Medusa

‘Yes, owns a yacht called Fizzabout. If I could have a word with you …’ His voice trailed away.

‘All right, I’ll come down.’ Two years back I had skippered Fizzabout in the Middle Sea Race and Phil had laid up with us the following winter.

It was dark on the stairs after the sunlight. The bell over the door rang as he entered the chandlery and Soo called out to me from the kitchen to check that I was answering it. Ramán usually looked after this side of the business, but I had sent him over to Binicalaf Nou with the materials for a villa we were repainting. ‘So you’re a friend of Phil’s,’ I said as I reached the trestle table that did service as a counter.

There was a long pause, then he muttered, ‘No, not exactly.’ He was standing just inside the door, his back to the light and his face in shadow. ‘It was Graham Wade suggested I contact you. He and Turner, they both belong to the Cruising Association. Have you met Wade?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Another long pause. ‘No, I thought not.’ And he just stood there as though he didn’t know how to proceed.

‘You wanted some charts,’ I reminded him. ‘The large-scale chart of Port Mahon and Fornells also gives details of the passage between Ibiza and Formentera.’ I knew the details of it because there was a regular demand for that particular sheet. I produced it for him, also Chart 1703 which covers the whole of the Balearics. ‘Where’s your boat?’ I asked him. ‘At the Club Maritimo?’

He shook his head, and when I asked him where he was berthed, he said, ‘I haven’t got a boat.’

‘You on a package tour then?’

‘Not exactly.’ He produced a wad of peseta notes and paid for the charts, but he didn’t leave. ‘Wade said you’d been living here quite a few years. He thought you’d be the best person to contact — to find out about the island.’

‘What do you want to know?’ I was curious then, wondering why he wanted charts when he hadn’t got a boat.

He didn’t give me a direct answer. ‘Your wife, she’s half Maltese, isn’t she?’ He said it awkwardly, and without waiting for a reply stumbled quickly on — ‘I mean, you must know Malta pretty well.’

‘I was born there,’ I told him.

He nodded and I had the feeling he already knew that part of my background.

‘Why? Do you know it?’ I enquired.

‘I’ve just come from there.’ He glanced out of the window, his face catching the light and reminding me suddenly of Michelangelo’s David in Florence, the same straight brows, broad forehead and the wavy, slightly curling hair. It was an attractive face, the classic mould only broken by the lines developing at the corners of mouth and eyes. ‘Grand Harbour,’ he said. ‘It’s not so big as Mahon.’ His voice, still hesitant, had an undercurrent of accent I couldn’t place.

‘No. This is one of the biggest harbours in the Mediterranean. That’s why Nelson was here.’ I still thought he was connected with sailing in some way. ‘It’s not as big as Pylos on the west coast of the Peloponnese, of course, but more sheltered. The best of the lot I’d say.’

His eyes, glancing round the chandlery, returned to me. ‘You’ve done a lot of sailing, have you? I mean, you know the Mediterranean?’

‘Pretty well.’

He didn’t pursue that. ‘Wade said you rented out villas.’

‘Depends when you want to rent. Our main business, apart from boats, is villa maintenance. We only own two villas ourselves and they’re fairly well booked. I’ll get: my wife down if you like. She looks after the renting of them.’

But he was shaking his head. ‘No, sorry — I’m not wanting to rent.’

‘Then what do you want?’ I asked, glancing rather pointedly at the clock on the wall.

‘Nothing. Just the charts.’ I had rolled them up for him and he reached out, but then changed his mind, pushing his hand into his hip pocket and coming up with a photograph. ‘Have you met this man — on the island here?’ He handed me the photograph. It was a full-face picture, head and shoulders, of a big, bearded man wearing a seaman’s peaked cap, a scarf round his neck and what looked like an anorak or some sort of dark jacket.

‘What makes you think I might have met him?’ I asked.

‘Wade thought, if he was here, perhaps he’d have chartered a yacht from you, or he might have come to you about renting a villa.’

‘We haven’t any yachts for charter, only an old converted fishing boat,’ I told him. ‘As for villas, there are thousands here, and a lot of people doing what we do — care and maintenance.’ The man in the photograph looked as though he had seen a lot of life, a very strong face with big teeth showing through the beard, eyes deeply wrinkled at the corners and lines across the forehead. There was something about the eyes. They were wide and staring, so that they seemed to be looking out at the world with hostility. ‘What’s his name?’ I asked.

He didn’t reply for a moment, then he gave a little shrug. ‘Evans. Patrick Evans. Or Jones. Sometimes Jones — it varies. I thought he might be in Malta.’ He shook his head. ‘Wade said if he wasn’t in Malta I’d probably find him here.’