The White Schooner (5 page)

Haupt’s first reaction was to refuse firmly but courteously to produce the plans. He explained that it would be
unprofessional
, that van Biljon would never forgive him if he knew that they had been used to do business with a third party. Van Biljon, he said, owned a good deal of property in Ibiza, and apart from any other consideration Haupt could not afford to fall out with him.

Black pointed out that there was no question of copying the Altomonte design, that it was to be used only for purposes of discussion, and that he would under no circumstances reveal that he had seen the plans, not even to his friend in England.

He appealed to Haupt to help him settle the matter in such a way that he would not be obliged to go to another architect. ‘You know, having heard what a marvellous job you did on Altomonte, I’m particularly anxious to see you get this.’

Slowly Haupt gave ground and before long locked the door to his office, produced the plans and spread them on a table by the window. For the next hour the two men sat over them, Black making rough notes of layout and cost. By the time he
was ready to leave they were on good terms, and they had agreed to treat the matter as strictly confidential.

‘I’ll write off to him in the next day or so. Then it’s over to him‚’ said Black. ‘Shouldn’t be surprised if he flies out by way of reply. That’s if he’s not in New York or Tokyo or
somewhere
. He’s always on the move.’

Haupt expressed his thanks and showed him to the top of the stairs.

Black went down the lane whistling, pleased with the
morning’s
work. As he reached the square and turned right to cross to Anselmo’s he saw a big man with a deeply tanned face come up from the opposite pavement and stop outside the entrance. The moment he saw the face, Black’s nerves reacted like a triggered electronic alarm. Stepping behind a Volkswagen, he bent down, put his foot on the rear bumper and fussed with his shoelaces. Through the rear window he watched the man opposite, saw him stand in the doorway, hesitate for a moment, then go into Anselmo’s.

The Englishman was trembling and it was, he knew, the response to both shock and relief: shock that Ahmed ben Hassan of all people in the world should be on Ibiza at that moment, and relief that the Arab had not seen him. Standing behind the Volkswagen, his mind spewed out thoughts with the speed of a computer: if Hassan recognised him it would soon be known in Ibiza who he really was. In no time the information would reach van Biljon and then all ZID’s
carefully
laid plans, all the work of past years—particularly of the last eight months—would lie in ruins.

There were, he knew, two alternatives, but each was equally difficult to contemplate. Either the operation must be called off or Hassan removed—from Ibiza at any rate. How that could be done he hadn’t the vaguest idea. But if there was one imperative it was that he should know where Hassan was staying. Translating the thought into action, he moved from the Volkswagen and took up a position on a side street
pavement
from which he could watch the entrance to Anselmo’s. He leant against the wall, shielded by a truck, pretending to read the newspaper he’d taken from the shopping basket, and while he waited his mind went back to the night in Rafah. His company had been parachuted in at dusk with orders to cut off any motorised elements which tried to escape along the
coast road. After the drop there had been virtually no
opposition
. Some of his men had rounded up gangs of demoralised prisoners who threw away their weapons, while others
prepared
fighting positions. Then they had sat down to wait for an enemy who failed to materialise, and for their own tanks and infantry which were expected some time after midnight. At about ten o’clock, two of his men had brought in a big, handsome, but very frightened Arab. He’d been found in civilian clothes, hiding in a deserted house. He had denied that he was an Egyptian or indeed any sort of fighting man, but in view of his lack of papers and evasive answers he’d been brought in for interrogation. ‘Terrorist or political agent‚’ the young Israeli sergeant had said with withering finality.

You did not, reflected Black, forget the face of a frightened man you’d been watching at close range under a bright light for over an hour. He could recall every moment of that torrid interrogation in the hot stuffy room which had smelt so overpoweringly of stale sweat. He himself tired, suffering from nervous exhaustion, frustrated and worried because he’d damaged his ankle in the drop—and the big Arab, older than he, frightened, even terrified at times, pleading that he was a civilian caught by chance in Rafah through the fortunes of war which had started only the day before. He was, he claimed, Ahmed ben Hassan, a merchant from Beirut, but he had no papers of any sort to support this. The Egyptian soldiers he said, had beaten him up and taken his wallet—in it all his papers—before they cleared out of Rafah. With pathetic dignity he had showed them his bruises. He had, he said, come to Rafah by way of Cyprus and Port Said, and had only been in Port Said because business had taken him there, not for any love of the Egyptians. As to the precise nature of that business he had been equivocal, until Black had worn him down with threats of violence. Threats of which, in normal times, the Englishman would have been ashamed but which, in those circumstances, at that time, in the heat and clamour of war, he supposed he might well have carried out. One never knew. But Hassan had broken then, admitted that he was a dealer in currency and hasheesh—a spiv to be
explicit
—and it was that which had brought him there, and taken him to Cyprus and Port Said.

