Bones of the Buried

by David Roberts

  She ignored the question. ‘But you could have had him killed.’

  For the first time since he had broken in on the party, he looked at her as though she was more than a tool to be used. ‘I could have, yes, and I probably would have sooner or later but someone beat me to it. Satisfied?’

  ‘Yes thank you, David.’ She hesitated: ‘Why not come over and talk to Ben? Get him on your side. Give him some titbits of information to send back to the States. Make him feel “in the know”.’

  He thought about it for a moment. ‘I haven’t got the time. I’ll just say goodbye. I leave Belasco to you.’

  They walked back to the table and David was as charming as he could be but, after five minutes, he excused himself, kissed Verity on the cheek and disappeared into the night.

  Belasco shivered. ‘I guess he’s the future but I don’t pretend that young man doesn’t send shivers up my spine. When he walks, I get the feeling he walks over graves.’

  The following day Verity met Rosalía at the station and they travelled together on the little train to San Martino. It seemed so long since she had made the journey with Edward and found Godfrey Tilney’s body. She had an odd feeling that it was more of a pilgrimage than an investigation, or rather a journey of reparation. At that stage, it had not seemed an impossible job to discover the killer but, two months on, they were no nearer finding out who had murdered him and why. The Spanish police were no longer interested, Rosalía confirmed. The last time she had been to the police station to inquire about progress she had been told to go away. They had much more important things to worry about than a man who had twice been killed and twice buried. The police were having to decide whether, in the event of an insurrection, they would side with the elected government or support the army with whom they had close links. It was one of the areas in which David had been most active and he had told Verity that he suspected the Madrid police would stay loyal to the Republic although this might not be the case in other cities.

  The two women, on this occasion properly dressed for the climb, struggled up the mountainside to the cave. The sun was hot and Verity mopped her brow, stopping every fifteen minutes to drink from cupped hands the cold, clear water in the stream which ran beside the path and then became the path along which they had to splash. They reached the cave at about eleven and flung themselves down on the little patch of greensward at its mouth to suck the oranges they had brought with them. They felt sleepy in the sunshine and reluctant to enter the cave. It was only with an effort that they roused themselves.

  ‘I don’t know why we came,’ Verity complained, forgetting that it had been her idea and not Rosalía’s.

  ‘We may find something the police overlooked,’ the Spanish girl replied.

  ‘They seemed an efficient bunch. In any case, it’s two months since we were here. Anybody who wanted to remove anything would have done so already.’

  ‘No sé. Tiene razón. You’re right. I know there’s nothing to be found but still . . . I think we were right to come. I owe it to him to try to revenge his death.’ Rosalía spoke wearily, as if she did not have much faith in her words. She would not admit it, but her lover, who had always been so hard to know and who had been absent from her for long periods, was already fading from her memory. She had no photograph of him and found it hard to recall his features.

  Gingerly they pulled away the curtain of brush and bramble – the stone had not been rolled back in front of the cave when the police left – but to their relief there was no evidence that Tilney had ever been there, alive or dead. There was no smell of decayed flesh – it had been this which Verity had feared most even though she knew that she was being irrational. After so long what could there be to remind her of the horror upon which she and Edward had stumbled? There was nothing now to suggest that a killing had taken place unless it was that the cave was too clean and tidy. The police had been thorough in their examination.

  Disconsolately, the two women began their search, looking in cracks in the walls of the cave and feeling in the sand for hard objects, but there was nothing. ‘I don’t even know what we’re looking for,’ Verity said. They were just about to leave when she caught a glint from something in a niche near the opening. It was a gold ring.

  ‘Rosalía, come over here. See what I’ve found,’ she called excitedly.

  They stared at the plain yellow band in the palm of Verity’s hand. Rosalía took it and turned it over but there was no inscription on it – nothing to indicate if it was a wedding ring or just a keepsake.

  ‘It must have been put there deliberately,’ Verity said. ‘It would hardly have got into that crack in the wall by accident.’

