Hollow Mountain (24 page)

Fettered by his handcuffs, Spike slid from side to side, leg aching with each jolt, the wind chilling his neck. Jessica put out a hand to steady him, her touch warm and comforting. Half a mile ahead, the
Trident
had completed its arc. Spike made out the gallows shape of the gantry crane and saw the RIB bouncing behind it, dragged by a rope from the stern.

Isola slowed, frowning at a computerised map on the control panel. ‘
Bezims
,’ he cursed, smashing the tiller with a fist.

‘Spanish waters,’ Jessica said to Spike.

Spike thought for a moment, then smiled. ‘But the ship’s carrying Spanish silver.’

Jessica stared back, baffled.

‘Radio the Guardia Civil,’ Spike called to the front of the launch, feeling a wave of fatigue hit him at the prospect of having to explain a complex point of international maritime law to Inspector Isola. ‘Tell them that a boat carrying stolen Spanish artefacts has just entered Spanish territorial waters. Come on!’

Jessica hesitated, then took out her radio. A moment later she spoke in her near-perfect Spanish, watched by her mute and puzzled superior. Spike glanced again towards land. They were two miles from Algeciras now; with the
Trident
heading west, soon she’d be out of Spanish waters altogether and onto the Moroccan side of the Straits, beyond the jurisdiction even of the Guardia Civil.

‘The ship’s called the
Trident
, right?’ Jessica called to Spike. He nodded, and she spoke more urgently into her radio. Before she’d even hung up, Spike caught a high-pitched rattle in the distance, like ball bearings shaken in a jar. A small flashing light started bombing towards them out of the bay. They sat in silence and watched as the noise grew louder. A minute later, a powerful Guardia Civil patrol boat roared by, the silhouette of a machine-gun mount rising on its rear deck.

‘They’ve got the gunboat out,’ Isola called back with unembarrassed excitement, putting his own engine into gear and following the Guardia at a respectful distance.

The echo of a loudhailer reverberated across the water, but the
Trident
pressed on, ignoring whatever Spanish threats were being issued at volume.

‘Refusal to stop,’ Isola called back. ‘They can arrest them for that alone.’

The loudhailer sounded again, followed by a crackle of gunfire, rubber bullets shot into the air as a warning. In the distance, the lights of the Moroccan shoreline grew stronger – the port city of Tetouan, drawing closer. Spike watched the Guardia boat speed around the bow of the
Trident
, blocking her route, blue and red lights flashing. But rather than relent, the
Trident
continued bearing down on it.

Spike imagined the testosterone of the control room, Clohessy screaming, Dougie mumbling Scottish curses as little Jamie covered his eyes and prayed for his mother. At the last moment, the Guardia boat seemed to lose its nerve and revved away. There was an unsettling silence as the
Trident
chugged on, unencumbered, but then a moment later they heard a deeper burst of gunfire, then a series of ominous thumps.

The Guardia boat stopped, swaying in the current as the
Trident
powered onwards, its shape fading into the gloom. ‘They must be in Moroccan waters now,’ Isola said. ‘Game over.’

A sudden fizzing sound cut through the sky as a phosphorescent glow appeared above. Spike, Jessica and Isola got to their feet, watching as the distress flare hung motionless, then exploded into crimson light. And then Spike realised that the bow of the
Trident
was strangely high in the water, her gantry crane pitching forward, tipping her upwards. On either side of the ship, he saw figures floundering in the reddened water, then the flare died and the figures were hidden again by a terrible darkness.

Jessica spoke into her radio and called to Isola. He nodded, then gunned the engine and began speeding towards the stricken ship.

Chapter Fifty-seven

Mayday was evidently an international signal – derived from the French, ‘M’aidez’, Spike seemed to remember as he stared out from the Royal Gibraltar Police launch, feeling his wrists chafe as the salt water sprayed onto his tight handcuffs. As they neared the
Trident
, he made out a rusty Italian container ship floating alongside the Guardia gunboat. On the opposite coastline, a Moroccan patrol vessel was powering towards them from Tetouan, along with a helicopter that must have come from Ceuta, one of two Spanish enclaves in Morocco, the existence of which – in Gibraltarian eyes – rendered all Spanish complaints about the Rock null and void.

