Undertow

by Desmond Cory

  At sunset, Moreno rose and dressed himself and moved off once more, the blue canvas bag in his right hand. Amongst the pine trees on the little promontory, he settled himself down again; took from the bag a loaf of bread, Manchego cheese, a bottle of olive oil and another of red wine. He ate and drank, chewing the food with a pedantic thoroughness, while the light slowly bled from the sky. The sands of the beach held a luminosity for some time after the sun had finally sunk; but after a while that uncertain paleness faded and the stars came out, strong and clear, in a night of humming velvet. Moreno corked the wine bottle and replaced it in the bag; of the bread and cheese and oil, not a scrap remained. He lay stretched out in the darkness comfortably as a cat, waiting. The lights of a fishing-boat a mile or so away interested him for several minutes; but they drifted east with the current and, long before they finally disappeared, he had ceased to watch them. In the end, he closed his eyes, choosing to rely entirely on his ears.

  For what seemed a very long time, he heard nothing. Nothing but the gentle sound of the sea breeze in the pine needles overhead and the lapping, scarcely louder, of the waves on the rocks beneath. Until at last he heard a sound unlike the other sounds, and he listened more intently in order to be sure, and when he was perfectly sure he opened his eyes and sat up. He heard then more distinctly the faint squeaking of oars on rowlocks, and in the water he could see a vague phosphorescence moving slowly in towards the shore. Eventually he heard the grind and crunch as the boat beached itself on the sands. Then he got up and made his way, silently, to where the two men were waiting.

  He said nothing to them, because there was nothing to be said. They were unimportant. They knew who he was and they were afraid of him; he sensed their fear as he clambered into the boat. Their feet splashed noisily in the water as they pushed off, and their breathing was loud in the stillness. Out of condition, obviously. Why? They hadn’t been in jail. Now they began to pull at the oars and the boat to respond, dancing a little to the movement of the waves. The saltness of the open sea, striking at the nostrils; Moreno couldn’t repress a little shudder of delight. He stretched himself out on the hard wooden seat, feeling the waves slap, slap, slap, very gently, against the hull; very gently, very quietly; as though breaking on his own proffered body, cradling it, lulling it. For the first time since he had escaped, he felt that he would like to go to sleep.

  No time for sleep now, though. The yacht was little more than four hundred yards out. He didn’t see it until they were almost up against it; then it was a sudden black bulk shutting out the sky to the south, and a masked torch was winking at him from somewhere on the deck. The boat drifted in on the undertow; the torch winked again, and one of the oarsmen growled under his breath. “Rope ladder down the side,” he said to Moreno. “See if you can spot it. Can’t give you any light.”

  “I don’t need any,” said Moreno. He was on his feet already, his legs braced against the slow rocking of the swell. The boat touched the yacht’s fenders once and then again, grinding in harder. He saw the ladder then, a spidery shadow creeping down towards him; he reached out, felt the rough wood of one of the treads rasp against his palm, and instantly swung himself upwards. That was another knack that he hadn’t lost. . . . He mounted swiftly, swung his leg over the guardrail and landed on the deck. The man waiting at the top of the ladder took him by the elbow as if to help him . . . let go of it at once as though it were red-hot. “Everything okay?”

  “Everything,” said Moreno.

  “Good,” said the other man. “Venez avec.”

  Moreno followed him across the empty deck down brass-nailed steps, through a white-painted door with a window of frosted glass. Inside, a spotless passage, a soft green carpet. A luxury yacht, then. He had suspected as much already. Halfway down the passage, the Frenchman stopped, opened a door. “Your cabin,” he said.

  A tiny cabin, not more than eight feet by five. A folding bunk ran the full length of the opposite bulkhead; it had been made up with clean sheets and a white wool blanket. On a shelf above it stood an alarm clock, a handful of paperbacked books, a mirror, shaving gear. Moreno tapped his finger against the card in a neat metal slot beside the door; Jaime Baroda, it said. “Who’s Jaime Baroda?”

