Medusa

We continued on, another expansion chamber opening up, the sound of the sea suddenly very loud. At the far end the blowhole tunnel fell right away, an almost vertical drop, the nearside of which had been heavily scored as though by a large shovel or scraper. Rigged across the hole was a lattice of small scaffolding poles bolted together to hold a heavy metal pulley. We slithered down till we could clutch the scaffolding, then, leaning out over the abyss and probing downwards with our torches, we could see the surge of the waves in the cave mouth, the water in the cavern itself rising and falling against a steep little beach of dark sand and round, water-rolled stones that gleamed wetly.

There was also something else, a heavy old anchor, brown with rust and half-buried in the beach. A heavy-duty purchase of the type used in large yachts before the switch to winches was shackled to the eye of the stock, and nylon sheets or warps ran through the pulleys and out into the sea. ‘That’s what I came here for.’ Lennie’s voice was a whisper as though at any moment he expected one of the smugglers to rise like a genie out of the blowhole. ‘To see how they did it.’

‘So what do you think they were bringing ashore?’ I asked him.

‘Dunno, mate. I thought it would be just ordinary household things, TV sets, electric cookers, glassware, jewellery, anything that was taxable. But after last night …’

‘What are you suggesting — arms?’

‘Well, it certainly ain’t drugs. The Menorquins haven’t gone for that so far and the villa people …’ He stopped abruptly as Petra slithered down to join us, the pressure lamp casting her shadow behind her, lighting up the latticework of steel tubing on which we leaned.

She was panting, her eyes wide and a little wild. ‘Some silly bugger’s been playing around with candles. They’re not cave drawings at all.’ She gulped for air. ‘But it’s not that. I thought I heard voices, the sound of an engine.’

‘Where?’ Lennie asked.

‘Beyond the garage.’ She took a deep breath, pulling herself together. ‘There’s no cave-in there, no rock fall. It’s all been cleared away.’

‘You mean you went inside the garage?’

‘No.’ She shook her head, the dust stirring in her shoulder-length hair. ‘No, it was boarded up. A jagged hole stopped up with what looked like fresh matchboarding.’

Lennie didn’t wait to hear any more. He pushed past her and started back up the slope, clawing his way up on all fours. I followed, dragging Petra after me. We were all together in a bunch as we ducked past the rope we had rigged from the cellar and came to the boarded-up hole into the garage. ‘Look at it!’ Petra held the pressure lamp up and her voice was an angry whisper as she rubbed at the blurred black outline of some four-legged animals on the roof. ‘Candle-black.’ She showed me the palm of her hand. It looked as though she had been handling a badly printed newspaper, and the head of the beast was smudged. The sort of thing a schoolboy would do, and I was fool enough to hope …’

Lennie’s hand clamped suddenly over her mouth. ‘Listen!’ He opened the valve of the pressure lamp, his torch switched off, the hiss of the gas mantle dying away and in the darkness the scrape of a door sounding muffled and a voice, very faint from beyond the boarding, instructing somebody to back right up to the door. An engine revved, more directions, then a babble of whispering voices barely audible as the engine noise died away and was suddenly cut. A tailboard slammed and somebody said, ‘Quiet! Keep everything quiet.’ There was no more talking after that, only the sound of heavy boxes or crates being loaded.

‘The cellar,’ Lennie breathed. ‘Follow me and keep hold.’

We felt our way back down the blowhole till we came to the rope again. Lennie went first, then Petra. My foot was in the first loop, ready to follow her, when the crash of breaking wood sounded hollow along the passageway. I froze, thinking for a moment they had heard us and were breaking through from the garage. Somebody swore, a muffled voice — ‘That was my fucking foot, you bastard.’ An answering voice, then the two of them arguing until somebody shouted at them to cool it. By then I was on to the second loop and reaching up to clutch hold of Lennie’s hand. As soon as I was out of the hole he unhitched the end of the rope, coiling it and slinging it over his shoulder, then he swung the torch to show us the steps leading up to the cellar door. ‘Just follow me.’ Black darkness as he switched off the torch again and we felt our way up to the room above.