s. I think it was around then. Would you like me to introduce you, and he can tell you the story? It’s quite a corker.’

  ‘Yes, that might be interesting actually,’ said Jane with genuine enthusiasm.

  ‘I’ll stay here, if that’s okay.’ Sarah’s coffee cup sat on the table, and she wrapped her hands around it as if it were an anchor. ‘You can give me the abridged version later, Jane. That’s probably all I can cope with. Some of Duff’s chums can go on a bit, I warn you.’

  Duff and Jane walked across the gravel to where Roger was wiping one of his
boules with a cloth and using his fingernail to gouge dirt out of the grooves on its surface.

  ‘Roger, old chap, let me introduce you to the delightful Jane, best friend of my wife, Ginge. I was telling her you met Fidel Castro in your BBC days. She’s got an interest in Cuba and would love to hear the tale.’

  Jane shook Roger’s hand. ‘Would you mind?’ she said, in an unconsciously winsome tone.

  Roger beamed. ‘Everyone likes talking about their adventures. Before we got old and past it.’ He paused as he pondered where to start. ‘I was a news cameraman. We were trying to get an interview with Fidel. It was a pretty much a closed country back then. The Soviet Union was still going strong and supporting the Cuban economy. Before it all tanked after the fall of the Berlin wall. We spent a lot of time with Raúl—'

  ‘That’s Fidel’s younger brother. Replaced him as president,’ said Jane, keen to demonstrate she knew something of the background.

  ‘Exactly.’ Roger’s accent had an occasional hint of the West Country. ‘And with him from the start. Raúl came across as a nice guy. Though he was surrounded by guards and henchmen, of course. The CIA famously made hundreds of attempts on his brother’s life, and they’d probably have liked a pop at Raúl too. He was minister of agriculture at the time and took us around the country looking at various projects. We still saw a lot of poverty, people using horses and carts because their decrepit old Russian tractors had broken down. That kind of thing.’

  ‘And you got to meet Fidel?’

  ‘Sort of. They kept promising us an interview, but… There’s an old Canadian documentary called “Waiting for Fidel”. It’s very well regarded in the industry. They had the same problem, constantly being told the president would talk to them but him never showing up. Anyway, I digress. The nearest I got was in my hotel.’ Roger chuckled to himself as the decades-old memory freshened in his mind. ‘The producer was livid when he found out. He’d gone out into the old town, and I was just sitting having a drink in the bar. Then this jeep screeched up outside. The driver climbed out and it was Fidel himself, looking just like you’d expect him to. He’d be in his late forties then. Tall, big, strong man. Physically very different to Raúl. Bearded, obviously. Wearing his green military fatigues and smoking a fat cigar. He walked up to the reception desk and had a chat to the manager. Then he was off again.’

  ‘Did you find out what it was about?’

  ‘Apparently, one of his friends was staying in the hotel. Fidel wanted the manager to know he needed to be looked after. I suspect he got the message.’

  Jane grinned. ‘Where do you stand on the whole hero or villain thing?’

  Roger pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘A friend went on holiday to Cuba a few years back, spoke to some of the locals and came home with the impression Castro was another Hitler. That’s over the top. The previous guy, Batista, had to go, but what came afterwards… As I said, we saw real poverty, people living in run-down shacks. On the other hand, they had free healthcare, good education. No-one starved, though the diet was interminable rice and beans. The economy was in hock to the Soviets, but then the Americans were very hostile. There were certainly totalitarian aspects. Opponents got shot. You weren’t allowed to have your hair too long or wear shorts in public. You had to conform to the revolutionary ideal, Fidel’s ideal. If you were gay, you were sent to be re-educated in work camps. Tough agricultural labour and military discipline would soon straighten you out. Supposedly. Fidel would give those open-air speeches that rambled on for hours, and woe betide anyone who thought about leaving. And I’m pretty certain we were spied on while we were there.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yeah. It was a 1950s high-rise hotel, the Capri. Our rooms were up on the 12th floor. Great views over the city, but it seemed odd that we couldn’t access the floor above in the lift. One day, the cleaner left the stairs unlocked so I went for a wander. I saw a man in a room with headphones and a tape recorder. He shut the door quickly, but I assumed he’d been listening in on us. Maybe Castro didn’t like what we were saying, and that’s why he wouldn’t give us that interview.’

  ‘I’m afraid I was a bit of a pinko at university,’ interjected Duff, who had been listening intently to Roger’s recollections despite having heard them several times before. ‘Castro was one of my heroes back then. Perhaps he became more flawed the older he got. Power corrupting and all that. Plus the disappointment of things not quite working out as he’d hoped, feeling responsible, feeling if he could just put the right mechanisms in place, I don’t know, hit the targets for sugar production or whatever it was, he’d be able to get things back on track. I must admit, I shed a tear when the old Maximum Leader died. Maybe I was crying for the lost idealism of youth.’

