The White Schooner (11 page)

Black was taking off his sock and exposing his ankle in light for the first time. He let out a small groan. The housekeeper looked back from the doorway and saw the swollen discoloured ankle. ‘It looks painful,’ she said.

‘It is,’ he said as she left the room.

Manuela knelt and examined it. ‘It looks horrible. I’ll bathe it in hot water.’

‘You fill the basin and I’ll do it. Better that way. I know what I can take.’

She filled the basin with hot water. He felt it with his toes. ‘It’s too hot.’

‘You’re making a great fuss.’

‘I told you I was a coward.’

She added the cold water and later made him bathe the ankle in cold water immediately after the hot. Then she took a tube of wintergreen from the first-aid outfit and told him to rub some into the swelling. He did, and the ankle felt better. But he insisted she bandage it although she said it was
unnecessary
.

‘If it doesn’t have support, the bloody thing’ll go again,’ he said.

She bandaged it, and he complained about the pain.

‘You should have a baby,’ she said. ‘Then you could talk of pain.’

‘I prefer not to. Anyway, how do you know?’

‘All women know.’

It was while they were eating the plain meal the housekeeper brought them that they heard the first sounds of the storm. It began with the beating of rain against the windows which soon afterwards rattled in their frames to the gusting of the wind.

Later, after the meal, Black pulled the curtains aside and saw the rain outside whipped into streaks of spray by the force of the wind.

‘Hell of a storm,’ he said as the sky to the south-east was lit by forked lightning and a roll of thunder reverberated through the room.

Manuela shivered. ‘I hate lightning.’

‘Who doesn’t?’

‘It’ll be nice in the donkey cart.’

‘Marvellous. I can’t wait.’ He fiddled with his beard, shaking his head. ‘Sorry I let you in for this.’

‘Nobody
wants
to sprain an ankle.’

‘Yes,’ he said absentmindedly. ‘I mean no. Of course they don’t.’

He looked round the room. ‘I wouldn’t say we’re regarded as distinguished visitors.’

‘What did you expect, Charles? A five-course dinner. Cigars and liqueurs in front of the fire?’

‘I didn’t expect anything. I didn’t want to come.’

‘He has given us all we need. We’re to be taken to San José. That is better than being out on the terraces in such a storm.’

‘Yes,’ he said wearily. ‘I suppose you’re right.’ A flash of lightning was followed almost immediately by thunder which drowned her reply.

The dining-room was lit by wall-lamps shaded with red silk. Van Biljon sat alone at the head of the long table, the light from the candles at its centre reflected in the silver and glass. He ate slowly and with long pauses, sometimes tasting the wine, at others savouring its bouquet. But he was too tense and rattled to enjoy the meal. He did not permit visitors at Altomonte, and two of them had been thrust upon him. What was more, the man was a journalist, an art critic.

But van Biljon knew he had no option. Above all things he avoided publicity. To have refused to help would have given the journalist a story which would have resulted in publicity of the worst kind. There could be no worthwhile story in the bare fact that he and the girl had sought and received help at Altomonte. But how different if it were refused. Van Biljon had no intention of seeing Black, or of allowing him anywhere near the gallery. Indeed, it had been in his mind that the accident had been contrived so that they could get into the house. But Techa had since told him she’d seen the ankle and that it was badly bruised and swollen. One does not, reflected van Biljon, damage an ankle to order with that severity. And it was not difficult to imagine what they had been doing up in the hills, notwithstanding the bird-watching story.

But it was the storm that really upset him. It was increasing in severity, the glass still falling, and before long it would be a full gale. It could be well into the next day before it had blown itself out. To send them down to San José in the donkey cart now would be impossible. Tomaso would not be back from Portinax until nine o’clock the following day.
Because
the little Seat was in Ibiza being overhauled, he had been reluctant to give Tomaso permission to keep the
Land-Rover
overnight, but the gardener had to pick up plants in Santa Eulalia the next morning and it had all fitted in well enough, so he had agreed. Now he bitterly regretted his decision. There was nothing for it. The unwanted visitors would have to spend the night at Altomonte.

He pressed the bell and shortly afterwards Techa’s voice came from behind him. ‘Señor?’

‘This storm,’ he said.

‘Yes, señor.’

He made a despairing gesture with his hands. ‘These people will have to spend the night here.’

‘Yes, señor. I will make up the beds.’

She turned to go but he called her back. ‘When you have shown them to their rooms, lock the doors to that wing. The front and back doors. And bolt them on the outside.’

