Message From Malaga

by Helen Macinnes

  After all, he thought as he enlisted the help of the man behind the reception desk, hospitals were accustomed to telephone calls, both in and out. The man was elderly, sympathetic, and pleased to break the dull routine of a quiet night with some low-pitched advice. The call went through quickly enough from one of the public telephones in the adjoining waiting room—empty except for two sad-faced women huddled together at the end of a bench. And there was only a brief pause at the Madrid end of the line before a man’s voice answered. Ferrier gave the message, word for exact word, just as he had been given it.

  It was a business-like voice, speaking in Spanish at first, and then breaking into English as the man heard Ferrier’s slight hesitations with syntax. No, Señor Martin was not there, but he would receive the message on his return. Who was calling?

  “My name’s Ferrier. I’m staying with Mr. Reid for the weekend.”

  “How did the accident happen? And when?”

  “He slipped on some stairs. About an hour ago.”

  “How serious?”

  “He says it’s one helluva mess. I won’t know exactly until I hear from the doctors. They are with him now. He’s in the Santa Maria de—”

  “Señor Martin will be sorry to hear about it,” the cool voice said quickly. And the call was ended.

  And who was that? Ferrier wondered. A secretary of some kind? He had spoken with self-assurance, with decision in his voice. Whoever he was, he was certainly a man in a hurry. In fact, if he had only waited a minute longer he could have had the doctor’s report. Ferrier was lighting a cigarette and watching the cover of the matchbook burn into a twisted black ash when he heard his name being gently called from the doorway. It was the sister in charge, the rolled brim of the large starched hat that covered her hair nodding to him to make haste. Dr. Medina was waiting. So he dropped the remains of the matchbook into a potted plant and followed her, a ship in full sail, with her long wide skirt down to her ankles and her broad swathe of white apron wrapped around the heavy grey dress. It was astonishing that anyone so bundled with clothes could look so neat and cool and business-like on a warm summer night.

  Dr. Medina was grave as he should be, but not pessimistic. Tactfully, he spoke in English, slowly, carefully, but with confidence. He was a confident man. “A compound fracture of the right leg—some complications because of previous injuries, but no cause for alarm—no break in the right arm bone, only severe contusions, a wrenched shoulder.”

  “Is he showing any more symptoms of sickness? His colour was bad, at first. He needed fresh air—made me pull him over to the door and asked for—”

  “You moved him?” Dr. Medina was scandalised.

  “He was insistent. He seemed to know what he needed.”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “He was shivering violently, too.”

  “Possibly shock. I can’t diagnose from a description. But I can assure you he is a man of normally excellent health. I am his own personal physician—brought here tonight as a matter of courtesy.” He bowed to the sister, spoke rapidly in Spanish. She replied in her soft gentle voice, held out a bunch of keys. “Oh, yes,” Medina said to Ferrier. “Señor Reid was conscious for a few minutes. He left a message for you. Can you understand Spanish?”

  Ferrier’s eyes measured the quiet face of the man. She will tell me more than any busy doctor, he decided. “Yes. But please speak slowly,” he told her with a smile.

  She gave him the keys. “Señor Reid said you would need these. He wants you to come tomorrow—”

  “Nonsense. Let him sleep all tomorrow,” Dr. Medina said.

  “—and bring him some things. His razor, books to read, his small radio from his study. Also the dictaphone on his desk and his engagement calendar.”

  “Incredible!” Dr. Medina said. “Is he going to turn his hospital bed into an office? Bring no such things, Señor Ferrier. And if you come along on Sunday, that will be time enough for him to have visitors.”

  The sister said sadly, “He made such an effort to give me that message. Perhaps it would be better not to disappoint him? If he isn’t well enough tomorrow, then we will just keep these things until he is well enough.”

  Ferrier said, “When should I come? Around six?”

  She nodded.

  “If he is awake,” Dr. Medina warned, “I don’t want him disturbed.”

  She nodded again, a wise woman who knew when to stop making suggestions.

  Dr. Medina bade her good night, rather formally, most correctly, and added his thanks. “Come on,” he said to Ferrier. “I’ll give you a lift back to the house. No—no trouble; it’s on my way, and my car’s outside.”

  “Tomorrow at six,” Ferrier told the sister. “And my thanks, too.”

  She murmured something in Latin and turned away.

  “Now we’ve been sanctified,” Medina said as they went into the street. “Feel better?” His stiffness had banished along with his slightly pompous bedside manner. He was easy and relaxed. “That place always makes me a little nervous,” he confided. “But don’t worry, your friend is in good hands. I prefer the other hospital, of course. That’s the big Civil Hospital, west of the city. We have more laboratories and fewer crucifixes on the walls. Didn’t you notice them back there?”

  “Yes.” Ferrier made no other comment.

  “What are you?” Medina asked amiably. “Catholic or diplomat?”

  “A heretic. You might call me an independent Protestant.”

  “Church once a year?”

  “Not even that.”

  Medina laughed, but he was friendly. “You accept religion?”

  “If it does good.”

  “Spoken like an old-line liberal.” Medina opened the door of his small white bug-like car. “What about coming home with me for some supper and a bit of an argument?”

