Message From Malaga (40 page)

“And you?”

“I took a taxi and tried to follow Lucas,” she said, much too offhand, and ended that topic abruptly. She lowered her eyes, became absorbed in the sherry glass. You can’t tell Ian Ferrier the details, she reminded herself. She began twisting the glass in her hands, moving it gently around and around, like her own troubled thought. Lucas... Lucas and his two long phone calls from two different areas on his way home from the aborted picnic, setting the ball rolling madly. Visitors coming and going all that late afternoon. The brief summons Lucas had received by telephone, which sent him rushing out to that little art-supply shop where he would receive a fuller message. Then back in the studio again, another trip out around ten o’clock, another return home by midnight. And a late visitor, staying briefly, listening to Lucas on the subject of Fuentes, Tavita, Reid, Ferrier. And after the visitor had gone, Lucas had waited, paced around, waited. Finally, it came, the telephone call, the big one, making the appointment in Granada.

Lucas had done most of the talking but his voice was tight—it
always went that way when he was nervous, excited—and his manner strangely formal. “Yes, sir,” he had answered. “Certainly. I’ll arrive in the morning. But I have a lunch engagement with some friends—unavoidable—and that may delay me a little. We’d better postpone that stroll until later. At four-thirty, if that suits you? And one other small change, I’m afraid. It would be easier to meet someplace closer. The Generalife perhaps? We’d enjoy a walk through its rose gardens—they are particularly fine at this time of year. Well worth a visit. Pleasantly cool, nicely irrigated. You know it? Good. Yes, I agree, sir. Ingenious fellows those Moors.”

That had been all—just two friends arranging a meeting for a visit to Granada. Two friends who shared a harmless interest in horticulture. Lucas’ words had come clearly, subdued as they were, across the courtyard. Miraculously. That new listening device—an electric bulb that caught up every syllable and transmitted it to her room—was absolutely incredible in its performance. (Far different from the results she used to have from that other type of bug, which one of Martin’s men had installed previously. Sometimes she had even wondered if Lucas knew it was there and had smothered it; but that had been finding an easy excuse for her own possible stupidity: If she had been stupid at all, it was to have persevered with the uneven quality of the old listening device—sometimes clear enough, sometimes totally inaudible.) Miraculously, she thought again. And such a simple innocent conversation. Even the use of “sir” had been geared for any Spanish ears listening at the telephone exchange. She had never heard Lucas use that word; never. Or was it a throwback to his childhood, when he was brought up in a comfortable middle-class world? Someone who had
authority spoke to him, someone of whom he was in awe, and out slipped the “sir”. Was that it?

Ian Ferrier’s hand had reached over to her glass, steadied it. He was saying, “Amanda! Amanda—the sherry is for drinking, not spilling. Or is this a libation?”

She gave up playing with the glass. “It’s so hard to stop thinking about—” She couldn’t even tell him. She drank some sherry.

He waited for the end of the sentence, but it never came. “And you know what I’m thinking? I’m lunching with two girls. One is Amanda; the other is Ames.”

“Oh, no!” she said quickly. She was indignant, but at least he had all her attention now. “I’m just the same girl you met yesterday. You liked me, I thought. And I liked you. We really got together, didn’t we? There’s no change in me. It’s just that the whole problem has shifted, deepened. So I keep thinking about it. I don’t know what is at stake—if I did, I wouldn’t try to keep puzzling it out. But there is something big at stake, something vital, something absolutely imperative. I can sense it. Don’t you?”

Careful, he warned himself. How easy it would be to let slip that the worst was over. All that was left was the tail of the hurricane. It could have a nasty whip of its own, of course, but at this stage all you had to do was to hang on a little longer. At least the end was in sight. “Could it be a false alarm? I mean—”

“This is for real.”

“But if it’s only your instincts—”

“More than that, Ian. Much more. It’s Lucas and the way he’s reacting.”

“To you?”

“No, no. He takes me for granted, as usual. Do you know, he called me up late last night—early this morning, actually—was all excited about a trip to Granada with a couple of friends. The only trouble, he said, was that his car needed an overhaul, so would I lend him mine for the journey? And why didn’t I come along, too? I’d like his friends—journalists touring Andalusia. Cool, don’t you think?”

