Medusa

It was almost dark by the time I left the hospital and cut down the little hairpinned gut that led to the waterfront. I could see the catamaran before I had even parked the car, a broad cabin top spanning the whole width of the twin hulls, her single mast standing very tall and overtopping the dock sheds. She was moored outside of a big yawl, and when I asked permission to cross over to the catamaran, an American in a blue jersey, half-glasses perched on his nose, poked his head out of the doghouse. ‘Sure. But there’s nobody on board. They’re over at the cafe-bar across the road.’

I asked him where he was from and he said, ‘Newport, Rhode Island, via Gibraltar and Ibiza.’

I swung my leg over his guardrails, crossed the foredeck to stand by the shrouds looking down on the long, slim line of the two hulls, their bows poking out from the broad foredeck platform, a safety net slung between them.

‘Good trip,’ he went on. ‘We made it across the ditch in just over sixteen days, almost all of it under sail.’

A woman’s head appeared in the hatch, grey-haired like the man. ‘That cat belong to you?’ she asked.

‘I wish it did.’ I jumped on to the cabin top, moving aft across the top of it to drop down into the cockpit. There was a swivel chair for the helmsman immediately aft of the wheel and a console full of dials — engine revs, speed through the water, true and apparent wind speeds, just about everything anybody could want, and though the door was locked, I could see through the glass panel that the whole arrangement was repeated in the saloon, which was broad and spacious, running across the ship with a semi-circular settle, a big folding table and steps leading down into the hulls on each side. Compared with the old Santa Maria the accommodation was so grand it was more like a house, and around the chart table, on the starb’d side, there was everything a navigator could wish for, radar, sat-nav and Decca, ship-to-shore radio telephone …

‘Quite a machine, eh?’ the American said.

I nodded, laughing ruefully. To own this sort of a vessel I’d have to sell both our villas. They were in our joint names, and even if Soo agreed and we succeeded in selling them on the present market, it would probably not be enough. The ship needed painting, of course, and the scrape along the outer curve of the port hull was deeper than I had thought. It looked as though some frames might be broken. But otherwise she seemed in remarkably good shape. There was even a big semi-inflatable moored alongside with wheel steering, spray screen and remote controls to the outboard engine.

I hauled myself back on to the American’s deck. ‘You came through Gib, you say. Did you see a Royal Navy frigate in the harbour there?’

‘Not that I recall. It’s a big place, all those high stone quays, and anyway we were round in the marina.’ And he added, ‘We saw some US Navy ships though. They were powering through the Straits as we came in from Cape St Vincent. Destroyers by the look of them. More watchdogs for the Sixth Fleet’s carriers, I guess.’

I was back on the dock then, wondering why anyone should want an old fishing boat like the Santa Maria in place of that cat. I could see her name now. It was on the flat, sloping stern of each hull — Thunderflash. If I owned a machine like that … I turned back to the American. ‘What made you think I was the owner?’

He smiled and gave a quick shrug. ‘Something in the way you were moving about her. Thought maybe it was a delivery job.’ There had been four of them on board, he told me, when they came in that morning. One he took to be the skipper, two were obviously crew, and there had also been a short, dark man dressed in a suit who looked and behaved like a passenger. They had had to clear immigration, as well as health and customs, so he presumed the boat had come from France or Italy, which could of course mean Corsica or Sardinia. The passenger had gone ashore immediately afterwards, the skipper about an hour later, while the others just sat around drinking wine and listening to the radio. The skipper had returned about half an hour before I had arrived with a man who was obviously Flórez and the four of them had then gone across to Anton’s for a drink.

The café-bar was almost opposite the Estacián Maritima, just back of the Customs House. Above it loomed the older part of Mahon, clouds scudding over a moon-dark sky. As always at this time of night, the bar was dark and very crowded. They were at a table at the far end, heads close together, coffee cups and glasses at their elbows, a bottle in the centre. They were talking in English and as I approached I heard one of them say, ‘Fifteen minutes, and that’s not driving fast.’