Medusa

I gave him a brief account of what had been said, without referring to the vicious way Evans had tried to needle us both. But it wasn’t Wade who had briefed him. It was somebody local, or else one of the officers, Mault probably, had leapt to conclusions, for he didn’t wait for me to finish before saying, ‘I’m afraid I must now ask a delicate and very personal question. I am sure you will understand why it is absolutely essential you give me a frank answer. What was the exact nature of the relationship between Lieutenant Commander Lloyd Jones and your wife?’

‘I don’t follow you,’ I said.

‘I think you do.’

‘Are you suggesting there was something wrong with the relationship? They met for the first time at that Red Cross barbecue. I told you that. Within a fortnight Gareth Lloyd Jones left for Gibraltar to take command of this ship. If you’re suggesting what I think you are, then they knew each other for much too short a time.’

He looked at me quizzically. ‘No offence, Mr Steele, but it doesn’t take long, and it would explain, you see, why Evans would think that by seizing hold of your wife and threatening her life-’

‘That’s enough,’ I said, pushing back my chair and getting to my feet. ‘You’ve no right to make allegations like that on hearsay.’ I don’t know why, but I was angry, for Gareth as well as Soo. I felt he had been through quite enough without having this thrown in his face. And why should Soo’s name be dragged into it, just because they were both human and had reacted quite spontaneously to something they couldn’t help?

Standing there, I told Wheatcroft what I thought of him. ‘You post a man to the command of a ship that’s half volunteers, half throw-outs, tell him to do the impossible, and then when he does it, you come here chairing an enquiry that will send him to court martial, and you have the effrontery to suggest, as a means of destroying him, that he was having an affair with my wife.’

He smiled, oddly enough quite a warm smile. ‘You say he wasn’t having an affair, that there is no truth — ’

‘Of course I do.’ And I added, ‘I would hardly have gone on board his ship in Malta if I had suspected anything like that, would I?’ I made it a question in the hope that he would believe me.

‘So, if there was a court martial, you would categorically deny that there was any truth in the allegation?’

‘Certainly.’

‘You would be under oath remember.’

I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to say any more.

‘And that suggestion was never made by Evans when he was alone here with the two of you trying to persuade Lloyd Jones to leave Mahon?’

‘It was made,’ I said. ‘As a try-on. Having grabbed my wife, he was probing on the off-chance he could use her more effectively.’

‘And it didn’t work?’

‘No.’

‘It had no connection with the subsequent grounding?’

‘Why should it if it wasn’t true? In any case, Gareth — ’ and I used his Christian name then for the first time — ‘was fixing it so that there was no way they could get him to leave port. Soo didn’t come into it.’

‘And your testimony as regards that will stand at the court martial?’

‘If he’s court-martialled, and I’m called to give evidence, then that’s what I shall say.’

He stared at me a moment, then turned to the other two Board members. ‘Any further questions, gentlemen?’ And when they both shook their heads, he smiled and got to his feet. ‘Then that’s all, Mr Steele.’ He held out his hand. ‘Thank you for coming here to give evidence.’ He called to the petty officer waiting outside and ordered him to see me off the ship. Then, turning to me again, he said, ‘I’m hoping to have a little party here on board before I leave. Perhaps you and your wife would care to come — a small return for the trouble we have caused you.’ He looked round at his colleagues. ‘Tomorrow evening, don’t you think?’ They nodded and he said to me, ‘Tomorrow evening then, six o’clock say. The launch will pick you up shortly before.’

It cannot be every day that the Chairman of a Board of Enquiry gives a party on the afterdeck of the very ship whose grounding he has been enquiring into. But the circumstances were exceptional, and so was Julian Wheatcroft’s behaviour. No sign of the distant severity he had shown as Chairman of the enquiry. Now all the well-educated charm of the man was back in place as he greeted his guests on the flight deck. The borrowed deck pumps had been temporarily stilled, the ship relatively quiet, and it was one of those really lovely Menorcan evenings, the air warm and not a breath of wind.