'Ay, ingles! Por que no juegues con nosotros?'

'I can't come and play!' Bernie called back cheerfully. 'I've no money!'

'We don't want money! We keep saying, if only the handsome blond would come and play!' The women laughed. Bernie laughed too and turned to Harry. Harry felt uneasy, a little shocked.

'Fancy it?' Bernie asked. They had joked about going with a Spanish prostitute for weeks but it had been bravado, they had done nothing about it.

'No. God, Bernie, you could catch something.'

Bernie grinned at him. 'Scared?' He ran a hand through his thick blond hair, his big bicep flexing.

Harry blushed. 'I don't want to do it with a couple of drunk whores. Besides, it's you they want, not me.' Jealousy flickered inside him as it sometimes did. Bernie had something he lacked: an energy, a daring, a lust for life. It wasn't just his looks.

'They'd've asked you too if you'd been at the balcony.'

'Don't go,' Harry said. 'You could catch something.'

Bernie's eyes were alive with excitement. 'I'm going. Come on. Last chance.' Bernie chuckled, then smiled at him. 'You've got to learn to live, Harry, boy. Learn to live.'

TWO DAYS LATER they left Madrid. Antonio Mera helped them carry their bags to the station.

They changed trams at the Puerta de Toledo. It was mid-afternoon, siesta time, the sunny streets empty. A lorry rolled slowly by, its canvas cover gaily painted, the words 'La Barraca' on its side.

'Lorca's new theatre for the people,' Antonio said. He was a tall dark youth, broad like his father. His lip curled slightly. 'Off to bring Calderon to the peasants.'

'That's a good thing, isn't it?' Harry said. 'I thought education was one thing the Republic had reformed.'

Antonio shrugged. 'They've closed the Jesuit schools, but there aren't enough new ones. The old story, the bourgeois parties won't tax the rich to pay for them.'

A little way off there was a crack, like a car backfiring. The sound was repeated twice, closer. A youth no older than Bernie and Harry ran out of a side street. He wore flannels and a dark shirt, expensive clothes for Carabanchel. His face was terrified, wide-eyed, gleaming with sweat. He tore away down the street, disappearing into an alley.

'Who's that?' Harry asked.

Antonio took a deep breath. 'I wonder. That could be one of Redondo's fascists.'

Two more young men appeared, in vests and workmen's trousers. One held something small and dark in his hand. Harry stared open-mouthed as he realized it was a gun.

'Down there!' Antonio called, pointing to where the youth had fled. 'He went down there!'

'Gracias, compadre!' The boy raised his gun in salute and the two sped away. Harry waited breathlessly for more shots but none came.

'They were going to kill him,' he said in a shocked whisper.

Antonio looked guilty for a moment, then frowned. 'He was from the JONS. We have to stop the Fascists taking root.'

'Who were the others?'

'Communists. They've sworn to stop them. Good luck to them, I say.'

'They're right,' Bernie agreed. 'Fascists are vermin, the lowest of the low.'

'He was just a boy running,' Harry protested. 'He didn't have a gun.'

Antonio laughed bitterly. 'They've got guns all right. But the Spanish workers won't go down like the Italians.'

The tram arrived, the ordinary everyday jingling tram, and they got aboard. Harry studied Antonio. He looked tired; he had another shift at the brickworks tonight. He thought sadly, Bernie's got more in common with him than with me.

HARRY LAY ON the bed, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He remembered how, on the train back, Bernie said he wasn't going back to Cambridge. He'd had enough of living cut off from the real world and was going back to London, where the class struggle was. Harry thought he would change his mind, but he didn't; he didn't return to Cambridge in the autumn. They exchanged letters for a while but Bernie's letters talking about strikes and anti-fascist demonstrations were as alien in their way as Sandy Forsyth's about the dogtracks had been, and after a while that correspondence too petered out.

Harry got up. He felt restless now. He needed to get out of the flat, the silence was getting on his nerves. He washed, changed his shirt, then descended the dank staircase.

The square was still quiet. There was a faint smell he remembered, urine from malfunctioning drains. He thought of the picture on his wall, the romantic veneer it gave to poverty and want. He had been young and naive in 1931, but his attachment to the picture had stayed over the years, the young girl smiling at the gipsy. In 1931 he had thought the scene in the picture would soon be in the past; like Bernie, he had hoped Spain would progress. Yet the Republic had collapsed into chaos, then civil war, and now fascism. Harry circled, pausing at a baker's shop. There was little on display, only a few barras de pan, none of the little sticky cakes the Spaniards loved. Bernie had eaten five one afternoon then had a paella in the evening and been spectacularly sick.

A couple of workmen passed Harry, giving him quick hostile glances. He was conscious of his well-cut jacket, his tie. He noticed a church at the corner of the square; it had been burned out, probably in 1936. The ornate facade still stood but there was no roof; the sky was visible through weed-encrusted windows. A big notice in bright crayon declared that Mass was said at the priest's house next door, and confessions heard. Arriba Espana!, the notice concluded.

