by Ken McClure
‘I need your room number sir,’ repeated Vera. ‘For the bill.’
MacLean breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Oh, I think I’ll just pay cash,’ he said. He leaned on the desk conspiratorially and stage-whispered, ‘The company’s paying for us chaps to have a bit of a break but I don’t think they’ll run to cars and casinos, eh?’
‘Very good sir,’ said Vera dutifully.
MacLean gulped down a brandy at the bar as Leavey and MacFarlane congratulated him. ‘That deserved an Oscar,’ said MacFarlane.
‘As long as it deserved a car,’ replied MacLean.
FIFTEEN
At six o’ clock precisely a blue Seat Ibiza was delivered to the front door of the hotel and Vera signed the driver’s docket. She finalised the paperwork with MacLean and ushered the three of them to the door, reminding them that it was the Sunkist barbecue on Saturday.
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world Vera,’ said MacLean with a big smile as he accepted the keys.
‘Good luck at the casino.’
MacLean waited until another car just passed the hotel entrance before nursing the Seat out behind it to thread through the milling football supporters and out of the square. Leavey and MacFarlane ducked down below window level and MacLean held his breath as they slowly passed the police patrol guarding the bottleneck at the head of the square. The policemen paid them no attention. ‘Okay,’ he whispered as they picked up speed. ‘We’re out.’ A few moments later they picked up their first road sign and started following the route to Motorway 7. Ten more minutes of town traffic and they were heading south on the Mediterranean Highway.
The initial euphoria at being out on the road and back on course gave way to quiet reflection on what might have been. They had come perilously close to falling at the very first hurdle. ‘We were lucky,’ said Leavey and no one disagreed.
It was dark by the time they saw the lights of Alicante twinkling up ahead. MacLean checked the fuel gauge and found no immediate problem. He asked if there was any other reason to stop and took the silence as a negative.
‘We have a decision to make,’ said MacLean. ‘The motorway ends soon. We can either follow the Med Highway right round the coast or we could turn off and head up into the Sierra Nevada; that would be shorter but presumably slower. What d’you think?’
Leavey went for the coastal route and MacFarlane agreed; if they encountered problems it would be easier to deal with them on the busy coast road rather than up in the snowy mountain passes.
‘The Med Highway it is then,’ said MacLean.
They stopped in Murcia to take on fuel and have something to eat at a local cafe. ‘How far have we come?’ asked MacFarlane as he leaned back in his seat to allow the waiter to place a small plate of tapas in front of them. ‘About two hundred miles,’ replied MacLean, helping himself to a black olive. ‘Only three hundred to go.’
Leavey returned from the toilet and they placed their order, all of them going for steak with Rioja red to wash it down. Leavey declined any more wine after one glass, saying he would take over driving when they left. MacLean didn’t argue; the events of the afternoon and the first section of the drive had left him feeling tired. He looked forward to taking a bit of a nap on the next leg.
They stopped again at Almeria on the eastern tip of the Costa del Sol. The highway had taken them well back from the coast since leaving Murcia but now it had returned to court the shores of the Med. The moon was high and they found an all-night bar with a veranda, which permitted them to sit outside and enjoy the moonlight on the water as they sipped cold beer. MacLean watched the water lap therapeutically against the rocks for a while before looking up at the moon and thinking of Tansy. Their mission had got off to a shaky start but things were now running more smoothly. He was beginning to feel less tense. He looked at his watch and suggested they might as well sit where they where a while longer. There was no point in getting to Malaga before breakfast time so they had another beer.
The sun was up and shining brightly on the cliffs of Malaga when they drove into town and looked for somewhere to park near the harbour. MacLean, not wishing to presume too much on the good nature of his friends, suggested that they book into a hotel for a bath and a decent sleep before they continued. Leavey and MacFarlane would not hear of it, insisting that they weren’t tired at all. Instead of putting off time they would have breakfast and then start shopping for maps of the surrounding district.