  ‘It’s a woman’s ring,’ said Rosalía, fitting it on her little finger. ‘I have thick fingers lamentablemente and see, it only fits my small finger.’

  It fitted Verity’s middle finger as if it had been made for her. ‘It can’t have been here when the cave was searched by the police,’ she mused. ‘They would certainly have found it. It must have been placed there later on.’

  ‘But there are no foot-marks,’ Rosalía objected. ‘A few animal footprints but no human.’

  ‘Whoever left it must have been careful to cover up their footprints.’

  ‘No entiendo. I do not understand. What is the meaning of the ring?’ Rosalía sounded put out, insulted, as if someone had laid a claim to her man.

  ‘Well, it’s odd, I know, but what if someone had wanted to leave it here for remembrance – like leaving flowers on a grave?’

  ‘Shall we give it to the policía?’

  ‘No, what would be the use? I think I will wear it. Maybe someone will ask me where I got it.’

  ‘But that might be dangerous,’ said Rosalía, alarmed.

  ‘I don’t think so. It’s so anonymous. No one need fear being identified through the ring. There must be hundreds, if not thousands, like it.’

  ‘It is strange. No Spanish woman would have a wedding ring with nothing marked on it – no names, no dates.’

  ‘Well, we shall find nothing else here,’ Verity said. ‘Let’s go back. I feel better somehow for having come here and I have a feeling that the ring is an important clue, but what it means I just don’t know.’

  That evening she had dinner at Chicote’s as usual. No one remarked on the ring she was wearing on her right hand – not even Hester or Ben – and Rosalía had persuaded her that it was safer to make no mention of finding it. Verity had invited Rosalía, who was rather shy with foreigners, to eat with them and was glad she had as they were made to describe their pilgrimage in great detail. Maurice Tate was particularly interested and questioned her closely. Tom Sutton, on the other hand, was distracted and Verity wondered if he had heard news of General Franco’s putative rebellion. Rosalía’s presence made even Ben a little less aggressive than he might otherwise have been; she was in effect ‘the widow’, the only person who seemed to mourn the dead man.

  It was difficult to know why Tilney had been so disliked. Verity concluded that it was probably not so much what he was as what he wasn’t. He was solitary, unclubbable, hardly bothering to conceal his indifference bordering on contempt for expatriates like Hester Lengstrum and Maurice Tate. He had apparently disliked Americans on principle as capitalists and exploiters, so he had nothing to say to Belasco. At least Verity was a communist but, in his eyes, of the wrong sort. He tolerated her and David as necessary allies in the fight against Fascism but that was all. His extreme political views, David once said, made him hate Party members whose views he disagreed with even more than his enemies on the political right.

  ‘He hates Stalin,’ David had explained to Verity, wonderment in his voice, ‘even though Stalin is the true defender of the revolution. He believes Stalin has betrayed Lenin. All nonsense, of course, and dangerous nonsense at that. I’ve warned him dozens of times he will put his life in danger if doesn’t come into line.’

  This was a couple of months before Tilney was killed but it accou
nted for many people’s lack of surprise at his death and why the police had immediately suspected David.

  Rosalía had loved him, that was certain, but Verity thought she might be getting over her loss. Their visit to the cave where he had died might, she thought, complete her mourning and allow her to get on with her life. Joining the Party had obviously helped her. It had in some way made sense of his death. It was sad, she thought, to leave this world, as Tilney had, mourned only by parents with whom he had nothing in common except blood, and a Spanish girl whom, Verity suspected, he had treated with nothing more than the casual affection he might have offered a stray dog which had attached itself to him. After a moment’s thought, however, she decided that Tilney himself would not have cared; he would have thought it bourgeois sentimentality to be mourned. His work for world revolution was the only thing which was important to him and he would have approved of Rosalía’s new political life.

