At the beginning, she had admired Belasco and felt safe in his company, delighted that this distinguished writer had chosen her as his muse rather than, say, Hester who, on the face of it, was much more his ‘type’. It did not take her long to find out his faults. For instance, when he wanted to be, Belasco was a brilliant raconteur but there came a time when she began to find his story-telling tiresome. It wasn’t just that he repeated himself. To put it bluntly, she discovered he was a liar. An American journalist passing through Madrid had told her he had spent less than a month in the front line during the war and had spent most of the year he had lived in France not in the muddy, insalubrious trenches he had described so vividly in his book, but in Paris in the luxury of the Hotel Crillon. She had disbelieved the journalist at first but in the end he had convinced her that it was Belasco who was lying. It was odd really because one of his favourite words of condemnation was ‘shonky’, Yiddish for phoney.
It was not that he was a coward; far from it. She had seen with her own eyes that he had courage. He had insisted on taking her to a bullfight – he was writing a book on the subject – and for a week before had regaled her with stories of death and glory in the dust and heat of the arena. Hester had said to him – in Verity’s presence – that he ought to call his book ‘Bullshit’, but he didn’t seem to mind.
He was mad about the colour and frenzy of the bullring. On the day when they elbowed their way through the crowd into the Plaza de Toros, he had been almost beside himself with excitement. The smell of the people, the animals, the dirt in the arena, intoxicated him. ‘It’s not a sport, V, because the bull can never win. It’s a tragedy, a ritual,’ he shouted to her above the roar of the crowd.
She watched him getting ever more feverish as the bullfight progressed, ecstatic with the brutalism of the sight, almost as though he was on drugs. When a particularly ferocious bull had beaten down one of the wooden barricades protecting the onlookers, he alone had not run away but had helped the toreadors and the matadors chase the maddened animal back into the ring. He had returned to Verity, hot, sweaty and triumphant. Verity suppressed the thought that it might have been more chivalrous if he had remained beside her instead of dashing off to chase bulls. The event had been the basis of one of her most successful pieces for the New Gazette and Lord Weaver had himself wired her his congratulations. It was a secret that Belasco had helped her write the article and, in doing so, taught her how to select just the right word and ‘tweak’ the facts, as he put it, to give life and colour to a piece of reportage.
Belasco, she now knew, was a liar, a braggart and a bully but she was fascinated by him despite herself. For one thing he was a famous writer, and for another he was so ugly. Once when she had half-heartedly asked him why he felt he needed to lie about his experiences when he had in truth done so much more than most men, he answered her with unexpected seriousness: ‘A man is what he hides. A writer’s job is to tell the truth and his standard of fidelity to the truth should be so high that his invention out of his experience should produce a truer account than anything factual can be.’ He added after a pause: ‘What I invent is truer than what I remember.’ And on another occasion, when Maurice Tate asked Belasco why he liked to live the life he did – big-game hunting, getting caught up in wars which were none of his business, drinking too much and getting into fights – he said, ‘I want to be remembered not as a man who has fought in wars, not a bar-room fighter, not a shooter, not a drinker but as a writer.’ It made sense to Verity that he should see his life as ‘copy’.
They did not live together – that would have destroyed her reputation – but she spent most of the time at his rather grand apartment near the Plaza Mayor, writing or making love. He was a good lover, if rather brisk. She sometimes wished the men she took to bed were a little more tender. Neither David nor Belasco went in for tenderness and Belasco, once he had had his orgasm, could not remain in bed another moment. Verity suspected that Edward might be a more imaginative and considerate lover but she reminded herself that could never be – for so many reasons.
Then when David was arrested and, to her amazement, condemned for a murder she knew he had not committed, she realised that Belasco, Tate, Tom Sutton, even Hester, were useless. Not one of them would lift a finger to stop him being executed. As though waking from a nightmare, she suddenly realised what she must do. She had to get hold of Edward; only he could help. That he might not wish to help was not something she ever let herself consider. She was confident that, if she could only appeal to him face to face, he would. She discovered, after wiring Lord Weaver, that Edward was due back in London within the week and determined she would be knocking at his door at eight the morning after his arrival. And now here he was, tired and out of place among the people she now called her friends, but somehow, for the first time in weeks, she felt able to relax. Lord Edward Corinth, class enemy, ineffectual member of a dying caste, was here in Madrid and she felt safe. How mysterious.
7
Tom Sutton was no fool. He looked at Edward through narrowed eyes and said, ‘So he told you what he wouldn’t tell anyone else. I wonder why? I thought you were sworn enemies.’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Edward mildly. ‘I don’t approve of his politics and, as far as he’s concerned, I represent everything he hates most about the English class system.’
‘And that makes for confidences, eh?’ said Sutton drily.
‘It’s quite simple really. David knows – or thinks he knows – that Godfrey Tilney is not dead. There was some sort of arrangement between them which made it necessary for Tilney to disappear. Either through a series of accidents or as a result of someone’s deliberate malice, he found himself accused and then convicted of Tilney’s murder, but all along David – who’s a pretty cool customer as you know – was expecting Tilney to reappear like a jack-in-the-box and apologise for causing inconvenience. David would then brush the dust off his shirt cuffs and walk out of the gaol a free man.’
