“It can be. A bloody waste of effort and time.”
“But this morning when I dropped you off at Tavita’s place you seemed pretty cheerful. What has soured you?”
O’Connor seemed to hesitate. “I was following a pretty hopeful lead. It looked good. I thought the whole business was settled. And it wasn’t.”
“I don’t get you. But then, I haven’t been told too much.”
“No reason why you shouldn’t know, now. I thought Fuentes might be there. He wasn’t. Not one trace of him. Nothing.”
“You searched?”
“All three terraces, every room, talked with the servants.”
“And Tavita allowed this?” Waterman enjoyed the picture he was seeing in his mind’s eye. “I’d have bet she would have stamped her foot, flashed her eyes, and given you a good old flamenco toss of the head.”
“I came as a friend of a friend. And I was diplomatic. Hell, what do you think kept me there so long?”
“Did you actually speak the magic word ‘Fuentes’?”
“At the end of the visit. Brought it up unexpectedly. And that was where she stamped her foot, flashed her eyes, and burst into a stream of Spanish, none of it complimentary. She really hates Fuentes’ guts.”
“Then she knows him. Don’t you see, Bob? She is covering up—”
“She knew him some thirty-odd years ago.”
“A long memory.”
“When you build up that kind of reputation for yourself, you aren’t easily forgotten.”
“A real bogey man. But he couldn’t have been much of a public figure—at least, I never heard his name and I thought I knew some of Spain’s history. What is his real importance now? Or is that breaking security?”
“It is. But perhaps it isn’t, if what I’m beginning to believe is on the right track. He’s another dead myth.”
“And all your trip to Spain was based on a rumour?”
“That’s how we work, Ben. Just like a newspaperman. We follow a rumour until it peters out. And this one is petering out hard. Tomás Fuentes isn’t in Granada. That’s the maddening—”
The telephone rang. “Just a minute,” O’Connor said. This was either Burt or Al with another report from the lobby. “Yes, go ahead Max, go ahead.” O’Connor listened to Al’s slightly astonished voice. But the report was clear enough, even if the phrases were carefully disguised. It was, in effect, a joint report. From Burt came the information that Gene Lucas had returned in the Buick he had been using, parked it in front of the hotel. Three of his friends had already arrived and were staying outside with their cars—a Chrysler and a Mercury, each with a white oval plate clearly marking its origin as the USA.
“Oh, no,” O’Connor said in disgust, and then let Al continue his own report. He had seen Lucas talk briefly with someone in the bar and then go to his room after a quick visit to the lounge.
“Beautiful, just beautiful,” O’Connor said in even greater disgust. “Not one scrap of confirmation? Come on, Max, your people can do better than that.” He listened to Al’s brief comment on his remark. Around him, the silence of the room grew solid; there wasn’t a movement. “I just can’t advise you. Not over the phone. But I’ll be pulling out tonight. I’ve wasted time enough. Sorry about bringing you here... I know, I know. What else could we have done? Ignore it?... All right. See you next time around.” He ended the call, reminded himself to compliment Max on the way he had picked Al (trained, perhaps?), and sat down on the bed. He looked not only beaten but also baffled. “Oh, well,” he said, and left his thoughts right there. “Have you a cigarette, Ian?”
Ferrier fished one out from his pack. “Slightly crumpled.” I’m nervous, he thought. What the hell do I say next?
“Anything will do now.”
“No go?”
“No go.” O’Connor lit the cigarette, took one puff, jammed it down on the ashtray beside the phone. “Oh, yes,” he said, remembering, “your phone call. Sorry I held you up for a bit, but I had to keep that line open.”
“It’s okay now?”
“Sure. Go ahead. Just keep it short.”
“I’ll try,” Ferrier said. “But I’m calling Tavita.”
Waterman broke into a broad smile. “Well, trust old Ian to find a new approach. He may get results for you yet, Bob.”
“For me,” Ferrier said. “Purely for me.” He waited for the operator to put him through. “She asked me to dinner. I’m checking on the time.”
“I can tell you that. Eleven o’clock. This is Spain.”
