Chapter 86

After a group of locals arrived and congregated at the bar, Harry and Ana moved away and took up seats at a table by the window. Harry was desperate to know what the paper Ana was still holding was all about – wanted to be let in on the ‘joke’.

Ana was serious, now, as she translated it for him. It was a bond, issued by the Republican Government in exile. She explained how, after the Civil War, the defeated Republicans had tried – unsuccessfully – to rally support for their lost cause. Hundreds of these bonds had been issued (many for just a few pesetas), often to poor farmers or factory workers who might have had to go without food for days just to buy them. The exiled Government had hoped – “dreamed” was the word Ana used – that the money raised by the issue of the bonds would finance a new military campaign that would defeat the victorious Francoists. But of course, it wasn’t to be. ‘Events, dear boy, events’ had intervened, with the sweep of the Second World War extinguishing, forever, those same hopes. So the bonds had become worthless.

“Worthless?” Harry asked – worried, now, that his hunch about the value of that bit of paper had been wrong. He’d had a feeling, all along, that it was important. This latest revelation made him tense up a little. Ana noticed.

“Well, if it was really worthless, Harry, they wouldn’t have been looking for it, would they?” Her grin was just the right side of ‘sly’.

“I don’t understand…” Harry said, hoping she’d put him out of his misery.

“Harry,” she said (and he loved the way she said his name, even when she was using it to point out something she thought should be obvious to him), “I know you don’t read the news. But I think even you know that we eventually got democracy in Spain. They let us vote now!”

He realized his mind had been in third gear since he met Ana. He needed to catch up, start thinking a little, maybe. Then, like he’d just put his foot on the accelerator, he thought he might have worked it out…

“The Socialists!” he said.

“Oh, Harry,” Ana said, with a palpable relief. “You got there in the end!”

She explained how, when Spain elected its first socialist government under the new democracy in 1982, a decision was taken to redeem the bonds. It was a “debt of honour”, she told him. “For some families, those few pesetas they sacrificed decades before had grown into quite a windfall.”

Harry was up to speed, now. He wanted to know about this particular bond, the one that Lillian McFry had kept with her medals.

“Harry,” (there it was again – the seductive intonation that had intoxicated him when he met her all those years ago in Paris) “there is a whole office of people somewhere in the Government who have been looking for this one. It’s like a lottery ticket that hasn’t been claimed. Take a look at this, here,” she said, pointing at one line in amongst the dense print.

Harry scrutinized the paper again – realized he’d missed it when he’d looked at it when he’d received it, and kicked himself for not having seen it then. This bond wasn’t for a few pesetas. There, in black and white – so clear he just couldn’t believe he hadn’t spotted it amongst the Spanish text – was the figure of £50,000.

Before he could absorb it fully, or even begin to work out what that amount of money was worth seventy years ago, Ana had a question or two. She wanted to know how Harry had come by the bond, how long he’d had it. Harry told her all about Lillian – or as much as he knew.

Ana was incredulous, once she learned. The idea that such a valuable piece of paper might have been hidden away in a little bungalow in England for all these years – well, it was frankly astounding. And the fact that the woman who had it was still alive was more astounding still.

*

Lillian McFry was still very much alive. Sometimes she wondered ‘how?’ Other times she wondered ‘why?’ What was so special about her that she deserved to live so long, she thought. Just now, as the chill of the evening began to make her bones ache, she was thinking about something else, however. She was contemplating the fact that she might be immortalized by Colin McAllistair, who she had agreed could interview her – for ‘posterity’ – early next week. He’d said he’d like to film her, would bring a video camera, if she didn’t mind. Well, she could get her hair done. Maybe even ask her nurse if she could arrange a trip to town to buy a new outfit. She glanced up at the photograph on her sideboard, taken all those years ago, all those miles away, and thought she had better make an effort. Couldn’t help but smile to herself as she realized that, after all these years, someone wanted to hear her story. She didn’t think Colin McAllistair would be a bad person. She wondered if she might need to stock up on bourbon creams.

