by C. J. Sansom
‘As we were leaving, the watchman came out to open the gate and I recognized him. It was a man called Gomez. He works for Maestre; remember, we met him at the party?’
‘Yes, his old batman, or something.’
‘I didn’t think, I said hello. He acknowledged me but I could see he was terrified.’
‘Hell. How did Forsyth respond?’
‘He was on to it straight away, asked me where I’d met Gomez.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry, Simon, I – I was on the spot, I couldn’t think of a lie. I said he’d worked for Maestre, I said perhaps he’d been sacked. It was all I could think of.’
‘Damn.’ Tolhurst picked up a pencil, and turned it over and over in his hands. Harry felt furious with himself, horrified by the thought of what the consequences of his slip might be for Gomez. ‘I could see Sandy was worried. He stopped in a village, said he had to make a phone call. He looked grim when he came out. I think he was ringing Otero. Simon, how is Maestre mixed up in all this?’
Tolhurst bit his lip. ‘I don’t know, but he’s mixed up in most of the Monarchist-Falange battles. We knew he was on the committee dealing with the gold mine but the captain hasn’t been able to get anything out of him. He’s close-mouthed where what he sees as Spain’s national interests are concerned.’
So the Knights of St George will only take you so far, Harry thought.
‘You shouldn’t have blurted out hello to someone you knew worked for him,’ Tolhurst said sharply. ‘You should have guessed he might be undercover.’
‘I haven’t had to think fast on my feet like that before. I’m sorry. I was concentrating so much on the site, trying to seem like a bona fide investor.’
Tolhurst put the pencil down. ‘Forsyth will realize Maestre wouldn’t just sack an ex-batman he allowed to be a chaperone for his daughter. Christ, Harry, this is a balls-up.’ He put both hands on the table and lifted himself up reluctantly. ‘I’m going to have to tell the captain. He’s with Sir Sam, there’s a diplomatic bag going tonight. You wait here.’
He left, leaving Harry staring miserably out of the window. A pedlar rode a little donkey down the street, his feet almost touching the ground on either side. Heavy bundles of wood were strapped to its back. Harry wondered at the load the small beasts were made to carry; you would think its spine would break.
Rapid footsteps sounded outside. Harry stood up as Tolhurst held the door open for Hillgarth to enter, his face grim. He was followed by the ambassador. Hoare’s thin face was red with anger. He threw himself into Tolhurst’s chair, glowering.
‘You bloody fool, Brett,’ Hillgarth began. ‘What possessed you?’
‘I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t know that Maestre—’
Hoare addressed Hillgarth in tones that cut like a knife. ‘Alan, I warned you this operation was risky. I’ve always said, no covert operations, we should be gathering intelligence, nothing else. We’re not the bloody SOE. But oh no, you and Winston had to have your adventures! Now we could have compromised relations with the whole Monarchist faction thanks to this idiot.’ He waved at Harry as though flicking away a troublesome insect.
‘Come on, Sam, Maestre should have told us if he was running his own show.’
‘Why should he? Why? It’s his bloody country. Why shouldn’t he put a spy into a Falange-controlled project?’ Hoare put a hand, shaking with fury, to his brow. ‘Maestre’s one of our best sources. I’ve sweated blood this last five months to convince the Monarchists we have common interests, England’s not a threat to them. I’ve tried to persuade Winston to make friendly noises about Gibraltar and expel Negrín’s rabble. You know what else I’ve done too. And now they’ll find out we’re running a covert operation, one that clashes with one of theirs, despite all my promises of support.’
‘If something happens to this Gomez,’ Hillgarth said, ‘there’s no connection to us.’
‘Don’t be a fool! If Maestre’s had a man on site he’ll have been nosing about their papers. That’s the first thing he’d do. And what if there’s a note about a potential investor in this project called H. Brett Esquire, translator in His Majesty’s Diplomatic Service.’ Hoare’s thin face sagged, he looked exhausted. ‘I suppose I’d better ring Maestre and warn him, try to limit the damage.’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Harry ventured. ‘If I’d known—’
Hoare glared at Harry, his top lip curling over little white teeth. ‘If you’d known? It’s not your bloody business to know, it’s your job to stay sharp and field the balls.’ He turned back to Hillgarth. ‘You’d better abort the project. Send this bloody fool home, he can go and fight the Italians in North Africa. I said if we had to do this we’d have been better to approach Forsyth directly and try to buy him, without all this cloak and dagger stuff.’
