Hammond Innes - Medusa

When I got back to the table Lloyd Jones had refilled my glass and was sitting with his head in his hands staring fixedly out to sea. He didn’t look up as I sat down. The girl was still balanced on her sailboard, gliding effortlessly in towards the steps. Even then he didn’t see her, while I was thinking how nice it would have been to have had her as a pupil when I was running my sailboard courses. ‘Have you ordered?’ I asked. The mejillones were merely an appetiser.

He shook his head. ‘You know the place. Whatever you advise.’ He didn’t seem to care what he had, his mind far away, lost in his own thoughts.

I ordered zarzuella for us both, and because he didn’t seem inclined to conversation, I began telling him a little about the megalithic remains and the hypostilic chamber Petra Callis was excavating by the fallen dolmen on Bloody Island.

The food arrived almost immediately, and because zarzuella is roughly a stew of mixed fish in a piquant sauce, we were too busy dealing with the bones to do much talking. He wasn’t interested in Bronze Age remains anyway, and as soon as he had finished he pushed his plate aside and spread the chart out again. He thought he would have a look at the other side of the island after lunch. Somebody had told him about the Xorai caves above Cala en Porter.

‘They’re strictly for the tourists,’ I told him. ‘Anyway, they’re not open at this time of year. If you want to see caves, you’d much better look into Cales Coves.’ And because the track down to the first inlet isn’t easy to find I gave him instructions how to get there.

He thought about that, concentrating on the chart. And then suddenly he asked me which of all the inlets on Menorca I would choose if I had to land something secretly from a boat, something to be delivered to Mahon.

It was so unexpected that I stared at him, wondering what the hell he had in mind. ‘Are we talking about contraband?’

He hesitated. ‘Yes, I suppose we are.’ And he added, ‘If you were going to land something secretly — ’ His eyes were looking directly at me then. ‘You ever run anything like that?’

I didn’t say anything, suddenly wary. It was a long time ago, before I was married.

‘If you had, I mean,’ he said quickly, ‘where would you have landed the stuff?’ The tone of his voice had sharpened, so that it crossed my mind he could be a customs man attached to Interpol or something like that, his manner so abruptly changed to one of alertness, those grey eyes of his catching the sun again as hard as glass as they stared into mine. ‘Well, where? I need to know.’

‘Why?’

‘That man you saw at Es Grau-’ He stopped there. ‘Well, where would you land it?’

By then I’d decided this was getting a little dangerous and I kept my mouth shut.

‘I’m talking hypothetically, of course,’ he went on. ‘Let’s say it’s TV sets, something like that — something fairly heavy, fairly bulky … What about Cales Coves? You mentioned cave dwellings.’

I shook my head. ‘Those caves are in the cliffs, at least all those that look directly out on to the water, so you’d have to haul everything up. And then you wouldn’t be able to get the stuff ashore — I don’t think any of them have a landward entrance. They’re just holes in the cliff face or up in the sides of the ravine that leads down into the twin coves.’

‘So where would you land it?’

He went on questioning me like that, claiming it was all hypothetical and the motivation nothing but his curiosity. At least it made for conversation. He no longer sat in silence brooding over whatever it was that filled his mind, and as he questioned me about the sparsely inhabited north coast to the west of Fornells, he made entries on the chart against each of the coves I mentioned, his writing small and very neat. In the end he shook his head, it would have to be closer to Mahon, wouldn’t it — a short drive on a good road.’ His pen shifted eastward across the great headland opposite where we were sitting. ‘What about Arenal d’en Castell?’ And when I told him it was overlooked by three large hotels, he asked about the two big bays south of Faváritx.

‘Too rocky,’ I told him. ‘But Addaia — you go in there, almost to the end, and there’s a new quay not yet finished, the place still quite wild and more or less deserted.’

‘Not overlooked?’

‘Two or three fishermen’s houses converted to summer homes, that’s all.’

‘I don’t see any quay shown on the chart.’ I marked the position of it for him and he stared at it, finally nodding his head. ‘I’ll have a look at that after I’ve seen those cliff caves.’ He called for the bill and got to his feet. ‘That boat of yours. Has it got an echo-sounder?’

‘Of course. VHF, too, a big chart table, bunks for six …’

‘How much if I want to charter it — for a day, say?’

I told him it depended whether it was a bareboat charter or fully stocked and crewed.

‘Just you and me.’ And then he seemed to change his mind. ‘Forget it. Just an idea.’ He settled the bill, insisting I was his guest, and on the spur of the moment, as we were walking to the cars, I asked him whether he would care to join us at the Red Cross party that evening. ‘It’s run by a Menorquin friend of ours, Manuela Renato,’ I told him. ‘Usually it’s at a dance hall and restaurant beyond Villa Carlos, but this year she’s organised it in the Quarries just above where we live. Should be quite fun — barbecue, bonfire, dancing, fireworks, all in a huge great rock chamber that looks like something hacked out for the tomb of a pharaoh.’

Why I should have asked him, God knows. Curiosity, I suppose. The man was under pressure, I could see it in his eyes, something hanging over him. And the photograph. I tried to recall the scene in that bar, but Soo and I had been discussing the villa we had just looked over, and it was only when the three of them were putting on their coats and going out into the rain that I really took any notice of them.

We had reached my car and I stood there waiting for his answer, trying to figure out from the hard jut of his chin, the shape of that short neck and the solid head, the lines at the corners of eyes and mouth, what sort of a man he really was. What did he do for a living? Above all, why was he here?

‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll come.’ He didn’t thank me, his acceptance almost grudging, as though he felt he shouldn’t be wasting his time on such frivolities.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘That’s settled then. Eight-thirty at our place.’ And I got into my car, never dreaming that my casual invitation would be the catalyst to something that would get completely out of hand.

He wasn’t looking at me as I backed away from the water’s edge and drove off. He had turned his head towards the harbour entrance again and was standing there, quite still, staring towards the horizon with an intensity that left me with the odd feeling that he was expecting some visitation from the sea.

The road from Fornells enters the outskirts of Mahon at the opposite end to where we live, and instead of heading straight along the waterfront, past the Aduana , the Customs House, and the commercial wharf, I turned left and drove out on to the naval quay where the boats we had laid up out of the water were parked. I drove straight up to the elderly Hillyard we were working on and called up to Carp. The Danish owner, who had picked the boat up cheap in Palma the previous autumn, had phoned me just before Christmas and I had promised to have it ready in time for him to leave for a family cruise in the Greek islands at Easter. We had left it a little late, particularly as there was a new engine to be installed.