Chapter 85

Danny didn’t have long to wait until he met Yolanda, Alan McFry’s ‘partner’. After Harry had disappeared for his date, Alan had left Danny alone in the lounge, while he busied himself with something in the kitchen. He’d turned the TV on for him, saying Danny might enjoy watching the highlights from a bullfight, something that seemed to be on one channel or another at any time of the day in Spain. But Danny hadn’t been interested. Instead, he tried to relax, and stop himself getting annoyed at Harry’s obviously pre-planned decision to leave him in the company of a stranger for a couple of hours, even if he was ‘family’. He heard a phone ringing, then Alan’s muffled voice as he answered it.

He couldn’t make out anything Alan was saying, though his tone sounded casual, so he busied himself looking at the spines of the books on a shelf in the corner of the room - trying to get a sense of the kind of person Harry’s brother was. A lot of cookery books, he noticed, a mix of English and Spanish ones, and a mixed bag of novels that seemed to span a couple of centuries of English literature. It could only have been a couple of minutes until he heard a key turn in the door down the hallway. He heard, too, the click of the phone receiver from the kitchen, and guessed that Alan had ended his call quickly. ‘Interesting…’ he thought.

Then, he heard a woman’s voice, speaking heatedly in Spanish, and Alan’s equally forceful response to her. Whatever the argument was, it didn’t seem to last long, and their voices got quieter. Even if he’d spoken Spanish, the commentary on the bullfight would have made it hard to make out what they were saying, but he thought he heard the word ‘Harry’ a couple of times, and then his own name.

Shortly afterwards, Alan came back into the lounge, followed closely by a young woman of striking good looks. She was dressed smartly, her immaculate make-up failing, however, to hide her flushed face.
“Danny – this is Yolanda,” Alan said, and Danny had the good manners to stand up to shake her hand, noticing that Alan, too, looked a little red in the face. She smiled at him, which helped diffuse his discomfort (if only a little). “So you are Harry’s friend,” she said, “and we will entertain you until he has done his ‘business’!” Danny wondered whether she had a clue about the euphemism, but put the thought of Harry the Beagle out of his mind as quickly as it popped up.
“I believe so,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Well, why don’t we take you out for a while, Danny?” Alan asked. “I can’t believe you want to spend your first night in Madrid sat in our lounge … come on: let’s see if this city can seduce you like it has me.” Then he said something in Spanish to Yolanda, who smiled. They both turned to leave the room - Danny’s cue to follow, collect his jacket from the study, and make his way out with them into the early-evening of the Saturday bustle of the Plaza Dos de Mayo.

*

If Harry McFry wasn’t much one for keeping up with the news, Cyril Galloway was quite the opposite. He knew exactly how important that piece of paper of Lillian McFry’s was – had spotted it immediately when he’d first been asked to value the medals. He’d seen at least two or three articles about the search for it in the weeks before. It wasn’t exactly front page news, but it had made the international section in a couple of what used to be called the ‘broadsheets’, until they shrunk them to fit the commuter lifestyle, that was.
Now all he had to do was pick his moment to ring Lillian McFry. He’d spent the day wondering about that one, and was finally coming to the conclusion that Sunday might be best. He’d have to be careful, though, since he’d sensed she didn’t like him. Maybe sending Dacre Lawrence to see her had not been an exactly inspired idea, either? He wondered how his friend was faring: thought, perhaps, that he might even schedule a visit across the Pennines to see him next week. But not before he had his hands on Lillian’s treasure. Oh, no. He would have to sort that first. And Dacre Lawrence wouldn’t need to know anything about it, either. The good doctor could think what he liked about him, Galloway mused, even supposing he recovered from his stroke. It would be too late then. He poured himself a large glass of port, and began to mull over his strategy for approaching Lillian McFry.

Chapter 84

Harry walked into a small bar near the Tribunale metro station, a few blocks from his brother’s flat. Nothing much had changed in the area in the six years since he’d been there, and it felt like he was walking through a movie set, the backdrop to a film he’d seen a thousand times.

Here and there, groups of young people were gathering, chatting animatedly. It was a pale, grey, early evening sky above, and Harry had left his hat and coat back at the flat, but he noticed how the locals were dressed against the cold. He was an oddity, dressed only in his shirt and trousers. As he pushed open the familiar door to the bar, he licked his lips in anticipation of his first anis since his last visit to Spain, relishing the idea of how its sweetness would wipe out the whisky flavour in his mouth. He was early for his meeting with Ana, thought he’d have a drink to relax a little before she came in.

