Medusa (11 page)

‘You had a passenger on board, so I naturally thought …'

‘I tell you, we'd been fishing.' He looked at me again, his eyes coldly hostile. ‘There was a friend of mine with us. We enjoy fishing. All of us.' He stared at me hard for a moment. ‘Don't we?' he said to the other two, and they nodded. ‘Okay.' He knocked back the rest of his drink and got almost violently to his feet. ‘If you're interested in the
deal, then we'll go over to
Thunderflash
and you can poke around down below. But –' and he leaned suddenly over me, prodding my chest with a hard index finger, ‘don't go asking stupid questions, see. One of the reasons we're all here is because Flórez said you were discreet – when it was to your advantage. Right?'

I didn't say anything. Looking up at him and seeing those eyes staring down at me, I suddenly realised who he was. This was the man Gareth Lloyd Jones had been looking for. Evans. Patrick Evans. Slowly I got to my feet, the others too, and we all went out and across the road to the dock. The American was below as we clambered across his boat and dropped on to the deck of the catamaran. Evans unlocked the door, ushering me below in a way that left me in no doubt that he was the owner, and the moment I stepped down into that great saloon, with its breadth and comfort and the fabulous view for'ard, I was hooked. I had never been in this type of craft before. Even at the Boat Show in London, the last time I had been there, I hadn't seen anything like this, so immaculately designed, so perfectly suited to cruising in the Mediterranean.

He showed me round himself, double beds in each of the hulls with washbasin, loo and shower for'ard, hanging lockers aft and two single berths, the steps down from the saloon built over the port and starb'd engines, and all the time my mind racing, thinking what I could do with it, a different charter clientele entirely – San Tropez, Monte Carlo, Capri, the Aegean. We went back to the saloon and he produced a bottle of whisky. ‘Well?' He was smiling. He knew from my comments, from the look on my face, that he'd be able to get what he wanted. And I? – with luck I would get what I wanted, what I'd always wanted – oh my God yes. We drank, smiling at each other, and then I nearly ruined it. ‘I don't think I got your name.'

‘Lloyd,' he said.

Not Evans or Jones, but the first part of Gareth's surname – Lloyd. ‘Do you know a man named Gareth Lloyd Jones?'
His eyes snapped wide, suddenly wary, his face gone hard again and quite expressionless. ‘He was here on leave,' I said, floundering slightly as I explained. ‘He was looking for somebody – somebody rather like you. And I thought I saw you – in Es Grau, a bar there, three, four months ago. Were you here then?'

He glanced at Flórez, half rising to his feet, those powerful hands of his clenched so tight the knuckles showed white. But then he smiled at me and sat down again, forcing himself to relax. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘That's when I decided on Menorca. I was looking for somewhere to settle, you see.' He picked up his whisky, swallowed some of it, staring at me all the time, hostility gradually giving way to curiosity. ‘How well do you know Gareth?' he asked me. And when I explained how we had met, he leaned back against the cushions of the settle. ‘He's still here, is he?' he asked.

‘No,' I said. ‘He left yesterday.'

‘How long was he here?'

‘About five days, I think.'

‘Did you see much of him?'

I shook my head. ‘We had lunch together at Fornells, that's about all, and that same evening he came to the Red Cross barbecue with us. I think my wife saw more of him than I did.'

He sat there for a moment, quite still and apparently lost in thought, his eyes fixed on a shelf full of bottles at the end of the bar. ‘That night,' he said slowly. ‘He was with you, wasn't he? Flórez says there was some trouble. You flushed a couple of squatters out of a cave and they pinched his car. Right?'

I nodded, wondering at his interest.

‘Did you see them? Would you be able to recognise them?' And he added quickly, ‘I'm sorry about your wife. I believe she was hurt.'

‘No, we didn't see them,' I said. And I told him briefly what had happened. But he didn't seem interested in the
details, only in the fact that Gareth Lloyd Jones had been there. ‘You say he was looking for me?' he interrupted. ‘Did he say why?'

‘He said you were at school together, that you saved his life.' And because I wanted to get back to the business in hand and clarify the ownership details, I said, ‘He also told me your name was Evans.'

