Medusa

'No,' I said.

'Have you asked the police where he is?'

'Why should I? A man out fishing…'

'You think he's fishing?' He didn't wait for an answer. 'So you don't know where he is now or where he's been?'

'No.'

'Well, kindly find out.'

'I'm busy,' I said. 'I have clients…'

'fust find out for me. Understand? I'll ring you tomorrow night.'

I opened my mouth to tell him I wouldn't be in, that there was no point, but instead I heard myself say, 'When?'

'Eighteen hundred hours.'

I started to say I would be out then, but the line went suddenly dead.

I lay back, my eyes closed. Ahmed Bey! Jesus! that was more than ten years back. The Jedida-Marseilles run.

'What did he want?' Soo was propped up on one elbow, her large, dark eyes staring at me. 'Who was he?'

'A client, talking about boats.'

'At this time of night?'

'Go to sleep,' I said. I needed to think.

'He said his name was Commander something or other. Was it about Gareth?'

God almighty! She was still thinking of Lloyd Jones. 'No, of course not.' But I could see she didn't believe me.

'Why did he ring then? It's almost half past one. Was it about this man who persuaded you to part with the villa? You shouldn't have done it, Mike. A lovely villa like that, the Santa Mariatoo, and all you've got for it is that bloody catamaran. What did he say? What did he want?' She was leaning forward, ringers gripped urgently on my arm. 'Is it to do with — what happened today?'

'Yesterday,' I said. Already it was yesterday and Wade in London, the man who had told Lloyd Jones to contact me… No, ordered more likely. Ordered him to check with me in the hope of discovering Evans's whereabouts… Wade was concerned enough about what had happened here in Menorca to ring me in the middle of the night.

'Patrick. That's what Gareth called him.' She let go of my arm, slumping back on the pillow. 'What's he been up to now?'

'Now?' My mind shifted from my talk with Wade to Lloyd Jones sitting across from me at that table on the Fornells waterfront. Had he told her more than he had told me? 'What do you know about Patrick Evans?' She shook her head quickly, her eyes sliding away from me. 'What did he tell you?' I was leaning over, shaking her, but all she did was stare at me blankly. 'Nothing — only that he'd saved his life.'

'I know that. Anything else?'

She hesitated, and then she said, They're related.'

'In what way?'

'Just related, that's all. He was explaining why he was so anxious to find the man. A message, I think it was the man's mother. She had asked Gareth to take a message.'

She didn't know what the message was. She thought it might be something to do with a cottage they owned in a place called Gwenogle. 'I remember the name because it sounded so odd, and yet the way Gareth said it…' She was smiling to herself. 'I think maybe he was born in that little Welsh hill village.'

'Who — Gareth or Patrick Evans?'

'Patrick. They're both of them Welsh, of course.' She reached out and switched off the bedside light. I closed my eyes and in the silent darkness I saw Ahmed Bey's face as I had seen it that last time, the bullets slamming his thickset body backwards into the wake of the Italian boat ranging alongside. That was the last trip. They dumped us in an inflatable, no food, no water, the west coast of Africa more than twenty miles away and all desert when we reached it. We were lucky to get out of it alive.

How the hell did Wade know about that? We'd never been caught by the authorities. Was there some sort of a Hie on me at Naval Intelligence? And then I began thinking about Patrick Evans. There had to be some connection — first Lloyd Jones searching for him with out-of-date pictures, then the man himself, and now Wade.

It was in the very middle of the night, still half awake, my mind drowsily running over the possibilities, my imagination working overtime, that I suddenly had an ugly thought. If Wade knew what I'd been up to as a kid, there might be others, Evans, for instance. In which case…

The feeling was so strong, so frightening, I nearly got up there and then in the middle of the night. I didn't sleep after that, waiting for the dawn, certain now that Evans would have retained a key to the catamaran.

At first light I slid out of bed and dressed in the office across the stairhead. I was just searching my pockets for the car keys when Soo emerged, a pale shadow in her cream nightdress, her face still flushed with sleep. She didn't ask me what I was up to or where I was going. She simply said, 'I'll make you some coffee.'

I could have hugged her then, all the love we'd felt for each other surging back in that moment. She knew. That intuitive sense between those who have shared several years of their lives, the sense that at times is pure telepathy, had communicated my fears to her. She knew where I was going, and why. The terrible thought that was in my mind was in hers.

She brought me my coffee, then stood by the window to drink her own. She didn't say anything. There was no need. The sun shining through the thin nightie limned the dark outline of her body, her face, her breasts, the long legs, all in silhouette. She looked infinitely desirable.

I drank the coffee quickly, urgent to be gone, to set my mind at rest, alternatively to… But the alternative didn't bear thinking about. If a search of the boat confirmed my fear, what would I do about it — where would I take it? Out to sea? Come back with it here and take the dinghy?

I put down the cup and walked over to her. I didn't put my arms round her, and she just lifted her face to me, our kiss without passion, gentle and understanding. After all, we had both been there, we had both heard the crack of the gun, no silencer, had seen the poor devil's face explode in a red mash as he had fallen. 'I may be some time,' I said, and she nodded, still not saying anything, but I knew she would be here, waiting for me when I returned.

CHAPTER FOUR

The sun was just rising as I drove round the end of Cala Figuera and on to the Levante, the harbour water still as glass, not a breath of wind, and as yet hardly anyone about. At the harbour end I turned right, then right again on to the approach road to the naval barracks. The naval quay is a large open space used occasionally as a parade ground. Yachts are allowed to be lifted out and laid up there, and there was still quite a line of them not yet in the water. The cat was lying stern-on just next to an old wooden yawl, the paint of her starb'd hull a-glint with the sun's reflected light as the wash of a harbour tug brought ripples slapping against the concrete walls. Beyond her, the city shone red and warm against a blue sky.

The tug hooted as I jumped on board. Aft, by the wheel with its swivel chair, I stood for a moment looking the vessel over, trying to sense whether anybody had been on board during the night. No footmarks and the lock on the saloon door had not been tampered with. But that didn't mean anything. He had given me two ignition keys, but only one for the saloon door. Some fool had dropped the other overboard, he had said.

I must have stood there for several minutes, thinking it over, trying to put myself in his shoes. But then the trouble was I was jumping to too many conclusions, and in the end I said to hell with it, opened the boat up and went below into that big saloon with its repeat bank of instruments, large chart area and semi-circular banquette behind the table on the port side. There were some overalls bundled up on the ledge below the low sweep of windows. They hadn't been there last time I had been on board, nor the long-peaked cap. That would be Carp's, probably the overalls, too. There was a cardboard box full of paint tins and brushes, and the steps to the left that normally led down into the port hull had been folded back so that he could get at the engine. A steel tool box stood open on the floor nearby.