‘But Tilney has not appeared.’
‘Quite and, understandably, David is getting anxious.’
‘Who was he, by the way – the man buried in Tilney’s place?’
‘A disgruntled Spanish Republican who did not like the way David and Godfrey Tilney were going about buying arms for the government.’
‘I thought that must be it,’ Sutton said. ‘David Griffiths-Jones is a ruthless man and if he decides something has to happen – then that’s the way it does happen. Who murdered this unfortunate Spaniard, then?’
‘Oh, from what David says, it doesn’t sound like murder – more like a knife fight which went wrong – and, if we are to believe David, it was actually Tilney who killed the man.’
‘But it was David’s knife which was found by the body.’
‘Yes, he says it either fell out of his pocket when he and Tilney tipped the body over the cliff, or someone added it to the body later.’
‘I see,’ said Sutton meditatively. ‘And you believe him?’
‘I do,’ Edward said, almost in surprise. ‘At least, I think I do.’
‘And how does he account for his ring being found on the corpse? It fell off his finger, I suppose.’
‘He can’t explain it.’
‘That almost convinces me he’s innocent. Bluff, double-bluff . . . I don’t understand what he’s playing at. So, what are you going to do, exhume the body? I rather doubt the powers-that-be will permit it without some hard evidence. They’ll just dismiss his story as a desperate man’s attempt to stave off execution. After all, it’s rather late in the day for David to say the man he identified as Tilney wasn’t him.’
‘Quite and, as I understand it from David, after being tipped over a cliff the body was beyond easy identification.’
‘So?’
‘So, I have to find Tilney.’
‘I still think Tilney’s dead.’
‘There was no point in David telling me this tale if it isn’t true. I’ve got to assume that. I
must find Tilney and bring him back to Madrid.’
Sutton was silent. Edward had the feeling he would not be an easy man to know. Superficially, he was a perfect specimen of the imperial Englishman. He ought to be ruling some outpost of the empire in Africa or Asia. His short-cut hair, healthy complexion, firm chin and bright hazel eyes made him appear younger than perhaps he was. Edward guessed he was about his own age – thirty-five or six. But was the real Tom Sutton as frank and straightforward as he seemed to want people to believe? When Edward had arrived for his appointment, after visiting Griffiths-Jones, he had immediately been ushered up to the second floor by a uniformed porter whose considerable physique and muscular forearms suggested he also doubled as ‘security’. He had knocked on a door with a label identifying the occupant as ‘cultural attaché’. Sutton had peered out cautiously and then – having established who his visitor was – had dismissed the porter with a nod. It was not a large office and it was sparsely furnished – a simple desk, battered wooden armchair behind it and two uncomfortable visitors’ chairs, as though Sutton did not wish to encourage visitors to stay longer than was strictly necessary. There was only one window and that was wide open. The room was very cold. Unless he had been trying to disguise the smell of an illicit cigarette, the man was a fresh air fiend.
‘Well, I’m glad you told me all this,’ he said at last.
‘David did tell me not to,’ Edward said a trifle defensively, ‘but I assume you will keep it confidential.’
‘Oh, yes . . . yes,’ Sutton said distractedly, standing up and looking out of the window down on to Calle Fernando el Santo, the busy street in which the embassy was situated. ‘I knew most of it anyway.’
‘As cultural attaché, you mean?’ asked Edward innocently.
Sutton had the grace to smile a little sheepishly.
‘As you have been so open with me, Corinth, I won’t disguise from you that I do have – as do all of us in the embassy – a responsibility to keep my eyes and ears open. You’ve only been here a few hours but I expect you realise how complicated and how fluid the political situation is in Spain. We do our best but I doubt if even the President of the Republic has a clear picture of the situation. But, between ourselves, it is the communists who we have to watch closest. Civil war might just suit their book and, if they possibly can, they’ll drag us in to support them.’
‘Why would it suit their book to have civil war?’
‘Oh, because if the Popular Front – the legitimate, democratically elected government – wins, you can bet your bottom dollar the Communist Party – that is the Stalinists – will end up in control of the government. They’re the only ones with the single-mindedness, the iron determination, to lead the ragbag of left-wing parties to victory.’
‘And if they lose?’
‘If they lose, they will have lit the fuse which will ignite a European war.’ Sutton looked very grave. ‘Find Tilney and for God’s sake find out what’s going on, Corinth.’
As Sutton was showing Edward out of the building, he said, ‘Basil told me you were a friend of poor Makepeace Hoden’s.’
‘Not a friend. We were at school together but he was older than me and in a different house.’
‘But you knew him?’
‘By sight, and he was a member of my club.’
‘Brooks’s?’
‘Yes, you seem to h ave done your homework. Thoroughgood said you had been in Nairobi at the time Hoden was killed. It was a shooting accident, wasn’t it? On safari.’