I saw him hesitate. But it was only momentary. ‘Lloyd Evans. It's a double name, see, like Gareth's.' And he added, ‘Said we were at school together, did he?' He was smiling now, seemingly at ease again. ‘HMS
Ganges
. That's what he was referring to.' He gave a little laugh. ‘Yes, I suppose you could call it a school. It was a training establishment for naval ratings. It had a flagpole. Still there, I believe – a bloody great pole about a mile high, and some stupid sod of a PO makes him go up to the top almost his first day. A punishment, he called it, but it was straight bloody sadism. Christ! the poor little bastard had only just arrived, raw as a cucumber and scared out of his wits. I had to go up and talk him down. Practically carried him.'

He nodded his head, still smiling to himself. ‘Got plenty of spunk, I'll say that for him. He was a town boy, East End of London, mother owned a greengrocer's, something like that. Don't reck'n he'd ever been up a mast before in his life. I remember watching, a squad of ten nozzers we were, and that bastard of a PO orders him over the futtock shrouds, wot we called the Devil's Elbow. It was all of a hundred feet up. Somehow he made it, and up the rope ladder. After that it was bare pole and he'd been told to touch the button at the top.' He looked at me quickly. ‘Difficult for you to imagine what it's like. Most people never seen a mast that high except in the distance on one of the Tall Ships.'

I nodded, the picture of it clear in my mind. ‘I've seen that mast,' I said. ‘You don't have to tell me about the height of it.'

‘Seen it?' He looked surprised, and when I explained, he
nodded. ‘I heard it was turned into a sports centre. Best thing for it with all those messes and officers' quarters with polished wooden decks. And the ranges, of course. So you're into competition shooting, are you?' He was looking at me hard as though that somehow made a difference. ‘Bisley?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Until a few years back.'

He nodded. ‘I know somebody who practises at Shotley on the old ranges we used as kids. That's how I know about the commercial range facilities.'

‘Who was that?' I asked him, but he was already back to the story of Gareth Lloyd Jones climbing that mast. ‘Poor little bugger, he got himself to the top of the ladder and it was at that point he made the mistake of looking down. I know what it feels like, looking down from that height, because I was the cadet chosen to stand point, right on top of that fucking button. There's a lightning conductor there and that's all you've got to hang on to, standing to attention with the others manning the yard and some bloody admiral inspecting the school.' He leaned back, his eyes half-closed, and still that smile. ‘Hadn't thought about it till now, but yes, I suppose he'd feel I'd saved his life.'

The way he had told it, such relish in the recollection, and now going on to explain how he had got Gareth down, talking to him all the time. ‘You get pretty close to a boy when you've been through an experience like that together. It wasn't easy for either of us.' There was a flamboyance about the man. It was as though he had an urgent need for self-dramatisation. I think this is often the case with men who are preternaturally handsome, perhaps because their looks make things appear so easy at first, and then suddenly they begin to realise looks are not enough. ‘Still in the Navy, is he?' And when I told him Lloyd Jones had just been promoted and had left Menorca to take command of a frigate waiting for him in Gibraltar, he nodded. ‘Of course. He was cut out for it, real Navy
material. But Lieutenant Commander, and a frigate of his own …' He swirled the whisky round in his glass. ‘You sure he didn't say anything about why he was looking for me?' He raised his eyes, staring at me.

‘I don't think I asked him,' I said. ‘I presumed, when he said you were at school together, that you were close friends, is that right?'

‘Yes, I suppose so. We're certainly close.' And he smiled as though at some private joke. He smiled a lot during that meeting on
Thunderflash,
but the smile never reached his eyes, and his face wasn't a smiling face. When he smiled it was a conscious stretching of the mouth that revealed teeth so white and even they might have been false. And it wasn't only his face that was hard. His body was hard, too. Even then I was conscious that he was a very fit, very tough man.

