'There is no point in arguing with madmen.'

'Britain still fights on the sea. It remains a formidable foe to Germany.'

'I hope so.'

'Because then Britain and Germany can so weaken each other that the workers feel safe to rise, no? You saw how Comrade Stalin fooled the Germans into thinking they are his friends.'

'If he'd joined Britain and France last year, perhaps Germany might have been beaten.'

'So you agree with Aranda then, Comrade Stalin is a coward?'

'I don't know why he made the pact. No more than you do.'

'He is right. This is an imperialist war.'

'It's a war against fascism. That's what I fought for in 1936. Go away, Establo, I would not argue with a sick man.' Bernie glanced at Pablo. His face was drawn with pain, one hand on the bedrail to support himself even as his other hand supported Establo.

'One day,' Establo said quietly, 'when the Soviets have won, you will wish you had kept your faith. I will not be here to denounce you as an enemy of the working class, but others will.' He jerked his head at Pablo. 'These people will be my memory.'

'Yes, comrade.' Bernie rose from the bed. He had to bring this to a halt. 'I have to piss, if you will excuse me.' He walked to the door then went round the side of the hut and relieved himself. He looked through the barbed wire at the white landscape beyond. Let there be no moon that night, he thought. Then he jumped, almost cried out, at a hand on his shoulder. He whirled round. Agustin was standing there.

'What the fuck are you doing?' he whispered angrily.

'I have been waiting an hour, waiting to see if you would come out.' Agustin took a deep breath. 'The shifts have been changed. I am being made to take Saturday off. We cannot go.'

Chapter Forty-One.

HILLGARTH AND TOLHURST were due at Harry's flat at seven, Sandy at half past. When Tolhurst told Harry he would be accompanying Hillgarth, his face had flushed with pride. 'The captain's asked me to come and help this time as I know all about it,' he said self-importantly, as though Harry cared.

When Harry got home from the embassy late that afternoon the flat was bitterly cold. It hadn't snowed again but there was a heavy frost, thick fingers of ice on the window. He lit the brasero and went into the kitchen and he put his keys in the little saucer where he kept them. They had been in his overcoat and the metal was cold. He remembered a line from Richard III he had helped produce the play at school: Gloucester seeking assurance the Duke of Clarence was dead and being told he was 'key-cold'.

He went into the salon and straightened one of the watercolours. Waiting was the worst part. There would be a lot of it between now and Saturday when they went to Cuenca.

The room held the faint tang of Sofia's scent. Strange how scent smelt musky in warm air, tangy in cold. The two of them had sat up most of last night, talking about the rescue. What they were doing was a serious offence. If they were caught there would be diplomatic immunity for him and protection for Barbara, but Sofia was Spanish and it could mean a long prison sentence. Harry had spent half the evening trying to dissuade her from coming, but she was adamant.

'I faced enough danger during the Siege,' she said. 'If I'm going to leave my country at least I can do one good thing, rescue one person.'

'Bernie's important to me I wouldn't do it otherwise. But you don't owe him anything.'

'I owe all the people who came out here to help the Republic. I want to do something before I leave.' She smiled sadly. 'Does that sound very romantic and Spanish and stupid?'

'No, no. It's something clean.' He wondered for a moment if she wanted to see if he too was capable of something clean, after the murk he had been involved in, the betrayals. He had told Barbara he would help, partly because his heart had leapt at the news Bernie was alive, partly to make up for his lies, but also to show Sofia he could do something good. Something had changed between them; a slight withdrawing on her part, a tiny hesitation only a lover would have noticed.

She hadn't hesitated though when Harry told her he had arranged for them to be married at the embassy. It would be a civil ceremony as he wasn't a Catholic, but the embassy could do that, perform a marriage according to English laws. Tolhurst had had a word in certain quarters, smoothed the wheels.

'The only thing that worries me,' he said, 'is whether Barbara is strong enough for this.'

'I think she is. She's brought it this far alone. This Bernie, he must be very special. Most of the Spanish Communists were bad people.'

'He was my best friend. Bernie would never let you down, he was like a rock.' Not like me, he thought. 'And how he stuck to his socialism.' He laughed softly. 'It didn't go down well at Rookwood, I can tell you.' He smiled wryly. 'Paco must never go to one of those public schools. Either you rebel, or they send you sleepwalking through life.'

THE DOORBELL rang shrilly, bringing Harry out of his reverie. He took a deep breath and went to open it. Hillgarth and Tolhurst stood together in trilbies and thick overcoats. He invited them in and took their coats and hats. Underneath they wore smart suits. Hillgarth rubbed his hands.

