'Everything.'

'Everything? Really?'

Sandy laughed. He jumped off the rock he'd been sitting on and slapped Harry on the arm. 'No, not really. But we will, one day. I want to be the first.'

Harry kicked a stone. 'I don't want to get into trouble, it's not worth it.'

'Come on.' Harry felt the force of Sandy's personality bearing down on him. 'I plan it all, make sure we always leave when there's no one around, never go anywhere the masters might come or if they did, would be more worried than us about being seen.' He laughed.

'Some dive? I'm not sure I fancy that.'

'We won't get caught. I got caught breaking the rules at Braildon, I'm more careful now. It's fun, knowing they're out to get you and you've got them fooled.'

'What did you get sacked for? At Braildon?'

'I was in the town and this master caught me coming out of a pub. He reported me and I got all the usual stuff, why couldn't I be like my brother, how much better than me he was.' The hard angry look came into Sandy's eyes again. 'I got him back, though.'

'What did you do?'

Sandy sat down again and folded his arms. 'This master, Dacre, he was young. He had this little red car. He thought he was the bee's knees, driving about in it. I know how to drive; I sneaked out one night and took it out of the masters' garage. There's a steep hill near the school. I drove the car right to the edge, jumped out, and over it went.' Sandy smiled, his happy smile, all white teeth. 'It was amazing watching it go down the hill, smashing up bushes. It hit a tree and the front caved in like cardboard.'

'God! That was dangerous.'

'Not really. Not if you know how. But when I jumped out of the car I cut my face on a branch. They saw that and put two and two together. But it was worth it, and it got me out of Braildon. I didn't think anywhere else would take me, but my father pulled strings and got me in here. Worse luck.'

Harry dug at the ground with his foot. 'I think that's going a bit far. Destroying someone's car.'

Sandy gave him an even stare. 'Do unto others as they would do to you.'

'That's not what the Bible says.'

'It's what I say.' He shrugged. 'Come on, we'd better get back, we don't want to miss roll-call or we'll be in trouble, won't we? With our kind teachers.'

They said little as they walked back. The winter sun set slowly, turning the puddles in the brown muddy paths pink. When they reached the road the high walls of the school came into view. Sandy turned to Harry. 'D'you know where the money came from that started the school, and that funded the scholarships for people like Piper?'

'Some merchants a couple of hundred years ago, wasn't it?'

'Yes. But d'you know what their main trade was?'

'Silks and peppers and stuff?'

'Slavery. They were slavers, capturing niggers in Africa and shipping them to America. I found a book in the library.' He turned to Harry. 'It's amazing what you can find out if you look. Things people want to keep hidden that might come in useful.' And he smiled again, a secret smile.

THE TROUBLE BEGAN a few weeks later, in class with Taylor. The form had had a Latin translation to prepare and Sandy had skimped it. He was called on to read and produced a succession of nonsensical howlers that made the class laugh. Some boys would have been humiliated, but Sandy sat with a smirk on his face, laughing along with the class. Taylor was furious. He stood above Sandy, his face red.

'You didn't even try to do that translation, Forsyth. You've as good a brain as anyone here, but you just don't bother.'

'Oh no, sir,' Sandy said seriously. 'I found it difficult, sir.'

Taylor got even redder. 'You think you can get away with that dumb insolence, don't you? There's a lot you think you can get away with, but we're watching you.'

'Thank you, sir,' Sandy replied coolly. The class laughed again, but Harry could see Forsyth had gone too far. You didn't provoke Taylor.

The master crossed to his desk and picked up his cane. 'That's sheer insolence, Forsyth. Come out here!'

Sandy set his lips. You could see he hadn't expected that. Canings in front of the class were rare. 'I don't think that's fair, sir,' he said.

'I'll give you fair,' Taylor marched up to Sandy and hauled him out of his place by the collar. Sandy wasn't tall but he was stocky and Harry wondered for a moment if he might resist, but he allowed himself to be led to the front of the room. His eyes were blazing, though, with a fierce anger Harry had never seen before, as he bent over the master's desk and Taylor brought the cane down, again and again, lips tight with anger.

After class, Harry went up to the studies. Sandy was leaning on the table. He was pale and breathing heavily.

'You all right?' he asked.

'I will be.' There was a moment's silence. He squirmed and winced. 'You see, Harry? You see how they control us?'

'You shouldn't have provoked him.'

'I'll get my own back,' Sandy muttered.

'Don't be stupid. How can you get back at him?'

'I'll find a way.'

