God almighty! She was still thinking of Lloyd Jones. ‘No, of course not.’ But I could see she didn’t believe me.
‘Why did he ring then? It’s almost half past one. Was it about this man who persuaded you to part with the villa? You shouldn’t have done it, Mike. A lovely villa like that, the
‘Yesterday,’ I said. Already it was yesterday and Wade in London, the man who had told Lloyd Jones to contact me … No, ordered more likely. Ordered him to check with me in the hope of discovering Evans’s whereabouts … Wade was concerned enough about what had happened here in Menorca to ring me in the middle of the night.
‘Patrick. That’s what Gareth called him.’ She let go of my arm, slumping back on the pillow. ‘What’s he been up to now?’
‘Now?’ My mind shifted from my talk with Wade to Lloyd Jones sitting across from me at that table on the Fornells waterfront. Had he told her more than he had told me? ‘What do you know about Patrick Evans?’ She shook her head quickly, her eyes sliding away from me. ‘What did he tell you?’ I was leaning over, shaking her, but all she did was stare at me blankly. ‘Nothing — only that he’d saved his life.’
‘I know that. Anything else?’
She hesitated, and then she said, ‘They’re related.’
‘In what way?’
‘Just related, that’s all. He was explaining why he was so anxious to find the man. A message, I think it was the man’s mother. She had asked Gareth to take a message.’
She didn’t know what the message was. She thought it might be something to do with a cottage they owned in a place called Gwenogle. ‘I remember the name because it sounded so odd, and yet the way Gareth said it …’ She was smiling to herself. ‘I think maybe he was born in that little Welsh hill village.’
‘Who — Gareth or Patrick Evans?’
‘Patrick. They’re both of them Welsh, of course.’ She reached out and switched off the bedside light. I closed my eyes and in the silent darkness I saw Ahmed Bey’s face as I had seen it that last time, the bullets slamming his thickset body backwards into the wake of the Italian boat ranging alongside. That was the last trip. They dumped us in an inflatable, no food, no water, the west coast of Africa more than twenty miles away and all desert when we reached it. We were lucky to get out of it alive.
How the hell did Wade know about that? We’d never been caught by the authorities. Was there some sort of a file on me at Naval Intelligence? And then I began thinking about Patrick Evans. There had to be some connection — first Lloyd Jones searching for him with out-of-date pictures, then the man himself, and now Wade.
It was in the very middle of the night, still half awake, my mind drowsily running over the possibilities, my imagination working overtime, that I suddenly had an ugly thought. If Wade knew what I’d been up to as a kid, there might be others, Evans, for instance. In which case …
The feeling was so strong, so frightening, I nearly got up there and then in the middle of the night. I didn’t sleep after that, waiting for the dawn, certain now that Evans would have retained a key to the catamaran.
At first light I slid out of bed and dressed in the office across the stairhead. I was just searching my pockets for the car keys when Soo emerged, a pale shadow in her cream nightdress, her face still flushed with sleep. She didn’t ask me what I was up to or where I was going. She simply said, ‘I’ll make you some coffee.’
I could have hugged her then, all the love we’d felt for each other surging back in that moment. She knew. That intuitive sense between those who have shared several years of their lives, the sense that at times is pure telepathy, had communicated my fears to her. She knew where I was going, and why. The terrible thought that was in my mind was in hers.
She brought me my coffee, then stood by the window to drink her own. She didn’t say anything. There was no need. The sun shining through the thin nightie limned the dark outline of her body, her face, her breasts, the long legs, all in silhouette. She looked infinitely desirable.
I drank the coffee quickly, urgent to be gone, to set my mind at rest, alternatively to … But the alternative didn’t bear thinking about. If a search of the boat confirmed my fear, what would I do about it — where would I take it? Out to sea? Come back with it here and take the dinghy?
I put down the cup and walked over to her. I didn’t put my arms round her, and she just lifted her face to me, our kiss without passion, gentle and understanding. After all, we had both been there, we had both heard the crack of the gun, no silencer, had seen the poor devil’s face explode in a red mash as he had fallen. ‘I may be some time,’ I said, and she nodded, still not saying anything, but I knew she would be here, waiting for me when I returned.
