‘And they will do so completely now the government has sent most of our gold reserves to Moscow.’

‘What!’ Weary as he was, when Laporta said that it woke him up. ‘Why in God’s name did they do that?’

It was Florencia who replied, ‘Who else will sell us the guns we need?’

‘France will not, as we had hoped,’ Laporta added, once she had explained to him what she had just said. ‘And as for you British …’

‘Don’t blame me, my friend.’

It came to Cal later that in the pause that followed, and with the looks the pair exchanged, the conversation had come to the real reason they were here, and it was Florencia who first dipped her toe.

‘You know about these things, querido, you have told me. Where else could we buy weapons that we can control?’

Just then the phone rang and Cal went to pick it up, listened for a second, then said, ‘I’m not expecting anyone.’

‘Yes you are,’ Florencia snapped, rushing over to take it out of his hand and spouting fast and furious Spanish. Having learnt quite a bit in the last weeks, Cal understood ‘send him up’.

‘Send whom up?’

‘Andreu Nin,’ she replied, putting the phone down, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. ‘The leader of the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification.’

‘We have invited him to meet with you,’ Laporta added. ‘On a matter of grave concern.’

‘Get back on the phone,’ Cal said wearily; this was not going to end soon, for when this lot started talking, never mind arguing, time lost all meaning. ‘Order up some food.’

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘I’m not sure I can do what you want.’ Cal said that while aiming a jaundiced look at Florencia, who was too prone to putting him forward for things, albeit he knew it was his own fault for telling her too much about his past. ‘And I certainly could not do it without money, and lot’s of it.’

‘And if you had money?’ asked Florencia.

‘Let me explain to you about what you have to do to buy weapons.’

Cal had to pause then for a knock at the door, which he opened to find a waiter and a trolley with food for everyone, as well as beers and bottles of wine, a sight so redolent of peacetime it was hard to think there was a war going on, that there were armed men on every Barcelona corner and he went nowhere himself without his pistol. Having wheeled the trolley in, the waiter began to lay things out until Florencia, rudely, told him to leave it and depart.

‘He’s only doing his job,’ Cal said as the door shut behind him.

‘No man should be a lackey to another,’ she snapped.

‘I’ll remember that when we’re in bed.’

She began to go red, until she recalled that the other two men present did not understand English. Florencia then proceeded to deny her own words by doing for the trio of menfolk the task the waiter had been about to carry out, setting the plates, distributing food and pouring wine and beer, translating as Cal talked; her mother would have been proud of her.

‘First you have to find somebody willing to sell, and that is not easy. Then, if it’s a government, you need from them an End User Certificate to say where the weapons are going and to what purpose they will be put.’

He had to pause and explain that further, which took time with Florencia translating. Then there was the fact that the certificate could, in some circumstances, be circumvented by bribery. Some countries were more interested in the money than any morality. By all means kill your own citizens, even fight people we call allies, as long as we get the gold and they do not find out.

‘And when you buy on what is a black market, the price reflects that, to the tune of maybe paying a high premium on the normal cost.’

Seeing he was making the Spaniards glum, he apologised, but he also knew there was no point in gilding the lily; they had to know it was a murky world and a dirty game, and it was also one in which it was very easy to become the victim of what you were seeking to buy if anything went wrong.

Andreu Nin began to talk, Cal listening with concentration as Florencia turned his words into English. Not the histrionic type, he spoke carefully and dispassionately, which accorded with his schoolmasterly appearance and donnish manner, a round, rather inexpressive face, serious glasses and black curly hair, using an unlit pipe to make his points.

Basically, and Juan Luis Laporta nodded along in agreement, he outlined the fact that they must do something to check the communists before they became too strong. Cal, thinking he was exaggerating the perceived threat, was treated to more background about Spanish and Catalan politics than he cared to hear, but what it came down to he already knew: it was a bear pit.

The POUM was adamant the Workers’ Party was, only a few months into the struggle, weakening while the communists were getting stronger and that, if it continued, portended disaster. To prove that led Nin into a long aside regarding the crimes of Josef Stalin and the Comintern – not least the four million reckoned to have died in the Ukrainian famine – with, of course, much reference to the purity of his brand of Marxism. Yet for all his seeming paranoia, he did know how his enemies worked.

They would manoeuvre behind the scenes, steering clear of taking positions, because by doing so they could avoid blame for mistakes while openly criticising and diminishing their more politically active rivals. Yet at the same time they would continue to gather into their hands the levers of power, for example the control of weapons supply and military advice, the keys to the pursuance of the conflict.

Already, on the Madrid Front, no weapons could be committed without their approval; fighter planes would not fly and tanks would not be sent into battle because the pilots were Soviets, and so were the armoured-unit commanders, and they would obey an order only when it came from one of their own generals.

In the purely political sphere the communists were bringing in their secret police – Nin was certain a squad of the Soviet Secret Police, the NKVD, had arrived with the first shipment of weapons. Not one of the leaders, of whatever nationality, Spanish and Catalan included, did anything without a direct order from the Communist International in Moscow.

The Comintern took its instructions directly from Stalin, and those who were actual members and deeply experienced in political subversion were already present: the likes of Marty, who was not the only leading French communist to have come from Paris. Palmiro Togliatti, known to be the Comintern representative for all Spain, was already present from his Italian exile.

Stalin would want to control everything in Spain as he had in Russia – he could not brook dissent, Nin insisted, referring to the show trials in which he was disposing of his old comrades who might be rivals. The Comintern was committed to worldwide revolution, the enforcement of a system based on lies and a bullet for rebellion, real or imagined. Once they had enough influence, they would set out to undermine their political enemies in Spain too.

This they would do one by one, targeting the leaders of the other factions, until they had them so cornered as to be able to safely eliminate them, and if it could not be achieved by devious process they would resort to assassination. They had a willingness to kill outside Soviet borders, if necessary using foreign surrogates.

‘In Barcelona,’ Nin continued, ‘first it will be the POUM, for we are weaker than the CNT, but they will suffer too and I will tell you how. If you want to eat, if you want a good weapon, if you want to fight, they will say join the communists. Then, once they have begun to eliminate us, it will be known to all, so they will say join us, or you might be the next victim. First control, then power, and finally terror.’