THE SCHOOL ate their meals at long tables in the dining room, the form master sitting at the end. One evening, a week later, Harry saw that Sandy and Taylor were both missing. Sandy wasn't seen again that night and another master took the class next morning. He announced that Alexander Forsyth would not be returning; he had been expelled for an assault on Mr Taylor, who would be having a period of sick leave. The boys plied him with questions but the master said it was too unpleasant to talk about, a spasm of disgust crossing his face. It was that morning, through the classroom window, that Harry saw Bishop Forsyth walking in the quadrangle. His face was stern and drawn. Bernie, next to him, whispered, 'I wonder what Forsyth did. Good riddance to bad rubbish, anyway. I wonder if they'll let me back in the study.'

At lunchtime the boys were full of excitement, wondering what had happened. Harry skipped the meal and went up to the dormitory. Sandy was there, packing his fossil collection carefully into a suitcase. He gave Harry a cynical half-smile.

'Hello, Brett. Heard what happened?'

'I heard you were going. What did you do? They won't say.'

Sandy sat on the bed, still smiling. 'Best revenge I've ever had. It was you put the idea into my mind, actually. Spiders.'

'What?'

'Remember that day we were out fossil hunting and I told you insects and spiders were as old as the dinosaurs.'

Harry felt his heart sink. He remembered Taylor asking him to spy on Sandy, though he had kept that to himself. Taylor had been distant with him ever since.

Sandy smiled. 'Ever been up in the attics? They're full of cobwebs.' He smiled broadly. 'And where there are cobwebs there are spiders. I collected a biscuit tin full, I went for the big ones. Then yesterday I went to Taylor's study when he was in the common room.' He laughed. 'I put them everywhere. In the drawers, in the cigarette box on his desk, even in his cheesy old slippers. Then I went into the study next door; you know it's been empty since old Henderson retired at Christmas. I sat there to wait. I knew Taylor would be along at four to do his marking. I wanted to hear him scream.'

Harry clenched his hands. Sandy had used what he had told him, this was partly his fault. 'Did he?' he asked.

Sandy shrugged. 'No. It went wrong. I heard him come up the corridor and shut the door but there was no sound, just silence. I thought, come on, you bastard, you must have found them by now. Then I heard his door open and footsteps like somebody drunk and then a thud. Then there was a funny whimpering noise, like a cat mewing. It got louder, it turned into a sort of screech and some of the other masters came out of their rooms. I heard Jevons say, "What's the matter?" and then Taylor's voice. "In my room," he said, "it's full of them." Then Williams went into his room and called out that it was full of spiders."

'Hell, Sandy, what did you do it for?'

Sandy met his gaze evenly. "Revenge, of course. I said I'd get him. Anyway, then I hear Taylor's voice, saying he was going to be sick. Williams said to get him into the empty room and next thing the door was open and they were all staring at me.' He smiled. 'It was almost worth it to see Taylor's face. He'd been sick, his face was all white and there was vomit down his gown. Then Williams grabs me and says, "Got you, you little swine." '

Sandy shut his case and stood up. 'The head said Taylor was in the war, it affected him, he saw some spiders on a body or something. How was I to know?' He shrugged again. 'Anyway, that's that, I'm off home. Dad tried pleading with them but it didn't work. It's all right, Harry, there's no need to look angry. I didn't say you'd told me about the spiders. I refused to say how I knew.'

'It's not that. It was a rotten thing to do. And it was me that made it possible.'

'I didn't know he was going to go potty. Anyway, he's ended up being sent off to some sanatorium and I've got the sack. That's life. I knew something like this would happen sooner or later.' He gave Harry an odd look. Harry saw tears in his face for a moment. 'It's my fate, you see, my fate to be the bad lad. Couldn't avoid it if I tried.'

HARRY SAT UP with a jerk; he had fallen asleep sitting on the sofa. He had been dreaming, something about being trapped in his study; a storm had been raging outside and Sandy and Bernie and a load of other boys were banging at the window, crying out to him to let them in. He shivered; it was cold now, and almost dark. He got up and went to draw the curtains. The buildings, the streets, were so silent it unnerved him. He looked out at the empty square, the one-armed statue a dim shape in the weak white light of the streetlamp. There was nothing moving, not even a cat. Harry realized he hadn't seen a cat since he came here, perhaps like the pigeons they had all been eaten. No sign of his watcher; maybe they let him go home in the evenings.

He wondered suddenly if they knew, at Rookwood, what had happened to Bernie. If they did, they probably weren't surprised, or sorry. And Sandy's fate, or whatever it was that drove him, had washed him up here. Where, tomorrow, he would be spying on him, after all. Harry remembered Jebb telling him it was Mr Taylor who had given them his name, and smiled grimly at the irony. The way the wheels came round, perhaps there was something in those notions of fate after all.

Chapter Eight.

THE SAME AFTERNOON Barbara went for a long walk. She felt restless and worried, as she had since her meeting with Luis. The weather was fine after the rain but still cool and for the first time since the spring she wore her coat.

She went to the Retiro park; it had been refurbished since the end of the Civil War, new trees planted to replace those cut down for fuel during the Siege. Once again it was a meeting place for the respectable women of Madrid.