  “You are Jaime Baroda.”

  Moreno nodded rather tiredly. He picked up the photograph in the red leather frame that stood at the head of the bunk; a pleasant-looking old couple smiling arm-in-arm at the camera. “And who are these?”

  The Frenchman smiled, too. “No doubt they will be your parents.”

  “I see,” said Moreno. “Amusing.”

  He didn’t really find it amusing. Just familiar; half-forgotten, yet completely familiar. Someone else’s possessions were already his; he felt himself at home, more so than if his own name had been on the door. “These things will be explained to you in the morning,” said the Frenchman. “Meanwhile you are free to sleep.”

  Moreno looked at him. A small, thickset man of about his own age, with black curly hair and a hairline moustache. A neat white shirt and, in spite of the heat, a carefully-knotted silk bow tie. In the eyes, a slight opaqueness; the opaqueness of fear. This man was afraid of him, too; another thing that Moreno didn’t really find amusing. The warders at Valencia, at Sevilla—they also had been afraid of him; he disliked finding their expression in the eyes of this stranger. “What’s your name?” he said.

  “Meuvret. Charles Meuvret. Not that it matters/*

  “You own this yacht?”

  “No, no. I just help to run it.”

  Moreno sat down on the bunk, swung his legs up to the mattress. “Perhaps I shall sleep now,” he said. His tone was of dismissal.

  “Yes, do that. The chief will see you in the morning.” Moreno closed his eyes. He heard the door click shut; listened intently for the sound of a key turning. It didn’t come. That would have been childish, anyway. But childish was what these people so often were. Thorough, competent . . . but childish. He unfastened the strings of his shoes, kicked them away from him. These people . . . they wanted something, of course. Probably something that he knew. He knew so many things, so many secrets. He had been put in prison for knowing too much. Not for killing, no. The murders had merely given them their excuse. Now he was free. And very tired. Now and at last he could go to sleep.

  FERAMONTOV watched through the narrow metal spyhole until one of the great hands relaxed and slithered down to the mattress, until Moreno’s chest—visible through the open gap of his shirt—was stirring with the gentle regularity of sleep. Then he watched patiently, placidly, expressionlessly, for five minutes more. When he sensed the hull of the yacht beginning to vibrate to the turning-over of its engines, he pulled down the strip of steel that masked the Judas window and fastened the catch. “He hasn’t changed much,” he said. “Hardly at all. But Spanish prisons can mark a man in many ways, you know. . . . Till I’ve spoken to him, I can’t be sure.”

  The girl took a test-tube from the rack opposite her, shook it, held it up to the light. She seemed absorbed entirely in her work; her face was cold, abstracted. Blunt nose, wide cheekbones, deep-set blue eyes, and a frame of jet-black hair; a face that, even in its intentness, held more than a promise of open sensuality. It made the white, impersonal chemist’s smock that she wore seem actually provocative; the long sleeves and highbuttoned neck, the air of scientific puritanism in which—looking at that face—nobody could seriously believe for more than a moment. Feramontov glanced briefly towards her, then went to sit in the foam-rubber armchair directly behind her. This position afforded him an excellent view of her legs, and Feramontov liked looking at her legs, especially her ankles. Russian women are inclined to thickness at the ankle—to thickness everywhere, in fact. Feramontov had learnt Western tastes, in women as in almost everything else.

  He himself looked hardly at all like a Russian, and this he counted as an asset in his profession. Feramontov looked rather like a cat; though if you tried to pin down the resemblance, you would pr
obably have to decide that it was one of behaviour rather than of personal appearance. Feramontov moved like a cat; he had a cat’s perfect economy of muscular effort and a cat’s gift of relaxation, while his gaze was as calm and dispassionate as a tiger’s, never seeming to do more than estimate the distance between himself and other objects in pouncing terms. Kings, fools, courtesans, killers— all were rendered alike by the impersonality of his steady green stare, were reduced to common factors, to ciphers. And if it is possible to discern cruelty in the ordinary bodily movements of a man, then all Feramontov’s actions were innate with it.