The barman didn’t seem to recognize him, though Harry was pretty sure it was the same guy he remembered from all those years ago, a little older and greyer, maybe - but definitely him. There was no reason at all why he should recall Harry – his visits to the bar, while frequent, had always been low key – and he would have been more worried if he had done. Harry was enjoying the feeling of anonymity that can only come from being a stranger in a foreign city.

The bar was dark and empty, apart from a woman perched on a bar stool in the corner, sipping a cocktail through a straw. He caught her warm, brown eyes as they briefly flicked to look at him as he walked to the bar, but she turned away almost as quickly, and stared down at her drink. She was a beautiful woman, all right. He ordered his drink on ice, and rolled the first, sugary sip of syrup across his tongue, seemed to be lost for a moment, then edged his way along the bar to be closer to the woman.

“Pardon me,” he said. “I feel as though we've met before. Perhaps I’m mistaken…?” The line came naturally to Harry.
She turned to look at him, and her response was quick. Quite unphased by his English, her own accent had just a dash of American about it: “Maybe it's just that I remind you of someone?” she asked. There was the hint of a smile, and Harry saw her eyes sparkling in the dim light. “Someone you used to care about - but that was long ago? Do you think I'd fall for that old line? ” Her intonation was steady, assured. “Besides,” she went on, “I never talk to strangers, anyway.” She turned back to her drink, as if to underline the point.

Harry was relaxing now. “I ain't a bad guy when you get to know me. I just thought there ain't no harm…” She couldn’t help but look up at him again, like it was the first time she had ever seen him, and he smiled the way only Harry could smile (when he was around a woman, that is).

He pulled two cigarettes from his pack on the bar, and smoothly lit them both, before handing her one. She shook her head.
“No, thank you. I gave them up years ago,” she said, with maybe just a hint of triumph in her voice. But she smiled again, even as she went on to ask: “How are you, Harry?”

Harry was smiling, too. He couldn’t think of anyone else who could be tempted so easily into reciting the opening lines of his favourite Tom Waits song. He stubbed out the redundant second cigarette, and dragged on his own.
“Oh, you know. I keep my head above water. What’s happened to you, though? You’re actually early!“ All the time he’d known her, Ana had been late for everything, whether it was a meeting, a liaison or meeting his flight.

“People can change, Harry. We are not leopards - surely you know that!” she replied.
“Well, how are you, Ana? he asked (not quite convinced people couldn’t be leopard-like).
“Things are good, Harry. I’m happy,” she said. It didn’t sound as convincing as she intended but, as she lifted her cocktail glass, Harry’s attention was suddenly diverted by the ring on her left hand. Suddenly - from nowhere - a sharp pain (did he just drag too heavily on his cigarette?) cut across his chest. He took a long intake of breath, and fought against the hurt - did the only thing his mind thought it was programmed to do in such a situation.

“Let me get you another drink,” he said, turning to the barman. She pushed her empty glass across to him, and he ordered the cocktail he knew Ana had always drunk (together with another anis, of course) while his mind desperately tried to process quite how his brother could have failed (somehow) to mention the fact that Ana had got married. He tried to suppress an anger that he felt welling up inside him. How long? Who? What kind of person – what kind of brother – thought it might be insignificant? He could understand – just – why he might have kept the news that he had hooked up with Ana’s sister to himself. But this was different. Did Carrie know? He wondered if everyone knew – everyone, that is, except poor, old Harry McFry. ‘That’s right! Keep Harry in the dark!’ he was thinking.

Ana broke his train of thought, sensed he was angry about something, but couldn’t tell what. Was it a crime to stop smoking, she wondered? Could Harry not accept that she might be happy?
She’d gone to a lot of trouble to be here tonight, had cancelled a meal with friends, made ‘arrangements’ at (very) short notice after Harry had called her just two days earlier. Didn’t he appreciate that? What kind of world was Harry McFry living in to think that time stood still for five years?