  By midnight, Verity felt tired and drained of energy so she said her goodnights and walked back to the flat alone. Outside in the soft Spanish night, not yet heavy with the heat of full summer, she felt better. Instead of going straight home, she let her feet take her towards the Puerta del Sol which had once been at the edge of the city but was now its hub and from which most of the main thoroughfares radiated. Restaurants were still open and the occasipnal tram rattled by but there were not many pedestrians – a few single men looking for female company and two or three pairs of lovers who had found privacy among the trees which lined the square. Deep in thought, Verity was surprised to be addressed. She looked up to see the anxious face of a working man in his fifties. He was speaking to her but so fast that she could not understand him. At first, the man was annoyed but, when Verity was able to pull herself together sufficiently to explain that she was a foreigner, he looked shocked, lifted his hat and passed on hurriedly.

  It took Verity a minute or two to realise she had been mistaken for a prostitute. What other single woman would be wandering alone in Madrid at this time of night? She blushed at her own foolishness and turned towards home. She thought she might catch a tram but her apartment wasn’t far and she decided it was quicker to walk. She prided herself on how well she knew the city so it was absurd to lose her way, but she did. One moment she was in familiar streets illuminated by the occasional street lamp or bright window and the next she was walking in darkness. After twenty or possibly thirty minutes – she could not tell – she came not to the Gran Vía as she had planned but to the Buen Retiro, two hundred acres of unkempt woodland. She kicked herself for being so stupid and losing her sense of direction. She knew this area could be dangerous at night and a dozen stories of murders and robberies crowded into her mind as she made a great effort not to panic.

  She made herself stand still and take stock of exactly where she was. At last, she realised she was quite near the Prado and felt easier in her mind. However, it was still a full hour of fast walking before she found herself at her apartment. She was feeling exhausted and angry with herself but mightily relieved to be safely home. She wondered if Hester was back from Chicote’s but, as she could see no light, she had either not returned or had gone straight to bed. She tried to unlock the door quietly and did not turn on the light. She did not feel like explaining to Hester how foolish she had been. She was just about to open her bedroom door when she caught a glimpse of a figure with a raised arm beside her – she could not tell whether it was a man or a woman. She opened her mouth to cry out and lifted her own arm to protect herself but, before she could utter a sound, she felt her arm break as she fended off a heavy blow from a stick or club. Then she did let out a cry of pain but a second blow, this time undeflected, made her feel her skull was exploding as she subsided through red into blackness.

  22

  ‘Isn’t it all rather primitive?’ Edward whispered, as he sat down beside the simple iron bedstead.

  ‘No, they’ve looked after me so well. Apart from setting my poor broken arm, they just needed to let me rest.’

  ‘You must have a thick skull.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Verity said, and tried to smile. She was still feeling weak and woozy.

  ‘No, I mean, I should think it’s a great asset for a foreign correspondent. I expect they’re always dodging bullets and falling downstairs – that sort of thing, what?’

  ‘Ass,’ said Verity, affectionately. ‘It was good of you to come. My father says he’s coming sometime but he’s frightfully busy at the moment.’

  ‘Of course I came,’ said Edward, shocked, ‘as soon as I got Joe Weaver’s message.’

  ‘Have you seen Hester?’

  ‘Yes, she said she found you just a few moments after it happened.’

  ‘I don’t remember anything of course . . . just the raised arm . . .’ She shuddered. ‘Hetty thinks my attacker may even have heard her coming and that was why he didn’t finish me off.’

  ‘But he took the ring.’

  ‘Yes, ouch! Sorry, I still get shooting pains in my head but the doctor seems to think they’ll go soon.’

  ‘Forgive me. I shouldn’t be asking questions. I don’t want to tire you.’

  ‘No, it’s lovely to see you.’ She saw Edward look disbelieving. ‘I mean it.’ She smiled and slid a hand from under the blanket. He took it and squeezed it. ‘You make me feel safe.’

  Edward tried to conceal his pleasure. ‘You saw absolutely nothing which might identify your . . . your assailant?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not, except he looked tall, but even that might have been an illusion given that I was cowering below him.’

  ‘Not cowering. I think you were very brave. You realise this alters everything?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘In the first place, no one can attempt to murder someone I love and get away with it.’

  ‘You dope,’ said Verity, feeling tearful and not wanting to admit she had heard the word ‘love’. ‘And in the second place?’

