Medusa

by Hammond Innes

  Soo came in then with the news that the council had been in session at the ayuntamiento most of the day. Nothing had been decided and there was talk of a local election.

  I finished my packing and took her to the Atlante, the restaurant a few doors away, for an early meal. Sitting there, drinking vino verde as an aperitif, we discussed the possible choices that a newly elected council would have. But even we, whose interests were identical, could not agree – I favoured Gonzalez Renato, while Soo wanted Antonio Alvarez to be the next alcalde, chiefly I think because he would support a progressive building and development policy.

  It was just as the waiter was serving our marinated sardines that the door opened and a small man in a brightly coloured short-sleeved shirt, and wearing a red floppy hat pulled down over his ears, looked in. He said something to Manuel, the patron, glanced quickly across at us, nodded and then left. ‘Who was that?’ I asked the waiter, conscious suddenly that I had seen the man lounging against one of the bollards when I’d come back from seeing Carp and Luis off in Thunderflash.

  The waiter hesitated, looking at Manuel and repeating the question. Manuel in his turn looked uneasy, as though reluctant to be drawn into giving me any information about the man. ‘Vigilancia?’ I asked him, and after a moment’s hesitation, he nodded. The Cuerpo de Vigilancia were plain-clothes security police and like the Guardia Civil they were paramilitary and came under the direct control of the Provincial Governor. The fact that they had me under surveillance was confirmation, if I needed any, that I should get out while the going was good. Also it suggested that the killing of Martinez was regarded by the authorities as something more than just an isolated terrorist incident.

  I suppose I had fallen silent after the door had closed on the man and Manuel had confirmed he was one of the Vigilancia. Certainly my mind was concentrated on the future, on what life held in store for me – for both of us. ‘Eat up,’ Soo said, ‘these sardines are delicious.’ And then, almost in the same breath, ‘What will you do when you get there? How long will you stay? Have you decided yet?’

  It was a strange meal, both of us trying to look ahead, and at one stage, when we were sitting over our coffee and a large Soberano, I had the distinct impression that she was flying something close to a flag of seduction. Soo was odd that way, always had been. I think it was the Maltese in her. She was so volatile in her emotions, one minute cold as ice, the next minute … I remember we sat there like a couple of lovers, gazing into each other’s eyes and actually holding hands across the table, clinking our brandy glasses.

  God almighty! Why can’t people be more sensible, more consistent? And why the hell was I so set on a son? What would a son do for me? You change its nappies, see it through all those infantile diseases, watch it teething and grow up, and the next thing it’s borrowing the parental bed to poke a girl or getting high on drugs, or worse still, standing for cap’n in place of Dad, waiting for the old sod to drop dead.

  I ordered more coffee, and another brandy for us both, and we sat there, not saying anything, each alone with our own thoughts. I touched her hand again, the fingers answering to the pressure of mine, her grip almost urgent. Did she want me to stay? Was that the message she was trying to convey? And the slight flutter of her nerves. Was she scared? I hadn’t thought about it until that moment, my mind so concentrated on my own predicament. Now I tried to see it from her point of view, alone here, her husband slipping away on a yacht bound for Malta and the police suspecting him of complicity in a political murder.

  Political? It had to be political. Martinez had no other interests. He hadn’t been in business, he hadn’t fiddled his taxes. He hadn’t slept with other men’s wives. No breath of scandal had ever touched him. But political enemies – he had those all right, and of course decisions had been made that did affect the business community. ‘It’ll be all right,’ I said, holding her hand tight. ‘Once I’m away they’ll forget all about me and concentrate on other leads. A week and they’ll know for sure that I had nothing to do with it. They’ll get the date when I took Thunderflash over and then they will begin to enquire into Evans’s movements.’

  Her hand tightened on mine as she slowly nodded her head. ‘But suppose –’ she hesitated – ‘suppose the police are in on it? Suppose it’s political and they’re covering up.’

  ‘Then there’d be a single name emerging as the new alcalde.’

  She sat there for a moment, her head still bent and not saying anything, the almost black hair gleaming in the lights, which had just been switched on. ‘Fuxá,’ she murmured. ‘I keep hearing the name Fuxá. Ismail Fuxá.’

