Hammond Innes - Medusa

‘I didn’t know I was buying it then.’

‘And now you are?’ Again the question in his voice, the dark eyes watching me, his broad forehead creased in a frown.

‘Let’s have a look at it,’ I said again. ‘Starting at the top.’

He shrugged, motioning me to go ahead of him. The scaffolding shook as we climbed to the first storey, the heat-dried wooden poles lashed with ropes. Everything — boards, scaffolding, ladders — was coated with a dusting of cement that only half-concealed the age-old layers of splashed paint. A younger brother, Antoni, and a cousin whose name I could not remember, were rendering the southern face of the building.

‘It will be a very beautiful villa,’ Miguel said tentatively. ‘When we have finished it, you will see, it will look — pretty good, eh?’ He prided himself on his English.

We climbed to the top, and he stood there looking about him. He was one of a family of thirteen. Back in Granada his father had a tiny little jewellery shop in one of those alleys behind the Capila Real, mostly second-hand stuff, the window full of watches with paper tags on them. I think his real business was money-lending, the contents of the shop largely personal items that had been pawned. ‘ Buena vista, eh?’ And Miguel added, ‘You can have a garden here. The roof is flat, you see. And the lookout … all that sea.’ His tone had brightened, knowing I was a sailor.

‘There is also a fine view of the water tanks on the top of those bloody hotels at Arenal d’en Castell.’

‘You grow some vines, you never see them.’

‘In tubs and trained over a trellis? Come off it, Miguel. The first puff of wind out of the north …’

He looked away uncomfortably, knowing how exposed the position was. ‘It will be nice and cool in summer. It was good here when we make the foundations.’

We worked our way down to the ground floor, which was almost finished. He was using one of the rooms as an office and we went over the costings. I suggested certain adjustments, chiefly to the lighting, cut out the air-conditioning and one or two other luxuries I considered unnecessary, agreed a price for completion, and we shook hands on it.

There was never any need to have Miguel put anything into writing. His family had been small traders on the banks of the Darro and in the Plaza Bib-Rambla for generations. I had first met him when he was filling in as a guide to the Alhambra Palace and the Generalife. Then a few days later I had found him working on repairs to a building near his home, which was in the Cuesta Yesqueros, a stepped alley running steeply up the hillside opposite the old Puerta Monaita. I was staying at the Alhambra Palace Hotel at the time, waiting for an Italian to turn up who owed me quite a lot of money, and to this day I have no idea whether I was the cause of Miguel shifting to Menorca or not. He has never mentioned it, but I think it highly probable.

‘Who was it made you the offer my wife agreed to match?’ I asked him as he accompanied me back to the car. ‘Or did you make that up?’

‘No, of course I don’t make up.’ He glared at me angrily. ‘You know me too long to think I play games like that.’

‘Well then, who was it?’

‘Somebody I don’t trust so much.’

I got it out of him in the end. It was Flórez. And then, as I was settling myself behind the wheel, he leaned forward, peering in over my shoulder at the back seat, his eyes narrowed and a frown on his face. ‘A friend of yours?’

I turned to find I had tossed the photograph Lloyd Jones had left with me into the back and it was lying there face-up. ‘You know him, do you?’ I asked.

He shook his head, the frown deepening.

‘It was probably taken some time ago,’ I told him. ‘He may not have a beard now.’

‘No beard, eh?’ I saw the dawn of recognition in his eyes and he nodded. ‘ Si. No barba .’ He looked at me then. ‘Who is, plees?’

‘You’ve seen him, have you?’

He glanced at the picture again, then nodded emphatically.

‘When?’

‘A month ago, maybe more. He come here and look over the work. Says he knows the owner and he want to see the progress we make in the construction of the villa as he is thinking he will make Seóor Wilkins an offer.’

‘Did he say how much he was prepared to offer?’

‘No, he don’t say.’

‘What was his name? Do you remember?’

But he shook his head. He had been into Macaret that day to phone his suppliers and he had come back to find the man standing on the scaffold’s upper staging staring eastward, out towards Faváritx. It was only when he had asked him what he was doing there that the man said anything about making an offer.

‘And he didn’t give his name?’

‘No. I ask him, but he don’t answer me. Instead, he speak of making Seóor Wilkins an offer. I have not seen him since that day.’

He couldn’t tell me anything else and I drove off after confirming that I’d get my lawyer to draw up something we could both sign. A bank of cloud was spreading across the sky, and as I approached the main Mahon-Fornells road the sun went in. The still beauty of the morning was gone and I gave up any thought of sailing. Instead, I headed westward through the pines to Fornells.

Ever since Lloyd Jones had given me the address where he was staying I had been puzzled as to why he had chosen the place. Fornells is a little fishing port almost halfway along the north coast. It has the second largest inlet, five of the best fish restaurants on the island and is the Menorquins’ favourite place for Sunday lunch. Who had told him about it? I wondered. Since he wasn’t staying at a hotel, and had clearly never been to Menorca before, Phil or Wade, somebody, must have told him about the private lodgings where he was staying in the Calle des Moli.

I kept to the main street through Fornells and asked my way of a waiter I knew who was leaning against the door of the restaurant that stands back from the harbour. The Calle des Moli proved to be a narrow little back street leading nowhere, except to the remains of a windmill and a bare hill topped by one of those stone round towers that dominate several of the island’s headlands. The houses were small and stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their doors opening straight on to the street.

I left my car in the Plaza de Pedro M. Cardona. The address he had given me was near the top end, the door standing open and a little girl sitting on the step nursing a rag doll. The woman who answered my knock was big and florid. ‘ El señor Inglés? ’ She shook her head. I had just missed him. He had been out all morning, had returned about half an hour ago and had then gone out again almost immediately, leaving his car parked in the street. She indicated the small red Fiat parked a few doors up.

I glanced at my watch and was surprised to find the morning had gone. It was already past noon and since she said she didn’t provide meals for her visitors, and he had left his car, I presumed he was lunching at one of the restaurants in the port. I asked her how long he had been staying at her house and she said he had arrived the previous afternoon about five-thirty. No, he hadn’t booked in advance. There was no necessity since it was early in the year for visitors.

I produced the photograph then, but she shook her head. She had never seen the man, and she didn’t know how long her visitor would be staying, so I left her and drove back to the harbour where I found him at a table outside the better of the two waterfront restaurants. He was alone, bent over one of the charts I had sold him, which was neatly folded and propped against the carafe of wine in front of him. He looked up quickly at my greeting, then half rose to his feet. I pulled up a chair and sat down, enquiring whether he had had a rewarding morning.