Means Of Evil And Other Stories (18 page)

   "We absolutely adored it. They say it's the least spoilt of the Mediterranean resorts, and that I can believe. We all loved Dubrovnik. That is, I mean, we brought a cousin of my wife's along with us. She was going on to holiday with some people she knows in Greece, so she flew to Athens from Dubrovnik on Sunday and left us to come on here."

   Dora said, "We saw you in Dubrovnik. On the walls."

   Iris Nyman's glass made a little clinking sound against her teeth. Her husband said, "You saw us on the walls? D'you know, I think I remember that." He seemed just slightly taken aback. But not deterred. "In fact, I seem to remember we were having a bit of a row at the time."

   Dora made a deprecating movement with her hands. "We just walked past you. It was terribly hot, wasn't it?"

   "You're being very charmingly discreet, Mrs. Wexford——or may I call you Dora? The point was, Dora, my wife wanted to climb one of the local mountains and I was telling her just how impractical this was. I mean, in that heat, and for what? To get the same view you get from the walls."

   "So you managed to dissuade her?" Wexford said quietly.

   "Indeed I did, but you came along rather at the height of the ding-dong. Another drink, darling? And how about you, Dora? Won't you change your mind?"

   They replied simultaneously, "Another
slivovic
," and "Thank you so much, but we must go." It was a long time since Wexford had seen his wife so huffy and so thoroughly out of countenance. He marvelled at Nyman's continuing efforts, his fixed smile.

   "Let me guess, you're staying at the Adriatic?" He took silence for assent. "We're at the Bosnia. Wait a minute, how about making a date for, say, Wednesday? We could all have a trip somewhere in my car."

   The Wexfords, having previous engagements, were able to refuse with clear consciences. They said good night, Wexford nodding non-committally at Nyman's insistence that they must meet again, mustn't lose touch after having been so lucky as to encounter each other. His eyes followed them. Wexford looked back once to see.

   "Well!" said Dora when they were out of earshot, "what an insufferably rude woman!"

   "Just very nervous, I think," said Wexford thoughtfully. He gave her his arm and they began the walk back along the waterside path. It was very dark, the sea inky and calm, the island invisible. "When you come to think of it, that was all very odd."

   "Was it? She was rude and he was effusive to the point of impertinence, if you call that odd. He forced himself on us, got us to tell him our names,——you could see she just didn't want to know. I was amazed when he called me Dora."

   "That part wasn't so odd. After all, that's how one does make holiday acquaintances. Presumably it was much the same with Werner and Trudi."

   "No, it wasn't, Reg, not at all. For one thing, we're much of an age and we're staying at the same hotel. Trudi speaks quite good English, and we were watching the children in the paddling pool and she happened to mention her grandsons who are just the same age as ours, and that started it. You must see that's quite different from a man of thirty walking into a café and latching on to a couple old enough to be his parents. I call it pushy."

   Wexford reacted impatiently. "That's as may be. Perhaps you didn't notice there was a perfectly clean ashtray in the middle of that table before they sat down at it."

   "
What?
" Dora halted, staring at him in the dark.

   "There was. He must have put it in his pocket to give him an excuse for speaking to us. Now that was odd. And giving us all that gratuitous information was odd. And telling a deliberate lie was very odd indeed. Come along, my dear. Don't stand there gawping at me."

   "What do you mean, a deliberate lie?"

   "When you told them we'd seen them on the walls, he said he remembered it and we must have overheard the quarrel between himself and his wife. Now that was odd in itself. Why mention it at all? Why should we care about his domestic——or maybe I should say mural——rows? He said the quarrel had been over climbing a mountain, but no one climbs the mountains here in summer. Besides, I remember precisely what he did say up on the walls. He said, 'We can't find anyone to take us.' OK, so he might have meant they couldn't get a guide. But 'there's nowhere to land?' That's what he said, no doubt about it. You don't land on mountains, Dora, unless you assault them by helicopter."

   "I wonder why, though? I wonder what he's up to?"

   "So do I," said Wexford, "but I'm pretty sure it's not pinching ashtrays from waterside cafés."

   They rounded the point and came within sight of the lights of the Hotel Adriatic. A little further and they could see each other's faces. Dora saw his and read there much to disquiet her.

   "You're not going to start detecting, Reg!"

   "Can't help it, it's in my bones. But I won't let it interfere with your holiday, that's a promise."

On Tuesday morning Racic's taxi boat was waiting at the landing stage outside the hotel.

   "Gospoda Wexford, it is a great pleasure to meet you."

   Courteously he handed Dora into the boat. Its awning of green canvas, now furled, gave it somewhat the look of a gondola. As the engines started, Dora made her excuses for the following day.

   "You will like Cetinje," said Racic. "Have a good time. Gospodin Wexford and I will have a bachelor day out. All boys together, eh? Are you quite comfortable? A little more suitable than that one for a lady, I hope."

   He pointed across the bay to where a man was paddling a yellow and blue inflatable dinghy. The girl with him wore a very brief bikini. The Nymans.

   "If you could manage to avoid passing those people, Mr. Racic," said Dora, "that would make me very comfortable indeed."

