She asked him straight out. ‘How much will it take?’

Luis smiled sadly. ‘You are direct, señora. I think for three hundred pesetas Agustín could say whether this man was a prisoner at the camp or not.’

Three hundred. Barbara swallowed, but allowed nothing to show on her face. ‘How long would it take? I need to know soon. If Spain comes into the war, I’ll have to leave.’

He nodded, suddenly business-like. ‘Give me a week. I will visit Agustín next weekend. But I will need some money now, an advance.’ She raised her eyebrows and Luis reddened suddenly, looking embarrassed. ‘I have no money for the train.’

‘Oh. I see.’

‘I will need fifty pesetas. No, don’t take your purse out here, give it to me outside.’

Barbara glanced across to the bar. The crippled man and his friend were deep in conversation, the landlady serving a new customer, but she sensed that all of them were aware of her presence. She took a deep breath.

‘If Bernie is there, what then? You couldn’t get him out.’

Luis shrugged. ‘That might be possible. But very difficult.’ He paused. ‘Very expensive.’

So here it was. Barbara stared back at him, realizing he might know nothing, might have told Markby what he wanted to hear and be telling the same to this rich Englishwoman.

‘How much?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘One step at a time, señora. Let us try and see if it is him first.’

She nodded. ‘It is about money for you, yes? We should know where we are.’

Luis frowned a little. ‘You are not poor,’ he observed.

‘I can get money. Some.’

‘I am poor. Like everyone in Spain now. Do you know how old I was when I was conscripted? Eighteen. I lost my best years.’ He spoke with bitterness, then sighed and looked down at the table for a moment before meeting her gaze again. ‘I have had no work since I left the army in the spring, a bit of labour on the roads that pays nothing. My mother in Sevilla is ill and I can do nothing to help her. If I am to help you, señora, find information it is dangerous to find, then – ’ He set his lips hard, looked at her defiantly.

‘All right,’ she said quickly, her tone conciliatory. ‘If you can find what Agustín knows, I’ll give you what you ask. I’ll get it somehow.’ She could probably get three hundred easily, but it was better not to let him know that.

Luis nodded. His eyes roved round the bar, through the window to the darkening street. He leaned forward again. ‘I will go to Cuenca this weekend. I will meet you here in a week’s time, at five.’ He got up, bowing slightly to her. Barbara saw his jacket had a big hole at the elbow.

Outside he shook her hand again and she passed him fifty pesetas. Walking away, she fingered Bernie’s photo. But she mustn’t hope for too much, she must be careful. Her mind went round and round. For Bernie to have survived while thousands died and for Markby to have found a clue to him would be a big coincidence. Yet if Markby had ferreted out that all the foreigners went to Cuenca, and then looked for a guard from there … all that would need was money and contacts among the thousands of discharged soldiers in Madrid. She must contact Markby again, question him. And if Luis said Bernie was alive, she could go and make a stink at the embassy. Or could she? They said the embassy was desperate to keep Franco out of the war. She remembered what Luis had said about prisoners disappearing if there were unwelcome enquiries.

She crossed the Plaza Mayor, walking quickly to reach the Centro before dark. Then she stopped dead. The Civil War had ended in April 1939. If Luis had left the army this spring, 1940, he could not possibly have passed two winters in the camp.

IT HAD BEEN RAINING solidly for twenty-four hours, a heavy soaking rain that fell vertically from a windless sky, swishing and gurgling on the cobbles. It was colder, too; Harry had found a winter eiderdown at the flat and spread it out over the big double bed.

That morning he was due to visit the Trade Ministry with Hillgarth, his first outing in his interpreter’s role. He was glad to be doing something at last.

They had integrated him into embassy life. The head of the translation section, Weaver, had tested his Spanish in his office. He was very tall, thin, with a patrician air. ‘All righty,’ he said in languid tones after talking with Harry for half an hour. ‘You’ll do.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Harry said tonelessly. Weaver’s haughty effeteness annoyed him.

Weaver sighed. ‘The ambassador doesn’t really like Hillgarth’s people getting involved with the regular work, but there we are.’ He looked at Harry as though he were some strange exotic animal.

‘Yes, sir,’ Harry replied.

‘I’ll show you to your room. There are some press releases come in that you can start working on.’

He had taken Harry to a little office. A battered desk took up most of the space, press releases in Spanish stacked on the blotter. They came in regularly and for the next three days Harry was busy. He saw nothing of Hillgarth, though Tolhurst dropped in occasionally to see how he was doing.

He liked Tolhurst, his self-deprecation and his ironic comments, but he hadn’t taken to most of the embassy staff. They affected a contempt for the Spaniards; the bleak poverty Harry had seen had depressed him but it seemed to amuse some of the embassy people. Most food shops in Madrid had ‘No hay …’ signs outside. ‘We have no … potatoes, lettuce, apples …’ Yesterday in the canteen Harry had overheard two of the cultural attaché’s staff laughing about there still being no hay for the poor donkeys and had felt an unexpected anger. Under the callousness, though, Harry sensed the fear that Franco would join the war. Each day everyone scoured the papers. At the moment Himmler’s visit was the focus of everyone’s anxiety: was he coming just to discuss security issues, as the press said, or was it something more?

Hillgarth picked him up from his flat at ten in a big American car, a Packard, driven by an English chauffeur, a thickset Cockney. Harry had put on his morning suit, the trousers carefully screwed into the press overnight; Hillgarth wore his captain’s uniform again.

‘We’re going to see the junior trade minister, General Maestre,’ Hillgarth said, squinting into the rain. ‘I’m confirming which oil ships the navy’s allowing in. And I want to ask him about Carceller, the new minister.’ He drummed his fingers on the armrest for a moment, looking thoughtful. The day before, a series of cabinet changes had been announced; Harry had translated the press releases. The changes favoured the Falange; Franco’s brother-in-law Serrano Suñer had been made Foreign Minister.

‘Maestre’s all right,’ Hillgarth continued. ‘One of the old school. Cousin of a duke.’

Harry looked through the window. People walked by, hunched against the rain, workmen in their overalls and women in the ubiquitous black, shawls drawn over their heads. They did not hurry; they were soaked already. Umbrellas, Tolhurst had told him, were impossible to get even on the black market. As they passed a baker’s shop, Harry saw a crowd of black-shawled women standing in the rain. Many had thin children with them and Harry saw, here and there through the smears of rain, the bloated gas-filled stomachs of malnutrition. The women crowded round the door, banging and shouting at someone within.

Hillgarth grunted. ‘There’ve been rumours of potatoes coming in. He’s probably got some, saving them for the black market. The supply agency’s offering the potato farmers so little they won’t sell. That’s so the Junta de Abastos can take their cut before they sell on.’

‘And Franco allows it?’

‘He can’t stop it. The junta’s a Falange organization. It’s a bloody disaster; it’s rotten with corruption. They’ll have a famine on their hands if they’re not careful. But that’s what happens with revolutions, the scum always rises to the top.’