C. Sansom - Winter in Madrid

‘It sounds as bad as during the Civil War.’ Harry shook his head. ‘What they’ve been through.’

‘There are all sorts of rumours coming out of Spain now. Franco’s exploring any number of schemes to gain economic self-sufficiency, some of them pretty crackpot. Last year an Austrian scientist claimed to have found a way of manufacturing synthetic oil from plant extracts and got money out of him to develop it. It was all a fraud, of course.’ Jebb gave his bark of a laugh again. ‘Then they claimed to have found huge gold reserves down at Badajoz. Another mare’s nest. But now we hear they really have found gold deposits, in the sierras not far from Madrid. There’s a geologist with South African experience working for them, one Alberto Otero. And they’re keeping it quiet, which makes us more inclined to think there’s something in it. The boffins say that geologically it’s a possibility.’

‘And that would make Spain less dependent on us?’

‘They’ve no gold reserves to back the currency. Stalin made the Republic send the gold reserve to Moscow during the Civil War. And kept it, of course. That makes buying anything on the open market very difficult for them. At the moment they’re trying to get export credits from us and the Yanks.’

‘So if the rumours are true – they’d be less dependent on us?’

‘Exactly. And therefore more inclined to enter the war. Anything could tip the balance.’

‘We’re trying to perform a high-wire act out there,’ Miss Maxse added. ‘How much of a stick to wave, how many carrots to offer. How much wheat to allow through, how much oil.’

Jebb nodded. ‘The point is, Brett, the man who introduced Otero to the regime was Sandy Forsyth.’

‘He’s in Spain?’ Harry’s eyes widened.

‘Yes. I don’t know if you saw the adverts in the newspapers a couple of years ago, tours of the Civil War battlefields?’

‘I remember. The Nationalists ran the tours for English people. A propaganda stunt.’

‘Somehow Forsyth got involved. Went to Spain as a tour guide. Franco’s people paid him quite well. Then he stayed on, got involved in various business schemes, some of them pretty shady I would imagine. He’s a clever businessman apparently, of the flashy sort.’ Jebb’s mouth crinkled with distaste, then he stared keenly at Harry. ‘He has some important contacts now.’

Harry took a deep breath. ‘May I ask how you know all this?

Jebb shrugged. ‘Sneaky beakies working out of our embassy. They pay minor functionaries for information. Madrid’s full of spies. But no one’s got near Forsyth himself. We’ve no agents in the Falange and it’s the Falangist faction in the government that Forsyth’s with. And word is he’s clever, likely to smell a rat if a stranger appeared and started asking questions.’

‘Yes.’ Harry nodded. ‘Sandy’s clever.’

‘But if you were to turn up in Madrid,’ Miss Maxse said. ‘As a translator attached to the embassy say, and run across him in a cafe? The way people do. Renew an old friendship.’

‘We want you to find out what he’s doing,’ Jebb said bluntly. ‘Perhaps get him on our side.’

So that was it. They wanted him to spy on Sandy, like Mr Taylor had all those years ago at Rookwood. Harry looked out of the window at the blue sky, where the barrage balloons floated like huge grey whales.

‘How’d you feel about that?’ Miss Maxse’s voice was gentle.

‘Sandy Forsyth working with the Falange.’ Harry shook his head. ‘It’s not as if he needed to make money – his father’s a bishop.’

‘Sometimes it’s the excitement as much as the politics, Harry. Sometimes the two go together.’

‘Yes.’ He remembered Sandy coming breathless into the study from one of his forbidden betting trips, opening his hand to show a five-pound note, white and crinkled. ‘Look what I got from a nice gee-gee.’

‘Working with the Falange,’ Harry said reflectively. ‘I suppose he was always a black sheep, but sometimes – a man can do something against the rules and get a bad name and that can make him worse.’

‘We’ve nothing against black sheep,’ Jebb said. ‘Black sheep can make the best agents.’ He laughed knowingly. Another memory of Sandy returned to Harry: staring angrily across the study table, his voice a bitter whisper. ‘You see what they’re like, how they control us, what they do if we try to break away.’

‘I think you’re someone who likes to play the game,’ Miss Maxse said. ‘That’s what we expected. But we can’t win this war playing a straight bat.’ She shook her head sadly, the short curls bobbing. ‘Not against this enemy. It means killing, you know that already, and it means deception too, I’m afraid.’ She smiled apologetically.

Harry felt opposing emotions churn inside him, panic beginning to stir. The thought of going back to Spain both excited and appalled him. He had heard things were very bad from the Spanish exiles at Cambridge. In the newsreels he had seen Franco addressing ecstatic crowds who responded with Fascist salutes, but behind that, they said, was a world of denunciations and midnight arrests. And Sandy Forsyth in the middle of it all? He looked at the photo again. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said slowly. ‘I mean, I’m not sure I could carry it off.’

‘We’d give you training,’ Jebb said. ‘Bit of a crash course because the powers that be want an answer to this one ASAP.’ He looked at Harry. ‘People at the highest level.’

Part of Harry wanted to retreat now, go back to Surrey, forget it all. But he had spent the last three months fighting that panicky urge to hide.

‘What sort of training?’ he asked. ‘I’m not sure I’d be any good at deception.’

‘It’s easier than you think,’ Miss Maxse replied. ‘If you believe in the cause you’re lying for. And you would be lying, deceiving, let’s not mince words. But we’d teach you all the black arts.’

Harry bit his lip. There was silence in the room for a long moment.

Miss Maxse said, ‘We wouldn’t expect you just to go in cold.’

‘All right,’ he said at length. ‘Perhaps I could bring Sandy round. I can’t believe he’s a Fascist.’

‘The hard part will be early on,’ Jebb said. ‘Working your way into his confidence. That’s when it’ll feel strange, difficult, and that’s when you’ll most need to pass it off.’

‘Yes. Sandy’s got the sort of mind that can see round corners.’

‘So we gather.’ Miss Maxse turned to Jebb. He hesitated a moment, then nodded.

‘Good,’ Miss Maxse said briskly.

‘We’ll need to move quickly,’ Jebb said. ‘Make some arrangements, put things in place for you. You’ll need to be vetted properly, of course. Are you staying up tonight?’

‘Yes, I’m going to my cousin’s.’

He looked at Harry sharply again. ‘No ties here, apart from your family?’

‘No.’ He shook his head.

Jebb took out a little notebook. ‘Number?’ Harry gave it to him.

‘Someone will ring you tomorrow. Don’t go out, please.’

‘Yes, sir.’

They rose from their chairs. Miss Maxse shook Harry’s hand warmly. ‘Thank you, Harry,’ she said.

Jebb gave Harry a tight little smile. ‘Be ready for the siren tonight. We’re expecting more raids.’ He threw the twisted paperclip into a wastepaper basket.

‘Dear me,’ Miss Maxse said. ‘That was government property. You are a squanderbug, Roger.’ She smiled at Harry again, a smile of dismissal. ‘We’re grateful, Harry. This could be very important.’

Outside the lounge Harry paused a moment. A sad heavy feeling settled on his stomach. Black arts: what the hell did that mean? The term made him shudder. He realized that half consciously he was listening, as Sandy used to do at masters’ doors, his good ear turned towards the door to catch what Jebb and Miss Maxse might be saying. But he could hear nothing. He turned to find the receptionist had appeared, his steps unheard on the dusty carpet. Harry smiled nervously and allowed himself to be led outside. Was he falling already into the habits of a – what? Sneak, spy, betrayer?