  “Another time,” Ferrier said firmly. There was a scattering of people on the street, but for him this night was over. “Haven’t got accustomed to Spanish hours,” he admitted. He looked back at the hospital, with its high-walled garden at one side. There was a small chapel in there, with an old tower and the rest of it new. In the moonlight, the rest of the buildings looked new, too, even if the style of architecture was in an older tradition. “Rebuilt?” he asked.

  Medina was busy manoeuvring the car into the road. “There was a fire some years ago,” he said vaguely. “Are you going to the bullfight on Sunday? It’s a big day here. Twelve thousand people crowding to see it. That hospital won’t be such a quiet little place then. Have you ever seen a bullfight?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t like them?”

  “Not particularly. I’m on the side of the horses.”

  Medina was amused. “Typical American. A man of lost causes.”

  And just what cause is yours? Ferrier wondered. He spent the next ten minutes answering questions about his journey to Málaga, his impressions of El Fenicio and flamenco. They were just reaching the topic of Ferrier’s job as they came to the long line of plane trees that lined the Calle San Julian. “Hey, stop! My street,” Ferrier said. They had overrun it. “Don’t bother to back and turn. I can walk the rest. Jeff’s place is only a few houses away. I won’t get lost.” He shook hands, added his thanks.

  “At least you won’t get mugged,” Medina told him pointedly.

  Sharp to the last little dig, thought Ferrier. “That’s right,” he said. “All I have to do is fight off mosquitoes. Thanks again.”

  “Don’t worry about Señor Reid,” Medina called after him. “He’s as strong as an ox. And sometimes as stupid. But we’ll get him well, in spite of himself.” He waved as he drove off.

  A cantankerous cuss, thought Ferrier, and on the young side for the role of curmudgeon. Medina was possibly in his middle thirties. In the hospital he had acted as if he were fifty, rigidly correct in dress and manner. Outside, the pressure-cooker lid had come off and he was tossing out remarks as if he were a precocious kid without much thought beh
ind him. But which was the real Medina? Come to think of it, which was the real Ian Ferrier?

  And that was quite a question, he decided as he approached Reid’s house. The short walk had done him good. The air was warm, perfumed from the gardens; the street was quiet, with only a few men strolling along as he was. Medina’s remark about muggers had annoyed him, but it was true enough. It was a pleasant thing to be able to walk along a city street at half past three in the morning and not wonder what footsteps following too closely might mean. He drew aside to let three young men pass him. They were deep in an argument about football.

  He might have strolled on, down to the end of the Calle San Julian, except that he had been right about mosquitoes. They were beginning to come out in full force. By dawn, they would be invading all those open windows in the houses around him clustering, on the netting over the beds like a swarm of sailors on a ship’s rigging. He paused just long enough under the nearest street lamp to look at the bunch of keys that Reid had sent him and select the most probable one for the front door. He made his choice from size: apart from two obvious car keys, there were three miniature Yale types, which possibly opened drawers or cabinets, and a larger one of old-fashioned design fit for a main entrance. He opened the gate to Number Nine and started up the driveway. It edged one side of the garden, following the straight line of one of the boundary walls that separated Reid’s house from its neighbours. The darkness emphasised the feeling of enclosure. Some people might call it privacy, others would term it suffocation. It was certainly peaceful. If people lived next door, you would never know it. This villa in its small garden was a world of its own.

  Ahead of him, the driveway broadened into a small parking space at the side of the house where the entrance to the kitchen quarters lay. All that wing seemed pretty much asleep now, although it had been filled with voices and laughter and scoldings and general give-and-take when he had left his car there after dinner. Reid had explained. “Concepción’s family. Part of it, at least. I lose tracks of their comings and goings, but why worry as long as she housekeeps and cooks and is completely dependable?” But it developed, a little to Ferrier’s disappointment, that Concepción belied her name; the family consisted of her nieces and her cousins and her aunts, not to mention nephews and uncles or whoever decided to pay her a visit. She was a childless widow, but she was rarely lonely. It all evened out, Reid had said philosophically. Food bills might run high, but the house was well scrubbed and polished: Concepción made them work for their supper. A brood of relatives was something accepted without protest or revolt in this part of the world.

  Ferrier could see the outline of his car now, standing at one side of the little yard. But just beyond it, almost opposite the kitchen entrance, there was a second car. It was Reid’s. He recovered from his astonishment and walked on, branching off the driveway toward the front of the house. Someone had brought it back from El Fenicio and saved him a journey down there tomorrow. That was how he looked at it. He concentrated on unlocking the front door, wondering now why all the outside lights had been turned off. Perhaps Concepción was extra conscientious about electric bills to make up for her relatives’ appetites. After some fumbling, he got the key into the lock. It worked. He batted off the mosquitoes from his shoulders and neck, stepped into the small entry hall. Here at least was some light, subdued but sufficient to let him take a few steps into the main room.

