Medusa

The noise of the sea was loud now, the dishcloths swaying in the wind. I went over to the entrance and leaned out. The cliff was sheer, a drop of about twenty feet or so to a narrow rock ledge that formed a sort of natural quay with deep water beyond, and the cave’s entrance had been beautifully worked into scrolled pillars either side supporting a rather Greek-style portico. Inside, ledges had been carved out of both walls, a place for ornaments or household crockery. Whoever had originally fashioned the cave as a home must have been a real craftsman, a stonemason probably, everything so professionally done. ‘All you need is a rope ladder,’ Lloyd Jones said, peering down to the narrow ledge of rock below.

‘And a yacht,’ I added. ‘Champagne cooling in the further recesses of the cave and a beautiful girl sunbathing down there in a bikini.’ Or perhaps not in a bikini, just lying there on that ledge, nude in the moonlight.

He didn’t laugh, and nor did I, for I found myself thinking of Petra, how well she would fit the picture in my mind. ‘Nobody here,’ I said.

‘No.’ He sounded relieved. ‘But they’ve been here.’ He had moved back from the entrance, his voice puzzled as he probed with his torch.

I was puzzled, too, the cave showing every sign of recent occupation and nobody there. The broken remains of an old cupboard full of cans of food. There were biscuits and cornflakes in a rusty cake tin, flour, rice, dried fruit, plastic containers with water, and those dishcloths and shirts hung up to dry.

‘Where are the heads?’ he asked.

‘The heads?’

‘It’s all right throwing the slops out into the cove. But if I want to shit, where do I do it?’ He swung his torch back up the way we had come. That was how we found the offshoot cave. It was quite narrow, the entrance draped with an old piece of sacking so covered with dust it was virtually the same colour as the surrounding wall, and when we pulled it aside, there it was, a chemical loo.

We were both of us standing there, peering down the narrow passage that continued on beyond the old oil drum with its wooden lid, when suddenly there was a cry and Petra was calling my name, her voice high and urgent, reverberating down the cave shaft — ‘Mi-i-ke!’ I was running then, crouched low. There was the sound of rocks dislodged, a man’s voice cursing, and as I rounded the bend, the beam of my torch showed the soles of his canvas shoes disappearing over the rubble of the roof fall.

I must have been close behind him as I flung myself on to my belly, but by the time I had squirmed half through the gap, the tunnel beyond was empty. ‘Two of them,’ Petra said, her voice breathless. She was crouched against the wall. ‘I thought it was you and Gareth, then my torch was knocked out of my hand and I was flung back, one of them cursing at me as they pushed past.’

‘English or Spanish?’ I was cursing too by then, my hands lacerated as I dragged my legs clear.

‘I’m not sure.’ She was on her knees, groping for her torch.

I glanced over my shoulder, struggling to my feet. ‘Hurry!’ He was right behind me and I was thinking of Soo, alone there in the car. Damn the man! Why hadn’t he stayed with her? I ran, bent low, the beam of my torch following the curve of the cave until the gap of the entrance showed a pale oval. A moment later I was out into the cool of the night air, thrusting through the bushes to stand in the moonlight staring down the path where it ran steeply towards the cove.

There was nothing there.

I searched the hillside. Nothing moved. Then a car’s engine started, down below, where we had parked, and a few moments later I saw it burst out on to the track where it crossed open country just before joining the road, its engine screaming. It was the red Fiat.

‘My God!’ Lloyd Jones, beside me now, had recognised it, too.

We went straight down the hillside then, moving as fast as we could in the tricky light, jumping from rock outcrop to rock outcrop, splashing through the water at the bottom. My car was still there, but no sign of Soo. Frantically I began searching the bushes, calling her name.

‘They couldn’t have taken her with them, surely.’ He was standing there, staring helplessly about him.

‘Well, she’s not here. Nor is your car. Why the hell didn’t you stay with her?’

‘I’m sorry, but you were so long … She asked me to go — ’ He turned his head. ‘What was that?’

It came again, high up the valley side from under the cliffs, and suddenly I knew what it was. ‘Petra,’ I said. ‘It’s Petra, and she’s found her.’

We climbed back up the hillside, retracing our steps. ‘Here,’ she called, standing suddenly upright beside a patch of scrub. ‘It’s Soo. She’s had a fall.’

I could hear her then, moaning with pain. Her body was lying twisted in a heap in the middle of a low clump of bushes, Petra bending down to her again, cradling her head as we reached the spot. ‘I think she must have followed the path right up to the cave entrance, then lost her balance when they pushed past her.’