by Walter Ellis
“You’re not wrong,” said Braithwaite.
“Christ!” said Croft. “It’s like pulling teeth.”
The spymaster put down his knife and fork. “I’m sorry,” he said, “Point taken. But let’s review the situation. You’ve got Crowther and the two Special Branch bods coming in, and money for another two lookouts, maybe three. And that’s on top of Millar, your existing legman, who, even if he’s no genius, has 20:20 vision and can hit an apple with a knife at 30 yards. Then there’s the embassy security squad. How many are they? Four? Six? Plus, the Duke’s own bodyguard, here from Spain, and whatever locals you’ve already got on the payroll. Not a bad haul, if I say so myself. So gather your forces and see to it he gets on that bloody boat. There’s nothing more you can do. You might even say it’s what we pay you for.”
Croft laughed. “Oh yes? Growing rich, am I? Ready to retire to my Cotswolds mansion?”
Braithwaite returned to his sardines. “When the time comes, you can move in with me, Douglas. You’ll have the West Wing all to yourself.”
Madrid: Ritz Hotel, July 7
“I am sorry, Señor,” said the receptionist, “but the embassy has closed your account and removed your clothes and other personal belongings to the Hotel Paris.”
“Brilliant!” said Bramall, exhausted after a return journey from Algeciras that had proved even worse than the journey south. The Saturday morning local connecting with the Express at Córdoba had broken down completely north of Ronda and got taken out of service, forcing passengers to wait overnight for a replacement. He had spent the entire time on the platform, sat up against a brick wall being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Back at last in the Ritz, he now looked at the uniformed figure behind the desk, hoping to detect some quality of mercy in his eyes. There was none. “So you’re saying I can’t go upstairs to my room and get some sleep?”
The reply was brisk and distinctly unaccommodating. “I am afraid not, Señor. But your room at the Paris is waiting. Would you like me to call you a taxi?”
“Why not? Let’s go for it. I’ll be the one slumped over there on the sofa.”
“Of course, Señor, I understand. By the way, there was a message for you, from a young lady.”
“Oh yes?”
“She wanted you to know that she would meet you in the Gijón tomorrow morning, as agreed.”
“I see. You did, of course, inform her of my change of address?”
“I took the liberty, Señor. I am sure you will like the Paris. Lots of businessmen stay there, they tell me. From Germany and Italy and … other places.”
“Sounds fun.”
Twenty minutes later, the taxi pulled up at the main door of the Hotel Paris on the Calle Alcalá, just off the Puerta del Sol. As he paid the driver, he looked up at the Interior Ministry, whose brooding presence dominated the square.
His room, as he had feared, was a dreary single at the end of a long corridor on the hotel’s southern side, facing a ham emporium. His bags, neatly packed, sat on floor next to the wardrobe. They had even included his unopened bottle of champagne. But no gramophone. He sat on the edge of the bed. The springs squeaked.
The Interior Ministry clock in the Puerta del Sol showed 12.17 when he left the hotel and headed across the square towards the Calle de la Montera, then due north to Malasaña. He was too keyed-up to sleep, he realised, and hoped he might catch Romero in the tasca. Next to the massive Telefónica building on the Avenida Antonio, a sour-faced young Guardia Civil officer stopped him and asked to see his papers. He remembered the Telefónica being officially opened. It was 1929. He was on his year out from Cambridge, working in bars, occasionally turning up for tutorials at the University of Madrid. The edificio, with its up-to-date switchboards and miles of cable, had reminded him of a New York skyscraper, embellished with detail straight out of Spanish baroque. Alfonso XIII had used the occasion to proclaim his country’s entry into the modern world, not realising that he himself would soon be consigned to the past. When the police officer saw the laisser passer signed by Serrano still folded inside his passport, he saluted and sent him on his way.
There were many stragglers about the city centre. But no obvious brigands. Perhaps they only acted under orders. He was lucky, too, when he got to the tasca. Romero was at something of a loose end and seemed glad of the company
The Dubliner indicated two chairs by the window. He filled a glass of wine for his guest, but stuck to water himself. He had to get in shape, he said, and drink just held him back.
“Not like O’Duffy, then.”
Romero laughed. “O’Duffy? Jesus, I haven’t thought about that prize bollox in years. Crazy fucker. Sound as a bell when he started out. Knew my mother’s people in Clones. When our lot were waiting for the big push up by the border, he was the one gave us our orders. Only for him to end up a fuckin’ Nazi. What’s happened him anyway?”
General Eoin O’Duffy was a hate figure for both men. A Monaghan native, who rose through the ranks of the IRA to become principal adjutant to Michael Collins, he had pushed the “gaelic Ireland” strategy that forced thousands of Protestants, including the Bramalls, off their land. Later, after falling foul of DeValera, he led a Blueshirts battalion in the Spanish war, humiliating himself and his men in a series of disastrous, drink-fuelled episodes until Franco lost patience and ordered him out of the country.
Bramall – who remembered how his father dismissed DeValera as a half-Spanish “bastard” – eyed Romero, who sat slumped back in his chair. “Last I heard, he was making pro-Nazi speeches in Dublin. But I can’t see anyone taking him seriously after what happened here.
