The Golden Keel / The Vivero Letter. Desmond Bagley

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СКАЧАТЬ patted Walker on the knee. ‘O.K. You’re my man from now on.’ I let the hardness come into my voice because Walker had to be kept to heel, too. ‘But keep off the booze. I meant what I said in Tangier.’

      II

      The next stop was Rapallo, which was first choice as our Italian base, provided we could get fixed up with a suitable place to do our work. We motored into the yacht basin and damned if I didn’t see a Falcon drawn up on the hard. I knew the firm had sold a few kits in Europe but I didn’t expect to see any of them.

      As we had come from a foreign port there were the usual Customs and medical queries – a mere formality. Yachtsmen are very well treated in the Mediterranean. I chatted with the Customs men, discussing yachts and yachting and said that I was a boat designer and builder myself. I gave the standard talk and said that I was thinking of opening a yard in the Mediterranean, pointing to the Falcon as a sample of my work.

      They were impressed at that. Anyone whose product was used six thousand miles from where it was made must obviously be someone to be reckoned with. They didn’t know much about local conditions but they gave me some useful addresses.

      I was well satisfied. If I had to impress people with my integrity I might as well start with the Customs. That stray Falcon came in very handy.

      I went ashore, leaving Walker and Coertze aboard by instruction. There was no real need for such an order but I wanted to test my new-found ascendancy over them. Coertze had returned to his old self, more or less. His mood was equable and he cracked as few jokes as usual – the point being that he cracked jokes at all. But I had no illusions that he had forgotten anything. The Afrikaner is notorious for his long memory for wrongs.

      I went up to the Yacht Club and presented my credentials. One of the most pleasant things about yachting is that you are sure of a welcome in any part of the world. There is a camaraderie among yachtsmen which is very heartening in a world which is on the point of blowing itself to hell. This international brotherhood, together with the fact that the law of the sea doesn’t demand a licence to operate a small boat, makes deep-sea cruising one of the most enjoyable experiences in the world.

      I chatted with the secretary of the club, who spoke very good English, and talked largely of my plans. He took me into the bar and bought me a drink and introduced me to several of the members and visiting yachtsmen. After we had chatted at some length about the voyage from South Africa I got down to finding out about the local boatyards.

      On the way round the Mediterranean I had come to the conclusion that my cover story need not be a cover at all – it could be the real thing. I had become phlegmatic about the gold, especially after the antics of Walker and Coertze, and my interest in the commercial possibilities of the Mediterranean was deepening. I was nervous and uncertain as to whether the three of us could carry the main job through – the three-way pull of character was causing tensions which threatened to tear the entire fabric of the plan apart. So I was hedging my bet and looking into the business possibilities seriously.

      The lust for gold, which I had felt briefly in Aristide’s vault, was still there but lying dormant. Still, it was enough to drive me on, enough to make me out-face Coertze and Walker and to try to circumvent Metcalfe.

      But if I had known then that other interests were about to enter the field of battle I might have given up there and then, in the bar of the Rapallo Yacht Club.

      During the afternoon I visited several boatyards. This was not all business prospecting – Sanford had come a long way and her bottom was foul. She needed taking out of the water and scraping, which would give her another halfknot. We had agreed that this would be the ostensible reason for pulling her out of the water, and a casual word dropped in the Yacht Club that I had found something wrong with her keel bolts would be enough excuse for making the exchange of keels. Therefore I was looking for a quiet place where we could cast our golden keel.

      I was perturbed when I suddenly discovered that I could not spot Metcalfe’s man. If he had pulled off his watchdogs because he thought we were innocent, then that was all right. But it seemed highly unlikely now that Coertze had given the game away. What seemed very likely was that something was being cooked up – and whatever was going to happen would certainly involve Sanford. I dropped my explorations and hurried back to the yacht basin.

      ‘I wasn’t followed,’ I said to Coertze.

      ‘I told you my way was best,’ he said. ‘They’ve been frightened off.’

      ‘If you think that Metcalfe would be frightened off because a hired wharf rat was beaten up, you’d better think again,’ I said. I looked hard at him. ‘If you go ashore to stretch your legs can I trust you not to hammer anyone you might think is looking at you cross-eyed?’

      He tried to hold my eye and then his gaze wavered. ‘O.K.,’ he said sullenly. ‘I’ll be careful. But you’ll find out that my way is best in the end.’

      ‘All right; you and Walker can go ashore to get a bite to eat.’ I turned to Walker. ‘No booze, remember. Not even wine.’

      Coertze said, ‘I’ll see to that. We’ll stick close together, won’t we?’ He clapped Walker on the back.

      They climbed on to the dockside and I watched them go, Coertze striding out and Walker hurrying to keep pace. I wondered what Metcalfe was up to, but finding that profitless, I went below to review our needs for the next few days. I stretched on the port settee and must have been very tired, because when I woke it was dark except for the lights of the town glimmering through the ports.

      And it was a movement on deck that had wakened me!

      I lay there for a moment until I heard another sound, then I rose cautiously, went to the companionway very quietly and raised my head to deck level. ‘Coertze?’ I called softly.

      A voice said, ‘Is that Signor Halloran?’ The voice was very feminine.

      I came up to the cockpit fast. ‘Who is that?’

      A dark shape moved towards me. ‘Mr Halloran, I want to talk to you.’ She spoke good English with but a trace of Italian accent and her voice was pleasantly low and even.

      I said, ‘Who are you?’

      ‘Surely introductions would be more in order if we could see each other.’ There was a hint of command in her voice as though she was accustomed to getting her own way.

      ‘O.K.,’ I said. ‘Let’s go below.’

      She slipped past me and went down the companionway and I followed, switching on the main cabin lights. She turned so that I could see her, and she was something worth looking at. Her hair was raven black and swept up into smooth wings on each side of her head as though to match the winged eyebrows which were dark over cool, hazel eyes. Her cheekbones were high, giving a trace of hollow in the cheeks, but she didn’t look like one of the fashionably emaciated models one sees in Vogue.

      She was dressed in a simple woollen sheath which showed off a good figure to perfection. It might have been bought at a local department store or it might have come from a Parisian fashion house; I judged the latter – you can’t be married to a woman for long without becoming aware of the price of feminine fripperies.

      She carried her shoes in her hand and stood in her stockinged feet, that was a point in her favour. A hundred-pound girl in a spike heel comes СКАЧАТЬ