Her face showed surprise.

‘He is a journalist. An art critic he calls himself,’ said van Biljon. ‘It is possible he may try to get into the gallery to see the pictures. I will not have that.’

‘That is impossible, señor. The gallery doors are always locked.’

‘I know, Techa. But I do not want to have strangers
wandering
about my house at night.’

‘
Si,
señor.
I shall do as you say.’

Van Biljon was tapping on the table with his fingers. She knew this was a sign that he was worried. He said, Tell Juan and Pedro of the circumstances. When Juan takes over from Pedro at midnight, he is to check that both doors of the east wing are locked. Do you understand?’

‘It shall be done, señor.’

Later, in the gallery, he sat brooding over coffee and liqueur, the dark melancholy of Tchaikovsky’s
Pathétique
matching his mood of presentiment.

He had chosen the music instinctively, almost as if he’d had no other choice. When in the first movement, the lyrical melody in D major took over, he got up and started his tour of the gallery. As he contemplated the pictures, each so familiar, so well understood, so well loved, he was sedated, tranquillity returned, he forgot his unwelcome visitors and pushed his fears into the background. ‘
Mein
Liebchen
,’
he called the pictures. They were his life’s work. Everything that he had done, the long grim odyssey, had been dominated by
them, by the determination to acquire them. Only when he was alone in the gallery did he fed wholly at peace.

He stopped before a Pissarro. It was a boat on the Loire. Consciousness of the picture faded and he saw instead Mrs. Heimann, large and helpless, overflowing her dress, sobbing quietly because her daughter had refused to come with them, preferring to stay with her grandparents. Karl Heimann had a cold and kept blowing his nose. In the van he was hesitant about signing. Apart from the Pissarro there’d been two van der Els, some jewellery and a snuff box set with rubies,
reputed
to have belonged to Tsar Nicholas II.

In the woods a dog had barked as the Heimanns set off down the path, and van Biljon had worried until he heard in the distance the border patrol’s ‘
Wer
Da
?’

Then he had gone to the van and driven back into Zurich.

The rooms into which Techa showed them were small but adequately furnished. Not for important guests, Black decided; perhaps for the children or servants of visitors. He had seen something of the interior of the house, though not much: the route they had taken past the kitchen and larder, along a passage to the butler’s pantry where they’d eaten. Afterwards the housekeeper and Manuela, one on either side, had helped him along a passage at the end of which steps led to doors through which they passed into a long room with a high ceiling. The housekeeper did not stop, so he had only a
fleeting
impression of reed and grass mats on terra-cotta floors, of rough-cast walls, lime washed, on them old maps and prints of Africa and South America, carved headmasks in African hardwoods, and others of copper and silver which he
presumed
were South American. There were ancient weapons, spears, assegais and machetes; African drums serving as
occasional
tables; chairs and benches of exotic woods with
hide-thong
seats; wild animals and figurines carved in wood and modelled in clay; primitive tapestries with Picasso-like symbols and figures, and reproductions of cave drawings; and karosses from the skins of wild animals. It was a curious heterogeneous mixture of African and South American cultures.

The south side of the room had windows across which curtains were drawn. He presumed they looked out over the terraces to the sea beyond. There was an archway on the left through which he could see the long hall, and he knew from Haupt’s plans that the sitting-and drawing-rooms adjoined it on the far side to form the first level of the west wing, but there was not time to check this.

The housekeeper hurried across the room and drew curtains at the back to reveal a flight of stairs up which they helped him. At the top, gates of trellised iron guarded the landing to the east wing. They crossed it and went down a passage. At the third door on the left they stopped. The housekeeper said, ‘This is your room, señor.’

They took him in and he sat on the bed. ‘Can you manage?’ asked Manuela.

‘Of course.’ He looked at the housekeeper. ‘I’m sorry to have been such a nuisance. Thank you very much for your help.’

She looked at him and mumbled something in Spanish which he didn’t understand.

Manuela said, ‘Good night Charles. See you in the
morning
,’ and she and the housekeeper left the room, shutting the door behind them.

He heard the Spanish woman showing Manuela to her room on the other side of the passage. They exchanged good nights and the woman’s tone sounded more friendly than it had been to him. Soon afterwards he heard the iron gates at the end of the landing clang and the key turn. So that was that. Not that they need have worried. Not to-night, at any rate.

