Winter in Madrid Read Online Free

butcher Poland.’
    Miss Maxse smiled placatingly. ‘No one’s associating you with them.’
    ‘I should hope not,’ Harry said stiffly.
    ‘Would you say you had any politics?’
    It wasn’t the sort of question you expected in England. Their knowledge of his life, of Bernie’s history, disturbed him. He hesitated before answering.
    ‘I suppose I’m a sort of liberal Tory if anything.’
    ‘You weren’t tempted to go and fight for the Spanish Republic, like Piper?’ Jebb asked. ‘The crusade against fascism?’
    ‘So far as I’m concerned, Spain before the Civil War was rotten with chaos, and the Fascists and Communists both took advantage. I came across some Russians in ’37. They were swine.’
    ‘That must have been quite an adventure,’ Miss Maxse said brightly. ‘Going to Madrid in the middle of the Civil War.’
    ‘I went to try and find my friend. For his family, as I said.’
    ‘You were close friends at school, weren’t you?’ Jebb asked.
    ‘You’ve been asking questions at Rookwood?’ The thought angered him.
    ‘Yes.’ Jebb nodded, unapologetic.
    Harry’s eyes widened suddenly. ‘Is this about Bernie? Is he alive?’
    ‘Our file on Bernard Piper’s closed,’ Jebb said, his tone unexpectedly gentle. ‘So far as we know he died at the Jarama.’
    Miss Maxse sat upright. ‘You must understand, Harry, if we’re to trust you to work for us, we do need to know all about you. But I think we’re happy.’ Jebb nodded, and she went on. ‘I think it’s time we got down to brass tacks. We wouldn’t normally dive straight in like this but it’s a question of time, you see. Urgency. We need information about someone. We think you can help us. It could be very important.’
    Jebb leaned forward. ‘Everything we tell you from now on is strictly confidential, is that understood? In fact, I have to warn you that if you discuss any of it outside this room, you’ll be in serious trouble.’
    Harry met his eyes. ‘All right.’
    ‘This isn’t about Bernard Piper. It’s another old schoolfriend ofyours, who’s also developed some interesting political connections.’ Jebb delved in his case again and laid another photograph on the table.
    It was not a face Harry had ever expected to see again. Sandy Forsyth would be thirty-one now, a few months older than Harry, but he looked almost middle-aged. He had a Clark Gable moustache and heavily oiled hair, already starting to recede, swept back from his brow. His face had filled out and acquired new lines but the keen eyes, the Roman nose and wide thin-lipped mouth were the same. It was a posed photograph; Sandy was smiling at the camera with a film star’s smile, half enigmatic and half inviting. He wasn’t a handsome man but the photograph made him appear so. Harry looked up again.
    ‘I wouldn’t have called him a close friend,’ he said quietly.
    ‘You were friendly for a time, Harry,’ Miss Maxse said. ‘The year before he was expelled. After that business involving Mr Taylor. We’ve spoken to him, you see.’
    ‘Mr Taylor.’ Harry hesitated a moment. ‘How is he?’
    ‘He’s all right these days,’ Jebb said. ‘No thanks to Forsyth. Now, when he was expelled, did you part on good terms?’ He jabbed the paperclip at Harry. ‘This is important.’
    ‘Yes. I was Forsyth’s only friend at Rookwood, really.’
    ‘I wouldn’t have thought you had an awful lot in common,’ Miss Maxse said with a smile.
    ‘We didn’t, in a lot of ways.’
    ‘Bit of a bad hat wasn’t he, Forsyth? Didn’t fit in. But you were always a steady chap.’
    Harry sighed. ‘Sandy had a good side too. Though …’ He paused. Miss Maxse smiled encouragingly.
    ‘I sometimes wondered why he wanted to be friends with me. When a lot of the people he mixed with were – well, bad hats, to use your phrase.’
    ‘Anything sexual in it, Harry, d’you think?’ Her tone was light and casual, as when she spoke of the bombs. Harry stared at her in