She was only unconscious for a moment. When she came round she was aware of the pain in her head, she tried frantically to remember what had happened, where she was. She opened her eyes and saw Bernie leaning over her, dimly because her glasses were gone. There were bricks and dust all around. He was leaning over her and he was crying, she had never seen a man cry. ‘Barbara, Barbara, are you all right, oh God, I thought you were dead. I love you, I love you!’

She let him lift her up. She buried her face in his chest and started weeping; they were both sitting crying in the street. She heard footsteps, people crowding round from the houses.

‘Are you safe?’ someone called. ‘My God, look!’

‘I’m all right,’ Barbara said. ‘My glasses, where are my glasses?’

‘They’re here,’ Bernie said softly. He handed them to her and she put them on. She saw the garden wall had fallen down, only just missing them, showering the road with bricks. One of them must have hit her. Flames and black smoke poured from every window of the villa, and the tail of the plane was sticking out of the collapsed roof. Barbara saw a black swastika; it had been painted over in yellow but it showed through. She lifted her hand to her head. It came away covered with blood. An old black-shawled woman put her arm round her. ‘It is only a cut, señorita. Ay, that was a miracle.’

Barbara reached a hand out to Bernie. He was nursing his injured arm, his face pale. Both their coats were white with dust.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked him.

‘The blast knocked me over. I hurt the arm a bit. But, oh God, I thought you were dead. I love you, please believe me, you have to believe me now!’ He began crying again.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’

They hugged each other. The little crowd of Spaniards, refugees who perhaps three months ago had never left their pueblos, stood beside them, looking at the wreckage of the aeroplane sticking out of the burning villa.

SITTING ON THE BENCH watching the sealions, Barbara remembered the warmth of Bernie’s grasp again. His injured arm, how it must have hurt him to hold her. She looked at her watch, the tiny Dior watch Sandy had given her. She had resolved nothing in her mind, just gone all emotional about the past. It was time to go home, Sandy would be waiting.

He was back by the time she returned, his car in the drive. She took off her coat. Pilar trotted up from the basement and stood quietly in the hall, hands folded in front of her as she always did when Barbara came in.

‘I don’t need anything, Pilar. Thanks.’

‘Muy bien, señora.’ The girl curtsied and went back downstairs to the kitchen. Barbara kicked off her shoes; her feet were sore after walking all afternoon.

She went up to Sandy’s study. He often worked for hours up there, studying paperwork and making telephone calls. The room was at the back of the house, with a small window that caught little light. He had filled it with ornaments and works of art he had picked up. An Expressionist painting of a distorted figure leading a donkey through a fantastic desert landscape dominated the room, lit by a wall-lamp.

He was sitting at his desk now, surrounded by a mass of papers, running a pencil down the margin of a column of figures. He hadn’t heard her and his face wore the look it sometimes had when he thought no one could see: intense, calculating, somehow predatory. In his free hand he held a cigarette, a long trail of ash threatening to fall from the end.

She studied him with a newly critical gaze. His hair was still slicked back with Brylcreem, so thickly you could see the lines of the comb running through. The Brylcreemed hair, like the little straight moustache, was the fashion in Falange circles. He saw her and smiled.

‘Hello, darling. Good day?’

‘All right. I went to the Retiro this afternoon. It’s starting to get cold.’

‘You’ve got your glasses on.’

‘Oh, Sandy, I can’t go out in the street without them. I’d get run over. I have to wear them, it’s just silly not to.’

He stared at her for a moment then smiled again. ‘Oh well. The wind’s got into your cheeks. Roses.’

‘What about you? Working hard?’

‘Just some more figures for my Min of Mines project.’ He moved the papers away, out of her line of vision, then took her hand. ‘I’ve got some good news. You know you were talking about voluntary work. I spoke to a man at the Jews’ Committee today, whose sister’s big in Auxilio Social. They’re looking for nurses. How d’you fancy working with children?’

‘I don’t know. It’d be – something to do.’ Something to take her mind off Bernie, the camp in Cuenca, Luis.

‘The woman we need to speak to’s a marquesa.’ Sandy raised his eyebrows. He pretended to despise the snobbish worship of the aristocracy upper-class Spaniards engaged in as much as the English, but she knew he enjoyed mixing with them. ‘Alicia, Marquesa de Segovia. She’s going to be at this concert at the Opera House on Saturday; I’ve got tickets for us.’ He smiled and pulled out a couple of gold-embossed cards.

Guilt filled her. ‘Oh, Sandy, you always think of me.’

‘I don’t know what this new guitar concerto thing will be like, but there’s some Beethoven too.’

‘Oh, thanks, Sandy.’ His generosity made her feel ashamed. She felt tears coming and got up hastily. ‘I’d better get Pilar started on dinner.’

‘All right, lovey. I need another hour on this.’

She went down to the kitchen, slipping on her shoes on the way. It wouldn’t do to let Pilar see her walking barefoot.

In the kitchen the paint was an ugly mustard colour, not white like the rest of the house. The maid sat at a table beside the immense old kitchen range. She was looking at a photograph. As she shoved it down the front of her dress and stood up, Barbara caught a glimpse of a young man in Republican uniform. It was dangerous to carry that photograph; if she was asked for her papers and a civil found it, questions would be asked. Barbara pretended she hadn’t seen it.

‘Pilar, could you start the dinner? Pollo al ajillo tonight, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘Have you everything you need?’

‘Yes, madam, thank you.’ There was a coldness in the girl’s eyes. Barbara wanted to explain, tell her she knew what it was like, she had lost someone too. But that was impossible. She nodded and went upstairs to dress for dinner.

THE CAFÉ ROCINANTE was in a narrow street off Calle Toledo. When Harry left the embassy he saw the pale-faced young Spaniard following him again. He cursed – he would have liked to turn round and shout at the man, hit him. He doubled round a couple of streets and managed to lose him. He walked on with a feeling of satisfaction, but when he saw the cafe and crossed over to it his heart began to pound. He took long, deep breaths as he opened the door. He went over the preparation they had done in Surrey for this first meeting. Expect him to be suspicious, they had said; be friendly, naive, a newcomer to Madrid. Be receptive, a listener.

The cafe was gloomy, the daylight coming through the small dusty window barely augmented by fifteen-watt bulbs round the walls. The patrons were mainly middle-class men, shopkeepers and small businessmen. They sat at the little round tables drinking coffee or chocolate, mostly talking business. A thin boy of ten circulated, selling cigarettes from a tray tied round his neck with string. Harry felt uncomfortable, looking round the place while trying not to attract attention. So this was what being a spy was like. There was a faint hissing and churning in his bad ear.

Apart from a couple of middle-aged matrons sitting talking about how expensive things were on the black market, there was only one other woman, smoking alone with an empty coffee cup in front of her. She was in her thirties, thin and anxious-looking, wearing a faded dress. She watched the other customers constantly, her eyes darting from table to table. Harry wondered whether she might be some sort of informer; she was a bit obvious, but then so was his ‘tail’.