exclaimed, ‘What an idiot! I’ve left my lens cap up in the lab.’
‘No problem,’ said Tormo politely. ‘Just you wait here. I’ll get it.’
Tormo ran back up the steps while MacLean looked at his watch and said, ‘He’s five minutes overdue. Something must have happened.’
Leavey nodded and said, ‘If he’s not here by the time Tormo gets back we’ll have to leave without him.’
Tormo returned after nearly five minutes saying that he had looked everywhere but had failed to find Leavey’s lens cap. Leavey shrugged his shoulders and said that he must have dropped it somewhere along the way. MacFarlane’s absence put a strain on conversation on the way back down the mountain as both MacLean and Leavey found themselves preoccupied with thoughts of what might have happened to him.
When they arrived back in Fuengirola they accepted Tormo’s offer of coffee up in his office feeling obliged to out of courtesy but they left as soon as was politely possible.
‘I hope to God he’s all right,’ said MacLean as he and Leavey walked towards Jose’s cafe.
‘He’s probably stumbling down the mountain right now,’ said Leavey. ‘You know Willie.’
MacLean wasn’t convinced.
As they neared the cafe, Leavey suddenly hissed, ‘Walk past!’ MacLean was startled because he had not noticed anything amiss, but he did as he was told. They rounded the corner, out of sight of the cafe and Leavey drew him into to the wall and said, ‘Did you see the man sitting outside the cafe?’
‘Yes,’ replied MacLean.
‘He picked up his newspaper as we approached and started reading.’
‘So what?’ asked a bemused MacLean.
‘It was upside down,’ said Leavey. ‘He was pretending. He’s been waiting for us to arrive.’
‘Oh God,’ whispered MacLean.
‘Something’s gone very wrong,’ said Leavey. ‘Did you see Jose or Maria?’
‘No.’
‘Me neither.’
They circled round to the lane that ran along the back of Jose’s cafe and picked their way carefully and as quietly as they could through the crates of oranges and vegetables that lay there until they could see the back door of the cafe. It seemed quiet enough. They crouched down and got nearer. Leavey indicated to MacLean that he was going to try the window to the left of the door. MacLean watched as the window opened and Leavey looked inside the storeroom. He seemed satisfied and climbed in through the opening.
MacLean was left alone in the lane with only a stray dog for company and the strong smell of vegetables. There was no sound from inside the cafe. MacLean swallowed because his mouth had gone dry. He was contemplating moving up to the window himself when he sensed some movement behind the back door. It moved slightly as if someone were about to open it. He moved swiftly to the wall at the side of the door and bunched his fist in readiness.
The door opened a fraction and MacLean saw Leavey appear in the opening. He held his finger to his lips and beckoned MacLean to join him. MacLean tiptoed into the cafe behind Leavey and froze at the sight that met his eyes. Maria, her eyes full of fear, sat mutely in a high-backed chair with her hands and feet tightly bound and her mouth sealed with a gag that split her face like a crescent moon. There was a man lying on the floor with his neck at an angle that said Leavey had dealt with him.
MacLean peered through a gap between a serving hatch and the wall and saw Jose standing at the bar; he was polishing the same glass over and over again, still in the belief that his daughter was being held in the kitchen at gunpoint. The angle was too acute to see if there was anyone else in the room.
‘How many?’ Leavey whispered to Maria as he undid her gag.
‘Two.’
‘Him and the man sitting outside the cafe?’ said Leavey, pointing to the dead man on the floor.
Maria nodded.
The immediate danger was that they might startle Jose into giving the game away. MacLean edged the kitchen door open a few centimetres. ‘Psst!.. Psst!.. ‘ The finger held to his lips proved enough to prevent Jose’s surprise translating into something louder. Leavey crawled across the floor of the cafe to the front door and stood up to flatten himself against the side of it. He looked to Jose and pointed with his finger to the man outside. ‘Call him!’ he said quietly.
Jose nodded and called out, ‘Senor!’ He sounded nervous and uncertain.
The man looked at Jose but did not move.
‘Senor!’
This time the man got up and made to come indoors. His leading foot had barely crossed the threshold before Leavey hit him behind the ear and he slumped unconscious to the floor. Leavey slipped his arms under the man’s armpits and dragged him through into the kitchen. They all started speaking at the same time.
MacLean held up his hand and said, ‘Jose?’
‘These men say they catch one and now they wait for his friends.’
‘They’ve got Willie,’ said MacLean. ‘Oh God, it was my idea he went up there today…’
Leavey said, ‘Willie wouldn’t have told them anything unless they made him. He must have found what we’re looking for.’
‘That means that what we’re looking for isn’t in the clinic itself; it has something to do with the basement where Willie was looking.’
Leavey agreed. He looked at the man on the floor. ‘He can tell us more when he comes round.’ He prodded the unconscious man with his foot but got no reaction.
‘They must know about the apartment too,’ said MacLean.
Leavey nodded and said, ‘That’s probably where these two were going next.’
Maria said, ‘My father has a boat in the marina.’ They all looked to Jose who said, ‘Si, the Erinia. She is yours.’
‘Perfect,’ said Leavey. ‘I suggest we move the gear into the Erinia then hit the Hacienda when they least expect it.’
Even with his pulse racing and his brain working overtime MacLean had to admire Leavey’s coolness under pressure. He was sometimes more like a machine than a man, cool, calculating, always weighing the odds and usually always right. He had just killed a man and yet he was already thinking ahead like a chess player. At that particular moment it seemed like the most ridiculous thought on earth but MacLean suddenly realised why Leavey had never married. He was invulnerable. He had no weakness, he didn’t need a partner to complement his own being because he was already complete. John Donne had been wrong; Leavey was an island.
MacLean asked what Leavey had in mind when he heard a scuffle behind him and whirled round to see the man who had been unconscious spring up and catch Maria from behind. A knife had appeared in his hand and the point was being held at her throat. MacLean could see a thin trickle of blood start to escape from where the point had broken her skin. Without saying anything, the man, his eyes burning with malice, began to sidle towards the door. He held Maria in front of him while the others could only look on.
There was a moment when he had to move his knife hand away from the girl’s throat in order to open the door but it was over too quickly for Leavey or MacLean to exploit it. The door opened and the man backed out into the lane, using Maria as a shield. At that moment the stray dog in the lane decided to try its luck in Jose’s kitchen. It became entangled in the man’s legs and he overbalanced. Maria broke free and Leavey made to go for him but Jose, being nearer, beat him to it. Maria closed her eyes as she saw her father raise the meat cleaver and bring it down in a scything arc. Now they had two bodies to get rid of.
Jose brought his pick-up truck into the lane. It was agreed that Leavey would accompany him to get rid of the corpses at a quiet spot along the coast while MacLean returned to the apartment to clear it out and take their belongings to the boat in the marina.
At six o’clock, he was aboard the gently bobbing cruiser, waiting for Leavey to return. He remained below in the cabin, lying on one of the bunks and looking out through the porthole at the hypnotic white speck up in the mountains he knew was the Hacienda Yunque. He sat up smartly when he heard a noise up on deck.
‘It’s me,’ said Leavey’s voice. He came below and sat down on the bunk opposite.
‘Everything OK?’ asked MacLean.
‘No problems,’ replied Leavey.