In that long hot hour of interrogation Black had become almost resentfully aware of a growing pity for the man who stood before him, frightened, helpless, and alone. Indeed,
towards
the end, he had even been conscious of a sort of kinship, as if each was wistfully aware that in other
circumstances
they might have been friends, that the confrontation was a product of forces which had not been of their seeking. But he had fought down these feelings and when soon after midnight forward elements of the infantry had driven into Rafah with the tanks, Black had handed the Arab over to an officer in military intelligence—and that was the last he had seen of him, or indeed even thought of him, until a few minutes ago outside Anselmo’s.

And so his thoughts came back to the present—Ahmed ben Hassan in Ibiza. For Christ’s sake! Just as he could never forget the man’s face, he had no doubt Hassan could never
forget
his. He thanked his stars that he now wore a beard and decided that as from that moment he would never fail to wear his dark glasses. But if he were to meet Hassan face to face, to be in his company for even a few minutes, he had no doubt he would be recognised—a voice was something which could not be disguised, and a voice that had for more than an hour interrogated you, threatened you with torture and death—and all less than twelve months before—was not one that was likely to be forgotten.

Black got back to his room that night in a state of exhaustion brought on by the physical energy he’d expended in shadowing Ahmed ben Hassan through most of the day, and the nervous strain which this new and unexpected complication had
engendered
. But at least the shadowing had paid useful dividends.

He had followed him down to a pension, Vista Mari, on the Figueretes side of Los Molinos and then, after a long
afternoon
during which the Lebanese had not emerged—and when Black was about to leave in the belief that his quarry must have gone out through a back door—he had seen Hassan come out. He had changed into blue cotton slacks and a T-shirt, and a bathing towel hung round his neck. Keeping well behind, Black had followed him up over Los Molinos and down past the military hospital. From a safe distance he had watched Hassan go to the end of the rocks where he had divested himself of the T-shirt and slacks, to reveal a powerful
muscular body clad in bathing trunks. The Arab had then pulled on a white rubber skullcap and dived into the sea.

He was a strong swimmer and with long powerful strokes and rhythmically beating feet, he had set out for the big rock which stood out massively several hundred yards from the shore. There was a strongish breeze from the north-east and Black could not help admiring how Hassan headed boldly into wind and sea with what seemed little effort.

The Englishman shivered. The sun was low in the sky and the wind cold. There were no other swimmers and he was not surprised, it was too late in the afternoon and too early in the year. When he judged that Hassan was half-way towards the big rock, Black went on down the slope to the kiosk. He greeted the Ibizencan bar-tender, who was packing up for the night, and ordered a
coñac.

‘He must be tough,’ he said to the Ibizencan, gesturing with his head in the direction where Hassan could be seen swimming out to the rock. ‘It is cold.’

‘
Si,
señor.
But he swims at this time every evening.’

‘Every evening?’ said Black doubtfully.

‘
Si,
señor.
Around that big rock. At least for the last few days. He is a visitor from the Lebanon. Sometimes he talks to me. A strong man with a fine body. Says he swims every day of his life when he is home. A friendly fellow, but he does not drink because he is a Moslem.’ The bar-tender shook his head sorrowfully.

‘Well,’ said Black. ‘It is cold. I must be moving.
Adiós
.’

‘
Adiós,
señor
,’
said the barman as Black moved away and started up the path away from the kiosk. He had not gone far when he turned and looked back. Hassan was no longer in sight and Black realised that he must be on the seaward side of the big rock.