  This, though he had no clear understanding of the meaning of the word. He was cruel by nature, as a tiger is cruel; and cowardly by nature, as a lion is cowardly. Cowardice to him was caution, and caution was wisdom; where a slight scratch can hinder one’s hunting for many days afterwards, it’s wise to be cautious of beasts with horns. Only British sportsmen consider the lion a coward for that reason; and whatever else Feramontov might have been, he was no British sportsman. He hunted not as a pastime, but for his livelihood. He was a professional, in a word. Cruel, cautious and clever. Clever enough never to examine himself in such terms, clever enough to let other people worry about what abstract qualities he possessed or didn’t possess. They did. Many people did. But for Feramontov, it was enough simply to be alive and hunting.

  With the girl, he spoke German. That was her native language. But they could have conversed as easily in Russian, English, French, Spanish or Italian. Soviet secret operatives are better linguists than most. “We’re all near-lunatics now,” said Feramontov, “every one of us. The trouble with Moreno may just be that he’s a bit too normal. He docs what comes naturally. And anyone who does that all the time is obviously a danger to society. To society in general, and to our organisation in particular. I wish I could feel happier about Moreno.”

  The girl still gave no sign of having heard him. She raised another test-tube to the light in her silver-tipped fingers, studied it closely. It contained an almost colourless liquid with undertones of green—sea water—and tiny white hairlike objects drifted to and fro within it. “He likes to kill,” she said eventually. “And he’s said to be intelligent. But you’ve dealt with killers before. And with intelligent ones.”

  “Oh, yes. A hundred others. But Moreno. . . .” Feramontov considered in silence for a moment “Er war anders.”

  The girl shrugged. She replaced the tube in the rack, then walked across to the spyhole and freed its metal cover. The white overall rustled softly as she leaned forward. She looked into the little cabin for perhaps thirty seconds, then straightened her slim back again and lowered the cover. “A very fine physique,” she said. “Quite magnificent.”

  “Yes. They so often have.”

  “Good looking, as well.”

  Feramontov smiled tightly. “It serves no practical purpose. He isn’t interested in women. Except, of course, in connection with his little hobby.”

  “A pity, in some ways.” The girl went back to her test-tubes, though now she stood facing Feramontov. “I won’t be of much use to you, in that case.”

  “What’s the matter? Anxious for promotion?”

  “One wishes to be useful.”

  “Sometimes, it’s enough to be decorative. You’re always that.” Feramontov watched her; no hint of speculation in his eyes, no desire, nothing; just an unwavering greenness, pale almost as the water in the test-tubes. And after a moment, the girl turned away. “Perhaps,” said Feramontov, “we may let him carve you up some night when there’s a full moon. That’s if he’s a very good boy.”

  “A joke in very poor taste.”

  “My jokes often are. I have excellent taste, though . . . in other directions.”

  The girl lowered infinitesimally her fine black eyebrows. She took a pencil from her pocket, began to make notes on the pad that lay open on the desk. “Ja, mit Frauen umzugehen. Ich verstehe.”

  “We understand each other very well.” Feramontov rose smoothly to his feet. “As it happens, I have news of the Professor. There may well be work for you, in Marbella.”

  “There’s always work for the Professor.”

  “Of a different kind. There are two Englishmen staying at the Spyglass. Young Englishmen. You may have to make yet another sacrifice for the Party.”

  “Two at once?” said the girl; and, for the first time, smiled. “It sounds positively Roman.”

  She clipped the pencil back into her pocket, moved away round the long wooden rack. Feramontov followed her, not closely. They stared together into the deep tank let into the floor at their feet, a big metal tank with a glass cover. Within was a yellow-green light, soft, hypnotic, and in that light numberless shadowy forms pulsed and pullulated; raw red gashes opened and closed like festering wounds, feathery tentacles writhed. The tank was full of jellyfish.