“It’s the fact he’s alive at all, not stuck through with a bayonet, that bothers me,” Romero said. He scowled, trying to exorcise the memory of the Irish Fascist, then relaxed his features. “Just because I’m off the stuff, don’t mean you can’t have another glass.” He picked up the bottle of wine from the bar counter and planted it on a table next to the window. “So where you been, anyway?” he asked. “It’s been a while.”
“Can’t you guess?”
“I’m not psychic.”
Bramall began to assemble a cigarette and pushed the Ideales packet across the table towards Romero. “I’ve been to Gibraltar.”
Romero ran a hand across his brow, which was glistening with sweat. “Learn anythin’?”
“Only that I’m on borrowed time and they’re thinking of calling in the loan. To listen to them, you’d think all they have to do is dial up the problem and I come up with the intelligence to match.” He laughed a hollow laugh. “I mean, if it was that simple, we’d all be doing it.”
Romero shrugged and said nothing. Bramall stared into his glass as if looking for inspiration. “The one good piece of news,” he said at last, “is that we’re not entirely on our own. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
“One of your ‘chaps’ from London, I take it.”
“Not at all. It’s a she, and she’s Spanish.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“So where is she?”
“You can meet her tomorrow morning in the Gijón –nine o’clock.”
Romero took a sip of water. “I can’t wait,” he said.
Madrid: Villa of Dominique de Fourneau, July 7, 11.30pm
Beigbeder’s eyes were growing heavy and he was drifting into a contented, post-coital slumber when Dominique suddenly said, “You know, Juan, I saw your wife yesterday. She remembered me from Casablanca.”
The Foreign Minister was awake in an instant and his head twitched round. “My wife?” he said. “You talked to her?”
“But of course. I called round. She gets so little opportunity these days to speak French. I really think she was pleased to see me.”
Beigbeder scrabbled for his glasses, which h
ad fallen onto the floor next to the bed, and pulled them on over his ears. “You don’t think she suspects anything, do you?”
Dominique ran the backs of her fingers lightly up her lover’s cheek. “No, Cherie, don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. You know that.”
“Because she’s a terribly jealous woman.”
“How exhausting for you – and you such a pillar of rectitude.”
“Yes, well, I cannot help the way I am made.”
Dominique sat up in the bed. She needed the Spaniard in a relaxed mood. That was when his natural loquaciousness ran riot. He would tell her anything once he’d shot his bolt. Beigbeder groaned appreciatively and reached across, cupping each of her breasts in turn in his bony, olive-skinned hand. “I don’t have to go for another hour,” he said.
“Honestly, Juan, you’re such a performer. Where do you get the energy?”
“It’s my diet,” he said. “Lots of fruit and nuts.”
“I see. I thought we could talk about your day. You are such a busy man these days. But you are like a gymnast. You leave me gasping. Perhaps it’s just as well that there are others to keep you busy when I am not around.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come now, Juan. Everybody knows about Miss Fox.”
“They do?”
“Except, as I understand it, your wife.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“Yes, I’m sure. She might possibly understand that you should have a French mistress. After all, her father kept two households throughout his married life. He said it made more sense than paying for a hotel. But an Englishwoman as well? Ooh-la-la! Perhaps it would be best for all concerned if you didn’t see her anymore. It makes sense, don’t you think? You wouldn’t want me to think of you as greedy.”
“Greedy? No, I suppose not. I’ll, eh … I’ll tell her.”
“Send her a note, Juan.”
“A note? Right. Of course.”
“You won’t regret it, I promise. What can that little trollope possibly do for you that I can’t do so much better? For example, does Miss Fox do this for you?” She reached beneath the bedclothes.
“Oh, well, yes.” She could hear the catch in his breath. “Naturally. Before we ...”
Dominique brushed a strand of hair from her face, half closed her eyes and slowly ran her tongue along her top teeth beneath the swell of her upper lip. In her experience, which was considerable, this simplest of ploys invariably drove men to fresh heights of arousal. She turned towards him and lifted the sheets over her head. “And does she do this?”
Beigbeder’s eyes grew wide. He threw off his spectacles and fell back on the pillow. “Oh, Dominique,” he said. “When I told you I missed you terribly after you left Morocco, I wasn’t lying. You really … are … the most … Oh, God!”
The clock on the mantelpiece began to chime.
Madrid: Café Gijón, next morning
From her corner table at the famous glass and marble café where she had been sitting for the last half hour, Isabella glanced up at the ornate clock on the opposite wall. Bramall had said he would be there at nine and it was already twenty-past. She had been to the Gijón only once before. It was famous for its tertulias – noisy get-togethers of artists and intellectuals, most of them opposed to whichever regime happened to be in power. But it was too early, especially on a Monday morning, for most of these rebels to be out of their beds. Apart from a dishevelled bootblack and a woman of about 60 reading Saturday’s ABC with a magnifying glass, only the young Galician writer Camilo José Cela was there, a cigarette welded to his fingers. He was sipping from a café solo while continuing to work on his interminable manuscript, said to be a novel of bohemian life. From time to time he looked up to survey the other customers, snatching at his coffee, dragging his hair from his eyes. Then he would mutter to himself and scribble another sentence. Isabella wondered whether she might occupy a line in his narrative. What would he say, she wondered? “At a table beneath the clock, a proud-looking young woman – Castilian, with a father in a high government position – observed the author with an amused contempt, no doubt wondering what he would write about her.” The double-take made Isabella laugh out loud, and Cela stared at her, his pen poised.
