29. Taken

We have parked our cars some distance from the restaurant. Zulaika waits outside while I go to the bathroom and then accompanies me round the back of the building, speaking for the second time to someone in Basque on his mobile phone. I am holding Xavi and use the child as a means of avoiding any further conversation about Rosalía or the dirty war. When Zulaika looks at me, I start to coo; when the baby kicks, I grip his little feet and wiggle them, telling Daddy that his son is going to be a striker for Athletic Bilbao. We cross a deserted expanse of dusty tarmac, passing behind a line of articulated lorries, and I am conscious of the roar of traffic on the motorway. Zulaika stares ahead, as if deep in thought, then opens the boot of his car. He piles his briefcase and Xavi’s bags inside, places the baby in a chair on the back seat, and starts the engine.

‘So, you are in a hurry, you have to go to Marbella,’ he says, ‘but remember what I tell you. If you want to talk about anything, if you think of something you might want to discuss in relation to the girl, you have my number. Day or night, Alec, day or night. Whatever you prefer.’

I make the right noises and wave him off, saying, ‘Of course, Patxo, of course.’ I consider it something of a success that our meeting has ended without any serious capitulation on my part. Zulaika may suspect that I am concealing important information, but he was unable to break through the wall of my feigned innocence. I sing, ‘Bye bye, Xavi, be a good boy now’ in a light, easy voice and pat him on the head. Zulaika drives off, turns into a slip-road up ahead and has soon disappeared. I think he gave me one last glance as he left. It is warm and a helix of flies spirals wildly into the sky as I place my jacket in the boot of the Audi.

They must have come from behind me, from between the parked lorries. Their speed and their strength is overwhelming. I experience a sensation of weightlessness as I am lifted from the ground and bound by forearms of extraordinary power. There are at least two of them, both men. Something wet is pressed against my mouth and a panic-fever surges through my body which quickly turns to sweat. I am aware of the sky and of the speed of things, of nobody talking, nobody saying a word. Very quickly, almost in one movement, I am bundled into the boot of a car, not my own, and slammed into darkness. There is an intense pain both in my shoulder and across the left side of my head, but my hands must have been tied because I cannot reach up to feel for blood. In the boot there is a smell like the burning odour of drilled teeth. I think that Zulaika did this to me. I blame Kitson and then I blame Buscon. We are moving off and I can hear voices coming from the inside of the vehicle. A woman is talking. The voices slip and fade.

It could be hours later, it could be days. I am lying on top of a bare, dusty mattress in what would appear to be an upstairs room. Something about the height of the sky through the window, the light. There is no furniture, no carpet or lino on the splintered wooden floor, no sink or toilet. And I am naked. It takes time to realize this but the sense of shame is powerful, like a child who has wet the bed. I cover myself briefly with my hands, sitting up and looking around for a sheet or piece of clothing, anything with which to recover my dignity. There is nothing. The pain at the side of my head, just above the left temple, returns with the rhythm of a heavy pulse. It is cold and I do not know where I am.

Outside, birdsong. A steady chorus. So it is either early in the morning or late in the afternoon. My watch has gone, my two phones, also my wallet and keys. I try the handle of the door but it is locked. There is no spy-hole, nor any other way into the room. I cross towards the window. A stained, motheaten blanket has been tacked up with half a dozen nails to shut out the light, but it has fallen to one side, revealing fresh smears of white paint on cracked glass. The room would appear to be at the top of a two-storey building looking out over a deserted field. Probably a farmhouse. There are no people in sight. The sky is damp and low and grey. The Basque country. With dread I realize that I have been taken hostage by ETA.

After ten minutes I hear voices downstairs, then the scraping of a chair. They must know that I have woken up. My bones seem to contract and it is an effort to fight my own cowardice, to straighten up and to face them. Someone is walking up a flight of stairs. A man, judging by the weight of the footsteps. He places a key in the door, the handle rattles and turns and I stand naked in the middle of the room, ready to face him. I will not be afraid. He is wearing a black balaclava and the sight of this is enough to push me a step back towards the window, as if sucked by fear. There is a mug of either black tea or coffee in his hand. Wisps of steam lick around his wrist. He is wearing a red sweatband and an old leather-strapped watch.

‘Drink,’ he says in English.

For some reason I think it important not immediately to ask where I am, not to find out why I have been taken nor who they are. I do not want to show fear to these people. He holds out the mug and encourages me to step towards him. And then I am screaming.

He has hurled the coffee into my face. The boiling liquid sears against my skin and in my eyes. The shock is so great that I cry out. I want to stop at nothing to hurt him, but a single punch as I move forward drops me to the ground and I vomit like a dog at his feet. He says three words in Basque and is gone. Voices echo up through the floorboards and I think that I hear a woman. She is angry. I can hear her shouting.

For five minutes I lie like this, no better than an animal, cold and humiliated. I lick my own arms to clean them. Please God, don’t let me be scarred. My shoulders are red with the heat of the coffee, but they are neither raw nor burned. He must have waited until the drink cooled a little and then come upstairs to confront me. Planning. Why didn’t they want to scar me? Why didn’t he let me see his face?

An hour passes, perhaps two. The light outside does not change. I move away from the sick on the floor and lie back on the bed. There were beans in the contents of my stomach; the fabada was still in my system. This, at the very least, gives me a timescale. It must be the morning following the lunch with Zulaika. It will be another twenty-four hours before anybody realizes that I have disappeared. When I fail to materialize at the safe house tomorrow, Kitson will become suspicious. But what can he do? He will not jeopardize his operation by launching a search for Alec Milius. He may even have betrayed me himself.

Try to remain calm. Try to be logical. It is bewildering that after six years I have nobody in Madrid who will miss me, no woman or neighbour, no friend. It could be days before Sofía notices. I sit near the window for warmth and watch through the smears of paint for movement in the field. I do not want to shout out for clothing or for food. I do not want to give them that pleasure. Instead I will wait patiently and bear anything that they do to me. At the back of my mind is the persistent optimism that the guard covered his face with the balaclava. If they were going to kill me, he would not have taken that precaution.

But by the late afternoon I am cold and very hungry. I need to urinate and the blow to my stomach has left a welling bruise at the base of my ribs. A damp wind has started flowing through a narrow gap in the window and the sun has moved away. I try to sleep, but the smell of the sick near the bed is appalling and I can only lie with my eyes open, shivering, staring at the ceiling. Once or twice I hear movement downstairs, but I might otherwise be completely alone in the house. As dusk approaches I tear the blanket down from the window with five hard tugs. It rips and falls over my head, scattering insects and dust. Moments later a car comes to the house, moving along a track that I cannot see. The sound of this is exhilarating; it proves the presence of life elsewhere. The car parks on the far side of the building and a single door slams. Boots on hard earth, then the faint murmur of a conversation. After no more than two or three minutes, the engine starts again and the vehicle moves away. The house is once again enveloped in silence. Unable to wait, I go into the corner of the room and piss against the wall.