A Dangerous Place

by Jacqueline Winspear

  “Not bad, Miss Dobbs.”

  “Now, who was the man leaving the submarine? I have toyed with the idea that it was the blond man. And that he is German—though that would be obvious. But is he playing on two teams, or one? Is he going from place to place to stir up trouble, or to relay intelligence? Or is he agitating a situation and making it worse? I am not sure about him, though my gut tells me he is not just a pawn on the board.” She looked up at Vallejo. “And you know very well who he is, because you tried to stop Babayoff taking his photograph. Rosanna Grillo was there, dressed like a picture-house siren—yet that was not her way, so I wonder about that. My guess is that she was the test, a lure of some sort. Her loyalty to Sebastian Babayoff knew no bounds, but I suspect he pushed her to play a part she was not quite at ease with.”

  Felipe came to clear the table. He did not utter a word. Instead, he nodded to both of them, as Vallejo made a mock scribble with his thumb and finger on the opposite palm, requesting the bill.

  “Then we get to Miriam Babayoff and Jacob Solomon, who are in love. But something is not right there, so I will have to go farther along the plank in my speculation. I believe he may have asked her brother for her hand, but Babayoff laughed at him—in his manner if nothing else. Solomon at first seems like a nondescript soul, someone Babayoff might use, without setting any stock in his character. In fact, the more I speak of him, the more I find I am not sympathetic to Babayoff, though he was highly regarded. Perhaps I sense a selfishness that attends the artistic soul.”

  “Interesting, that you should think in such a way.”

  “I suspect he was frustrated by the endless round of portraits and tourist photographs, and was driven to take risks—being out on the boat in morning swells, or taking a photograph of a man he knew to be working in the shadows. Such people are dangerous, even when engaged in acts of intrigue for the common good.”

  “You should remember that, Miss Dobbs. But continue.”

  “At one point I suspected that Solomon had come to the Ridge Hotel that night to talk to Babayoff again, hoping perhaps to catch him as he walked along the path. It may seem wildly speculative now, in a different place, over a glass of wine and a good dinner, but it occurred to me that in the walk up to the hotel, in the dark, Solomon’s emotions might have been compromised by his thoughts and what he held in his heart, so he became very angry with Babayoff. I mean, who was he to withhold consent from him, Jacob Solomon, a man with an established business, who was helping Babayoff by providing a studio for portrait work? Who was Babayoff to think his sister, Miriam, could do better for herself? Unless, that is, he was afraid his life would change if he were alone with crippled Chana upstairs in bed. I have gone over this in my mind, and it’s a possibility that Solomon’s temper boiled over on that path, so that when Babayoff came along . . . well, he attacked him.”

  “But didn’t you just say you thought Babayoff was not dead?”

  “Yes—though you have said he is dead. But let me finish. In this scenario, I think that if it was Solomon, then he attacked the wrong man. Though Solomon had not killed him, Babayoff, when he came along the path and discovered what had happened, perhaps saw an opportunity to vanish into obscurity for a while. If events indeed unfolded in this manner, I believe Babayoff instructed Solomon to leave. He threw his cameras to one side, changed his outer clothing with that of the unconscious man, and searched his pockets for identification. The man probably was a poor refugee, and perhaps a solitary ne’er-do-well into the bargain. Then he killed him, obliterating his face to make identification impossible.”

  “And why would he have done that?”

  “Because he was afraid. Because you had warned him when you saw him taking the photograph of the blond man at the hotel. There was some threat there—he needed to escape. But now he had Solomon in his palm; now they needed each other. The only fly in the ointment was that he’d left his Leica. He heard footsteps on the path and could not waste time rooting around in the bushes, trying to locate it. Instead he put the Zeiss—which held nothing more than a few cocktail party photographs—around the dead man’s neck.”

  “Miss Dobbs, this is an interesting story—but let me assure you, Sebastian Babayoff is dead.”

