Medusa

Soo had returned by the time I got back. She had been to see Manuela Renato’s sister, Maria, who was married to Hernando Pons, the most successful of the local property developers. ‘They’re very worried,’ she said. ‘Jorge’s death leaves a vacuum and they’re now getting together with their friends to fill it. The problem is they don’t have any one man in mind, so that already there is a danger they’ll split up into factions, each advancing their own candidate. The effect may well be that a man nobody wants will be elected.’

‘Who?’ I asked.

‘Maria couldn’t say. Flórez perhaps since he has a garage in Mahon as well as in Alayór, and of course business friends in both towns. Even Ismail Fuxá’s name was mentioned. Those were the two worst possibilities, of course, but it shows what a problem this thing has created, and what she was saying to me was that it was time to be out of property in Menorca, at least until things have settled down. I saw Carmen, too. She was in one of her tense moods, a little scared I thought, and she had that wicked little woman, Mercedes, with her. Mercedes said we should leave now, go back to England, or wherever it was we came from, that it was all our fault — Thatcher, Reagan, bombs, new development … She was quite rude.’ And Soo added, as though it were all part of the gossip she’d picked up, ‘They took your passport, by the way.’

‘Menendez said you gave it to them.’

‘They asked where it was, so I told them.’ And she added, a little defensively, ‘They’d have found it anyway.’

‘Possibly.’

She flared up at that. ‘Not possibly — inevitably. You can’t pin the loss of your passport on me. They’d have turned the whole place inside out if I hadn’t told them.’

I went through into the kitchen, got some ice and mixed a strong dry martini. Damned if I was going to have a row with her over it, but just to give it to them without argument or even any sort of protest … ‘Do you want one?’ I asked her.

She nodded, standing by the window with Benjie in her arms.

I took down two glasses, and when I had poured the drinks, we stood there, not saying anything, just drinking in silence. And all the time I was conscious of her staring at me, her dark eyes big and round, the question she dared not ask on the tip of her tongue. In the end all she said was, ‘Your passport wouldn’t be any use, they’ll be watching the airport, the ferry terminal — ’

‘They know who did it,’ I told her.

‘Who?’

‘A Spaniard. He left immediately afterwards — by plane.’

‘Then why — ’

‘I knew him, at Bisley.’

She turned to glance at the cups, then gulped down the rest of her martini, her eyes very wide and fixed on me. The weapon then? Where is it?’ Her face had a pallid, frightened look.

I gave a little shrug. The closeness that had once been between us was gone now and I was no longer willing to share my thoughts and actions with her the way I had. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her. It was just that the links that had bound us close were no longer strong enough, so that I felt instinctively it was best for her not to know what I had done with the gun, or even that I had found it hidden on board.

‘So you’ll be taking the boat yourself.’ She was still staring at me, holding herself very stiff, her small body almost quivering with tension.

I hadn’t made up my mind, and the way she said it I knew what she must be thinking. But I wouldn’t be running away from anything, only giving myself time and room for manoeuvre. The boat was just about ready, and in Malta I could probably produce some reasonable excuse for being without a passport.

‘I’m right, aren’t I? You’ll go with the boat to Malta.’ She had put the dog down, holding her glass tight with both hands and gazing out across the water.

‘Perhaps,’ I murmured. I can remember the way I said it, flatly, without feeling, and looking back on it now, I realised it wasn’t fear of arrest that was driving me to get away on my own for a time. Even if Menendez did decide to accuse me of smuggling arms, the knowledge that I was completely innocent made me certain Martin Lopez would be able to sort the whole thing out, given time. No, it was Soo. If she had slept with the man, had an affair with him, that was something I could have lived with. But love, a real passion — that is something that strikes at the heart of a man. It leaves him nothing — nothing to strive for, no purpose. Both pride and practicality dictated a break.

‘Are any of the people you knew still there? Have you kept in touch?’

I shook my head. ‘Mintoff and the new man will have made it impossible for them.’

‘There’s my mother’s relatives.’

‘Your mother hasn’t been back since your father retired.’ I took her glass and refilled it, then mixed some more and went back to the window. Flurries of an onshore breeze were darkening the water. This was the view I had looked out on ever since we had married and settled down to build a business on this island.

‘Gareth might be useful.’ She said it tentatively.

‘How do you mean?’