The White Schooner (9 page)

So he had to tell her about himself: his life as a boy in England; the death of his father, mother and sister in a car accident towards the end of his time at school. He’d stayed with an aunt after that, and his father had left enough money for him to study politics and philosophy at London University. But he’d not graduated because he’d found too late that his real interest was art. On the money left him he’d travelled
and in later years his interest in art had led him into
journalism
, first on the staff of a provincial newspaper, then in London, and finally as art critic on a Montreal newspaper. Tiring of newspaper life he had free-lanced, travelling widely and making just enough money to raise his income to a level which supported his independence.

When he’d finished he thought, well a good deal of that’s true though a lot’s been omitted. I wonder how much of her story’s true and how much she’s omitted? That’s life, isn’t it? We’re always putting on an act. There’s always a hidden motive. And who can say which motive is good, and which is bad.

‘Are you married?’ Manuela watched him through
half-closed
eyes.

‘No. Never.’

‘No women in your life?’

‘A few. Nothing remarkable.’ That at least was true.

‘That is strange for thirty-five.’

‘By no means unique,’ he said. ‘I’ve never wanted to give up my independence. Besides, I’ve moved about a lot.’

‘I can understand that. About independence.’ After a while she said, ‘Love is possible without marriage.’

He tickled her forehead with a spur of pine needles. ‘Yes. For a time. But it never really endures, does it? I mean that is the sadness. Falling in love is sublime. The moment of truth, without cynicism. But it doesn’t last.’

‘The grand passion doesn’t last,’ she said. ‘But there are other things. Children, companionship, affection, shared
experience
.’

He laughed. ‘Manuela! You sound like Godfrey Winn.’

‘Who is he?’ she asked.

‘A bachelor who writes about marriage.’

‘You mustn’t laugh at me when I am serious.’ Her eyes were sad and reproachful.

He bent over her and she put her arms round him and held him tight.

She had finished doing her hair and repairing the damage. ‘Really,’ she said putting her comb and compact back into the grass basket. ‘The things you men do to us girls.’

He was looking at his watch, worried and preoccupied,
assuring
himself that she really meant nothing to him. She was
good to look at, sympathetic, intensely feminine. It was no more than that. Proximity. Physical. Ephemeral. She was essential to his plans and this was a means to an end. Besides she was Kyriakou’s girl. Neat and rational as all this was, he knew he was not convinced. And so he frowned. ‘It’s nearly three,’ he said. ‘We’re about half-way.’

She stood up, hanging the basket over her shoulder. ‘Will we make San José before dark?’

‘We’ll make it all right,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

They set off through the wood, crossing obliquely from left to right, climbing steadily, the line of sunlight ahead widening as they approached the firebreak. He got there first and stood waiting for her. There was a ravine on the right and below them the dirt road snaked up the valley, crossing the ravine and losing itself in the folds of the hill. Above them, on the far side, the sun picked out the white walls of a
finca
set in the hillside.

Black pointed to it. ‘Know that house?’

She shook her head. ‘Fabulous site.’

‘When we get higher you’ll see more. It’s
some
place. You can’t see from here, but beneath it the ground falls away in terraces. The view is open to the sea beyond San José.’

‘Whose is it?’

‘It’s Altomonte.’

She looked at him in surprise. ‘Van Biljon’s?’

‘Yes.’ He stopped to tie a shoelace.

‘Have you been there?’

‘No, never.’

‘Then how do you know?’

He straightened up. ‘It was pointed out to me some time ago when I was climbing here. With friends.’

‘Friends?’ she challenged. ‘Which ones?’

He didn’t answer, and she saw that he was looking down the valley with the binoculars.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Look.’ He put a hand on her shoulder and pointed to where the road edged into the foothills. In the distance she saw a cloud of dust. Immediately ahead of it a car was coming up the valley.

He pulled her into the trees.

‘What’s wrong?’ she said.

‘Look at the car now.’ He passed her the binoculars. ‘We
can’t be seen in the shadows.’

Before she could use them it had disappeared, but the sound of the engine grew in intensity and when next it
appeared
she saw that it was the powder-blue Buick. Kyriakou was its only occupant.