  As Maisie was about to respond, the door swung back with a thud, and a group of British and Americans came into the restaurant, laughing and back-slapping. Maisie thought they had the devil-may-care attitude she’d seen before in wartime, when death was so close his breath could be felt on the streets, yet at the same time, they were alive. Like a collie moving sheep, Felipe gathered them to a table and had them seated within a minute, bringing wine and bread to keep them occupied while they discussed the menu, such as it was. Maisie listened to their conversation, to the back-and-forth, the camaraderie and competitiveness between them.

  Vallejo shrugged. “Journalists, coming to draw their conclusions and press their opinions onto the public at home. Each of them thinking this war will make them famous.”

  “And perhaps it will. Perhaps Sebastian Babayoff was one of their number, Professor Vallejo.” She nodded in the direction of the group. “That one in the middle, with the dark hair. He’s not a journalist—well, not a writer, anyway. He’s a photographer—look at the two cameras he hasn’t taken from his neck, even though he’s not at work. His words are images. The others might be looking for the story that no one else has scooped—especially that woman there; she has more to prove—but that photographer, there’s something in his manner, the way he is with his fellow storytellers. He would die for the very best photograph of this war.” She sighed. “And if, as you say, Sebastian Babayoff is dead—well, I would hazard a guess that we’re both right. I’m not sure he was killed on that night on a path close to the most famous hotel on the Rock of Gibraltar. But he might have been filled with enough hubris to think that he could continue to take chances and survive, perhaps here in Spain—and perhaps along with a consignment of arms, so he could come out with a picture well worth a thousand words. He wanted recognition so much, he would give his life for it.”

  Vallejo looked at Maisie, then glanced at the bill Felipe had brought to the table without being noticed by his guests. He pulled a handful of coins from his pocket and tossed them on the table. “Come. We’d better leave, Miss Dobbs. Tomorrow we go to the front, so you can look into the flames again and see if that burns out your terrible memories.”

  Maisie felt the sting of his words, but she would not be drawn. She had shot her own arrows across the bows of Vallejo’s calm demeanor. Some had hit, and some—she understood—were off target, perhaps alarmingly so. But giving voice to her thoughts served to realign the evidence in her head. She ran her fingers through her short hair again, just to feel the freedom she’d given herself with a pair of scissors, and then pushed back her chair to leave. And as she stood up, the young man at the next table—the one she’d identified as a photographer—looked at her and smiled. She smiled in return. It was just a passing exchange; she might never see him again. But as she left the restaurant, and later, in her room, she reflected upon his face. He might only have been twenty-four, or twenty-five, yet she could see white hair threaded through the black already, and the lines around his eyes, likely from squinting into the viewfinder. It was as if the young man and the old resided within one body; the old had seen far too much in a short, young life. He had the look of one still searching for the one shot that would make his name. God willing, it would be from a camera and not a gun.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Vallejo walked Maisie to the hotel, and after a brief instruction—“Tomorrow morning—I’ll see you at eight, in the dining room”—he went on his way.

  She did not linger. “See you then,” she said, turning toward the staircase. She went straight to her room. Locking the door behind her, she leaned against it, closed her eyes, and sighed. She remained in that position for some seconds, tired from her journey and from pent-up anticipation about how she would react to being in
a city under siege.

  She stepped into the bathroom and washed her face, running her wet fingers through the short hair again. Returning to the room, she put away the aired trousers and sat on the edge of the bed, looking out into the night. She kept the lights off, taking care not to violate the blackout. In fact, she preferred to sit in darkness. She remembered Maurice talking to her about the way being in a certain place changes a person’s perspective. On top of a hill or a tall building with a 360-degree view seems to encourage the mind to look further than its present circumstances. On the other hand, it’s interesting to observe how clearly one can see through a difficult situation in darkness, when there is no distraction—though it is equally important to understand that the blackest hours before dawn are also when the mind can shift and, like a moon off-kilter, throw light in the wrong places, which in turn allows fear to take center stage.

