Soria was recommended in the guidebooks on the strength of a ruined convent and a couple of Government-run tourist hotels on two jutting rocks overlooking the narrow town below. Hawn had booked into one of them. A suit of armour stood halfway up the stairs, and the bar in the basement had a jukebox and one of those machines on which you can play tennis with yourself. He and Anna seemed to be the only guests.
On their first evening they drove down into the town and strolled up the main street. It smelt ripe but not fresh: there was donkey manure on the streets: the meat in the shops was covered with nesting flies: and in the bars there was sawdust and much drinking and no women. The men eyed Anna in silence. It was not a friendly town.
Hawn’s Spanish was poor, but Anna could manage a rather literate version which she had learnt at university; however, it required a tactful boldness on her part in order to get into conversation with the men, all of whom seemed to regard her presence with interested contempt. She made the point that she was looking for an old German gentleman who had lived in the town for many years and had been a doctor. This was frequently interpreted as un medico — that they were ill and wanted a doctor. Hawn would intervene with doctor profesor. The men were not helpful.
They had come to the end of the street and it was growing dark. The bar was long and narrow, like a cattle-stall, with scarcely space to squeeze past between the drinkers at the counter. A black bull’s head eyed them evilly from the far wall. Hawn found a space at the bar and ordered them both Fundador; they had already had a few drinks and he was beginning to feel easier, more confident. When the barman put their glasses down, Hawn repeated their ritual of questions. The man looked at Hawn empty-eyed, muttered something and moved on. Hawn tried the man on his left, but received only a shrug. He was finishing his thimble of brandy, wandering whether to have another, when someone nudged him in the ribs.
The man was holding up a glass of wine which had stained his lips black, and toasted them both in Spanish; then, without consulting either of them, he ordered wine for them both. As he did so, he kept kicking the bar softly with his canvas espadrille, like a nervous tic. He was very old, small, frail, in blue dungarees and a workman’s shirt, and his face was tanned to the colour of brown paper — except for his nose which appeared to have suffered some accident. It was thin, bent sideways, and veined with white scar tissue.
‘Mönch?’ He pronounced the name with the long Spanish vowel. ‘You are interested?’
Hawn said that he was.
‘You are English?’
‘We are.’
‘And why would Senor Mönch want to meet with English visitors?’
Hawn bought them all more wine. It had a thick rusty taste, but was not bad after the first three sips. Their new companion drank his like water. Anna put in, ‘We have a special reason for seeing Doktor Mönch. It is a personal matter.’
The old man gave a crooked smile, his bent nose curved like a question mark over his mouth. ‘You speak good Spanish, Senora. How is your German? Herr Mönch is German, you know.’
‘I know. Is he known here as Senor Mönch?’
The old man made a sound in his throat like burnt toast being scraped. ‘You talk about Senor Mönch. You ask the Guardia about Senor Mönch and they have never heard of him. You ask me about Mönch. You are excellently informed. What do you want to know of him?’
Anna went on in Spanish: ‘We have a proposition to make to him. My friend here is a journalist. It will be in Senor Mönch’s interest to see us.’
The man lifted his white nose from his glass and excused himself. Hawn watched him go into the telephone booth at the end of the bar. He was there for ten minutes. When he came back, he said, ‘In half-an-hour. Senor Mönch agrees to meet you. Here is the address.’
They had two more drinks together, then parted with pumping handshakes. He was the only man to have addressed Anna since arriving in the town.
Out in the street Hawn looked at the piece of paper the old man had given him. In careful block capitals, in pencil, was written: SENOR ALBERTO MILLAO, CALLE FONCADA 2.
Anna said, ‘Would you prefer to go alone?’
‘Certainly not. Seeing you may make him more at ease, just as long as you don’t blow your stack if he starts trotting out the odd National Socialist sentiment.’
Calle Foncada was a twisting track with a few small houses set back among olive trees. They found Number TKVO near the end: a single-storey white house with a shallow-tiled roof behind a high iron gate. When the engine stopped, they could hear chickens, and a dog began to bark ferociously.
The gate was padlocked, but there was a bell pull. They heard it clanging distantly inside the house. The barking grew louder; then presently an old peasant in a beret came out and unlocked the gate without a word, led them to the door, unlocked it, then showed them into a dark tiled passage with stone walls. The air was stale and cold. He opened a door at the end and stood back, allowing
