Doctor Frigo (10 page)

‘Important, obviously, or I would not have ordered them. Urgent, not particularly. They are needed to confirm, or dispose of, a tentative diagnosis I had made.’

‘Of what? Some dread disease? You didn’t frighten the man out of his wits in order to impress him by any chance?’

‘Certainly not. There was no discussion of a dread disease as you call it, and I didn’t hint darkly at any such possibility. I don’t see how I could possibly have scared him. In fact he was interested in knowing the results of his blood and urine tests. Obviously he wasn’t enthusiastic about having a lower tract X-ray. It’s not painful, but as it involves a barium enema, it’s not something that anyone would look forward to. But a frightening prospect? No. Does the letter ask for the results of the tests?’

‘No. In effect, it requests nothing but your future absence from Les Muettes. The request can be denied of course.’

‘You don’t expect me to force my way in there?’

‘Not quite. Your instructions are, for the moment, to do nothing.’

‘Do I inform Dr Brissac?’

‘No. I said you do nothing. Nothing more, that is, until you hear from me.’

‘When is that likely to be, Commissaire? I shall be on night duty here tonight and tomorrow.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind. However, I don’t think that I shall have to disturb your sleep. This development means that I must consult with Paris. It will be at least two days, I suspect, before the situation can be clarified. Just keep yourself available, Doctor.’

‘Very well, Commissaire.’

I wasn’t absolutely frank with Gillon when we spoke on Thursday morning and this troubles me.

Uncle Paco’s letter was a surprise, of course, but it was not to me as totally inexplicable as I made out.

Clearly I had offended him, and the letter to Gillon had been his way of expressing his displeasure.

But had it been only that?

Could he have concluded belatedly that letting me into the magic circle had been a mistake, and that the possible value of having someone named Castillo around and involved was after all outweighed by the risk that this particular Castillo represented?

Twice in twenty-four hours, and in two different ways, I have been told that when my father was murdered Villegas
was far away in New York. I have also been told that there is no
conclusive
evidence that any other member of the Party was involved.

Why?

When I had been offensive to Uncle Paco had I only wounded him a little, or had something been said to give him cause for a deeper anxiety?

Perhaps that is why my services are no longer required at Les Muettes. If I’m not there, I can’t ask inconvenient questions.

But I can ask them of myself.

Must make a list – QUESTIONS FOR MYSELF: in particular, questions hitherto regarded as irrelevant because too hypothetical.

No answers.

Should try to think of some.

It will be interesting to see what Gillon’s consultations bring forth.

I am already vulnerable. If it is decided that I am, after
all, to continue as Villegas’ medical adviser, then I shall be doubly so.

As Monsieur Albert so rightly said, a doctor doesn’t need a gun if he wants to kill.

RUE RACINE II

FORT LOUIS

ST PAUL-LES-ALIZÉS

The temptation to postpone until tomorrow what I should do tonight is strong; and if I were just now advising a patient in my condition I would tell him to yield to it.

‘During the past two days,’ I would say brusquely, ‘you have had at most six hours sleep. You have also been subjected to psychological pressures greater than those usually associated with your work. You need proper rest. No arguments, please. Throw away that coffee. Take two of these tablets with a glass of water and go straight to bed. Now.’

Instead, I shall drink the coffee.

So much has happened today; and if this record is to have any protective value at all as far as I am concerned, it must be immediate as well as complete.

So, strong coffee and plenty of sugar. The sleeping tablets will have to wait.

At eight-thirty this morning I was telephoned by Commissaire Gillon. My initial incoherence must have made it plain that I had been asleep, for he was grudgingly apologetic.

‘I am aware, Doctor, that after a period of night duty you normally have a free day. I am sorry.’

‘Well, what is it? Has Villegas changed his mind about the X-rays? If he wants them today after all, I’ll have to check with …’

‘No, no. We have heard nothing more from Les Muettes. But I have heard from Paris. I must ask you to be in my office at five this afternoon. It is most important, essential.’

‘You wake me now to tell me that?’

‘As I say, it is important. I could not risk failing to contact you later. You might have been out.’

‘Even when I am off duty I am on call. The hospital always knows where to find me.’

‘I didn’t know that. Nevertheless …’

‘Five o’clock. Couldn’t you make it six?’

‘No, Doctor. Five o’clock, please.’

‘If you’re expecting me to bring a written report …’

‘No, that will not be necessary today.’

‘All right.’

I tried to get back to sleep, but only succeeded in dozing.

The femme-de-ménage arrives at eleven. Mine is the second apartment on her list and Friday is the day on which she assaults it with the electric floor polisher. This is one of her set routines, none of which may be varied unless one is prepared to engage in a major shouting match and ignore the subsequent sulks.

I was lunching with Elizabeth at the Hotel Ajoupa. Partly to kill time, but mostly to get away from the noise of the polisher, I took my moto to the garage for its long overdue servicing. The man there said that he would do what he could but again repeated an earlier diagnosis: a new plug might relieve some of the symptoms but the improvement would only be temporary. The scrap-heap beckoned. Why postpone the inevitable? What I really needed was that nearly new Simca over there, a car which he had personally serviced and could personally guarantee. Just the thing for a busy doctor, and for me there would be a special discount. On the subject of my moto he and Dr Brissac were obviously of the same mind.

