‘I have been thinking about what we should say if anyone asks why we have come to a remote town like Cuenca. We could tell them you are bringing me to find out about my uncle. That would be a reason for going to the cathedral too, to look at the list of priests killed during the war.’

‘Do you think your uncle’s name might be there?’ Barbara asked.

‘Yes, if he was killed.’ Sofia turned her head away and in the mirror Harry saw her blink back tears. Yet she was still willing to use her family’s tragedy to help them. He felt a choking sensation of love and admiration.

They drove all morning. In many places the road was in poor condition, slowing their progress. There was very little traffic and few towns; this was the dry heart of Castile. In the early afternoon the ground began to rise, steep hills breaking up the brown landscape. Frozen streams ran down the sides, thin slashes of white against the brown landscape. Key-cold, Harry thought, key-cold.

Towards three they saw a line of low mountains with rounded summits on the horizon. The countryside began to change; there were more cultivated areas, patches of bright green where the land was irrigated. A large town came into view in the distance, a jumble of grey-white buildings climbing a hillside so steep they seemed to be built one on top of another, up and up to the sky. They came to a sign telling them they were about to enter Cuenca and Barbara leaned over and touched Harry’s arm. She pointed to a track leading from the road into an uncultivated field, winding behind a clump of trees that would screen the car from the road.

‘That must be the place.’

Harry nodded and turned on to the track, the car bumping over frozen ruts. He halted behind the clump of trees. On the other side the meadow rose gently up to the horizon.

‘What d’you think?’ he asked.

‘It’ll be a long walk back,’ Barbara said.

‘We ought to follow Luis’s advice. He said it was the nearest concealed spot.’

‘All right.’

They opened the doors. Outside Harry felt suddenly vulnerable, exposed. A bitterly cold breeze ruffled their hair as they walked out to the road. Harry slung the rucksack with the clothes and food over his back. Sofia stood at the side of the road, looking towards Cuenca.

‘I can’t see the cathedral,’ Harry said.

‘It is at the very top of the hill. The gorge is behind it.’

‘And the Tierra Muerta is on the other side of the gorge?’ Barbara asked.

‘Yes.’ Sofia took a long breath, then began walking towards the town. The others followed her down the long empty road.

Only a couple of carts and a car passed them before they reached a bridge over a swirling grey-green river. By then the winter sun was low on the horizon. They walked through the poor shabby houses of the new town, past the railway station. There were few people around and no one paid them much heed. They kept an eye out for civiles patrolling the barrios but only a couple of mangy dogs challenged them, barking angrily but scurrying away at their approach. Their barking reminded Harry of the feral pack and he put his hand on the Mauser in his pocket for comfort.

Then they were climbing over worn cobbles into a soaring wilderness of stone, higher and higher as dusk began to fall. The narrow streets wound up and up: endless four-and five-storey tenements, centuries old, unpainted and with crumbling plaster. Each tenement block loomed over them, then they would climb to the next street and be looking down on the roofs. Weeds grew between cracked tiles, the only green things among all the stone. Thin wisps of smoke rose from the chimneys; there was a smell of woodsmoke and animal dung, stronger than in Madrid. Most windows were shuttered but occasionally they glimpsed faces peering at them, quickly withdrawn.

‘How old are these buildings?’ Harry asked Sofia.

‘I don’t know. Five hundred years, six. No one knows who built the hanging houses.’

In a little square halfway up the hillside they paused to let an old man lead his donkey past, the burro almost buried under a load of wood.

‘Gracias.’ He looked at them curiously. They paused for a moment to recover their breath.

‘I remember all this,’ Sofia said. ‘I worried I might have forgotten the way.’

‘It’s very bleak,’ Barbara said. The setting sun cast a cold glow on the street, turning the little piles of frozen snow in the gutters pink.

‘Not for a child.’ Sofia smiled sadly. ‘It was exciting, all the steep streets.’ She took Harry’s arm and they climbed on.

The old Plaza Mayor crowned the summit of the hill, municipal buildings lining two sides. The third side was a sheer drop over a parapet to the street below, left unbuilt on to give a clear view of the cathedral that dominated the fourth side, its huge square facade solid and intimidating. A wide flight of steps rose to where a group of beggars sat huddled in the deep porch of an immense doorway. There was a bar next to the cathedral but it was closed; apart from the beggars the plaza was deserted.

They stood in the doorway of the bar, their eyes darting over the shuttered windows surrounding them. An old woman carrying an immense bundle of clothes on her head passed across the square, her receding footsteps echoing through the frosty dusk.

‘Why is it so quiet?’ Harry asked.

‘This was always a quiet town. On a day like this people will be indoors, trying to keep warm.’ Sofia looked at the sky. Clouds were spreading across the sky from the north.

‘I think we should go into the cathedral.’ Barbara looked at the door, brown and studded with nails, the beggars crouched beside it eyeing them silently. ‘Get out of sight.’

Sofia nodded. ‘You are right. We should try to find the watchman.’ She led the way up the steps, shoulders hunched and hands thrust deep into the pockets of her old coat, past the beggars who stretched out their hands. She pushed the huge door and it slid open slowly.

The cathedral was vast, empty, lit with a cold yellowish light filtering through the stained-glass windows. Harry’s breath made a fog in the air in front of him. Barbara stood by his side. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone here,’ she whispered.

Sofia walked slowly on between the soaring pillars, towards the chancel where a huge altar screen, decorated in bright gold, stood behind high gates. She stood frowning up at the screen, a tiny figure in her old black coat. Harry went and put his arm round her.

‘So much gold,’ she whispered. ‘The church has never had any shortage of gold.’

‘Where’s the watchman?’ asked Barbara, who had walked up to them.

‘Let’s find him.’ Sofia pulled away from Harry’s side and continued down the nave. The others followed. The heavy rucksack dug into Harry’s shoulders.

To the right a large stained-glass window let in the fading light. Underneath stood a confessional box, a tall narrow thing of dark wood. As they progressed up the cathedral the light grew dimmer. Harry started violently at the sight of a figure standing in a side chapel. Barbara clutched his arm.

‘What is it?’

Looking closer, Harry saw it was a life-size tableau of the Last Supper. It was Judas that had made him start, a startlingly realistic Judas carved in the act of rising from the table. His face, turned slightly to the master he was about to betray, was brutally cold and calculating, his mouth half-open in a grim snarl. Beside him Christ in a white robe sat with his back to the nave.

‘Hideous, isn’t it?’ Barbara whispered.

‘Yes.’ Harry looked at Sofia, a little ahead, her hands still driven so deeply into her pockets the shoulder seams of her coat threatened to part. She stopped, and as they drew level with her she turned and whispered to Harry. ‘See, there he is, on that bench.’

A man was sitting beside a shrine to the Virgin, indistinct in the gloom. They approached him slowly. Then Harry heard a sharp gulp of indrawn breath from Sofia. She was looking at a large new plaque set into the wall. Candles were lit in niches beside it and a bunch of winter roses had been laid underneath. The inscription ‘Fallen for the Church’ stood out above a list of names.