Bad Blood

Hours earlier, the man stripped to the waist and tied to the wheel of the force pump at Aldeia had been in his office with one of the girls from La Casita on his lap.

This far from the capital the unrest which had induced the dictator to seek refuge across the border was unknown, and by the time news had filtered through it had been too late for the mayor to flee. What he had done was wrong and he could only hope that the bloodless nature of the uprising would ensure that his own fall would be accompanied only by humiliation, not violence. The property which had been stolen would be returned to the rightful owners but would that be enough to erase the memory of the suffering he’d helped to create. The danger now was that the men were in the café drinking bagaceira. That fiery spirit could inflame the mildest man.

The café door clattered and he watched a blurred figure approach through reddened eyes. A flash of light glinted off something held in the man’s hand. The mayor offered up a silent prayer.

A bottle of water was pressed to his lips and he drank gratefully. He recognised Arturo Pires whose parents had ended their lives in penury thanks to him. Another face appeared and there was a lot of heated talk which ended with the newcomer grabbing the water and pushing Arturo to the ground.

José Pereira was well known to the mayor and had even briefly been one of his thugs. His conscience wasn’t entirely clear which might have been the main reason he broke the bottle against a stone and thrust the jagged edge into the helpless man’s throat.

At a window of La Casita a girl painted her fingernails.