‘So I believe. Well, here we are. Good luck, Corinth.’ Tom Sutton had the firm handshake of a man you could trust so it was odd that Edward didn’t trust him . . . not for a minute. ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do and I rely on you to keep me informed of anything you uncover. Are you going to see the police – Capitán Gonzales?’
‘I was hoping to,’ Edward replied, ‘but, when I telephoned, I was told he is not in the city at the moment so it will have to wait. To be honest with you, I’m rather relieved. I fancy he might not relish someone like me asking awkward questions.’
‘Hmm, perhaps so, but he’s a good chap. I think he will listen to what you have to say patiently enough.’
‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ said Verity. Edward was seated in Hester’s and Verity’s comfortable apartment discussing the situation. ‘I didn’t know Godfrey Tilney well – hardly knew him at all in fact – but can he really be so . . . so wicked as to let his parents think he is dead, let them “bury” him – knowing what it must do to them – and let a friend or at least a compatriot be executed for his murder?’
‘Perhaps he is being held prisoner,’ Hester said.
‘By the Fascists, you mean?’
‘By whoever. Tilney and David had – have – many political enemies,’ Hester pointed out.
‘Or perhaps he had to disappear and the funeral announcing his death to the world was just what he wanted,’ Edward suggested. ‘I don’t think speculation is going to help us understand what happened. Our only hope is to find Tilney’s girlfriend. David said her name was . . .’ He looked at a piece of paper on which he had made notes. ‘Yes, here it is: Señorita Rosalía Salas. David did not have an address for her – apparently, he did not let her mix with “foreigners”. I get the impression Tilney was one of those people who kept his acquaintances in different boxes quite separate from each other.’
‘So, how do we find her?’ Verity said.
‘No problem! I got Tom Sutton to look up her address. It didn’t seem to be difficult. She lives at . . .’ he squinted at the paper again, ‘16 Calle San Fernando. Do you know where that is?’
‘Yes, it’s up by the Plaza de Toros – the bullring – on the east of the city. Did I tell you Ben took me to a bullfight?’
‘Did he perform himself?’ Edward asked a little spitefully.
‘He did as a matter of fact,’ she said with a laugh.
‘Well,’ he said, feigning indifference, ‘what shall we do? Shall we go there now? I suppose we can’t telephone or anything.’
Verity laughed again. ‘You’re damn right we can’t. The one thing I have learnt about this place is the telephone system hardly exists. If you want to, you can always find a boy on the street to take a message but I think it’s best just to go. I mean, she has kept very quiet. I don’t know what she looks like even, and I never heard she went to the trial.’
‘Did she go to Tilney’s “funeral”?’
‘She may have done but I don’t think so. I certainly don’t remember any weeping girl and I’m sure someone would have pointed her out to me if she had been there.’
‘Perhaps she wasn’t there because she knew it was all a show and he was still alive and walking,’ suggested Hester.
‘ “Kicking”,’ Verity automatically corrected her.
‘But if she were in on the deception, wouldn’t Tilney have wanted her to go to bolster the whole image – you know, grieving widow, that sort of thing?’ Edward said.
‘Maybe she was plain scared. I mean, I can’t see any sane Spaniard wanting to get involved in the tangled world of Republican politics, especially if she believed her lover was murdered in some political in-fighting.’ Hester drew on a cigarette and offered one to Edward.
‘I think I had better go alone,’ Edward said thoughtfully, lighting his cigarette. ‘She might be frightened by a crowd.’
‘Crowd?’ repeated Verity indignantly. ‘If you think you are going without me, forget it.’ She crossed her arms in front of her like an angry child and Edward could not help smiling.
‘And stop smirking, ratbag,’ she said, smiling herself.
‘Ratbag?’ Edward inquired. ‘That sounds like one of Belasco’s. Am I right?’
Verity blushed, and Hester said hurriedly, ‘And I’m going to be your chauffeur. So let’s get cookin’.’
Calle San Fernando proved to be a narrow street close, as Verity had said, to the bullring. It was quiet enough on a weekda
y morning but Edward guessed it could get lively, not to say crowded, when there was a bullfight. Hester brought the Hispano to a stop in front of a substantial building which must once have been a family house but was now divided into apartments. Immediately the car came to a halt, a crowd of small boys surrounded it, expressing awe and derision in equal measure. Edward chose the fiercest-looking of the little urchins and gave him a handful of small change. ‘Verity, tell this child if the car is in one piece when we come back, he gets the same again and a ride across town.’
When Verity had conveyed this in her still less than fluent Spanish, there was much nodding and serious looks among the children punctuated by ‘Si señor, señora’ and ‘No se preocupe’ from a child who looked like a pirate.
They were in luck. They walked up a flight of stone stairs to find, stamped on a stout oak door, the name ‘Salas’ unadorned by any initials or first name. Edward knocked and, after a few seconds, the door was opened a few inches and a voice deep enough to be a man’s but, for all that, very much a woman’s, demanded, in Spanish, to know who was there.
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