‘Now come along,’ Rufus said, returning to the newspaper. ‘Final clue, fourteen down . . .’
Spike stared across at him, taking in the white hair flowing over his shoulders like an ageing prophet’s. Ever since the death of his wife, Rufus had insisted on being his own barber. His strong forehead was furrowed with concentration above his spectacles, fitted with a hearing aid now, kept at an incredibly high sensitivity. Thin, pale forearms protruded from his short-sleeved shirt, draped over the table like vegetable stalks forced in the dark. In one corner lay a dog basket full of newspapers, the crossword of each indented with hard-pressed biro answers.
‘Double-cross,’ Spike said.
Rufus narrowed his eyes behind his half-moons as Spike held out a hand: ‘Sorry?’
Reluctantly the chewed biro was released. In the blank space to the side of the page, Spike marked out a cross, then scored another over the top at an angle. An asterisk was formed. ‘Double-cross,’ Spike repeated, failing to keep the amazement from his voice. Normally he was more of a quick crossword man.
‘No need to shout,’ Rufus said, adjusting his hearing aid as he filled in the answer. ‘There. Boy’s a genius. Always said so.’ He shunted his chair back, then tossed the newspaper into the dog basket. Both father and son stared down for a moment. It had been empty of its occupant for four months now. ‘Come on, Dad. Let’s get you upstairs.’
With painful slowness, Rufus clambered to his feet. His condition was worsening, but as long as he could still make the climb to bed on his own, Spike felt there was hope. As he followed his father out of the kitchen, he scooped up the slim pack of age-softened letters from the top of the crate and slipped them into his inside pocket. With Jessica’s assurances fresh in his mind, he left the door on the latch for the first time in weeks, then fell in behind Rufus on the stairs.
Chapter Fourteen
A patch of damp rot decorated the wall above Spike’s bed, a brown and taupe mosaic he’d loved to stare at as a boy, searching it for exotic shapes like a cloud-spotter. Pulling off his suit jacket, he sat down at his childhood desk, still defaced by the compass scratches and pen marks of his schooldays. A girl who always lands on her feet . . . Was that really the Zahra he knew? Could she simply have left Malta for her own reasons? Met someone else? Someone who had helped her get into Italy?
Disgusted at how easy it was to find the worst in people, particularly if it suited you, Spike opened his briefcase and took out his papers. Top of the pile was the list of questions he’d compiled for Morton Clohessy, CEO of Neptune Marine. Spike made a few notes, then reached across for the window, creaking up the rotten sash and seeing the terracotta rooftops of the Old Town undulating below, the Straits beyond, ships’ lights flashing along the lanes of traffic as they ferried their cargoes from Atlantic to Mediterranean, Mediterranean to Atlantic.
He put down his pen and picked up the sheaf of letters from the bed. Something had been niggling at him, he realised as he leafed through the bundle: the top envelope was addressed in his mother’s hand, yet she was also the recipient – Mrs Rufus Sanguinetti, 12 Chicardo’s Passage, Gibraltar. Too long ago for postcodes. The stamp looked French; he worked the envelope from its cotton binding, finding it carefully opened with a knife, then checked the date: May 23rd 1977. Spike had been three. ‘Dear J,’ the letter began. Could you invade a dead person’s privacy? Probably, Spike thought, but read on anyway.
‘Last week we arrived in La Rochelle. The Bay of Biscay is as clean and beautiful as I remember, but the town is clogged with tourist cafés and discotheques . . .’ Spike had no memory of La Rochelle; the family holidays he recalled had always been in Portugal, on the beaches of the central Algarve. ‘I suppose that I have changed as well. Whereas before I would have wanted to explore, to ask questions, now I find it hard to make myself leave the hotel terrace, sitting here smoking these horrible French cigarettes while R and S busy themselves around me. S in particular brings such joy. He’s such a carefree, open little boy, gazing up at me with his bright blue eyes. Burnt brown already by the sun, just like I used to be. Whenever I watch him, I can’t help but smile. Yet my heart is full of you, my J, my love . . .’
Who the hell was ‘J’? Suddenly ashamed, Spike stopped reading and pushed the delicate blue parchment back into its envelope. Look to the future, Jessica had said. He shut the package into his desk drawer and walked next door to the bathroom.
