The White Schooner (13 page)

He had almost given up the search when he saw her at a table under the trees outside Clive’s Bar. Though her back was to him, he knew at once that it was Manuela. There were two men with her, one big and burly with side burns and a full beard, the other slighter, with face fuzz, drooping
whiskers
, long unkempt hair and large gold ear-rings. Both men were dark-eyed and sun-tanned.

Black limped past the table, pretending not to see her, but she called his name and he turned and leant on his stick. ‘Hallo. Thought you were painting.’ He said it sullenly.

‘I was.’ She patted the seat next to her. ‘Come and sit down.’

The young men shuffled in their chairs, not looking
particularly
pleased. Manuela inclined her head towards them. ‘Do you know each other?’

They looked glum and shook their heads.

‘Charles,’ she said. ‘Meet Helmut and Francois.’

The men grunted at each other, a waiter came up and Black ordered a beer.

Characteristically, she tilted her head on one side. ‘How’s the ankle?’

‘Better, thanks.’

‘I see you are using a stick.’

‘It helps.’

She explained to the others how Black had injured his ankle.

Helmut’s eyebrows arched. ‘What were you doing on the hills?’

‘Bird watching.’ Black yawned.

‘
Bird
watching
.’ Francois’ tone was a mixture of surprise and condescension.

Helmut turned to Manuela. ‘Were you also there?’

‘Yes. We had a marvellous day.’ She laughed mischievously. ‘And night.’

Helmut said. ‘So. You sleep in the hills?’

‘Kind of,’ she said. ‘As guests in a beautiful house.’

‘So,’ Helmut, nodding gravely, stroked his beard.

Manuela avoided Black’s frosty stare. ‘I met them last night. Kirry introduced us. They have a marvellous boat, Charles. Over there.’ She pointed down the harbour.

‘A schooner,’ corrected Helmut stolidly.

‘What’s her name?’

‘
Snow
goose
.’

‘I’ve seen her. Not bad.’ Black’s lack of enthusiasm was a calculated snub.

Over the drinks he asked them what they were doing in Ibiza, his manner making it clear that he couldn’t really care less. After they had told him, they expressed equally
unenthusiastic
interest in his activities. He was non-committal. Manuela stepped in and explained that he was a journalist, an art critic. Their shrugged shoulders and raised eyebrows seemed to indicate how little they thought of these
occupations
. A few minutes later they made their apologies and left.

Black watched them cross the street and make for the quay where the inter-island schooners lay. ‘You’ve been elusive lately.’

‘Have I?’ she said.

‘You couldn’t see me, but you’ve had time for Kyriakou and those cretins.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

‘They’re not cretins. They’re nice. I met them by accident. And my date with Kirry was made ages ago.’

Gloomily he sat watching the beer bubbles effervescing, forming at the bottom of the glass, expanding, then rising hopefully through the amber liquid to explode into
nothingness
when they reached the surface. Like this thing if I fail, he thought.

Manuela sat watching him, her elbows on the table, cheeks resting on clenched fists. ‘What did you think of Helmut and Francois?’

‘I didn’t think.’

‘Not very co-operative to-day, are we?’ She tried again. ‘Fabulous jobs some people get. Fancy going round the islands in that lovely boat. Interesting creative work with fat royalties sticking out at the end.’

Black yawned again, more noisily this time. ‘Possibly. I don’t believe the story of a publisher’s commission. Much more likely to be rich daddies at home footing the bill. A book at the end of it,
maybe, perhaps
. You know.’

‘You were unpleasant to them, Charles.’ Her eyes reproved him. ‘Your trouble is that you’re madly envious. You must have had an unhappy childhood. It’s your nastiest
characteristic
. Otherwise you are a darling man.’

‘I did,’ said Black.

‘Did what?’

‘Have an unhappy childhood.’

‘Tell me.’

‘It isn’t for discussion.’

Manuela worked hard on his mood and slowly he responded. They discussed the night at Altomonte and laughed about it. She said how much she’d enjoyed the climb in the hills, what a strange person van Biljon was, and what a lovely house he had. Once again Black complained about having been so close to the pictures without having seen them, but she got him off the subject.

Later they went over to La Solera and sat in the warm sun and ate
tapas
:
chipirones
, the baby squids, and
angulas,
and
sobrasadas
and black olives. Black drank half a bottle of the bar’s speciality, a dry aromatic
fino,
and she had her inevitable orange juice. His mood improved steadily with the food and wine, and with her sympathy and affection which he so much needed.

He looked at her over his wine glass. ‘Doing anything to-night?’

‘’Fraid so.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Kyriakou.’

His mouth set in a hard line. ‘For Christ’s sake! You live in his pocket.’

She shook her head. ‘I knew him long before you, Charles. And I don’t live in his pocket.’

‘Why d’you go round with a bloody gangster?’