Harry had his bearings now. If he headed uphill he should reach the Plaza Mayor. On the way was El Toro, the bar where he and Bernie had met Pedro. A Socialist haunt once. He walked on, his footsteps echoing in the narrow street, a welcome evening breeze cooling him. He was glad he had come out.

El Toro was still there, the sign of a bull's head swinging outside. Harry hesitated a moment then walked in. It had not changed in nine years: bulls' heads mounted on the walls, old black-and-white posters yellow with nicotine and age advertising ancient bullfights. The Socialists had disapproved of bullfighting but the landlord's wine was good and he was a supporter so they had indulged him.

There were only a few patrons, old men in berets. They gave Harry unfriendly stares. The young, energetic landlord Harry remembered, darting to and fro behind his crowded bar, was gone. In his place stood a stocky middle-aged man with a heavy square face. He tipped his head interrogatively. 'Senor?'

Harry ordered a glass of red wine, fishing in his pockets for the unfamiliar coins embossed, like everything else, with the Falangist yoke and arrows. The barman set his drink before him.

'Aleman?' he asked. German?

'No. Ingles.'

The barman raised his eyebrows and turned away. Harry went and sat at a bench. He picked up a discarded copy of Arriba, the Falange newspaper, the thin paper crinkling. On the front page a Spanish border guard shook hands with a German officer on a Pyrenean road. The article spoke of eternal friendship, how the Fuhrer and the Caudillo would decide the future of the Western Mediterranean together. Harry took a sip of the wine; it was harsh as vinegar.

He studied the picture, the breathless celebration of the New Order. He remembered telling Bernie once that he stood for Rookwood values. He had probably sounded pompous. Bernie had laughed impatiently and said Rookwood was a training ground for the capitalist elite. Maybe it was, Harry thought, but it was a better elite than Hitler's. Despite everything, that was still true. He remembered the newsreels he had seen of the things that happened in Germany, elderly Jews cleaning the streets with toothbrushes amidst laughing crowds.

He looked up. The barman was talking quietly to a couple of the old men. They kept glancing at him. Harry forced himself to drain his glass and got up. He called 'Adios,' but there was no reply.

There were more people about now: well-dressed, middle-class office workers making their way home. He passed under an archway and stood in the Plaza Mayor, the centre of old Madrid, of festivals and pronunciamientos. The two big fountains were dry but there were still cafes round the broad square, little tables outside where a scattering of office workers sat with coffees or brandies. Even here, though, the shop windows were half empty, paint flaking from the ancient buildings. Beggars huddled in some of the ornate doorways. A pair of civiles circled.

Harry stood irresolutely, wondering whether to have a coffee. The street lights were starting to come on, weak and white. Harry remembered how easy it was to get lost in the narrow streets, or trip in a pothole. A couple of the beggars had risen and were walking towards him. He turned away.

As he left the square he noticed that a woman walking ahead of him had stopped dead, her back to him: a woman in an expensive-looking white dress, red hair covered with a little hat. He stopped too, astonished. Surely it was Barbara. That was her hair, her walk. The woman began walking again, turning rapidly down a side street, moving quickly, her figure fading to a white blur in the dusk.

Harry ran after her, then stood irresolute at the corner, unsure whether to follow. It couldn't be Barbara, she couldn't still be here. And Barbara would never have worn clothes like that.

Chapter Five.

THAT MORNING BARBARA had woken as usual when the church clock across the road struck seven. She rose from sleep to the heat of Sandy's body beside her, her face resting on his shoulder. She stirred and he made a gentle grunting noise, like a child. Then she remembered and guilt stabbed through her. Today she was meeting Markby's contact; the culmination of all the lies she had told him.

He turned and smiled, eyes heavy with sleep. 'Morning, sweetie-pie.'

'Hello, Sandy.' She brushed a hand gently across his cheek, spiny with stubble.

He sighed. 'Better get up. I've got a meeting at nine.'

'Have a proper breakfast, Sandy. Get Pilar to make you something.'

He rubbed his eyes. 'It's OK, I'll get a coffee on the way.' He leaned over, smiling mischievously. 'I'll leave you to your English breakfast. You can eat all the cornflakes.' He kissed her, his moustache tickling her upper lip, then got up and opened the wardrobe next to his bed. As he stood selecting clothes, Barbara watched the play of muscles in his broad chest and flat, ridged stomach. Sandy did no exercise and ate carelessly; it was a mystery how he kept his figure, but he did. He saw her studying him and smiled, that Clark Gable curl of the mouth to one side.

'Want me to come back to bed?'

'You've got to get off. What is it this morning, the Jews' committee?'

'Yes. There's five new families arrived. With nothing but what they could carry from France.'

'Be careful, Sandy. Don't upset the regime.'

'Franco doesn't mean the anti-Jewish propaganda. He has to keep in with Hitler.'

'I wish you'd let me help. I've so much experience dealing with refugees.'

'It's diplomatic stuff. Not a job for a woman; you know what the Spaniards are like about that.'

She looked at him seriously; felt guilt again. 'It's good work, Sandy. What you're doing.'

