Medusa

‘Not very much.’ I paused. ‘No more really than Carp has told me.’

He leaned down, staring at me. ‘Tell me something.’ His dark eyes fixed themselves on my face. ‘The murder weapon — a rifle was it?’

‘An AK-47,’ I told him. ‘The sniper version with folding butt.’

‘So you’ve seen it?’

I didn’t say anything. It had been such an easy trap and I had fallen for it.

‘Where did you see it? Did that man Barriago give it to you?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Was Pat involved?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m pretty certain he was and I was trying to tell you when you shut me up. I don’t know whether he acquired the weapon for Barriago, but he certainly disposed of it.’ He listened to me then as I told him what had happened, how I’d found the gun tucked away at the stern end of the starb’d engine compartment under the prop shaft, how I’d taken it up to the villa and concealed it under the floorboards in the kitchen.

‘And now they’ve found it.’

‘Apparently.’

Silence then and the sound of a door slamming, both of us thinking about that message from Menorca. Suddenly he laughed. ‘So you paid him back in his own coin, and now he’s fixed you again.’ His laughter was without mirth. ‘Par for the course,’ he muttered. ‘And now?’ He stared at me as though expecting an answer, then shrugged and sat down opposite me. ‘I gather that fellow Carpenter has told you about my being sent to live with Moira Evans at Felixstowe Ferry, and then Pat arriving?’ He nodded. ‘He would know, of course — all the gossip, all the things they said. Felixstowe Ferry! My God!’ He was smiling and shaking his head. ‘Lost my innocence there, found a no-good bastard of a half-brother — then, years later … But you know about that.’

‘The Haven buoy?’

He nodded. ‘That Haven buoy episode hangs round my neck like a millstone. It’s the cause …’ He put his head in his hands, rubbing the palms of them over his eyes. ‘He crucified me. He didn’t know it at the time. He thought he was saving my life, but he crucified me — and now the agony begins.’

‘What agony?’ I asked. His face had gone very pale, his eyes half-closed. ‘You all right?’ He looked as though he might pass out. His eyes flicked open then, his mind on something else. I asked him about his use of the word bastard. ‘Did you mean that literally? Is Evans your father’s illegitimate son?’

He didn’t answer for a moment, then suddenly he burst out laughing. ‘Is that what Carpenter told you, man? If so, he’s got it the wrong way round. Whatever else Pat is, he’s legitimate.’ And then, his mood changing again, he put his elbows on the table, his head thrust forward. ‘Look now, I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told anyone else. In confidence, mind you. You’ll see why. You’ve heard part of it, so you may as well know it all. Especially as it’s my belief you’ve now got the boat they brought the stuff ashore in.’ He nodded towards the bottle. ‘Help yourself. This may take a little time.’ He leaned back, drawing on his cigarette. ‘The King’s Fleet mean anything to you?’

‘By the entrance to the Deben River, isn’t it?’

He nodded. ‘I heard you visited Woodbridge and Felixstowe Ferry a while back when you were searching for a boat. The Fleet was used by the Vikings, and the Romans before them. Now it’s cut off from the river by a high flood bank. But there’s still a few stretches of water left. When I was about fourteen and living for a time at the Ferry, Pat and I used to bird-watch there. It was a great place for nesting swans, some of the rarer water birds, too.’ And he added, ‘It was only later I discovered Pat’s real interest — he liked to smash the eggs with steel balls fired from a catapult, or try and put out a swan’s eye with it.’

‘Charming!’ I murmured, but he picked me up on that.

‘It wasn’t viciousness, you understand. It was a question of marksmanship. Later he acquired an airgun. It was the challenge, you understand. He didn’t think about the cruelty of it. He hasn’t that sort of imagination.’ He shook his head, staring vacantly at his empty glass, his mind back in the past. ‘Perhaps he doesn’t have any imagination at all. I’m not sure.’

‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘You were going to tell me what happened there.’