‘You saved his life twice,' I said. But he wasn't to be drawn on that, his mind already back to the subject of the
Santa Maria
and the villa up on Punta Codolar. He wanted to start fishing right away. And he added with a thin, rather wry smile, ‘Silly, isn't it? Here I am with this boat that's worth a small fortune, and I'm short of money and nowhere to live.' He wanted to make the exchange right away. ‘Tomorrow. I'd like us to be free to shift our gear on to the fishing boat tomorrow. You're not using her for anything. I've looked her over and she's ready to go. So's
Thunderflash
. A quick clean round the ship after we've gone and you could have a charter party on board by the weekend. What do you say?'

What I said, of course, was that I'd have to talk it over with Soo and she wouldn't be out of hospital until next morning. ‘Exchanging boats is one thing,' I told him. ‘But that villa was my wife's idea. I don't know whether she'll agree.' For a moment I toyed with the thought that I might force through an exchange on a boat-for-boat basis, perhaps with a small cash addition, but he wasn't that much of a fool.

In the end he agreed to leave it over until I had had a chance to talk to Soo. ‘Ring Señor Flórez here. He'll know where to find me. But I want that fishing boat by Saturday at the latest, tanked up with fuel and ready to go. That gives you two days, okay?' He got to his feet then, and when I asked him whether he needed anybody local to show him the best fishing grounds, he looked at me sharply and said, ‘Don't bother. I know where I'm going.'

‘What about charts then?'

‘Not your problem. I got all the charts.' And he added, ‘You ring Flórez, eh? Tomorrow, right after you pick up your wife from the hospital.'

I told him that might not be long enough to talk her into the deal, but in fact Soo proved much easier to persuade than I had expected. She was more interested in the man's friendship with Gareth Lloyd Jones at
Ganges
than in the future of the villa she had so recklessly acquired the day before she lost the child. ‘But didn't you ask him?' she demanded almost angrily when I told her I had no idea what the relationship of the two men had been after the flagpole episode. ‘I'm certain there was something between them, an intimacy – I don't think it was sexual. You don't think Gareth's in any sense gay, do you? I mean, he doesn't behave like one.'

‘No,' I said. ‘I don't think he is.' In fact, I hadn't given it a thought.

‘Hero worship?' She was sprawled on the old couch we had picked up in Barcelona, her head turned to the window, staring at the sea. ‘Was that why he was looking for this man?' Her smooth, darkish forehead was slightly puckered, her eyes half-closed, her body slim again, no lovely curve to her belly and the madonna look quite gone from her face so that it was now pinched, even a little haggard.

I think she was quite glad not to have to cope with the problems of overseeing the completion of that villa. At any rate, she accepted the situation. But later, much later,
she was to insist that if I hadn't been so obsessed with my ‘new toy' I would have known what was going on. She was, of course, much closer to the people of the island than I was. She had a lot of friends, not only in Mahon and Ciudadela, but out in the country among the farms, and she did pass on to me some of the talk she picked up about the growing popularity of the separatist movement. It was backed by the two communist parties, the
Partido Communista de España
, or PCE, and the
Partido Communista de los Pueblos de España
, or PCPE, and appeared to be gaining ground.
Menorca
, the
Diario Insular
or local paper, and even
La Ultima Hora
of Palma in Mallorca had carried the occasional article on the subject. But now I had no time any more to read the local newspapers. I was fully stretched getting
Thunderflash
ready for sea.

Once I had agreed the deal with Patrick Evans and checked the share ownership certificate, which showed him to be the sole owner, with sixty-four-sixty-fourths of the shares, I had pictures taken of the catamaran, some with the sails up, others of the saloon with the table laid, a vase of wild flowers and a large Balearic crayfish as the centrepiece. These I mailed off to a dozen of the most up-market agencies specialising in Mediterranean travel, together with a plan of the layout and full details. Three of them I actually phoned, and within a week two of these had expressed interest, and one of them, representing an American agency, had their representative fly in from Mallorca to inspect the boat and cable a report direct to Miami. Two days later I received a cable offering a two-week charter if I could pick up a party of eight Americans at Grand Harbour, Malta, on May 2. There was no quibble about the price, which would mean that in just one fortnight
Thunderflash
would earn more than the
Santa Maria
had made the whole of the previous season.