Medusa

But his mind had switched to something else. ‘Pinched my boat.’ He slopped the brandy into the glass, the bottle clinking on the rim, then slumped into a chair. ‘Left it at the Club pontoon, only gone an hour — well, mebbe two. Bloody bastards!’ His eyes focused on me with difficulty. ‘What was that you asked? Oh yes. Didn’t cotton on, the fools — all that bombing. Two nights ago. An’ next day, orders of the Military Governor over in Palma they say, all them raw young conscripts spread around the island to protect the urbanizacións and foreign property. Clever! Did the job, yer see. One night’s bombing and it got them La Mola. Hardly any military left in the barracks there.’ And he added after a moment’s thought, ‘But there’s talk of some regulars over to Ciudadela that could act as a rally — a rallying point. Talk, talk, talk … In one bar — yer know, the one by the commercial quay — there was a trucker came in said he’d seen military vehicles moving towards Alayor, told us Fuxá wouldn’t be able to hold the airport for long. Then some silly bastard starts talking about the Russians. Snow on their boots!’ He snickered. ‘That was a long time ago.’ His voice trailed away, the hiss of the pressure lamp making him sleepy. ‘Didn’t think it through,’ he said again. ‘All part of the plan an’ they fell for it. Clever!’ His head was lolling. ‘An’ now that Navy ship, boxed in with a Libby bloody freighter sitting on ‘er tail.’

He didn’t seem to have anything more to tell me, so I asked him why he had slipped away from the petty officers’ mess that morning. ‘You left me stranded.’

He nodded, mumbling something about, ‘It’s all right for you’.

‘You should have checked the chandlery, had a word with my wife and made certain Petra was all right.’ His head was sinking into his arms. I reached out across the table and shook him. ‘It wasn’t the Australian Navy you deserted from, was it? It was the Royal Navy.’

‘Wot if it was?’

‘And that’s why you got pissed.’

‘Well, wouldn’t you, mate?’ There was a note of belligerence in his voice now. ‘I do’n want ter think back to them days. And those petty officers — Chris’sakes! They could’ve picked me up jus’ like that.’

I told him he was a bloody fool. All those years ago … But he was fast asleep, his head fallen sideways on to his arm. I finished my meal, then put what clothes I had on, turned the pressure lamp off and went down to the landing point. It was a plastic dinghy, and though he had been drunk, he had still hauled it out on to the rocks, stowed the oars neatly and made fast the painter.

The water looked inky black as I floated it off and stepped in, Mahon a blaze of light as though nothing had happened and it was just a normal evening. Fortunately there was no wind, for the boat was no better than a plastic skimming dish. Clear of Bloody Island the brightly lit shape of the frigate blazed like a jewel, the tug and the freighter in black silhouette, the tanker barely visible and no sign of the launches. I made straight for Cala Figuera and our own quay. My car was there, but nothing else, no sign of Petra’s Beetle. No lights on in the windows of the house either and when I crossed the road I found the door to the chandlery standing half-open.

I think I knew by then there was nobody there. I called, but there was no answer, the only sound a sort of scratching as though a net curtain was flapping in the breeze from an open window. It came from above and as I climbed the stairs I had an unpleasant feeling there was something in the house, something alive.

I reached the landing and stopped. The scratching sound came from the bedroom, and suddenly I knew. The dog! ‘All right, Benjie.’ The poor little beast couldn’t bark and as I pushed open the door I could smell it, a mixture of urine and excreta. He flung himself at me, making that extraordinary singing noise in the head. I switched on the light. He was shivering uncontrollably. Apart from the messes and the smell, the bedroom looked much as usual. I got a bowl of water from the kitchen and he drank it straight off, lapping with desperate urgency. Clearly he had been shut in that room for some considerable time and Soo would never have done that. She doted on the animal.

I went through into the front room then, and as soon as I switched on the light my heart sank — a chair tipped over, Soo’s typewriter on the floor, its cable ripped out as though somebody had tripped over it, a jug of flowers lying in a litter of papers, a damp patch on the Bokhara rug and an occasional table on its side with one leg smashed. There had been a struggle and I stood, staring helplessly at the evidence of it, asking myself why — why for God’s sake should anybody want to attack Soo, and what had they done with her?