Hillgarth spoke quietly, though his voice had an undertone of suppressed anger. ‘Ambassador, we agreed that course was too risky unless we knew what the project was worth to him. We know that now, we know how important it is. And Brett’s cover isn’t blown; if he told Forsyth he knew Maestre’s man that could even strengthen his credibility.’
‘I must phone Maestre. We’ll talk later.’ Hoare rose. Tolhurst ran to open the door for him. The ambassador glared at him as he passed through. ‘You should have known better, Tolhurst. Hillgarth, I want you with me for this call.’
Tolhurst closed the door slowly behind them. ‘You’d better go home, Harry. They’ll be arguing about this all evening.’
‘I’m supposed to be going to the theatre tonight. Macbeth. Will that be all right?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Tolly, what did Hoare mean there, you should have known better?’
Tolhurst smiled wryly. ‘I’m your watcher, Harry. I keep a close eye on how you’re doing, report to Captain Hillgarth. Every inexperienced spy has a watcher and I’m yours.’
‘Oh.’ Harry had wondered, but the realization still gave him a sinking, disappointed feeling.
‘I’ve always said you were doing well; Hillgarth’s been a bit impatient but I’ve told him you were playing Forsyth carefully. You’ve done very well, up to now. But you can’t afford any mistakes, not in this job.’
‘Oh.’
‘I didn’t think you’d drop a bollock like this. That’s the trouble, if you like a fellow, it biases you in his favour.’ Tolhurst gave Harry a resentful look. ‘You’d better go. Stay out of Hillgarth’s sight. I’ll ring you when we need you.’
HARRY ARRIVED LATE at the theatre. He had spent hours pacing round the flat, thinking about his mistake, Hoare’s and Hillgarth’s anger, Tolhurst’s revelation that he had been, in a way, spying on Harry. I’m not cut out for this, Harry thought; I never wanted it. If they sent him home he wouldn’t be sorry, even if it was in disgrace. He’d be glad never to see Sandy again. But he couldn’t get rid of the thought of Gomez, the sudden terror in the old soldier’s eyes.
He told himself this wasn’t doing any good. He looked at his watch and was startled to realize how late it was. After thinking about Sofia for so long, he had hardly thought of her at all that day. He changed hurriedly, grabbed his coat and hat and hurried out.
Sofia was already waiting when he arrived at the theatre, a little figure in a beret and her old black coat, standing in the shadow of the doors as well-dressed couples went up the theatre steps. She wasn’t carrying a handbag; perhaps she couldn’t afford one. The sight of her, small and vulnerable, made his heart lurch. As he approached he saw that a beggar, an old man in a homemade wheelchair, was wheedling her.
‘I’ve given you all I can spare,’ she said.
‘Please, just a little more. To eat tomorrow.’
Harry ran up. ‘Sofia,’ he said breathlessly, ‘I’m so sorry I am late.’ She looked at him with relief. He passed fifty centimos to the beggar and he wheeled himself away.
‘There was a – a bit of a crisis at work. Have you been waiting long?’
‘No. But because I am her
e that man thought I had money.’
‘Oh dear, what can I say?’ He smiled. ‘It’s good to see you.’
‘And you.’
‘How’s Enrique?’
She smiled again. ‘Almost healed.’
‘Right.’ He coughed. ‘Shall we go in?’ He offered her his arm diffidently. She took it. Her body against his warmed him.
Sofia had made a big effort: her long hair was curled fashionably at the ends and she wore powder and lipstick. She looked beautiful. The rest of the audience milling in the vestibule were well-dressed bourgeois, the women with pearl earrings and necklaces. Sofia surveyed them with a look of amused contempt.
Harry had got seats in the middle of the theatre. It was full. Someone at the embassy had said cultural life was flickering back into life, and those who could afford it were evidently hungry for a night out.