  It looked ghostly with its white walls looming vaguely out of the shadows. Arched openings led to pits of darkness: on his left, the dining-room; on his right, the study. Facing him, the wall had a long diagonal of steps, edged with twists and curls of black iron railing, mounting to the bedrooms above. Near the foot of this staircase was another arch, leading to a corridor that must reach into the back of the house. The geography was fairly simple, and if only he knew where the light switches were, then all his problems would be solved. What he wanted to do now was to get to the study, find some paper, and jot down Reid’s requests while the details were clear in his mind. Razor, dictaphone, engagement pad, books. Oh, yes—a radio, too, just to keep Reid worrying about the state of this mixed-up world.

  Ferrier made his way cautiously over the tiled floor, avoiding collision with the furniture—the pieces were fortunately few, but they were massive stuff, hand-carved and solid, painful for an unsuspecting thigh or shin bone—and reached a high-backed chair. He had sat there, that evening, and he remembered the huge wrought-iron lamp that stood behind it. It was dark in this corner, darker than he imagined as he had paused at the hall’s threshold. He groped his way around the chair, cursing silently. His hands, held out blindly before him, struck a large vellum shade and set it quivering. He steadied it, cursed himself for having burned his matchbook, and fumbled for some kind of switch. Was it twist or pull? At that moment, a door opened somewhere down that kitchen corridor. Footsteps, light and quick, were coming in this direction. So Concepción wasn’t asleep, as he had imagined. He was about to call out and give warning that he was there, that he couldn’t find the damned switch; would she turn on some lights? But a man’s voice was speaking, briefly, in a hoarse whisper. Concepción was answering. And Ferrier was standing there with his Spanish phrases stuck on his tongue.

  “To your left!” she was saying as they came into the room, and she flicked on a wall switch that illuminated the staircase and the landing above. “Quick, quick!” She was dressed for bed, with a cotton wrapper over a nightdress, her lank hair in braids down her back.

  The man moved swiftly. He was already half-way up the stairs. Then he seemed to sense something. He stopped abruptly, looked down into the room, reached into his jacket. It was that movement that kept Ferrier quite still, his lips now tightly closed, his eyes narrowing as he watched the man. Thick, dark but greying hair, black eyebrows; deeply tanned face, heavily furrowed; medium height, medium weight; well dressed. And armed.

  “It is only Jaime,” Concepción reassured the man impatiently. The boy had entered from the corridor, carrying a suitcase. The stranger’s hand came out from his jacket, and he started climbing the rest of the stairs. Concepción was at his heels, and then came Jaime with the suitcase. The strange procession vanished. In the upper hall, footsteps faded, suddenly ended.

  Ferrier gave up the lamp—no matter what he turned or tugged, it refused to light. He started toward the archway where Concepción had managed to make something work. And at that point, Jaime came running downstairs. He slowed as he saw Ferrier, completed the last steps hesitantly. Several emotions passed over his young honest face: astonishment, worry, fear. Then they cleared away as he noticed Ferrier’s smile. “But, señor,” he began, “we heard no doorbell. How did—”

  “Keys. Señor Reid gave them to me.”

  “When did you—”

  “A few minutes ago. Before you carried the suitcase upstairs.”

  Jaime’s eyes widened. Anxiety was back.

  Ferrier had reached the arch. He examined the array of push buttons set into its heavy wall. “I was looking for some light to get me into the study.” He pressed several of the buttons as he spoke, and the whole room lit up: four standing lamps, one in each corner; eight wall brackets; two table lamps. “I certainly got it.”

  Jaime was worrying about the suitcase. “An emergency, Señor Ferrier. Esteban’s house was full. No room left. There is a bullfight on Sunday; everyone is coming to see it. So I have to sleep here, and so has my cousin Pépé, who is a banderillero. And we also brought his—his manager.”

  Ferrier noticed the hesitation. The pleasant thing about honest people was that it really hurt them to tell a lie. “That one?” he asked, pointing up the staircase. “One of the sixty-percenters? No wonder he can afford to dress in silver-grey.”

  “Señor Reid has met him. Señor Reid knows my cousin. Esteban said Señor Reid would not object.” Jaime, still anxious, followed Ferrier over to the study. “Esteban said—”

  “Okay, okay, okay. You seem to know your way around here
. Can you find me a drink? Scotch, if there is any.”

  “I know where it is. I come here to help my aunt when there is a big party.” The words were tumbling out now as Jaime could talk about something that was both real to him and true. “And you would like ice,” he said quickly. “Soda!”

  Ferrier had to laugh. “I’d like all of that. But tell me, Jaime—where did Esteban find keys for Señor Reid’s car?”

  “The Señorita Octavia had an extra key. Señor Reid gave it to her. For emergencies.”

  “The Señorita Who?”

  “Tavita.”

  So Tavita was in this, and Esteban, and Concepción, and her two nephews. The family angle? “Is Concepción also the aunt of Esteban?”

  That broke out a wide grin on the boy’s thin, worried face. “She is his sister.”

  “And Tavita is—what?”

  “Her father was the uncle of Concepción’s sister-in-law.”

  “You’ve lost me. Better get that drink. And then get to bed. You look as if you needed some sleep.” As we all do. I’m exhausted, Ferrier thought; slow-moving, slow-thinking. “Seems as if Concepción has decided to spend the night upstairs.”