“I get hungry. Let’s see what a slight hint might do.” The call went through at last. “Ian Ferrier speaking. Hello, hello—” He stopped in real amazement. “That was a man’s voice,” he told O’Connor. “Polite but brusque. He has gone to find Tavita. Let’s hope.”
“Could have been the servant,” O’Connor suggested.
“Too much in command for that.” Ferrier listened to the background noise. “There’s a hell of a din going on.” His worry was not faked. “Trouble, I think.”
Waterman said, “Spanish households can be noisy at times. Extremely—”
“Oh, shut up, Ben!” Into the receiver, Ferrier said, “Is that you, Tavita?... The police?” He covered the mouthpiece, said to O’Connor, “They’ve been searching the house. She’s practically hysterical.” Then he listened intently, talked a little, seemed to calm her down slightly, listened some more. “Of course I’ll come over,” he said at last. “Yes, right away.” He ended the call, faced the room.
Waterman pursed his lips. “The police will find what you didn’t, Bob. They really are thorough, these boys. And there goes her whole career. A pity. Hysterical? No wonder. She has plenty to fear.”
“It didn’t sound so much like fear,” Ferrier said. “More like indignation and anger. And she has good reason for that. You know what triggered off this visit by the police? An anonymous note. It said she had been harbouring a well-known enemy of the state.”
“Fuentes?” asked Waterman.
“No name given.”
“I don’t get it,” O’Connor said slowly.
“Are the police still searching?” Waterman asked.
“No, that’s over—otherwise she wouldn’t have been allowed to talk with me. They found nothing. Nothing and no one.”
“You know what?” Sam said, breaking his long silence, looking young and hesitant but terribly sincere. “I think if you find the writer of that note, you’ll find the man who started the Fuentes rumour. Or the people who put him up to it. Could have been a skilful ploy to get us all here, out in the open—or almost.” Now, he thought, let Waterman digest that.
Ferrier was at the door, ready to leave.
“Do you mind if I come along?” Waterman asked. “Sounds like a good story. And there’s no security involved, is there? Nothing to raise its ugly head and say, ‘Strictly censored.’ Is there, Bob?”
“Not as far as I’m concerned. But I wouldn’t write up this story too soon. The police might come questioning you, don’t you think? And you’d have to get Tavita’s permission—”
“It isn’t for instant publication. I’m out of that racket. Just thought it would make an interesting page in my memoirs. Tavita will be flattered, the way I tell it. What about you, Bob? Aren’t you coming, too?”
O’Connor hesitated. “No. Better not. Why tangle with the police if it isn’t necessary?”
“Oh—a matter of your passport?” Waterman nodded his agreement on that. “Yes, that’s right. They’ll ask to see it, no doubt. I wouldn’t risk showing yours even if it is an expert job. I suppose I’d better take mine along. Dammit, it’s in my room! Look, Ian, I’d better meet you at the car. Won’t keep you—”
“I’m late as it is. Skip the passport. It probably isn’t necessary.” Ferrier had the door open, was half-way out.
“It may be useful. Why don’t you take your own car? I’ll drive mine. I’ll be right on your heels.” A broad grin. “You’ll vouch for
me when I arrive?”
Ferrier was gone, leaving the door ajar.
Waterman’s parting joke to O’Connor was “You know, Bob, you should be an honest man like me, travel under your own name, and then you wouldn’t miss out on the fun.” He made a quick exit.
O’Connor and Sam exchanged a long look. “Did you hear that son of a bitch?” O’Connor asked softly.
“And you told me not to make any jokes!”
“Now you know why.”
Sam nodded. “Revealing.” Strange how little things began to add up once you were properly tuned in. “Well, what now?”
“We wait for Al’s report from the lobby.”
Sam thought briefly. “You don’t expect Waterman to go anywhere near his room?”
O’Connor only looked both depressed and worried.
Sam said encouragingly, “You were quite effective with that rumour talk. I’d have believed you—”
“He didn’t.”
“I thought he was half-way to it.”
“Which isn’t enough. He needs another nudge.”
“The police bore you out. They found no one.”
“That’s what Ferrier reported. Waterman will check on that. Thoroughly.”
“And find that Ferrier told the truth. He did, didn’t he? Well, there’s your extra nudge. It may do it.”