It was only then, while he waited for him to re-emerge, that Black realised—suddenly and with terrifying certainty—that Kyriakou and Manuela’s friend ‘Benny’ in the ferry steamer, the Olympic swimmer who suffered from seasickness, was Ahmed ben Hassan. Hassan a colleague of Kyriakou’s! Black felt a tightening of his stomach muscles and then, while he was still tussling with the implications of this discovery, he saw the white rubber skullcap round the eastern corner of the rock and Hassan, wind and sea now behind him, came swimming shorewards. Deciding that he had seen enough for
the day, Black set off up the steep path, making for the tunnel in the Citadel walls through which he could reach D’Alt Vila.

In his room that night he sat grappling with the new and potentially disastrous complication. At nine o’clock Maria Massa knocked on the door and inquired if he was not going down to the town to have something to eat, as was his custom. He told her he had a headache, and refused her offer to prepare something. ‘All I need,’ he said, ‘is a cup of tea and I’ll make that myself.
Muchas
gracias,
señora
’

And she had gone away querulous and dissatisfied, to leave him alone with his problem.

In the end he came to the conclusion he’d known he’d have to in the beginning: that this was essentially a task for Werner Zolde and André Lejeune. He was too well known in Ibiza, in too exposed a position—and entirely without the facilities
they
had—to deal with Hassan. It was for them. He would make suggestions, and if these were not practical—well, it was up to them. With the means at their disposal there were various alternatives. But there were two imperatives now—Hassan had to be removed from the scene, and it had to be done quickly and with discretion.

He took up a pen and paper and wrote the letter to Werner Zolde, telling him that Hassan was on the island, explaining who he was and the threat he represented. He was, wrote Black, to be removed and kept out of Ibiza, at least until the project had been accomplished. He mentioned that Hassan was staying at Vista Mari, the pension at Figueretes, that he apparently swam from the rocks below the military hospital every evening about six, swimming round the big rock. Black suggested the scheme he had in mind, but stressed that what was done finally was for Werner Zolde to decide and that in any event the utmost discretion was necessary.

I
will,
wrote Black,
call
at
the
post
office
each
day.
If
you
have
any
message
for
me
post
it
c/o
Lista
de
Corre
os.
I
must
know
as
soon
as
you
have
completed
your
task,
for
until
then
I
cannot
continue
with
the
project.
He folded the letter, which was without the sender’s address or signature, and placed it in an envelope. He had written
Werner
H.
Zolde
on it, when he stopped and frowned. ‘Christ,’ he muttered desperately. ‘What a silly bloody mistake. I must be crazy.’ He tore the envelope into small pieces, took a fresh one and
wrote on it
H.
W.
Liebson,
Lista
de
Correos,
Ibiza.
Then he took a stamp from his wallet and stuck it on the envelope. Soon after ten o’clock he went down to the post office and dropped the letter into the box.

When he got back to his room, tired as he was, he studied the plan of Altomonte which he’d made from the notes taken in Haupt’s office.

The light from the shaded lamp spilled across the desk, throwing into relief the bony white hands holding the letter. They were ghostlike, their roots lost in the cuffs of the black velvet smoking jacket.

The hands folded the letter slowly, began replacing it in the envelope, hesitated, and then carefully, methodically, tore it into small pieces, dropping them into the wastepaper basket.

In one movement the hands clicked off the desk light and switched on wall lights which brought their owner to life, as when a dark scene on a stage is suddenly illuminated. The man stood up, tall and straight, his hair silken white, the weathered face sun-tanned, the folds of the scars exaggerated by the shadows, the dark glasses reflecting the lights on the walls. He walked stiffly, age inhibiting movement, making for the chair in the corner. Before he reached it there was a knock on the door. He stopped, turned, and called, ‘
Adelante
!’ The door opened and a man came in carrying a tray, the silver coffee set and crystal glass and decanters throwing back the lights of the room in kaleidoscopic patterns.

‘
Son
las
diez,
señor
‚’
said the servant. ‘It is ten o’clock.’

The old man looked at his watch and a moment later the clock on the desk chimed ten. ‘
Bueno,
Juan
‚’
he said.

