The Time In Between (Sira Quiroga, #1)

by María Dueñas

from the regime, and thea...

you should try to be either bold and daring or pure elegance in its utmost simplicity. Either way, she advises you to avoid the conventional, and especially not to be mainstream,

beautiful, single foreign woman will always attract all manner of playboys and opportunists. You can’t imagine how much confidential

information has been revealed irresponsibly by careless agents in moments of passion. Be alert, and please do not share anything with anyone, anything at all of what you’ve heard here today.”

“You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. We’ve never

met before. And as for your enrollment into the British Secret Intelligence Service, from this moment you’re no longer the Spanish citizen Sira Quiroga to us, nor the Moroccan Arish Agoriuq. You’re just the SOE special agent codenamed Sidi, with a base of operations in Spain. The least conventional of the recent conscripts, but just the same, one of our own.”

Agent Sidi.

He was the only person who sensed that there was something more complex behind my innocent departure, something I couldn’t talk about. Not to him, not to anybody. Perhaps that was why he preferred not to inquire. In fact he barely said a word: he just did what he always did, he looked at me with his explosive gaze and advised me to take care.

Perhaps I’d accepted out of loyalty to Rosalinda. Perhaps because I thought I owed it to my mother and my country. Perhaps I hadn’t done it for anyone else, but just for myself. What’s certain is that I’d said yes, let’s do it: fully aware of what I was doing, with a promise to myself that I’d take on the job with determination and without hesitation, fears, or insecurities.

The first clients appeared; some of them were the ones he’d predicted, others weren’t. The season opened with Gloria von Fürstenberg, beautiful, majestic, her ebony-black hair combed into thick plaits that gathered at the back of her neck like the black crown of an Aztec goddess.

always like to keep exhaustive records of all my clients,” I’d warned Dora. “I want to understand what they say so I know where they’re going, who they’re going around with, and what plans they have. That way I may be able to get hold of new clients. I’ll be in charge of whatever they say in Spanish, but when they’re speaking German you’re responsible for that.”

I acquired Baroness de Petrino as a client, too; wife to the powerful press officer Lazar, she was less spectacular than the Mexican woman but had far more money to spend.

No one seemed at all interested in my origins, however:

they were more interested in my materials and what I was able to make from them.

didn’t know whether all those pieces of information I recorded every day had any value at all to Hillgarth and his people, but just in case, I tried to be minutely rigorous.

I went to Embassy on a few occasions at aperitif time.

The Spanish war that had just come to an end and the brutal conflict that was devastating Europe seemed to be tales from another galaxy in that environment of pure, simple sophistication.

Margaret Taylor.

Where was she now, that Sira who had had her hair cut by a little Moorish girl with the sewing scissors in the kitchen of the La Luneta boardinghouse? Where had they gone, the poses I’d practiced so many times in my friend’s cracked mirror? They’d been lost between the folds of time. Now I had my hair done in the best salon in Madrid, and those self-assured gestures were more mine than my own teeth.

“Too much work. Not time for everything. Fewer clients or seek help. Please inform.”

“Hire someone utterly trustworthy, no Red past or political affiliation.” Order received. And uncertainty had come with it.

And those—like your mother and me—who weren’t of either faction, waiting for the horror to be over so that we

could get on with our lives in peace. All this without a government in charge, without anyone imposing a bit of order in that chaos.

there was no need, because before I had the chance to add anything I could see a strange gleam in Doña Manuela’s eyes and the trace of a smile on one side of her mouth. “With the compatriots of the queen Doña Victoria Eugenie, child, whatever you need me to do. Just tell me when you want me to start.”

began to have more of a social life: my clients encouraged me to attend a thousand events, keen to show me off as their great discovery of the season. I

realized I was being followed. Perhaps they’d been doing it for a while and my constant rush had stopped me from taking any notice.

yet somehow my gut told me that the owner of them all was one and the same man.

“They’ve dismissed me. It’s going public tomorrow. The press release has already been sent to the Official State Bulletin and the press; in seven or eight hours the news will be out there on the streets. Do you know how many words they’re going to eliminate me with? Eighteen. I’ve counted them. Look.”