To his surprise, MacLean came across a booklet entitled, MIJAS, among the maps and tourist guides to Andalucia. He picked it up with a strange feeling of guilt and bemusement. In his mind, the name had come to symbolise a most secret place, the place that Jean-Paul and Eva had died to discover, the place that Lehman Steiner would kill to keep anyone away from and here it was being advertised as a tourist attraction. It didn’t seem right.
MacLean felt a thousand imaginary eyes follow him as he bought the booklet along with two other maps. As they walked back to the harbour, an awful doubt began to nag away at him. Could there be more than one place in the world pronounced May Haas? They had all been so pleased at Tansy’s deduction that none of them had considered this possibility.
MacLean read through the booklet by the harbour wall. Eventually he sighed and snapped it shut with a shake of the head.
‘Something wrong?’ asked Leavey.
‘Maybe,’ said MacLean. ‘According to this, Mijas is a pretty little Andalucian village cut into the mountains with lots of little white houses, all with geranium-filled window boxes, donkeys in the streets and the sound of guitars. Plenty of bars and cafes but as for pharmaceutical companies and research laboratories, forget it. There aren’t any.’
‘Maybe they keep that sort of thing away from the tourist area,’ suggested Leavey.
MacLean was worried. ‘It’s high in the mountains,’ he said. ‘Not exactly the location for an industrial estate.’
They got back into the Seat and set off to find the bus station in Malaga, having decided it would be unwise to drive up to Mijas. Leavey had convinced MacLean for the time being that Tansy had not been wrong and that they were on the right track. This being the case, they must continue to take all precautions.
The bus station was crowded, not with the young tourists that the summer would bring, but with the old who were escaping the misery of winter in northern Europe. Their faces were tanned and the sun was easing arthritic joints. MacFarlane found the correct queue but Leavey came up with a better alternative.
A property company was promoting sales of their villas in a new development near Mijas by running guided tours of their site. A bus would leave for the mountains in ten minutes and there was room on board for the three of them. They would tour the site, be shown around one of the company’s villas and then be given time to look around Mijas to ‘capture the atmosphere of the place’. MacLean agreed that this would be the ideal safe way to visit Mijas. They would be as near to anonymous as they could get in such a party.
The bus climbed slowly up into the mountains of the Sierra de Mijas, labouring in low gear all the way up the zig-zag road until they had reached the property development. It was located on the eastern edge of Mijas itself and afforded them a spectacular view out over the coastal resort of Fuengirola to the Mediterranean and even, their guide insisted, to the coast of North Africa beyond. MacLean shivered slightly as he waited patiently for the guided tour of the villas to end. It had been pleasantly warm down on the coast but up here in the mountains it had become markedly chilly.
Clutching their presentation packs in blue folders, the twenty or so people on the tour were taken into Mijas itself and invited to look round for themselves. The bus would leave for Malaga in an hour. MacLean and the other two had decided in advance that they would split up and search independently before meeting up again at the curiously small bullring which sat on the western edge of the village.
MacLean had to admit that Mijas was indeed pretty but the more he saw of it the more his fears
were being realised. There was no way that these tiny Andalucian streets and alleys were concealing an 18 million-dollar research project financed by Lehman Steiner. With fourteen minutes left before he was due to meet up with Leavey and MacFarlane, he sat down at an outside table of a pavement cafe and ordered coffee and a Cognac. He was feeling low.
MacLean could tell before anyone spoke that Leavey and MacFarlane had had a similar lack of success in their searches.
‘Nothing,’ said Leavey.
‘Nothing,’ echoed MacFarlane.
‘Nothing,’ agreed MacLean. ‘The place is totally wrong for what we are looking for. Any kind of research establishment would stick out like a sore thumb.’
‘Not that they’d even be allowed to build it here anyway,’ said Leavey.
‘So we’ve failed,’ said MacLean, throwing a pebble into the dust of the arena.
‘I suppose we might have missed something?’ tried MacFarlane, but there was little conviction in his voice and he got no support from the others.