“But what did Tavita tell the police? That’s our weak spot, right there. Indignation and anger... Yes, I can see her, disclaiming any responsibility for Tomás Fuentes. And by doing that, she is admitting he does exist. And there goes our rumour. And, with it, her one chance of safety. Ironical, isn’t it?” O’Connor shook his head, plunged into some unpleasant thoughts.
“But she may not even mention that name.”
“Waterman will bring it up. You may be sure of that.”
“Well, we made a good try. We might just—” Sam turned to the telephone as it rang, picked up the receiver. O’Connor wasn’t even paying attention to it. “It’s from Al.”
“You take it.” It will just be confirmation of what I don’t want to believe, O’Connor thought heavily.
And it was. Al’s report was concise and damning. Waterman had used the staircase to avoid Ferrier, gone straight into the bar and then into the lounge. At both places, he stopped briefly to speak to a man. The contact was quick, practically unnoticeable, an expert job. Al had recognised the man in the bar; he was one who had arrived that morning from Málaga, along with the Ames girl.
“Any sign of her?” O’Connor asked Sam quickly.
“No mention. What was Waterman doing? Passing the word? Calling off the dogs of war? Or just leashing them until it’s safer to pay Tavita a visit?” Then Sam added, suddenly sombre, “You know, Waterman must be a key man, carry real clout. Why did he speak with two men?” He thought about that. “One to contact Lucas, the other—Martin? He’s giving the orders, that’s certain.”
O’Connor nodded. Yes, that was the most depressing fact of all: Waterman must have been a long, long time in this kind of work. All these years... “Sam, you get downstairs. Make a quiet reconnaissance. Amanda Ames. She’s beginning to worry me.”
Sam pulled on his jacket, neatened his tie, moved to the connecting door into his own room. “I’ll send Al up here,” he suggested. “Burt and I can handle the downstairs.”
“What? Do you think I need a bodyguard?” He studied Sam with concealed amusement. So I’m one of the old boys, am I?
“It’s always better to work in pairs.” Sam was all diplomacy.
“No one is going to come in here and hold me up for information at the point of a gun.” Not so funny, O’Connor thought as he remembered Fuentes that morning.
Sam grinned. “I wasn’t thinking of you so much. I just didn’t want anyone bursting in here and finding our attaché case next door. Might put the right ideas into his head. I’d rather we could keep his thoughts snarled.”
“All right. Send Al up.”
At least, thought Sam as he closed the door behind him, I got a small laugh out of him. He needed it. He worries too much. Amanda Ames... Don’t we already have enough problems?
22
Tavita’s house seemed peaceful. Two small grey cars, properly unobtrusive, blocked the driveway (one had a Málaga plate, Ferrier noted) but the Simca could be edged past them almost up to the garage. Ferrier left it there. He hadn’t much time before Ben Waterman would arrive. Quickly, he cut back toward the main entrance. Its door was half open. He stepped into the hall.
Four men stood in close conference, voices in a low murmur. Two in police uniforms, two in civilian clothes. And of those, one was Captain Rodriguez. Ferrier nodded politely, received a return bow. Four pairs of eyes looked at him gravely. But no one stopped him, and so he went into the big room. What the hell was Rodriguez doing here? This wasn’t his beat; he was definitely out of orbit unless he had been called in for consultation. But it had looked the other way around: Rodriguez seemed to be listening to the opinion of the other man in civilian clothes. The only cheering thing about that little conference, as far as Ferrier could see, was the panelled wall of the hall, totally in place and undisturbed.
“Tavita.”
She had been standing at the opened door to the terrace, looking out at the sky, her head tilted back, her hands clasped. She turned with the usual graceful swing as he spoke, came running toward him. She was a mourning figure, dressed completely in unrelieved black, face pale, magnificent eyes tragic. She took his hands in a grip that was so intense that he looked at her, startled. “You saw Rodriguez?” She was speaking in a half-whisper. “Oh, that fool, that idiot Esteban. Almost ruined everything. Thought he was helping. Oh, Mother of God!” She had almost burst out into loud anger. She controlled it. “He had enough sense to call me, warn me what he had done. At two o’clock. I tried to reach you.”
