Ken McClure - The Anvil

MacLean was left alone in the lane with only a stray dog for company and the strong smell of vegetables. There was no sound from inside the cafe. MacLean swallowed because his mouth had gone dry. He was contemplating moving up to the window himself when he sensed some movement behind the back door. It moved slightly as if someone were about to open it. He moved swiftly to the wall at the side of the door and bunched his fist in readiness.

The door opened a fraction and MacLean saw Leavey appear in the opening. He held his finger to his lips and beckoned MacLean to join him. MacLean tiptoed into the cafe behind Leavey and froze at the sight that met his eyes. Maria, her eyes full of fear, sat mutely in a high-backed chair with her hands and feet tightly bound and her mouth sealed with a gag that split her face like a crescent moon. There was a man lying on the floor with his neck at an angle that said Leavey had dealt with him.

MacLean peered through a gap between a serving hatch and the wall and saw Jose standing at the bar; he was polishing the same glass over and over again, still in the belief that his daughter was being held in the kitchen at gunpoint. The angle was too acute to see if there was anyone else in the room.

‘How many?’ Leavey whispered to Maria as he undid her gag.

‘Two.’

‘Him and the man sitting outside the cafe?’ said Leavey, pointing to the dead man on the floor.

Maria nodded.

The immediate danger was that they might startle Jose into giving the game away. MacLean edged the kitchen door open a few centimetres. ‘Psst!.. Psst!.. ‘ The finger held to his lips proved enough to prevent Jose’s surprise translating into something louder. Leavey crawled across the floor of the cafe to the front door and stood up to flatten himself against the side of it. He looked to Jose and pointed with his finger to the man outside. ‘Call him!’ he said quietly.

Jose nodded and called out, ‘Senor!’ He sounded nervous and uncertain.

The man looked at Jose but did not move.

‘Senor!’

This time the man got up and made to come indoors. His leading foot had barely crossed the threshold before Leavey hit him behind the ear and he slumped unconscious to the floor. Leavey slipped his arms under the man’s armpits and dragged him through into the kitchen. They all started speaking at the same time.

MacLean held up his hand and said, ‘Jose?’

‘These men say they catch one and now they wait for his friends.’

‘They’ve got Willie,’ said MacLean. ‘Oh God, it was my idea he went up there today…’

Leavey said, ‘Willie wouldn’t have told them anything unless they made him. He must have found what we’re looking for.’

‘That means that what we’re looking for isn’t in the clinic itself; it has something to do with the basement where Willie was looking.’

Leavey agreed. He looked at the man on the floor. ‘He can tell us more when he comes round.’ He prodded the unconscious man with his foot but got no reaction.

‘They must know about the apartment too,’ said MacLean.

Leavey nodded and said, ‘That’s probably where these two were going next.’

Maria said, ‘My father has a boat in the marina.’ They all looked to Jose who said, ‘Si, the Erinia. She is yours.’

‘Perfect,’ said Leavey. ‘I suggest we move the gear into the Erinia then hit the Hacienda when they least expect it.’

Even with his pulse racing and his brain working overtime MacLean had to admire Leavey’s coolness under pressure. He was sometimes more like a machine than a man, cool, calculating, always weighing the odds and usually always right. He had just killed a man and yet he was already thinking ahead like a chess player. At that particular moment it seemed like the most ridiculous thought on earth but MacLean suddenly realised why Leavey had never married. He was invulnerable. He had no weakness, he didn’t need a partner to complement his own being because he was already complete. John Donne had been wrong; Leavey was an island.

MacLean asked what Leavey had in mind when he heard a scuffle behind him and whirled round to see the man who had been unconscious spring up and catch Maria from behind. A knife had appeared in his hand and the point was being held at her throat. MacLean could see a thin trickle of blood start to escape from where the point had broken her skin. Without saying anything, the man, his eyes burning with malice, began to sidle towards the door. He held Maria in front of him while the others could only look on.

There was a moment when he had to move his knife hand away from the girl’s throat in order to open the door but it was over too quickly for Leavey or MacLean to exploit it. The door opened and the man backed out into the lane, using Maria as a shield. At that moment the stray dog in the lane decided to try its luck in Jose’s kitchen. It became entangled in the man’s legs and he overbalanced. Maria broke free and Leavey made to go for him but Jose, being nearer, beat him to it. Maria closed her eyes as she saw her father raise the meat cleaver and bring it down in a scything arc. Now they had two bodies to get rid of.

Jose brought his pick-up truck into the lane. It was agreed that Leavey would accompany him to get rid of the corpses at a quiet spot along the coast while MacLean returned to the apartment to clear it out and take their belongings to the boat in the marina.

At six o’clock, he was aboard the gently bobbing cruiser, waiting for Leavey to return. He remained below in the cabin, lying on one of the bunks and looking out through the porthole at the hypnotic white speck up in the mountains he knew was the Hacienda Yunque. He sat up smartly when he heard a noise up on deck.

‘It’s me,’ said Leavey’s voice. He came below and sat down on the bunk opposite.

‘Everything OK?’ asked MacLean.

‘No problems,’ replied Leavey.

‘What now?’

Leavey propped himself up on one elbow and said, ‘I suggest we wait until it gets dark and then we go back to the Hacienda. They won’t expect us to do that. They’ll think we’re either dead or on the run.’

‘I agree,’ said MacLean. ‘Willie must have found something big or there wouldn’t have been this much fuss.’

‘And that means Cytogerm,’ said Leavey. He swung his legs round and up on to the bunk and said, ‘It’s all or nothing time, Sean. We go in there armed and we come out with Willie and the Cytogerm.’

‘With our shields or on them,’ said MacLean ruefully. They shook hands on it.

At ten that evening they left the boat, wearing dark clothing and carrying guns. Leavey had the Colt Cobra that he had smuggled into the country in his specially designed camera case. MacLean carried the. 38 calibre Smith and Wesson that he had taken from one of the men at the cafe. They had decided to climb up to the Hacienda on foot since there would be no place to leave a car on the winding mountain road without it attracting attention. If they travelled on foot they could avoid the road altogether and scramble up the slopes of the Sierra.

After an hour’s hard going they paused for breath, leaning their backs against a large boulder to look back down on the lights of Fuengirola. Far out to sea they could see a freighter making for the Straits of Gibraltar, its navigation lights winking under a canopy of stars. All seemed serenely peaceful until MacLean felt the suggestion of a cold breeze on his cheek. He touched it and remembered the same feeling on the balcony of their apartment. ‘There’s a storm coming,’ he said.

Leavey got up to move off. ‘We don’t want to catch our death of cold do we?’

They resumed their climb.

Another half-hour and they reached the perimeter wall of the Hacienda, approaching it at the south-west corner where it was furthest from the road. Leavey scaled it first and lay horizontally along the top for a few moments before whispering, ‘All clear.’