  Duff’s face had become uncharacteristically sad, but it was instantly broken by a schoolboy smirk. ‘Now then, Jane. Why don’t you have a quick go at this game of ours?’

  Duff had been carrying three boules in his hand. He threw one and then passed the others to Jane. ‘That’s about six metres,’ he said. ‘See how close you can get to mine.’

  He showed her how to hold the boule and told her to point her right foot in the direction she was aiming. ‘You’ve got to keep both feet on the floor,’ he instructed, ‘and swing your arm like a pendulum. Aim to lob it halfway and let it roll the rest. You’re trying to flick your wrist up to give it a bit of backspin.’

  Jane did as she was told, and her boule came to a halt some eight inches from Duff’s and just to the left.

  ‘That’s not bad at all,’ said Roger approvingly.

  ‘Okay, Jane,’ said Duff, ‘you’ve clearly mastered pointing. Have a go at shooting. Your objective here is to throw as before, but in a low arc all the way so it hits my boule without touching the ground. Then it can’t be sent off course by a stone or the lie of the land.’

  Jane took careful aim, copying Duff’s stance when he had been playing. She lifted her arm back as far as it would go and then swung it forward and released. The steel boule hit Duff’s with a satisfyingly loud clack, sending it flying off while remaining in its place, all energy transferred, one to the other.

  ‘Bravo!’ shouted Duff. ‘Jane, that’s a carreau! The perfect shot! Not only did you move mine, but you’re now scoring yourself!’

  ‘Bravo, indeed,’ confirmed Roger. ‘You’re a natural. We need to have you on the team. When can you start?’

  ‘Beginner’s luck,’ said Jane, reddening with embarrassment. ‘I really must get back to Sarah. But, look, it was lovely to meet you, Roger. Thanks for telling me about your encounter with Duff’s Maximum Leader. It sounds like you must have had a very exciting life.’

  ‘Oh, I loved my job. Saw the world, had some great adventures. Retirement’s okay, but... Actually, my real love was motor racing. I went freelance after the BBC and would travel around, filming all the meetings. Wonderful times.’

  Jane’s thoughts were diverted towards another Latin American who rose to prominence in the same era as Castro. ‘Did you ever see Fangio? I mean, I know you’re not old enough to have watched him race, but I think he did demonstration laps and things.’

  ‘Oh, I’m old enough to have seen him race, but only as a boy, you’re right. Having said that, I never did, only on the old newsreels. He retired in 1959?’

  ‘I think it might have been ‘58.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right. In the late sixties, I was lucky enough to be at Silverstone to witness him hurling one of his old grand-prix cars, a Mercedes W196, round the track. And I think I saw him again at Donington. That would have been in the seventies. Wonderful man, one of my all-time heroes. And you know about his role in the Cuban revolution, don’t you?’

  Havana, February 1958

  The greatest racing driver in the world sat alone in the small study, his mood darkening as he listened to voices outside in the hallway. Whilst the words were muffled and barely discernible, there was a palpable tension to the exchanges and the anxiety
was proving infectious. He assumed the man with the machine gun was still there. He had been so calm and steady earlier. But what if their location were to be discovered? Would his nerve crack? And where might the bullets then spray?

  Fangio threw down the Bohemia magazine that was failing to distract him and stood to look at himself in the mirror hanging on the wall. The hair was almost totally gone now, and he looked tired and old. He was nearing 50, after all. Far too old for this. The kidnappers had treated him well and told him over and over again they meant him no harm. But those men in Italy and Germany and England who designed their cars with technology pushed to untested limits, the men who laid out the concrete-walled racetracks and sold the tickets, they too meant no harm, yet some 30 of his friends and rivals had been killed in recent years. If he got out of this alive, perhaps it was time to go home to Argentina and trade on his fame to sell cars, rather than risk his neck racing them. What was he doing it for anyway? Glory, pride? The entertainment and profit of others?

  It had been nearly 24 hours since he had descended into the hotel lobby crowded with dinner guests. He had spent the afternoon practising in his red Maserati, relearning the track’s curves and contours after his success the previous year. When he had met his host, President Fulgencio Batista, in front of the clicking and whirring cameras of the world’s press, the two guards assigned for Fangio’s protection had hidden themselves in the crowds. No-one should think Cuba was in a state of near civil war. It was still the place to come for rumba, rum and relaxation. Batista was firmly in control. At least that was the narrative he was trying to sell.