'God, Brett, it's cold in here.'

'It takes a while to warm up. Would you like a drink?'

He poured whisky for Hillgarth, brandy for Tolhurst and himself. He looked at his watch: a quarter to seven. Tolhurst sat down on the sofa, looking nervous. Hillgarth walked round the room, examining the pictures. 'These from the embassy?'

'Yes, the walls were bare when I came.'

'Find any souvenirs of that Communist who had it before?' He smiled. 'Any directives from Moscow down the backs of the chairs?'

'No, nothing at all.'

'Franco's people would have picked the place clean. By the way, you're still not being followed, are you?'

'No. Not for weeks now.'

'They must have decided you're too junior.'

God, Harry thought, the things he was keeping from them; and that was nothing to what he was going to do on Saturday. He mustn't think about that, he must stay cool. Key-cold.

'By the way,' Tolhurst said, 'your fiancee needs to come for an interview at the embassy tomorrow. Just for political vetting, to make sure she's not a Franco agent. I can brief you on what she should say.'

'OK. Thanks.'

'The little boy should be OK,' Tolhurst continued, 'but she'll need to prove she's been looking after him.' He looked at Harry with that serious, owlish expression of his.

'She collects his rations, has done for a year and a half.'

He nodded. 'That should do.'

Hillgarth looked between them, nursing his drink. 'You should be grateful to Tolly, Brett. He was over in immigration half yesterday afternoon.'

The doorbell rang again, a sharp peal. For a second all three stood silent, as though gathering their resources. Then Hillgarth said, 'Let him in, Brett.'

Sandy was outside, slouching, smiling. 'Hello, Harry.' He looked over Harry's shoulder. 'They here?'

'Yes. Come on through.'

He led him into the salon. Sandy nodded at Hillgarth and Tolhurst, then looked round the room. 'Nice flat. See you've got some English pictures.'

Hillgarth stepped forward, extending a hand. 'Captain Alan Hillgarth. This is Simon Tolhurst.'

'Pleased to meet you.'

'Drink, Sandy?' Harry asked.

'Whisky, please.' He looked at the bottle on the sideboard. 'Oh, you've got Glenfiddich. I wonder if your supplier's the same as mine. Little black-market place behind the Rastro?'

'Embassy supplies, actually,' Hillgarth said. 'Straight from England. Perk of the job.'

'Home comforts, eh?' Sandy gave Harry his broad smile as he took his drink. Harry squirmed inwardly.

'Shall we sit down?' Hillgarth asked.

'Of course.' Sandy took a seat, offering his silver cigarette case to Hillgarth. 'Smoke?'

'Thanks.' Sandy offered one to Tolhurst. 'I know Harry doesn't,' he said, snapping the case shut. He leaned back in his chair. 'So. What can I do for you?'

'We've been keeping an eye on you, Forsyth,' Hillgarth said smoothly. 'We know about your involvement in the mine out beyond Segovia, we know it's a big project and you've been having trouble with Colonel Maestre's committee. We believe his Monarchist faction want to wrest control of a major resource from the Falangists at the Ministry of Mines.'

Sandy's face went blank, expressionless. He stared at Hillgarth. Harry thought, Sandy will realize the only way you could know all this is through me. Hillgarth could have warned him they were going to dive straight in like this.

'The shares in your company, Nuevas Iniciativas,' Hillgarth went on, looking Sandy in the eye. 'They're going down.'

Sandy leaned forward, tapped the ash from his cigarette carefully into the ashtray, then sat back, raised an eyebrow. 'That's the stock market for you.'

'And of course things must be getting very difficult now Lieutenant Gomez's body has been discovered.'

Sandy's face remained expressionless. He said nothing. It was only a few seconds but it seemed to stretch out for ever. Then he glanced at Tolhurst before returning his gaze to Hillgarth's face.

'You seem very well informed,' he said quietly. 'So Harry has been spying on me? Not my old pal?' He turned slowly and looked at Harry. The large brown eyes were full of sorrow. 'You've been into everything, haven't you?'

'The information's accurate, isn't it?' Hillgarth prompted.

Sandy turned back to him. 'Some of it might be.'

Hillgarth leaned forward. 'Don't play games with me, Forsyth. You're going to need a bolt-hole soon. If the state takes over exploiting the mine you'd be seriously out of pocket. Someone could even decide to prosecute you for Gomez's murder.'

Sandy inclined his head. 'Not my fault if some of the people I work with got carried away.'

