Free Doctor Frigo by Eric Ambler

conventional politeness and trying to size me up as she did so.
    ‘I am of course aware, Doctor,’ she continued smoothly, ‘that etiquette prevents your listening sympathetically to any criticism of a professional colleague, but perhaps I am allowed to say that it is a relief to encounter again a doctor with whom one shares a common language.’
    ‘It is kind of you to say so, Doña Julia.’
    ‘In Mexico, you know, we had access to the American British Hospital. The lingua franca there was English of course. However, there are, I understand, basic differences other than language between medical teaching practices in France and North America.’
    ‘Hardly basic.’
    ‘No? Dr Massot’s readings of my husband’s blood pressure caused some confusion I can tell you.’
    ‘Is your husband specially interested in his blood pressure?’
    ‘Isn’t every man of his age?’
    ‘Some I know prefer completely to ignore it.’
    ‘That’s true enough,’ said Uncle Paco. ‘Personally, my blood pressure is the last thing I want to hear about.’
    ‘Dear Paco. Nobody can be expected to want to hear bad news.’ She patted his arm affectionately, but I thought that the fond smile with which she accompanied the gesture had a leavening of dislike in it. ‘I was merely warning Dr Castillo of Don Manuel’s appetite for fact.’
    Uncle Paco’s grin revealed extensive bridgework. ‘I’ve no doubt he’ll find out about that soon enough, my dear. That is, if we ever give him a chance to do so.’
    ‘Of course, I was forgetting.’ Her smile switched to me. ‘Dr Castillo has his responsibilities at the hospital as well as his duty to the police.’ There was dry ice in the smile now. ‘Will you show your young friend up and introduce him, Paco dear?’
    With a curt nod to me she left.
    As the heels of her sandals clacked away over the marble Uncle Paco took a cigar case from his shirt pocket.
    ‘A stupid woman,’ he remarked. ‘Arrogant. When he gets to power she’ll make enemies for him. Not of old friends perhaps, but among the doubtful, the undecided.’ He drew a cigar out and slid the case shut. ‘In which category will you be, Ernesto? You don’t object, I hope, to my presuming on our earlier acquaintance by addressing you familiarly?’
    ‘No, Don Paco. As for your other question, I shall be in the category of the totally uninterested.’
    ‘That is what your Commissaire Gillon told me.’ He turned and waddled out on to the terrace.
    I followed, thinking that I was being taken to see the patient, but after few paces he stopped and eased himself down on to the leg end of a chaise longue.
    ‘Sit down for a moment, Ernesto.’ He waved me to a chair facing him. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Don Manuel that won’t keep. Would you like a drink?’
    ‘No thank you.’
    ‘Quite right. Much too early.’
    I sat and waited while he lit his cigar. Finally he looked up.
    ‘Are you very angry with me, Ernesto?’
    ‘Angry, Don Paco?’
    He tossed the spent match into an ashtray.
    ‘For getting you mixed up with us here.’
    ‘Should I be?’
    ‘You might. It took a lot of manoeuvring I can tell you. Paris wanted us in Guadeloupe. Tight security very easy there, they said. I suggested St Martin. I knew they wouldn’t fall for that, of course. Easy access to the Dutch is the last thing they want for us at the moment. So we compromised on St Paul. They made a big concession of it, of course. They knew I wanted you in the picture, though they pretended not to. Giving us that idiot Massot when I asked for a Spanish-speaking doctor must have seemed a pretty little joke. But the joke turned sour on them. It seems they took Massot’s own word for it that he could speak Spanish. Didn’t check. Once I had that fiasco to dangle under their noses they couldn’t refuse me. Though they tried. Talked about how essential your work was to the hospital. Even had the impertinence to suggest that it might be politically unwise