  ‘He makes a lot of noise,’ I said. ‘But the separatist element is only a small minority. The people know very well an island like this could never make it on its own.’

  We talked about it for a moment, then I paid the bill and we left, hand-in-hand, and the man in the red floppy hat watched us from his post by the bollard just a few yards from the Atlante. Maybe it was the brandy, but I felt warm and very close to Soo at that moment, and my mind, dreaming in the softness of the evening, the faint lap of wavelets the only sound, turned to thoughts of a ménage à trois, wondering whether I was macho enough to keep both a wife and mistress satisfied. Petra with child! Petra on Bloody Island, a kid running around the dig, our son, Soo here in the house with her basenji, running the office. She and Petra, they liked each other. They were so different it might work. Soo cared about marriage. The Navy and Malta, she’d been very conventionally brought up. But Petra – I had never discussed it with her, of course, but I was quite sure she didn’t give a damn.

  It might work, but as I climbed the stairs my mind returned to normal and I knew it was only a dream.

  I got my holdall and my oilskins and dumped them in the boot of the car. ‘What about your minder?’ Soo said. ‘The guy in the floppy hat.’

  ‘You drive,’ I said, still buoyed by the drink. ‘I’ll ride in the boot till we’re clear of the town.’ I crawled in, holding the lid of it slightly open. I had done it more or less as a lark, and Soo, who was always very quick to respond to a mood, was giggling as she said, ‘You look like something out of Alice crouched in there.’ She was still giggling to herself as she got in and started the engine.

  We went about a hundred yards and then she slowed to a stop and I heard her say, ‘Am I permitted to drive out to see my friends? I’m supposed to be playing bridge tonight.’ And a male voice answered her in Spanish, ‘Of course, senora. You do not take your husband?’

  ‘No. He’s looking after Benjie.’

  ‘Benjie? I do not understand.’

  ‘The dog – el perro.’

  ‘Ah si, el perro.’ And then they were both laughing as though Soo was out on a cuckolding run. I nearly burst out laughing myself, thinking of Gareth Lloyd Jones safely tucked away in a frigate under the massive bulk of the Rock.

  She drove fast after that, following the curves of the waterfront, and I watched the road astern through the slit under the boot lid. Nothing followed us, the cars along the Levante all parked, their owners still occupied with whatever it was they had come to the harbour for. By the Aduana I glimpsed the lights of a vehicle snaking down the Abundancia from the centre of town, but when it reached the Customs House it turned away from us.

  By then we had reached the point where the Andén de Poniente runs into the Passo de la Alameda and the road to Fornells. I banged on the lid and after a while Soo stopped. ‘I thought perhaps you’d gone to sleep.’ She was still in a giggly mood. ‘You could have got out back by the Maritimo. There was nobody following us. I was watching in the mirror.’ And she added, ‘Are you sure you haven’t got delusions of grandeur? I’m beginning to wonder if it’s all an excuse to go for a sail in that damned cat.’

  I didn’t answer that, simply got in beside her and we drove on. Now that I was on my way and committed to leaving Spanish soil without clearance, I was in a more sombre mood.

  ‘You’re sure this journey o
f yours is absolutely necessary?’ She said it lightly, still joking, but there was an undercurrent of concern in it that matched my own mood. I said nothing and we drove on in silence.

  It was 22.57 when we turned north on to the Macaret road, 23.07 when we started down into Port d’Addaia. Soon we could see the water of the inlet, the islands at the entrance dark shapes, no moon, no stars. Thunderflash was already there, riding to her anchor just off the new quay, the semi-inflatable ready alongside. I flashed our lights, then switched them off and got my gear out of the boot.

  The tender was on its way almost immediately, so there was only a brief moment of privacy to say goodbye. Perhaps that was as well. I don’t know what Soo was thinking as I kissed her, but my own thoughts were already on the voyage ahead and what it would be like to be back in Malta, this time without a passport. She didn’t cling to me. In fact, she showed remarkably little emotion. Perhaps she was thinking of Lloyd Jones, wondering if his frigate would put into Mahon while I was away.