The gantry crane appeared to have pulled the RIB under as well, as what looked like the entire crew of the
Trident
had now abandoned ship. The Spanish lifeguards were already hauling men from the water; Spike saw their spotlight flash onto a blue polo shirt and recognised the shaggy blond form of Anders the Swede being pulled into the back of the boat.

A smaller group of survivors seemed to have become separated from the rest. The Italian container ship’s lifeboat was rowing towards them, two sturdy men in oilskins manning the oars. Isola reduced the throttle and steered the police launch their way.

As they passed what was left of the
Trident
, a last creak came from her bow as she slipped completely under the water. Waves bulged, jolting Spike and Jessica in the back of the launch. For a moment Spike lost sight of the men in the water, then saw heads re-emerge as the surface settled. Isola twisted the engine in bursts, fearful of running over any survivors.

By the time they’d drawn up by the Italian lifeboat, there was only one man left in the water. One of the Italians was reaching down to him; Spike saw a pale face bob up, breaking the surface like an egg. Jamie was on his feet in the lifeboat, thin hair drenched as he screamed at the man in the water, ‘Take it off, for God’s sake! Take it off!’

Isola steered the police launch closer. Overhead, the Spanish helicopter arrived, searchlight illuminating the scene as a rope ladder was lowered into the water.

‘Take off the rucksack!’ Jamie cried.

The Italian lost the man’s grip, and he disappeared again below the surface. His colleague was stripping down now, yelling instructions as the Guardia Civil boat pulled up, all other members of the Neptune crew rescued and remaindered below deck.

Spike peered over the edge of the launch and saw a man’s thin white face bob up in the water. He recognised the strong jaw and stubborn brow of Morton D. Clohessy. Clohessy’s mouth broke the surface, sucking in air like a carp, brown island of hair furrowed as he fought to stay afloat. Looped over his chest, Spike made out the straps of a rucksack, so tight against his shoulders that it had to contain something dense and heavy – metal perhaps. He wondered if Clohessy had seen him as he seemed to open his mouth to speak. But a moment later, a wave from the Guardia speedboat rolled over him, and he sank back down, face fading as he disappeared into the depths of the water.

‘Why didn’t you help him, for Chrissake?’ Isola yelled.

Turning his back on Isola, Spike stretched out his cuffed hands behind him. The Italian swam towards their boat, performing an impressive breaststroke. ‘
Dov’è
?’ he called up. ‘
Dov’è
!’

Isola cursed, scouring the water, as a frogman started abseiling down the helicopter’s rope ladder. A tannoy from the cockpit ordered all boats to move away, first in Spanish, then in Moroccan, Italian, and lastly, reluctantly, in English. Isola turned the police launch round, withdrawing in the direction of Gibraltar.

Spike remained at the stern, staring at the helicopter as it hovered over the location where Clohessy and his ship had sunk. Jessica sat down beside him. ‘We’ve just had confirmation. They’ve found another body. Up on the Rock.’

Spike nodded.

Jessica stared at him. ‘How did you know?’

‘Know what?’

‘Where to find the boy.’ Her dark eyes questioned his, then she pulled a small bunch of keys out of her pocket and undid his handcuffs. ‘Charlie’s in hospital,’ she said, tucking the cuffs into her belt. ‘For observation. Under police guard.’

‘Will you take me to see him?’

She took his right hand, caressing the bruise on the back and the raw skin around his wrist. Then her fingers interlinked with his, enfolding his palm and giving it a gentle squeeze. After a moment’s hesitation, Spike returned the pressure. The lights on the Rock seemed to brighten as they headed for home.

I hear water lap against stones, feel it whipping up from time to time into a foamy spray as unseen ships pass in the distance. The beam of the lighthouse, still turning, picks out the dark surface of the sea. I cannot move. My face is wet. When I stick out my tongue, I taste not saltwater, but a ferrous tang I have come to know well.