  ‘It wasn’t, obviously, a robbery because your bag wasn’t stolen – just the ring.’

  ‘So whoever left the ring in the cave wanted it back?’

  ‘Yes, but why? A simple, plain ring like the one you described could never be traced back to the owner. It couldn’t be evidence of anything.’

  ‘But someone recognised it and wanted it back badly enough to . . .’

  ‘Yes, it was probably rather foolish of you to wave it round the table at Chicote’s. Did you say where you’d found it?’

  ‘No one asked. No one mentioned it but I had told everyone where I was going.’ She closed her eyes. ‘You think my attacker was at Chicote’s?’ Verity shuddered and looked even paler.

  ‘I’m sorry, Verity,’ Edward said, squeezing her hand again. ‘I know it’s horrible to think one of your friends could have done this but I can’t see how it could be anyone else.’

  ‘But why should they? As you say, it’s not evidence of anything,’ she said weakly.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Edward said, sitting back on the upright chair, which was uncomfortable enough to discourage long visits. ‘I think – and of course it’s just a hunch – someone was infuriated to see that ring on your finger. It was a special ring they had left as some sort of offering.’

  ‘Offering?’ Verity murmured.

  ‘Yes, as one might leave flowers at a graveside.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ Great tears began to roll down her cheeks and Edward was immediately furious with himself. He had upset her when she should be resting peacefully. He looked up and saw a nurse. He tried to find the Spanish for explaining he needed help, but could not. The nurse, a sweet-faced woman in a uniform as clean as any at Guy’s or the Middlesex, gently pushed him to one side to stroke Verity’s forehead.

  ‘She must rest now,’ she said in English. ‘Come back tomorrow. She needs to sleep.’

  Edward wanted to kiss Verity, felt he couldn’t with the nurse present but then did so on the forehead. ‘You’re the dope,’ he whispered. ‘I�
�ll come back tomorrow. I’ve got one or two people to see. I think I’m beginning to get an idea of . . .’

  He stopped speaking. Verity had closed her eyes and seemed to be sleeping. It made him angry to see her like this, very angry. His angular face seemed to sharpen – his eyes narrowed and hooded, his lips thinned and his beak of a nose twitched as if it scented blood. His features took on a startling resemblance to the falcon in the Mersham coat of arms.

  For fifteen days, Edward took turns with Hester to sit by Verity’s bed, often holding her hand. She liked to have her head stroked too. She said it soothed her. Belasco came once while Edward was there; he said hospitals gave him the creeps and it was proof of what he felt for her that he had made himself come at all. Tom Sutton appeared but looked so harassed that Verity found herself comforting him. He had dark circles under his eyes and said the political situation was getting ever more dangerous. The armed forces were reported to be planning violent protests in the streets of Barcelona and Madrid but the government seemed incapable of decisive action.

  The hospital did its best to look after the foreign girl: she had a room to herself so she could rest undisturbed by the continual noise of the long tiled wards which echoed with footsteps, talk and cries of pain. The doctor, young and ridiculously overworked, was brisk but efficient. The nurses were experienced and sympathetic and two of them spoke some English, but there were few medicines – even aspirin was in short supply and the food was uneatable. In any case, Verity insisted that she did not take food away from poor sick people with no friends to minister to them. Whenever a visitor brought her fruit or chocolates, she asked the nurses to distribute them in the wards as soon as they had left. She had very little appetite and both Hester and Edward were worried that she was losing too much weight.

  Maurice came once with his two Spanish boys, who now seemed content to share his favours. He brought books but Verity wasn’t up to reading. Her eyes were still hurting and she had difficulty focusing. Although the pain in her head was easing, she felt deathly tired. She slept a lot, which the doctor said was the only medicine worth taking, but when she was awake she liked being read to and Hester brought along Ben’s story based on Hoden’s death in Kenya. Edward was delighted to see that dissecting the story between them seemed to animate her and help slough off her lethargy. Tom Sutton had offered to have her shipped back to London but she would not hear of it.