For the next few minutes he sat on the bed, head in hands, thinking how difficult it was to believe that this had really happened. Here he was in Altomonte. The event was as clouded and remote as a dream, and he felt no emotion other than exhaustion: not enough sleep after last night’s pub crawl; a long strenuous day; faking a sprained ankle was in itself tiring, and there had been emotional strain … now there was nothing, only the bandaged ankle, scarcely
throbbing
, reminded him of reality. His thoughts went back to one of the early discussions, almost at the beginning. Kagan had said: ‘I am not sure you are the man for this. You are too involved emotionally. It destroys objectivity. This is
dangerous
.’

The noise of the storm brought him back to the present. Tired as he was he must watch and listen. He forced himself off the bed and crossed the room. There was no need to limp now. He ran the cold water in the wash-basin and rinsed his face drying it vigorously, determined to wake himself up.

Somewhere a clock chimed ten. He turned off the light and moved to the window. It glistened with rain, but that side of the house was in the lee of the storm and he opened it enough to see out. Occasional flashes of lightning lit the patio and the pergolas at the side of the pool which reflected the lights of the house.

The patio was bordered to the south by the main house and to the east and west by wings which ran back into the hillside. He knew that the gallery was in the west wing, and through
the driving rain he could see its high walls, ghostlike and unsubstantial. As he watched, the lights there came on and its long hidden flank assumed dimensions of warmth and reality.

It was seven minutes past ten. This was the fourth occasion on which he had seen the lights come on soon after ten. On three of them he had been alone on the hillside. To-night
confirmed
the pattern. Presumably van Biljon visited the gallery each night after dinner at a few minutes past ten. On the other occasions the lights had been switched off at about eleven-thirty. If that happened to-night the pattern would be complete.

He closed the window and, as a precaution, set the alarm on his wristwatch to eleven. He did not intend to sleep but lay on his bed, his mind numbed by problems. Because he was tired he was depressed, and the problems seemed enormously magnified.

He wondered if Manuela in the room across the passage was able to sleep. The more he thought about her the more confused he became, everything in him that was instinctive wanting her, everything that was rational rejecting her:
Kyriakou.
Drugs.
Tino
Costa.
Ahmed
ben
Hassan.
George
Madden.

A discussion he’d had with her in the woods that day moved across his mind like a teleprinter tape. She’d been chiding him about his drinking.

‘You drug, don’t you?’ He’d said it good naturedly, smiling, and she’d not been annoyed.

‘Yes. If you mean hash and LSD.’

‘Do you use them often?’

‘Sometimes,’ she said, and he wondered if the ambiguity were intentional.

‘Why?’

‘Same reason that you drink. For kicks.’

‘What about your health?’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘They do less harm than alcohol.’

‘That’s a phoney argument.’

‘It’s not, you know.’

He shook his head. ‘Every addict hooked on heroin or cocaine started on so-called soft drugs.’

‘So what?’

‘You’ll become an addict.’

She looked past him with misty unseeing eyes. ‘Maybe. Just like maybe you’ll become an alcoholic.’

Outside the window there was a flash of lightning and his recollection of the conversation faltered, the thought sequences became irrelevant, and he fell asleep to the howling of wind and the rumble of thunder.

Uneasy sleep ended in the old nightmare:
pursuit
in
a
dark
forest,
behind
him
the
distant
barking
of
dogs
and
gun
shots.
He
fell
into
a
hole
almost
covered
with
bracken,
dank
and
wet,
and
waited,
shivering
with
terror.
Soon
the
sound
of
men
running
and
the
hunting
howl
of
dogs,
the
pitch
rising
as
they
approached,
then
fading
into
the
distance.

He woke up wet with sweat, long remembered fear gripping him. He realised that the howl of the wind and the rattling of the windows had induced the dream. It was ten minutes to eleven. He switched off the wristwatch alarm and pulled aside the window curtain. The rain had stopped but the wind had become a gale and the house shook to its gusts. The gallery lights were still on, but van Biljon’s bedroom suite and study were in darkness.

In a flash of lightning he saw for the first time that a steel ladder led from the patio to the roof of the west wing. As in all Ibizencan
fincas
, the flat-topped roofs were used for collecting rainwater. The ladder would be for access to the roof to clean the catchment area. He opened the window wider and leant out to examine the wall of the east wing, where his room was. There, ten feet to his right, was a replica of the ladder opposite.

Once on the roof of the east wing he would be able to see into the gallery; not only that, he would be able to see into van Biljon’s bedroom.

For a few minutes he weighed the risks against the
advantages
. In other circumstances the risks would have been too great, but to-night there was a gale blowing, it was intensely dark, and there were intermittent squalls of rain.

