The Camino Killer E-Book

Gabriel Martínez

• Herausgeber: Babelcube Inc.
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

A murder takes place in Saint Jean Pied de Port (France), and so the Gendarmerie’s investigation begins. The next day, another murder is committed with identical characteristics in the Roncesvalles pilgrim shelter . The conclusion is that a serial killer is on the loose on the Camino de Santiago. More crimes are expected and Captain Roncal of the Guardia Civil is named to solve the case. This detective thriller unfolds along the centuries-traveled pilgrim route, the Camino de Santiago, which in the end becomes a rite of passage for the protagonists themselves.

Leseprobe

The Camino Killer

Gabriel Martínez

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Translated by Max Zalewski 

“The Camino Killer”

Written By Gabriel Martínez

Copyright © 2014 Gabriel Martinez

All rights reserved

Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

www.babelcube.com

Translated by Max Zalewski

Cover Design © 2014 Jorge Martínez Corbalán, Edited by Lauren Brown

“Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

MAP: CAMINO DE SANTIAGO – FRENCH ROUTE

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

MAP: CAMINO DE SANTIAGO – FRENCH ROUTE

PROLOGUE

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March 19th 

Saint Jean Pied de Port (France)

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Night had already fallen when he saw the man walk by.  There was no need to look again at the photograph in his jacket pocket.  He recognized him immediately, though there was something different about his face. He wouldn’t have guessed that the man could have changed so much since the image taken ten years ago; it was, however, the same dapper hair style, short, parted with a comb to one side, giving him an impeccable air that captured his attention the first time they met. He was accompanied by a woman, somewhat younger than himself, her presence displeasing since the request was clear that he come alone.

He had been sitting at a table in the Oillarburu Restaurant at the top of Iglesia Street, stalking his prey like a hungry wolf.  He paid the waiter for the numerous coffees and hastily made his way outside.  He followed the couple through the old streets in the center of town, where references to the Camino de Santiago were every-present.  He spied on them as they ate dinner in a small restaurant, when, in a lapse by the predator, he was spotted through the window.  He took three steps back and quickly submersed himself into the shadows of night. 

The man’s first reaction was shock, followed by an unsettling anxiety.  Without removing his gaze from the window he arched his eyebrows and pronounced some words whose meaning the stalker was incapable of lip-reading.  The woman who was sitting with her back to the window turned her head and also looked out with an empty and unfocused gaze towards the street.  Her partner then shrugged it off and both returned their attention to the plates before them and their conversation. They did not look outside again. The voyeur continued watching them from the shadows with fixation, and despite their apparent disinterest in his presence, an unsettling nervousness crept over him.

He stalked them throughout the night until they reached the L’Esprit de L’Etoile pilgrim shelter. An icy frost began to cover the cobblestones with a fine coat of ice. He maintained his post on the opposite corner, with his jacket collar turned-up, and a feeling that his ear drums would break like glass with the softest sound. His hands were numb from the cold despite the wool gloves. There he remained, nearly motionless, until almost eleven o’clock; to be sure they had not changed locations.

While on guard, he checked that the shelter was not locked, it needed to be easily entered at any time. He decided he would wait to do the deed until everyone was asleep. The church bell had just rung to announce the hour; one o’clock.  He stealthily entered the shelter.  With his right hand inside his jacket, he felt the cold metal of a sharp knife; however, a pair of knitting needles abandoned on the table gave him a different idea.  He removed his glove and grasped them firmly.  By touch, he confirmed they were steel.  He guarded them in the inner pocket of his jacket, and by the light of a small flashlight, began his search.

