The woman arched an eyebrow, raking her gaze over her and taking in her dusty, stained and torn clothes, her ragged hair, the limp sack over her shoulder. ‘Did you come on foot?’

‘Pretty much, although I managed to hide on the train from Cordoba to Puertollano.’ Marina nodded and the woman nodded too, something in her eyes changing, as though evidence of this pluck and grit, of her flash-flood tears, confirmed she really was part of the struggle, in spite of her ladylike manners.

‘. . . The whole country roils with fury at those savages who want to plunge democratic and the people’s Spain into a hell of terror and death—’

The woman placed a kindly hand on her shoulder. ‘. . . Got somewhere to stay?’

Marina hesitated. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. Just getting off the estate, out of Andalusia and into Madrid had been as far as she’d been able to think. She knew plenty of people in the capital, of course; she had visited many times with her parents over the years and her mother’s sisters lived here, as well as some other close friends. But even if she had known where they lived (which she did not, for she had only ever seen the city through the eyes of a child), she could not contact a single one of them; in their eyes, she was a traitor now, that worst of things – a Republican. ‘I will. I’m getting myself sorted,’ she said determinedly.

‘But they shall not pass!’

The crowd erupted into a roar, ‘No pasarán!’ being taken up as a chant, making the hairs on the back of Marina’s newly exposed neck stand on end. ‘No pasarán! No pasarán!’

The woman looked around at the ignited mob, then back at her. ‘What is your name?’

‘Marina Marquez.’

‘No pasarán! No pasarán! No pasarán!’

‘Well, Marina Marquez, I’m Paloma Rivas,’ she said, dropping the cigarette to the ground and grinding it out beneath her hobnailed boot. She stuck out her hand welcomingly, as though Marina had passed some kind of test. ‘You just stick with me. I’ve got somewhere you can stay.’

The apartment was in the Salamanca district, at the very top of a grand old peach-tinted building, which gave the impression of blushing in the dusk. Glazed, fully enclosed verandas were stepped all the way up the facade and sycamore trees shaded the streets below, protecting the residents from the harshness of the Spanish sun.

Inside, the genteel nature of the place continued: black and white marble floors, a grand cantilevered staircase, and there was an elaborate cage lift but it appeared to be out of order. The tall lemon tree in the atrium looked dusty and parched.

Marina frowned, feeling a strange twitch in her heart as she followed Paloma up the stairs, catching sight of a broken lace parasol left propped in one corner. No one else appeared to be around, which felt odd coming straight from a crowd of tens of thousands; she knew the city was full to the brim and yet there was an air of abandonment here.