She called for another cup of chocolate, but rejected the waiter’s offer of a second slice of doughnut. She had never cared for churros – probably something to do with her genteel upbringing. She would give him another ten minutes, no more. At nine thirty-three, just as she was placing a handful of coins on the table, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked up. It was Bramall, looking tired and careworn, as if he hadn’t slept in a week. With him was a second man, who, to judge by his appearance, rarely slept at all. He put her in mind of a vampire, with pale white skin, black hair and piercing eyes that looked slightly dazzled in the light.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, “This is Eddy – Eddy Romero. He’s a friend – another Irishman, I’m afraid – and he’s going to help us. Eddy, this is Isabella.”
The stranger took the tips of her extended hand and planted the faintest kiss on her fingers. “Good morning, Señorita. I hope you know what you’re doing getting involved with this man.”
He spoke excellent Spanish – fluent. But there was an accent there. Had he Mexican blood, perhaps? Not Irish, surely. Not with that skin.
Bramall answered her unspoken question. “Eddy’s from Dublin. Fought in the IRA to make Ireland green, gaelic and free. But his father was from Badajoz. Back in ’37, he joined the International Brigades. Now he runs a tasca in Malasaña. A man of many accomplishments.”
Dublin? Isabella had read some of the poetry of Yeats and tried and failed to make sense of Joyce’s Ulysses. She would love to visit the city some day. She pulled out a chair. “Please sit down, Señor. You are most welcome. But I had no idea.”
“Charlie plays things by ear. He’d like you to think he plans everything three months in advance – you know, that upper-class Protestant prescience. The truth is, it was me found him, not the other way round.”
“Charlie? Oh, Señor, I think you and I are going to get along.”
“Eddy. Call me Eddy. If we’re going to win this war for the British Empire, we ought to be on first-name terms.”
This made Isabella laugh. Bramall noticed this and felt a faint twinge of jealousy.
Over the course of the next ten minutes, Eddy and Bramall painted in their shared history. Isabella felt suddenly infused with confidence. Luder might still be a brooding presence, but with these two -men newly arrived in her life, she was sure she could handle him.
A waiter brought three café solos. When they were alone again, Isabella told them in a whisper that she had something important to say. Bramall motioned her to continue. She then recounted the conversation between her father and Luder and the growing threat to Gibraltar
Bramall was stunned. “I’ve only been away a couple of days.”
Romero tucked into the plateful of olives that had just been set down in front of them. “I know.” He was talking English now, with an accent she had to work hard to follow. “Makes you feel pretty useless, huh? But don’t worry about it. Your role in all this is still there lookin’ right at you.”
“In other words, I’m the one has to stand it up?” Bramall said.
“Who else?”
“And the only way I can do that, presumably, is to get something from the Spanish or the Germans, preferably both, that spells the whole thing out in black and white, with official government seals and the signatures of all concerned.”
Romero sipped at his coffee. “Sounds about right. But now we’ve got Isabella, sure it’ll all be just fine.” He turned to their new companion. “How’s your English?”
“I try,” she said. “I learned it
at school and I spent a month one time in London. But I am – what is it you say? – not in practise.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll come.”
Bramall felt like he had once when he was a small boy playing with his lead soldiers and his father, in his general’s uniform, had walked into the room. Reality was a bastard. He would have to get back inside the German Legation and find evidence of this. There was no alternative.
“If I can prove that Franco has no intention of stopping at Gibraltar, but intends to take over France’s African empire, with Hitler’s backing, then a whole new perspective opens up. Pétain would get straight on to Berlin and issue an ultimatum: either Germany says no to Franco and publicly guarantees the status quo in Africa, in which case Spain is out of the game and stays neutral – or else he calls on the French empire to re-enter the war.”
He was warming to his theme. Romero let him talk on, uninterrupted. He was intrigued to see how long Bramall’s train of thought could travel before it hit the buffers.
“I know it sounds like a bit of an empty threat, but the French colonial forces could do serious damage. With the British, they’d control the southern Mediterranean and be in a position to take on the Italians in Libya. French ships out of Dakar would join the war against raiders and U-boats in the Atlantic. At the same time, the Germans would have to end the free zone and double the size of their army of occupation. That’d mean another 100,000 Wehrmacht removed from frontline duties. Is that what Hitler wants right now? Somehow, I don’t think so.”
Romero reached for tobacco and paper, then pushed them away. “It’s a high risk strategy all right, no question of that. You really think you can do it?”
Bramall shrugged. “The game is going to play itself out, whatever happens. I don’t deal the cards. All I’d be doing is giving Vichy a sneak look at Franco’s hand.”
The Dubliner couldn’t fault the logic. “And if Pétain played his own cards right, Franco could end up a busted flush.”
