Back in the car it seemed an age before I reached the crossroads. The scent of pines filled the night air. I passed the turning down to Addaia, swung left into a world of gravel and heath littered with the desolate dirt tracks of the tentative urbanization, and then, suddenly, there was the half-finished villa that Miguel had built and I had bartered for that catamaran. It stood four-square like a blockhouse on the cliff edge, the desolate heathland dropping away below it to the sea.
It was there for an instant in my headlights, the window openings of the upper storey still boarded up, a forlorn sense of emptiness about it. I didn’t stop. He wouldn’t have left her there. I was already on the slope of the dirt road we had driven down to leave Petra’s Beetle at the Arenal d’en Castell hotel. The villa where we had watched them arming up was so crouched into the slope that I was almost past it before I glimpsed the wrought-iron gate in the low wall.
I slammed on the brakes, then backed. But when I got out of the car, I didn’t go straight in. I just stood there, too scared to move. The windows, opaque in the starlight, were like blank eyes in a stucco skull and I was scared of what I’d find. The blackness of the heath, the sound of the sea snarling at the rocks, and the villa silent as the grave. What would they have done to her? For Christ’s sake …
I braced myself and reached for the latch of the gate. Only one way to find out. But God help me, what would I find? I tried to still the thumping of my blood, blot out my too-imaginative fears. I was never in any doubt, you see, that she was there. The house, with just its upper floor peering over the rim of the slope, its silence, its air of watchfulness – it seemed to be telling me something.
I jabbed my elbow against the largest window, the crash of glass loud in the night, the stillness afterwards more pronounced. I put my hand in, feeling for the catch. The window swung open. I had to go back to the car then for the torch I had left on the passenger seat. After that I moved quickly down through the villa’s three levels and on down the steps into the cellar. I stopped there, the beam of my torch directed at the rack of bottles and the flat metal sheet on which it stood. Was that how we had left it? I couldn’t be sure.
The rack was almost too heavy for me on my own, but emptying the bottles out of it would have taken time and by now I was desperate to know what waited for me in that rock passage below. The air in the cellar was still and very humid. I was sweating by the time I had managed to shift the rack clear and I stood there for a moment, gasping for breath and staring down at that metal sheet. I thought I could smell something. The dank air maybe. I took a deep breath, stooped down and pulled the corrugated iron clear of the hole.
I was certain then. It was the sweet, nauseous smell of decay. I called, but there was no answer.
I bent down, my head thrust into the hole, and shouted her name, the echo of it coming back to me with the soft slop of the sea. No answer, and the passage below empty for as far as the torch would reach. It was ten feet or more to the floor of it and no way of climbing out if I made the jump. I tried to remember what Lennie had done with the rope we had used. I was certain he hadn’t had it with him when we had left the villa to run back to the car.
In the end I found it up in the top level, lying under a chest. He must have kicked it there just before we left. I grabbed it up and ran back with it down the stairs, back into that cellar, fastening it to the bottle rack as we had done before. In a moment my foot was in the first of Lennie’s loops and I had dropped through the hole and was in the water-worn rock passage below shouting her name again. And when there was no reply, I followed my nose, the blood pounding in my veins as I turned a bend, the blowhole passageway narrowing to finish abruptly in the pale yellow of the matchboarding where we had heard the sound of their voices and the truck’s engine as it backed up to the garage doors.
One of the lengths of boarding was splintered now. It had clearly been prised off and then nailed roughly back into place. But it wasn’t the splintered boarding that held my gaze. It was Miguel’s body.
He was lying just as he had fallen after being stuffed through the hole in the boarding, his eyes open and staring and the back of his head smashed in. There was blood mingled with the rock dust of the floor, smears of it on the fresh wood of the boarding, and his eyes reflected dully the light of my torch. The sight of him, and the smell … I turned away, feeling suddenly sick. And then I was hurrying back along the blowhole passage, doubt mingled with dread,, wondering what they would have done with her. If they had killed her, then no point in bringing the body here. A weight tied to the feet, then overboard and the Balearic lobsters would do the rest.