Lunch at the Ajoupa can never be entirely enjoyable. At its best the food may be just palatable, but the restaurant service is always bad. All the competent waitresses work in
the more profitable bar areas. Those in the restaurant are either languid beauties who do nothing but admire themselves in the mirrors or boisterous village girls who shout a lot at one another, bang their hips against the furniture and drop things. They are largely unsupervised. The
chefs de rang
supposedly in charge are hard-faced women who patrol their tables looking not for inadequacies in the service, but for dissatisfied guests whom they can intimidate. They carry heavy leather-bound menus which they slap against their thighs menacingly or weigh in their hands like police truncheons when receiving complaints.

Of course, Elizabeth is treated with more consideration than a mere guest in the hotel, but not even she goes totally unscathed. On one occasion she found her usual table engulfed in an all-male luncheon organized by the St Paul chapter of Lions International; on another she was mistakenly charged with a Modified American Plan bill for a party of forty Italian tourists. Still, though I had no expectation of eating well, I had been looking forward to our lunch. During the past two days we had only spoken on the telephone, and although my accounts of the visit to Les Muettes and its sequel had been necessarily guarded, I had told her enough to let her know the sort of predicament I was in and how worried I was about it.

So, I had expected sympathy. Instead, I was subjected to a hostile interrogation concerned with the very subjects about which I was least willing to speak freely.

She began by demanding a word-for-word description of everything that had been done and said at Les Muettes. Then she began to cross-examine me, picking over what I had told her as if it were all somehow suspect.

Not realizing immediately that I was under attack, I was at first indiscreet. Then, becoming defensive, I foolishly took refuge behind the fact that Villegas was, technically speaking anyway, still my patient.

She pounced on that instantly. ‘Uncle Paco isn’t your
patient. You weren’t prodding
his
stomach, were you? Couldn’t you have asked him about these absurd alibis?’

‘Alibis?’

‘Well, that’s obviously what they were.’ She pointed her fork at me. ‘And from what you told me before you started babbling about ethics, that’s how they were presented, all gift-wrapped and ready for you when you arrived like’ – words failed her for a moment – ‘like bottles of cheap scent.’

‘I made my feelings plain enough. The fact that they now want to get rid of me shows that.’

‘Who knows why they want to get rid of you? Perhaps Madame decided that she would like an older man after all. You didn’t question the alibis.’

‘I was there as a doctor, not an examining magistrate. Besides, what was there to question? The fact that Villegas was in New York?’

‘Of course not. What difference does it make where he was? When the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo, Colonel Dimitrijevic, the great Apis of the Black Hand, was far away in Belgrade. Did that make him innocent of the crime?’

‘The circumstances were entirely different, Elizabeth, and you know it.’

‘A bit different, I agree, but not entirely so. Those who incite or organize political assassinations are usually somewhere else when the event itself takes place. We are speaking of conspiracies, remember, not the unassisted acts of madmen. What use would alibis have been to Apis? None. There can only be three explanations of these alibis you have been given. The obvious one is that these people think you are stupid.’

‘Yes, that
had
occurred to me.’

‘But you didn’t believe it. Neither would I have done. What about the alternative explanations?’

‘I’ve considered one. Aware of my past associations with those Florida idiots, Villegas and Uncle Paco may imagine
that I believe, or half-believe, in that old nonsensical treason theory about Papa’s murder.’

‘Well don’t you?’

‘No.’ I spoke firmly enough but with Elizabeth I am not good at dissembling. When she smiled I amended the denial. ‘All right, let’s say then that I haven’t thought of it as anything but discredited for a very long time.’

‘You mean until another set of persons you don’t altogether trust starts telling you that it is not only nonsensical but also inconceivable and impossible?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Then hadn’t you better start considering the third explanation?’

‘What third explanation?’

She pushed the remains of her food aside as if about to draw maps on the tablecloth.

‘When there is guilt to be hidden,’ she said, ‘pointless but insistent protestations of innocence can make an effective smokescreen – not too thick to see through, but thick enough to make the eyes water and keep them peering in the wrong direction.’

She squinted at me through narrowed eyes to show me what she meant.

‘I am not peering in any direction.’

She showed signs of impatience.

‘You’ve been told twice in one day what Villegas was doing and thinking twelve years ago at the time of the assassination, so you must be peering at him. Has anyone told you in the same elaborate detail what Uncle Paco was doing and thinking at the time?’

I snorted.

‘Well
have
they?’

‘I know what he was doing.’

‘But not what he was thinking. According to you, Uncle Paco has always been an intriguer. He is also rich. Do you think that assassination plots like the one against your father can be organized and carried out by amateurs? Of
course not. It was a professional job. Even you have never disputed that. Professional criminals were employed by other professionals clever enough to cover their tracks. Who paid these professionals? The security forces of the junta? Perhaps. But why not Uncle Paco?’

‘You’re talking nonsense, Elizabeth. Uncle Paco! What possible motive could he have had?’

‘Motive? The usual one for an intriguer. Perceiving, or so he thinks, that the time for decision has arrived, he resolves an uncertain situation by polarizing the forces involved through an act of violence. Always with the best of inentions naturally. What motive did Apis have when he ordered the assassination at Sarajevo? The starting of a World War? Absurd! Franz Ferdinand was killed not just because he was a Hapsburg but because he was the throne heir with plans for conciliating the Serbs. There was to be a South Slav state within the Empire. Apis well knew, and so did lots of others, that such a state would have at once deprived the northern Serbs of their grievances and the Serbian Nationalists of their legitimate complaints. That wasn’t mindless terrorism, but an act of political calculation.’