Sofia removed her coat. Underneath she wore a long, well-cut white dress that set off her dark skin, her neckline lower than was strictly proper now. Harry turned his eyes away hastily. She smiled at him.
‘Ah, it is so warm in here, how do they do it?’
‘Central heating.’
At the interval they went for a drink to the bar. Sofia seemed ill at ease in the crush and coughed at her first sip of wine.
‘Are you all right?’
She laughed, a nervous laugh, a change from her usual confidence.
‘I am sorry. Only I am not used to such a crowd. When I am not at home I am in the dairy.’ She smiled wryly. ‘I am more used to cows than people.’ A woman stared at her with raised eyebrows.
‘What’s it like there?’ Harry knew the back streets of Madrid were full of little dairies, cramped, unhygienic places.
‘Hard work. But at least I get milk for the family.’
‘You must get tired of it.’
‘It keeps us going. The men from the government agency come every day to take their hundred litres. By the time they have watered it down for the ration it is two hundred litres.’
‘Terrible.’ Harry shook his head.
‘You are a strange man,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘Your interest in my life. A smelly dairy is far from what you are used to, I think.’ She leaned forward. ‘Listen to these people talking of the things they have bought on the black market and their troubles with servants: are those not the things your class usually discuss?’ The faint mocking smile was on her face again.
‘Yes. But I’m tired of it.’
A bell rang and they returned to the play.
During the second half Harry turned to look at her a couple of times, but Sofia was absorbed in the performance; she didn’t turn and smile as he hoped. They reached the point where Lady MacBeth sleepwalks, tortured with guilt for the murder she has urged her husband to commit. ‘What, will these hands never be clean.’ Harry felt a sudden wave of panic at the thought that he might have brought death to Gomez, might have blood on his hands. He gasped and gripped the arms of the chair; Sofia turned and looked at him. When the play ended, the national anthem sounded through loudspeakers. Harry and Sofia stood but did not join the many in the audience who raised their arms in the Fascist salute.
Outside in the cold, Harry felt strange again, stranger than he had in months. The buzzing in his ears was back, his heart was beating fast and his legs, he realized, were shaking. He supposed it was a delayed reaction to all that had happened that day. As they walked to the tram stop he tried to make conversation, aware there was a tremble in his voice. He did not take Sofia’s arm; he didn’t want her to feel his trembling.
‘Did you enjoy the play?’
‘Yes.’ Sofia smiled. ‘I had not realized Shakespeare could be so passionate. The murderers all got their just reward, did they not?’
‘Yes.’
‘That is not how it is in the real world.’
He hadn’t heard her properly. She had to repeat herself. ‘No, it isn’t,’ he agreed.
They had reached the tram stop. Harry was trembling all over now, he longed desperately to get out of the cold damp air. There were no trams waiting at the stop. There was nobody else waiting, either, which probably meant one had just gone. He needed to sit down as well. He cursed his panic; if it had to come, why couldn’t it have been at the flat, when he was alone?
‘Are you all right?’ he heard Sofia ask.
There was no point in pretending, he could feel his face covered with a cold sweat now. ‘I don’t feel too good. I’m sorry, I get these little attacks sometimes, since I was in the fighting in France. I’ll be all right, I’m sorry, it’s stupid.’
‘It is not stupid.’ She looked at him with concern. ‘It happens to men in war, I saw it here. You should get a taxi, I will take you home. You should not wait here in the cold.’
‘I’ll be all right, honestly.’ He hated showing weakness like this, hated it.
‘No, I will get a taxi.’ Suddenly she was the one in charge, as she had been at the flat. ‘Will you be all right for a moment while I go to the junction, I saw some waiting there.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘I will only be a minute.’ She touched his arm, smiled and was gone. Harry leaned against the cold tram stop, taking deep breaths, in through his nose and out through his mouth as they had told him at the hospital. A few moments later a taxi drew up.
He felt better at once, sitting down in the warmth. He smiled sadly at Sofia. ‘What an end to the evening, eh? Drop me off and I’ll pay the taxi to get you home.’
‘No, I want to make sure you are all right. You are very pale.’ She studied him with a professional gaze.