‘Kyriakou,’ she said, as if this were remarkable.

Black looked at her, wondering. ‘I didn’t know he was on visiting terms with van Biljon?’

‘How d’you know he’s going to see him?’

‘It’s a private road. Leads only to Altomonte.’

The car was lost to sight again where the road turned to the east, away from the ravine.

He said, ‘Does Kyriakou know van Biljon well?’

‘I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me everything.’

‘I’m told you’re close to him. I thought you might know.’

She flushed and he knew he was being a swine. ‘Well, you thought wrong.’

‘There’s a buzz that you’re his girl friend.’

‘Yes,’ she said defiantly, her dark eyes shining. ‘I am. So you’d better be careful. He’s jealous and he’s a Greek.’

Black reined himself in. Why was he quarrelling with her? He needed her help. This wasn’t the way to get it. When he’d caught up, he took her arm gently and pulled her round. ‘I’m sorry, Manuela. I didn’t mean it.’

She shook him off. ‘Go to hell,’ she said.

It hadn’t been a good day. The man in the black beret, and Kyriakou’s arrival on the scene were enough to worry about without this.

And Hassan? Black had almost forgotten about him.
Compulsively
he looked at his watch. Had Werner Zolde gone into action yet? And how? And for God’s sake, was he going to be discreet? And, what was more, discreet and successful.

Later in the afternoon they reached a clearing above
Altomonte
and climbed on to a rock. From it they looked back over the valley and beyond to the Mediterranean. Black focused the binoculars on the sea.

‘What are you looking at?’ she said.

‘The ferry. From Formentera.’

She’s beginning to thaw, he thought, and passed her the binoculars.

She took them, and he saw that she Was looking at
Altomonte.

‘I can see his car,’ she said. ‘Parked just inside the gates.’

With forced obtuseness he said, ‘Whose car?’

‘Kirry’s. I wonder what takes him to that house?’

‘Expect they’re buddies.’

She shook her head. ‘How can they be? Van Biljon has no friends. Won’t have visitors. Anyway, the last man he’d have anything in common with is Kyriakou.’

‘Why do you say this?’

She held up her little finger, measuring off its tip. ‘Kirry hasn’t that much culture. Money, power, a good time. I guess these are the things that interest him.’

‘And yet——’

She interrupted. ‘Yes, I know—and yet I like him. I am often with him.’

‘You said it.’ He smiled thinly.

‘He has some good things. He is kind. No one is all bad or all good.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Let us talk about something else.’

Black focused the binoculars on Altomonte; the plan in Haupt’s office was in his mind.

In the centre of the patio the pool reflected the light of the dying sun, and the pergolas cast irregular shadows. On its western side the long gallery ran back into the slope of the hill, its extremity lost in shadow. He identified van Biljon’s suite in the west wing, and the guest-suite in the east, and below and in front of them, the long hall off which led the reception rooms. He noted again the high barred windows along the length of the gallery, and the break in the stone wall surrounding the
finca
where the drive led in, the wrought-iron gates shut across it. Kyriakou’s car was parked immediately inside them. As he watched, two dogs crossed the terrace in front of the house and disappeared into the shadows.

‘It’s a fine house,’ he said. ‘Van Biljon has good taste.’

‘And lots of money,’ she said. ‘But I would not like to live there alone.’

‘He has his pictures. I imagine that long building running back on this side of the patio is the gallery?’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘It’s big enough.’

He drew a deep breath, exhaling noisily.

‘Why do you sigh?’ she asked.

‘I was thinking of those pictures. So close and yet I can’t see
them. I wonder what he really has? What they’re worth? Can you imagine?’

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I can’t.’

‘At Sotheby’s the other day a Pissarro fetched three hundred and fifteen thousand pounds. In that gallery there are Pissarros, Cézannes, Renoirs, Monets, Degas, Manets, Sisleys, the lot. God knows how many. There they are, within five hundred yards of us. But nobody, not one solitary soul, is allowed to see them.’ With a snort he added, ‘
Except
Mister bloody van Biljon.’

