‘I understand you are making enquiries about a certain Captain Duro.’

‘No. No, I’m trying to find out about an English volunteer, Bernie Piper. His girlfriend has been here, she said Captain Duro was helping her.’

‘May I see your passport, please?’

Harry handed it over. The Spaniard opened it, holding it up to the light. He grunted and slipped it into his folder.

‘Could I have that back, please?’ Harry said. ‘I need it.’

The captain folded his arms on top of the folder and turned to his colleague. The other man nodded. ‘You speak good Spanish, señor.’ His accent was foreign, guttural.

‘It’s my subject. I’m a lecturer – at Cambridge.’

‘Who sent you here?’

Harry frowned. ‘Private Piper’s parents.’

‘But his woman is already here. The records say he is missing believed killed. That means dead but no body. But we have first this woman from the Red Cross coming day after day, and now you. And always you talk about Captain Duro.’

‘Look, we just want to know, that’s all.’ Harry was getting angry now. ‘Private Piper came to fight for your Republic, don’t you owe us that much?’

‘You support the Nationalists, señor?’

‘No, I don’t. I’m English, we’re neutral.’ Harry began to feel uneasy. He noticed both officers wore revolvers. The foreign officer snatched the folder brusquely from his colleague.

‘Miss Barbara Clare, who has been here many times, I see she asked to visit the battlefield. That is a restricted zone. As she works for the Red Cross, she should know that. They have denied responsibility for her enquiries.’

‘She wasn’t asking on their behalf. Look, Bernie Piper was her – well, her lover.’

‘And you, what is your connection with him?’

‘We were at school together.’

The captain laughed, a harsh sound deep in his throat. ‘You call that a connection?’

‘Look here,’ he said. ‘I came here in good faith to find a missing soldier. But if you won’t help me, perhaps I’d better go.’ He started to rise.

‘Sit down.’ The foreign officer stood up and pushed him hard on the chest. Harry was taken off balance and fell over on the floorboards, landing painfully on his pelvis. The officer looked at him coldly as he stood up. ‘Sit on that chair.’

Harry’s heart was beating hard. He remembered what the journalist had said about torture chambers in the Puerta del Sol. The Spanish officer looked uneasy. He leaned over and whispered something in his colleague’s ear. The other man shook his head impatiently, then took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. Harry stared at the pack; there was Cyrillic writing on it.

The officer smiled. ‘Yes, I am Russian. We help our Spanish comrades with matters of security. They need that help; there are Fascist and Trotskyist spies everywhere. Asking questions. Making up lies.’

Harry tried to keep his voice steady. ‘I came here to make enquiries about a friend—’

‘Private Piper did not come out here via established International Brigade procedures. He simply turned up in Madrid last November. That is not normal.’

‘I don’t know anything about that. I haven’t seen Bernie for years.’

‘Yet you came out here looking for him?’

‘His parents asked me to.’

The Russian leaned forward. ‘And who told you to ask about Captain Duro?’

Harry took a deep breath. He was in an underground room in a foreign city under martial law. There was no way out of here unless they let him go.

‘Miss Clare. She said Captain Duro introduced himself when she first came here making enquiries. I told you, he met Bernie in the Casa de Campo. He tried to find out more for her. Then she was told he had been transferred. No one else would help her.’

‘Now we are getting somewhere. Captain Duro was not, in fact, transferred. He was arrested as a saboteur. He was overheard saying we should have treated with the rebels in Barcelona.’ He leaned back, crossing his arms. ‘Treated with Trotsky-Fascist saboteurs.’

‘Look, I really don’t know anything about this. I’ve only been in the country three days.’

‘This Private Piper’s file shows that after he was injured in the fighting in the Casa de Campo, he offered to help with the reception of volunteers arriving from England. But it was felt he was a bourgeois, a sentimentalist, one likely to disapprove of some of the hard measures we need here. It was felt he should be allowed to recover then sent to the front. He was foot-soldier material, not one of the men of steel we need now.’

Harry stared at the Russian.

‘Such people are easily seduced by Trotsky-Fascism.’ The Russian turned to his colleague. The Spaniard leaned in close; Harry caught the whispered words, ‘Red Cross.’ The Russian frowned.

‘We shall discuss this outside.’ He turned to Harry. ‘You, Señor Brett, you stay here.’ Harry felt a shiver run down his spine, felt cold in the hot stuffy room.

The soldiers went out. Harry heard a low rumble of voices. He thought feverishly about what would happen if they took him away somewhere. Barbara was expecting him back at the flat. She had seemed calmer after her outburst yesterday; he hoped she hadn’t hit the bottle again. She would look for him if he didn’t return. His palms were sweating. He told himself he must stay calm.

The voices from the corridor rose. He heard the Russian shouting. ‘Who is in charge here?’ Footsteps retreated, then there was silence, a thick silence he could almost feel. He remembered the boys talking eagerly about types of torture at school. What the rack did, thumbscrews, new tortures with electric shocks.

The door opened and the Spanish officer entered, alone, his face set. He handed Harry his passport.

‘Be thankful for your Red Cross connections,’ he said coldly. ‘Be grateful we need their medicines. You can go. Get out now before he changes his mind.’ He stared into Harry’s eyes. ‘You have twenty-four hours to leave Spain.’

BACK IN THE FLAT, Harry told Barbara what had happened. He had to leave Spain at once and she should go too; she must never go back to military HQ. He had thought she might not believe what had occurred, but she did.

‘We know about what’s happening,’ she said quietly. ‘In the Red Cross, I mean. The arrests and disappearances.’ She shook her head. ‘I’d just stopped thinking about it. I haven’t thought of anything but finding out about Bernie. I’ve been so selfish. I’m sorry you went through that.’

‘I volunteered to go. Maybe we’ve both been naive.’

‘Less excuse for me, I’ve been here nine months.’

‘Barbara, you should come back to England.’

‘No.’ She stood up, a new decisiveness about her. ‘I’ll go back to work, tell Doumergue what’s happened. I’ll see if I can get a transfer.’

‘Are you sure you’re up to that?’

She smiled wanly. ‘I’ll be better working. It’ll help me pull myself together.’

Harry packed, then went back to Barbara’s flat for supper. Neither of them felt like going out into the city.

‘I had to have some hope,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t accept Bernie was dead.’

‘What will you do now?’

She smiled bravely. ‘I talked Doumergue into transferring me. I’m going to help organize medical supplies in Burgos.’

‘The Nationalist zone?’

‘Yes.’ She gave a brittle laugh. ‘See the other side of the story. There’s no fighting in Burgos, it’s well behind the lines.’

‘Will you be able to stand that? Working with the people Bernie fought against?’

‘Oh, the Nationalists and the Communists are no better than each other. I know that, but I just want to do my job, help the people caught in the middle. Damn all the bloody politics. I’m past caring.’

Harry looked at her. He wondered if she was up to it.

‘Can you feel Bernie’s presence?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Here, in the flat?’

‘No.’ He smiled awkwardly. ‘I don’t get feelings like that.’

‘Sometimes a sort of warmth steals over me, as though he was here. I suppose that just proves he’s dead.’