Harry tried to shake himself free of the anguish he was feeling … but it wasn’t easy. Better move onto business, he thought – he’d have to deal with his brother later. Just for now, ‘business’ seemed like a safer port for him.
“Ana,” he said, “I need your help. Take a look at this for me, will you?” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out Lillian McFry’s paper, unfolded it and handed it to her. Immediately she started reading it, her eyebrows arched.
“It’s a will of some sort. I just need to know what it says,” he said to her, trying to sound casual.
She was nodding her head, and smiling. Oh, that smile – it was like a shining beacon for Harry. Harry, who was all at sea, had been for years now, lost without a pilot.
But then, just as quickly, Ana was shaking her head. Looking altogether more serious.
“Harry – you are a stupid man!” she said. “This is not a will at all!” And she started laughing again and, it felt to Harry, it was as though the whole room had suddenly lit up. Even the barman, who spoke enough English to serve tourists, was chuckling as he polished a glass at the end of the bar, watching their conversation develop.
“Then if it’s not a will, what is it?” Harry asked, infected by her laughter to laugh himself, even if it felt like it might be - was - at his own expense.
Ana waved the paper at him. “Don’t you read the news these days, Harry McFry?” she said, still laughing. “Everyone’s looking for this piece of paper. Absolutely everyone!”

It felt to Harry like someone had just told a joke, but that he’d somehow missed the punch line.

Chapter 83

“You’ll be sleeping in here,” Alan McFry said to Danny, as they passed a small study off the long corridor in his flat. “You might as well drop your bag in there now, if you like. You’re in the spare room, Harry.”

Danny followed the instruction and found himself in a tiny box room only just big enough to hold a single bed, a desk and a wall of books. He dropped his bag on the bed and unzipped his coat while he walked to the window to survey the scene outside. They were on the third floor of an old apartment block just around the corner from what Alan had said was the Plaza Dos de Mayo.

To get there, they’d left Madrid’s main thoroughfare, the Gran Via, and zig-zagged down roads and alleyways before Alan found a parking space not too far from the flat. From the window, Danny could see groups of youths starting to gather: they all looked amiable, relaxed – not at all like teenagers preparing for a Saturday night out in a city. Harry had mentioned that during their flight. “You’ll like it, Danny – I promise you. The Spanish know how to enjoy themselves without getting drunk – it’s amazing to see!” Danny remembered wondering what was so amazing about people enjoying themselves without being drunk.

He heard Harry and Alan talking in the corridor. Harry was asking where Yolanda, Alan’s girlfriend, was. “She’s out seeing a friend. She’ll be back any minute, though,” Alan had replied.

Danny wondered whether he should stay in the room for a while, let Alan and Harry have some time together, maybe. Then he thought it might seem weird if he didn’t join them. He threw his jacket on the bed and walked out and up the corridor, towards a lounge where Alan and Harry were sat.

“Drink, Harry?” Alan was asking, holding a whisky bottle and a glass, in readiness.

“Why not?” Harry replied, unbuttoning his coat and taking his hat off.

Alan turned as Danny entered the room. “Sit down, kid – what can I get you?” he asked. Seemed like it was a McFry trait to patronize people, Danny thought, even if Harry’s brother seemed very different from his new work colleague. “Just a coke, please,” he said, sitting in an armchair close by a window, and opposite Harry.

No-one here seemed relaxed, Danny was thinking, even if he had his own excuse, since he was in a strange city in a stranger’s house.

“So, Harry … you never did tell me exactly why you’re here. Anything you can share with me?” Alan asked, with what might have been a slight wink.

Harry shifted in his seat, leaning forward as he took a drink from his whisky.

“We’re working on a case at the moment. Here…” he said, reaching into his inside pocket and pulling out a cigarette packet.

Alan looked alarmed. “Not in here, Harry. Sorry – Yolanda doesn’t like it,” he said, quickly, with a shake of his head.

Harry rolled his eyes, but proceeded to open the pack and pull out a folded piece of paper. “Have a look at this,” he said, handing it to his brother.

Alan unfolded it and grimaced. “Legal speak, by the looks of it, Harry. Too technical for me, I’m afraid. Maybe you should ask Ana to have a look at it for you?” His smile looked wry, at least to Danny.

“That’s the plan,” Harry said. It was the first Danny had heard of Ana, or any plan, and he wondered who she might be.

Alan and Harry could have had a long discussion about Ana, and Yolanda, and their respective relationships with the two sisters. For their own (separate) reasons, they most probably would have enjoyed it and, if truth be known, were both wishing Danny Longhurst wasn’t just a bit too old to be packed off with a pocketful of money and asked to make himself scarce for a while.

As it was, Danny was left sensing he was in the way.

