Luis shifted in his seat again. He coughed. 'You live in National Spain, I am told you are married to a man with friends in the government. Yet you are looking for a Communist from the war. Forgive me, but this seems strange.'

'I worked for the Red Cross, we were a neutral organization.'

He gave a quick bitter smile. 'You were fortunate. No Spaniard has been able to be neutral for a long time.' He studied her. 'So, you are not an opponent of the New Spain.'

'No. General Franco won and that's that. Britain isn't at war with Spain.' Not yet, anyway, she thought.

'Forgive me.' Luis spread his hands, suddenly apologetic. 'Only I have to protect my own position, I have to be careful. Your husband knows nothing of your search?'

'No.'

'Please keep it so, senora. If your enquiries became known, they could bring trouble.'

'I know.' Her heart was starting to thump with excitement. If he had no information he wouldn't be this wary, this careful. But what did he know? Where had Markby found him?

Luis eyed her intently again. 'Say you were to find this man, Senora Forsyth. What would you wish to do?'

'I'd want to see him repatriated. As he was a prisoner of war he should be returned home. That's what the Geneva Conventions say.'

He shrugged. 'That is not how the Generalisimo sees things. He would not like the suggestion that a man who came to our country to make war on Spaniards should simply be sent home. And if it were to be publicly suggested there were still foreign prisoners of war in Spain, such prisoners might disappear. You understand?'

She looked at him, meeting his eyes. Deep-set, unreadable. 'What do you know?' she asked.

He leaned forward. A harsh meaty smell came from his mouth. Barbara forced herself not to recoil.

'My family is from Sevilla,' he said. 'When Franco's rebels took the city my brother and I were conscripted and spent three years fighting the Reds. After the victory, part of the army was disbanded, but some of us had to stay on and Agustin and I were assigned to guard duties at a camp near Cuenca. You know where that is?'

'Markby mentioned it. Out towards Aragon, isn't it?'

Luis nodded. 'That's right. Where the famous "hanging houses" are.'

'The what?'

'There are ancient houses built right on the edge of the gorge that runs beside the city, so that they seem to hang over it. Some find them beautiful.' He sighed. 'Cuenca is high on the meseta you boil in summer and freeze in winter. This is the only time of year it is bearable, frost and snow will come soon. I had two winters up there and, believe me, that was enough.'

'What is it like? The camp?'

He shifted uneasily again, lowered his voice to a whisper. 'A labour camp. One of the camps that does not officially exist. This one was for Republican prisoners of war. About eight kilometres from Cuenca, up in the Tierra Muerta. The dead land.'

'The what?'

'An area of bare hills below the Valdemeca mountains. That is what it is called.'

'How many prisoners?'

He shrugged. 'Five hundred or so.'

'Foreigners?'

'A few. Poles, Germans, people whose countries do not want them back.'

She met his gaze firmly. 'How did Senor Markby find you? When did you tell him this?'

Luis hesitated, scratched his stubbly cheeks. 'I am sorry, senora, I cannot tell you. Only that we unemployed veterans have our meeting places, and some people have contacts the government would not like them to have.'

'With foreign journalists? Selling stories?'

'I can say no more.' He looked genuinely sorry, very young again.

She nodded, took a deep breath, felt a catch in her throat. 'What were conditions like in the camp?'

He shook his head. 'Not good. Wooden huts surrounded by barbed wire. You have to understand; these people will never be freed. They work the stone quarries and repair the roads. There is not much food. A lot die. The government wants them to die.'

She made herself stay calm. She must treat this as though Luis was a foreign official talking about a refugee camp she needed information on. She produced a pack of cigarettes and offered it to him.

'English cigarettes?' Luis lit one and savoured the smoke, closing his eyes. When he looked at her again his face expression was hard, serious.

'Was your brigadista strong, Senora Forsyth?'

'Yes, he was. A strong man.'

'Only the strong ones survive.'

She felt tears coming, blinked them away. This was the sort of thing he would say if he was deceiving her, trying to appeal to her emotions. Yet his story seemed to have the ring of truth. She fumbled in her handbag and slid Bernie's photograph across the table. Luis studied it a moment, then shook his head.

'I do not remember that face, but he would not look like that now. We were not supposed to talk with the prisoners, apart from giving them orders. They thought their ideas might contaminate us.' He gave her a long stare. 'But we used to admire them, we soldiers, the way they kept going somehow.'

There was silence for a moment. The smoke from their cigarettes curled up, wreathing round an ancient fan that hung from the ceiling, broken and unmoving.

'You don't remember the name Bernie Piper?'

He shook his head, looked again at the photograph. 'I remember a fair-haired foreigner who was one of the Communists. Most of the English prisoners were returned your government tried to get them back. But a few who were listed as missing ended up in Cuenca.' He pushed the picture back across the table. 'I was given my discharge this spring, but my brother stayed on.' He looked at her meaningfully. 'He can get information if I ask. I would need to visit him, letters are censored.' He paused.