The taxi dropped them off. Harry was afraid he would need her help to get up the stairs but he was much better now; he walked up unaided. He let them in and they went into the salón.
‘Sit down on the settee, there,’ she said. ‘Have you any spirits?’
‘There’s some whisky in that cupboard.’
She fetched a glass from the kitchen and made him drink. The whisky gave him a little jolt. She smiled. ‘There. The colour is coming back to your cheeks.’ She lit the brasero then sat on the other end of the settee, looking at him.
‘Have one yourself,’ he said.
‘No thank you. I do not like it much.’ She looked at his parents’ photograph.
‘That’s my mother and father.’
‘It is a nice photograph.’
‘Your mother showed me her wedding photograph, that day I brought Enrique back.’
‘Yes. Her and Papa and Uncle Ernesto.’
‘Your uncle was a priest, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes. In Cuenca. We haven’t heard from him since the Civil War started. He may be dead; Cuenca was in the Republican zone. Do you mind, Harry, may I smoke?’
‘Of course.’ He took an ashtray from the coffee table and passed it to her. His hand trembled slightly, he saw.
‘Was it bad?’ she asked. ‘The war in France?’
‘Yes. A shell landed right beside me, killed the man I was with. I was deaf for a while and had these wretched panic attacks. It’s been much better recently. I fought it, I thought I’d beaten it, but it came back tonight.’
‘I wonder if you take enough care of yourself.’
‘I’m all right. I can’t complain, I get good rations and live in this big flat.’
‘Yes, it is nice.’ She looked around the room. ‘But it has a gloomy atmosphere somehow.’
‘It’s too big for me really. I rattle about a bit. It used to belong to a Communist official.’
‘Those people did themselves well.’ She sighed.
‘Sometimes I seem to feel his presence.’ Harry laughed self-consciously.
‘Madrid is full of ghosts now.’
All the lights went out, plunging them into total darkness except for the glow of the brasero. They both exclaimed, then Sofia said, ‘It is only another power cut.’
‘God, what a moment for that to happen.’
; They both laughed.
‘I’ve got some candles in the kitchen,’ Harry said. ‘Give me a match to see by and I’ll fetch them. Unless you’d rather go home now?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It is good to talk.’
Harry lit candles and set them in saucers. They cast a flickering yellow light over the room. Where it caught the candlelight Harry noticed again how her hair wasn’t quite black, there were elusive shades of brown there too. Her face was sad.
‘We are always getting cuts,’ she said. ‘We get used to it.’
Harry was silent a moment, then said, ‘I’ve seen more hardship here than I ever thought possible.’
‘Yes.’ Sofia sighed again. ‘Remember our beata, Señora Avila? She visited us yesterday. She says the priest is concerned we cannot afford to look after Paco properly; he wants us to let him go to the orphanage. The priest would not come himself as we do not go to church. That of course is the real reason they want Paco away from us. But they will not get him.’ Her mouth went hard for a moment. ‘Enrique will soon be able to work again. There may be a place for him at the dairy.’
‘I have a friend, an Englishwoman, she worked for a while in one of the orphanages. She said it was a bad place. She left.’
‘I have heard of children who kill themselves. That is what I fear for Paco. He is always so frightened. He hardly ever speaks, and only to us.’
‘Is there nobody who could – I don’t know – help him?’
She laughed bitterly. ‘Who? There is only us.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She leaned forward, her large eyes glinting in the candlelight. ‘You have no reason to be sorry. You have been kind. You care. The foreigners, and those who have money here, they shut their eyes to how people live. And those who have nothing are beaten down, apathetic. It is good to meet someone who cares.’ She gave a little smile. ‘Even if it makes you sad. You are a good man.’
Harry thought of Gomez, his terrified eyes. He shook his head. ‘No, I’m not. I’d like to be but I’m not.’ He put his head in his hands. He sighed deeply, then looked up at her. She smiled. Then he slowly put out his hand and took hers. ‘You are the good one,’ he said.
She did not move her hand. Her eyes softened. He leaned slowly towards her and put his lips to hers. Her dress made a rustling sound as she leaned forward and kissed him back, a long deep kiss with a sharp exciting tang of smoke. He pulled away.