The waiting room of Dr. Schwinghammer’s surgery looked more like a spa than a hospital. It was decorated entirely in uniform, pristine white; even the laminate flooring underfoot was a pale shade of grey. Sebastian waited uneasily in one of the room’s low-slung sofas and tried to ignore the repeated glances of the reception staff.
The surgery occupied the second floor of a commercial office block at the fringes of Marbella’s city centre. The front desk at the Serenidad had called a car to take them into the city; its route passed along the southern edge of Old Town, with the lush jungle of Alameda Park along one side and a long, towering row of hotels, shops and restaurants on the other. Shortly after their arrival, just before 0700, a nurse had come to collect Jay. They’d disappeared into the inner halls of the surgery, leaving Sebastian at loose ends for the next four hours.
He’d had breakfast nearby, once the restaurants opened. Then he’d wandered Old Town for a while, thoroughly enjoying the sunshine while he made his way through narrow cobbled streets and historic, whitewashed buildings. He’d never been to Marbella before; his previous holidays had been in Ibiza and Barcelona, and his only other visit to the Costa del Sol involved a covert boat ride by night across the Strait of Gibraltar into Morocco.
Sebastian made his way back to the surgery around 1100, and had been waiting ever since.
By his estimate, Jay would be out of the operating room by now. The receptionists weren’t offering any hints; they couldn’t, since Sebastian wasn’t family. Which left Sebastian waiting to be fetched, and worrying.
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