She asked him straight out. 'How much will it take?'

Luis smiled sadly. 'You are direct, senora. I think for three hundred pesetas Agustin could say whether this man was a prisoner at the camp or not.'

Three hundred. Barbara swallowed, but allowed nothing to show on her face. 'How long would it take? I need to know soon. If Spain comes into the war, I'll have to leave.'

He nodded, suddenly business-like. 'Give me a week. I will visit Agustin next weekend. But I will need some money now, an advance.' She raised her eyebrows and Luis reddened suddenly, looking embarrassed. 'I have no money for the train.'

'Oh. I see.'

'I will need fifty pesetas. No, don't take your purse out here, give it to me outside.'

Barbara glanced across to the bar. The crippled man and his friend were deep in conversation, the landlady serving a new customer, but she sensed that all of them were aware of her presence. She took a deep breath.

'If Bernie is there, what then? You couldn't get him out.'

Luis shrugged. 'That might be possible. But very difficult.' He paused. 'Very expensive.'

So here it was. Barbara stared back at him, realizing he might know nothing, might have told Markby what he wanted to hear and be telling the same to this rich Englishwoman.

'How much?' she asked.

He shook his head. 'One step at a time, senora. Let us try and see if it is him first.'

She nodded. 'It is about money for you, yes? We should know where we are.'

Luis frowned a little. 'You are not poor,' he observed.

'I can get money. Some.'

'I am poor. Like everyone in Spain now. Do you know how old I was when I was conscripted? Eighteen. I lost my best years.' He spoke with bitterness, then sighed and looked down at the table for a moment before meeting her gaze again. 'I have had no work since I left the army in the spring, a bit of labour on the roads that pays nothing. My mother in Sevilla is ill and I can do nothing to help her. If I am to help you, senora, find information it is dangerous to find, then ' He set his lips hard, looked at her defiantly.

'All right,' she said quickly, her tone conciliatory. 'If you can find what Agustin knows, I'll give you what you ask. I'll get it somehow.' She could probably get three hundred easily, but it was better not to let him know that.

Luis nodded. His eyes roved round the bar, through the window to the darkening street. He leaned forward again. 'I will go to Cuenca this weekend. I will meet you here in a week's time, at five.' He got up, bowing slightly to her. Barbara saw his jacket had a big hole at the elbow.

Outside he shook her hand again and she passed him fifty pesetas. Walking away, she fingered Bernie's photo. But she mustn't hope for too much, she must be careful. Her mind went round and round. For Bernie to have survived while thousands died and for Markby to have found a clue to him would be a big coincidence. Yet if Markby had ferreted out that all the foreigners went to Cuenca, and then looked for a guard from there ... all that would need was money and contacts among the thousands of discharged soldiers in Madrid. She must contact Markby again, question him. And if Luis said Bernie was alive, she could go and make a stink at the embassy. Or could she? They said the embassy was desperate to keep Franco out of the war. She remembered what Luis had said about prisoners disappearing if there were unwelcome enquiries.

She crossed the Plaza Mayor, walking quickly to reach the Centro before dark. Then she stopped dead. The Civil War had ended in April 1939. If Luis had left the army this spring, 1940, he could not possibly have passed two winters in the camp.

Chapter Six.

IT HAD BEEN RAINING solidly for twenty-four hours, a heavy soaking rain that fell vertically from a windless sky, swishing and gurgling on the cobbles. It was colder, too; Harry had found a winter eiderdown at the flat and spread it out over the big double bed.

That morning he was due to visit the Trade Ministry with Hillgarth, his first outing in his interpreter's role. He was glad to be doing something at last.

They had integrated him into embassy life. The head of the translation section, Weaver, had tested his Spanish in his office. He was very tall, thin, with a patrician air. 'All righty,' he said in languid tones after talking with Harry for half an hour. 'You'll do.'

'Thank you, sir,' Harry said tonelessly. Weaver's haughty effeteness annoyed him.

Weaver sighed. 'The ambassador doesn't really like Hillgarth's people getting involved with the regular work, but there we are.' He looked at Harry as though he were some strange exotic animal.

'Yes, sir,' Harry replied.

'I'll show you to your room. There are some press releases come in that you can start working on.'

He had taken Harry to a little office. A battered desk took up most of the space, press releases in Spanish stacked on the blotter. They came in regularly and for the next three days Harry was busy. He saw nothing of Hillgarth, though Tolhurst dropped in occasionally to see how he was doing.

He liked Tolhurst, his self-deprecation and his ironic comments, but he hadn't taken to most of the embassy staff. They affected a contempt for the Spaniards; the bleak poverty Harry had seen had depressed him but it seemed to amuse some of the embassy people. Most food shops in Madrid had 'No hay ...' signs outside. 'We have no ... potatoes, lettuce, apples ...' Yesterday in the canteen Harry had overheard two of the cultural attache's staff laughing about there still being no hay for the poor donkeys and had felt an unexpected anger. Under the callousness, though, Harry sensed the fear that Franco would join the war. Each day everyone scoured the papers. At the moment Himmler's visit was the focus of everyone's anxiety: was he coming just to discuss security issues, as the press said, or was it something more?