   Racic glanced at Wexford. "You have met them? They have annoyed you?"

   "Not that. They spoke to us last night in Mirna and the man was rather pushing."

   "I will keep close to the shore and cross to Vrt from the small peninsula there."

   For most of the morning there was no one else on the little shingly beach of Vrt, which Racic had told them meant a garden. The huddle of cottages behind were overhung with the blue trumpet flowers of the morning glory, and among the walls rose the slender spires of cypress trees. Wexford sat in the shade reading while Dora sunbathed. The dinghy came close only once, but the Wexfords went unrecognised, perhaps because they were in swimming costumes. Iris Nyman stood up briefly before jumping with an explosive splash into the deep water.

   "Rude she may be," said Dora, "but I'll grant she's got a lovely figure. And you were wrong about her legs, Reg. Her legs are perfect."

   "Didn't notice," said Wexford.

   Josip took them back. He was a thin smiling brown man, not unlike Racic, but he had no English beyond "thank you" and "good-bye." They hired him again in the afternoon to take them into Mirna, and they spent a quiet, pleasant evening drinking coffee with Werner and Trudi Muller on the Germans' balcony.

   Wednesday came in with a storm at sunrise, and Wexford, watching the lightning and the choppy sea, wondered if Burden had been over-optimistic with his guarantee of fine weather. But by nine the sun was out and the sky clear. He saw Dora off in the Mullers' Mercedes, then walked down to the landing stage. Racic's boat glided in.

   "I have brought bread and sausage for our lunch, and Posip in a flask to keep it cool."

   "Then we must eat it for our elevenses because I'm taking you out to lunch."

   This they ate in Dubrovnik after Racic had taken him to the island of Lokrum. Wexford listened with deepening interest to the boatman-professor's stories. How the ease and wealth of the city merchants had led to a literary renaissance, how Dubrovnik-built ships had taken part in the Spanish Armada, how an earthquake had devastated the city and almost destroyed the state. They set off again for Lopud, Sipan and Kolocep, returning across the broad calm waters as the sun began to dip towards the sea.

   "Does that little island have a name?" Wexford asked.

   "It is called Vrapci, which is to say 'sparrows.' There are thousands of sparrows, so they say, and only sparrows, for no one goes there. One cannot land a boat."

   "You mean you can't get off a boat because the rocks are too sheer? What about the other side?"

   "I will pull in close and you shall see. There is a beach but no one would wish to use it. Wait."

   The island was very small, perhaps no more than half a mile in circumference, and totally overgrown with stunted pines. At their roots the grey rock fell sheer to the water from a height of about ten feet. Racic brought the boat about and they came to the Adriatic side of Vrapci. No sparrows were to be seen, no life of any kind. Between ramparts of rock was a small and forbidding beach of shingle over which an overhanging pine cast deep shade. Looking up at the sky and then down at this dark and stony cove, Wexford could see that, no matter what its altitude, the sun would never penetrate to this beach. Where the shingle narrowed, at the apex, was a cleft in the rock just wide enough to allow the passage of a man's body.

   "Not very attractive," he said. "Why should people want to come here?"

   "They don't, as far as I know. Except perhaps——well, there is a new fashion, Gospodin Wexford, or Mister as I should call you."

   "Call me Reg."

   Racic inclined his head. "Reg, yes, thank you. I like the name, though I have not previously encountered it. There is a fashion, as I mentioned, for nude bathing. Here in Yugoslavia we do not allow it, for it is not proper, not decorous. No doubt you have seen painted on some of the rocks the words——in, I fear, lamentable English——No Nudists.' But there are some who would defy this rule, especially on the small islands. Vrapci might take their fancy if they could find a boat and a boatman to bring them."

   "A boat could land on the beach and its occupants swim off the rocks on the other side in the sun."

   "If they were good swimmers. But we will not try it, Reg, not at our age being inclined to strip ourselves naked and risk our necks, eh?"

   Once more they were off across the wide sea. Wexford looked back to the city walls, those man-made defensive cliffs, and brought himself hesitantly to ask:

   "Would you tell me what you overheard of the conversation between that English couple, Philip and Iris Nyman, when you took them out in your boat?"

   "So that is their name? Nyman?" He was stalling.

   "I have a good reason for asking."

   "May I know it?"

   Wexford sighed. "I'm a policeman."

   Rack's face went very still and tight. "I don't much like that. You were sent here to watch these people? You should have told me before."

   "No, Ivo, no." Wexford brought out the unfamiliar name a little self-consciously. "No, you've got me wrong. I never saw or heard of them till last Saturday. But now I've seen them and spoken to them I believe they're doing something illegal. If that's so it's my duty to do something about it. They're my countrymen."

   "Reg," said Racic more gently, "what I overheard can have nothing to do with this matter of an illegality. It was personal and private."

   "You won't tell me?"

   "No. We are not old housewives to spend our time in gossip over the garden walls of our
kucice
, eh?"

   Wexford grinned. "Then will you
do
something for me? Will you contrive to let these people know——subtly, of course——that you understand the English language?"