He took off everything but his vest and underpants, unrolled the dark Pakamac from his fishing bag, put it on and sat
barefooted
, waiting. The rain came not long afterwards in fierce driving squalls, and he opened the window. Standing on the sill, he faced the wall and reached upwards until his fingers
grasped the plaster rim of the roof, raised a few inches to contain the rain. His fingers searched for the roughness of cement between the terra-cotta tiles and finding it he tested his hold, increasing the load on his arms until he found he could support the weight of his body. He knew he would have some six feet to travel before he could put out his left hand and grip the steel ladder. But the short journey took several minutes and during it there were flashes of lightning which turned night into day and inflicted on him agonies of
apprehension
.

At last he reached the ladder, pulled himself on to it and clawed his way to the roof. Lying flat, he rolled inwards so that he could not been seen from the patio.

Slowly, on hands and knees, he worked his way along the roof until he was opposite the centre of the gallery. Then he lay on his stomach and inched towards the edge of the roof until he could look into the gallery. He found he could see through three different windows, but because of the height at which they were set in the wall his view began about five feet from the gallery floor. He saw the tops of two inner walls or screens, six feet or so high, and of the far wall, and tantalising views of the tops of pictures. Twice he saw van Biljon’s head moving between the screens. He soon realised that the risks he was taking were not being justified, and he inched back towards the centre of the roof. The rain squall had passed, he was wet and cold and his teeth chattered. But he could not begin the return journey until the rain came again. From where he lay he could see the light reflected from the gallery windows. In a few minutes it would be eleven-thirty. If there was a fixed routine, the gallery lights would go off at that time. The minutes ticked away and then when the luminous dial of his watch showed eleven thirty-five, the glow of the lights went. Not bad, he thought.

Not long afterwards the rain came and he began the return journey. When he reached the head of the ladder, he lay watching van Biljon’s bedroom windows. Presently the lights there went on and he saw van Biljon come into the room. But the old man drew dark curtains across the windows, and Black realised he’d seen all he was going to see. Not that he’d really expected any return, but it was always worth trying.

It was blowing and raining hard and he was soaked, water streaming down his face, his eyes and mouth full of it, his
hair and beard holding it like flooded sponges. He lay facing the ladder, working his feet and body round to the left in a wide arc to bring them parallel with the rim. As his knees reached it he felt an obstruction and stopped. But it was too late. The loose tile crashed on to the patio below and
immediately
a dog began barking, the noise multiplying as others took up the alarm. With his nerves jangling, he rolled
backwards
, away from the edge of the roof, and waited. Almost at once arc lights came on around the house, evidently operated by one switch. He muttered, ‘Christ! Bloody
son
et
lumière,’
and the observation steadied his nerves.

Above the noise of the storm he heard a man shout. There came an answering cry and the sound of running feet in the patio. The tension became traumatic as the beam of a torch reached into the sky opposite where he lay. There were more footsteps and men’s voices, then, after numbing moments, the beam of light disappeared. The noise of the wind was too great to make out what was said, but he heard the Spanish words
te
ja
—tile—and
tormenta
—storm. The dogs stopped barking, the lights went out, and the footsteps receded. Shivering with cold and apprehension, Black waited for some time before continuing the return journey. When at last he reached his room he hung the wet Pakamac over the basin, wrang out his underclothes and put them on the steam radiator. He bathed aching fingers in water as hot as he could bear, then rubbed himself down with a towel and climbed into bed. He had learnt a number of things, but he doubted if Kagan would have approved. Just as he wouldn’t have approved of what was being done about Hassan.

Sleep came to him while he was thinking about Kagan, envying the man his hard professionalism, and ruthless
detachment
, and wishing that he could be more like him and less like himself.

He was woken by a knock on the door. It was the housekeeper with rolls and coffee. ‘My husband will be back at nine o’clock. He will drive you and Señorita Valez into San José. Please be ready.’ Her manner was brisk and businesslike. Then came the sound of the iron gates being closed and locked on the landing. It was eight-fifteen.

Not taking any chances, are they, he thought. But at least her demeanour hadn’t suggested that the fallen tile was his
doing. He drew the curtains and looked at the weather. The rain had stopped, the wind had fallen and there were patches of blue sky.

Soon after nine, he heard the sound of a car. Not long afterwards there came a peremptory knock. It was the
housekeeper
. ‘The car is waiting, señor. Please come at once.’