‘He’s not a gangster.’ She leant forward, her manner
suddenly
changed. ‘Look, Charles. Either you accept things as they are or you’d better not see me again. It’s up to you.’

Every fibre of him wanted to tell her to go to hell and take the bloody Greek with her, but he was not going to give way to his emotions. She’d been invaluable once before. She might well be so again in the days that lay ahead. So he shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Sorry. It’s just that I think you’re wasted on that sort of man.’

‘Let’s not discuss it any more,’ she said incisively.

The waiter came up and Black paid the bill. ‘What about to-morrow?’

She shook her head. ‘No good, Charles. But the next day’s okay.’

‘Right. At the Celler Balear at nine-thirty for dinner. Okay?’

‘Lovely, Charles.’

‘We’ll dance afterwards.’

‘Dance? What about the ankle?’

‘I’d forgotten about that. Anyway we’ll do something.’ He
had
forgotten the ankle. He’d have to watch out. He was getting careless.

She smiled, collecting her things. ‘Don’t move,’ she said. ‘Rest your foot. I’ve got to rush.’ She stood up, touched his cheek with the back of her hand and left him. He shifted to the other side of the table so that he could see her go. She was walking along the
muello
towards the town. Before she turned she looked back and waved, and he raised his hand limply. The futility of it all depressed him. He could no longer pretend she didn’t mean something to him. And not only was that dangerous but it was hopeless. There was no future for them. Even the name she knew him by wasn’t his own. He would
be gone soon. And she? God knows what would happen to her.

When he got back to his room Maria Massa was mopping the stairs. She returned his greeting with a distant nod. He
wondered
what he’d done? The rent was paid. How had he offended?

Still worrying, he went into his room, put the stick and basket on the table and the things he’d bought on the shelves round the small stove at the end of the room. Then he went to the cupboard where he kept his files and stationery.
Everything
was in order, neat and tidy. But he was a man of careful habit and he soon saw that the order was not his. The drawers and the cupboard in which he kept his clothes told the same story. Someone had gone through them. He checked. Nothing was missing. There hadn’t been anything
incriminating
anyway, so he had no fears on that account. But one thing was certain: his room had been searched. It would not be Maria Massa. But she knew who it was. And the reason she didn’t tell him was obvious. It was the police.

The percolator gave a final hiss and bubble, the turbulence subsided, and van Biljon, cigar clenched between his teeth, leant forward, holding the coffee cup beneath the small copper tap, his hand shaking so that the cup trembled on its saucer.

The
Emperor
Concerto
was approaching the end of the first movement, the music swelling, chord upon chord, its grandeur overwhelming thought. He went across to the cabinet and switched off. Silence was essential to the tangle in his mind.

Putting down the coffee cup he leant back in the armchair in a conscious effort to relax, a haze of cigar smoke gathering about his head as he tried to recall what Calvi had said.

Van Biljon had long been on cordial terms with the
Gobernador
Delegado and the Jefe de Comisario, as he was with other senior officials on the island, and he knew he enjoyed their respect. But Capitan Calvi, who had come ostensibly for a donation to the Widows and Orphans Fund of the Guardia Civil, had clearly had something else on his mind. In the course of a long and often inconsequential conversation he had brought up the names of Manuela Valez, Black and Kyriakou. Van Biljon had not met Calvi before: indeed, the thin Spaniard had told him that he had not been on the island long, having served formerly in Madrid. Nor had he arrived unannounced: the Comisario had sent him a note explaining that although Calvi’s mission concerned a matter of small importance, it would be appreciated if van Biljon would see him personally.

When Calvi had asked if he knew Valez and Black—casually it is true and à propos of a remark he himself had made about Ibiza’s attraction for artists and writers—van Biljon had said, ‘I have met her. I do not know him.’

Calvi had looked out of the window and said quietly and without emphasis, ‘I believe they were guests in this house a few nights ago.’

At once van Biljon had explained the circumstances, adding
with some warmth, ‘They are complete strangers to me. I do not have visitors here. I prefer a solitary life.’

The Spaniard had assured van Biljon that he understood perfectly what had occurred, but after some further small talk he had brought up the name of Kyriakou.

‘You do not know him, señor?’

‘I have recently met him,’ said van Biljon guardedly.

Calvi had gone to the window again and looked down over the terraces towards the sea. ‘And he—has he visited
Altomonte
?’

‘Yes,’ said van Biljon. ‘Once, a few days ago.’

‘Oh. Did he, too, come uninvited?’

‘He had expressed a wish to see me. A business matter. I wrote and asked him to call. He was not here long.’

Calvi came back from the window, the cheroot poking from the corner of his mouth at a jaunty angle, curiously out of keeping with the man’s quiet civility. ‘Señor Kyriakou is a rich man,’ he said. ‘He disposes much influence.’