He found the man in the second room he entered, sleeping in the upper bunk while his female travel companion slept below.  He turned off the flashlight to avoid blinding them, slowly leaning in until he could hear the man’s smooth and even breath.  He looked at the face carefully to make sure he made no mistake, and then acted quickly.  He forcefully clenched the needle in his hand and calculated the location of the man’s beating heart under the sleeping bag.  In one swift motion the needle pierced down while his gloved hand smothered the victim’s mouth to avoid any inconvenient noise from escaping.  The man let out a drowned snort, caused by the surprise and the sharp pain in his chest. The man tried futilely to move his arms and legs inside the confines of his sleeping bag, and within thirty seconds his breath abated. With the glove he kept in his pocket, the killer conscientiously cleaned the needles of fingerprints and sweat. He then took a step back.

The girl was sleeping placidly in the bunk below. Suddenly he thought of the possibility that that fool had told her their secret. Under no circumstance could he leave any loose ends. He grabbed the other needle from his jacket and crouched next to her sleeping figure, using the light from his flashlight to find the precise place on her chest, and poised the needle for the blow. Suddenly, something happened that saved the girl’s life; he heard the groaning of a mattress, and saw someone two beds down lift their head.  He had been seen.  He quickly got up, switched off the flashlight, and slipped the needle back into his jacket.  He left the room casually, trying to not call attention to himself; just another pilgrim who had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the restroom.

He left the shelter the same way he entered, and took refuge in his car parked next to the river. He worried about the young girl whom he had reluctantly left sleeping and whose identity was still a mystery; what might she know? To calm down, he told himself that surely her name would appear in the newspaper; perhaps she was his girlfriend, or a just a friend.  In any case, he would have another chance to find her.  He looked at his watch. It was almost two in the morning and he still had a two hour drive before reaching Pamplona.

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March 20th

Roncesvalles (Spain)

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His memory of the events from the night before in Saint Jean Pied de Port prevented him from falling asleep until the sunlight began filtering through the cracks in the shutters.  But the images—which he began to perceive as still frames in a film—ended up vanishing from his mind, the same way words lose their intrinsic meaning when repeated over and over again.

He was awoken at noon by the intrusions of the hotel cleaning staff who thought the room was empty.  His head hurt and his throat was dry, as if he had drunk too much.  He didn’t usually drink alcohol, especially in circumstances like this where he needed to keep all five senses alert.  Suddenly, he realized he was hungry, a realization that then transformed into a dull headache. He had arrived in Pamplona during the wee hours of the morning and knew that it would be impossible to find anywhere open to get a bite to eat.  He found only a few small bags of nuts in the mini-bar of his room and greedily ate them to placate the grumblings in his stomach.

He looked in the bathroom mirror and passed his hand over his stubbly face; he needed to shave. He suddenly had the uncomfortable sensation of being dirty, as if a thick, foul layer covered his entire body.  He quickly undressed and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water run over him.  He shaved, dressed and left the hotel, heading directly for lunch at Café Iruña, a place he never failed to visit during his trips to Pamplona.

It was mid-afternoon when he started driving toward Esteribar Valley.  This was the third time he passed by there in little more than twenty-four hours: the first was the trip to Saint Jean Pied de Port the previous morning, and the second was the early morning return that same day. Shortly after arriving, he stopped the car in a forested clearing next to the road. From a small box stored in the glove compartment, he withdrew a mustache, purchased several weeks ago from a costume store in Madrid, along with make-up and a wig.

He continued on to Roncesvalles and parked the car a short distance away from the shelter, so that when he left the next day he would avoid calling too much attention to himself. He went right to the shelter where, after registering with his pilgrim credentials, he settled into a low bed at the back of an enormous hall.  Later he got up and occupied an outdoor table of the nearby bar.  There he remained drinking one coffee after another (that night he couldn’t afford to sleep) until seven o’clock, when he saw someone descend from a bus coming from Pamplona.

At first he questioned whether it was really him; he barely had any hair left on his head and had grown quite large. However, it calmed him down that the man was alone, as he had asked them all to be.

He kept an eye on his target from a safe distance until he knew exactly which bed was his. The shelter was much larger than the one in Saint Jean, and it would be nothing short of impossible to decipher the features of a sleeping person in the dark.

