Free Bones of the Buried by David Roberts

a bit earlier than usual you can’t not go out on your first night in Spain. Anyway, I’m starving.’
    Verity always had had a healthy appetite, Edward remembered, and he was glad to find that she had not lost it in her present anxieties. He hesitated but did not wish to look unenterprising to
the two women who were staring at him, Verity accusingly, and Hester mockingly, a little smile playing about her lips.
    ‘You’re right. Of course, I would love to,’ he said.
    ‘That’s good,’ said Verity, sounding relieved that this English milord for whose presence she was responsible had not let her down. ‘It’s the best bar in Madrid.
Everyone who’s anyone goes there.’
    It was half-past nine when Verity and Hester came to collect him. Edward was feeling better. The bath at the end of the passage, which he shared with the other guests on his
floor, was inadequate and the water tepid but still he had been able to shave and wash himself. He thought longingly of his clawed monster in his rooms in Albany. He had been uncertain what to wear
for the evening’s entertainment but the small bag Fenton had packed for him did not allow much choice. In the end, in his clean white shirt, Cherrypickers’ tie and tweed jacket, he
looked what he was: English to the core.
    Hester was looking statuesque in the sort of overcoat he imagined Napoleon might have worn in his Russian campaign but of course she was twice as tall as the Emperor and wide in the shoulders.
Her hair had been tidied beneath a wide-brimmed black hat which emphasised what he could see of her face – her black eyes, Roman nose and firm chin. He thought she looked magnificent. Verity,
on the other hand, looked almost Spanish, except for the fox jacket which Edward remembered her wearing back in London. She looked a charming, innocent but determined child. Her Mediterranean
colouring helped but it was, Edward thought, the black bandanna she wore over the top of her head which made her look ‘foreign’.
    ‘It’s to keep my ears warm,’ she said, seeing Edward eyeing her.
    ‘Very attractive,’ replied Edward vaguely. He knew if he said anything more effusive she would think he was patronising her. It came to him that he always thought twice before paying
Verity a compliment. He was a little frightened of her finding him a conventional English male and he had had occasion in the past to smart from her biting retort to inanities other girls would
have professed to find delightful.
    ‘Well,’ said Hester, perhaps a little irritated that Edward seemed to have no eyes for her, ‘we’d better get moving. They eat late here but I’m hungry as a
stallion.’ She marched them through the swing doors into the street. There were some street lights under which their breaths smoked in the cold but for the most part they walked in pools of
darkness.
    ‘Hungry as a horse,’ Verity corrected. ‘Hester has some problem remembering clichés,’ she said apologetically to Edward, taking hold of his arm.
    Edward thought Dr Freud might have something to say about her seeing herself as a stallion but was wise enough to keep his mouth shut. He looked at Verity intently. Whether it was tiredness or
anxiety, she was exhibiting a desperate gaiety which he knew was near to tears. ‘You’re sure you don’t want to go to bed? You have had an exhausting day,’ he said to her in
an undertone.
    ‘Oh, what can you mean?’ said Verity archly, gripping his arm more tightly, and again, Edward thought she wasn’t behaving normally. She obviously regretted what she had just
said because she corrected herself fiercely. ‘I couldn’t sleep. I’m too wound up. Anyway, I want you to meet our friends. They are our friends, aren’t they,
Hester?’
    ‘They have to pass for friends. Beggars can’t be rich men.’
    ‘She means,’ said Verity fondly, ‘that we foreigners have to stick together.’
    ‘You don’t mix with the Spanish, then?’ said Edward