That evening several of us met in a restaurant near the square in Villa Carlos. But though we talked late into the night we achieved nothing except a fragile sense of solidarity. There were men there who had been in the island many years, but though they tried to kid themselves they were now Menorquins, they knew in their heart of hearts they were still foreigners. We were all of us extranjeros.
I was not in a happy frame of mind when I finally returned home. Soo, thank God, was already in bed and asleep. I undressed in the dark, a breeze blowing the curtains. Lying there, eyes closed, my mind went over and over the events of the day, the talk at that crowded restaurant table. Too much brandy, too much coffee. And then the phone rang.
I thought it might be America. Sometimes Americans forget the time difference. I rolled over, reaching blindly for the receiver, but Soo was before me. ‘Yes?’ She switched on the light. And then, after a moment: ‘For you.’ She passed it across to me and turned over, away from the light, as a man’s voice spoke in my ear: ‘Wade here. We’ve just got the news. You were there, I gather.’
I came awake then, wondering who the hell he was. ‘Who is it? Who’s speaking?’
‘Wade,’ he repeated. ‘Commander Wade.’
I remembered then. ‘Where are you speaking from?’
‘London,’ he said. ‘Where did you think?’ He had a quiet, crisp, well-educated voice. ‘Did you see him?’
‘Who?’
‘The man who shot Martinez, of course. Did you recognise him?’
‘I didn’t see him. How should I? Nobody saw him, not to recognise him.’ And I asked him, ‘What’s it got to do with you, anyway?’
But he ignored that. ‘We have a picture here. It’s just come in. It shows you seated right beside the Mayor. You must have seen what happened.’
‘Of course I did. But the shot came from the villa behind and I was looking at Jorge Martinez, we all were, watching him as he pitched forward down the steps on to the terrace below. The police have full information, they took statements –’
‘Yes, yes, we’ve got a telex copy of your statement here.’
‘Then why the hell are you phoning me? It’s after one in the morning.’
‘I’m well aware of the time.’ His tone was slightly weary and I guessed he had been at some Navy office most of the evening.
‘What are you, Intelligence?’ I asked. But all he said was, ‘This is an open line, so let’s keep to the point. I’m phoning you because Lloyd Jones reported you’d been very helpful in locating a friend of his.’ His emphasis on the word friend made it clear he didn’t want the man’s name mentioned. ‘I understand you have now exchanged an unfinished villa and an old fishing boat for his catamaran. Where is he, do you know?’ And when I said I had no idea, that he was away fishing somewhere, he asked when I had last seen him.
‘Almost two weeks ago.’ And I added, ‘What business is it of yours? Anyway, you have my statement. You’ve just said so.’
‘Yes, but there’s nothing in it about your dealings with this friend of Lloyd Jones. We need to know where he is now, and where he was at the time the Mayor was shot … Hullo, hullo! Are you still there?’ His voice had sharpened.
‘Yes, I’m still here.’
‘You didn’t answer.’
‘Why should I?’ I was fully awake now and wondering what his real purpose was. ‘I’ve no intention of acting for your organisation.’
‘What organisation?’
‘Intelligence,’ I said. ‘I want no part of it and I’m going to hang up now.’
‘No. Don’t do that. Not for the moment.’ He said it as though he were giving an order on his own quarterdeck.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Goodbye.’
‘Ahmed Bey. Remember? And the Mattarella brothers.’
‘What do you mean?’ The receiver was back at my ear, a quite involuntary movement.
‘Kenitra,’ he said. ‘On the coast of Morocco.’ And he added, ‘You see, I’ve had a few enquiries made about you. I don’t think I need say any more. Now answer my questions please.’ There was a coldness in his voice that hadn’t been there before, a certainty that I would do what he asked. ‘Have you seen our friend since you handed the Santa Maria over to him ten days ago?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Have you asked the police where he is?’
‘Why should I? A man out fishing …’
‘You think he’s fishing?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘So you don’t know where he is now or where he’s been?’