Staring back from the mirror was the image of a competent professional, restored on his return from Genoa by the attentions of the most expensive barber on Victualling Office Lane. The whites of his eyes were clear; even his crooked nose now seemed to suit the planes of his dark, angular face. He stepped into the shower, drenching the tense muscles of his neck and shoulders in the steamy heat. Cooled by a fresh white T-shirt, he stretched out on his bed and stared up at the wall, trying not to run through the possibilities of who ‘J’ might be.
Ten minutes later, he flicked on his phone. A text had just come in with an Italian prefix. The words were in English: ‘Sr and Sra Radovic have reservation for Presidential Suite next week. For small fee, I take photo on my camera phone? Your family friend, Enrico (of Hotel Splendido)’.
Spike sat up. He’d forgotten about Enrico Sanguinetti. If Jessica’s reading of Galliano’s accident was right, and Žigon really posed no threat, then what was the harm in Enrico sending a picture of him and Zahra together?
‘If the photo is clear, that’s 100 euros for your daughter’s fund’, Spike texted back. He hit send, then lay back and closed his eyes, finding sleep closer than at any point in the last six months.
My father always distrusted the English. Self-serving cabrones, he would say dismissively while I was studying the language at school. A mask of courtesy constructed to hide their duplicity and greed. The Spanish had religious zeal to justify their hunger for Empire. But the English?
I cross the sitting room and examine the bookshelves, running a fingertip along the spines of the Golden Age literature so lovingly collected by my parents – Cervantes, de Vega, Calderón de la Barca. Surveying the furniture of the apartment, I admire the cherrywood console, the silver carriage clock, the exquisite tea caddies which were a particular favourite of my mother’s. The last item I had to sell was an exceptional eighteenth-century walnut dresser, the empty space still prominent beneath the portrait of my ancestor, the great de Guzmán, Terror of Peru. I feel duty to family tug once more. Deber: something owed. If I take this Gibraltar job, I may never need to sell again.
I turn to assess myself in the colonial sunburst mirror. The carefully manicured stubble will have to go. As will the bull’s-blood leather brogues and soft, lemon-yellow cashmere jumper knotted around my shoulders. Hernán once told me: Go to a café. Look around. Describe each person in a single phrase. ‘The woman with the bare midriff’; ‘The man in the string vest’. You need to be the person who defies description. The man with . . . From the next door room I hear the chink of bottles. I smile to myself and move to the kitchen.
The waiter turns as I walk in. Three hours I waited for him in the Plaza Mayor. Now I can’t remember his name. He stares back at me, and I read the lust in his eyes.
‘Some of your mixers were out of date, like, last decade,’ he says, raising his metal eyebrow bolt in mock disapproval.
I shrug apologetically as he pulls off his gilet, revealing a scooped white T-shirt beneath, his biceps defiled with cheap black ink, crowns of thorns around the muscles. Appropriate, I think, taking a step closer.
‘I was going to make us cocktails,’ the waiter murmurs, turning back to the drinks tray, trainers crinkling the newspaper I have laid beneath, ‘but as you only have local spirits, I’m going to fix you, my rudest customer of the year . . .’
Slowly I draw the retractable truncheon from my pocket, glancing back at the kitchen table to see if the queer has been drinking. Good, a glass or two of brandy already. With a swift flick of the wrist I extend the truncheon to its ful
l length. The waiter turns again, and I watch confusion, then fear, flood into his eyes before I bring the heavy steel shaft down on the crown of his head.
The glass slips from the waiter’s grasp as he falls sideways to the floor. I step towards him, flipping him onto his back so that his head rests on a copy of El País. The sports section, I note with irritation. As I kneel down, I hear rasping breaths, faster and faster. ‘What . . .’ he is trying to say ‘. . . why?’
I peer downwards. The blow has cracked the top of his skull perfectly. I know that beneath the teased strands of bleached hair will lie a web of hairline fractures, like a frozen pond struck with a hammer. I grip the truncheon in both hands. He is whimpering now, like a kitten in a sack. As soon as the truncheon is correctly positioned, I jab downwards at his fontanelle and feel the tip plunge deep into the centre of his brain.
