'Have you written back?'

'Straight away, but there's been no reply.' She took a deep breath. 'I don't think letters always get through. I wondered you speak Spanish, don't you, you know the country?'

'I've not been to Spain since 1931,' Harry said hesitantly.

'Which side do you support?' she asked suddenly.

He shook his head. 'Neither. I just think the whole thing's a tragedy.'

'I've had the Spanish Dependants' Aid round, but I don't want money, I just want Bernie.' Mrs Piper looked him in the eye. 'Would you go there? Try to find this girl, find what happened?' She leaned forward and grasped his hand in both of hers. 'It's a lot to ask but you were such good friends. If you could find out for sure, find out if there's any hope.'

TWO DAYS AFTER his visit to Mrs Piper, Harry took the train for Madrid. He had managed to book a hotel room. The travel agent said it would be full of journalists; they were the only people travelling to Spain now.

From the train window Harry saw slogans everywhere proclaiming the workers' war. It was a warm, fresh Castilian spring but people looked grim, embattled. When he arrived in Madrid he was astonished how different everything looked from the time of his first visit: the huge posters, the soldiers and militia everywhere, the people with the strained worried faces despite the propaganda booming from the loudspeakers around the Centro. The newspapers were full of an attempted coup in Barcelona by 'Trotsky-Fascist' traitors.

He checked into the hotel, it was near the Castellana. He had Barbara's address but wanted to orient himself first. That afternoon he went for a walk through La Latina to Carabanchel. He remembered walking down here with Bernie in 1931 to visit the Meras, the heat of that summer, how carefree they had been.

The further south he walked the fewer people there were. Soldiers eyed him suspiciously. There were barricades across many of the streets, crude structures built with cobblestones, a small gap for pedestrians; the streets without their cobbles were seas of mud. The sound of artillery became audible, occasional whistles and crumps in the distance. Harry turned back. He wondered, feeling sick to his stomach, whether the Meras were still down in Carabanchel.

In his hotel that evening he met a journalist, a cynical scholarly looking man called Phillips. He asked him what had happened in Barcelona.

'The Russians asserting control.' He laughed. 'Trotskyists my arse. There aren't any.'

'So it's true? The Russians have taken over the Republic?'

'Oh it's true all right. They run everything now; they've got their own torture chambers in a basement in the Puerta del Sol. They've got the trump card, you see. If the government challenges them, Stalin can say all right, we'll stop the arms shipments. He's even got them to ship the Bank of Spain's gold to Moscow. They won't see that again in a hurry.'

Harry shook his head. 'I'm glad we're following non-intervention.'

Phillips laughed again. 'Non-intervention my fanny. If Baldwin had let the French give the Republic arms last year, they wouldn't have touched the Russians with a barge pole. This is our fault. The Republic will lose in the end; the Germans and Italians are pouring in arms and men.'

'And then what?'

Phillips stretched out an arm in the Fascist salute. 'Sieg heil, old boy. Another Fascist power. Well, I must toddle off to bed. Got to do a report from the Casa de Campo tomorrow, worse luck. Wish I'd brought my tin hat.'

HARRY WENT TO Red Cross HQ next day and asked for Miss Clare. He was shown into an office where a harassed-looking Swiss man sat behind a trestle table stacked with papers. They spoke in French. The official looked at him seriously.

'Do you know Miss Clare personally?'

'No, it was her friend I knew. His parents asked me to contact her.'

'She has taken it badly. We have given her a period of sick leave but we wonder if she might be better off returning to England.'

'I see.'

'It would be a great shame, she has been a tower of strength in the office. But she won't go, not till she knows for sure about her boyfriend, she says. But she may never know for sure.' He paused. 'I have had a complaint from the authorities, I am afraid. She is becoming a nuisance. We need to keep good relations with them. If you could help her see things in some sort of perspective ...'

'I'll do what I can.' He sighed. 'Perspective seems in short supply here.'

'It is. Very short.'

THE ADDRESS was a block of flats. He knocked at her door and heard shuffling footsteps within. He wondered if he had got the wrong flat, they sounded like an old lady's footsteps, but it was a tall young woman with disordered red hair and a strained puffy face who opened the door. There were bags under the startlingly green eyes half hidden by smeared glasses.

'Si?' she asked without interest.

'Miss Clare? You don't know me. My name's Brett, Harry Brett.' She looked at him uncomprehendingly. 'I'm a friend of Bernie's.'

At his name she came to life. 'Is there news?' she asked eagerly. 'Have you news?'

'I'm afraid not. Bernie's parents had your letter, they asked me to come out and see what could be done.'

'Oh.' She was downcast again at once, but held the door open. 'Come in.'

The flat was cluttered and untidy, the air thick with cigarette smoke. She frowned, a puzzled look. 'I know your name from somewhere.'

'Rookwood. I was there with Bernie.'

