Midnight In Madrid

TWENTY-TWO

MADRID, SEPTEMBER 8, EARLY AFTERNOON

Today, Maria Gómez worked in the Metro with her usual partner, Pedro Felipe Santiago. They were working a fashionable section of the city known as Bourbon Madrid, east of the old city, observing the stations together. Tighter security now meant dayshifts.

As they strolled through the Metro stop called Antocha Renfe-after the mainline train station of Atocha, which the Metro stop served-the residents, tourists, and business people swarmed around them, briskly on and off the shiny new silver trains. Maria and Pedro stood together on the busy train platform and surveyed the crowd. Not too far away, above them at street level, less crowded at this hour, were the tree-lined blocks of the Paseo del Prado, once an idyllic meadow where the Habsburgs had built a monastery in the sixteenth century. Pedro, her partner, was more than just a peer. He was a good friend and a solid supporter at work. Thus she was surprised when he dropped a small bit of news on her when they walked the tracks that Friday from Antocha Rente to Anton Martin.

Pedro would be taking the next week off. The official reason was to visit his ailing mother in Malaga. But the real reason, he confessed to Maria, was that he was going to be spending a week with a woman he had just met and whom he was falling for in a big way.

The complication was that she, the woman he wanted to spend time with, was married to a man in Madrid, a man from a good family and who worked in the financial industry. The woman and her husband had agreed to separate, and Pedro was free to go off with her. But public appearances had to be maintained for all parties.

Hence, the charade about the ailing mother.

Maria smiled when Pedro brought her up to date on the newest developments in his life. They were, as they discussed it, in the stinky darkness beneath the Calle de Antocha, with heavy traffic rumbling overhead. The sunshine of Malaga to the extreme south was a world and a half away. But Maria wished him well, even though she suffered a small pang of envy. Then she posed the inevitable next question.

“If you’re away,” she said, “who will I be assigned to work with?”

Pedro already knew.

“José Luis,” he said, referring to another track walker: José Luis Martínez Márques.

Maria suffered a little cringe. She knew Márques. She didn’t like him or his approach to the job. He liked to let things slide. His observation techniques were careless, his reports shoddy. But the union protected him.

“Well,” she said. “It’s only a week?”

“Si.”

“I can put up with anyone for a week,” she said. “Even Martínez Márques.”

They laughed, Pedro and Maria, and turned their attention to a safety hazard. There were a pair of emergency lights that were flickering deep in the tunnel under Calle de Atocha. These would have to be replaced. They began making a report on a handheld computer.

At the same time, they both became aware of a tapping sound, like someone hammering or chiseling, somewhere on the other side of the walls. Both were aware of it but neither said anything. They carried keys that could unlock doors that led to some of the old passageways that wound their way under the city. But no one ever went in there. A train rumbled into the station and glided to a halt. When it had left, the tapping sound had stopped. So they gave it no further notice.