All four of his limbs start twitching. I am reminded of a rare time it snowed in Madrid, making snow angels as a boy. Was that me or a character from a childhood book? I withdraw the truncheon, spilling not a drop of blood, and walk over to the sink, where I rinse a series of soft pearly flecks from the shaft.
The little insect is still quivering on the floor. Suddenly I feel rejuvenated, twenty years younger. The old city haunts come flashing back to my mind – the beauty spots, the hills outside the suburbs, all the places a drunk fag looking for company might slip and find himself in trouble. I remember Hernán’s face as he analysed me in the restaurant – ‘Are you sure you’re still up to it?’ – and smile.
Lifting an old roll of carpet out of the utility room, I wrap the still shivering body inside and begin my clean-up. Then I take out my phone and text Hernán – ‘Standing by.’
Chapter Fifteen
The RIB eased its way out of Ocean Village. Once past the Detached Mole, the driver gunned the engine, glancing back as the waves started to smash against the inflatable stern, spattering the only passenger’s sky-blue shirt with navy. Spike smiled, heeling his briefcase beneath his seat and raising his head, enjoying the cool salty spray on the underside of his neck. The driver turned back to sea with a hint of disappointment.
As the boat powered along the western side of Gibraltar, Spike took in the familiar landmarks – the flat, reclaimed land where Peter Galliano lay in his hospital bed; the houses of the Old Town, huddled on the limestone like survivors of a shipwreck; then the Rock, rising out of the water, resplendent against the horizon like an ancient lion, the dark mouths of tunnels pockmarking its flanks, some dating from the eighteenth century, providing flanking fire against Spanish besiegers, others from the Second World War, when the rubble extracted had been hastily used to build Gibraltar’s tiny airport runway. A flag flew at the peak – a red castle, a golden key and the motto ‘Montis Insignia Calpe’, Sign of the Hollow Mountain.
Spike thought back to his drink with Jessica at the Royal Calpe. That was what friends did, told you what you didn’t want to hear, stuck by you even when you were terrible company. It wasn’t as if Jessica had had an easy time of it herself lately. But they never seemed to talk about that.
Feeling a sudden surge of affection for Jessica, Spike turned to the view in front. Europa Point marked the southernmost tip of the Rock, a red-and-white lighthouse projecting at its edge, warning the shipping traffic of the hidden dangers of the Straits – ‘that awful deepdown torrent’, as Molly Bloom had summed it up in Ulysses. Opposite, Spike could make out Jebel Musa, one of the twin guardians of the mouth of the Mediterranean. To the Romans, these mountains – one in Europe, one in Africa – had represented the Pillars of Hercules, the non plus ultra beyond which sailors would drop off the end of the earth into a void of eternal damnation. As their floating destination came into view, Spike found himself wondering if the Romans hadn’t had a point.
The ship was over a hundred feet long, her broad industrial hull covered in a newish coat of dark green paint. A converted cargo vessel, Spike guessed, the unassuming appearance perhaps intended to draw attention away from the hi-tech satellite system built into her mast. Stencilled in large black letters on one side was her name, Trident.
The driver accelerated into one last wave, then steered the RIB around the Trident. The ensign was one Spike was seeing more and more of in Gib, usually on a gin palace or superyacht. A red background with a green turtle on one side and a Union Jack on the other – the flag of the Cayman Islands.
A set of metal-mesh steps was flipped down by two thickset men, both wearing the same navy polo shirts as the driver, a three-pronged fork monogrammed in yellow silk on the breast pocket. As Spike made his way down the RIB, he stumbled in the swell and felt a gnarled hand catch his wrist. The driver stared into his eyes, a Scot, judging by the few words he’d said when he’d picked Spike up, though his olive skin suggested Italian heritage. Despite his sober demeanour – clean-shaven, short hair – his eyes had a bloodshot glaze Spike knew well. ‘Watch yourself, eh?’ he warned as Spike gripped his briefcase in one hand and the frame of the steps in the other. The amused look rankled. Why was it that a person was assumed to have lost all physical competency as soon as they put on a suit?
Declining further help aboard, Spike pulled himself onto the deck of the Trident, seeing the RIB hurtle away behind him towards Gibraltar Harbour, the driver revealing how he preferred to travel when not inconvenienced by landlubbers. When Spike looked back, a man was walking towards him across the varnished deck. The easy stride and aura of authority suggested this must be Morton D. Clohessy.