How could I have imagined that what he was about to do the moment I was out the door was sharpen the knife to plunge it into my back the following day. I

ineffable /inˈefəb(ə)l/ I. adjective 1. too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words • the ineffable natural beauty of the Everglades. 2. not to be uttered • the ineffable Hebrew name that gentiles write as Jehovah. II. derivatives 1. ineffability /inˌefəˈbilədē / noun 2. ineffably /inˈefəblē / adverb – origin late Middle English: from Old French, or from Latin ineffabilis, from in- ‘not’ + effabilis

And yet at this moment, a moment so important in his life and his career, at this instant that marked the end of an era, for some unknown reason he had decided to confide in me.

pernicious /pərˈniSHəs/ I. adjective having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way • the pernicious influences of the mass media. II. derivatives 1. perniciously /pərˈniSHəslē / adverb 2. perniciousness /pərˈniSHəsnəs / noun – origin late Middle English: from Latin perniciosus ‘destructive,’ from pernicies ‘ruin,’ based on nex, nec- ‘death.’

“Find some way to arrange for these letters to get to Lisbon through the diplomatic bag of the British embassy. Get them to Alan Hillgarth, I know you’re in contact with him,” he said as he took three thick envelopes out of his inside jacket pocket. “I’ve written them over the last few weeks, but I’ve been so closely watched that I haven’t dared dispatch them via normal channels; as you’ll understand, I don’t even trust my own shadow right now. Today, with this business of their having formalized the dismissal, they seem to have let up a little and lowered their guard. Which is why I’ve been able to get here without being followed.”

As though God had anything to do with these devious matters.

And besides, I sensed that I should get rid of the letters addressed to Rosalinda as quickly as possible: knowing the sender’s position, I was

sure those pages went beyond mere intimate personal correspondence and constituted an arsenal of political fury that I really never ought to have in my possession.

The Palacio de la Musica movie theater was playing Rebecca.

just a couple of minutes after I arrived, I noticed someone taking a seat at the far end of the row, no more than ten or twelve places away. A man. Alone. A man alone whose face I couldn’t make out in the shadows.

A cold sweat trickled down my back. Suddenly I knew that all my suspicions hadn’t been imaginary: that man was there because of me, he’d

Then I remembered Hillgarth’s advice during our lunch at the American legation: faced with any suspicion that I was being followed, maintain calm, self-control, and an appearance of normality.

I’m here so that you can see me, he seemed to be saying wordlessly. So that you know I’m watching you, and that I know where you go; so that you’re aware that I can step into your life anytime I want to: look, today I’ve decided to follow you to the cinema and block your exit; tomorrow I can do with you whatever I feel like.

sort of silent, tense relationship was established between us, as though we were united by a common lack of interest in the movie.

Neither of us held our breath when the nameless heroine broke that porcelain figurine, nor were we overcome with a sense of panic when

the housekeeper tried to persuade her to hurl herself out of the window. We didn’t even feel our hearts freeze when we suspected that Maxim de Winter him...

Which was why it wasn’t the light that struck me as out of place, but what I found at the entrance. A raincoat. A

man’s, light colored. Hanging on the coatrack and dripping water with sinister calm.

“What are you doing here, Ignacio?”

work for the General Directorate of Security of the Governance Ministry; I’m charged with watching and following foreigners who cross our borders, especially those who settle in Madrid with a suggestion that they mean to remain permanently. And you’re one of them. At the top of the list.”

“Everything is wrong, nothing’s as it should be.” Suddenly I thought I could see a chink of light. “What did you expect to find, Ignacio? What did you hope to find that you didn’t find?” He

“You thought the whole thing was just a front, didn’t you?” Again he didn’t answer, but he did veer the conversation back onto his turf and resumed his grip on the reins. “I’m perfectly well aware of who it was that set up this show.” “What show do you mean?” I asked. “This joke of a workshop.” “It’s no joke. We work hard here. I do more than ten hours a day, seven days a week.”