She felt his frustration and was worried because she liked him more than anybody she’d met for a long time. But she was afraid because she sensed the pattern of his thoughts and remembered the man in the black beret. Charles Black was being tailed, and he knew it. Yet he’d said nothing about the incident after he’d picked her up in the taxi outside Aviaco, other than to dismiss it as not worth worrying about.
Somebody
making a mistake somewhere, he’d said—you know what the Spanish police are like. Pretty good, she’d said, and he’d not looked pleased.

He was silent now, the binoculars still trained on
Altomonte
.

‘You know, Charles, nobody could steal those pictures and get away with them. They’re internationally catalogued. There’s not a dealer worth the name who wouldn’t know them.’

He put down the binoculars and turned towards her, and she couldn’t make anything of his smile.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘There’s no future in that. And for your information, young woman, my interests are artistic and journalistic’ He patted her knee and she felt foolish. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

She stood on the rock. ‘Good. The light will be gone soon.’

‘Not to worry. It’s a quick journey down. Once we’ve made the road it won’t matter if it’s dark.’

To the west the sun was a copper disc, its lower rim balanced on a strata of cloud stretched tenuously across the horizon. The temperature had fallen, and in the south-east dark banks of storm cloud were massing. She shivered. ‘I need my jersey.’

He slid down from the rock, took the jersey from the basket and threw it to her. When she’d put it on, he reached up, pulled her into his arms and kissed her. ‘Am I forgiven?’

She looked at him doubtfully, pushing him away, and said ‘Yes.’

They had not gone far when there was the sound of a car starting. Altomonte was no longer in sight, but a few minutes later the Buick showed up on a turn of the road, making down the valley.

Black felt some of the tension go out of him. That was one complication less.

A large man in a skin-diving suit was on a ledge close to the water on the seaward side of the big rock which lay two hundred metres off shore. Less than a mile to seaward a white staysail schooner seemed scarcely to move as she reached to windward making up towards Botafoc lighthouse. The man on the rock, Werner Zolde, sat with his feet dangling in water which rose and fell, sucking and lapping at the base of the rock as the sea came in impelled by a light breeze from the north-east. On his lap were his goggles and schnorkel. He waited calmly, secure in the knowledge that he could not be seen from the shore, confident that at the appointed time he would do that which was required of him.

Now he looked at the diving watch on his wrist. It was 0602 and he thought of all the things that could go wrong: the man might not swim to-day, a stomach-ache perhaps, or a woman in his bedroom, or perhaps he would swim with a companion. Who could tell? But Werner Zolde was a phlegmatic man and he sat patiently, watching and waiting. And then, when a few more minutes had passed, he saw that from the truck of the schooner’s mainmast, where a moment ago there had been nothing, there fluttered a small dark pennant.

He knew then that the man on the beach, on the landward side of the rock, must have entered the water, must now be swimming to seaward. Werner Zolde pressed the button on his diving watch and started the lapsed-time hand. The swim should take from ten to twelve minutes, but to play safe he would work on eight. While he waited, he looked down the coast towards Figuretes. Lejeune should be getting into
position
now. He waited stoically, too confident of Lejeune to worry as yet, but conscious that timing was vital if …

His thoughts were interrupted by a high whine, the
monstrous
amplification of a sound like tearing linen, and to the south-east he saw the bobbing blurr of a skimmer sweeping to seaward, turning in a wide arc to head up the coast
towards
 
him, the white plume at its stern unfolding into a long line of foam which lay like old lace on the indigo sea. Compulsively Werner Zolde looked again at the diving watch. 6.04. Another three minutes, and he would move. He checked over his equipment, wiggled his toes in the flippers to ensure that the circulation was all right and then, slowly, carefully, he eased himself off the rock and into the water until his feet found the submerged ledge and the sea lapped about his shoulders. Again he waited, alert, listening, his eyes constantly checking the position of the schooner and the fast moving skimmer.

