Marina felt her blood chill, her heartbeat slow. Andalusia was down?

‘And now the Falangist dogs are heading here. For me. For you.’ His eyes tripped over every one of them, making it personal. ‘The fascist scum must be neutralized. There can be no mercy against an enemy that disregards the very humanity of its opponents. Only three days ago, there was a report from Malaga that our brave comrades were rounded up in the bullring – the bullring! – and slaughtered. They shot at them like fish in a barrel.’ He took a breath, contempt twisting his face. ‘This was not just the landowners’ revenge, this was their sport . . .’

Marina felt an echo ring against the words – Malaga . . . Bullring . . .

‘Where, exactly?’ Her voice, refined and feminine, rang like a bell against the cannon-fire of his rhetoric. She felt a spike of fear as every head turned, Modesto’s gaze coming to rest upon her, for she hadn’t known the words were leaving her until she heard them in the room too.

There was a pause, Modesto regarding her carefully. ‘. . . Ronda.’ She didn’t flinch, though it took everything in her not to react; Ronda was still three miles from La Ventilla; it could have been the Ordonez or Romeros . . .

Modesto’s eyes narrowed, his stare weighing heavily upon her. ‘By every account I have heard, the braceros were starving, previous attempts at uprisings having been immediately and mercilessly staunched. But this summer, they reorganized themselves, invading the estate and reclaiming it for harvest; they slaughtered some of their bulls—’

‘Bulls?’ she queried again, but her heart was hammering now. She knew what he was going to say.

‘Mendoza bulls. Famous for their strength and courage. And, of course – meat.’ Modesto looked back around the room again. ‘Our brothers wanted merely to feed their families. No different to you or I. But for that audacity, they were rounded up and sent in to the bullring, in groups of five, for the landlords to pick them off, one by one. Even the beasts are granted more dignity than that.’

A roar of disgust rumbled through the room, condemning her father, her brothers. She allowed her head to give a tiny nod, but she was shaking, violent tremors barely contained. Because she knew her family had done this in her name, as payback for losing her. Tit for tat. It would never end.

‘Why do you ask, señorita?’ Modesto’s attention was back on her again, his scrutiny upon her disconcerting for he was a man known for his interrogations, a man hired to read when people were lying.

‘I am from Seville,’ she replied, remembering her initial lie to Sindo. ‘I wondered if I might know them. If I could help.’

‘And do you?’

She shook her head. ‘. . . No. I’m sorry.’

He stared at her for longer than was necessary, the tension in the room growing like an overblown balloon. Did he believe her, or did her voice betray her? ‘Well, that is a shame.’