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.