Laurie King - Pirate King - A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

“They have not seen him today,” Pessoa informed us, and walked off down the street.

We repeated the ritual at four more establishments, each smaller and dimmer than the last. Fflytte abandoned any thought of a cocktail after the second version, one sip of which had him coughing and pale. Hale and I, too, gave up on our initial choices and settled for port, which seemed harder to ruin by maltreatment. Pessoa was the only one who polished off his drink each time; the man had a heartier constitution than first appeared.

The fifth bar was so small, even Fflytte looked oversized, and the rest of us ducked our heads like Alice after the growing cake. It was getting on to eleven o’clock; I had not slept a full night since leaving London; I had not eaten a full meal in that same time. I was exhausted and cold and so hungry that the plate of fly-specked objects on a shelf (pies? boiled eggs? bundled stockings, perhaps?) made my mouth water. Hale looked far from hearty. Fflytte’s air of determination had gone a touch grim. Only Pessoa remained undaunted. He looked no more fatigued than he had when I met him on the quay-side half a day earlier.

We ordered the requisite drinks. Pessoa took a swallow and reached for his packet of cigarettes, then addressed the saloonkeep with the question that, following repetition, I could understand. “Have you seen La Rocha?”

Each time before, the query had set off a lengthy back-and-forth of identification: Which La Rocha? The old man with the scar (Pessoa inevitably drew his finger down the left side of his face at this point). The barman (or in one case, – woman) would narrow his (or her) eyes in concentration, at which point a customer (there were never more than three) would speak up from where the bar was supporting him (always a him) and suggest some further characteristic – a quick swipe at the chin to ask if it was the La Rocha with a beard, a pass of the hand over the hat to indicate baldness, once a thumb shoving the nose to indicate a distortion of that protuberance – and Pessoa would generally shake his head and go on with further verbal description of his man.

This time, however, the barman pursed his mouth to indicate understanding, then jerked his chin up to point at a spot behind Pessoa. All four of us swivelled to look: The wall had a hole in it, concealed behind a hanging heap of garments so large and so permanent in appearance, I would not have been surprised to find a Moorish burnoose at its base. When we turned back to thank the man, he was standing with his hand around the neck of a bottle. It was unlike any bottle I had seen that evening – indeed, unlike any I had seen for a very long time.

Dark rum, from Cuba, very old. The vessel had the air of a king before peasants. The way the barman’s hand clasped its shoulders made a clear statement: The rum was the price of being permitted through that door.

I retrieved my note-case. This time Pessoa by-passed the small denominations (the escudo was worth so little, coins had all but disappeared from use) and thumbed a 100 escudo note into view. The bottle retreated a quarter of an inch on the sticky wood; a second such note came up behind the other. A third note edged up before the man’s hand slid the bottle forward and accepted the 300 escudos .

Pessoa reached for the expensive tipple, but my hand intercepted the glass neck first. I thrust the bottle at Fflytte. “I think we’re seeing our man now,” I told the movie mogul. “This appears to be your gift to him for the honour of an audience.”

On the one hand, Randolph Fflytte was not a man to beg an audience, especially in a place like this. However, I was betting that the whole rigmarole would appeal to his dramatic sensibility, and so it proved. He studied the petrified cobwebs for a moment, then hefted the rum and lifted his eyes to Pessoa. “Lead on,” he commanded.

It was something of a relief to see that Fflytte wasn’t idiotic enough to go first through a dark passageway with a pirate at the end of it – even a would-be, fictional pirate. Pessoa did not look quite so phlegmatic. For the first time, it occurred to me that our cicerone perhaps might not know this La Rocha as well as he had given out.

We went through single-file: Pessoa, Fflytte, and me, with Hale bringing up the rear. Only Fflytte could walk straight-spined, and as we approached the end of the brief passageway, the upturned nape of my neck tingled with vulnerability.

However, we stepped into the open room without a scimitar removing any heads from shoulders, then fanned out to examine our surroundings – but in truth, it was only later that the details of the room itself were recalled to mind, its generous proportions in relation to the outer room, the ancient wood and rich colours, three age-dark paintings, and an ornate carved door in the back, glimpsed through a pair of heavy curtains. The room faded into unimportance, compared to the two men it contained.

One stood, although there was an empty chair – an impressive figure, well over six feet tall and hard with muscle despite his grey hair, a man with watchful eyes, weathered skin, and an air of private pleasures. Still, it was the seated man in front of him who instantly caught, and held, our attention.

The old chair in which this man sat became a throne, his royal hands cupping the arm-ends, his enormous, oncered boots planted like trees on the rich carpeting. Seated, his head was below our eye level – even Fflytte’s – but it felt as if he were towering above us on a raised dais.

His eyes were black, his skin was leather, and the grey in his hair was iron rather than age. A gold ring glinted from the shadows beneath his ear. The man had to be in his sixties, although he could as easily have been ten, even twenty years older. He occupied the chair like an ageless crag of rock on which countless ships had gone to their doom.

Fflytte recovered first.

He stepped forward, to set the expensive bottle on the table before the fire. “My name is Randolph Fflytte,” he said. “I’m here to make a movie about piracy.”

He stopped: concise, dignified, and with a sure grasp of the dramatic. Pessoa cleared his throat. “ O Senhor disse -” he began, head inclined as if he were addressing the Pope. Only to be cut short by a dismissive twitch from La Rocha’s fingers.

“I unnerstan’ English,” the man said – or rather, squeaked.

At least three of us felt an urge to giggle at the unlikely sound coming from such an impressive figure, but the urge fled before it entered the room, killed instantly by the shocking sight of the scar that came into view as he shifted. It had been a terrible wound, beginning just in front of his left ear and following his jaw-line to the larynx. It looked as if his head had been detached; the blade must have come within a hair’s breadth of severing any number of vital vessels. That he could speak at all was a miracle.

Even Fflytte gulped in reaction, but again, he recovered first. He walked across to the empty chair, hesitating briefly with his buttocks hovering, a silent request for permission. La Rocha’s eyes gave a slow blink; Fflytte gathered his ridiculous coat around him and sat. Hale took up a position behind the director, forming a mirror image with the pair on the other side of the table. Pessoa and I stayed on either side of the entrance like two eunuchs guarding a harem, the translator clasping his hat in both hands, intent on the seated man.

La Rocha lifted one hand, palm up. The man at his shoulder placed two small glasses in it. He set them down on the table, wrenched the cork from the ancient neck with his brown teeth, and filled both glasses to the brim.

Fflytte picked up his glass, took a swallow, set it down again, and leant forward to gaze into the other man’s face. “I need a pirate,” he stated. “A pirate king. I think you’re my man.”