At four in the morning the storms which had been lashing the eastern Mediterranean shores of Israel and Lebanon reached the south coast of Spain on their way west. They had lost little of their venom on the journey. The wind drove the rain on shore with a fury that made babies cry and old folks cross themselves. There was no question of sleeping through the din. Leavey got up and made coffee.
‘It might work to our advantage,’ he said, as he handed mugs to the other two. If the rain persisted he wouldn’t be able to get any decent pictures of Tormo entering the Hacienda, so they might all have an excuse to go back again on Thursday, giving them two bites at the cherry.
All three of them had to put down their coffee in order to secure the balcony awnings and fasten the shutters against the night. Water poured through the drainage holes on all the balconies in the apartment block and fell like a waterfall into the courtyard below.
It was still raining when Leavey and MacLean arrived at Tormo’s laboratory and found him, as before, delighted to see them. They were his link with the recognition he so much desired. He had some specimens to attend to before they could leave for the Hacienda. There had been an outbreak of suspected food poisoning among the residents at one of the hotels in town and Salmonella was a possibility. MacLean strengthened his image by making some knowledgeable comment about the bacteriology of Salmonella infections. ‘You’ll be plating on DCA?’ he asked.
‘Si, and Selenite subculture,’ replied Tormo.
Leavey looked out of the window and tried to guess which car was Tormo’s.
It was ten thirty when they got into Tormo’s dark blue Peugeot estate car and set off for the Hacienda. Butterflies were beginning to think it was summer in MacLean’s stomach but Leavey seemed as implacable as ever. He gazed out of the window as if he were a passenger on a bus travelling a route he’d done a thousand times before.
The climb up the mountain road proved to be even more laborious than the last time, as the storm had washed mud and scree off the hillside to litter the road. In all they had to stop four times to clear obstructions from their path before reaching the great wrought-iron gates of the clinic. Tormo got out to ID himself on an entry-phone at the side. As he returned to the car an electric motor hummed into life and the gates swung slowly open.
They drove slowly up the drive and through the orchard to the house. The Hacienda looked even more impressive at close quarters although it had a brooding quality because of a large cliff overhang above it. MacLean had not realised that the house literally backed into the rock face. Leavey who had been thinking the same thing whispered, ‘No back door,’ as they followed Tormo up the fifty or so steps to the entrance. The nearer they got to the building the smaller they began to feel. It towered above them haughtily as if it and everyone in it were looking down on them.
Prompted by Leavey’s elbow, MacLean asked Tormo to pause at the head of the steps so that he could take a photograph of him entering the Hacienda. Tormo adopted a suitable pose but Leavey shook his head, maintaining that he was having difficulty with rain on the lens of the camera. He tried for the other side of the steps, crouching down as he’d once seen Patrick Lichfield do on television, but still looked deliberately doubtful. ‘A pity,’ he said. ‘This might even have made the cover.’
‘Maybe the weather will be better on Thursday,’ suggested Tormo, having taken the bait. MacLean agreed.
The door was opened by a frumpish woman in her forties whom Tormo introduced as Senora Seeler, the housekeeper. She nodded formally to Leavey and MacLean before leaving Tormo to lead the way to the clinic’s laboratory. Leavey and MacLean exchanged admiring glances as they walked through the Hacienda. This was a class act.
They passed quietly and unobtrusively through areas where residents sat, swathed in towels and robes, manicured hands holding glossy magazines, legs crossed languidly, resting on footstools which accompanied their lounger chairs. No one took notice of them; MacLean thought of the ‘invisibility’ of servants in times gone by. They paused in one of the empty rooms to admire the view from a panoramic window. They stood in silence but Chopin accompanied the vista from an unseen and unobtrusive sound system.
‘I think I want to stay here,’ murmured Leavey and MacLean agreed.
Tormo smiled and said, ‘The Hacienda is not for mere mortals Senors.’
‘Story of my life,’ said Leavey.
The small laboratory was superbly equipped but after what they had seen, they had not expected anything else. Tormo said that he was often tempted to bring up his other blood samples and run them through the automatic blood analyser; he couldn’t possibly afford one himself. The lab was the first indication that they were not in a luxury hotel because so far, they had not come across anything to suggest clinical nature of the place. There was no lingering smell of anaesthetics or disinfectant. There were no trolleys parked in the corridors and not even a nurse to be seen.
MacLean remarked on this and Tormo said, ‘All the medical and surgical facilities are downstairs. The patients don’t actually go down there until the day of their operation. The nurses on this floor do not wear uniforms. It keeps the patients relaxed.’
MacLean gradually built up a picture of the clinic and its internal layout through prudent questioning of Tormo. The patients’ suites, the communal lounges and recreation areas were on the main floor. There were two operating theatres, recovery rooms and post-operative care facilities on the floor below. All services from water to anaesthetic gases were furnished from a large basement complex. Offices and staff living quarters were on the top floor with the exception of the maintenance staff who lived in an annexe to the basement.
MacLean now had a clear objective. He had to get downstairs to the surgical and medical area where he felt sure he’d find the clinic’s pharmacy. If Cytogerm were here at all, that’s where it would be. He set himself a target for the day of finding out where the pharmacy was located. Leavey had ensured that they would be coming back on Thursday. That’s when he would try to lay hands on the stuff.
Leavey and MacLean watched Tormo carry out blood tests with Leavey taking the occasional photograph and MacLean asking the odd question as he considered what to do next. Eventually he had an idea. ‘If you are the only analyst employed by the clinic you must look after the theatres too?’ he asked Tormo.
‘I do routine monitoring of the surfaces for bacterial contamination,’ agreed Tormo. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I was just thinking we might get more dramatic pictures of you at work in a theatre. Labs are interesting but operating theatres are more… atmospheric, don’t you think?’
‘I see,’ replied Tormo thoughtfully. ‘I take your point. I’ll have to check the theatre schedules.’
Tormo left the room and MacLean crossed his fingers in a silent gesture to Leavey. They did not have long to wait for Tormo’s return. The little man was smiling. ‘We are in luck,’ he announced. ‘No theatre is in use this morning. We can go down there now, if you like.’
Leavey and MacLean followed Tormo down some well-lit stairs and paused at the foot where they came to a tray across the floor with some wet sponge-like material in it. ‘Routine disinfecting of our shoes,’ said Tormo. ‘We have to walk through it. We will have to gown-up too. These are the rules.’ They were led into a small ante-room where Tormo told them to leave their jackets and put on the green gowns he handed them. ‘Post-operative infection at the clinic is practically unknown,’ he said. ‘They like to keep it that way.’
Tormo led them along a corridor to the nurses’ station where three nurses sat at a curved desk. ‘I’m going to do some sampling in theatre one,’ said Tormo. ‘These gentlemen are from International Society of Medical Analysts, they are doing an article about me.’