  She wondered if she had played too much of her hand over supper with Vallejo. Had she allowed him into her confidence to a greater degree than was wise, most crucially regarding Solomon and Babayoff, and her belief that there was a deep attachment between Miriam and the owner of the haberdashery shop? She thought it was the push Vallejo needed to confide in her, to make a confession on behalf of Babayoff. The ambiguity of his response troubled Maisie, leading her once again to wonder whether she was being played for a fool, a speculation that weighed on her mind. Yes, she had gone out on a limb to elicit a response, something concrete for her to peg her observations and “evidence” upon—but it wasn’t an effective push, and it hadn’t yielded any answers. She rubbed her eyes, then looked out again at the nighttime movement of people on the road below, as if they had become one with their shadows while negotiating their way in the dark. Questions continued to haunt her. Had she ignored Chana Babayoff in her room upstairs? And was she being naive about the siblings and indeed everyone else who’d crossed her path since she’d discovered Babayoff’s body?

  A few moments later, she stood up and pulled a pillow onto the floor. She had to still her mind and her heart. She knew only one way to exercise dominion over her brain, and that was to sit in silent meditation and bring her thoughts into alignment.

  At first Maisie wondered what the sound was. A loud, relentless mechanical moaning filled the air, as if a giant hound constructed by the gods of iron and steel were baying at the moon. The air raid warning started, and then other sounds came—the whine of aircraft engines followed by the crump, crump, crump of bombs falling. Light flashed across the night sky as incendiaries enflamed buildings, and Maisie could hear screaming as men and women—perhaps returning from a restaurant or from work—ran for cover. She fell to her stomach and began crawling toward the bed, but was not fast enough to reach its shelter before the window shattered as if a cannonball had been launched through the glass. Shards and splinters sprayed across the floor as she continued to crawl, finally reaching safety under the bed. Bells tolled into the night, and with her eyes closed and her hands clamped over her ears, she felt surrounded by glass. She imagined the wounded bleeding, and the bereaved and shocked, out on the street and in their homes, men, women, and children, the life wrenched from their bodies by a killer swooping from above.

  And then it stopped. Perhaps for a second. Two seconds? Time seemed to change shape in the silence, and then it changed again, and she could hear people below calling to one other. More bells tolled as ambulances raced to aid those caught in fire and falling masonry, and then another noise filled her head—an insistent pounding at the door.

  “Señora! Señora! Come! Come!” The pounding continued. Maisie crawled from her refuge, trying to avoid glass strewn across the carpet. She reached for her shoes, shook the glass fragments out, and slipped them on; she felt the crunch underfoot as she stepped across to the door.

  “I’m coming. I’m coming—don’t worry, I’m all right.”

  She opened the door to see a hotel clerk standing before her. “Come downstairs, Miss Dobbs. Everyone is to come downstairs—we have to count, to make sure.” He looked at her hair and squinted in the low light—there was still some illumination in the corridor. “Miss—your hair is filled with glass. Come. I will have a girl help you—no, don’t touch it.”

  Maisie had instinctively raised her hand to feel her hair, but brought it to her side again.

  The clerk led her to the lobby, along with other guests who followed as he guided them downstairs. At the reception desk another man was already checking the names of the guests lined up before him. Maisie joined the queue, looking around to see how many were there. She had no idea of the time, though she suspected it was still early, perhaps not even ten o’clock. Then she saw them, across the room, their heads close in conversation. It was Professor Vallejo and the blond man, though she realized now that he was not blond but gray. It was a strange gray, as if slate blended with silver. It did not suit him, for his face was that of a younger man, perhaps in his thirties. His physiognomy was still somewhat boyish—not ready for gray, she thought. She was already moving toward them when the hotel clerk who’d escorted her to the lobby tapped her on the shoulder. A young woman in the uniform of a maid stood beside him.

  “Maria will help you with your hair. I have arranged for your belongings to be moved to another room. The hotel is quite safe now, but you need a room with a window in place. Fortunately, only two rooms were affected, though yours was one of them.” He smiled, gave a short bow, then turned to another guest.

  Maisie looked around. Vallejo and the man were gone.

