Dead.

Santi was dead.

She blinked hard for a long moment, the knife slack in her hand as she steadied her breath. No matter how many months passed, no matter how many times she said the words, they never felt real – it was impossible he could be gone. And yet he was. It was the only thing that had changed: her father was still the landowner, the bulls still grazed the green grass and the workers were still hungry . . . She had left for nothing and he had died for nothing and that was the worst of it.

‘Marina?’ She looked up to find Luciana looking over at her. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course.’

‘You are sure? You look pale.’

‘I’m just so tired, that’s all.’

‘We will sleep when we are dead. Perhaps tomorrow,’ Luciana said, tossing her a look. She had a dark sense of humour that unnerved Marina sometimes.

They continued chopping and slicing, the thin stock bubbling ferociously and spitting at their wrists as they threw in the vegetables.

‘It is smelling good in here,’ Ivan said, rubbing his hands together appreciatively as he walked back into the room.

‘It won’t be long now,’ Luciana said. ‘Another drink?’

‘Why not? I believe I have earnt it,’ he replied, holding out his glass and sinking back down at the table again.

‘What were you doing through there?’ Luciana asked over her shoulder as she poured the sherry.

‘Looking through those old boxes in the study. There’s been a high-profile arrest on the French border.’

‘Oh. Anyone we would have heard of?’

‘Heard of, no, but I thought it might be the previous owner of this place. I thought I recognized her from the photograph on the arrest card. She’s a beautiful woman even if she is a fascist.’

Marina fell very still as his words carried over to her. What?

‘And is it her?’ Luciana asked, scooping up a handful of chopped potato and dropping it in the pan.

‘It looks that way. Sindo and Miguel are just going through the photographs now.’

‘What photographs?’ Marina asked, her voice sounding hollow. ‘I thought Paloma said everything was burnt when you moved in?’

He shrugged. ‘Not everything.’

‘So who was the owner?’ Luciana asked.

‘Sofia Delgado – some socialite with links to Mola –’

Marina froze at the sound of her godmother’s name, her past so close to her it was like breath on her neck.

‘– The husband was a general in the army. Died several years back in Tangiers but he was top brass. Miguel thinks she could be valuable.’

‘Valuable how?’ Luciana frowned. ‘Surely she doesn’t know anything useful?’

‘Probably not, but she could be a bargaining chip – her life for a cannon.’ He gave a careless shrug. ‘Something like that.’

Marina felt sick. She remembered her godmother’s excited laugh as Marina had opened her present at Christmas, her pitiful tears when her husband’s body had been brought back. She had been childless, kind, patient, a great storyteller . . .