The ritual never changed. He dined at nine, alone, after which he came to the study. At ten o’clock, Juan would knock on the door and enter with the coffee and liqueurs. Always he would announce,
‘Son
las
diez,
señor
‚’
always van Biljon would look at his watch and say, ‘
Bueno
‚’
always the desk clock would chime the hour. But the ritual never palled. It was the moment of the day to which he looked forward most, the one he enjoyed above all others.

Juan stood inside the door, immobile, impassive, holding the tray. The old man paused, looked round the study and then, lifting his head and jerking his chin forward, he walked stiffly from the room, along the passage, down through the sitting-room to the hall and up stone steps to the patio. At its
centre a swimming pool shimmered with reflected light and along three sides vines climbed and twisted on pergolas.

Followed by his servant, he started across the patio keeping to the left of the pool which was flanked by the two wings of the house, their white sides studded with windows.

The old man stopped before a wrought-iron door, drew keys from his pocket, unlocked first the iron door, then the heavy wooden one behind it, and stepped inside. As he turned on the switches the dark abyss of the gallery glowed into life. For a moment he stood still, accustoming his eyes to the light, then went in, closing the doors behind him. Juan followed, carrying the tray.

At the far end of the long room a leather settee and
armchairs
stood in a recess furnished with low tables, a tall
glass-fronted
bookcase, a writing-desk, and two cabinets on elegant brass-shod legs.

The tall man stood watching while the servant placed the tray on a table before the settee, lit the lamp under the coffee percolator, and transferred the decanter and liqueur glass to the table. With an almost imperceptible bow, he withdrew from the recess and went up the gallery, closing the double doors as he left.

The old man walked over to the bookcase, opened a drawer and took from it a cedarwood cabinet. He spent some time choosing a cigar, preparing and lighting it. After drawing on it he examined the line of burning ash and, satisfied, stood for some time, legs apart, arms folded across his chest, head sunk, deep in thought until the cough and splutter of the percolator alerted him.

He sighed, shook his head as if in disagreement with his thoughts, and moved to one of the cabinets. Opening it, he selected a record, drew it from its sleeve and, sliding aside the lid of the second cabinet, placed the record on the turntable. He started the player, adjusted it for tone and volume, and returned to the armchair. Then he held a coffee cup under the tap of the percolator, filled it, and drew the stopper from the decanter, holding it beneath his nose for a moment before pouring the brandy in a thin translucent stream.

The room filled with the mosaic of a Debussy prelude, and the old man leant back in the chair, legs outstretched, his head resting on its back, his arms upon its sides. As his muscles
relaxed
, he felt the tiredness leave his body and his mind
emptied. For several minutes he lay still, sublimated, before leaning forward to taste the coffee and liqueur.

The clock on the desk marked the quarter hour with a single chime. It was the signal to begin the tour of the gallery. He followed always an unchanging route, stopping to admire one picture, examining closely another.

At times he would stand before a picture, arms folded across his chest, cigar smoke gathering about his head, lost in the thoughts it evoked.

The clock on the desk chimed eleven soon after he’d left the last picture and gone back to the recess. From the
bookcase
he took an art catalogue and from the table a copy of
The
Connoisseur.
He switched on a reading lamp, the red shade gleamed and its light suffused the armchair into which he dropped.

At eleven-thirty there was a knock on the door. It was Juan to announce the time, replace the coffee cup, decanter and liqueur glass on the tray and lift it from the table.

His master sighed, struggled out of the chair, returned the catalogue to the bookcase, the magazine to the table, and began a stiff-legged walk to the gallery doors. The servant went out first, the old man switched off the lights, closed the doors, locked them and pocketed the keys.

Then, with Juan following, he crossed the patio, keeping to the left of the pool, and descended the long flight of steps to the main house. Inside, Juan placed the tray on a side table and followed his master across the hall to the sitting-room in the west wing; there he stood at the foot of the stairs,
impassive
and sentry-like, as the old man went up them. Juan followed, closing the heavy iron gates on the landing against his master who locked them on the inside, their trellised patterns casting weird shadows on his scarred face.

‘
Buenas
noches,
Juan
‚’
he called through the gates, and the servant answered, ‘
Buenas
noches,
señor
.’

So ended, as always, the ritual of Hendrik Wilhelm van Biljon’s after-dinner visit to the gallery at Altomonte.