He smiled. 'Making up for all my sins. I'll be back late, I've a meeting at the Ministry of Mines all afternoon.' He moved away to his dressing table. At that distance, without her glasses, Sandy's face began to blur. He laid the suit he had chosen over the back of a chair and padded off to the bathroom. She reached for a cigarette and lay smoking, as he splashed about. Sandy returned, shaved and dressed. He came back to the bed and bent to kiss her, his cheeks smooth now.

'All right for some,' he said.

'It's you that taught me to be lazy, Sandy.' Barbara gave a sad half-smile.

'What are you doing today?'

'Nothing much. Thought I might go to the Prado later.' She wondered whether Sandy might notice the slight tremor that came to her voice with the lie, but he only brushed her cheek with his hand before going to the door, his form turning to a blur again.

SHE HAD MET Markby at a dinner they had given three weeks before. Most of the guests were government officials and their wives; when the women left the tables there would be deal-making among the men, perhaps a Falangist song. But there was a journalist as well, Terry Markby, a Daily Express reporter Sandy had met in one of the bars the Falange people frequented. He was a mousy, middle-aged man, his dinner jacket too large for him. He looked ill at ease and Barbara felt sorry for him. She asked what he was working on and he leaned close to her, lowering his voice. He had a heavy Bristol accent.

'Trying to find out about these concentration camps for Republican prisoners. Beaverbrook wouldn't have taken stories like that during the Civil War, but it's different now.'

'I've heard rumours,' she replied guardedly. 'But if anything like that was going on I'm sure the Red Cross would have sniffed it out. I used to work for them, you see. In the Civil War.'

'Did you?' Markby looked at her with surprise. Barbara knew she had been even more gauche and clumsy than usual that evening, had heard the mistakes in her Spanish. When she went to the kitchen to check on Pilar her glasses had misted up and on coming out she had unthinkingly wiped them on her hem, catching a cross look from Sandy.

'Yes, I did,' she replied a little sharply. 'And if a lot of people were missing they'd know.'

'Which side of the lines were you on?'

'Both, at different times.'

'It was a bloody business.'

'It was a civil war, Spaniard against Spaniard. You have to understand that to understand the things that happened here.'

The journalist spoke quietly. On his other side Ines Vilar Cuesta was leading a loud demand from the ladies for nylon stockings.

'A lot of people have been arrested since Franco won. Their families assumed they'd been shot, but a lot were taken to the camps. And there were a lot of prisoners taken in the war, people posted missing believed killed. Franco's using them as forced labour.'

Barbara frowned. She had tried for so long to tell herself that now Franco had won he should be supported in the task of rebuilding Spain. But she found it increasingly hard to shut her eyes to the things that went on; she knew that what the journalist said could have some truth in it.

'Have you evidence?' she asked. 'Who told you?'

He shook his head. 'I'm sorry, I can't say. Can't reveal my sources.' He cast a weary eye round the company. 'Especially not here.'

She hesitated, then lowered her voice to a whisper.

'I knew someone who was listed missing believed killed. Nineteen thirty-seven, at the Jarama. A British International Brigader.'

'Republican side?' Markby raised thin pale eyebrows.

'I never shared his politics. I'm not political. But he's dead,' she added flatly. 'They just never found his body. The Jarama was terrible, thousands dead. Thousands.' Even now, after three years, she felt a sinking in her stomach at the thought of it.

Markby put his head on one side, considering. 'Most foreign prisoners were sent home, I know. But I hear some slipped through the net. If you could give me his name and rank I might be able to find something out. The prisoners of war are kept in a separate camp, out near Cuenca.'

Barbara looked over her guests. The women had rounded on a senior official in the Supply Ministry, insisting he get them nylons. Tonight she was seeing the New Spain at its worst, greedy and corrupt. Sandy, at the head of the table, was smiling at them all, indulgently and sarcastically. That was the confidence public school gave you. It struck her that though he was only thirty-one, in his wing-collared shirt, with his oiled swept-back hair and his moustache, Sandy could have been ten years older. It was a look he cultivated. She turned back to Markby, taking a deep breath.

'There's no point. Bernie's dead.'

'Yes, if he was at the Jarama it's very unlikely he'd have survived. Still, you never know. Do no harm to try.' He smiled at her. He was right, Barbara thought, even the faintest chance.

'His name was Bernard Piper,' she said quickly. 'He was a private. But don't-'

'What?'

'Raise false hopes.'

He studied her, a journalist's searching look. 'I wouldn't want to do that, Mrs Forsyth. It's only the slimmest chance. But worth a look.'

She nodded. Markby surveyed the company, the dinner jackets and couturier dresses interspersed with military uniforms, then turned that keen evaluating gaze back to Barbara. 'You're moving in different circles now.'

'I was sent to work in the Nationalist zone after Bernie after he disappeared. I met Sandy there.'

Markby nodded at the company. 'Your husband's friends might not like you sniffing after a prisoner of war.'

She hesitated. 'No.'

Markby smiled reassuringly. 'Leave it with me. I'll see if I can find anything out. Entre nous.'