She smiled, her face suddenly warm. 'Of course. Harry. Bernie talked about you.'

'Did he?'

'He said you were his best friend at school.' She paused. 'He hated that school, though.'

'Still?'

She sighed. 'It was all tied up with his politics. Looks like it's done for him in the end, his bloody politics. Sorry, my manners are awful.' She swept a pile of clothes from an armchair. 'Sit down. Coffee? It's pretty dire, I'm afraid.'

'Thanks. That would be nice.'

She made him a coffee and sat opposite him. The life seemed to have gone out of her again. She slumped in her chair, smoking strong Spanish cigarettes.

'Did you go to the Red Cross?' she asked.

'Yes. They said you were on sick leave.'

'Nearly two months now, it's been.' She shook her head. 'They want me to go back to England, they say Bernie's bound to be dead. I believed that at first but now I'm not sure, I can't be sure till someone tells me where the body is.'

'Have you made any progress?'

'No. They're getting fed up of me, they've told me not to come again. They've even complained to old Doumergue.' She lit another cigarette. 'There was a commissar Bernie knew from the fighting in the Casa de Campo, a Communist who worked at army HQ. Captain Duro. He was kind; he was trying to find out what he could but he left suddenly, last week, transferred or something. There have been a lot of changes recently. I asked if I could go out there, to the lines, but of course they said no.'

'Maybe it would be better to go home.'

'Nothing to go home for.' Her eyes went blank, inward-looking; she seemed to forget he was there. Harry felt desperately sorry for her. 'Come for lunch at my hotel,' he said.

She gave him a quick, sad smile and nodded.

HE SPENT most of the next couple of days with her. She wanted to hear all he could tell her about Bernie. It seemed to lift her out of herself for a while, though she kept slipping back into that withdrawn, glassy-eyed sadness. She wore old skirts and unironed blouses and no make-up; she didn't seem to care how she looked.

On the second day he visited the British Embassy but they said what everyone else had: that 'missing believed killed' meant they hadn't found an identifiable body. He walked back to Barbara's flat. He wasn't looking forward to telling her what they had said. He had promised to visit army HQ the next day, perhaps they would take more notice of a man; after that he didn't see what else he could do. He was sure Bernie was dead.

He rang her bell and heard the dragging footsteps again. She opened the door and leaned against it, staring at him. She was drunk. 'Come in,' she said.

There was a half-empty bottle of wine on the table and another in the wastepaper basket. She slumped into a chair beside the table.

'Have a drink,' she said. 'Drink with me, Harry.'

'Don't you think you've had enough?' he asked gently.

'No. Take a cup and have one.'

He let her pour him a drink. She raised her cup. 'Here's to the bloody revolution.'

'The bloody revolution.'

He told her what the embassy had said. She put down her glass. The inward look came over her face again. 'He was so full of life, always. So funny. So beautiful.' She looked up. 'He said some of the boys at school got crushes on him. He didn't like it.'

'No. No, he didn't.'

'Did you have a crush on him?'

'No.' Harry smiled sadly. He remembered the night Bernie had gone to the prostitutes. 'I was jealous of his looks sometimes.'

'Have you a girlfriend back in England?'

'Yes.' He hesitated. 'A nice girl.' He had been going out with Laura for some months; he was surprised to realize he had hardly thought of her since coming to Madrid.

'They say there's someone for everyone, and there is, but they don't tell you sometimes they're just taken away from you again. Gone. Vanished.' She clenched a fist against her forehead and began to cry, harsh wracking sobs. 'I've just been deluding myself, haven't I? He's gone.'

'I'm afraid it looks that way,' Harry replied quietly.

'Visit army HQ for me tomorrow, though, will you? Speak to Captain Duro. But if they've no more news. I'll I'll give up. I'll have to accept it.'

'I will. I promise.'

She shook her head. 'I don't usually get like this. I've shocked you, haven't I?'

He leaned across the table and took her hand. 'I'm sorry,' he said gently. 'I'm so, so sorry.'

She clasped his hand and leaned her head against it and wept and wept.

THE SOLDIER at the entrance to military headquarters was reluctant to let Harry in but he explained what he wanted in Spanish and that helped. Inside he told a sergeant he had come to see what he could find out about a soldier missing on the Jarama. He mentioned Bernie's name and the name of the Communist Barbara said had helped her. The sergeant said he would consult an officer and showed him to a little windowless office to wait. He sat down at a table. He stared at a picture of Stalin on the wall, the screwed-up little eyes and the big moustache, a smile like a grimace. There was a map of Spain, too, pencil lines marking the shrinking areas the Republic held.

A Spaniard in a captain's uniform came in, carrying a folder. He was short and swarthy and had a tired, stubbly face. There was another captain with him, a tall pale burly man. They sat opposite him. The Spaniard nodded curtly.

'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, senor.' 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, senor?'

'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.'