I had brought a couple of torches with me, for this was a bilge-and-hidden-cranny search. A rummage, in fact, and however long it took, I had to be sure the ship was clean.
I started on the starb'd hull, cupboards, lockers, drawers, mattresses, then finally the bilges, remembering the one time I had experienced a customs rummage. It was in Juan-les-Pins where I had run for shelter, six officiers de douaneturning the whole ship inside out, body searching myself and my crew. I think they would have liked to beat us up, but I was Morocco-registered, flying the Moroccan flag, and there were political reasons why, having found nothing, they should respect that flag.
It took me a good half-hour to go through that one hull, despite the floor being well supplied with inspection covers, each with a brass ring for ease of lifting. All I found in the bilges was a pair of glasses in a slipcase, some dirty overalls and a couple of bottles of Mistra, a Maltese wine, that looked as though they had been there some time.
The saloon didn't take long. If he had hidden it somewhere it was unlikely he would have chosen such an obvious place, unless of course he was willing to take his time and unscrew the panels housing the electrics. And the port hull was as clean as the other, odds and ends of equipment, a half-empty bottle of Gordon's in the bilges, nothing else, and both engine compartments I could see at a glance were clear.
I returned to the saloon, sat on the helmsman's swivel chair and tried to think what I would have done in his place. He had had the boat for some time, that much had been clear at our meeting. If I had known the boat as well as that, where would I have hidden it? Fuel or freshwater tanks were the obvious places for small packets, but there was no way he could have introduced such a large object into any of the tanks without dismantling them. Sails? But I had checked the sail bags. They were in the bows, in lockers for'ard of the loos on both sides that held chain, anchors, rope, paint. My eyes, roving round the saloon, fastened on the up-ended steps of the port hull, the exposed top of the port diesel engine. Engines! It was always engines that caused trouble.
I went over to it, bending down again and directing my torch below the shock-absorbent bedding bolts and aft along the line of the drive shaft to the propeller, sure that he or his engineer would have known every detail of the compartment. There was an area below the prop shaft that the beam of my torch could not reach. There was nothing for it but to strip down and wriggle in there. I got thoroughly dirty, of course, and it proved to be wasted effort, though the slope of the bilge underneath the shaft was fully long enough and deep enough. I came out of that painful exercise cursing, the room for manoeuvre in that restricted space soi limited that I damn nearly got myself stuck. Nobody, I was certain, would have attempted to hide anything in such an awkward place, not if he were in a hurry.
I stood there, naked except for my pants that were now streaked black with oil. I was staring at the steps down into the starb'd hull that concealed the other engine. And then there was the panelling. I was already scratched and bleeding in a couple of places, but I knew if I didn't check out that other cavity I would never be really certain. I lifted the steps. The compartment was exactly the same as the other, just room for me to wriggle my way headfirst between the outboard side of the hull and the cold metal of the engine. The torch was dimming, but rather than go back for the other, I squirmed further in, feeling down below the shaft with my outstretched hand.
That's how I found it — a hard, chunky package wrapped in plastic.
It took some ingenuity and some juggling to extract it from the confined space, working my way backwards at the same time. But when I was finally out, standing in the sunlight streaming through the saloon windows, and the thing in my hand, there was no doubt what it was. The only question was the type and where it had come from.
I turned quickly to the open cockpit door, feeling suddenly furtive as I slammed it shut and bolted it. Christ almighty! If somebody saw me holding this… My hands were trembling as I unwrapped the package. It had been zipped into one of those plastic travelling cases for suits, rolled into a tight bundle, then taped. I had to get a carving knife from the galley to rip it open.
By then I hadn't much doubt, the shape of the telescope and the folding butt apparent through the stiff red plastic. It was that most common of guns, a 7.62 mm Kalashnikov. But not the ordinary assault rifle. What I unwrapped from the plastic was the sniper's version of the AK-47. In addition to telescopic sights it had a double strut folding metal butt. The struts were in the folded position. Automatically, almost without thinking, I unfolded them, bringing the rifle to my shoulder and sighting through the for'ard window of the saloon at a gull on a mooring buoy out by the naval jetty. It felt snug and workmanlike, and I could imagine how it had been to the killer, the back of forge's head there in the magnified field of vision, dead-centred on the cross wires.
I glanced at the maker's stamp on the side of it, Czechoslovakian, not Russian. Then I checked the firing mechanism. The safety catch was on and it was set at single shot. I sniffed the muzzle. It still smelt faintly of gun smoke, so did the inside of the plastic, and when I took the magazine off I found one round was missing.
My worst fears confirmed I stood there in a sort of daze, appalled at the evil of the man. To kill for political reasons, yes, maybe that could be justified by somebody deeply committed to a cause — that was a matter between him and whatever god he accepted. But Evans could have no possible commitment to a Menorquin, or even a Spanish political faction. To kill in cold blood as a mercenary, and then to plant the weapon on somebody else, on a man he didn't know, had only just met…!
I felt the chill of it in my guts. Man might be a rogue species; Petra certainly thought so and had discussed it with me in one of her more serious moments. But this — this was quite abnormal, quite outside of my experience. Once, and once only, I had undertaken an arms run. Explosives, detonators, some land mines, Kalashnikovs and Birettas — we had landed them in a deserted cove just south of Finisterre, handing the whole cargo over to Basque separatists. At least the Eta boys who took delivery had had a cause. But this…
I sat down in one of the chairs that stood by the saloon table, wondering what to do now. Go to the Guardia?Tell the plain-clothes detectives of the national police who had been put on to the case? But I could see the expression of disbelief on the face of the Inspector Jefe.I had met him once, a small, very dark man with eyes too close together and a sharp, suspicious face.'They would be looking for somebody they could pin the atrocity on and I had a feeling I would do just as well as anyone else, so long as it was a foreigner and local politics not involved. The fact that I had been standing beside Martinez didn't mean I couldn't have organised the whole thing. And now, with the killer's weapon in my hand, what the hell was I to do with it? Dump it at sea, I suppose. Take it out in the dinghy and dump it, somewhere out beyond Bloody Island, and hope nobody would have their binoculars trained on me at the time.
Carp arrived just as I put the kettle on. I heard his motor bike splutter to a stop on the quay and I called out to him to ask if he would like a cup of tea. By then I had cleaned myself up and dressed, everything more or less normal, except for the rolled-up bedding on the settle by the cockpit door. I told him I had spilled some oil on it and was taking it ashore to be cleaned.
He wasn't surprised to find me on board at that hour. The boat was due to leave for Malta in a few days' time and everything was in the last-minute-rush stage. We sat around for ten minutes or so, drinking our tea and talking over all the things that still had to be done.