“What did Esteban—”
Quickly, she interrupted him, speaking naturally, as voices sounded more loudly in the hall. “Oh, Ian, I am so glad to see you!” She caught hold of him, reached up to kiss him once on each cheek. Her whisper brushed his ear. “You know nothing of Tomás Fuentes. Nothing!”
Ferrier almost forgot the footsteps coming into the room. He mastered the smile that was beginning to spread across his lips, felt them go unnaturally stiff. But it was outrageously comic to be given the same warning he had come chasing over here to pass on to Tavita.
She saw the amusement in his eyes, drew back angrily. She covered that instinctive action, though, gave it a likely excuse. “An anonymous letter is a serious matter. It is not a pleasant thing to have policemen searching through my house.”
“Surely they didn’t believe a letter like that. They must get hundreds of them.”
“But,” said Rodriguez as he joined them, “they must check them all. It is tiresome for everyone concerned.”
Tavita said quickly, “If it had not been for Captain Rodriguez—”
“Not at all. This is an unofficial visit, Señorita Vergara. My colleagues in Granada and I had a friendly chat—that was all. I don’t even think that my business has any connection with theirs.” He smiled tactfully. He looked more like an innocent cherub than ever, strangely clothed in a light-grey suit. “Oh, yes—I have a little business here, too. Some questions. But these can wait.” He glanced back with a frown at the hall. “Isn’t your friend joining us?” he asked Ferrier.
Startled, Ferrier looked at the hall, too. Ben Waterman had been quietly standing there, admiring the wooden panels. Now, he entered the room. On cue, thought Ferrier bitterly as he recovered. He had expected Waterman to be quick, but not quite as speedy as this. He made the introductions perfunctorily. Waterman was too busy to notice, bending over Tavita’s hand, making an extremely adroit explanation-cum-apology for his intrusion: he had always wanted to meet La Tavita, admired her tremendously, and although this was possibly a badly chosen time to visit her, he had been unable to resist the opportunity when his good friend Ian Ferrier ha
d said he was coming here. Would she be gracious enough to forgive his impetuosity, accept his regrets that she should have been put to such stress on this unhappy day? Here, Waterman glanced at the black dress and added that he, too, had been a good friend of Jeff Reid.
Tavita was both touched and pleased; the only thing she didn’t quite like—or understand—was the strange look of anger on Ian Ferrier’s face, appearing, disappearing so quickly. So this Waterman was not really the same as the man who had called himself Smith—when he had first entered, she had immediately assumed that he was. Possibly he was just what he stated, an admirer who wanted a few pleasant words and might even end the visit by asking her for a signed photograph. She was accustomed to this, especially with Americans, who must collect more autographs than any other nation on earth. “Yes,” she said gravely, “this is a bad day. And now—” She shrugged helplessly, and looked at Rodriguez.
Rodriguez said, “I can wait.”
Waterman said genially, “No. I’ll wait. May I do that on your terrace, señorita? The view must be magnificent.” He was walking towards the glass doors, pulling a heavy-rimmed pair of sunglasses from his pocket. “Coming, Ian? I think Captain Rodriguez will finish his business more quickly without—”
“I would prefer,” Rodriguez said, “that Señor Ferrier remain here. There is a small point which he can help clear up for me.”
Waterman looked at Ferrier, said, “Now don’t tell me, Ian, that you’ve been getting into trouble again.” He was grinning widely as he left for the terrace, putting on his sunglasses before he stepped out into the warm evening light.
Rodriguez watched him standing by the terrace wall, looking down with interest at the roof tops far below him. Then he turned to Ferrier, lowered his voice. “Who is your friend?”
And that, thought Ferrier, is going to give Waterman a sharp jolt. No matter how we lower our voices, he is going to hear every word. That’s my guess. I’ve never seen him wearing these sunglasses before. What kind of listening device is installed in the rim just above his ear? Or am I too suspicious? Yet one thing is sure: Ben Waterman didn’t come here to concentrate on any view. “Didn’t he show you his passport?” Waterman must have flashed it as well as dropping Ferrier’s name to get past the group of policemen so easily.
Message From Malaga Page 36