Now it was getting colder only the hardier or lonelier women gathered on the benches to gossip. Barbara recognized the wife of one of Sandy's friends and nodded to her, but walked on to the zoo at the rear of the park; she wanted to be on her own.

The zoo was almost deserted. She took a seat by the sealions' pit, lit a cigarette and sat watching them. She had heard the animals had suffered terribly during the Siege; many had died of starvation, but there was a new elephant now, donated by the Generalisimo himself. Sandy was a bullfight aficionado but no matter how many times he argued with her about the skill and courage involved, Barbara couldn't stomach it, the big strong animal tormented and killed, horses gored and dying, kicking in the sand. She had been to the corrida twice then refused to go again. Sandy had laughed and told her not to mention it in front of his Spanish friends; they would think her the worst sort of English sentimentalist.

She twisted the handle of her crocodile-skin handbag. Critical thoughts about Sandy kept coming into her head these days. It wasn't fair; he was the one being placed in danger by her deceit, it could destroy his career if what she was doing came out. She oscillated between guilt over that and anger at the stifled life she led now, the way Sandy always wanted to run everything.

The day after meeting Luis she had gone to the Express office in the Puerta del Sol and asked for Markby. They told her he was away in the north, reporting on the German troops coming over the frontier from France and buying everything up.

She might have to tackle Luis herself. Why had he said he had been in Cuenca through two winters? Was he just deceiving her, and Markby, for money? He had seemed nervous and uneasy throughout their interview, but had been very firm about the money he wanted.

A woman in a fur coat appeared, a little boy of eight marching at her side. He wore the uniform of a little flecha, the youngest section of the Falange Youth. Seeing the sealions he left his mother's side and ran over to the pen, aiming his wooden rifle at them. 'Bang! Bang!' he shouted. 'Die, Reds, die!' Barbara shuddered. Sandy said the Falange Youth were just Spanish boy scouts, but sometimes she wondered.

Seeing her, the little boy ran over and stretched out his arm in the Fascist salute. 'Good morning, senora! Viva Franco! Can I help you at all today?'

Barbara gave a tired smile. 'No, I'm fine, thank you.'

The child's mother came over, taking his hand. 'Come, Manolito, the elephant is this way.' She shook her head at Barbara. 'Children are tiring, no?'

Barbara smiled hesitantly.

'But they are our gift from God.'

'Come on, Mama, the elephants, the elephants!'

Barbara watched them go. Sandy didn't want children; she was thirty now and she would probably never have any. Once she had longed to have Bernie's child. Her mind went back to those other autumn days, with him in Red Madrid. Only four years ago, but it was like another age.

THAT FIRST NIGHT in the bar, Bernie had seemed an extraordinary, exotic creature to her. It wasn't just his beauty: the incongruity between his public-school accent and his grubby private's uniform added to her sense of unreality.

'How did you hurt your arm?' she asked.

'Got winged by a sniper in the Casa de Campo. It's healing well, just nicked the bone. I'm on sick leave, staying with friends in Carabanchel.'

'Isn't that the suburb the Nationalists are shelling? I heard there was fighting there.'

'Yes. In the part furthest from the city. But the people living further in won't go.' He smiled. 'They're magnificent, so strong. I met the family when I came over on a visit five years ago. The eldest son's with the militia in the Casa de Campo. His mother takes hot food out there every day.'

'You don't want to go home?'

A hardness came into his face. 'I'm here till this is finished. Till we've made Madrid the grave of fascism.'

'There seems to be more Russian equipment coming now.'

'Yes. We're going to throw Franco back. What about you, what are you doing here?'

'I'm with the Red Cross. Helping find missing people, arranging exchanges. Children mostly.'

'They got some Red Cross medical equipment when I was in hospital. God knows they needed it.' He fixed her with those big olive eyes. 'But you supply the Fascists too, don't you?'

'We have to. We have to be neutral.'

'Don't forget which side it was that rose up to destroy an elected government.'

She changed the subject. 'Where on the arm were you hit?'

'Above the elbow. They say it'll soon be good as new. Then I'm going back to the front.'

'A bit higher and you could've got it in the shoulder. That can be nasty.'

'Are you a medic?'

'A nurse. Though I haven't done nursing for years. I'm a bureaucrat now.' She gave a self-deprecating laugh.

'Don't knock it, the world needs organization.'

She laughed again. 'I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that. It doesn't matter how useful the work you do is, the word bureaucracy always stinks.'

'How long have you been with the Red Cross?'

'Four years. I don't go back to England much now.'

'Family there?'

'Yes, but I haven't seen them for a couple of years. We don't have much in common. What do you do? Back home?'

'Well, before I left I was a sculptor's model.'

She almost spilled her wine. 'A what?'