Medusa

I stood there, naked except for my pants that were now streaked black with oil. I was staring at the steps down into the starb’d hull that concealed the other engine. And then there was the panelling. I was already scratched and bleeding in a couple of places, but I knew if I didn’t check out that other cavity I would never be really certain. I lifted the steps. The compartment was exactly the same as the other, just room for me to wriggle my way headfirst between the outboard side of the hull and the cold metal of the engine. The torch was dimming, but rather than go back for the other, I squirmed further in, feeling down below the shaft with my outstretched hand.

That’s how I found it — a hard, chunky package wrapped in plastic.

It took some ingenuity and some juggling to extract it from the confined space, working my way backwards at the same time. But when I was finally out, standing in the sunlight streaming through the saloon windows, and the thing in my hand, there was no doubt what it was. The only question was the type and where it had come from.

I turned quickly to the open cockpit door, feeling suddenly furtive as I slammed it shut and bolted it. Christ almighty! If somebody saw me holding this … My hands were trembling as I unwrapped the package. It had been zipped into one of those plastic travelling cases for suits, rolled into a tight bundle, then taped. I had to get a carving knife from the galley to rip it open.

By then I hadn’t much doubt, the shape of the telescope and the folding butt apparent through the stiff red plastic. It was that most common of guns, a 7.62 mm Kalashnikov. But not the ordinary assault rifle. What I unwrapped from the plastic was the sniper’s version of the AK-47. In addition to telescopic sights it had a double strut folding metal butt. The struts were in the folded position. Automatically, almost without thinking, I unfolded them, bringing the rifle to my shoulder and sighting through the for’ard window of the saloon at a gull on a mooring buoy out by the naval jetty. It felt snug and workmanlike, and I could imagine how it had been to the killer, the back of Jorge’s head there in the magnified field of vision, dead-centred on the cross wires.

I glanced at the maker’s stamp on the side of it, Czechoslovakian, not Russian. Then I checked the firing mechanism. The safety catch was on and it was set at single shot. I sniffed the muzzle. It still smelt faintly of gun smoke, so did the inside of the plastic, and when I took the magazine off I found one round was missing.

My worst fears confirmed I stood there in a sort of daze, appalled at the evil of the man. To kill for political reasons, yes, maybe that could be justified by somebody deeply committed to a cause — that was a matter between him and whatever god he accepted. But Evans could have no possible commitment to a Menorquin, or even a Spanish political faction. To kill in cold blood as a mercenary, and then to plant the weapon on somebody else, on a man he didn’t know, had only just met …!

I felt the chill of it in my guts. Man might be a rogue species; Petra certainly thought so and had discussed it with me in one of her more serious moments. But this — this was quite abnormal, quite outside of my experience. Once, and once only, I had undertaken an arms run. Explosives, detonators, some land mines, Kalashnikovs and Birettas — we had landed them in a deserted cove just south of Finisterre, handing the whole cargo over to Basque separatists. At least the Eta boys who took delivery had had a cause. But this …

I sat down in one of the chairs that stood by the saloon table, wondering what to do now. Go to the Guardia? Tell the plain-clothes detectives of the national police who had been put on to the case? But I could see the expression of disbelief on the face of the Inspector Jefe. I had met him once, a small, very dark man with eyes too close together and a sharp, suspicious face. They would be looking for somebody they could pin the atrocity on and I had a feeling I would do just as well as anyone else, so long as it was a foreigner and local politics not involved. The fact that I had been standing beside Martinez didn’t mean I couldn’t have organised the whole thing. And now, with the killer’s weapon in my hand, what the hell was I to do with it? Dump it at sea, I suppose. Take it out in the dinghy and dump it, somewhere out beyond Bloody Island, and hope nobody would have their binoculars trained on me at the time.

Carp arrived just as I put the kettle on. I heard his motor bike splutter to a stop on the quay and I called out to him to ask if he would like a cup of tea. By then I had cleaned myself up and dressed, everything more or less normal, except for the rolled-up bedding on the settle by the cockpit door. I told him I had spilled some oil on it and was taking it ashore to be cleaned.