The man was scanning the room, searching for a face he recognized.  The voyeur felt tempted to reveal himself, to talk about the reason they were both there; however, he decided against it on the basis of imprudence. The other man had been summoned here, not to talk about anything important as he was led to believe, but rather to meet his final destiny.

During the time that lapsed before 10:00 p.m., when the doors would close, he carefully watched the man’s every movement.  With the cold interest of a hunter who knows he has only one chance to snare his prey, he calculated how his victim might react and how hard he might fight.

He left his backpack ready-to-go, as though he were a pilgrim like the rest of them. When they turned off the lights, he lay down in bed, and kept his eyes open so they could adjust to the darkness.  He remained attentive to the shadows that moved to and fro. The restless noises before sleep gave way to light snoring.  He looked at the lighted sphere of his watch: it was slightly past one thirty; it was time.  He rose discreetly, with the needle he had stolen from Saint Jean in his right hand.  He looked for the bed where he knew the man was sleeping and, without hesitation, he moved his hands, the left to cover the mouth, and the right to forcefully pierce his heart. One minute later he returned to his bed and lay down as discreetly as he had risen.

At 5:00 a.m. sharp he was one of the first to awake.  Only a few shadows moved throughout the large hall of the shelter, coming and going from the bathroom or carefully preparing their packs in order to avoid making too much noise. He didn’t sleep a wink the entire night, not due to feelings of remorse, but rather from the tension built up before the act.  He wanted to get the hell out of there and go back to reality.  The movement of the earliest risers packing their bags was the signal. He had already prepared his pack the night before, so he got dressed, laced up his boots and shuffled outside. It was still dark and the early morning air had a cold bite to it.  He thought about hurrying to the car to take refuge but was stopped in his tracks by the spectacle in the sky above his head. A gigantic, elongated and snow-white blanket extended westward, like a galactic lighthouse; the Milky Way.  As if his feet were nailed to the ground, he stood staring up in wonder, contemplating his own insignificance, and the minuteness of the earth, the sun, the planets and the stars.

If human beings are no more than the infinitesimal particles of the galaxy, what could their actions really amount to? Insignificant, nothing, he thought serenely. He filled his lungs with the icy cold morning air and walked calmly towards the car.

CHAPTER I

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March 20th

Pamplona (Spain)

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It was five in the afternoon when Klaus Wissermann walked alone through the Plaza del Castillo, the spring sun bathing part of the plaza in a pleasant light.  He sat at an outdoor table in the Café Iruña terrace where he ordered a beer.  From his pant pocket he removed a worn Camino guide with a picture of the cathedral in Santiago and the word Jakobsweg written on the front cover. He disinterestedly looked up the guide’s recommendations for the city of Pamplona.

Wissermann was a tall man with white hair and an athletic build despite the fact he just turned seventy-five the month before.  He had a sad and opaque appearance, perhaps because his glasses dulled the brightness of his eyes.  He was not talkative, never was; either from not having much to say, or from being silenced by the hardships of life.

Roughly ten years ago he began to gather all the information he could find about the Camino de Santiago.  He wanted to understand why every year thousands of young, and not so young, Germans, believers and non-believers, begin the nearly 500 mile trek from the French-Spanish border, traversing rivers, forests, fields and mountains, to reach the cathedral in Compostela, the western-most point of Europe.  He wanted to know what his daughter was searching for when, full of excitement, she left the family home in Hanover, Germany with nothing more than a sleeping bag and a few changes of clothes in her pack.

For years he couldn’t find an answer until one day a book fell into his hands that shed light on the spiritual journey the Camino can provide for those who know how to seek it. He thought of the existential questions on Kristin’s mind, her anxieties in life, her questions about the future, and all the anguish that caused her.  Did his daughter go to the Camino to look for answers? If so, was suicide the answer? It was difficult for him to accept this explanation.