I ducked past the rope and when I reached the second expansion chamber and could see the water-worn passage falling away and the scaffold poles rigged over the blowhole, I stopped. There was nobody there. I was shouting her name again, but it was a futile gesture, only sepulchral echoes answering me and the slop of the sea loud in my ears.
I was turning away when I thought I heard something. It was a high sound, like the scream of a gull. I stood there for a moment, listening. But all I heard was the sea, and nobody would go down into the cave itself without diving gear, for the entrance to it was deep under water and in a gale … And then it came again, high and quavering.
I flung myself down the slope, slamming into the scaffold poles and gripping tight as I leaned out over the hole, the beam of my torch almost lost in the expanse of water that flooded the cavern below. The tide seemed higher than when Lennie and I had looked down at it, the beach no more than a narrow strip and only the upper fluke of the rusty anchor above water. I didn’t see her at first. She had retreated to the far end of the beach, her body pressed back against the rock wall of the cavern, so that all I could see of her was a vague shadow in the yellowing beam.
‘Soo! Is that you?’
She was too far away and she had her hands up to her face. I couldn’t be sure. I called again, but she shrank back, scared that one of the men who had held her captive had returned. It wasn’t until I called my own name several times that she finally moved. She came across the beach very slowly, her face growing clearer and whiter as she approached, her black hair turned almost grey with rock dust, her eyes large and wild-looking. She wouldn’t believe it was really me till I shone the torch on my face, and then she suddenly collapsed.
There was nothing for it but to go down to her. Fortunately the rope on the pulley was a long one, so that I was able to fasten one end of it round my body and use the other part to lower myself to the beach. She had passed out completely, her body limp, her eyes closed. There was a nasty bruise on her cheek and a gash on the back of her right wrist that had left the whole hand tacky with half-congealed blood. I bathed her face in sea water, the hand too, but it only caused the bleeding to start again.
The sting of it must have brought her round, for when I had scooped up some more water in my cupped hands, I came back to find her staring up at me. ‘Who are you?’ The words were barely audible, her body stiff and trembling uncontrollably.
‘It’s Mike,’ I said and reached out for the torch, shining it on my face again.
‘Oh, my God!’ She reached out, gripping hold of me, her fingers digging into my flesh so violently they hurt.
I don’t know how long I sat there on that wet uncomfortable beach holding her in my arms, trying to comfort her. Not long I suppose, but long enough for my mind to try to grapple with the future and what this meant to us. ‘I love you.’ She said that twice, like an incantation, her voice very quiet as though the words meant a great deal to her, and holding her tight, I thought, well, maybe we could try again.
I got her up and put her foot in the looped end of the rope, passing it round her body under the arms. I was just pressing her hands on to the standing part of it, imploring her to hold tight while I was hoisting her up to the scaffolding above, when she began to giggle. ‘The barrel …’ she murmured.
‘Barrel?’ I had been on the point of putting my weight on the t
ail end of the rope, but now I hesitated, letting go of it and shining the torch on her face. Her eyes looked enormous, the whites catching the light, and her mouth was open, bubbling with uncontrollable laughter.
It was reaction, of course. Not hysteria, just reaction from the strain of all she had been through in the last thirty-six hours or so. ‘Don’t you remember? That record. And then the barrel …’ She had deepened her voice, tears welling in her eyes, tears of laughter.
And suddenly I remembered. ‘Hoffnung. Gerard Hoffnung.’ The silly saga of that barrel full of bricks.
‘And then I met the barrel coming down.’ Her laughter became a giggle again. ‘For a moment I thought I was the barrel. If I pulled you off your feet … We could be yo-yoing up and down …’ She put her hand to her mouth, stilling her giggles. And after that she gripped the rope again. ‘When I get to the top, don’t let go, please.’ She smiled at me, both of us remembering what had happened when the bricky had hoisted the barrel back up to the top of the chimney.
I hesitated, not sure whether I could trust her to reach for the scaffolding and haul herself out. But she seemed to have steadied herself. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You’re the barrel and you’re going up.’
She was more of a weight than I had realised, and when her legs finally disappeared into the blowhole I began to wonder if I could hold her. Then suddenly I was on the floor, the rope slack in my hands. ‘You all right, Mike?’ Her voice, remote and strangely hollow, seemed to come from the roof of the cavern.