‘No.’
‘Well, kindly find out.’
‘I’m busy,’ I said. ‘I have clients …’
‘Just find out for me. Understand? I’ll ring you tomorrow night.’
I opened my mouth to tell him I wouldn’t be in, that there was no point, but instead I heard myself say, ‘When?’
‘Eighteen hundred hours.’
I started to say I would be out then, but the line went suddenly dead.
I lay back, my eyes closed. Ahmed Bey! Jesus! that was more than ten years back. The Jedida-Marseilles run.
‘What did he want?’ Soo was propped up on one elbow, her large, dark eyes staring at me. ‘Who was he?’
‘A client, talking about boats.’
‘At this time of night?’
‘Go to sleep,’ I said. I needed to think.
‘He said his name was Commander something or other. Was it about Gareth?’
God almighty! She was still thinking of Lloyd Jones. ‘No, of course not.’ But I could see she didn’t believe me.
‘Why did he ring then? It’s almost half past one. Was it about this man who persuaded you to part with the villa? You shouldn’t have done it, Mike. A lovely villa like that, the Santa Maria too, and all you’ve got for it is that bloody catamaran. What did he say? What did he want?’ She was leaning forward, fingers gripped urgently on my arm. ‘Is it to do with – what happened today?’
‘Yesterday,’ I said. Already it was yesterday and Wade in London, the man who had told Lloyd Jones to contact me … No, ordered more likely. Ordered him to check with me in the hope of discovering Evans’s whereabouts … Wade was concerned enough about what had happened here in Menorca to ring me in the middle of the night.
‘Patrick. That’s what Gareth called him.’ She let go of my arm, slumping back on the pillow. ‘What’s he been up to now?’
‘Now?’ My mind shifted from my talk with Wade to Lloyd Jones sitting across from me at that table on the Fornells waterfront. Had he told her more than he had told me? ‘What do you know about Patrick Evans?’ She shook her head quickly, her eyes sliding away from me. ‘What did he tell you?’ I was leaning over, shaking her, but all she did was stare at me blankly. ‘Nothing – only that he’d saved his life.’
‘I know that. Anything else?’
She hesitated, and then she said, ‘They’re related.’
‘In what way?’
‘Just related, that’s all. He was explaining why he was so anxious to find the man. A message, I think it was the man’s mother. She had asked Gareth to take a message.’
She didn’t know what the message was. She thought it might be something to do with a cottage they owned in a place called Gwenogle. ‘I remember the name because it sounded so odd, and yet the way Gareth said it …’ She was smiling to herself. ‘I think maybe he was born in that little Welsh hill village.’
‘Who – Gareth or Patrick Evans?’
‘Patrick. They’re both of them Welsh, of course.’ She reached out and switched off the bedside light. I closed my eyes and in the silent darkness I saw Ahmed Bey’s face as I had seen it that last time, the bullets slamming his thickset body backwards into the wake of the Italian boat ranging alongside. That was the last trip. They dumped us in an inflatable, no food, no water, the west coast of Africa more than twenty miles away and all desert when we reached it. We were lucky to get out of it alive.
How the hell did Wade know about that
? We’d never been caught by the authorities. Was there some sort of a file on me at Naval Intelligence? And then I began thinking about Patrick Evans. There had to be some connection – first Lloyd Jones searching for him with out-of-date pictures, then the man himself, and now Wade.
It was in the very middle of the night, still half awake, my mind drowsily running over the possibilities, my imagination working overtime, that I suddenly had an ugly thought. If Wade knew what I’d been up to as a kid, there might be others, Evans, for instance. In which case …
The feeling was so strong, so frightening, I nearly got up there and then in the middle of the night. I didn’t sleep after that, waiting for the dawn, certain now that Evans would have retained a key to the catamaran.