  It was Luis driving the tender and he cut the engine just right, sliding in to the concrete edge of the quay and throwing the painter to me as the little launch floated to a stop. ‘Good trip?’ I asked.

  ‘Si, bueno. We take five hours, speed reach sixteen knots. No motor.’ A flash of teeth in the dark face grinning up at me. He had enjoyed himself and I was glad. ‘Beeg sea, but everything very steady.’

  ‘What’s the forecast?’ I asked him.

  ‘Do’know. Carp attending it now. But we have nearly twenty knots, a levanter from Mahon to this place.’

  I tossed my gear into the stern, gave Soo a final hug and jumped in. It might be blowing force five outside, but here, at the upper end of the long Macaret inlet, all was quiet, the water barely ruffled. By the time I got myself and my gear on board, Soo was already climbing the hill out of Addaia, the beam of the car’s headlights altering as she took the sharp bends.

  Carp came up out of the saloon. He looked pleased with himself. The ship had behaved itself – he called it a ship – and there had been no problems, the helm very easy on all points of sailing. ‘We have a fast run to Malta – with luck.’ He gave a gap-toothed smile. ‘Wind twenty to twenty-five knots, backing north-east, possibly north, viz good.’

  ‘A tramontana then?’

  He nodded. ‘But no rain. There’s a high to the west of us moving south. Seas two to three metres, so it could be bouncy.’

  I glanced back at the quay and the loom of the land behind it. It was quite dark now, no sign of Soo. So this was it – the moment of departure. We hauled the tender up on to the stern, fixed the lashings, then went below. ‘Had any sleep on the way over?’ It was unlikely for they would have been too busy in the rising wind and sea.

  Carp shook his head. ‘Would you like some coffee?’ he asked. ‘Something to eat?’

  ‘No thanks. We’ll get our heads down for a couple of hours. We need to be away about two, then we’ll be well clear of the island and in international waters by first light.’

  I had the double bed in the port hull and had just drifted off when I felt a shake of the shoulder and opened my eyes to see Carp’s face leaning over me. ‘We got company.’

  ‘Coastal patrol?’ I had come fully awake in a flash, the duvet thrown back and my feet already feeling for the locker top beside the bunk.

  ‘No. Nothing official.’

  ‘Who then?’ I was thrusting my bare feet into my sea-boots.

  But Carp was already climbing the steps that led up to the saloon. ‘Come and see for yourself.’

  He was standing in the open, beside the helmsman’s seat, looking aft when I joined him, the rattle of a chain sounding loud in the quiet of the anchorage. No lights anywhere now, the houses all asleep, clouds low overhead. And there, a dim shape and barely fifty metres astern of us, was a fishing boat. ‘The Santa Maria?’ I asked him.

  He nodded. ‘Thought you’d want to know.’ And he added, i was asleep on the settee just inside the saloon door when I was woken by the thump of a diesel close alongside. You reck’n they’ve come in for shelter?’

  I didn’t say anything and we stood there watching as the chain was stopped with a clunk and they began to lower the dinghy, the Santa Maria gradually swinging bows-to-wind so that we lost sight of all that side of the vessel. Luis started to come up just as the dinghy came out from under the Santa Maria’s stern and I told him to go back. ‘Two of us,’ I said. ‘They must only see two of us.’ Carp nodded, the night glasses trained on the dinghy, which had swung towards us, one man in the stern handling the outboard, the other amidships, his head tucked into his shoulders as the spray began to fly. ‘Who is it?’ I asked.

  ‘The gaffer, I reck’n.’ He passed me the glasses. ‘You have a look. I only seen the fellow once.’

  It was Evans all right, I recognised the strong, column-like neck, the way it held his head. ‘I’ll be in the port hull, right for’ard in the loo.’ And I added. ‘If he wants to know where I am, as far as you know I’m at home.’

  Carp nodded. ‘I’ll see he doesn’t bother you.’ He gave me that gap-toothed smile. ‘Reminds me of the days when we used to slip over to Holland and come back into the Deben, crossing the bar at night and dumping a couple of bags full of de Kuyper’s Geneva bottles with a float attached like we were laying lobster pots.’