“So that’s one time you refused him.”

“No. I agreed. Martin had told me to go to Granada, and this seemed a perfect chance.”

“But Lucas didn’t arrive in your car.”

She suddenly began laughing. “No. And it’s really comic how that happened. We were packing our luggage into my Buick this morning, a little after eight. And the police arrived, wanted to see Lucas. It was something about a blue Fiat that had driven away from a hospital yesterday evening. Lucas told me and his two friends—rather dull types they turned out to be; they sat in the back of the car, let me drive because I knew the way, hardly spoke all the journey—anyway, he told us to get moving, he’d follow us as soon as he had dealt with Captain Rodriguez.”

“Well, well, well,” Ferrier said, a smile spreading broadly. “Amanda, you’ve made my day.” He laughed, too, and then sobered up. “Too bad that Rodriguez didn’t have a longer chat with him. A couple of years’ chat, for instance.”

“But it’s odd, isn’t it? Weeks and weeks go by, even months, with nothing special happening—just dull routine. And then, all at once, everything starts moving. The opposition is too alert, too intense, too active. Something important, something really big is developing. Complete crisis. And you keep worrying, wondering if you’ll fail in your own small job just when you
are needed, if everything will blow up and you’ll have done no good at all.”

The last phrase caught his attention, not only the words but also the way she said them. I could swear, he thought, that this girl is honest, totally committed in her own understated way. No flashing eyes, no wild rhetoric, just a very quiet and strong belief. And yet, he admitted, he had met some Marxist types who talked with restraint and sincerity; idealists, they called themselves. Yes, he thought, those self-proclaimed idealists... Gene Lucas would fill that bill. But Amanda? “You really do worry too much,” he said, trying to find some safe, noncommittal words. “That’s no way to solve any problem.”

“I know. Except there is one that just keeps glaring at me. That’s hard to ignore, you must admit.” She hesitated, then said, “I have learned something. Something that Martin ought to know about. And I don’t know how to contact him. Have you seen him? Where can I reach him?”

Ferrier looked at her. “And what makes you think I could recognise him?”

“He told me he had met you. Last night, when he was giving me instructions over the phone, he said he had met you.”

“I didn’t know he was here.”

“I don’t know if he is. But there should be
somebody
. That’s my whole trouble—complete breakdown in communications. I’ve waited around the hotel since I arrived. Not one sign, not one message from Martin.”

Ferrier could guess the reason why. “Have you tried reaching him through Madrid?”

“He told me not to use that number. It’s suspect. But you know that!”

Ferrier nodded. “I was thinking about something else—just forgot.” He glanced at his watch. “Where the hell is that soup? You’ll be late if we are not careful.”

“But, Ian—this is really odd. Scary. I’ve been sent up here, and then I’ve just been left flat. This doesn’t happen, Ian. Believe me.”

He was looking around for the waitress. “I see her,” he said with relief, and it wasn’t because he was anxious about getting lunch on time, either.

“We can skip dessert if necessary,” Amanda said. “There’s a job Martin ought to do, or see that it’s done. If I can’t tell him about it, then I’ll have to do it myself. That’s all.”

The soup arrived in stately triumph. “Now relax, Amanda,” Ferrier told her as he watched her spoon playing around the edges of her plate. “Eat it up, all those beautiful vegetables and vitamins and things. Makes you big and strong and able to beat Gene Lucas.”

She smiled, a small pathetic flickering smile. “Ian,” she asked slowly, “after lunch—will you come with me?”

“Sure—I’d be delighted.” That was one part of him. “As long as I can get back to the hotel before six.” That was the other part of him. He was as divided emotionally as she was, he thought wryly. And then still a third part of him began to worry if he had been too definite with that mention of six. Reported back to Lucas, that little slippage might cause O’Connor some annoyance. Oh, cut it out, he told himself roughly: either you trust this girl because you feel you can trust her, or you believe Martin and think that everything she does or says has a double meaning.

She was saying, “Oh, you’ll be back by then—easily.”

“Where are we going?”

She glanced at the nearest table, and although her voice had been kept at the lowest murmur possible without becoming inaudible to Ian at her elbow, she decided not to risk even a whisper. “Later,” she promised. “Besides, did I hear something about no business while we eat?” Her eyes were laughing.

