dividing the jaw and the mouth from the sharp, pointed nose and staring eyes. If it hadnât been for the moustache, I think I might have recognised him at once.
âThat fishing boat of yours â¦â he said. âSeñor Flórez took me to see it this morning. Just what I and my two friends here are looking for.â His two friends, seated across the table from me, nodded. One of them was small and sharp-featured, the other much larger, a big barrel of a chest, broad shoulders, his crumpled features reminding me of a boxer from Dublin I had picked up one time in Gib and delivered to Tangier. âWe got to earn a living.â He smiled an engaging, friendly smile. âNice place, Mahon.Fishing good, too.â There was a softness in his voice, the accent faintly Irish.
âWhat he means is weâre just about broke,â the man beside me went on. âWe need a fishing boat and somewhere ashore where we can live and store our gear. You happen to have what we want. I saw that villa youâre building this afternoon. I also had a look at Port dâAddaia. If we had the villa weâd keep the boat there. Nice and handy. Well sheltered, too.â He wasnât looking at me now, his eyes on his coffee as though talking to himself and his hands flat on the table. They were big, fine-boned, very capable-looking hands. âNow tell me something about this fishing boat of yours â speed, range, charts on board, sails, etc. Iâve read the details, of course, and one of your men showed me over her, but Iâd like to hear about her from you, okay?â
My coffee came as I began to run through the inventory and the performance, and all the time I was thinking of that catamaran and trying to build up the value of the
Santa Maria
, knowing that the exchange was heavily weighted in my favour. To build a cat like that at the present time â good God, it would cost a fortune.
A glass had come with my coffee. He reached for the bottle and filled it for me. â
Salud!
â We drank, raising our glasses as though the deal were already completed.
âI saw you come in this morning,â I said. âWhere were you from?â
He stared at me, and there was something about the eyes ⦠but then he had turned away. âFishing,â he said. âWeâd been fishing.â
âYou had a passenger on board, so I naturally thought â¦â
âI tell you, weâd been fishing.â He looked at me again, his eyes coldly hostile. âThere was a friend of mine with us. We enjoy fishing. All of us.â He stared at me hard for a moment. âDonât we?â he said to the other two, and they nodded. âOkay.â He knocked back the rest of his drink and got almost violently to his feet. âIf youâre interested in thedeal, then weâll go over to
Thunderflash
and you can poke around down below. But ââ and he leaned suddenly over me, prodding my chest with a hard index finger, âdonât go asking stupid questions, see. One of the reasons weâre all here is because Flórez said you were discreet â when it was to your advantage. Right?â
I didnât say anything. Looking up at him and seeing those eyes staring down at me, I suddenly realised who he was. This was the man Gareth Lloyd Jones had been looking for. Evans. Patrick Evans. Slowly I got to my feet, the others too, and we all went out and across the road to the dock. The American was below as we clambered across his boat and dropped on to the deck of the catamaran. Evans unlocked the door, ushering me below in a way that left me in no doubt that he was the owner, and the moment I stepped down into that great saloon, with its breadth and comfort and the fabulous view forâard, I was hooked. I had never been in this type of craft before. Even at the Boat Show in London, the last time I had been there, I hadnât seen anything like this, so
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