Sun and Shadow Read Online Free PDF Page A

nodded, had his hand inside her blouse.
    They took two or three dance steps in front of him.
    He stood up.

5
    Winter collected his case from the carousel, passed through customs and out to where his hired car was waiting. He took off his jacket and settled behind the wheel. The car had been parked in the shade behind the terminal building. As the plane approached, Málaga had announced itself as gray cliffs climbing skyward from burned earth fifty thousand feet below. A semicircle embracing a calm sea. It was ninety degrees in the shade. The heat was reluctant to release Andalusia from its grip. He’d never been here before.
    He felt tired, and his head was pounding. He started the engine. He felt sad, and his emotion seemed to be exaggerated by the heat. As if the heat were an omen.
    Winter unfolded the map of the Costa del Sol he’d been given by the car rental firm and checked his route to Marbella. It seemed straightforward. The E15 all the way. The motorway was reputed to be the most dangerous in the world, but he reflected that the media had suggested the same thing for other roads as well, as he reversed out of his parking space.
    He drove westward and switched on the radio. A Spaniard was singing a version of “My Way” in lisping Castilian. That was followed by a flamenco set for orchestra: it sounded cheerful but out of tune to Winter’s ear. The flamenco gave way to a Mexican rhumba with ten thousand trumpets. Then the Spaniard came back with “The Green, Green Grass of Home.”
    The grass bordering the road was dry and almost colorless.
    He drove through the suburbs. The high-rise blocks looked black in the shade. The concrete façades were dotted with colorful washing hanging on balconies. The wasteland between the clusters of houses seemed to be deserted, apart from small groups of feral dogs chasing one another through piles of trash. No sign of any people now that it was siesta time.
    He steered well clear of a truck that overtook him on a bend. The driver was sitting back, smoking, his elbow resting on the window frame. A woman in the passenger seat was playing with a couple of toddlers in the seat in the back, and the children waved to Winter. He waved back, then wiped his face. He was very hot. The air-conditioning didn’t work (“The very best, señor!”) and the slipstream was insufficient to cool him.
    To the left he could see what must be Torremolinos, or “Torrie,” as his mother had called it, the way the English do: a series of concrete blocks halfway to heaven and halfway out into the sea. It could be a paradise or a living hell, depending on whom you asked. Winter didn’t ask, and had no intention of staying: he devoted no further thought to Torrie, regarding it as no more than a wall built along the shore, and drove on to the hospital.
    Four miles outside Marbella, Winter noticed the Hospital Costa del Sol to the right, colored white and green. He turned off at the Hotel Los Monteros, followed a road running parallel to the highway, and then came around to the hospital. He parked close to a bus stop and followed the signs to the ENTRADA PRINCIPAL. The grass was green and the flowers red. A circle of pines had been planted around the gigantic building: cactus, bougainvillea. Flowers tumbling from balconies.
    Broad steps led up to the entrance, which looked like a black hole. Winter took a deep breath, ran his hand through his closely cropped hair, and went in.
    Morelius left Bartram standing outside the Park Lane Hotel and crossed over the Avenue to Hanne Ostergaard, who was still rooted to the spot. She didn’t see him until he was next to her. “You can’t stand here, Hanne.”
    She looked at him.
    “It’s not out-of-bounds, is it?” she said, and he thought he heard a dry laugh. She raised her head and looked for the youngsters, but they could no longer be seen among the mass of people. “This little drama seems to have attracted an audience. At least you were in the right