  “Your little pets,” said Feramontov, but didn’t smile. “Yes, my little pets. On the whole, I prefer them to Englishmen. To any other men, for that matter.”

  They moved in the depths of the tank as in a yellow-green nightmare. Swollen blubbery bells, swinging their poisonladen feelers through the water. Feramontov wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue. He hated to admit it, but those jellyfish were amongst the few things of which he was genuinely afraid. “You look after them well,” he said. “Better than most women do their husbands.”

  “If I didn’t, they’d probably die,” said the girl. “Which would be a pity.”

  “Of course. Now I, too, have certain things to attend to.” The girl didn’t turn her head to watch him leave. She was checking the temperature of the water; her face again calm, unsmiling as before. Only when the door had closed did her expression relax; she closed her eyes for a second, resting her hands on the brown polished surface of the rack. While in the tank beneath her, stealthily, the jellyfish swam to and fro. . . .

  THEY came in while Moreno was finishing his breakfast and sat down at the table. Meuvret, whom he knew already. A thin man, fair-haired, with a curious delicacy of movement. And a girl, dark and beautiful, who wore a blue flannel wrap over a bathing costume. They sat down at the breakfast table with its fleecy white tablecloth and its plates of Meissen porcelain, and the man in the white jacket who had been standing by the door went unobtrusively out. “Good morning,” said the man who moved like a cat. “Sleep well?”

  Moreno nodded without looking up; he was pouring himself out a second cup of coffee. “I was tired.”

  “That was to be expected. For that reason, I chose to postpone our little discussion until this morning. You don’t know me, by any chance?”

  Moreno looked at him without curiosity, then shook his head,

  “But perhaps you know of me. Feramontov.”

  “Feramontov. . . . Yes. Barcelona, forty-four.”

  “Exactly. A long time ago. of course. I’m glad you still retain your excellent memory. However, you won’t know this young lady: she’s from Germany. Her name is Elsa,”

  Moreno nodded, again without looking at her face. Faces told one nothing: he preferred to watch hands and bodies. The girl’s hands, he noticed, were lightly clenched: Feramontov’s were out of sight under the table. Feramontov knew a thing or two. Moreno’s eyes moved hack to the girl’s body, stayed there. This one has control, he thought, hut she can’t relax. She’s never learnt how to. That’s what happens to women in this kind of work. She’s young still, young enough to learn: but if not. shell have to be got rid of. Yes. indeed, he thought: pleasant work if one could get it. . . .

  “Meuvret of course, you’ve already met.”

  Nothing in the tone to indicate that Feramontov knew what he was thinking, but Moreno was instantly sure of it. He frowned: he disliked having his thoughts read: they were part of himself, they were private. To Meuvret he didn’t even nod. Meuvret was of no importance.

  “Now perhaps you’ll tell us something of your escape ”

  Moreno reached for his cup, drank a little c
offee before replying. “There’s not very much to tell. I was being moved from the prison at Sevilla to Malaga, along with another fellow called Guerrero. The car picked up a puncture in the hills near Colmenar, swerved a bit. . . . We had half a chance and we took it. We knew* what to do because we’d discussed it beforehand. I took one warder and Guerrero the other. Then we took the driver. He had time to shout, but no one heard.”

  “Yes. This Guerrero. who is he?”

  “Armed robbery back in ’57. It hardly matters, though. He’s dead now.”

  Moreno unhooked from his belt the six-inch long, sharply pointed length of steel cable that one of the convicts had smuggled out to him from the electricians’ workshop. He laid it on the table without lifting his eyes, “In prison one has to make do with what one can get It turned out to be adequate.”

  “He was . . . difficult?”

  “Difficult?” Moreno seemed uncertain as to what the word meant, exactly. “No. But you never can tell. I thought it best to make sure.” He finished his coffee.