‘So I believe,’ said van Biljon.

Calvi sighed. ‘And you do business together, señor?’

‘I would hardly call it that. I own a house in D’Alt Vila which he wishes to lease.’

Calvi changed the subject then to building activity in Ibiza, the rising demand for tourist accommodation, and the fortunes which land speculators were said to be making.

They discussed the tourist industry, its importance to the island, and the wide range of attractions Ibiza offered.

Calvi expressed the view that more and more yachts would visit the island and that harbour facilities should be expanded to cope with this. In these days of affluence, he said, the number of yachts in the Mediterranean ran into tens of thousands.

‘What Ibiza needs is a marina. Something on a really large scale.’

‘Probably you are right,’ said van Biljon. ‘But I for one do not welcome these developments. For me the attraction of Ibiza lies in what nature and history has provided. The climate, the terrain, the indigenous architecture. Above all the charm and integrity of the Ibizencans. The tourists and the developments they stimulate are to me excrescences. Tourists are parasitic. They leech on the island. I suppose I am selfish and old fashioned.’

Calvi smiled. ‘Do not think we Spaniards like tourists any more than you do, señor. But they represent an industry of immense importance to Spain.’

Van Biljon sighed. ‘I love this little harbour. I do not approve of the reclamations on the Talamanca side. It seems to me that they are making the harbour smaller. If this marina you speak of is built, there is going to be no room to move.’

‘You have a boat I believe, señor?’

The old man nodded. ‘The
Nordwind
. You have seen her?’

‘Yes,’ Calvi said. ‘A fine craft.’

‘You must come out in her one day.’

Calvi bowed. ‘I shall be delighted, señor.’ He paused before adding, ‘There is another fine boat in the harbour.’

‘Indeed?’

Calvi took the cheroot out of his mouth and examined it with a critical eye. ‘The
Snowgoose
.’

Something in the way the Spaniard said it made van Biljon feel that Calvi believed he should have some knowledge of the schooner. This puzzled him.

‘I have seen the
Snowgoose
in harbour,’ he said.

‘You know those on board, possibly?’ Calvi tapped with his fingers on an African drum and its taut resonances vibrated through the room.

‘No. I do not. My servants have told me they are cruising in the Mediterranean. Compiling a guide for yachtsmen. That is all I know.’

‘Where,’ said the Spaniard stroking the hide-bound sides of the drum, ‘does this come from?’

‘From the Congo. It is a Watusi drum.’

‘Have you heard the African drumming?’ Calvi’s voice was wistful.

‘Often,’ said van Biljon. ‘An unforgettable experience. It is as if the soul of Africa were throbbing.’

Soon after that Calvi had left, but his questions had nagged insistently throughout the day. It was not that they had been aggressively directed, nor had Calvi pressed him for answers. But the Spaniard had seemed to be searching for leads in a casual but persistent way.

At no time had he hinted at the reasons for his questions and in the end he’d switched the conversation to the weather and the small talk of the   town.

And now, lying back in the armchair in the gallery, having recalled all that had been said, van Biljon was no wiser. He remained deeply disturbed: the coupling of Kyriakou’s name with those of Manuela Valez and Charles Black, all three recent visitors to Altomonte—a house which did not receive visitors—and the questions about the
Snowgoose
. Van Biljon couldn’t make sense of it, but he was left with the conviction that he’d been the subject of subtle cross-examination. What, he asked himself, lies behind this? What motive drives Calvi? And what is it these other people are up to which interests the police?

It was not in his nature to sit back and let situations develop. Too much was at stake. Resolving to find out more the next day, he left the armchair and began his tour of the gallery, moving slowly, savouring the pictures, knowing that it was for the van Gogh he was making. It would never have
occurred
to him to go straight to it, to vary the route he took, the order in which he viewed the pictures. When he reached it he stood before it, hands in the pockets of his velvet
smoking
jacket, rocking slowly on his feet, the cigar smoke
spiralling
above his head. The self-portrait had a macabre
fascination
. Was it, he often wondered, the self-inflicted mutilation, the bond of masochism? Or was it that van Gogh had been mad? There were times when van Biljon suspected that he himself was mad.

But always the van Gogh evoked another picture: white moonlight on a concrete path, a darkened villa in Bahia Blanca, slits of light edging the drawn blinds; the front door opening into a dark hall, a woman’s voice saying,
‘Pasa,
señor,’
the door closing behind him and lights coming on to reveal a sharp-eyed, big boned woman—Torreta’s nurse/housekeeper, his mistress, some said; the cool white walls of the surgery at the back, the single-bedded ward adjoining it; over all the prophylactic smell of iodoform.

He had spent seven weeks there before going on to Santa Fé. Even now he winced with recollected pain.

And Torreta himself: cold, impassive, compassionless. Above all, as befitted a man whose fees were exorbitant beyond belief, discreet.