Bones of the Buried (35 page)

Maurice, too, was in high spirits because rehearsals for the play were going so well and Hester, José and Agustín were infected by his enthusiasm. Even the enigmatic Tom Sutton had
deserted his desk for Chicote’s and was unwontedly cheerful. He had thrown off the veneer of world-weariness which he usually wore about him like a mantle and was telling stories of his
ambassador’s
bêtises
with biting sarcasm. The merriment was interrupted by the unexpected appearance of David Griffiths-Jones, grim-faced and exhausted. He smiled thinly at the
assembled company, refused Maurice Tate’s offer of a beer and summoned Verity – like the Commendatore in
Don Giovanni
, Belasco said later – to follow him to a relatively
quiet corner of the restaurant.

‘What is it?’ Verity asked, when she had disentangled herself from Belasco and joined him on a banquette out of sight of the party. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Never mind that,’ David said coldly. ‘I haven’t got much time, so listen carefully. Our informants tell us that General Franco and his cronies are planning to mutiny
and, unless we can nip it in the bud, God knows where it will end.’

‘Mutiny! You mean rebellion? But Franco’s still in Morocco, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, but the tentacles of conspiracy are spread widely. I am off to Casablanca first thing tomorrow to see what I can do to frustrate them. But before I go, I wanted to warn you to be
ready.’

‘Ready for what?’ Verity asked.

‘I don’t know yet but, when you get a message from me, you must come immediately. I shall want you to begin the war of words. We have to put our side of the story and capture public
opinion in England and America. Only then can we put enough pressure on the British and French governments to declare their support for us openly.’

‘Won’t they do that anyway?’

‘Don’t be naive, Verity. The British government is virtually Fascist. It will do everything it can to prevent itself getting drawn into a civil war on the side of the left. All it
needs to do is nothing and the Republic will fall. Only public opinion can persuade Baldwin to live up to his obligations. But you know all that. That’s where your friend Belasco will come in
useful. You have to bring him with you wherever I send you and make him report what we want him to report. His name carries great weight in Washington and New York.’

‘But I can’t make him do anything.’

‘Don’t be a little fool. This is your job, this is why you’re here. That’s why I haven’t minded you disporting yourself with that creature.’

‘Ben?’

‘Yes,’ David said bitterly. ‘You don’t think I would have stood for it otherwise?’

‘Are you jealous?’ Verity asked.

‘Not at all. Why should I be? But just remember that you are not in Spain on holiday but to do a job of work.’

‘Yes, I’m a foreign correspondent.’

‘Stop play-acting, Verity,’ he said scathingly. ‘You’re not a child, even if you behave like one sometimes. Your one reason for being here is to serve the Party.
Discipline – I have told you before – discipline. The Party demands it.’

‘And by discipline you mean I must do what you say?’

‘That is correct, at least for the moment. You take orders from me or some other senior Party member.’

Verity held back tears with difficulty. She was being bullied and she hated it – she hated David, she hated the Party, but wasn’t he right? Wasn’t that why she was here?

‘Look,’ David said, making an effort to appear less dictatorial, ‘we’ve obtained a copy of this.’ He pushed a paper into her hands. ‘How good’s your
Spanish? Can you read?’

‘Yes.’ She scanned the paper. ‘It’s from General Mola.’

‘Yes, he’s one of the ringleaders.’

‘ “The situation in Spain is becoming more critical with every day that passes,” ’ she read. ‘ “Anarchy reigns in most of her villages and the government
presides over . . .” What’s this word?’

‘Tumults.’

‘ “Tumults. The Motherland is being torn apart . . . the masses are being hoaxed by Soviet agents who veil the bloody reality of a regime that has already sacrificed twenty-five
million lives . . .” What does it mean?’

‘It means we are almost at war. We will be in a matter of weeks.’

‘So what do you want me to do now?’

‘Nothing, just wait. I will give you a signal and tell you what needs to be said.’

Verity wasn’t certain that she wanted to be told what to say but she was frightened. She suddenly felt very small, a minnow in an ocean full of sharp-toothed fish who would use her and
toss her aside without a moment’s consideration when she had served her purpose. She suddenly wished she had Edward Corinth beside her. Thinking of him made her think of the murders he was
investigating – that they were investigating together.

‘Do you know yet who killed Godfrey Tilney?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Tilney? For God’s sake, what does that matter now? He was a Trotskyist, a traitor. What does it matter who killed him?’

‘But was it you?’ she persisted.

‘I was in prison, remember.’ He looked at her with cold eyes. ‘Who’s put you up to this? Is it that streak of idiocy, Corinth?’

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 accounted 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.