‘It was such a good idea,’ said Leavey wryly. ‘It deserved to be right.’
They left the bullring and circled the ramparts on the south-west edge of the town, looking out to sea over olive groves, which basked on the lower slopes of the Sierra. MacLean found it hard to think about the view when failure was weighing so heavily on his shoulders. Time was passing for Carrie and now they were back at square one with the prospect of having to go back to Geneva after all.
‘Do you know why Olive trees have a split trunk?’ asked Leavey quietly.
MacLean shook his head.
‘The Arabs say that the Olive tree broke its heart when Mohammed died.’
MacLean smiled distantly and empathised with the tree.
‘God, that sea looks inviting,’ said MacFarlane who joined them at the wall.’
MacLean looked at him and then at Leavey. He said, ‘Let’s go swim in it. We need a break. We’ll eat, get drunk and then face up to reality. What do you say?’
‘Sounds good,’ said Leavey. MacFarlane readily agreed.
They started to make their way down the mountain towards Fuengirola on foot, not only because they had missed the return journey on the tour bus from Malaga and a service bus was not due for another half hour but also because they agreed that they needed the exercise. The long journey down from Valencia had left them with a series of aches and pains, most of them derived from trying to sleep in awkward positions in the car.
At first it felt good to be stretching their legs but as time went on the steepness of the slopes began to take its toll on their knees and ankles. They stopped in the cool shade of a high white wall, which spread out on either side of an imposing black wrought-iron gate. The words Hacienda Yunque were emblazoned on the arch over the gate.
‘Not exactly a but-and-ben,’ said MacFarlane.
The others concurred with admiring glances as they walked up to the gate to look at the building. It was set into the rock face some two hundred metres away and fronted by orchards of orange and lemon trees. There was no indication of what the building was or who owned it.
They sat down and rested their backs against the wall to watch the heat shimmer off the high sierra in silence for a while and until their legs had recovered sufficiently for them to continue. In the end, it took well over two hours to complete the descent and reach the dusty, busy streets of Fuengirola.
Just as the bus station in Malaga had been, the broad esplanade of the Paseo Maritimo was thronged with the aged from the north, sweatered and cardiganed against the imagined threat of sudden chill.
‘It’s a bit like Brighton,’ said Leavey.
‘It’s a lot like Brighton,’ said MacLean.
They swam in the sea which still had the chill of winter about it but, after the heat of the afternoon, no one was complaining and it was good to rid their bodies of the sweat of the tough climb down the mountain. As they towelled themselves down, all three agreed that they had worked up an appetite.
The sea-front cafes and restaurants were busy with tourists so they took a walk along the back streets to find a better alternative. ‘Jose’s looked like the kind of place they had been searching for. It was just opening after the afternoon siesta and the owner welcomed them as his first customers.
Jose proved to be a very likeable man who, on discovering their nationality, was keen to discuss the football of the previous evening. In that, he found a kindred spirit in MacFarlane and readily accepted Willie’s invitation to join him in a drink. The match had ended in a draw so this put the conversation on an even keel. MacFarlane sat at the bar talking to Jose while Leavey and MacLean sat down at a table by the window, neither having any great interest in football.
‘What’s the plan now?’ asked Leavey.
‘We’ll have something to eat, a few drinks and then get a cab along the coast to Malaga to pick up the car,’ said MacLean.
‘That isn’t exactly what I meant,’ said Leavey quietly.
MacLean nodded and replied, ‘We may have to go to Geneva after all.’
‘So be it,’ said Leavey.
MacLean smiled at him and said, ‘Nothing gets you down does it?’
‘I don’t let it,’ said Leavey.
‘I wish I could say that,’ said MacLean.
‘Don’t lose heart,’ said Leavey. ‘We’ll get the stuff for her. One way or another, we’ll get it.’
MacLean looked at Leavey and nodded. ‘Thanks Nick,’ he said. ‘I almost believe you.’