  I nodded and ducked below, sending Luis up on deck while I went to the double bunk I’d been using on the port side to make certain there was nothing lying around to indicate I was on board. Soon I caught the sound of the outboard approaching, then a voice hailing us. The engine died with a splutter and after a moment I heard the sound of Evans’s voice – ‘Wrapped around the prop, eh? Which one?’ Then feet on the steps down into the saloon and a voice much nearer: ‘Well, it’s fortunate I found you. When we swapped boats I discovered I was missing a packet containing a spare aerial and masthead bracket picked up with other radio gear duty-free in Gib on the way out. Stuffed it all in the bilges and conveniently forgot about it. You know how it is.’

  I heard a non-committal grunt from Carp and Evans’s voice went on, Tell me, did customs, police, anybody search the ship before you left yesterday?’

  ‘No, not yesterday,’ Carp replied. ‘Day before we had an Inspector Mallyno on board with ‘is sidekick. The Heffy too.’

  ‘The Heffy?’

  ‘Ah. The Chief Inspector of police. Inspector Heffy.’ Carp invariably got awkward names or words slightly wrong. He’d call a transistor a transactor or a tachometer a taxmaster, and always that slight sibilance as the breath whistled through those two broken teeth of his. ‘They was on board quite a while talking with the boss.’

  ‘Mike Steele?’

  ‘Ah, the boss.’

  ‘What were they talking about?’

  ‘Oh, this and that, I reck’n.’

  A pause then. Finally Evans came right out with it. ‘Well, did they search the ship or not?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘You said you were there.’

  ‘I was up the mast, wasn’t I?’

  ‘How the hell would I know you were up the mast? I wasn’t there.’ Evans’s tone was one of exasperation at Carp’s odd turn of phrase. I couldn’t hear anything after that. He must have turned away. Then a moment later, his voice sounding much louder, as though he had moved to the entrance to the starb’d hull, ‘And what about the starb’d engine compartment? Did they look in there, too?’

  ‘They may have done. That where you hid it?’ I heard the steps being folded back. ‘Well, there you are, mate. You can see for yourself. There’s nothing there.’

  ‘Right at the back.’

  There was the sound of movement, then Carp’s voice again, much sharper. ‘No you don’t. You’re not pushing in among those pipes an’ leads.’

  Evans started to argue, then the stepped lid slammed down and Carp said, ‘You lost anything, you talk to the boss. I don’t want that engine conking out again. Not halfway to Malta I don’
t. And anyways, if we find it, we’ll know whose it is and see you get it back.’

  A pause, then Evans said, ‘Okay, so long as you don’t show it to anybody. I don’t want it to get around that I slipped anything in under the noses of the customs people, not when we’re trying to set ourselves up in the fishing here. All right?’ And then, his voice fading as he turned away, ‘Where’s your boss now? Do you know?’

  I didn’t hear the answer, the murmur of their voices lost as they went back into the saloon. I came out of the loo then and moved aft as far as the turn of the steps over the engine. I could hear Evans’s voice then, sharp and hard as he said, ‘Felixstowe Ferry! What the hell are you talking about?’ And Carp answering, ‘Well, ever since you came down to the Navy quay to take over the Santa Maria I bin wondering. Thort I recognised you, see. But red hair – that’s wot fixed me.’

  ‘Red hair? What do you mean?’

  ‘Moira. That’s wot I mean. Red Moira.’ And Carp went on, his accent broader and talking fast: ‘Just before you get to the Ferryboat there’s a dyke runs off to the left alongside a little tidal creek full of old clung-bungs used as houseboats. There was one, I remember, belonged to some bit actor feller – was on TV once in a while, then he’d be full of drink an’ happy as a lark for a week. After that, broke again and morose as if he’d had sight of Black Shuck himself. Used to wander alone along towards the King’s Fleet. Same name as yours.’

  ‘So what?’ Evans’s voice was harsh. ‘It’s a common enough name.’

  ‘Well, he’s dead now. Shacked up with this Irish broad. Red Moira she was known as all along the beach. Lived in an old boat called the Betty-Ann that lay there in the mud, with a rickety old bit of flotsam planking the only way of getting on board. They had a son. Used to call ‘im Pat.’