At first light I slid out of bed and dressed in the office across the stairhead. I was just searching my pockets for the car keys when Soo emerged, a pale shadow in her cream nightdress, her face still flushed with sleep. She didn’t ask me what I was up to or where I was going. She simply said, ‘I’ll make you some coffee.’
I could have hugged her then, all the love we’d felt for each other surging back in that moment. She knew. That intuitive sense between those who have shared several years of their lives, the sense that at times is pure telepathy, had communicated my fears to her. She knew where I was going, and why. The terrible thought that was in my mind was in hers.
She brought me my coffee, then stood by the window to drink her own. She didn’t say anything. There was no need. The sun shining through the thin nightie limned the dark outline of her body, her face, her breasts, the long legs, all in silhouette. She looked infinitely desirable.
I drank the coffee quickly, urgent to be gone, to set my mind at rest, alternatively to … But the alternative didn’t bear thinking about. If a search of the boat confirmed my fear, what would I do about it – where would I take it? Out to sea? Come back with it here and take the dinghy?
I put down the cup and walked over to her. I didn’t put my arms round her, and she just lifted her face to me, our kiss without passion, gentle and understanding. After all, we had both been there, we had both heard the crack of the gun, no silencer, had seen the poor devil’s face explode in a red mash as he had fallen. ‘I may be some time,’ I said, and she nodded, still not saying anything, but I knew she would be here, waiting for me when I returned.
Chapter Four
The sun was just rising as I drove round the end of Cala Figuera and on to the Levante, the harbour water still as glass, not a breath of wind, and as yet hardly anyone about. At the harbour end I turned right, then right again on to the approach road to the naval barracks. The naval quay is a large open space used occasionally as a parade ground. Yachts are allowed to be lifted out and laid up there, and there was still quite a line of them not yet in the water. The cat was lying stern-on just next to an old wooden yawl, the paint of her starb’d hull a-glint with the sun’s reflected light as the wash of a harbour tug brought ripples slapping against the concrete walls. Beyond her, the city shone red and warm against a blue sky.
The tug hooted as I jumped on board. Aft, by the wheel with its swivel chair, I stood for a moment looking the vessel over, trying to sense whether anybody had been on board during the night. No footmarks and the lock on the saloon door had not been tampered with. But that didn’t mean anything. He had given me two ignition keys, but only one for the saloon door. Some fool had dropped the other overboard, he had said.
I must have stood there for several minutes, thinking it over, trying to put myself in his shoes. But then the trouble was I was jumping to too many conclusions, and in the end I said to hell with it, opened the boat up and went below into that big saloon with its repeat bank of instruments, large chart area and semi-circular banquette behind the table on the port side. There were some overalls bundled up on the ledge below the low sweep of windows. They hadn’t been there last time I had been on board, nor the long-peaked cap. That would be Carp’s, probably the overalls, too. There was a cardboard box full of paint tins and brushes, and the steps to the left that normally led down into the port hull had been folded back so that he could get at the engine. A steel tool box stood open on the floor nearby.
I had brought a couple of torches with me, for this was a bilge-and-hidden-cranny search. A rummage, in fact, and however long it took, I had to be sure the ship was clean.
I started on the starb’d hull, cupboards, lockers, drawers, mattresses, then finally the bilges, remembering the one time I had experienced a customs rummage. It was in Juan-les-Pins where I had run for shelter, six officiers de douane turning the whole ship inside out, body searching myself and my crew. I think they would have liked to beat us up, but I was Morocco-registered, flying the Moroccan flag, and there were political reasons why, having found nothing, they should respect that flag.
It took me a good half-hour to go through that one hull, despite the floor being well supplied with inspection covers, each with a brass ring for ease of lifting. All I found in the bilges was a pair of glasses in a slipcase, some dirty overalls and a couple of bottles of Mistra, a Maltese wine, that looked as though they had been there some time.
The saloon didn’t take long. If he had hidden it somewhere it was unlikely he would have chosen such an obvious place, unless of course he was willing to take his time and unscrew the panels housing the electrics. And the port hull was as clean as the other, odds and ends of equipment, a half-empty bottle of Gordon’s in the bilges, nothing else, and both engine compartments I could see at a glance were clear.
