Medusa

‘I can’t be certain,’ I said, ‘but he looked very much like a man I had surprised paint-spraying a slogan on the living-room wall of a villa we look after.’ I started to explain how I’d only caught a glimpse of him, but he interrupted me.

‘Where was this? Where’s the villa he daubed?’

‘Between Binicalaf and Binicalaf Nou.’

‘Those names mean nothing to me.’ He opened the chart out. ‘Could you show me please.’ I pointed to the position of the villa and he said, ‘That’s on the south side of the island, the opposite coast to Macaret. There’s an inlet there.’ He turned the map sideways so that he could read the name. ‘Cales Coves. Do you know it?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I’ve sailed in there quite a few times. There are two inlets in fact, that’s why Cales is plural. Coves refers to the caves.’

‘I suppose you know just about all the inlets round Menorca.’

‘Well, not quite all. There are over a hundred and fifty of them and not all are suitable for a deep-draught boat.’ He enquired what sort of boat I had and when I said it was an old fishing boat, he asked me whether I hired it out to visitors.

‘In the summer, yes,’ I told him. ‘The Santa Maria is not the ideal craft for charter work, but the sort of yacht I need to make that part of the business pay calls for far more money than we can afford. It’s a risky game, a lot of competition.’ He seemed more relaxed now, as though he had got used to the idea that the man he was trying to catch up with had been seen on the island. More mussels arrived and another carafe of wine, and he began asking me about other inlets to the south, particularly those closest to Mahon. Except for St Esteve he had only looked at the inlets to the north.

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Two days.’

The first day he had spent taking over his hire car and having a look at the peninsula that forms the northern arm of Port Mahon, the land that provided the view from our office window.

‘What about the megalithic remains,’ I asked him — ‘the taulas, talayots and navetas?’

But he hadn’t seen any of that, and I don’t think he took it in when I told him the whole of Menorca was more or less an open-air archaeological museum. All he wanted me to talk about was the little ports and coves. For a man who hadn’t got a boat, and who wasn’t involved in sailing, it struck me as odd. I got to my feet, telling him I was going to phone my wife. ‘I’ll join you for lunch if I may, it’s too late to go back home.’

When I got through to Soo she said she had Petra with her. ‘She’s waiting for the boat, and, Mike — she wants to take you into a cave over by Cales Coves.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Lennie told me. Said she was very excited about something. Has she told you what it is?’

‘No. She can’t explain it, you’ve got to see it, she says.’

I offered to return to Binicalaf and meet her there after lunch, but she said Petra had to get back to camp to get herself organised for the evening. ‘You haven’t forgotten we asked her to the Red Cross do tonight, have you?’ There was the sound of muffled voices, then Soo added, ‘She says she’ll try and explain it to us this evening.’ And then she was asking me about my meeting with Miguel.

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.