Hillgarth picked him up from his flat at ten in a big American car, a Packard, driven by an English chauffeur, a thickset Cockney. Harry had put on his morning suit, the trousers carefully screwed into the press overnight; Hillgarth wore his captain's uniform again.

'We're going to see the junior trade minister, General Maestre,' Hillgarth said, squinting into the rain. 'I'm confirming which oil ships the navy's allowing in. And I want to ask him about Carceller, the new minister.' He drummed his fingers on the armrest for a moment, looking thoughtful. The day before, a series of cabinet changes had been announced; Harry had translated the press releases. The changes favoured the Falange; Franco's brother-in-law Serrano Suner had been made Foreign Minister.

'Maestre's all right,' Hillgarth continued. 'One of the old school. Cousin of a duke.'

Harry looked through the window. People walked by, hunched against the rain, workmen in their overalls and women in the ubiquitous black, shawls drawn over their heads. They did not hurry; they were soaked already. Umbrellas, Tolhurst had told him, were impossible to get even on the black market. As they passed a baker's shop, Harry saw a crowd of black-shawled women standing in the rain. Many had thin children with them and Harry saw, here and there through the smears of rain, the bloated gas-filled stomachs of malnutrition. The women crowded round the door, banging and shouting at someone within.

Hillgarth grunted. 'There've been rumours of potatoes coming in. He's probably got some, saving them for the black market. The supply agency's offering the potato farmers so little they won't sell. That's so the Junta de Abastos can take their cut before they sell on.'

'And Franco allows it?'

'He can't stop it. The junta's a Falange organization. It's a bloody disaster; it's rotten with corruption. They'll have a famine on their hands if they're not careful. But that's what happens with revolutions, the scum always rises to the top.'

They passed the parliament building, shuttered and empty, and turned into the Trade Ministry courtyard. A civil waved them through the gate. 'Is this a revolution?' Harry asked. 'It seems more like I don't know decay.'

'Oh, it's a revolution all right, for the Falangists anyway. They want a state like Hitler's. You should see some of the people we have to deal with. Make your hair stand on end. Make the books I used to write seem tame.'

IN A WOOD-PANELLED office under a huge portrait of Franco, a man in a general's uniform, the creases immaculate, stood waiting for them. He was in his early fifties, tall and fit-looking. He had a tanned face from which clear brown eyes shone. Thinning black hair was brushed carefully across the crown of his head to hide his baldness. A younger man in morning dress stood beside him, his face expressionless.

The officer smiled and shook Hillgarth's hand warmly. He spoke to him in Spanish, in a clear rich voice. His younger colleague translated.

'My dear captain, a pleasure to see you.'

'And you, general. I think we can give you the certificates today.' Hillgarth glanced at Harry, who repeated his words in Spanish.

'Very good. The matter should be settled.' Maestre gave Harry a courtly smile. 'You have a new translator, I see. Senor Greene is not incapacitated, I hope.'

'Had to go home. Family problems, compassionate leave.'

General Maestre nodded. 'Oh, I am sorry to hear it. I hope his family have not been bombed.'

'No. Private problems.'

They took their places round the desk. Hillgarth opened his briefcase and produced the certificates that would allow specified oil tankers to be escorted in by the Royal Navy. Hillgarth and Maestre went through them, checking dates and routes and tonnage. Harry translated Hillgarth's words into Spanish and the young Spaniard translated Maestre's replies into English. Harry was unsure of one or two technical terms, but Maestre's manner was friendly and polite. Maestre wasn't what Harry had expected one of Franco's ministers to be like.

At length Maestre gathered the papers together, sighing theatrically.

'Ah, captain. If you knew how angry it makes some of my colleagues, Spain having to ask permission from the Royal Navy to import necessities. It insults our pride, you know.'

'England's at war, sir; we have to be sure anything imported by a neutral is not sold on to Germany.'

The general held the certificates out to his translator. 'Fernando, have these taken across to the Navy Ministry.' The young man seemed to hesitate a moment, but Maestre raised his eyebrows at him and he bowed and left the room. The general relaxed at once, producing a cigarette case and offering it round.

'That's got rid of him,' he said in perfect English. Harry's eyes widened. The general smiled. 'Oh yes, Mr Brett, I speak English. I studied at Cambridge. That young man is there to see I don't say anything I shouldn't. One of Serrano Suner's men. The captain knows what I mean.'

'All too well, Minister. Brett here studied at Cambridge too.'

'Did you?' Maestre looked at him with interest, then smiled reflectively. 'During the Civil War, when we were fighting the Reds on the meseta, amidst the heat and flies I would often think of my days at Cambridge: the cool river, the magnificent gardens, everything so peaceful and stately. You need such things in war to keep you sane. What college were you at?'