How many did I kill, I wonder now. Twenty? Perhaps one more, if they do not find the boy. It has occurred to me sometimes, usually in the night, that they might have suffered, felt pain or fear. But now as I lie here, I realise that I have nothing with which to reproach myself. The coming of death is peaceful. We are no different to the pebbles beneath my head – we wash up, we grind down, the world rolls on. If there is a scheme, perhaps I have contributed to it no less than most. Who can say? Millennia will pass before that sort of thing is clear.

I hear a noise from the cliffs above. The lighthouse rotates again, and I try to raise my head, then feel a sticky warmth run from my scalp, filling the cavities of my ears. Voices now – English, of course. A sudden pain starts to climb from my legs to my chest, and I let out a sigh. The irony of it . . . For it to end here, of all places. I, Rodrigo de Guzmán, direct descendant of the great conquistador, one-time captain of the Spanish police, killer of twenty, perhaps twenty-one, am to die on the shores of a stolen British colony. And suddenly I see how Gibraltar can still exist. The effrontery of it, the cheek – that can only be pulled off by a strange and resilient race. It is my fault. I should have taken more care.

I try to think of Madrid, of the Prado with the sun setting over the Plaza Mayor. But no. I will die here. In Gibraltar. Then – silence.

Chapter Fifty-eight

Spike sat in a windowless interview room at the back of New Mole House, watching Inspector George Isola struggle to adjust the sound level on his tape recorder. ‘Tell me again about the ship,’ Isola resumed.

‘The
Trident
,’ Spike said. ‘Owned by a company called Neptune Marine. They were using her to salvage lead from a wreck sunk in the Straits. What the company failed to disclose was that they had also been plundering Spanish silver from an adjacent shipwreck.’

‘And you were helping them do this?’

Spike took a steadying breath, feeling the cuts on his chest test the steri-strips the nurse had applied the night before. ‘I represented Neptune Marine in relation to their legitimate salvage of the
Gloucester
. What I discovered only later was that the crew were melting down the Spanish coins in an attempt to pass them off as part of the same cargo.’

‘I see,’ Isola replied uncertainly, jotting something down in his notebook. He looked like he’d had a much better night’s sleep than Spike. ‘And how is the boy connected?’ he asked.

‘His father was Simon Grainger – remember him?’

‘Of course,’ Isola retorted.

‘Grainger realised what Neptune were up to. Tried to get in on the action. So Jardine lured him into the Rock and killed him. Made it look like suicide. He had similar plans for me.’

‘But in fact it was you who killed Jardine.’

‘In self-defence.’

More assiduous note-taking; Spike found himself wondering what Isola thought the tape recorder was for.

‘And your belief is that Jardine must have killed Mrs Grainger too. And kidnapped her son. Why would he do that?’

The lie came at once to Spike’s lips. ‘In order to keep me quiet. Jardine knew that I was involved with Amy Grainger, and that I’d learnt about Neptune’s crimes. The Graingers provided the perfect collateral to buy my silence.’

‘Why not just kill you?’

Spike was momentarily taken aback by the acuity of Isola’s question. ‘He tried to, didn’t he? On the Rock. His prints were on the pistol.’

Isola paused, then slowly nodded. ‘And the body found on Deadman’s Beach?’

‘I have no idea. Possibly an accomplice of Jardine’s.’

‘Why kill him if he was an accomplice?’

‘He knew too much. As did Simon Grainger. As did I.’

‘And your business partner?’

‘Exactly,’ Spike said. ‘Peter was Neptune’s original lawyer. Grainger went to see him – told him what he’d found out. When Jardine learnt about it, he got Peter drunk, then ran him over and passed it off as a random hit-and-run.’

Isola fixed Spike with a stare, and he looked away, scanning the rows of posters and mugshots hanging on the wall, evidence of the hard work of the Royal Gibraltar Police – drugs intercepted from Morocco, cigarette smugglers arrested, domestic abusers locked up. Why not just tell him that the dead Spaniard had been hired by Žigon? he wondered. Then he looked back and watched Isola pick a piece of breakfast from between his teeth. Better to let Interpol handle it.