‘Yes, I’m all right.’ I got to my feet and stood there for a moment, letting the rope end down and getting my breath back. The height I had to hoist myself looked further than I had reckoned and if I couldn’t make it … I swept the beam of my torch over the rock roof of the cavern where it came down to meet the water. Not a nice place to spend hours waiting for rescue, plagued by the thought that a gale might spring up from the north-west and the sea level rise. I knew then what it had been like for Soo, and she had lowered herself down on to the beach with no torch and no certainty that anybody would ever find her there.
I tied the end of the rope round my chest, put my foot in the loop and hauled down on the other end of it. For a moment I didn’t think I would ever get off the ground, then suddenly I was swinging free, and after that it was a little easier. I didn’t realise it at the time, but Soo was hauling too and it was her weight that made the difference.
It was when we were back in the first expansion chamber that she said, ‘You know about Miguel?’ The whisper of her voice trembled on the dank air.
‘Yes.’
‘You saw him?’
It wasn’t something I wanted her to dwell on, so I didn’t answer.
‘I only had matches. Book matches from the Figuera Restaurant. I used five of them. Poor Miguel. He looked terrible. After that I had barely half a dozen left. I used the last after I’d lowered myself into the cave. I think if you hadn’t come … It was so dark and damp, and the sound of the water … I think a few hours more and I would have gone for a swim. I couldn’t have stood it much longer.’ Her words came in a rush, her body trembling again. The smell was there in our nostrils and I think it was that more than anything that had brought back her fears.
We had reached the rope hanging from the hole in the cellar floor and when I had hauled her up the trembling had stopped. I took her back the way I had come and out through the door in the villa’s top level. She stopped there, staring up at the stars, breathing deeply. I shall never forget that moment, the ecstatic smile on her face, the tears in her eyes. ‘My God!’ she whispered, her hand gripping my arm. ‘I never realised what life meant before, not really. Freedom and the smell of plants growing, the stars, being able to see. And you,’ she added, looking up at me, wide-eyed. ‘Oh, God, Mike!’ And she was in my arms and I was kissing her. ‘Let’s go somewhere,’ she said. ‘Not home. I’d have to cook something. I’m hungry. My God! I’m hungry. Let’s pretend we’ve only just met. Let’s go out somewhere and celebrate, Just the two of us.’
I knew she couldn’t settle now, she was too keyed up, so I drove her to Fornells, to a favourite restaurant of ours that stood back from the waterfront. We knew the people there and she was able to clean herself up, telling them we had been exploring a cave and she had fallen down a hole.
It was past midnight when we left Fornells and she was asleep before we reached the old salt pans and the end of the shallow inlet. We had shared a bottle of Rioja tinto over the meal and she had had a large La Ina before it and two brandies with the coffee. She had every reason to sleep, but as soon as I turned the car on to the quay she was awake. Petra’s inflatable was lying alongside and she saw it before I could switch the lights off. ‘What’s Petra doing here?’
I thought I detected a note of hostility in her voice, so I said nothing. Somebody must have recovered the boat from Cala Llonga, or wherever Evans had beached it, somebody from Medusa presumably. The lights were on in our flat upstairs, the chandlery door ajar, and as we went in Petra appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘You found her.’ She was looking down at Soo. ‘Thank God for that. We’ve been waiting here – hours it seems, waiting and wondering. You all right, Soo?’
‘Yes. I’m all right.’ Her voice shook slightly.
‘Who’s with you?’ I asked. ‘You said we.’
I think I knew the answer, but when she said ‘Gareth’, Soo gave a little gasp and I cursed under my breath. It wasn’t the moment. ‘What the hell’s he want?’
‘You’d better come up,’ Petra said. ‘It’s been a long couple of hours, and not knowing didn’t help.’ Her voice was a little slurred.
I told her to get Soo to bed and pushed past her, taking the stairs two at a time. I wanted to get shot of him, to save Soo the emotional strain of meeting him face-to-face. I didn’t know what the effect on her would be.