I returned to the saloon, sat on the helmsman’s swivel chair and tried to think what I would have done in his place. He had had the boat for some time, that much had been clear at our meeting. If I had known the boat as well as that, where would I have hidden it? Fuel or freshwater tanks were the obvious places for small packets, but there was no way he could have introduced such a large object into any of the tanks without dismantling them. Sails? But I had checked the sail bags. They were in the bows, in lockers for’ard of the loos on both sides that held chain, anchors, rope, paint. My eyes, roving round the saloon, fastened on the up-ended steps of the port hull, the exposed top of the port diesel engine. Engines! It was always engines that caused trouble.
I went over to it, bending down again and directing my torch below the shock-absorbent bedding bolts and aft along the line of the drive shaft to the propeller, sure that he or his engineer would have known every detail of the compartment. There was an area below the prop shaft that the beam of my torch could not reach. There was nothing for it but to strip down and wriggle in there. I got thoroughly dirty, of course, and it proved to be wasted effort, though the slope of the bilge underneath the shaft was fully long enough and deep enough. I came out of that painful exercise cursing, the room for manoeuvre in that restricted space so limited that I damn nearly got myself stuck. Nobody, I was certain, would have attempted to hide anything in such an awkward place, not if he were in a hurry.
I stood there, naked except for my pants that were now streaked black with oil. I was staring at the steps down into the starb’d hull that concealed the other engine. And then there was the panelling. I was already scratched and bleeding in a couple of places, but I knew if I didn’t check out that other cavity I would never be really certain. I lifted the steps. The compartment was exactly the same as the other, just room for me to wriggle my way headfirst between the outboard side of the hull and the cold metal of the engine. The torch was dimming, but rather than go back for the other, I squirmed further in, feeling down below the shaft with my outstretched hand.
That’s how I found it – a hard, chunky package wrapped in plastic.
It took some ingenuity and some juggling to extract it from the confined space, working my way backwards at the same time. But when I was finally out, standing in the sunlight streaming through the saloon windows, and the thing in my hand, there was no doubt what it was. The only question was the type and where it had come from.
I turned quickly to the open cockpit door, feeling suddenly furtive as I slammed it shut and bolted it. Christ almighty! If somebody saw me holding this … My hands were trembling as I unwrapped the package. It had been zipped into one of those plastic travelling cases for suits, rolled into a tight bundle, then taped. I had to get a carving knife from the galley to rip it open.
By then I hadn’t much doubt, the shape of the telescope and the folding butt apparent through the stiff red plastic. It was that most common of guns, a 7.62 mm Kalashnikov. But not the ordinary assault rifle. What I unwrapped from the plastic was the sniper’s version of the AK-47. In addition to telescopic sights it had a double strut folding metal butt. The struts were in the folded position. Automatically, almost without thinking, I unfolded them, bringing the rifle to my shoulder and sighting through the for’ard window of the saloon at a gull on a mooring buoy out by the naval jetty. It felt snug and workmanlike, and I could imagine how it had been to the killer, the back of Jorge’s head there in the magnified field of vision, dead-centred on the cross wires.
I glanced at the maker’s stamp on the side of it, Czechoslovakian, not Russian. Then I checked the firing mechanism. The safety catch was on and it was set at single shot. I sniffed the muzzle. It still smelt faintly of gun smoke, so did the inside of the plastic, and when I took the magazine off I found one round was missing.
My worst fears confirmed I stood there in a sort of daze, appalled at the evil of the man. To kill for political reasons, yes, maybe that could be justified by somebody deeply committed to a cause – that was a matter between him and whatever god he accepted. But Evans could have no possible commitment to a Menorquin, or even a Spanish political faction. To kill in cold blood as a mercenary, and then to plant the weapon on somebody else, on a man he didn’t know, had only just met … !
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