Chapter Seventeen
The Linha Ferroviária connected the coastal towns to Lisbon, for the people who didn’t have a motor car or the funds to pay a driver, and by ten o’clock, the carriage at Estoril was still crowded. I took a seat and opened a newspaper a previous commuter had left behind. I couldn’t understand the language, but it was useful enough to fan myself with, and occasionally swat away the hand of the overfamiliar man beside me.
The train terminated at the Cais do Sodré and I followed the other tourists past the Praça do Comércio with its statue of a very bored King José I, through the Arco da Vitória towards the Chiado, the shopping district. Side by side, the similarities of the window displays were hard to miss. Whether they supported Germany or the Allies, the same underlying themes were there. Like two companies plying completing products.
What was harder to miss was the bufo. Every time I turned around, he was there, and time was getting tight. I continued north to the Rossio, and the press of tourists, mingling and making minor changes to my costume until I felt certain that by the time I doubled back, slipping into the dingy bar at the edge of the Bairro Alto, the bufo not only was lost, but he wouldn’t recognise me if he did see me. I sat down, ordered a drink, and waited.
*
‘Be careful, my dear. You’re dangerously close to acquiring the Portuguese melancholy,’ the man lisped.
He slipped into the chair opposite and pushed across a glass with a couple of fingers of brandy. He was taller than most Portuguese, but had the same swarthy skin, the same round face crowned with black hair and moustache. What hadn’t changed was the nose, aristocratic and aquiline.
‘You need to learn to talk with those things,’ I told my godfather.
‘What things?’
‘The pads fleshing out your cheeks. You’re lisping like a little girl.’ Paused for effect. ‘Or a pansy.’
He graced me with a filthy look.
‘Besides, it’s not melancholy, Matthew. It’s a hangover.’
‘Good night at the casino?’
‘Didn’t go to the casino. German reception at some villa in Cascais.’
‘You shouldn’t drink so much – it’s unladylike.’
‘Since when have you concerned yourself with my manners?’
He tilted his head, conceding the point. ‘Did you learn anything interesting?’
‘Despite apparently meeting the German ambassador, all I have is speculation. Will the Allies run their way up the Boot from Sicily or cross over from Sardinia?’
‘The consensus?’
‘Sardinia. Their troops are already reinforcing the island, but who knows?’ I looked at him closely. ‘What do you know about a man called Martin?’
His face was carefully blank. ‘Who?’
‘Martin. A major in the Royal Marines, I take it.’
‘It’s a common enough name.’ The tip of his nose twitched. For a diplomat whose life depended on deception, it would give him away in an instant, to anyone who knew to look for it. ‘Why do you ask?’
My blasé tone matched his. ‘I’ve never met the chap of course, but some of the Germans were discussing him.’
‘How very interesting.’ He scratched his nose and looked at me warily. ‘What were they saying?’
‘They stopped as soon as they saw me.’ I leant back and smiled. ‘Fancy telling me what’s happening?’
He reached into his breast pocket for a silver case, extracted a small thin cigar and sniffed it.
‘To be honest, old girl, I really don’t know much. The chap was found dead in the water off the coast of Spain last month. Supposedly had documents of some sort on him, but as to what they were, I genuinely don’t know.’ He studied the cigar for a few seconds. ‘Whoever he was, he was buried with military honours, poor sod.’
‘Ours or theirs?’
His face was serene and the twitch had subsided. ‘Theirs.’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘What did they find in those documents?’
Matthew shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
‘Well,’ I raised my glass, ‘to the major. Hope he really did die a hero.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Matthew murmured, raising his glass. ‘And when we need all the heroes we can get.’
‘So you do think invasion is imminent?’
‘Which invasion, old girl?’
‘Italy. What else is being planned?’
There had been rumours of an invasion of France, but the last one, Dieppe, had been a disaster. Was that it? Let the Germans think we were invading Italy and instead invade France?
‘No idea, old girl.’ He drew on the cigar, exhaling a small cloud of smoke. ‘Yes, I do think an invasion of Italy is imminent. Sardinia seems as good a guess as any.’
I fumbled for my own cigarettes, allowing my godfather to light one for me.
‘And what then? Do you think the Italians will depose Mussolini? Switch sides?’
‘Italy won’t switch sides.’
My hand froze, the glass halfway to my lips.
‘What are you talking about? Of course they will.’
The speculation was rife – not only about Italy, but the impact her fall would have on the other Fascist states.
‘They’ll try, I’ll grant you that, but it won’t happen.’ He sipped his brandy. ‘They’ve spent the last few years as staunch allies to the Germans. Who’d trust them? No, my dear. Surrender is their only option. Unconditional. And then the ugliness begins.’
‘You think the Germans will invade Italy?’
‘They won’t have a choice. Be surprised if plans weren’t already in action. They can’t afford to lose the Boot.’
‘What aren’t you telling me?’
‘Nothing, actually. You know about as much as I do.’
I looked around. The bar was small and dank, catering more for locals than foreigners, but it had a feel, a vibrancy, which was rare in the European haunts. In the corner, a young man with a guitar sang fado in a rich tenor. On either side of him were men plucking on guitars – on the left a conventional one, on the right, a teardrop-shaped guitar with a lot more strings. The fadisto’s unintelligible words washed over me as I watched the man across from me. In a strange way, the disguise suited him. The heavy make-up gave him a swarthy