A beautiful white Mercedes coupe, driven by an equally beautiful blonde woman drifted past the door of the cafe. It was moving slowly because the streets were so narrow and the sound of the engine was barely audible. All conversation stopped in the bar until she had passed.
‘Very nice,’ said MacFarlane.
‘Hacienda Yunque,’ said Jose.
MacLean found the name familiar and remembered that they had sat in the shade of its walls on their way down the mountain. ‘Is she the owner?’ he asked.
‘No Senor, she will be staying there.’
‘It’s a hotel?’
Jose adopted an expression that said it wasn’t a hotel but he couldn’t think of the right English word to describe it. ‘Ees for health,’ he said.
‘A health farm?’ suggested MacLean.
The bar owner made ambivalent gestures with his hands and said, ‘Ees for wealthy ladies who want to look better than God intend.’
They laughed but MacLean felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand on end. He exchanged glances with Leavey who had also caught on to the significance of what Jose had said. ‘So it’s not so much a health farm, more like a clinic?’
‘Si!’ exclaimed Jose, raising his hands in the air with exaggerated relief. ‘Ees a clinic. Hacienda Yunque ees a clinic.’
‘Oh sweet Jesus,’ said Leavey under his breath.
MacLean’s pulse was racing. He had to caution himself to be calm and take his time in asking questions. Was there really a chance that Tansy had been right after all and that the Hacienda Yunque was the place they were looking for? Surely fate could not have been so unkind as to put a clinic carrying out cosmetic surgery in Mijas as an innocent red herring?
‘The Hacienda is a very beautiful place,’ said MacLean.
‘For many it was not so beautiful on the inside Senor,’ replied Jose.
‘How so?’
‘In the time of Franco the Hacienda was owned by the government. The state police used it. Many people were brought to it for questioning. Some were never seen again.’
MacLean grimaced.
Jose said, ‘The whole truth never came out. Almost as soon as Franco died, foreign people came and the building became a clinic. My daughter worked there for a while when it first opened but she got scared and left.’
‘Scared?’ asked MacLean.
‘Do you believe in ghosts Senor?’
‘No,’ said MacLean.
‘Me neither,’ said Jose.
‘But many people say that at night you can hear the cries of the people who were locked up and tortured in the Hacienda all these years ago. My daughter said that she heard them too. I believe her.’
‘Is that Maria?’ asked MacLean, nodding to a pretty, dark-haired girl who appeared at intervals in the doorway leading to the kitchen.
‘Si,’ said Jose. He called to the girl who joined them at the bar. She rested her arm on her father’s shoulder while he slipped an arm round her waist. ‘We are talking about the Hacienda Yunque, Maria. I was telling the Senors that you once worked there.’
‘Briefly,’ said the girl.
The word took MacLean by surprise. It was not one he had expected to hear and had been said with very little trace of accent and clear-eyed confidence. There was clearly more to Maria than a local girl who helped out in the kitchen.
‘You’re a student Maria?’ asked MacLean.
‘Yes, why do you ask?’
‘Your English is perfect.’
‘Thank you.’
‘What are you studying?’
‘English,’ replied Maria with a smile.
MacLean asked Maria about the ghost stories and she joined MacLean and Leavey at a table while her father and Willie MacFarlane went back to discussing football.
‘Do you have an interest in the Hacienda?’ asked Maria.
‘In a way.’
‘I didn’t work there for very long, just a few weeks during one vacation but it was long enough to frighten me.’
‘The sounds in the night?’
‘Not just that,’ said Maria, ‘Although I did hear something, I swear.’
‘Then what else?’
‘There’s something very odd about the place. People go missing.’
‘Missing?’ asked Leavey.
‘No less than six local girls have disappeared since they went to work at the Hacienda.’
‘But surely the police… ‘
‘No you don’t understand. They go to work at the clinic then suddenly they decide to leave and seek jobs in other parts of Spain. They send post-cards saying that they are all right but they never write letters with addresses on.’