So it’s business we are going on, he thought. Too bad.

Suddenly, she was completely serious. She put out a hand, touched his arm. “And thank you.”

She really meant that, he thought. I know she meant it. His own appetite came back—for the last ten minutes, he had thought it had gone completely. “Ever been to the Grand Canary?” he asked. “I travelled that way en route to Madrid, a couple of weeks ago.” But no business to be mentioned here, either. He would keep off the subject of tracking stations, and concentrate on the island itself. It was a likely starting point for some light conversation.

“The remnants of Atlantis?” she asked, interested. “Or is that just another myth?”

So they were off and going...

* * *

It had been a pleasant meal, all two courses of it. (Yes, they had to skip dessert and drink the black coffee quickly.) “We can talk better in your car,” Amanda said. She drew on the white silk coat thin, reversible, with a brown lining to match her dress.

“You’re in plenty of time. Almost ten minutes to spare.”

“We may need it. I’d like to get there early.”

He paid, and they left the little dining-room engrossed in itself, came out through small gardens into the quadrangle.
“My car’s outside. Where is yours?” She was hurrying, he noted.

“I came by taxi.” And then, more frankly, “Lucas borrowed my car. He says his own is still giving him trouble. Actually, he’s afraid it is too easily noticeable. That’s the real truth behind all his excuses.”

It’s April weather, thought Ferrier. Blue sky invaded by rain clouds. “The hell with Lucas,” he said angrily.

“I agreed. But not until we find out whom he is meeting.” She stopped as he opened the door of a Simca for her, looked at him with her eyebrows raised. “Don’t you trust your own car, either?”

“They fixed it good and well this morning. Wouldn’t budge.”

“We’ll travel east, around the Alhambra. Keep it on your left.” She stepped in, waited until he started the car and they were away from any curious eyes before she slipped off the coat and reversed it. She kept it over her knees. “It isn’t too far.”

“I thought you’d be too hot in that thing. It’s smart, though.”

“It’s useful. I reached the restaurant in white. So I thought I’d better leave the same way.”

“And where are we going?” he asked, patience ending, curiosity no longer hidden.

“The Generalife.”

She had given it the full Spanish pronunciation, Hehnehraleefeh, spoken so quickly that he looked at her questioningly. “Oh, yes,” he said as he caught it, “the Generalife. Of course—roses.” He shook his head, thinking that if anyone had to have a weakness, then roses were a good one. So this was where Lucas was meeting someone or other, was it? Again April weather, bright sky marred by heavy cloud.

“Do you know it?”

“No. Didn’t have time to visit it. I know its situation, though. Roughly, that is.”

“How roughly?”

“It lies along a hill of its own, across a gorge from the Alhambra. Three-star view. Gardens and terraces, and gardens and terraces. Also three stars. Pavilions, summer residence for the Moorish kings. They kept the harem there during the hot weather. Four stars definitely.”

“You do read your guidebook.”

“All the interesting parts.” They came through the big gates. “I turn left here, keep under the hill?”

“Yes. That other road is for people on foot. We’ll get as close as we can by car. Saves time.”

“For what exactly?” She still had not given him the details.

“Lucas is meeting someone there at half past four. Someone extremely important—perhaps his control, or at least his chief contact. I could tell that by the way Lucas talked over the phone with him early this morning. I have never heard Lucas be so polite, so old-fashioned: no hep phrases, no snappy retorts, no acid remarks. This man is important.”

“So you have a bug in Lucas’ room?” Unless she had been there personally, Martin would remind him.

She nodded. “I imagine the subject of their talk will be Tomás Fuentes. That was another conversation I overheard: Tomás Fuentes, certainly in Granada, perhaps connected with a dancer called Tavita. You know her, don’t you?”

“This is her car we’re in.”

“Oh, God,” Amanda said, and her face tightened. “Now they’ll really start tying you up with her.”

“What of it?” he asked sharply. “She was Jeff Reid’s particular friend. Naturally I met her.”

“And you know nothing about Tomás Fuentes?”

“I haven’t one idea where he is, and I couldn’t care less.” He got his voice back to normal. “Where do you expect to find Lucas? Acres and acres of gardens.” He glanced up the hillside to his right. It was terraced and green. A beautiful labyrinth.