'Our information is you set them on to him.'

Sandy didn't reply, he took a long swig of his whisky. Hillgarth leaned back. All the time Tolhurst stared owlishly at Sandy. If it was meant to make him uneasy, it failed he didn't seem to notice.

'All that's beyond our jurisdiction,' Hillgarth went on, waving a hand. 'We're not really interested. The point is, if you are in difficulties, you might consider a change of job. Working for us.'

'What sort of work might that be?'

'Intelligence. We'd get you back to England. But first you'd have to tell us all about the mine. That's what we sent Brett to find out about. How big is it, how near to starting production? Will it give Spain the gold reserves to buy food abroad? At the moment they're dependent on loans from us and the Americans, which gives us a lever.'

Sandy nodded slowly. 'So, if I tell you everything about the mine, you'd get me out?'

'Yes. We'd send you to England, and if you like we'll train you up and get you work somewhere else where your talents might come in useful. Perhaps Latin America. We think it might suit you. It'd be good pay.' Hillgarth leaned forward a little. 'If you're happy to carry on as you are, fine. But if you want to get out, we need to know everything about the mine. Everything.'

'That's a promise?'

'A promise.'

Sandy put his head on one side, swirling the whisky in his glass. Hillgarth went on, his voice steady and slow. 'It's up to you. You can come in with us, or go back to your gold mine. But that's a dangerous game, however profitable it might have looked once.'

To Harry's astonishment, Sandy threw back his head and laughed.

'You've actually been spying on me and you haven't realized. Oh, Jesus. You never twigged.'

'What?' Harry asked, puzzled.

'What?' Sandy mimicked. 'Still a bit deaf, or was that just a cover story?'

'No,' Harry said. 'But what do you mean? Twigged what?'

'There isn't any gold mine,' Sandy said then, quietly but with withering contempt. 'There never was.'

Harry jerked upright. 'But I saw it.'

Sandy looked at Hillgarth, not Harry, as he answered. 'He saw a stretch of land, some equipment and huts. Oh, the land's the type that might bear gold deposits, only there aren't any.' He laughed again and shook his head. 'Have any of you heard of salting?'

'I have,' Hillgarth said. 'You take a sample of the right type of soil and put fine grains of gold in it, to make it look like ore.' His jaw dropped. 'Jesus Christ, is that what you've been doing?'

Sandy nodded. 'That's right.' He took out another cigarette. 'Christ, it's almost worth being betrayed by Brett to see your faces.'

'I've worked in mining myself,' Hillgarth said. 'Salting's a difficult job, you'd need to be a skilled geologist.'

'Quite right. Like my friend Alberto Otero. He worked in South Africa, he told me some of the stunts that have been pulled out there. I suggested it might work in Spain, the government's desperate for gold and the Ministry of Mines is full of Falangists seeking to increase their influence. He scouted out a suitable spot and we bought the land. I already had some useful contacts in the ministry.'

'The man de Salas?' Tolhurst asked.

'Yes, de Salas. He's had a difficult time keeping Maestre at bay. He thinks the mine's real too. He thinks it's going to help Spain be a great Fascist nation.' He turned back to Hillgarth with a smile. 'We use our labs to distribute fine gold dust within the ore, the breccia, then we send it off to the government labs. We've been doing it for six months. They keep demanding more samples and we supply them.'

Hillgarth's eyes narrowed. 'You'd need a fair bit of gold to do that. The black-market price is fantastic. Any sizeable purchases would get talked about.'

'Not if you're on a committee that helps poor benighted Jews escaping from France. They're only able to bring what they can carry and most bring gold. We relieve them of it in return for visas for Lisbon, then Alberto melts it down, turns it into tiny grains. We have as much gold as we need and nobody's any the wiser. The Jews were my idea actually.' He exhaled a cloud of smoke. 'When I heard that French Jews were turning up in Madrid fleeing from the Nazis, I thought I might help them. Harry might not believe it but I felt sorry for them, people who can never seem to do anything right, always sent wandering. But to get visas for them I needed money and all they had was gold. That set me talking to Otero about how gold is always valuable, always makes men's eyes light up. That's where the idea came from.' He smiled at Hillgarth; still he seemed reluctant to look at Harry.

So it was all a trick, Harry thought. All this, the work and the betrayals and Gomez's death, it was all for nothing. Smoke and mirrors.

Hillgarth looked at Sandy for a long moment. Then he laughed, a loud guffaw.

'By Christ, Forsyth, you've been bloody clever. You had everyone fooled.'

Sandy inclined his head.