When the lapsed-time hand showed seven minutes forty seconds, he slipped in the mouth-piece of the schnorkel, fixed the nose-clip, adjusted the goggles, and let himself down into a cavity between the flutes of jagged granite which screened him to right and left. By moving his head a few inches
forward
he could see either end of the long rectangular rock. What little wind and sea there was came from the
north-east
, so he judged the swimmer would come round the western side of the rock, taking advantage of its lee on the outward swim, knowing that he would have wind and sea behind him for the return. But Werner Zolde wasn’t taking any chances, so he divided his attention between either end of the rock.

From where he waited, his goggled eyes almost at water level, the small seas lapping over his head, he could hear the note of the skimmer’s engine rising and knew it was
approaching.
Once more he looked at the diving watch. Nine minutes and forty-seven seconds had lapsed. It must be soon now, he thought, feeling along his belt with his free hand to make sure of the knife and cosh. Then, above the slap and gurgle of the sea against the rock, he thought he heard a new sound and knowing that he would hear better under water, he
submerged
. A few seconds later he picked it up … the measured splash and beat of a swimmer—a long slow stroke, the sound coming from his right, from the western end of the rock.

Slowly he raised his eyes clear of the water and
concentrated
on that end. The unseen swimmer must be close now for the sound of his strokes was clearly audible. With eyes at water level, watching from behind the jagged flutes which concealed him, he saw first an arm and then a head round the corner. Even before he saw the man’s face he knew it
was Hassan—the copper bracelet on his left wrist, the white rubber skullcap, the muscular arms deeply bronzed.

The note of the skimmer’s engine died suddenly. With a quick glance to seaward Werner Zolde saw the black rubber hull, not far off now, turning towards the rock. He
submerged
again until only the tip of the schnorkel remained above the surface. Behind the goggles his eyes searched the opaque water while his ears listened like delicate hydrophones to the sound of the swimmer which grew in intensity. Steadily they came on, until he estimated they were opposite him and comparatively close, although the man was not yet visible under water. The sound effects were moving now from the German’s right to his left. He waited for a few seconds and then again raised his eyes just clear of the water, to see that the swimmer was about five or six metres away, moving
towards
the eastern end of the rock with deliberate, robust strokes.

Werner Zolde took a deep breath before he submerged. Then, bracing himself, he came away from the rock with the impetus of a racing turn and with flippers churning set off in silent pursuit, swimming beneath the surface. Soon he saw broken water ahead of him and then the undersides of beating feet. As he drew closer, he pulled the cosh from his belt and manœuvred so that he would come up behind Hassan and to his left. When he was in position he surfaced and sprinted alongside just as the other man completed a long slow stroke with his left arm and, looking back, saw him. Werner Zolde pulled off the schnorkel and shouted, ‘Hallo, Hassan!’

The Lebanese stopped swimming and trod water. ‘Hallo,’ he said looking puzzled, wondering presumably whose face it was behind the goggles. ‘How did you get here?’

‘Cold, isn’t it?’ replied Werner Zolde, moving closer.

‘Sure,’ said Hassan, eyes still puzzled.

Suddenly, deafeningly, the sound of the skimmer’s engine seemed to come from nowhere.

‘Look out!’ shouted Werner Zolde pointing with his
schnorkel
to the Lebanese’s right. ‘Look out!’

Hassan whipped round to see the skimmer coming for him, and in that moment Werner Zolde’s cosh struck. The German grasped the limp figure beneath the armpits as the skimmer stopped alongside and Lejeune leant over the side, stretching out his hands.

‘Quick!’ he called. ‘Get him down between the floats.’

When they had laid Hassan on the bottom boards, Werner Zolde stretched himself out alongside the recumbent Arab, and Lejeune, crouching, his backward stretched arm on the tiller, opened the throttle wide and the skimmer roared and bumped to seaward, making for the south-east at thirty knots—away from the white schooner which had gone about and was now standing out to sea. Werner Zolde looked at his diving watch. The act of snatching Ahmed ben Hassan from the Mediterranean, from cosh to full throttle, had occupied twenty-nine seconds.

The light breeze had fallen away but the schooner was moving faster now, and the wisps of blue smoke trailing astern told why. In the south-east storm clouds were massing, and to the west the sun was setting—soon it would be dusk and already the light on Dada Grande was flashing its warning message.