  “Señora? Miss?” The maid named Maria tapped Maisie on the shoulder. She smiled at her charge and, placing her gloved fingers on Maisie’s hair with a gentle touch, spoke in halting English. “You have diamonds in your hair. Come. Let me take them out.” And as they turned to leave, she saw the young photographer, the one with the dark hair and haunted eyes, pointing his camera toward them; he had snapped his shot at the moment Maria touched her hair with white-gloved fingers. Maisie looked down at the maid’s hands, at the tiny splinters of glass catching light from the chandelier above.

  Maisie fell asleep almost as soon as she lay down on the bed in her new room, with fresh linens and no sign that it was in an hotel in a city under attack. In the morning she shook out her clothing, inspecting it to ensure no slivers of glass remained, and dressed in the same blouse and trousers she had worn the night before. She laced her brown walking shoes and put on her linen jacket. Having run her fingers through her hair, she was ready to leave. She took her satchel, and left the room.

  Entering the dining room—where Vallejo had suggested they meet—Maisie looked around for her traveling companion, but he had not yet arrived. She studied her watch—she was early. A waiter showed her to a small table. She ordered coffee and an egg and potato tortilla, some bread and jam, then sat back to wait for her breakfast.

  The waiter approached an adjacent table. He was followed by two women, the British nurses she’d seen the day before. She had only guessed they were nurses from their conversation, for they were not in uniform. The tables were close, so the women acknowledged Maisie, bidding her good morning as the waiter held out seats for them. Both seemed to take a second look at her hair.

  “Good morning.” She smiled as she responded to their greeting.

  “Are you new here?” asked the older one. Maisie thought the woman was in her early thirties, while the other was younger, perhaps twenty-four, twenty-five.

  “I arrived yesterday. From Gibraltar.” She turned her chair a little to face them. “You’re nurses, aren’t you? Where are you working?”

  The older one laughed. “Are we so obvious? We came out a couple of weeks ago—we volunteered to assist at the hospital set up by an American medical unit. We wanted to get our feet wet before moving on. Very good doctors, you know.” She held out her hand to the other woman. “This is my cousin, Freda Nicholls, and my name is Hattie Benson. Delighted to meet you.”

  “Maisie Dobbs. And I guessed you were nurses�
��I was a nurse too. Some years ago now, but still—”

  “Have you come as a volunteer?” asked Freda.

  Maisie took a second to answer. “No. No, I’m here for . . .” She stumbled on her words. How could she explain her presence in Madrid? “I’m here to assist someone with their work.”

  “Look, here comes your breakfast,” said Hattie. “Would you like to join us? Come on, sit with us—it’s no fun being on your own in a foreign hotel. Did you hear the bombs last night?”

  Maisie nodded in reply, moving her chair while the waiter set her cutlery at the nurses’ table before serving her breakfast.

  “I’ve ordered exactly the same,” said Hattie. “You can’t beat those eggy tortillas.”

  “Where were you a nurse?” asked Freda.

  “Well, I trained at the London Hospital—it was during the war—and then I went over to France, to a casualty clearing station. After the war I was eventually promoted to ward sister in a secure hospital, with shell-shocked men. It was just for another couple of years.”

  “Oh, my goodness. Then you know what it’s like at the very sharp end, don’t you?” Hattie moved her shoulder to allow the waiter to serve her breakfast. “We need people like you, you know.”

  Maisie shook her head. “Oh, no, you don’t. I’m really quite rusty, I would imagine.”

  Hattie opened her mouth to make another comment, but was interrupted by Freda. “Did you get married? Is that why you left nursing?”

  “Freda!” said Hattie. “Your nose will get you into trouble.”

  “It’s all right,” said Maisie. She turned to the cousin. “No. I went back to continue my studies at university—I’d given up a scholarship to train as a nurse in 1915, so I thought I’d like to finish what I started. Then I went into a different line of work.”

  Maisie could see that Hattie wanted to find out what kind of work, but again Freda spoke up. “Well, we’re going into a different line of work tomorrow—of a kind, and only for a day.”