No longer in a moving vessel, Spike suddenly felt the midday sun pounding on his head. ‘Mr Sanguinetti,’ Clohessy called out as his colleagues slipped like mice below deck. He was tall and lean, the tanned skin of his face stretching around a square jaw, tinted glasses resting on his pointed nose. A receding hairline had left a brown island of hair marooned on his brow. Everything about him seemed practical and expensive: the soft grey trainers, the wipe-clean Rohan jacket, the photochromic lenses, the mobile phone sheathed at his side like a knife. He looked about forty, but was probably ten years older. ‘Mort Clohessy,’ he said. ‘Welcome aboard.’ The handshake was the predictable bonecrusher, though the smooth palm belied his all-weather uniform. ‘You’re taller than I imagined,’ he said. ‘What are you, one ninety?’
‘Sorry – I only operate in imperial units.’
‘A true Brit, after all.’ He smiled. ‘Please, follow me.’
A gantry crane rose at the stern of the boat, with an alcove below, fitted with two padded white seats. Clohessy ushered Spike into one, then sat down beside him, the cushion responding with a gasp of stale air. ‘I thought we might sit up here for a while, if you don’t mind.’
Spike nodded affably as the boat pitched from side to side.
‘I spend too much time below deck.’
A creaking came from above, and Spike glanced up at the crane, as black and forbidding as a gallows. A reel was attached to its upper beam, a rope arrowing downwards to the lower deck. Spike followed it with his eyes and saw that it ran through another reel, then into the water, rigid yet moving, as though playing a shark. ‘That’s the cable for our ROV,’ Clohessy said. ‘Remotely Operated Vehicle. Robot on a string, basically. Originally built to lay deepwater fibre-optic cable on the seabed. We bought and modified her at a cost of some four million dollars.’ He paused to allow the figure to sink in. ‘Eight side-thrusters, six underwater cameras giving constant feeds of the seabed. Fifteen thousand dollars a day to run.’ His low voice had a nasal American accent with a twang of something Spike couldn’t place.
‘Wouldn’t divers be cheaper?’ Spike asked.
One of Clohessy’s sparse eyebrows shot into his wide expanse of brow. ‘We’ve moved on a bit since Jules Verne, Mr Sanguinetti. Anyway, it’s too deep to dive this side of the reef.’ He placed a tanned, wiry hand on Spike’s arm. ‘How is your partner? Any sign of improvement?’
‘I’m afraid Peter is still in a coma. The prognosis is not good.’
&n
bsp; Clohessy made a clicking noise with his tongue. ‘Pressing on like this – it seems wrong. But with the costs at stake . . .’
‘You instructed Galliano & Sanguinetti, Mr Clohessy. I’ll do everything I can to fulfil the brief.’
Clohessy’s smile revealed two rows of small, tightly packed teeth. ‘I appreciate your attitude. Now, let’s get down to it.’
Chapter Sixteen
Any remnants of the Trident’s humble origins vanished as Spike descended the narrow staircase into the hold. The guts of the ship had been eviscerated, creating a central open-plan space flickering with high-definition monitors and wafer-thin computer screens. Spike was introduced to the key members of Neptune’s team, all quietly working away, all sporting the same monogrammed polo shirts – Jamie, a marine archaeologist cultivating an unconvincing goatee; Stevo, a South African ‘MacGyver’ whose job was to engineer devices to raise awkward items of salvage; Anders, a Swede who did something with ‘bathymetric sonar’, and Mike, a bald American who was maintaining the position of the boat using only a computer keyboard.
In front of the largest screen sat a dark-haired youth, face pitted with unhealed acne scars. His hands were plunged into black, elbow-length rubber gloves, with which he appeared to be controlling the movements of a metal pincer moving through a murky green space. Spike assumed this was some kind of video-game simulation until a school of sea bream flashed past the screen. ‘Watch your tail, Johnnie,’ Clohessy snapped, pointing at the umbilical cord that connected the robot to the boat. Johnnie waved his arms to one side and the pincer pressed on into the algae-clouded gloom.
Hollow Mountain Page 5