“When are you seeing her?” Alan asked, refilling both of their drinks.

“Tonight,” Harry said, perhaps a little sharply. His tone softened, though, as he went on: “In fact, I was wondering if you might spend a couple of hours showing Danny round the area, and we could maybe meet up for a meal around eight or so?”

‘So that’s your plan, is it, Harry?’ Alan thought. ‘Dump your friend on me while you go out and try to rekindle something that died five years ago.’ He pretended he was thinking about the proposition, but finally replied: “Sure, we can do that, can’t we, Danny?”

“I guess so,” Danny said, trying to suppress the thought that he might be excess baggage for Harry’s trip.

Harry’s mood seemed to lift, though. He’d been worrying how he could carve some time away from Danny, be on his own, and had hoped his brother would agree. “Good – that’s settled then,” he said, smiling at Alan. “Now – where did you say your gorgeous girlfriend was?”

Chapter 82

Laurel McFry wasn’t stupid. She’d listened to Harry’s explanation of why he and Danny were going to Spain, but had decided not to challenge it. And she’d agreed that he could take the envelope she’d received the day before, even though she wondered exactly what ‘analysis’ he might be planning to do on it. She’d noticed that he’d given only a cursory glance to the letter, that once he’d seen there was no return address, he seemed to dismiss it. Could he be looking for fingerprints, she wondered? Surely the letter would be just as good for that purpose – perhaps more so, since who knew how many people might have handled the envelope in its transit from Yorkshire to Merseyside? Was Harry McFry as smart as people seemed to think he was?

She made herself a tea, and sat on the sofa with it. Harry had certainly moved fast with the birth, death and marriage certificates, by the sound of things. That was impressive. But he’d seemed a little distant (even tired) while he was talking, and she couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t look like he’d shaved that morning. Looked, even, a little hung over. Maybe that explained why she hadn’t been able to get hold of him last night – he’d been out on the town or… something?

She couldn’t forget what Danny had said about their trip on the phone to her last night, though: “it’s all mixed up with your case”. A conference on forensic genealogy – in Madrid? Did Harry McFry think she was born yesterday? But something an ex-boyfriend had once said to her was playing like a refrain in her head. He’d told her she reminded him of a Spanish woman, with her black hair and dark eyes. She’d dismissed it at the time as the kind of flattery men might use when they’ve got something they want on their mind. Now, she was starting to think there may be more to Harry’s trip to Madrid than he’d wanted her to know. When your own mother was a stranger to you, it was like having a blank canvas, where you could draw whatever picture you liked. It wasn’t the first time she’d imagined where her mother might have come from. Harry, she had noticed, hadn’t mentioned anything about finding her birth certificate. Could her mother have Spanish ancestry, she wondered?

*

Well, Cyril Galloway didn’t sleep too well on Friday night. The wasted day in Birkenhead was playing on his mind, and the call he’d had from Colin McAllistair had pre-occupied him for most of his journey back to Telford. The news that Harry McFry had sold, or otherwise disposed of, the medals, was a blow to him, that was for sure. And yet … how did McAllistair know this, he wondered? What contact had he had with McFry after their lunch on Thursday? When he first met him a quarter of a century ago, he’d been a struggling student. But life had obviously been kind to Colin McAllistair in the intervening years. He gave every impression of being a prosperous and successful academic. What if he’d bought the medals off Harry? It wasn’t impossible. Galloway was no stranger to the notion of betrayal, even if he preferred to play the role of betrayer much more than he did the betrayed.

The thought that McAllistair might have double-crossed him wouldn’t go away, and disturbed his sleep. By the time he woke up on Saturday, however, another thought had occurred to him. It concerned the box the medals were in, and the piece of paper – that oh, so valuable piece of paper – that was in the box. What if (and it could only be speculation on his part, he realised) Lillian McFry had given the medals to this Harry McFry character, but had kept the box herself? McAllistair, after all, had been pretty sure that Harry McFry didn’t have the box – just the medals. McAllistair hadn’t even known about the paper, until he’d told him.

Suddenly, the gloom that had infected Cyril Galloway’s world seemed to lift a little, as he began to realize that the very thing he was looking for might be sat in the back of a cupboard, in the lounge of a tiny bungalow, on an estate not five miles from where he was sat.