He was in the front room, sitting in the wing chair I normally used with a glass in his hand and a bottle of brandy open on the table beside him. He was dressed in a white open-necked shirt and grey flannels, his face gleaming with perspiration, and his eyes had difficulty in focusing on me. ‘Ah, M-Mike.’ He hauled himself to his feet, clutching the back of the chair. He was very, very tight. He started to say something, but then he stopped, his eyes narrowing as he stared past me.
I turned to find Soo in the doorway, her eyes wide and fixed on Gareth as he tried to pull himself together. ‘Y’rorlright-th’n,’ he mumbled.
She nodded and they stood there, the two of them, gazing at each other. Then abruptly Soo turned away, walking blindly into Petra, who had been standing just behind her in the doorway. ‘Get her to bed,’ I told her again, and she took Soo’s arm and led her off to the bedroom. But she was back almost immediately. ‘She’s asking for Benjie.’
I’d forgotten about the dog. ‘Tell her I’ll get it for her.’
Gareth had subsided back into my chair, his arms slack, his eyes closing. ‘Where did you find her?’ he asked. And when I told him, he muttered, ‘That’s like Pat. Leave it to the sea, anything so long as he doesn’t have to do it himself.’ He hesitated. ‘Impersonal,’ he went on reflectively. ‘Couldn’t stand close contact, y’know. Didn’t like to touch people, women especially.’ And he added, ‘Strange sort of man.’
Those last words were mumbled so softly I could barely hear them, and when I told him how he had seized hold of Petra and held a knife at her throat, he didn’t seem to take it in, muttering something about he’d been thinking, his eyes half-closed.
I picked up the bottle and poured myself a drink. As I put it back on the side table, he reached out for it. ‘B’n thinking,’ he said again, leaning forward and staring down at his glass, which was half-full. ‘Abou’ what they did to poor ol’ Byng.’ He shook his head, picking up his glass. He stared at it for a moment, then put it down again, carefully. ‘Had enough, eh?’ He collapsed back in his chair. ‘Byng. And now me. Know what they’ll do to me?’ He was leaning back, his black hair
limp against the wing of the chair, deep furrows creasing his forehead, and his dark eyes staring into space, ‘I b’n wress-wrestling all afternoon with a bloody form, man. S two three t-two – report on collision and grounding. I grounded my ship, y’see.’ The eyes fixed suddenly on me. ‘How the hell do I explain that?’ And then, leaning suddenly forward, ‘Bu’ I di’n run.’ He was peering up at me. ‘I di’n run like poor ol’ Byng. Shot him,’ he added. ‘On the quarterdeck of the ol’ Monarch – in Portsmouth Harbour with the whole Fleet gawping at it.’ And then he quoted, speaking slowly, groping for the words: ‘Il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encrug-encourager les autres – that’s what Voltaire said. F-fortunately I’m not an admiral. Tuer, non, mais …’
He paused, staring at me sombrely. ‘You ever b’n at a court martial?’ He didn’t wait for me to shake my head, but went straight on: ‘That’s what’ll happen to me, y’know, They’ll fly me to Portsmouth, an’ just inside the main gate, ther’shpeshul room for poor buggers like me who’ve run their ships aground, an’ you go back in with the prisoner’s friend an’ there’s your sword with the b-blade pointing at you.’ He shook his head angrily. ‘An’ all because I can’t tell them the truth about why I ran Medusa ashore. All because of that devil Pat …’ His voice trailed away. ‘If Pat hadn’t got hold of her … I can’t tell them that, can I? So I’ll be shot – figuratively, you un’erstand. They’d never …’ His head was nodding. ‘Never admit personal reason as legit-gitimate defence.’ He reached out his hand to the side table, groping for his glass.
‘That’s the second bottle.’ Petra had come back and was standing looking at him. ‘I’ve given her something to make her sleep. She’ll be all right now.’ She nodded towards Gareth. ‘After they’d recovered the inflatable he insisted on coming ashore with me. Said he wanted to see you. But I think it was Soo really. He wanted to make certain she was all right.’ And she added, ‘He’s been here ever since – waiting. What are we going to do with him? He can’t go back to his ship in that state. And he’s worried sick about the future.’ She touched my arm. ‘Why did he do it, Mike? I was there. I saw it. He ran his ship aground – deliberately. Why?’
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